Anthony Giddens: The Third Way

Author: Lang Youxing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-06-01
Features: The development of academia is not a purely logical process, nor is it the gradual discovery of objective reality as most people imagine, continuously adding new content. As Schumpeter said, "academic development is an endless struggle with what we and our predecessors have created in our minds. Every progress is dominated by the impact of new ideas and needs, under the influence of the preferences and temperaments of the new generation." Therefore, any grasp of the current state of academia is essentially an understanding of the methods, problems, and results prescribed by history. Only by examining it in the context of its historical background does it become meaningful. In other words, any academic condition at any time implies its historical background. Without understanding this implied history, it is impossible to describe the academic state authentically. Thus, for thought or academia, the most effective way to understand its history is to recognize the classics. Of course, this does not mean that classics constitute the entirety of the history of thought or academia. Rather, classics carry, in a condensed form, the accumulation and crystallization of human thought and wisdom across different eras in history. Specifically, in the field of sociology, getting to know the old and new masters who have shaped the history of this discipline since its formal inception, experiencing their ways of perceiving reality, understanding their perspectives and methods for observing the societies they lived in, and familiarizing themselves with their ideas and thoughts should be highly beneficial, if not an indispensable part, for the healthy development of contemporary sociological academia and for sociologists today to understand and study the societies they are part of. And this, it can be said, is precisely the purpose of this series of books.