Recovering the critical potential of social pathology diagnosis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7538403 |
|---|---|
| Authors | N Harris (0000-0002-7336-1902, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 45-62 |
| Publication date | 2018-04-09 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1368431018766272 |
| OpenAlex | W2799988683 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 20 |
While the framework of social pathology remains a crucial tool for critical social theorists, there is confusion and debate surrounding the precise nature of the heuristic. The core argument of this article is that while the diagnosis of social pathology harbours radical potential as a critical device, recent developments have led to the ascendancy of a restrictive, recognition-cognitive understanding. I argue that this has displaced alternate, more radical framings. To illustrate the changing face of the heuristic, this article opens by articulating the merits and demerits of five predominant conceptions of social pathology. The second section elucidates the turn to increasingly view social pathology in a manner compatible with just one of these five framings. By drawing on, and extending, the existing critical literature, I seek to demonstrate the relative limitations of such an understanding. Throughout this analysis, I argue for the continued relevance of social pathology diagnosis, the need for sustained critical scholarship, and the dangers of embracing too readily the turn to an exclusively recognition-cognitive understanding of social pathology
Argument (complex analysis · Confusion · Epistemology · Heuristic · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Relevance (law · Scholarship · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Critical Realism in Sociology · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics
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The Sociality of Madness
Pathologies of society and social philosophy
Social pathologies, recognition, and forms of life
The critique of alienation and the integration of the actor's perspective
André Gorz and contemporary Frankfurt School Critical Theory
From sociology to social theory
Critical Theory and Universal Basic Income
Schumacher in the age of generative AI
Is populism a social pathology? The myth of immediacy and its effects
The Politics of Recognition
IX.—Essentially Contested Concepts
Reason and Revolution. Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory.
Domestication of Critical Theory
Pathological normalcy
Reification
Honneth on Social Pathologies
Pathologies of recognition
The Possibility of a Disclosing Critique of Society
The Idea of Crisis in Modern Society
The Diseases of Society
Critical social philosophy, Honneth and the role of primary intersubjectivity
| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,86 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |