Barkow, J., L. Cosmides, J. Tooby. The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York: The Free Press, 1973.
A passionate post-Freudian inquiry into the fundamental motivating factors in
human life and culture.
Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of
Religion. New York: Anchor, 1990.
According to Berger, we construct a sacred reality for ourselves out of a deep-rooted
need for security in the face of existential terrors. These projections are
then internalized as representing some sort of objective reality, giving rise
to institutionalized religious traditions that further consolidates its hold
on its adherents.
Berger, Peter L., Thomas Luckman. The Social Construction of Reality: A
Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor, 1967.
This book is a landmark work in the sociology of knowledge of the world around
us. The culture ideologically defines our reality with its media, propaganda,
science, art, and social consciousness.
Berger, Peter L. A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1970.
Berger, Peter L. A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity. New York: Anchor Books, 1992.
Bloor, David. Knowledge and Social Imagery. 1991.
A classic statement of the "strong program" in sociology of science,
that scientific theories are social constructions.
Boyd, Robert, Peter Richerson. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1985.
Ehrlich, Paul R. Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Perspect. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000.
Fischer, Claude S. Inequality by Design. Princeton University
Press, 1996.
A critique of the controversial book entitled The Bell Curve.
Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. New York: Henry Holt, 1990.
The isolation and alienation which characterizes modern life stems from the
idolatrous worship of a "sane" society that values "having"
over "being" and "control" over "community."
Hutcheon, Pat Duffy. Leaving the Cave: Evolutionary Naturalism in Social-Scientific Thought. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996.
Mead, George Herbert, Charles W. Morris. Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
Minsky, Marvin. The Society of Mind. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster,
1986.
The definitive look at how we may think.
Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper & Row, 1951.
Ridley, Matt. The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. Viking Penguin, 1998.
Rose, Hilary, Steven Rose. eds. Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments
against Evolutionary Psychology. Crown Publishing Group, 2000.
The book provides discipline and balance to the Evolutionary Psychology debate
by presenting a cross-disciplinary look at the strengths and weaknesses of the
theory. Contributors include Stephen Jay Gould, Anne Fausto-Sterling, and other
prominent scholars in biology, psychology, natural history, philosophy, and
sociology.
Rosenberg, Charles E. No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
Searle, John R. Mind, Language, and Society: Philosophy in the Real World.
New York: Basic Books, 2000.
A summary of much of his earlier writing on a realist position for a philosophy
and sociology of mind. His is a thoughtful balance between a materialistic reductionist
and a dualist position on the basis of how mind experiences reality.
Searle, John R. The Construction of Social Reality. Free Press, 1998.
According to John Searle, two kinds of facts undergird the construction of social
reality: those independent of human observers and those of a social nature requiring
human agreement. This is a cogent defense of realism.
Sorokin, P. The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques
of Moral Transformation. Boston, MA: The Beacon Press, 1954.
A landmark sociological work on love as ultimate reality. Love is an independent
force and energy existing in boundless quantity throughout the universe and
transmissible to human beings.
Wuthnow, Robert. Rediscovering the Sacred: Perspectives on Religion in Contemporary Society. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992.