Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Discriminations in Everyday Life

Download Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Discriminations in Everyday Life PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135021740
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Discriminations in Everyday Life by : Victor N. Shaw

Download or read book Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Discriminations in Everyday Life written by Victor N. Shaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-19 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In everyday life, people negotiate on issues, entertain offers and counteroffers, and gain or lose in terms of economic capital, political power, communal status, and social influence. Although life goes on in the form of compromise, feelings of discrimination or misfortune haunt consciously or unconsciously in the minds of living individuals. History continues in the spirit of forgiveness, but residues of exploitation or injustice remain conspicuously or inconspicuously on the records of progressing civilizations. This study follows an average everyday life to compare individuals with individuals, individuals with organizations, and organizations with organizations in their everyday interactions. Through the eyes of the person, conspicuous and inconspicuous discriminations by one against another, whether individual or organizational, are identified in different occasions, on a typical day, at home, in the workplace, in the community, within the country, around the world, and throughout the course of life. In the style of Socrates, Plato, Wittgenstein, and other classical scholarship, this study uses ordinary, typical situations to demonstrate critical points, reveal subtle connections, and present important arguments. It offers vivid examples for what social scientists strive to find: the extraordinary from the ordinary, the unfamiliar from the familiar, the different from the similar, and the significant from the trivial. This study offers an opportunity for readers to reflect upon their social experiences, and rethink and reshape their everyday acts and actions.

Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Discriminations in Everyday Life

Download Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Discriminations in Everyday Life PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135021759
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Discriminations in Everyday Life by : Victor N. Shaw

Download or read book Conspicuous and Inconspicuous Discriminations in Everyday Life written by Victor N. Shaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-19 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In everyday life, people negotiate on issues, entertain offers and counteroffers, and gain or lose in terms of economic capital, political power, communal status, and social influence. Although life goes on in the form of compromise, feelings of discrimination or misfortune haunt consciously or unconsciously in the minds of living individuals. History continues in the spirit of forgiveness, but residues of exploitation or injustice remain conspicuously or inconspicuously on the records of progressing civilizations. This study follows an average everyday life to compare individuals with individuals, individuals with organizations, and organizations with organizations in their everyday interactions. Through the eyes of the person, conspicuous and inconspicuous discriminations by one against another, whether individual or organizational, are identified in different occasions, on a typical day, at home, in the workplace, in the community, within the country, around the world, and throughout the course of life. In the style of Socrates, Plato, Wittgenstein, and other classical scholarship, this study uses ordinary, typical situations to demonstrate critical points, reveal subtle connections, and present important arguments. It offers vivid examples for what social scientists strive to find: the extraordinary from the ordinary, the unfamiliar from the familiar, the different from the similar, and the significant from the trivial. This study offers an opportunity for readers to reflect upon their social experiences, and rethink and reshape their everyday acts and actions.

Three Worlds of Collective Human Experience: Individual Life, Social Change, and Human Evolution

Download Three Worlds of Collective Human Experience: Individual Life, Social Change, and Human Evolution PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319981951
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (199 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Three Worlds of Collective Human Experience: Individual Life, Social Change, and Human Evolution by : Victor N. Shaw

Download or read book Three Worlds of Collective Human Experience: Individual Life, Social Change, and Human Evolution written by Victor N. Shaw and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-22 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores three worlds shared by the humans in their collective experiences. It identifies and explores the world of commonsense, the world of religion, and the world of science as three essential dimensions of human experience. The book helps understand that humans can gain comfort and pleasure in commonsense, achieve meaning and purpose from religion, and attain truth and rationality through science. It actively applies theories to and develops theoretical explanations from different domains or situations of human existence. This book is of interest to theorists, researchers, instructors, and students across major academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

From Autocracy to Democracy to Technocracy

Download From Autocracy to Democracy to Technocracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1527560953
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (275 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis From Autocracy to Democracy to Technocracy by : Victor N. Shaw

Download or read book From Autocracy to Democracy to Technocracy written by Victor N. Shaw and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores human polity with respect to its nature, context, and evolution. Specifically, it examines how individual wills translate into political ideologies, investigates what social forces converge to shape governmental operations, and probes whether human polity progresses in focus from individual wills to group interests to social integrations. The book entertains five hypotheses. The first is commonsensical: where there are people there is politics. The second is analogous: humans govern themselves socially in a way that is comparable to how a body regulates itself physically. The third is rational: humans set rules, organize activities, and establish institutions upon facts, following reasons, for the purpose of effectiveness and efficiency. The fourth is random: human affairs take place haphazardly under specific circumstances while they overall exhibit general patterns and trends. The final hypothesis is inevitable: human governance evolves from autocracy to democracy to technocracy. The book presents systematic information about human polity, its form, content, operation, impact, and evolution. It sheds light on multivariate interactions among human wills, rights, and obligations, political thoughts, actions, and mechanisms, and social structures, processes, and order maintenances. Pragmatically, it offers invaluable insights into individuals as agents, groupings as agencies, and polity as structuration across the human sphere.

Deconstructing Happiness

Download Deconstructing Happiness PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317565460
Total Pages : 171 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Deconstructing Happiness by : Jordan McKenzie

Download or read book Deconstructing Happiness written by Jordan McKenzie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an original account of the good life in late modernity through a uniquely sociological lens. It considers the various ways that social and cultural factors can encourage or impede genuine efforts to live a good life by deconstructing the concepts of happiness and contentment within cultural narratives of the good life. While empirical studies have dominated the discourse on happiness in recent decades, the emphasis on finding causal and correlational relationships has led to a field of research that arguably lacks a reliable theoretical foundation. Deconstructing Happiness offers a step toward developing that foundation by offering characteristically sociological perspectives on the contemporary fascination with happiness and well-being. In doing so, it seeks to understand the good life as a socially mediated experience rather than a purely personal or individually defined way of living. The outcome is a book on happiness, contentment and the good life that considers the influence of democracy, capitalism and progress, while also focusing on the more theoretical challenges of self-knowledge, reason and interaction.

Rosa Luxemburg in Action

Download Rosa Luxemburg in Action PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131769337X
Total Pages : 182 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Rosa Luxemburg in Action by : Rosemary H. T. O'Kane

Download or read book Rosa Luxemburg in Action written by Rosemary H. T. O'Kane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neither a work concerned only with her Marxist writings nor a personal biography concerned with her private life, this book examines Rosa Luxemburg’s ideas on revolution and democracy and how the two are bound together by her views on the importance of political action. Stretching, historically, from 1863 to the present, this book covers in great detail the history and developments within the German SPD during her time, the 1905 and 1917 Russian Revolutions, the German Revolution, the outbreak of World War I and the imperialism that fuelled it. It then moves on to consider political and historical developments after her death and examines her arguments on revolution and democracy in the light of the post-revolutionary government in Nicaragua: the one violent revolution that sought to establish social democracy (but failed). Also covered are aspects of Rosa Luxemburg’s life, her important writings and actions, the relevant Marxist debates in which she was involved, including, for example Bernstein’s arguments on social democracy through reform and, with Lenin, on revolutionary organization. A welcomed and timely collection presenting an important examination of the political and social context in which Luxemburg developed her activities and views and a complete understanding of the history of social democracy, the revolutionary times of a century ago and the relevance of their events and ideas for more recent revolutions for democracy in the twenty-first century.

The Dialectics of Inquiry Across the Historical Social Sciences

Download The Dialectics of Inquiry Across the Historical Social Sciences PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317975014
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (179 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Dialectics of Inquiry Across the Historical Social Sciences by : David Baronov

Download or read book The Dialectics of Inquiry Across the Historical Social Sciences written by David Baronov and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book turns conventional global-historical analysis on its head, demonstrating, first, that local events cannot be derived — logically or historically — from large-scale, global-historical structures and processes and, second, that it is these structures and processes that, in fact, emerge from our analysis of local events. This is made evident via an analysis of three disparate events: the New York City Draft Riots, AIDS in Mozambique, and a 2007 flood in central Uruguay. In each case, Baronov chronicles how expressions of human agency at the level of those caught up in each event give form and substance to various abstract global-historical concepts — such as slavery in the Americas, global capitalist production, and colonial/postcolonial Africa. Underlying this repositioning of the local and the ephemeral is an immanent, phenomenological analysis that illustrates how mere transient events are the progenitors of otherwise abstract, global-historical concepts. Traversing the intersections of human agency and structural determinism, Baronov deftly retains the nuance and serendipity of everyday life, while deploying this nuance and serendipity to further embellish our understanding of those enduring global-historical structures and processes that shape large-scale, long-term, historical accounts of social and cultural change across the historical social sciences.

The Politics of Rationality

Download The Politics of Rationality PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134490445
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (344 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Politics of Rationality by : Charles Webel

Download or read book The Politics of Rationality written by Charles Webel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are reason and rationality? How significant are recent postmodernist and neuroscientific challenges to these longheld notions? Should we abandon a belief in reason and an adherence to rationality? Or can reason and rationality be reformulated and reframed? And what does politics have to do with how we think about reason and why we act more or less rationally? The Politics of Rationality differs from other books with "reason" or “rationality” due to its historical, political, depth-psychological, and multidisciplinary approach to understanding reason through history. Charles P. Webel eloquently clarifies the links among ideas, their creators, the relevant mental processes, and the political cultures within which such important concepts as reasons and rationality take hold. He demonstrates how reason and rationality/irrationality have become what they mean for us today and proposes a way to rethink reason and rationality in light of the withering critiques leveled against them. In doing so, he presents a "history of reason and rationality" by examining the intellectual and political contexts of four representative theorists of reason and rationality-- Plato, Machiavelli, Kant, and Weber—and by addressing contemporary challenges posed by postmodernism, depth psychology, and neurophilosophy.

Gramsci, Materialism, and Philosophy

Download Gramsci, Materialism, and Philosophy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317746309
Total Pages : 158 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (177 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Gramsci, Materialism, and Philosophy by : Esteve Morera

Download or read book Gramsci, Materialism, and Philosophy written by Esteve Morera and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-21 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western critical theory, Marxism included, has largely been based on a view of historical materialism that Gramsci, among others, developed in his prison notebooks. For many, Gramsci’s philosophical reflections in prison offered a new foundation for the philosophy of the future. His reflections on the philosophy of praxis and absolute historicism find echoes in much of what today is considered to be a materialist philosophy. That form of materialism was unable to provide a sound foundation for a progressive social project, the possibility of a meaningful and creative ethical life, and the forms of activity or praxis that would be conducive to creating good society. In this book, Esteve Morera connects Marxist philosophy to the broader philosophical discussion of materialism in metaphysics, the philosophy science, philosophy of mind, and naturalised ethics. Each chapter deals with a particular aspect related to materialism and its consequences, the sorts of things that, if materialism is true, need to be confronted. Morera critiques, and rejects Gramsci’s conception of matter and materialism and concludes that that philosophical materialism is compatible with freedom, and as a consequence, offers a good foundation for ethical life. Gramsci, Materialism, and Philosophy is an original contribution to the philosophically vital debates around the meaning, limitations, implications, and possibilities of philosophical materialism as it is a contribution to the critical literature on Gramsci.

Authenticity, Autonomy and Multiculturalism

Download Authenticity, Autonomy and Multiculturalism PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131753591X
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Authenticity, Autonomy and Multiculturalism by : Geoffrey Brahm Levey

Download or read book Authenticity, Autonomy and Multiculturalism written by Geoffrey Brahm Levey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of "authenticity" enters multicultural politics in three distinct but interrelated senses: as an ideal of individual and group identity that commands recognition by others; as a condition of individuals’ autonomy that bestows legitimacy on their values, beliefs and preferences as being their own; and as a form of cultural pedigree that bestows legitimacy on particular beliefs and practices (commonly called "cultural authenticity"). In each case, the authenticity idea is called on to anchor or legitimate claims to some kind of public recognition. The considerable work asked of this concept raises a number of vital questions: Should "authenticity" be accorded the importance it holds in multicultural politics? Do its pitfalls outweigh its utility? Is the notion of "authenticity" avoidable in making sense of and evaluating cultural claims? Or does it, perhaps, need to be rethought or recalibrated? Geoffrey Brahm Levey and his distinguished group of philosophers, political theorists, and anthropologists challenge conventional assumptions about "authenticity" that inform liberal responses to minority cultural claims in Western democracies today. Discussing a wide range of cases drawn from Britain and continental Europe, North America, Australia and the Middle East, they press beyond theories to consider also the practical and policy implications at stake. A helpful resource to scholars worldwide in Political and Social Theory, Political Philosophy, Legal Anthropology, Multiculturalism, and, more generally, of cultural identity and diversity in liberal democracies today.

Understanding the Tacit

Download Understanding the Tacit PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134644027
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (346 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Understanding the Tacit by : Stephen P. Turner

Download or read book Understanding the Tacit written by Stephen P. Turner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book outlines a new account of the tacit, meaning tacit knowledge, presuppositions, practices, traditions, and so forth. It includes essays on topics such as underdetermination and mutual understanding, and critical discussions of the major alternative approaches to the tacit, including Bourdieu’s habitus and various practice theories, Oakeshott’s account of tradition, Quentin Skinner’s theory of historical meaning, Harry Collins’s idea of collective tacit knowledge, as well as discussions of relevant cognitive science concepts, such as non-conceptual content, connectionism, and mirror neurons. The new account of tacit knowledge focuses on the fact that in making the tacit explicit, a person is not, as many past accounts have supposed, reading off the content of some sort of shared and fixed tacit scheme of presuppositions, but rather responding to the needs of the Other for understanding.

Phenomenology of Youth Cultures and Globalization

Download Phenomenology of Youth Cultures and Globalization PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317961730
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (179 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Phenomenology of Youth Cultures and Globalization by : Stuart R. Poyntz

Download or read book Phenomenology of Youth Cultures and Globalization written by Stuart R. Poyntz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection brings together scholars who draw on phenomenological approaches to understand the experiences of young people growing up under contemporary conditions of globalization. Phenomenology is both a philosophical and pragmatic approach to social sciences research, that takes as central the meaning-making experiences of research participants. One of the central contentions of this book is that phenomenology has long informed critical empirical approaches to youth cultures, yet until recently its role has not been thusly named. This volume aims to resuscitate and recuperate phenomenology as a robust empirical, theoretical, and methodological approach to youth cultures. Chapters explore the lifeworlds of young people from countries around the world, revealing the tensions, risks and opportunities that organize youth experiences.

Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought

Download Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317570553
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought by : Camilla Boisen

Download or read book Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought written by Camilla Boisen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who has what and why in our societies is a pressing issue that has prompted explanation and exposition by philosophers, politicians and jurists for as long as societies and intellectuals have existed. It is a primary issue for a society to tackle this and these answers have been diverse. This collection of essays approaches some of these questions and answers to shed light on neglected approaches to issues of distribution and how these issues have been dealt with historically, socially, conceptually, and practically. The volume moves away from the more dominating and traditionally cast understandings of distributive justice and shows novel and unique ways to approach distributive issues and how these can help enlighten our course of action and thought today by creating new pathways of understanding. The editors and contributors challenge readers by exploring the role and importance of restorative justice within distributive justice, exploring the long shadow of practices of trusteeship, and concepts of social and individual rights and obligations in welfare and economic systems, social protection/provision schemes, egalitarian practices and post-colonial African political thought. Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought empowers the reader to cast a more critical and historically complete light on the idea of a fair share and the implications it has on societies and the individuals who comprise them.

Emotions and Social Change

Download Emotions and Social Change PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135006342
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Emotions and Social Change by : David Lemmings

Download or read book Emotions and Social Change written by David Lemmings and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection takes a critical perspective on Norbert Elias’s theory of the "civilizing process," through historical essays and contemporary analysis from sociologists and cultural theorists. It focuses on changes in emotional regimes or styles and considers the intersection of emotions and social change, historically and contemporaneously. The book is set in the context of increasing interest among humanities and social science scholars in reconsidering the significance of emotion and affect in society, and the development of empirical research and theorizing around these subjects. Some have labeled this interest as an "affective turn" or a "turn to affect," which suggests a profound and wide-ranging reshaping of disciplines. Building upon complex theoretical models of emotions and social change, the chapters exemplify this shift in analysis of emotions and affect, and suggest different approaches to investigation which may help to shape the direction of sociological and historical thinking and research.

The New Materialism

Download The New Materialism PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317605888
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The New Materialism by : Geoff Pfeifer

Download or read book The New Materialism written by Geoff Pfeifer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek have become two of the dominant voices in contemporary philosophy and critical theory. In this book, Geoff Pfeifer offers an in-depth look at their respective views. Using Louis Althusser’s materialism as a starting point—which, as Pfeifer shows, was built partially as a response to the Marxism of the Parti Communiste Français and partially in dialogue with other philosophical movements and intellectual currents of its times—the book looks at the differing ways in which both Badiou’s and Žižek’s work attempt to respond to issues that arise within the Althusserian edifice. Pfeifer argues here that, ultimately, Žižek’s materialism succeeds in responding to these issues in ways that Badiou’s does not. In building this argument, Pfeifer engages not only with the work of Althusser, Badiou, and Žižek and their intellectual backgrounds, but also with much of the contemporary scholarship surrounding these thinkers. As such, Pfeifer’s book is an important addition to the ongoing debates within contemporary critical theory.

Political Thought of Hume and his Contemporaries

Download Political Thought of Hume and his Contemporaries PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 131757379X
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Political Thought of Hume and his Contemporaries by : Frederick G. Whelan

Download or read book Political Thought of Hume and his Contemporaries written by Frederick G. Whelan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intended for scholars in the fields of political theory, and the history of political thought, this two-volume examines David Hume's Political Thought (1711-1776) and that of his contemporaries, including Smith, Blackstone, Burke and Robertson. This book is unified by its temporal focus on the middle and later decades of the eighteenth century and hence on what is usually taken to be the core period of the Enlightenment, a somewhat problematic term. Covering topics such as property, contract and resistance theory, religious establishments, the law of nations, the balance of power, demography, and the role of unintended consequences in social life, Frederick G. Whelan convincingly conveys the diversity--and creativity--of the intellectual engagements of even a limited set of Enlightenment thinkers in contrast to dismissive attitudes, in some quarters, toward the Enlightenment and its supposed unitary project. Political Thought of Hume and his Contemporaries: Enlightenment Projects Vol. 2 contains six in-depth studies of eighteenth-century political thought, including both normative issues and examples of Enlightenment social science, including international relations and law, the problem of double standards, political economy, demography, and the causes of imperial decline. The central figure is David Hume, with substantial attention to William Robertson, Adam Smith, Montesquieu, Malthus, and others.

How Groups Matter

Download How Groups Matter PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135085072
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis How Groups Matter by : Gideon Calder

Download or read book How Groups Matter written by Gideon Calder and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When groups feature in political philosophy, it is usually in one of three contexts: the redressing of past or current injustices suffered by ethnic or cultural minorities; the nature and scope of group rights; and questions around how institutions are supposed to treat a certain specific identity/cultural/ethnic group. What is missing from these debates is a comprehensive analysis of groups as both agents and objects of social policies. While this has been subject to much scrutiny by sociologists and social psychologists, it has received less attention from a normative and philosophical point of view. This volume asks: what problems are posed to political philosophy by a collection of individuals who act or are treated in a collective way? Focusing not only on ways in which institutions should treat groups, but also on the normative implications of considering groups as possible social agents, when acting either in vertical relations with the state or in horizontal relations with other groups (or individuals), this book explores these issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Contributors address both the nature of political and social philosophy itself, and the ways in which specific issues – affirmative action, race, religion and places of worship, the rights of states – have become political and social priorities.