In hmolscience, Ghassan Hage (1957-) is a Lebanese-born Australian social anthropologist noted for []
Overview
In 2011, Hage was the co-editor of the collaborative book Force, Movement, Intensity: the Newtonian Imagination in the Humanities and Social Sciences, along with Australian cultural anthropologist Emma Kowal, noted for her work on machines as metaphor for society (see: human machine), such as found in the work of Thomas Hobbes, which is filled with sixteen rich multi-author chapters on what seems to be the history of physical sociology, scientific sociology, and social physics (see: two cultures namesakes), discussing thinkers such as Vilfredo Pareto, Lawrence Henderson, Auguste Comte, indexed with niche topics such as social gravity. [1]
The book discusses Prussian general Carl Clausewitz, noted for his moral and romantic theory of warfare, who in his 1832 posthumously-published treatise On War, used the principle of friction to distinguish real war from the mechanical, Newtonian world, and speculates on his possible knowledge of the thermodynamics of Sadi Carnot—though this latter supposition seems doubtful, as Carnot’s self-published 1824 On the Motive Power of Fire was not generally known until 1834 when popularized by Emile Clapeyron.
Hage, an expert in the work of Pierre Bourdieu, contributed a chapter entitled “Social Gravity: Pierre Bourdieu’s Phenomenological Social Physics” on Bourdieu's supposed social gravity based social physics theories. [2]
Quotes
The following are noted quotes from the book:
“Why were the first human scientists so determined to be the Newton’s of social theory? Surely, the activities of human beings are not like the motions of planets in their orbits, or rigid spheres rolling down inclined planes? Surely, they are far more like the behavior of living creatures? So why did the initial creators of the human sciences not rely on models from biology in their theory-building, rather than on implausible analogies with physics.”
— Stephen Toulmin (1998), “The Idol of Stability” [3]
References
1. (a) Hage, Ghassan and Kowal, Emma. (2011). Force, Movement, Intensity: the Newtonian Imagination in the Humanities and Social Science (GB) (Amz) (thermodynamics, 3+ pgs). Melbourne University Press.
(b) Emma Kowal (faculty) – University of Melbourne.
2. Hage, Ghassan. (2011). “Social Gravity: Pierre Bourdieu’s Phenomenological Social Physics”, in: Force, Movement, Intensity: the Newtonian Imagination in the Humanities and Social Sciences (§7, pgs. #). (editors: Hage Ghassan and Emma Kowal). Melbourne University Press.
3. Toulmin, Stephen. (1998). “The Idol of Stability”, Tanner Lectures on Human Values, University of Southern California, 9-11 Feb.
Further reading
● Hage, Ghassan and Kowal, Emma. (2011). “The Newtonian Fantasy and its “Social” Other”, in: Force, Movement, Intensity: the Newtonian Imagination in the Humanities and Social Sciences (§1, pgs. #). (editors: Hage Ghassan and Emma Kowal). Melbourne University Press.
External links
● Ghassan Hage – Wikipedia.
● Ghassan Hage (faculty) – University of Melbourne.
