{"title":"Books by Hans–georg Moeller","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780231153799","title":"The Radical Luhmann","description":"Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) was a German sociologist and system theorist who wrote on law, economics, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love. Luhmann advocated a radical constructivism and antihumanism, or \"grand theory,\" to explain society within a universal theoretical framework. Nevertheless, despite being an iconoclast, Luhmann is viewed as a political conservative. Hans-Georg Moeller challenges this legacy, repositioning Luhmann as an explosive thinker critical of Western humanism.  Moeller focuses on Luhmann's shift from philosophy to theory, which introduced new perspectives on the contemporary world. For centuries, the task of philosophy meant transforming contingency into necessity, in the sense that philosophy enabled an understanding of the necessity of everything that appeared contingent. Luhmann pursued the opposite-the transformation of necessity into contingency. Boldly breaking with the heritage of Western thought, Luhmann denied the central role of humans in social theory, particularly the possibility of autonomous agency.   In this way, after Copernicus's cosmological, Darwin's biological, and Freud's psychological deconstructions of anthropocentrism, he added a sociological \"fourth insult\" to human vanity.  A theoretical shift toward complex system-environment relations helped Luhmann \"accidentally\" solve one of Western philosophy's primary problems: mind-body dualism. By pulling communication into the mix, Luhmann rendered the Platonic dualist heritage obsolete. Moeller's clarity opens such formulations to general understanding and directly relates Luhmannian theory to contemporary social issues. He also captures for the first time a Luhmannian attitude toward society and life, defined through the cultivation of modesty, irony, and equanimity.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56227812213109,"sku":"9780231153799","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780231153799_6e8c4998-7002-4004-b305-dd744b6ee3bd.jpg?v=1786012494"},{"product_id":"9780231196017","title":"You and Your Profile – Identity After Authenticity","description":"More and more, we present ourselves and encounter others through profiles. A profile shows us not as we are seen directly but how we are perceived by a broader public. As we observe how others observe us, we calibrate our self-presentation accordingly. Profile-based identity is evident everywhere from pop culture to politics, marketing to morality. But all too often critics simply denounce this alleged superficiality in defense of some supposedly pure ideal of authentic or sincere expression.   This book argues that the profile marks an epochal shift in our concept of identity and demonstrates why that matters. You and Your Profile blends social theory, philosophy, and cultural critique to unfold an exploration of the way we have come to experience the world. Instead of polemicizing against the profile, Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio outline how it works, how we readily apply it in our daily lives, and how it shapes our values—personally, economically, and ethically. They develop a practical vocabulary of life in the digital age. Informed by the Daoist tradition, they suggest strategies for handling the pressure of social media by distancing oneself from one’s public face. A deft and wide-ranging consideration of our era’s identity crisis, this book provides vital clues on how to stay sane in a time of proliferating profiles.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56228760387957,"sku":"9780231196017","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780231196017_afc0ee71-f6eb-4ba3-adad-42f0afda79d8.jpg?v=1786012600"},{"product_id":"9780231221283","title":"The Enigma of Gender","description":"Current debates about gender identity are fraught with contradictions. Even as we increasingly recognize gender as an assigned category or social convention, we still see it as inherent to who we are, fundamental to our sense of self. But the quest to find one’s true self is unfulfillable. How can we find alternatives to the focus on getting our identity “right”?This book offers a cultural critique of gender narratives, spanning traditional conformity to gender roles, the modern quest for individual authenticity beyond gender, and the recent social media–fueled concern with curating gendered profiles. Hans-Georg Moeller puts Daoist philosophy into conversation with present-day thinkers, showing why it helps us rethink common notions about identity. Discussing a wide range of cases, from Chinese foot binding to the politics around transgender issues today, he argues that we can defuse our anxieties by recognizing that gender—like all identities—is social, not individual, and changes at different times and in different places. Accessibly written and empathetic, The Enigma of Gender calls on us to be at ease with whoever we happen to be.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56420488905077,"sku":"9780231221283","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-hans-georg-moeller.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}