Ted Benton

As an academic, Benton works as an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Essex.^[4] He has taught subjects such as social theory and environmental social science for more than forty years.^[4]

His most notable book is Philosophical Foundations of the Three Sociologies, published by Routledge, which was reviewed in Sociology, Acta Sociologica and the American Journal of Sociology.^[5][6][7] He was influential in some of the early discussions that grew into the critical realism tradition in philosophy of science and the social sciences and has since maintained a realist position, though outside the mainstream of critical realism.^[8] He has had a particular interest in the relation between the social and natural sciences, where he has criticized some of the more constructionist approaches to this relation.^[9] He has also been a strong advocate of eco-socialist ideas, influenced by the Marxist tradition.^[10][11]

Alongside his work in philosophy and social theory, Benton is an active natural historian, who has published well regarded works, specializing in insects and particularly in bees.^[8] In 2007, he received the Stamford Raffles Award given by the Zoological Society of London.^[12]

• Philosophical Foundations of the Three Sociologies (1977)^[12]
• The Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism (1984)
• Natural Relations (1993)
• The Greening of Marxism (editor) (1996)
• Philosophy of Social Science (2001)
• The Butterflies of Colchester and North East Essex (2002)
• The Easy Butterfly Guide: Britain and Europe (2006)
• The Sage Handbook of Environment and Society (2007)
• Nature, Social Relations and Human Needs (2009)
• Grasshoppers and Crickets, Collins New Naturalist (2012)
• Alfred Russel Wallace: Explorer, Evolutionist, Public Intellectual (2013)
• A Naturalist's Guide to the Butterflies of Great Britain and Northern Europe (2017)
• Solitary Bees (2017)
• Solitary Bees, Collins New Naturalist (2023) with Nick Owens

• Stamford Raffles Award^[12]