The Strong Program In Cultural SociologyElements of a Structural Hermeneutics (with Philip Smith)

Bibliographic Data

ID23319019
AuthorsJeffrey C Alexander (0000-0003-3600-8023), Philip Smith (0000-0001-7781-4350)
Year2003
Pages11-26
Publication date2003-10-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueThe Meanings of Social Life (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195160840.003.0011
OpenAlexW2487905881
ISBN9780195160840
LanguageEN
Citations received143

This chapter evaluates the competing models or understandings of culture currently available to social theory using the concept of cultural autonomy. It highlights the fundamental flaws that characterize most of these models and proposes an alternative approach that can be broadly understood as a kind of structural hermeneutics. It explains that structuralism and hermeneutics can be made into fine bedfellows because the former offers possibilities for general theory construction, prediction, and assertions of the autonomy of culture while the latter allows analysis to capture the texture and temper of social life.

Autonomy · Epistemology · Hermeneutics · Political science · Social theory · Sociology · Structuralism (philosophy of science) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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