THE MEANINGS OF SILENCE: APPROACHING MODERNITY.
Item
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Title
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THE MEANINGS OF SILENCE: APPROACHING MODERNITY.
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Identifier
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AAI8319782
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identifier
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8319782
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Creator
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MANDELL, ALAN DAVID.
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Contributor
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Lindsey Churchill
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Date
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1983
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Theory and Methods
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Abstract
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In a tradition whose broad outlines were drawn by Max Weber, sociological theory has sought to grapple with the significance of interpretation to social analysis. For many theorists (like Schutz, Blumer, Garfinkel, and Habermas) society has been conceived as a linguistic world--a shared universe of words whose myriad meanings and interpretations have been central to the understandings of everyday actors and to the analyses of social scientists.;Yet, while much emphasis has been placed upon speech and language, few theorists have explored that which seems to suggest the very negation of the human project: silence. This dissertation examines the "meanings of silence," particularly as they are (either implicitly or explicitly) articulated in the works of Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. Each of these theorists has faced the presence of silence, and each has interpreted its significance in distinct ways. It is suggested in this dissertation that for Heidegger silence poses a starkly critical orientation to society, for Marx silence concretely points to the alienation that rests at the very core of society, while for Freud, silence serves as a key tool by which the scientist can achieve understanding of individual pain.;Moreover, it is one of the central arguments of this dissertation that an examination of silence also brings into sharp focus various "approaches" to the social context that these three theorists all hoped to decipher: the modern world. By analyzing Heidegger, Marx, and Freud's interpretations of silence, it is suggested that one can gain an important insight into the nature of modernity. Heidegger's search beyond modernity, Marx's vision of a nonalienated world stirred by the potentials of modernity, and Freud's practical and theoretical excursions within everyday modern life are examined as necessary parts of a broader whole that defines modernity itself. Finally, this dissertation argues that it is the simultaneous presence of these three moments that pushes the modern self and society away from an unreflexive acceptance of a stable and taken-for-granted "traditional" world.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
