En el marco del diagnóstico acerca de la obsolescencia de las categorías fundacionales de la sociología, este trabajo repara en la noción de integración de Talcott Parsons, uno de los focos de ataque predilectos de quienes se alinean en esas concepciones. Para ello, se explora su formulación conceptual en los distintos períodos en que se subdivide su Teoría General de la Acción —Teoría Voluntarista de la Acción; Modelo Trisistémico; Esquema AGIL— para demostrar que, aunque con variaciones, siempre es el concepto (...) clave para responder la pregunta acerca de las condiciones de posibilidad del orden social. Luego, se exponen dos críticas de distinta índole: una, expone algunos argumentos de los autores que postulan su caducidad, comparándolos con la formulación de Parsons; la otra aborda otro conjunto de autores diferentes, que promueven su reconceptualización a luz de la distinción entre integración sistémica e integración social. Finalmente, se defiende la pertinencia de la noción de integración en tanto herramienta heurística clave del lenguaje sociológico. (shrink)

How should sociologists use the word theory? Gabriel Abend’s recent insistence that this question should be tackled politically raises two important issues: Is sociology political? And if so, what normative implications follow for its organization? Drawing on Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance and post-Gramscian theories of hegemony, I argue that Abend’s proposal that semantic questions about theory can be addressed separately from ontological, evaluative, and teleological ones is untenable. Disagreements about the latter are constitutive, not merely supplementary to the meaning (...) of theory. Against Abend’s deliberative-democratically oriented vision, I propose an agonistic politics of theory. In doing so, I consider both the internal inconsistencies of deliberativism and the practical advantages and sociological relevance of agonism. (shrink)

This paper argues for theoretical modeling and model-construction as central types of activities that philosophers of social ontology engage in. This claim is defended through a detailed case study and revisionary interpretation of Raimo Tuomela’s account of the we-perspective. My interpretation is grounded in Ronald Giere’s account of scientific models, and argued to be compatible with, but less demanding than Tuomela’s own description of his account as a philosophical theory of the social world. My approach is also suggested to be (...) applicable to many other methodologically naturalist accounts of collective intentionality and social ontology. (shrink)

Journalists’ and publics’ relationship with truth-telling is so messy because the term “truth” holds multitudes of competing senses that are rarely acknowledged in journalism discourse. People approach contested subjects from many, sometimes incommensurate, senses of truth. When journalists fail to identify the competing senses embedded in varying truth claims, they reproduce confusion as to the validity and verifiability of such claims and contribute to a rolling epistemic crisis in the public sphere. This essay explores six senses of truth – logical, (...) empirical, affective, ideological, authoritarian, and narrative – and discusses their interaction and problematic conflation. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on the value of a humanistic approach to the production and judgement of sociological knowledge by defending this approach against some common criticisms. It argues that humanising sociological knowledge not only lends an appropriate epistemological humility to the discipline, but also encourages productive knowledge development by suggesting that a certain irreverence to what is considered known is far more important for generating useful new perspectives on social phenomena than defensive vindications of existing knowledge. It also suggests that (...) the threat of what is called “relativism” evoked by critics of humanised conceptions of knowledge is largely illusory, and that in fact a far graver danger comes from dogmatic assertions of social truth that claim to have somehow secured access to non-contingent arenas of knowing, forestalling ongoing conversation, and tying future discovery to the limits of current perspectives. (shrink)

Despite decades of development, Actor-Network Theory continues to be characterized by a good deal of ambiguities and internal tensions. This situation has led to a suggestion that instead of one ANT it may be meaningful to speak of ‘the ANT multiple’. Following this line of reasoning, this article aims to create a map of the variety of positions riding under the ANT banner. Based on an in-depth reading of ANT literature, seven different interpretations of ANT are identified and subjected to (...) critical analysis while accommodating for the concerns of ANT proponents about the way ANT has been previously criticized. The results of the analysis serve to increase the reflexivity of both sides of the debate about their underlying assumptions, and provide suggestions how ANT could be employed, developed and criticized more productively in the future. (shrink)

Despite decades of development, Actor-Network Theory continues to be characterized by a good deal of ambiguities and internal tensions. This situation has led to a suggestion that instead of one ANT it may be meaningful to speak of ‘the ANT multiple’. Following this line of reasoning, this article aims to create a map of the variety of positions riding under the ANT banner. Based on an in-depth reading of ANT literature, seven different interpretations of ANT are identified and subjected to (...) critical analysis; it also accommodates for the concerns of ANT proponents about the way ANT has been previously criticized. The results of the analysis serve to increase the reflexivity of both sides of the debate about their underlying assumptions, and provide suggestions how ANT could be employed, developed and criticized more productively in the future. (shrink)

Previous philosophical work on distrust in science has argued that understanding public distrust in science and scientific interventions requires that we pay careful attention not only to epistemic considerations (that is, beliefs about science), but also to values, and the emotional contexts in which assessments of scientific credibility are made. This is likely to be a truncated list of relevant factors for understanding trust/distrust, but these are certainly key areas of concern. The aim of this paper is not to further (...) innumerate the list of relevant factors. Rather, it is to map the ways that these key areas (beliefs, values, and emotions) are related to each other. These are not distinct categories, but rather they interact, making our picture of distrust more complicated than we might otherwise imagine. This discussion will take place in the context of resistance to medical interventions. Notably, Ebola interventions in West Africa, HIV/AIDS testing in South Africa, and vaccines across the world. (shrink)

Discussions in sociological theory often focus on ontological questions on the nature of social reality. Against the underlying epistemological realism, I argue for a constructivist notion of theory: Theories are webs of concepts that we use to guide empirical observations and to make sense of them. We cannot know the real features of the social world, only what our theoretical perspectives make us see. Theories therefore represent social phenomena by highlighting certain features and relating them in a logical system. In (...) this system, theoretical sentences can be considered true if they meet two conditions: They are consistent with the theory at hand and adequately map empirically observable relations between objects denoted by theoretical constructs. Truth is therefore relative to a perspective; it is not objectively determinable. Theories should be assessed not for their ontologies but for what they allow us to see and how they connect to empirical observations. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an outpouring of work at the intersection of social movement studies and organizational theory. While we are generally in sympathy with this work, we think it implies a far more radical rethinking of structure and agency in modern society than has been realized to date. In this article, we offer a brief sketch of a general theory of strategic action fields (SAFs). We begin with a discussion of the main elements of the theory, describe (...) the broader environment in which any SAF is embedded, consider the dynamics of stability and change in SAFs, and end with a respectful critique of other contemporary perspectives on social structure and agency. (shrink)

Resumen: Desde una reflexión teórica, epistemológica y metodológica, este ensayo propone al “abordaje problemático” como metodología para investigar en teoría sociológica. Para esto, se retoman críticamente las postulaciones de Alexander sobre su multidimensionalidad y las de Ritzer acerca de su carácter multiparadigmático. Allí, se señalan ciertos reduccionismos en sus elaboraciones que interpretan a la teoría sociológica desde algunas dicotomías clásicas. En cambio, el abordaje problemático permite dar cuenta de la pluralidad de problemas, presupuestos y análisis que van transformando a la (...) teoría sociológica, la cual tampoco se recorta únicamente por conceptos. Así, se trazan dimensiones y niveles de un problema, que habilitan a comparar perspectivas. Tal trazado es el resultado de un análisis emergente, que las delimita desde los mismos planteos de las perspectivas, al evitar un estudio “interno”, clausurado en un autor, o “externo”, que las interpreta desde una supuesta perspectiva “superadora”. Asimismo, este abordaje y su análisis emergente se ponen a prueba con el problema de las clasificaciones sociales, en el cual se detectan dos dimensiones, atravesadas por dos niveles. El concepto de reclasificaciones sociológicas, como proceso que reclasifica clasificaciones sociales en general, permite una mirada reflexiva sobre la teoría y sus dicotomías.: This essay proposes the “problematic approach” as a methodology to sociological theory. It is based on a critic of Alexander’s multidimensionality and Ritzer’s multiparadigm. The problematic approach allows to account for a diversity of problems, presuppositions and analyses that have been changing sociological theory, which cannot be reduced to concepts. Such is the result of an emergent analysis, limited from the perspectives themselves, as opposed to an “internal” study around an author, and to an “external” one which interprets them from a supposed “superior” perspective. Also, this approach and its emergent analysis are tested through the problem of social classifications, in which two dimensions are crossed by two levels. The concept of sociological reclassifications, as the process that reclassifies general social classifications, allows a reflexive outlook on theory and its dichotomies. (shrink)

This article investigates the status assigned to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as a case study on the development of the concept of theory in twentieth century sociology. I trace this development in the interplay between scholars in the United States and Germany and distinguish three waves of meaning given to the text. The transitions between these phases were brought about by an initial process of mystification of the text in the 1930s and a dynamic (...) of de- and re-mystification beginning in the 1980s. Following this process of (re)interpretation over time, I show that at the beginning of the century the work was perceived as an empirical inquiry, while at the end of the century it was treated as pure theory. Based on the example of the peculiarities of the Weberian expert communities in the United States and Germany, I analyze how the invention of a concept of theory as independent from empirical evidence helped to stabilize the value of scholarly expertise on Weber in the face of otherwise declining resonance of the text. The analysis of this paradigmatic case adds to our understanding of the development, uses, and meaning of theory in contemporary sociology. (shrink)

Despite recent interest in political ethnography, most of the reflection has been on the ethnographic aspect of the enterprise with much less emphasis on the question implicit in the first word of the couplet: What is actually political about political ethnography and how much should ethnographers pre-define it? The question is complicated because a central component of the definition of what is political is actually the struggle to define its jurisdiction and how it gets distinguished from what it is not. (...) In this article we aim to show how ethnography can actually lead us out of this conundrum in which the political is paradoxically both predefined and, at the same time, the open question that leads the process of inquiry. We do so by advancing a formal and relational approach that provides us with procedural tools to define the nature and specificity of the political bond not ex ante, but rather during the process of research itself. In the first part of the article we historicize the development of political ethnography as a distinct avenue for inquiry and show what have been the challenges to its normalization. This is followed by the article’s main section, which focuses on the four ways in which what is political has been conceptualized in contemporary socio-ethnographical literature. In the conclusion of the article, we advance a lowest common denominator definition proposal, with examples from other scholars as well as from our own research to illustrate how this approach would work. (shrink)

The present work is immersed in the context of the contemporary philosophy of science, especially of the semanticist philosophy of the structuralist metatheory. Objectively, the work aims to reestablish the dialogue between the general philosophy of science and the special philosophy developed by scientists concerned with the fundamentals of their discipline, in this case, with sociologists. After presenting the Mertonian notion of middle range theory, the conception of theory that offers ME and, from that conception, a way of conceiving both (...) global intertheoretical relations and intertheoretical change will be presented. Finally, the analysis of the use of the notion of middle range theory in scientific practice will be made, analyzing the specific case of sociological research about organizations. (shrink)

La teoría del etiquetado es la teoría acerca de cómo la autoidentidad y el comportamiento de los individuos pueden ser determinados o influenciados por los términos usados para describirlos o clasificarlos. La teoría se vuelve importante y conquista su espacio destacándose como una de las más productivas teorías acerca de la desviación. En este estudio, con base en una concepción contemporánea de teoría científica, la de la metateoría estructuralista, es presentada una reconstrucción de la propuesta de Howard Becker/Edwin Lemert, lo (...) que permite explicitar la estructura profunda de la teoría. (shrink)

Concepts of decision, choice, decision-maker, and decision-making are common practical tools in both social science and natural science, on which scientific knowledge, policy implications, and moral recommendations are based. In this article I address three questions. First, I look into how present-day social scientists and natural scientists use decision/choice concepts. What are they used for? Second, scientists may differ in the application of decision/choice to X, and they may explicitly disagree about the applicability of decision/choice to X. Where exactly do (...) these disagreements lie? Third, I ask how scientists should use decision/choice concepts. What are they correctly and incorrectly used for? I argue that scientists must responsibly attend to a methodological demand: you have to have a principled, non-ad hoc, well-argued-for way of telling where decision/choice applicability ends. Thus, I aim to minimize the risk of conceptual stretching and foster responsible conceptual practices in a large body of scientific work. (shrink)

This article presents a case study of the structure and logic of the author’s dissertation, with a focus on theoretical content. Designed for use in proposal writing seminars or research methods courses, the article stresses the value of identifying the originating, specifying and subsidiary research questions; clarifying the subject and object of the research; situating research within a particular research tradition, and using a competing theories approach. The article stresses the need to identify conceptual problems and empirical problems and their (...) associated conceptual and operational definitions. The primary theoretical perspective is drawn from emerging sociology of externalities rooted in ecological theory, within the institutionalist tradition. (shrink)