Cultural Sociology within Innovative Treatise: Islamic Insights on Human Symbols

by Mahmoud Dhaouadi

Overview

This innovative book stresses the distinction of the human race from other species by using what the author calls Human Symbols (HS): language, thought, religion, knowledge/science, and cultural values and norms. Mahmoud Dhaouadi emphasizes the central position of HS in the creation of the identity of both the individual and society. That is, humans are Homo Culturus, a notion hardly found in social sciences like Marxism, behaviourism, structuralism, and psychoanalysis. This book explores the strong link between HS and the slow growth and development of the human body and claims that human duality is composed of the body and HS, not the body and the soul. HS explain some distinct human traits, such as why human babies learn to walk later than animal babies, the long human lifespan when compared with that of most animals’ lifespan, the human mind, and the potential for the eternal survival of human thought. As such, HS constitute a cultural theory. Dhaouadi also asserts that HS have neither weight nor volume in the material sense of the words, as they are transcendental and spiritual. This new conceptualization of HS helps us understand the quick transmission of spoken and written words as well as how we can put enormous written material onto a few memory sticks. This innovative vision of the nature of HS is endorsed by a fresh interpretation of the verses of the Quran. Cultural Sociology within Innovative Treatise will be a significant contribution to the field of sociology, particularly to the sociological study of culture in both the Islamic and Western worlds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761859239
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	07/11/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Mahmoud Dhaouadi has studied English, psychology, and sociology in Iraq, the U.S., and Canada, respectively. He has taught at universities in Canada, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Malaysia, and Oman. Dhaouadi has published numerous books in English, Arabic, and French and has published more than 200 essays, articles, and book reviews in these languages. He is the creator of the Human Symbols (HS) theory. His research interests lie in Tunisian society, Arab-Islamic thought, Ibn Khaldun’s scholarship, the universe of cultural symbols, and crime and deviance.

Table of Contents

Preface
PART I :New Conceptual Exploration into Cultural Sociology
Chapter I : The search for cultural sociology
Sociology of culture and cultural sociology
Flirting with the development of theoretical social science perspective
Human symbols are central to human identity
The legitimacy of return to Basics
Humans the great HS users
Humans are excellent homo symbolicus
Potential explanation of HS to the late human walk
HS transcendental dimensions
Language and the emergence of human culture
HS and human supremacy
Cultural sociology as a core discipline
Disorder in the study of culture
The HS centered approach
Cultural sociology’s urgent need
The Hunt for the other sides of phenomena
Footnotes
References

Chapter II : New Intellectual Concepts for Cultural Sociology
Introduction
The concept of the other underdevelopment
Linguistic Issues under scrutiny
The social psychological dimensions of the female Franco-Arabe
The social psychological dimensions of Adaa
The social history of Adaa in the Arab world
Adaa and its social psychological meaning for Tunisian women
The condition of Tunisian women and the Parisian accent
The pecking order among the three social actors
a- The continuing pecking order
b- Persistent inequality between the sexes
Who Imitates whom and How?
Conspirator Tunisian Bilingualism
Notes
References

Chapter III : Social Science Need for HS Paradigm
The concept of the human symbolic soul (HSS)
Our ever smaller world
HS transcendentality
Three meanings of the transcendental dimensions
HS and their transcendental dimensions
Language and its metaphysical / transcendental dimensions
Transcendental dimensions of freedom, justice and democracy
The impact of HS tested in three case studies
Case study I : The Arab world as the outcome of HS
Case study II : Canada’s syndrome of the two solitudes
Case study III : Cultural dependency is most dangerous
The need for Verstehen sociology of HS
Footnotes
References

Chapter IV : Theory of HS and the Rules of Collective Behavioural Patterns of Influence on People's Behaviours
The chapter framework
Society and culture as means of understanding and explanation
Social determinism in sociology
The hypothesis of culture as a dynamic force of influence on behaviors
Culture marginalization in theorizing on individual and society
The influence of collective behaviors on people’s
The full social influence
The rules of non full influence of collective behaviors
The rational choice theory
The principals of the rational choice theory
The rational choice theory in question
Rational choice theory and collective behavior
Conclusion
The cultural roots of collective betraviouts
References

Part II : Human Symbols in the Islamic Perspective
Chapter 1 : Cultural Profile from a Different Islamic View
Introduction
Subject and purpose of this chapter
The vague definitions of culture in the social sciences
The concept of culture from the Islamic cognitive viewpoint
The cognitive korantic foundational view of culture
The features of some of the transcendental aspects in HS
Language and its metaphysical traits
HS that imbue human beings with great energy
Towards sociology of the metaphysics of H
The harmonization of my perspective with reflexive sociology
Foot notes
References

Chapter II: The Aql – Naql Theory of Human Symbols and the Making of Cultural Sociology
The theory and its purpose
ANTHS and cultural sociology
The missing inside nature of culture
What is a theory?
Basic observations and the making of the ANTHS
Potential explanation of my theory
Cultural sociologie as a cor discipline
The Quran’s cultural strong program
Conclusion
References

Part III – Three Case Studies within the HS Perspective
Chapter I : HS Behind Human Longer Lifespan
Introduction
The phenomenon under study and its methodology
The human species longer lifespan
The biogenetic perspective on the human lifespan
The need for a complex thinking approach
The pace of growth and maturity of HS
Years difference between the child’s muscular and linguistic development
The brain / mind and the human longer lifespan
Cultural determinism and the longer human lifespan
Biology, genetics and HS
Modern social sciences and the missing transcendentality
Social sciences unfit for HS study
The Islamic perspective as an alternative
Human nature in the Quran
The image of man in the Quran
Dualistic human entity and longer lifespan
Footnotes
References

Chapter II : Social Science Illiteracy of the Other Underdevelopment in Post-Colonial Societies
The wide illiteracy on the Other Underdevelopment
The bipolar nature of the OU
The cultural linguistic underdevelopment
1-Linguistic underdevelopment
a- Black Africa linguistic underdevelopment
b- North Africa linguistic underdevelopment
c- Linguistic underdeveloment in Asia and Central America
2- Third World’s underdevelopment in modern social sciences and knowledge
a) Western monopoly in modern sciences and knowledge
b) Third world’s past contribution in sciences / knowledge and its dependency on the west.
c) The short slightness of western vision in sciences / knowledge
d) The ethics of western sciences / knowledge
e) The ethics of Islamic sciences / knowledge
f) Third world’s major obstacles to self developed sciences/knowledge
g) Self made sciences / knowledge’s role in development
3) Third World’s underdevelopment in cultural values system
a) the general and subtle rule of cultural exchanges
b) Western cultural disorganizing effect in the third world
c) Tradition / modernizations impact on Tunisian society
The psychological underdevelopment in the third world
a) The definition of psychological underdevelopment
b) Cultural symbolic domination and deterioration of self esteem
c) Inferiority complex and linguistic avoidance response
d) Cultural values system and disorganized personality
The other underdevelopment as a psycho cultural system
The roots of western modern social sciences silence on the OU
a) Causes of western ethnocentric nature
b) Causes of epistemological nature
Footnotes
References

Chapter III : The Arab Muslim World Set to Dialogue with West : A Cultural Perspective
The chapter thesis
The HS theory
HS and cultures dialogue
Western science’s appeal opens dialogue with the West
Huntington’s theory in question
The Islamic east and the Christian west could dialogue
The politics of conflicts and tensions between the west and Islam
References