Issues of Social Memory and their Challenges in the Global Age

The social experience of time is investigated in connection with the transformation of global power relations expressed symbolically. Collective memory in postmodernity is featured as a temporal distinctiveness of the global age. Consequently, problems of the politics of memory, followed by conflicts of memory come to the fore. Symptomatic for postmodernity in the context of globalization is the phenomenon of reshaping problems of memory into social problems. The global politics of memory and globalizing symbolic conflicts over memory are a new phenomenon. They are exemplified by the problems of memory in post-communist countries, with the focus on the case of Poland

Reflexive Subject in the Social World. About the Paradigm and Assumptions of Interpretive Sociology

W artykule analizowane jest użycie Thomasa Kuhna koncepcji paradygmatu w socjologii, przedstawianej w XX wieku jako nauka wieloparadygmatyczna. Kwestionowana jest jedność tzw. paradygmatu interpretacyjnego oraz omawiane jest przekształcanie orientacji interpretacyjnych w socjologii wskutek oddziaływania postmodernizmu i krytycznej teorii praxis. Problematyka refleksyjności podmiotu i intersubiektywności świata życia, mająca swoje źródła w pragmatyzmie i fenomenologii, dyskutowana jest na tle nowych dążeń do rekonstrukcji socjologii systematycznej.The article analyses the use of Thomas Kuhn’s concept of paradigm in sociology, presented in the 20th century as a multiparadigm science. The unity of the so-called interpretive paradigm is questioned and the transformation of the interpretive orientations in sociology under the influence of postmodernism and critical praxis theory is analysed. The problems of the subject’s reflexivity and the intersubjectivity of the life-world, which have their roots in pragmatism and phenomenology, are discussed on the backdrop of new attempts to reconstruct systematic sociology

The future orientation of culture and the memory of the past in the making of history

The article describes the semiotic approach developed by Boris Uspenskij to study the historical process. Uspenskij’s semiotics of history is integrally bound with the Tartu-Moscow School’s programme of cultural semiotics and is rooted in the fundamental premises of that programme, which he helped to shape. These premises contain a complex ontology of culture, encompassing three levels: cultural memory, sets of cultural texts, and semiotic systems, which model both the image of the world and programmes of action. Uspenskij’s analytical model of semiotics of history highlights the pragmatic aspect of the process of historical communication: the agency of its participants as carriers of culture and sign users. This article presents the role of reflexivity in the historical process, associated with reconstruction of the meaning of the past and prospective shaping of the future. Making history means constantly renewing the narrative about past events, which determines the future course of history in the present. Uspenskij presents opposite cultural tendencies in the historical process, associated with different types of semiosis, as symbolic conflicts. The article shows the role of symbolism and symbolic politics in the processes of making history in the model of semiotics of history. This model makes it possible to link together research on cultural memory, time, communicative action and symbolism

The Operation of Symbol. Comments about the Conceptions of Pierre Bourdieu

The conceptions of Pierre Bourdieu should be placed in the post-structuralist trend of the theory of discourse. He deals with the formation of social meanings in group conflicts for the control over meaning. Since he parts from the hitherto paradigms, some scholars think that the French sociologist's conceptions bear the traits of post-modernism. Bourdieu assumes that the „social nature” of language is one of its principal, internal characterizations. Therefore he rejects the autonomy of language and symbolism in general, including their analysis again within the social conditions of „production, reproduction and usage.” If a sign in the conception of de Saussure pertains to an informing communication and contains the signifying-signified structures, the symbol – apart from the level of understanding – contains also evaluation and authority. Therefore Bourdieu connects the symbolic dimension of culture with social actions and relations. Bourdieu, in comparison with pragmatism or Znaniecki's theory, has undoubtedly pushed to the foreground the problem of the symbolization policy. The symbolic power consists of establishing the gnosiological order - doxa, i.e. the acceptance of the immediate significance of the social world

Florian Znaniecki - zapoznany prekursor symbolicznego interakcjonizmu

Propozycja pokazania Floriana Znanieckiego jako przedstawiciela symbolicznego interakcjonizmu  nie wypłynęła z chęci odkrycia za wszelką cenę nieznanych, choćby wątpliwych, powiązań genealogicznych tego wpływowego kierunku myślenia socjologicznego. /...

Social Values as the Object-Matter of Florian Znaniecki's Culturalistic Sociology

The attractiveness of Znaniecki’s concept of the subject-matter of sociology springs from his philosophy of culturalism. Culture has the fullness of a specific realness and the cultural person is more than a biopsychical individual or a participant of social relations. Such assumptions protect Znaniecki’s sociology from sociologism. Concrete collectivities and concrete persons with their whole richness of cultural life do not constitute the subject-matter of sociology that deals with individuals and groups as social values. Znaniecki is also critical about Simmel’s program of a study of social forms. He rather approaches Durkheims’s standpoint in as much as society stays for him „la foyer d’une vie morale”. Znaniecki, however, transform significantly the thesis of Durkheim by arguing that only one of cultural systems of values is social in the exact sense of the term. Systems of social values constitutes the proper subject-matter of sociology. The most interesting and challenging contribution of Znaniecki is the detailed conceptualization of social systems in axiological terms

Symbolic Construction of “Solidarity:” the Conflict of Interpretations and the Politics of Memory

The memory of the “Solidarity” movement, problems of memory and conflicts of memory are analyzed in the contemporary context of the formation of collective identities in Poland. Politics of memory and commemoration are discussed as part of the politics of symbolization. Symbolic construction of “Solidarity” is analyzed on two levels: the symbolism of the organization of collective actions and discursive symbolism-in other words-symbolism in the “Solidarity”movement and the symbolization of the movement. The other aspect implies politics of symbolization, politics of memory and commemoration, conflict of interpretations and conflict about the memory. The “Solidarity” movement has had many meanings and the interpretation of the movement can refer to various frames of meanings: a workers’ revolution, a civil revolution, a movement for national liberation, a movement for religious deprivatization, a moral movement. The multiplicity of meanings has generated conflicts of interpretations. Collective memory is crucial for the phenomenon of “Solidarity” both as a historical movement and as representations in discourses-the symbolic movement of memory

The Conceptions of Man in Symbolic Interactionism and the Problem of homo aestimans

Symbolic interactionists did not pay attention to analysis of the ontological foundations of their theory. However, this direction of theoretical thinking in sociology does contain such most general assumptions, particularly with respect to man as a social creature. In symbolic interactionism three images of man can be pointed to: homo reciprocus, homo symbolicus, and homo faber − man entering mutual interactions, using signs, and efficiently manipulating objects in his environment. The orientation of symbolic interactionism is subject to significant limitations as the dimension of valus in communication and interaction has not been duly taken into account. It is necessary to accept also the image of homo aestimans − man evaluating. Florian Znaniecki's conception of value is suggested which includes both the meanings and the axiological significance of objects in interaction contexts. Symbolic interactionism does not also use such a conception of symbol that surpasses the domain of signs in everyday reality of activity. Hence developing the symbolic-interaction theory requires differentiation between the signs and symbols which are equally axiologically characterized in communication

Florian Znaniecki’s idea of socialization to altruism

Certain visionary threads of Florian Znaniecki’s thought present in his sociological theory of education merit our attention. They are associated with the concept of creating a grassroots movement of new sociality, capable of becoming a vehicle of reflexive social and cultural changes. These utopian threads related to the current of new humanism appear in all of Znaniecki’s works. The problem of altruism seems crucial in the light of Znaniecki’s axiology, but has not been properly examined until now. When Znaniecki names the new social tasks of education with the goal of shaping social changes, he considers the problem of social good from the perspective of intergroup relations. He searches for a new meaning of altruism, especially collective altruism, which would be the antithesis of collective egoism, and thus would transcend the limits of solidarity only with one’s own group. The issue of altruism, so important for Znaniecki, has only recently begun to regain its place in sociology. Znaniecki’s thought can be read in a connection with the contemporary anti-utilitarian movement and the newly revived discussion about the possibility of humanism after modernity