Towards a sociology of culture in India : essays in honour of Professor D.P. Mukerji

The categories employed for the analysis of culture have been constantly changing. These changes have come about as a result of increased application of systematic logico-empirical methods employed for understanding of social phenomena, in response to the changing background of intellectual milieu. The changes thus introduced have been a result of the emergence of a scientific world view; a dynamic interactionistic and relativistic conception of social reality. A total perspective into the varieties of explanations of cultural phenomena would bring out the ever changing and cumulative qualities of the categories and abstractions which from time to time lead to a Conceptualisation of culture. These have, broadly speaking, varied From metaphysical to behaviouristic and empirical. Within this -ange of variation adaptations have constantly taken place on the basis of changing fundamental assumptions. The major polarisation n regard to the latter has been between 'natural' versus 'historical' and 'realist' versus 'nominalist' conceptions of the nature of social eality.