This volume commemorates Richard H. Grathoff’s (1934–2013) contribution to interpretative sociology. Reconsidering the legacy of social phenomenology, it demonstrates the usefulness of concepts such as life-world, milieu and symbolic transcendence in the studies of sociocultural transformations.
If the new cultural sociology is to gain firm grounds, it should rediscover the classic studies on cultural dynamics and cultural systems. This book contributes to a better understanding of Florian Znaniecki as an eminent culturologist and the lasting relevance of his theory of cultural becoming. Znaniecki opted for a humanistic approach that he called culturalism. Culturalism, founded on the principle of the humanistic coefficient, is applied also to the cultural person. The concept of social values makes this cultural approach an original one. The cultural logic and cultural ethos of Znaniecki’s thought is inherent in the very principle of a creative evolution of culture, augmenting his vision of a new civilization of the future and a world culture society.
The volume is the first one in the series Studies in Sociology: Symbols, Theory and Society. The authors from Australia, Finland, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, who contributed to it, are sociologists bound by a conviction that the study of the social context of making use of symbols cannot be underestimated. Conception of symbolism as a social phenomenon and not an autonomous semiotic system is of their common interest and a symbolic interactionist perspective is apparent in many texts. The readiness to trespass the boundaries of various approaches and disciplines is noticeable. The volume is divided into three parts: Symbols and Society. Theoretical Perspectives; Political Discourse and Symbolic Action; Religious Symbolism and Power. Symbolism of discourses, symbolic objects and symbolic actions are three intrinsically related domains that were studied.