This collection of short discussions of a variety of what I consider to be the key words and concepts in social thought is here for two reasons.
- First, to collect a discussion of these concepts in one place so that the rest of the web-site is not cluttered up with repetitive discussions of the same material.
- Secondly, to build up a repository of ideas which will help me put together my core system of ideas.
The references to the many books and occasional periodicals can be found in the bibliography file. I have tried where possible to restrict those references to books which are fairly easily obtainable from booksellers or libraries (in the UK at least, or through web-based booksellers).
The words and concepts considered here are follows (click on the name to view the file - a word which does not have a link is simply a word for which I have not yet published a file):
| An outline of social theory and philosophy | Autonomy | Autopoiesis | Change |
| Choice | Communication | Community | Complexity and chaos |
| Connexity | Conscience | Consumerism | Contexts in law |
| Dematerialisation | Equality | Existentialism | Globalisation |
| Hegemony | Home | Human rights | Ideology |
| Individualisation | Jurisprudence | Law | Modernity |
| New Labour | Morality & Ethics / Other | Perfection | Phenomenology |
| Postmodernism | Power | Privatisation of law | Property |
| Property - nature of property right | Risk | Social contract | Socialism |
| Space and time | Speed | Suitability | Systems theory |
So feel free to wander around.
Updating: as with the rest of this site all of these discussions are works in progress - so don't huff if they are not perfect and don't be surprised if I have not yet considered all of the available texts. These vignettes will be updated regularly as the site expands.
The benefit of this system: The advantage for me of writing this in the form of a web-site is that I can move from idea to idea - and allow you to move on a whim from idea to idea - at the click of a mouse instead of needing us both to commit to a single linear structure in the form of a book. It is in the system section that I try to meld all of these ideas into a more coherent, more linear structure - that section, needless to say, will tend to be the slowest to emerge.
