Research Catalog

Title

How institutions think / Mary Douglas.

Author

Douglas, Mary, 1921-2007

Publication

New York : Syracuse University Press, ©1986.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Donor/Sponsor

University club book purchase fund.

Series Statement

The Frank W. Abrams lectures

Uniform Title

Frank W. Abrams lectures.

Subject

• Social institutions > Psychological aspects
• Cognition and culture
• Organizational behavior

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 129-139) and index.

Audience (note)

• 1250L

Contents

Introduction -- Institutions cannot have minds of their own -- Smallness of scale discounted -- How latent groups survive -- Institutions are founded on analogy -- Institutions confer identity -- Institutions remember and forget -- A case of institutional forgetting -- Institutions do the classifying -- Institutions make life and death decisions.

Call Number

JLE 86-3349

ISBN

• 0815623690
• 9780815623694
• 0815602065
• 9780815602064

LCCN

86005696

OCLC

13332366

Author

Douglas, Mary, 1921-2007, author.

Title

How institutions think / Mary Douglas.

Publisher

New York : Syracuse University Press, ©1986.

Edition

First edition.

Description

xi, 146 pages ; 23 cm.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

The Frank W. Abrams lectures

Frank W. Abrams lectures.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 129-139) and index.

Summary

"First published in 1986 Mary Douglas' theory of institutions uses the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim and Ludwig Fleck to determine not only how institutions think, but also the extent to which thinking itself is dependent upon institutions. Different kinds of institutions allow individuals to think different kinds of thoughts and to respond to different emotions. It is just as difficult to explain how individuals come to share the categories of their thought as to explain how they ever manage to sink their private interests for a common good.

"Douglas forewarns us that institutions do not think independently, nor do they have purposes, nor do they build themselves. As we construct our institutions, we are squeezing each other's ideas into a common shape in order to prove their legitimacy by sheer numbers. She admonishes us not to take comfort in the thought that primitives may think through institutions, but moderns decide on important issues individually. Our legitimated institutions make major decisions, and these decisions always involve ethical principles."--Publisher description.

Audience

1250L Lexile

Other Form:

Online version: Douglas, Mary, 1921-2007. How institutions think. 1st ed. Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press, 1986 (OCoLC)560867874

Research Call Number

JLE 86-3349