From Philosophy to Sociology

Elias and the Neo-Kantians (A Response to Benjo Maso)

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11626612
AutoresRichard Kilminster (autor correspondente), C Wouters (0000-0003-4183-7790)
Ano1995
Volume12
Fascículo3
Páginas81-120
Data de publicação1995-08-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoTheory Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0263-2764 • E-ISSN: 1460-3616
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/026327695012003004
OpenAlexW2083102954
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas18
Referências citadas29

Tracing Elias's intellectual debts is an interesting task, but not an easy one. Elias did not assign much priority to carefully delineating them and situating himself in relation to other writers and schools, in anything like the detail that, say, Parsons, Habermas, Bourdieu or Giddens have done. As Johan Goudsblom (1977:79) said, Elias managed to integrate through empirical research many seemingly incompatible perspectives into a 'workable synthesis', a single model of human interdependence. He regarded the scientific task of building this synthesis, applying and elaborating it, as more important than digressing into the sources of the concepts or insights which he had absorbed, let alone entering into disputes about how his use of various concepts or ideas differed from those of others. Elias further complicated the issue by challenging the conventional assumption that an 'influence' always had to come from a book: 'I am extremely conscious of the fact that others have influenced me, that I have learned from others - though not only from books, but also from the events of my age' (quoted by Goudsblom, 1977:78). Elias probably genuinely could not see why anyone should be interested in where he had got his ideas from. He assumed people would see that the 'workable synthesis' was everything. Working directly from the sociological model to empirical areas in this rather unorthodox way, was not without its dangers. It exposed Elias to the risk of commentators (often, like Maso, using the history of ideas approach, which lends itself to this kind of exercise) finding in his books apparent similarities with the ideas of others but, failing to appreciate the synthetic character of his work, accusing him of unacknowledged derivation, lack of originality or worse. However, seriously attempting to trace Elias's intellectual origins is an important task, because this kind of research can help us to understand and evaluate his synthesis, as a socialscientific achievement. This task has already begun in relation to the sociology of knowledge (Rehberg, 1979; Kilminster, 1993); sociology, history and psychology (Goudsblom 1987:42-60); social psychology (Niestroj, 1989); evolutionary biology (Kilminster 1991; 1994); and psychoanalysis (Schroter 1993a)

Empirical research · Epistemology · Relation (database · Sociology · Computer Science · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Sociology and Norbert Elias