Canon Formation in Late 20th-Century British Sociology

Abstract

Along with other key thinkers of the later 20th century such as Foucault and Habermas, these four sociologists, from different geographical and theoretical bases, transformed the shape of British sociology and its relation to social theory. K E Y WO R D S Bauman / Beck / Bourdieu / canon / Giddens[We should ask] …if the will to know is not surreptitiously motivated …by a special kind of the will to power, which is displayed in the fact of attempting to adopt towards rivals, reduced to the status of objects, a point of view which they are unable or unwilling to adopt towards themselves. (Bourdieu, 1988(Bourdieu, [1984: xiii-xiv) 1In his classic Sociology of Philosophies, Randall Collins (1998: xix and Appendix 1) identifies a generational period of around 33-35 years as the crucial accounting unit in the history of thought.The century, the period of 100 years, is an arbitrary unit … It would be theoretically more illuminating to describe intellectual history in terms of active generations, about 3 per hundred years. A 33-year period is the approximate length of an individual's creative work. By the end of that time, a cohort of thinkers will be virtually replaced by a new adult generation. Generational periods constitute a more or less minimal unit for structural change in an intellectual attention space. (1998: xix) 2The last 35 years or so in British sociology (by which I mean sociology written and taught in the UK) have been marked, I think, by two processes of 'canonization'. 3 The first is that of the holy trinity of Marx, Weber and Durkheim

Hermeneutics and the ‘classic’ problem in the human sciences

“…Marshall and Witz (2004) take the classic authors to task for their "masculinist" assumptions. Outhwaite (2009) examines the growth in the canonical status of Bauman, Beck, Bourdieu and Giddens in late 20 th century Britain. The most extensive overview of the issue generally is in Baehr (2002) 4 Although it does not affect Bloom"s overall argument about the excellence of classic texts, there is more dispute over the authorship of Shakespeare"s plays than he allows.…”

“…By including certain authors, the canon necessarily excludes others, but it is far from impermeable and can expand to include many more. William Outhwaite (2009) who conceived sociology in a quite different, "interpretive" way, such as Douglas (1971), saw no reason to accept his ideas. Durkheim"s work has been regularly dismissed as positivist, and/or conservative, and as an exemplar of sociology being led into an intellectual a cul-de-sac by ignoring the importance of agency in everyday life (1971: 4-9).…”

Co je dnes v sociologii obhajitelné? Prezentismus, historická vize a proč je sociologie užitečná

“…Empirický výzkum tak bývá správně zasazen v čase a dostane se mu i teoretického nátěru, což poslouží jako mocný legitimizující mechanismus v oblasti bádání, kde je zvykem podpořit vlastní práci symbolickým propojením s velikány považovanými za nejvýznamnější intelektuály dnešní doby [Bourdieu 1992]. Outhwaite [2009] tvrdí, že britská sociologie si ve srovnání s jinými národy prosazující-mi sociologii obzvlášť libuje v procesech kanonizace. Outhwaite v tomto kontextu jmenuje Anthonyho Giddense, Pierra Bourdieua, Ulricha Becka a Zygmunta Baumana.…”

‘Information’: Praxeological Considerations

“…In cases where more than one classification may be assigned, it is not the case that the final classification is necessarily incorrect, as Outhwaite (2009Outhwaite ( : 1030 complains of the classification of Giddens' Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. Instead, classification is an intersubjective, practical activity.…”