Inescapability and Attainability in the Sociology of Modernity

A Note on the Variety of Modes of Social Theorizing

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2398565
AutoresHeidrun Friese (0000-0001-5850-0575, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK/WZB, BERLIN AND EUI,FLORENCE/UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK, autor de correspondencia), Peter Wagner (0000-0003-4416-718X, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK/WZB, BERLIN AND EUI,FLORENCE/UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK)
Año1999
Volumen2
Número1
Páginas27-44
Fecha de publicación1999-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/13684319922224293
OpenAlexW2132903527
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas16

It is a background assumption of much of social science - here called modernist social science - that, in principle, there are neither questions that it cannot decline nor answers that cannot be found. Modernist social science does not accept the issues of inescapability and of attainability; they are names for adversaries that need to be fought against. In contrast to modernism in social theory, this article argues that social theory not only cannot succeed in suppressing the questions of the inescapable and the attainable but indeed needs to be reconceptualized such that an understanding of inescapability and attainability becomes one of its organizing elements. The argument is developed by discussing three central problematics of social theory - the continuity of self, the certainty of knowledge and the viability of the polity - and by showing that an irreducible pluralism of modes of social theorizing exists which includes positions that emphasize the questions of inescapability and attainability. The various perspectives on self, knowledge and polity can be related to each other by reasonings that link a philosophy of the social sciences to a historical sociology of modernity

Certainty · Epistemology · Modernity · Political science · Polity · Social science · Social theory · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Philosophy