Realist and Historicist Modes of Critique in Critical Sociology

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2371002
AutoresMathieu Hikaru Desan (0000-0003-0847-7527, University of Colorado Boulder, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume49
Fascículo4-5
Páginas589-612
Data de publicação2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCritical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/08969205221137301
OpenAlexW4309001481
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas61

There are two distinct modes of critique operative in Bourdieu's 'critical sociology'. Bourdieu sometimes engages in what I call the realist mode of critique. This is premised on the idea that naïve experience of the social world dissimulates real relations of domination, which critique then reveals. At other times, Bourdieu engages in what I call the historicist mode of critique, which denaturalizes the doxic experience of the social order by demonstrating its arbitrary character. Whereas realist critique claims that the social world really is other than it appears, historicist critique suggests that it could be otherwise. This tension between the two modes of critique is not unique to Bourdieu, but also present in the Polanyian literature and in the Western Marxist tradition. By distinguishing between the two modes of critique, my aim is to clarify an oft-implicit division that cuts across different critical traditions in the social sciences

Critical theory · Epistemology · Historicism · Marxist philosophy · Politics · Realism · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics