Professionalism and Rationality

A Study in Misapprehension

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2326926
AutoresMichael Fores, Ian Glover (0000-0002-8878-1694), Peter A Lawrence (0000-0002-9554-8268), Peter Lawrence (0000-0002-4843-4903)
Año1991
Volumen25
Número1
Páginas79-100
Fecha de publicación1991-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0038-0385 • E-ISSN: 1469-8684
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0038038591025001005
OpenAlexW2031729077
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas23

In an earlier paper the professions were identified as a primarily Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, and associated with economic under-performance. The present paper goes further by questioning the theoretical interpretations of professionalism in the writings of some of the founding fathers, and occasionally of their translators. We variously question here Weber's restricted concept of the entrepreneur, Parsons's rendering of these ideas in English, the assumption that science in general has had a Newtonian character, and that association with science produces a rational disposition in human actors. The view expressed here is that these various misapprehensions - about entrepreneurialism, professionalism, rationality and science - derive from a desire to impose order, to oversimplify phenomena as systems, and to focus on that which may be described and codified, to the neglect of voluntaristic and problematic dimensions

Character (mathematics) · Disposition · Economics · Epistemology · Focus (optics) · Neglect · Order (exchange) · Phenomenon · Rationality · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology