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This article adds to an on-going conceptual discussion on the usefulness of the 'bystander' term when applied to the Holocaust and its aftermath. This catch-all concept, mostly associated with Raul Hilberg, has been the subject of fierce criticism, leading some to apply it only with adjectives ('innocent', 'active' or 'passive') and others to dismiss the concept altogether. Taking the Jewish–Gentile relations in Topoľčany as a case study, it becomes clear that the concept has many shortcomings when applied to the microcosm of a particular event. On the basis of Giovanni Sartori's writings on concept formation and the 'ladder of abstraction', we argue against dismissing the concept altogether in exchange for limiting its degree of applicability. As shown, the 'bystander' concept can be useful when approached with discipline and while being aware of the level of its generalisation.

What Adorno means by critical theory & the sorts of claims he makes for critical theory in relation to other sociologists is discussed. An explanation of what Adorno means by the terms "concept" & "object" is given. According to Adorno, there are three ways of thinking: identity thinking, nonidentity thinking, & rational identity thinking. The ways of formation of his concepts in the cognition of society & in what sense they are theoretical & critical are analyzed. Attempts are made to assess whether critical theory is coherent & whether it provides a sociological perspective & methodology sui generis. This is done by showing the importance of the concept of 'reification' in Adorno's understanding, explaining its meaning, its role in the formation of other concepts. Adorno's criticism of sociologists who employ "total concepts" is contrasted with is own dependence on the concept of totality. In order to show Adorno's principles in action, his discussion of the concepts "static" & "dynamic" as sociological categories, & his discussion of the problem of value judgments & the concept of "value" are considered. G. Briskin.

CRITICAL THEORY DOES NOT PROCEED BY POSTULATING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG INDEPENDENTLY DEFINED VARIABLES, NOR DOES IT PROCEED BY CONCEIVING OPPOSITIONS WHICH GIVES RISE IN TO YET ANOTHER OPPOSITION. CRITICAL THEORY IS THE CONCONSCIOUSNESS ANTINOMIES WHICH MAKES THE NECESSITY OF THE ANTINOMIES IT DISCOVERS TRANSPARENT.

This article reports on an ethnographic study focusing on the impact of in-cell television on prison life in a male adult prison in the UK. Layder's social domains model (1997; 2006) and his adaptive analysis (1998; 2014), were used to give shape, meaning and organization to data from interviews with prisoners and staff and also television-use diaries. The research highlighted how television is adopted for its care-giving qualities ( Knight 2015 ; 2016). This article focuses primarily on what prisoners do and what prison does, with emotions. The paper focuses on examining and developing theoretical and methodological conceptual links between self, emotions and control in the prison setting.

Central concepts in the field of sociology of organisations - as for instance formalisation, standardisation and organisational structure - are insufficiently and often only arbitrarily defined. This superficiality is striking because many organisational sociologists claim they are working in the tradition of Max Weber. The generally assumed conceptual relationship between an administrative staff under rational legal authority and his types of action is based on an inadequate reading of his work and in this contribution a conceptual definition of the actions of administrative staff members is developed out of the basic concept `social relationship', in particular the associative relationship. From this analysis of both basic concepts and the Weberian account of an administrative staff, a proposal is developed for new concepts of organisation and also of `formalisation' and `standardisation'. This contribution further provides a new basis for identifying the informal and formal aspects of an organisation and stresses that the formal side does not involve a determinate pattern of action.