摘要：There is no doubt that the theory of social representations is one of the most popular,but at the same time one of the most controversial theories in contemporary social psychology.Its author,Serge Moscovici,conceived it with the explicit intention to create an alternative to the prevailing individualistic and psychologising,North-American social psychology.The theory of social representations is aimed at being a new social-psyhological paradigm,which would enable this scientific field to occupy a central place among the social sciencies.This place is supposed to be reserved for the field that would be able to connect the individual and the collective level of explanation of human behaviour.Because of such promisses,the theory of social representations took over the immagination of many european scholars,and research that refers to it in some way is abundant.However,there is also a darker side to the theory.It is incomplete and full of internal inconsistencies.Some authors repeatedly stress these points,but apparently without any considerable success.The theory of social representations has recently been presented in Slovenia (Vec,1999),but without any serious attempt of evaluation and therefore,in my view,in an unsatisfactory way.Here I try to fill this gap,and so I focus on the logical structure of the theory and at its existing critiques.At the same time I try to explain the reasons for the theory's great popularity from a historical and socio-psychological point of view.In order to accomplish all that,I try to present the theory of social representations first,which — although already attempted many times — is by no means an easy task.
其他摘要：Teorija socialnih predstav je gotovo ena izmed najpopularnejših,pa tudi najbolj spornih teorij v sodobni socialni psihologiji.Njen avtor,Serge Moscovici,jo je zasnoval z eksplicitnim namenom ustvariti alternativo prevladujoči individualistični in psihologizirajoči severnoameriški socialni psihologiji.Teorija socialnih predstav naj bi predstavljala novo socialnopsihološko paradigmo,ki bi tej znanstveni disciplini omogočila zasesti osrednje mesto med družboslovnimi znanostmi,kar pomeni,da bi povezala individualno in kolektivno raven razlag človeškega vedenja.Zaradi takih obljub je teorija socialnih predstav prevzela domišljijo velikega števila evropskih socialnih psihologov in raziskave,ki se tako ali drugače sklicujejo nanjo,se kar vrstijo.A teorija socialnih predstav ima tudi temnejšo plat.Polna je notranjih nekonsistentnosti in nedorečenosti,na katere nekateri avtorji neutrudno opozarjajo,čeprav na videz brez večjega uspeha.Teorija socialnih predstav je bila v našem prostoru pred kratkim že predstavljena (Vec,1999),vendar brez kakšnega posebnega poskusa ovrednotenja in zato po mojem mnenju nezadovoljivo.S pričujočim prispevkom želim zapolniti to vrzel,zato se osredotočam predvsem na logično strukturo teorije ter na kritike,ki so bile s tem v zvezi že izražene.Hkrati poskušam nekoliko osvetliti veliko popularnost teorije socialnih predstav z zgodovinskega in socialnopsihološkega vidika.Seveda pa svojega cilja ne morem doseči brez ponovnega poskusa predstavitve teorije same,kar je zaradi njenih prej omenjenih lastnosti precej težka naloga.
