Ecstatic Freedom: On Peter Berger’s Humanistic Sociology

• Main Authors: Wen-Shu Tang, 唐文書
• Other Authors: Kam-cheong Choi
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/16918338620828385638

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 社會學系 === 97 === Peter Berger considers that sociology is to debunk the world-taken-for-granted――this world is fictitious and precarious. The world-taken-for-granted is pretended by everyone in society, but in fact this world is constructed through fictitious and precarious roles. People in society usually live inauthentically with bad faith. To live inauthentically is to pretend that the world is ordered and is the okay world. In fact, there is no order but only disorderly realities in the world. Peter Berger thinks this condition is like a kind of comic discrepancy. Therefore, this is also the comic perspective on society. This perspective debunks that society is a fictitious carnival and ecstatically steps out the world-taken-for-granted. To ecstatically step out the world-taken-for-granted is to confront the disorderly world as such. And, to confront the disorderly world means to confront the human condition as such. This is what humanistic sociology means for Berger. In other words, this is not only a human comedy but also a human tragedy. We could confront this tragedy with the comic perspective.