Concept
State of affairs (sociology)
Overview
combination of circumstances applying within a society or group at a particular time
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
But in the primitive condition out of which explicit desire is evolved, this is not the case. We have a state of affairs which may be said to involve discomfort, and activities of various sorts until a certain different state of affairs is achieved, or fatigue supervenes, or some other interest causes a distraction. These activities will be such as to achieve the new state of affairs quickly if there has been…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
Names State of affairs several times; states what State of affairs is.
they must be bodily movements in whose causation the special properties of nervous tissue are involved. The cycle ends in a condition of quiescence, or of such action as tends only to preserve the status quo. The state of affairs in which this condition of quiescence is achieved is called the "purpose" of the cycle, and the initial mental occurrence involving discomfort is called a "desire" for the state of affairs…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
Names State of affairs several times; states what State of affairs is.
That there is a thing called the will of God which, once and for all time, determines what man ought to do and what he ought not to do; that the worth of a people, or of an individual thereof, is to be measured by the extent to which they or he obey this will of God; that the destinies of a people or of an individual are _controlled_ by this will of God, which rewards or punishes according to the degree of obedience…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist
States what State of affairs is; opens on State of affairs.
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Communism.
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