welcome to the sixth lecture of the course
on sociological perspectives on modernity
in the fifth lecture we have discussed marxs
views on modernity through the lenses of two
important philosophical foundations of critical
modernist paradigm in sociology namely holism
or totality and social movements in this lecture
we are going to discuss marxs views on modernity
through the lenses of two more important ah
philosophical and political foundations of
critical modernist paradigm in sociology namely
reflexivity and rationality how have marxs
works contributed to the debates on modernity
through reflexivity and rationality ok ok
how reflexivity and rationality are embedded
are deeply embedded in ah the contributions
of marx ok
and then we will move on to webers views on
modernity through the lenses of four ah central
philosophical and political foundations of
modernity ok so far as reflexivity and rationality
are concerned ok let us start with reflexivity
i mean humanity however is not simply a self
creating subject as we have ah noticed in
the context of social movements it is also
to a greater or lesser extent a self knowing
subject ok we have already seen ah that marx
describes social consciousness as determined
by social being or social existence one way
of thinking about this is ah as follows i
mean ah our our thinking and communication
with one another is closely linked to our
practical interaction with each other ok we
therefore develop ah at an at every level
ways of thinking ah which can be shown to
be structured by the forms of this interaction
in other words ah by the kind of social labour
processes we are involved in ok
at a at a at a more abstracted level the theories
that intellectuals articulate about the nature
of society are shaped by this everyday experience
whether it is their own or as it often is
someone elses i mean when we say human experience
we must take into consideration the our experiences
the experiences of other people ok ah ah so
so so for example marx argues that the constitutional
lawyers ah and economic theorists whose ideas
formed so great a part of early democratic
theories in britain france and america ok
are in fact working on the everyday experience
of the small producers and traders who form
the basis of these movements there ah if you
look at this i mean i mean ah ah i mean their
their perception of individual as originally
isolated and coming together to trade is elaborated
ah into an ideology of individual rights ok
ah i mean including absolute rights ah over
property and of a state whose role is to represent
their interests
and guarantee the legal context within which
this production and trade can take place ok
there is there is there is a movement from
the everyday experience of a class to an ideology
which articulates elaborates and formalizes
this and which forms the basis of a revolt
against an earlier order ok in this case the
feudal order as the french revolution describes
the ancient regime and the official ideology
of a new social order ok when ah when we when
we discuss ideology ah especially ah when
we talk about ideology through the lens of
marx ok marx has to be evaluated so far as
ideologies are concerned marx must be examined
both as a theoretician as well as
an ideologue of the communist party as an
ideologue of the communist party marx was
in favor of the proletarian ideology which
will ah i mean ah the proletarians the working
classes will be the harbingers of proletarian
revolution ah the poor the marginalized when
they form class for itself they will be they
will bring about that social and political
revolution he was always in favor of proletarian
ideology but this is this is only a part of
the story the story doesnt end here ok marx
has an ideologue of the communist party was
different from marx as a theoretician marx
as a theoretician what are ideologies what
are ideologies for marx as a theoretician
for marx ideologies for marx as a theoretician
ideologies are myths fantasies inverted images
echoes of material life and so on in quest
of truth in quest of knowledge one must purge
upon his or her ideology one must go beyond
the narrow confinements of his or her own
ideology thats why ah marx talked about the
the ideology of the dominant classes ah is
the is the dominant ideology ok
there is a platonic saying that ah ideologies
rule the world the so so the theoretical ideas
are not arbitrary that that ah ideologies
ah at a at a very generic level if i have
to dwell upon i mean its also not arbitrary
it is very much practical ok nothing is the
ideological nothing is a political even even
today ok ah because ah these theoretical ideas
these ideologies they are very much related
to practice but they are partial no doubt
about it whichever ideology you talk about
when i say these ideologies at a very generic
level where i cannot prove i will just say
that no i believe in this ideology i do not
believe in this ideology when belief comes
into play with ideology without proof without
justification then i think there is a problem
then i think then then such ideologies ah
must be overcome must be overridden ok thats
why ah when marx said in quest of truth in
quest of knowledge ah one must go beyond the
narrow confinements of her or his own ideology
i mean while dwelling up on ah ideologies
in general and the german ideology in particular
when he said this i mean these theoretical
ideas of course are not arbitrary they are
very much ah ah because they are very much
related to practice but but they are partial
because ah they represent the ideas of a class
or we might say the ideas of a social and
political movement social and political struggle
ok how can marx justify his own theory in
this context then the first thing to say is
that he is going to explicit that it is an
ideology in this sense of an elaboration of
the practical and everyday experience of a
particular social group however marx argues
at various places that the working class age
of a particular
i mean i mean working classes ah i mean the
working classes unique in history because
it is a universal class in the sense that
the final end of its class struggle will not
be another form of ah ah class domination
and division of labour but will be an end
to both the formation of a society consisting
only of workers and in the sense that its
domination and exploitation in present day
society is total leading to a freedom from
illusion which no previous classes set the
implication i mean the ah the implication
is that that theory is based on based on the
everyday experience of workers and the practical
strategies of the workers movements can be
said to operate from the view point of the
future universalistic society ok in other
words when ideology is related to a group
whose experience and experiences and and aims
objectives can be said to be universal it
can transcend
the limitations of being the theoretical expression
of a partial perspective on society the practical
the practical conclusion that marx draws from
these is that he devotes himself ok ah ah
to the ah to he devotes himself to understanding
the ways in which the working class is exploited
and to involvement in its struggle against
this exploitation so so reflexivity for marx
is primarily a matter of awareness that theory
is ah ideological and of searching for a position
from which these partial perspectives on society
can coincide with the universal he he formulates
he formulates marx formulates ah ah such such
proposition that ah theory is ah ideological
and and i mean i mean reflexivity is primarily
a matter of awareness that theory is ideological
and of searching for a position from these
partial perspectives on society ah which can
coincide with the universal
i mean marx formulates this position in the
manifesto of the communist party of eighteen
hundred and forty eight by speaking of a portion
of the bourgeoisie ideologists who have raised
themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically
the historical movement as a whole going over
to the side of the working class ok then the
the reflexive position that ah marx undertook
that ah [ma/marx] marx propagated ah ah the
reflexive position that marks undertook ah
is very important to to understand that any
any theory or any practice that we talk of
ah cannot be ah be ideological or a political
whatever i say today whatever you say today
ok our ah at least i at this at least maybe
at the conscious level maybe at the subconscious
level maybe at the unconscious level we always
try to try to put forward our viewpoints through
certain ideological frameworks ok in these
sense ok ah
and but those ideologies maybe belief ridden
maybe may not be belief ridden ok in this
sense if i have to talk about it a little
longer that how the ideology of the dominant
class is the dominant ideology because in
a specific mode of production in a any given
in any given society ok the kind of ideology
that the dominant class ah inherits ok becomes
the dominant ideology and thats how they tried
to the dominant classes the the haves the
exploited classes the bourgeoisie they try
to dominate ah the poor the marginalized sections
of the society ok in this sense marxs reflexive
position ok is is primarily a matter of more
awareness more organization of being more
radical ok and and nothing is ideology free
nothing is neutral ok i mean nothing is theory
free everything is theory laden ok
if you if you ah look at karl poppers work
on the logic of scientific discovery you will
find that ah he argues that whatever we say
all i mean all rationalist ah philosophers
of science they also argued that whatever
we say whatever we do ok they are not theory
free rather they are theory laden they are
not ideology free they are ideology laden
ok they are not value neutral they are value
laden ok which the inductivists positivists
they they oppose they say that no no ah ah
its not ah we dont start with theory we always
start with observation and so on but there
are there are debates there are conflicting
perspectives if you want to have have ah better
better grasping of these debates you can refer
to ah the lectures that i delivered ah in
the last semester on science technology and
society under this under the same program
i mean massive open online ah ah course ah
on science technology
and society initiated by a majority of the
government of india ok then what about rationality
the term itself is not massively used in marxs
works but the concept appears often enough
in a number of contexts the first is in the
ah figure of thought that the rational is
the real what is real for marx anything irrational
is not real only the rational is real in other
words that a that a rational understanding
is an understanding of reality which is valid
because it starts with starts from valid premises
ok in this sense mark treats his replacement
of accounts of humans history in terms of
the development of philosophy art religion
and so on by accounts in terms of the development
of social production as a move towards rational
understanding reasoning capacity and there
is a suggestion that by choosing to theorize
from the position of the universal working
class ok
marx is guaranteeing a correspondence between
the ideological and the rational between socially
determined thinking and a valid understanding
of reality then then marx as a theoretician
gets foregrounded ok that that if if i have
to say that what is ah ah an ideology no because
it is a socially determined thinking then
how then what is rationality no it is a valid
understanding of reality thats why there for
for marx the rational is the real ah reality
is not ah represented um anything irrational
ok ah i mean a second form is in terms of
what we might call capitalist rationality
what is that capitalist rationality that the
argument that a particular mode of production
involves the imposition of a particular logic
for example a logic of the exchange of commodities
on all social interaction everything becomes
a commodity to be bought and sold on the market
everything is a commodity in capitalism even
i deliver lectures it is also a commodity
in capitalism if if my students are listening
to my lectures that are that has also become
a come part of commodity everything i mean
i mean ah gender is a commodity i mean sex
is a commodity ah ah caste is a commodity
race is a commodity everything has turned
out to be a community in capitalism my my
my i mean my body is a community my labour
is a commodity ok thats why commodification
of labour commodification of an individual
ok thats why thats why ah when i say capitalists
rationality i tend to argue that that a particular
that it refers to a particular mode of production
which involves the imposition of a particular
logic and this this lo[gic] this this logic
also is not by fluke it is not spontaneous
it is also very much regulated by the powers
that been for example a logic of the exchange
of commodities on all social interaction
so that everything becomes a commodity to
be bought and sold in the market another feature
of this capitalist rationality is the accumulation
ofcapital ok in other words of economic power
in ever fewer hands ok ah that that ah when
i say ah ah accumulation ofcapital ah in ever
fewer hands ok lastly there is a suggestion
that history has a rational potential in other
words that the actual interaction of human
beings in social production can be understood
brought to serve their own needs and transformed
into a situation of mutual communication and
interactive self realization this involves
suggesting both movement towards a form of
production which does not involve domination
subjugation and exploitation of one human
being by another and a movement to form ah
ah and a movement to form a to a to a and
and the movement to a form of ideological
thinking which is universal and therefore
represents of valid understanding of reality
ah this this idea of rationality ah in other
words complex one ok ah
which can refer either to modes of understanding
or to an assumption that the way the world
works or can work is related to the way we
think or can think this last assumption can
be defended in terms of the statement that
the social world is a human creation the link
between the way we act and the way we think
means that the real is ultimately the rational
ok now we have we have got into ah i mean
we have we have discussed a few things i mean
i mean marxs views on modernity ah through
the lenses of reflexivity and rationality
ok in the last lecture we discussed marxs
views on modernity through the lenses of holism
or totality and social movements ok now let
us let us summarize what we have discussed
so far as marxs views on modernity are concerned
or or rather ah ah not i am not going to give
you a gist of this rather ah i am i am going
to ah ah provide ah you with ah ah a summary
of marx as a theorist of modernity ok
in the in the if you look at ah when when
ah marx was deeply involved in ah writing
about social transformation i mean eighteen
fortys thi[rty] late thirtys fortys fiftys
sixtys seventys an early part of eighteen
hundred and eightys marx developed the mature
version of his philosophical social and economic
theories ok it may be about class it may be
about class struggle it may be about social
revolution political revolution movements
ah modernity ah mechanization and so on when
we think of such theories we imagine ah a
scholar pouring for hours of working towns
in the british museum but usually marxs theoretical
pursuit set to become the in beside far more
time consuming activities i mean politics
germany ah i mean as a politics journalism
ah wars evading creditors and the series or
fatal illnesses that plagued his children
and his wife and after the onset of his skin
disease in eighteen hundred and sixty three
marx himself all too often ah marxs theoretical
labors were interrupted for months at a time
or reserved for odd hours late at night even
without these detours marx always tended towards
slowly
and devise constantly he had difficulty getting
the final version of his thoughts down on
paper so it is no surprise that he never developed
the critics of society and intellectual disciplines
first planned in eighteen hundred and forty
five the results of his theoretical deliberation
surf i mean ah ah are interesting to interpret
ah albeit for opposing reasons in different
branches of knowledge marxs writings after
eighteen hundred and fifty on philosophy society
and history were fragmented snippets of journalism
or suggestion for from correspondence relevant
passages in political polemics or economic
to treatises despite occasionally mentioned
plans he never produced an extensive theoretical
work ah which which his opponents claim which
has led commentators and interpreters to focus
their attention on his eighteen hundred and
forties manuscripts incomplete but at least
substantial by contrast the problem with the
writings on economics is that ah there was
too much two books were published in marxs
lifetime on the critique of political economy
of eighteen hundred and forty fifty nine
andcapital volume one of eighteen hundred
and sixty sevencapital volume one in fact
ah as anyone has ever picked up picked it
up knows is lengthy and dense besides the
material that appeared in print marks left
behind an enormous array of manuscripts and
economics that engels sorted through and edited
into two volumes ah i mean ah volumes two
and ah three ofcapital i mean i mean further
manuscripts on the history of political economy
were later published as theories of surplus
value but reducing the mass of handwritten
manuscripts even to three book ah three thick
books meant leaving out a large volume of
unpublished writings to say nothing of marxs
extensive notes on economics and the many
discussions of economic questions in his correspondence
when i when i have to look at marxs reflections
on on modernity i mean ah ah starting from
ah starting from the emergence of positivistic
school of thought i mean supremacy of sciences
or non sciences positivism
of course initially appeared at the beginning
of the nineteenth century but it quickly advanced
to a leading status in european intellectual
and cultural life only after eighteen hundred
and fifty positivists and many contemporaries
who did not use that term saw human knowledge
emerging from empirical perception of the
world and and such thinking also influenced
marx ok ah that empirical perception of the
world unlike the eighteenth century empiricists
whose ideas were heavily criticized by kant
and hegel positivists understood empirical
knowledge as a result of scientific procedures
i mean experiment organized data gathering
and mathematical analysis rather than simple
sense perception at first the physical sciences
provided the model for positivist epistemology
ok ah i mean in the form of newtons works
ah principium ah but after darwins on the
origin of species appeared in eighteen hundred
fifty nine evolutionary biology became a steadily
more important template for the acquisition
of knowledge contemporaries
took these scientific models and applied them
to every imaginable intellectual discipline
from anthropology and sociology to literary
criticism perceptions of human history were
recast in terms of evolutionary stages of
the advance of science ok this such such development
in in the physical sciences initially but
especially in the biological sciences through
darwins works ah such development represented
a particular problem for marx through through
hegelian scholarship ah through through the
scholarship of ah feuerbach and the rise of
positivism by the eighteen hundred and fifties
and ni[ne] eighteen hundred and sixties was
producing a very different form of ah political
scenario social system and so on and marx
along with ah who along with engels followed
scientific developments ah closely was very
much aware of this
such such intellectual ah transformation for
for marxs one time ah ah comrades the young
hegelians the new intellectual ah ah trends
were partially ah were were painfully apparent
marx had little sympathy with their complaints
when bruno bauer visited marx in london at
the end of eighteen fifty five he observed
as marx wrote with amusement to engles that
in germany horrible indeed ah ah nothing more
is purchased and read then miserable compilations
from the filled of the natural sciences a
couple of years later an arnold ruge ah announced
that he was planning a new ah version of the
german yearbooks according to marx its main
task is to be a struggle against materialism
in industry and the natural sciences also
against comparative linguistics which is sprouting
up everywhere in sort against everything for
which exact knowledge is necessary ok
these remarks these such these such remarks
made by marx sound distinctly positivist the
attitudes of a ah of marx abandoning his own
previous allegiance to hegelian thought for
a new worldview based on the empirical findings
of the sciences this is what makes marx ah
modernist one in his public pronouncements
after eighteen hundred and fifty marx sounded
a distinctly positivist one if we juxtapose
his description of the impoverishment of the
working class in the manifesto of the communist
party of eighteen hundred and forty eight
with a similar examination ah ah in eighteen
hundred and sixty six sixty seven ah i mean
eighteen sixty six if i have ah yeah eighteen
sixty six ah in the in the inaugural address
to ah no eighteen sixty four eighteen sixty
four yeah yeah yeah eighteen hundred and sixty
four ah ah when he when he ah ah addressed
i mean delivered the inaugural address to
the ah international working mens association
we can clearly see the increasing positivism
ok
the the manifesto of the communist party of
eighteen forty eight described the dialectical
process in which labour is transformed into
its oppositecapital and the workers labour
impoverishes them as it is externalized in
thecapital it creates i mean i mean many still
influential older works of scholarship often
written about considering the the hegelian
inflected texts of the eighteen hundred and
fortys simply treat ah marx was a positivist
but when he goes beyond positivism it is also
interesting to see but but looking more closely
at his responses to developments in the natural
and physical sciences after eighteen hundred
and fifty a more complex picture emerges in
which he both accepted and [cristi/criticized]
criticized new scientific advances thats why
from the very beginning i said marx ah and
engels they did not accept modernity ah absolutely
they also did not reject modernity absolutely
ok thats why ah i mean marx both accepted
and criticized new scientific disc
advances especially after eighteen hundred
and fiftys he accommodated his philosophically
prepositions to them but also had ah but also
held fast to his philosophically basics which
articulate while articulating them in a form
more acceptable to a positivist era one of
marxs first encounters with science after
eighteen fifty came from a close friend and
political associate roland daniels in eighteen
hundred and fifty one before the the ah ah
kollam physician was arrested marx ah ah he
ah i mean ah arrested and indicted ah in the
kollam communists trial he wrote to marx about
the theoretical work he was preparing ok that
is microcosm draft of a physiological anthropology
daniels is starting point was the same as
marxs had been in in the eighteen hundred
and fortys far backs notion of sensuous humanity
as the basis of knowledge and historical ah
development but for daniels the sensuous human
being of feuerbach is and remains ah i mean
i mean i mean ah that the sensuous human being
ah of far backs theories was a physiological
human being the human organism is and remains
my major history
and society were where physiological the reflex
responses of human organisms to stimuli from
their environment ok this is important ok
then then following the i mean i mean i mean
ah ah following in ah ah feuerbachs footsteps
daniels wanted to create a physiological ah
philosophy a scientific materialist and practical
ah atheism ah sharply differing from the philosophical
and ideal idealist atheism of the young hegelians
and and these these these interactions also
have have these interactions these exchanges
of ideas these ah conversations communications
have also saved marxs writings to a great
extent ok daniels ah ah understood socialism
in physiological terms suppose interest is
a matter of indifference to me but not the
purity of my food interest on loans ok a socialist
society would aim to provide would aim to
improve scientifically determined public
and individual health to their maximum extent
daniel suggested that socialist demands could
be summed up in one sentence products and
according to strict scientific criteria solely
with regard to with regard for the human organism
ok marx apparently told daniels that he is
whole approach was sometimes too mechanical
to anatomical that he was unable to integrate
human consciousness into the into his explanation
of history or to explain how society if constituted
by physiological um ah laws could ever be
changed marx even asserted that he found bruno
bauer more ah sophisticated more more analytical
more articulative than than feuerbach perhaps
surprising even for feuerbachs materialism
and bauers idealism but this attitude certainly
fit with ah with the rejection of positivism
feuerbach own letter writings moved in a positivist
direction criticizing hegel for stating that
truth has to be found in a dialectical historical
process rather than simply being available
to ah us in through perceptions marx wrote
considerable interest in danielss ideas he
filled daniel says letters with underlinings
and marginal emphasis ah
but his rejection of explanations of human
history and society ah of the foundation of
philosophy and the arguments in favor of socialism
in terms of scientific physiology suggested
a skeptical attitude towards positivism perhaps
perhaps he needed something more convincing
than his than than perhaps marx ah required
something more convincing than daniels ah
physiological philosophy to move him a logical
place to look for such an impetus would be
the greatest intellectual event of ah of ah
the positivist era positivist age and the
most significant scientific event ah of the
entire ah nineteenth century and when darwin
published his ah i mean published on the origin
of species ah ah i mean the this publication
of the publication of on the original species
not only revolutionized science it evoked
emulation and repulsion in virtually all aspects
of european cultural and and intellectual
life as everyone knows or things they know
marx offered to dedicatecapital to darwin
darwin
and repeatedly claimed that darwins findings
on nature confirmed his own on human society
yet while marx accepted the scientific validity
of darwins theories and endorsed them in positivist
fashion for their support of atheism and ideas
of progressive also advanced hegelian criticisms
of darwins concepts and so skepticism about
their application to the study of human history
and society ok this is this is interesting
i mean this is ah ah this is intellectually
stimulating thought provoking ok how changes
in the biological phenomena can be translated
into changes in our social economic and political
phenomena ok marxs introduction to darwin
came from engels who had acquired a copy of
on the origin of species within two weeks
of its publication in november eighteen hundred
and fifty nine he read rapidly and enthusiastically
and reported to his reported it to reported
to marx that the book was just terrific up
to now there has never been such a wonderful
attempt
and made to ah prove historical development
in nature at least not with such success it
took marx a year to follow engels recommendation
and actually read the book himself which he
did while nursing his wife through her bout
with ah smallpox although ah developed in
a crude english way this is the book that
contains the basis for our views in natural
history he told engels in january eighteen
hundred and sixty one he wrote ah ah ferdinand
russell that darwins writing is very important
in suits me as the basis in natural history
for the historical cluster once awakened marxs
interest in darwins ah ideas continued for
years he repeatedly discussed evolutionary
theory with his friends and associates in
london attended lectures and studied the writings
of darwins chief popularizer ah huxley and
i mean thomas ah henry huxley ah
and and ah avidly ah read authors who claim
to have developed improved versions of the
idea of natural selection from these it would
be easy to conclude that darwins writing had
converted marx to the positivist idea of natural
science as the basis for knowledge but there
was a more skeptical side to marxs ah attitude
about the great biologist after reading on
the origin of species he wrote to engels in
june eighteen sixty two that with times work
which i have looked at again it amuses me
that he says he is also applying the malthusian
theory of to plants and animals as if the
whole point with ah malthus were not that
his theory is not applied to plants and animals
but to humans which geometric progression
in contrast to plants and animals it is remarkable
how darwin recognizes among beasts and plants
his english society with its division of labour
competition ah opening of new markets inventions
and malthusian struggle for existence it is
reminiscent of hegel in the phenomenology
where ah bourgeoisie society appears as the
spiritual animal kingdom while in darwin the
animal kingdom appear as ok i mean i mean
marx i mean i mean this this if i have to
summarize the the whole discourse on on how
a marxs works have contributed or marxs reflections
on other wor[k] others works have contributed
to the debates on modernity i mean the such
reflection of darwins work was the very opposite
of positivism in in which the natural sciences
provided a model for the understanding of
the world instead it took the hegelian position
that philosophy or in marxs version of philosophically
inflected political economy could evaluated
and criticize the conceptual basis of other
branches of knowledge including the sciences
as marx considered the [ma/matter] matter
further
he became more skeptical about claims that
darwins theories provided a guide to economy
and society ok marx came to see darwinism
as part of a positivist trained that was undermining
the position of hegelian ideas ok in a in
a in a well known ah afterward to the second
edition ofcapital volume one he denounced
contemporary ah german thinkers who saw hegel
as a dead dog and insisted on the validity
of his dialectical methods which he had applied
in his critique or political community marx
left marx left those german thinkers so critical
of hegel anonymous in print but in a letter
to engels he suggested that the problem began
with feuerbach who has a lot in his conscience
in that respect ok if if i mean if this were
marxs view regarding darwinians ah why would
he offer to dedicate ahcapital to darwin the
answer is quite simple the story that marx
tried to dedicatecapital to darwin is a myth
that ah that has been repeatedly refuted but
since virtually ineradicable ok i mean i mean
these are a few ah of the course things ah
um about ah about whether he pract[ice] he
actually ah dedicated it or dedicated the
first volume ofcapital to darwin or not and
ah there is also evidence that darwin ah ah
rejected that ah the dedication ah ah but
ah but we have also evidences contrary to
this position ah contrary to such ah such
opinions i hope you ah i mean such happenings
ah but what we have learnt now in this lecture
broadly broadly we have discussed in this
these two lectures i mean in the fifth lecture
and todays lecture in the sixth one what we
have discussed we have discussed marxs views
on modernity through the through the four
central pillars of modernity namely holism
or totality reflexivity rationality and social
movements
we have also discussed the contradictory views
which have been posed by two important philosophical
ah schools ah of two important schools of
thought namely materialism as well as idealism
and how both marx and engels could hold aloft
the banner of materialism while dwelling upon
not only a self creating subject but also
self knowing subject when i say self creating
subject i mean he was they were trying to
dwell upon ah social movements and when i
said ah self knowing subject i refer to both
reflexivity as well as rationality ok this
is very important then if i when we look at
look at this ok thats why ah when we see this
kind of this kind of ah interpretation ah
or reflections ah on modernity by marx it
is equally important to to look at one of
his contemporaries who also helps from germany
ah and he is max weber but before before going
into in the seventh lecture
in the in the lecture to follow we are going
to discuss ah ah max weber ah ah max webers
interpretation of modernity ah ah and and
ah again again through the lenses of lenses
of ah those four pillars of critical modernist
paradigm in sociology namely holism or totality
ah reflexivity rationality and social movements
ok and then we will we will move on to ah
to ah ultra modernism the structuralist case
ah i mean ah i mean the the ah the works of
ah ah levi strauss and and louis althusser
ok but but but for the time being for the
time being please ah let us see what we have
covered from the very beginning before we
move on to max weber ok we started with thematic
preliminaries ok we started with thematic
preliminaries then we have ah within thematic
preliminaries we discussed critical modernism
or critical modernist paradigm in sociology
ok ah then the method that we are we ah we
have been using to understand ah ah different
deliberations on modernity ok
that is the sociological imagination by c
wright mills and then ah we discussed how
we apply concepts i mean what what kind of
good working relationship with theory ah the
nature of sociological theory we have discussed
ontology we have discussed we have discussed
ah ah the the modernist paradigm in sociology
i mean all these four central pillars of modernity
namely holism or totality ah ah reflexivity
rationality and social movements then we have
discussed the ambiguity of rationality and
control governance versus emancipation and
the the significance of ah instrumental rationality
ah (( )) ah substantive rationality then in
then in the second section ah i mean sociology
classic statements about sociological modernism
we have discussed the ah the works of ah marx
till now ah in marx ah ah on modernity we
have ah ah discussed how marxs ideas about
modernity were shaped by three intellectual
and political ah trajectories namely german
philosophy british economy and french politics
and marxs empirical starting point for thinking
about the new society is largely a projection
of each of these developments in the future
ok and ah for marx i mean ah i mean we have
discussed marxs views about modernity through
the lenses of ah ah holism or totality then
social movements then reflexivity and rationality
and in the in the in the next lecture in the
seventh lecture we are we are going to discuss
ah max webers interpretations of modernity
i mean in terms of rationality and modernity
in terms of social movements in terms of ah
ah reflexivity ah and of course in terms of
holism or totality ah and we will find out
whether marxs views on modernity or a holist
one or not in contradiction with webers views
on modernity or a holist one or not ok
thank you
