What was the connection between the structure of the German economy in the 1930s and German aggression in World Warii? Adam Tooze’sWages of Destructionforcefully poses this issue, but fails to adequately resolve it. Instead, on this decisive question, his analysis oscillates uneasily between two equally unconvincing models: rational-choice theory and cultural determinism. This surprising explanatory failure derives from an inadequate theorisation of German imperialism as the expression of the combined and uneven development of the German economy and society in the (...) late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. (shrink)

This article examines the connections among heuristics, the epistemological and ontological presuppositions that underlie theorizing, and substantive explanations in sociology. It develops and contrasts three heuristics: “doing as knowing” (DK), “categorizing as knowing” (CK), and “praxis as knowing” (PK). These are each composed of four dimensions: the theory of knowledge, the theory of reality, the theory of the growth of knowledge, and the theory of knowledge producers. The article then shows the importance of heuristics for empirical work by demonstrating how (...) they shape explanations in the sociological subfield of the historical sociology of knowledge. The essay draws two main conclusions: it argues that PK offers a more useful basis for developing explanations in sociology than either of the two alternatives (DK and CK) that currently shape substantive work; furthermore, it claims that the exposition of heuristic assumptions is an important task for sociology. (shrink)