GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
GLOBAL
DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Copyright © 1999 International Development Options
All Rights Reserved
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Volume One Winter 1998-Spring 1999 Numbers 3-4.
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THE NON-MODERN CONDITION: SOCIETIES WITHOUT SOCIOLOGY?
Emilio Ichikawa Morin
Grupo Minverva
Biblioteca nacional
Plaza de la Revolución
Ciudad de La Habana, CUBA
Published online: December 15, 2016
ABSTRACT
This article makes a theoretical claim that modern social theory, which originated in Europe and grew out of the Enlightenment project, is not relevant to explain the condition of social life in most of Latin America. Because Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx theorized transitions to modernity, primarily in Europe, their contributions have only limited explanatory value in large parts of the world. Sociology as the "science of modernity," especially its critical theoretical applicability, is better seen as an instrument of liberation from both traditional illiteracy and the neo-illiteracy of the Hemisphere (not merely the southern half of the hemisphere) today.