1st Edition
The Future of Sociology Ideology or Objective Social Science?
This book explores the shift in sociology away from the shared aspiration of the classical transition, of transcending partiality through the construction of a "science of society", in the face of challenges to the notion of objectivity.
With the increasing subjugation of sociology to political ideologies and a growing emphasis on "policy", which casts sociology in the role of a provider of intellectual content for political programs, this volume asks whether the situation is the result of an exhaustion of ideas or might perhaps be rooted in the failure in the very program of establishing sociology as a science. Taking seriously the challenges to the classical aspiration of constructing theories that both explain and are grounded in empirical reality, The Future of Sociology asks whether the core idea of transcending ideology is still worth pursuing, and whether there remains scope for making sociology scientific.
As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social theory, and social scientific methodology.
Part I: What is Sociology?
Chapter 1
Sociology: Before the Origin
Dominique Raynaud
Chapter 2
Sociology in Search of Grounded Knowledge
Simon Langlois
Chapter 3
Sociology Today and the Classical Legacy
Gerard Delanty
Part II: Unity and Disunity
Chapter 4
Social Sciences and Natural Sciences: Which Unit?
Thierry Martin
Chapter 5
The Lessons of Rational Choice Theory
James Rule
Chapter 6
Middle-Range Theories and the Unification Problem in Social Science
Alban Bouvier
Chapter 7
Running from Madness?: Sociology’s Dread of the Irrational
Alan Sica
Part III: Objectivity or Ideology?
Chapter 8
Sociology as a Profession in a Post-Truth World
Martyn Hammersley
Chapter 9
From Luhmann to Esser: On Changing Intellectual Dominance in German Mainstream Sociology
Phillip Korom
Chapter 10
Rationalization, Science, and Politics: A Sociological Fable
James Chriss
Chapter 11
The Two Parts of Sociological Objectivity
Stephen Turner
Biography
Robert Leroux is Professor of Sociology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is the author of History and Sociology in France: From Scientific History to the Durkheimian School, French Liberalism in the 19th Century and Political Economy and Liberalism in France. He is the editor of The Anthem Companion to Gabriel Tarde and the co-editor of The Anthem Companion to Maurice Halbwachs.
Thierry Martin is Professor Emeritus at the University of Franche-Comté and a researcher at the Logiques de l´agir laboratory and at the Institut d’histoire et de philosophie des scienceset des techniques, France.
Stephen Turner is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Florida, USA. His recent books include Cognitive Science and the Social: A Primer, The Politics of Expertise, Understanding the Tacit, and American Sociology: From Pre-Disciplinary to Post-Normal.
' … a timely and important book, both for its central theme and the wider implications, reflecting, as it does, broader societal developments such as the existence of fake news, a climate of post-truth and the dominance, at times, of ideologically motivated policy rather than policy based on factual analysis.' – Judith Glaesser, Sociology
