Societal Dynamics: Understanding Social Knowledge and Wisdom

by Betz, Frederick

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Title Statements

Full title :Societal Dynamics : Understanding Social Knowledge and Wisdom / by Frederick Betz.

Summary

At both a micro-information level and a macro-societal level, the concepts of "knowledge" and "wisdom" are complementary - in both decisions and in social structures and institutions. At the decision level, knowledge is concerned with how to make a proper choice of means, where "best" is measured as the efficiency toward achieving an end. Wisdom is concerned with how to make a proper choice of ends that attain "best" values. At a societal level, knowledge is managed through science/technology and innovation. And while science/technology is society's way to create new means with high efficiencies, they reveal nothing about values. Technology can be used for good or for evil, to make the world into a garden or to destroy all life. It is societal wisdom which should influence the choice of proper ends -- ends to make the world a garden. How can society make progress in wisdom as well as knowledge? Historically, the disciplines of the physical sciences and biology have provided scientific foundations for societal knowledge But the social science disciplines of sociology, economics, political science have not provided a similar scientific foundation for societal wisdom. To redress this gap, Frederick Betz examines several cases in recent history that display a fundamental paradox between scientific/technological achievement with devastating social effects (i.e., historical events of ideological dictatorships in Russia, Germany, China, and Yugoslavia). He builds a new framework for applying social science perspectives to explain societal histories and social theory. Emerging from this methodological and empirical investigation is a general topological theory of societal dynamics. This theory and methodology can be used to integrate history and social science toward establishing grounded principles of societal wisdom

Edition Statements

Publication Date:2012.
Edition:1

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):Springer New York
Place of Publication:New York, NY
Language:eng
Publication Date:2012.

The Physical Object

Description:1 online resource

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:9781461412786, 1461412781, 9781461412779, 1461412773, 1283444291, 9781283444293, 9786613444295, 6613444294
DOI:10.1007/978-1-4614-1278-6
oclc:ocn779196952
LC Classification:HM831 .B48 2012
Dewey Decimal:303.4

Societal Dynamics; Series Foreword; Preface; Introduction; Scientific Paradigm; History: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason; Scientific Paradigms and Scientific Disciplines; Inanimate: Physical Sciences; Animate: Biological Sciences; Cognitive: Mathematics and Computer Sciences; Societal: Social Sciences and Management; Perceptual Spaces and Scientific Method; Perceptual Space for Observing Physical Nature; Perceptual Space for Observing Societal Nature; Contents; Chapter 1: Wisdom Versus Knowledge; Introduction; Historical Event: Lenin's Bureaucrats; Societal Ethics and Political Ideology.

Historical Event: Revolution in Russia in 1917Natural Science; Perceptual Spaces in Science; Historical Event (Continued): Revolution in Russia 1917; Explanatory Relationships in a Societal Perceptual Space; Historical Event (Continued): Revolution in Russia 1917; Summary; Chapter 2: Ideology and Dictatorship; Historical Event: Lenin Seizes Power; Individual and Political Process; Divisive Society and Civil Society; Historical Event: Lenin Wields Power; Individual and Government Structure; Political Parties and Social Theory; Historical Event: Lenin Consolidates Power; Society and Force.

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