From Society to System

<p><em>From Society to System</em> presents sociologist Michel Freitag’s (1935-2009) distinctive multifaceted and interdisciplinary work. Elaborated within the grand sociological tradition his dialectical sociology redefines sociality as the realm of the symbolic to pinpoint its ontological frailty. Such a perspective expands the borders within sociology to rejoin classical philosophical preoccupations revisiting social ontology as a radical critique of contemporary society where not only life and planet earth is at stake as a result of capitalism but reflexivity as well.</p><p>This collection of essays touches on topics that have been of central concern for social theory since the end of the 20th century: the discussion about holism versus individualism and the dissolution of transcendental identity; the current state of the social sciences both epistemologically and practically; the end-of-20th century debate over the nature of society along with its future in the context of globalisation. </p><p>These essays show how Freitag’s sociology is part of a larger unified framework that integrates ontology epistemology anthropology and philosophy into a coherent vision of the world – testifying to the distinctiveness of Freitag’s social theory standing next to other great social theorists such as Margaret Archer Jürgen Habermas Murray Bookchin and Ulrich Beck.</p>