ABSTRACT
Risk is addressed nowadays by a wide variety of special research areas and even by different scientific disciplines. The traditional statistical treatment of risk calculation has been joined by economic research. Cultural anthropologists, social anthropologists, and political scientists point out — and rightly — that the evaluation of risk and willingness to accept risk are not only psychological problems, but above all social problems. For sociology, topic of risk ought to be subsumed under a theory of modern society, and should be shaped by the conceptual apparatus thereof. Risk calculation is clearly the secular counterpart to a repentance-minimization programme; in any case an attitude inconsistent in temporal sequence of events. In the largely English-language literature the words risk, hazard, and danger are available and are usually employed almost synonymously. Like the distinction risk/security, distinction risk/danger is constructed asymmetrically. In both cases the risk concept indicates a complex state that, at least in modern society, is a normal aspect of life.
