Description
Pragmatist thought is central to sociology. However, sociologists typically encounter pragmatism indirectly, as a philosophy of science or as an influence on canonical social scientists, rather than as a vital source of theory, research questions, and methodological reflection in sociology today.
In The New Pragmatist Sociology, Neil Gross, Isaac Ariail Reed, and Christopher Winship assemble a range of sociologists to address essential ideas in the field and their historical and theoretical connection to classical pragmatism. The book examines questions of methodology, social interaction, and politics across the broad themes of inquiry, agency, and democracy. Essays engage widely and deeply with topics that motivate both pragmatist philosophy and sociology, including rationality, speech, truth, expertise, and methodological pluralism.
Contributors include Natalie Aviles, Karida Brown, Daniel Cefai, Mazen Elfakhani, Luis Flores, Daniel Huebner, Cayce C. Hughes, Paul Lichterman, John Levi Martin, Ann Mische, Vontrese D. Pamphile, Jeffrey N. Parker, Susan Sibley, Daniel Silver, Mario Small, Iddo Tavory, Stefan Timmermans, Luna White, and Joshua Whitford.
About the Author
Neil Gross is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Colby College. He is the author of Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? (2013) and Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher (2008).
Isaac Ariail Reed is professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Power in Modernity: Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King's Two Bodies (2020) and Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the Use of Theory in the Human Sciences (2011).
Christopher Winship is Diker-Tishman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and a senior faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is coauthor of Counterfactuals and Causal Inference: Methods and Principles for Social Research (second edition, 2014).
Reviews
The New Pragmatist Sociology introduces readers to the long sociological tradition of pragmatism and shows how it can be harnessed effectively to address a wide range of empirical problems central to the discipline. The editors are widely considered among the leading voices in the pragmatist revival, and this volume illuminates a promising path for sociology to take. -- Peter Bearman, author of Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart
Reading this book, many of us will discover that we have always been pragmatists, without knowing it. The New Pragmatist Sociology proposes to lead the social sciences out of the wilderness of crisis in which we have been wandering for the past fifty-odd years. Its rich and diverse range of topics-from everyday life to structural issues of racism and inequality-simultaneously demonstrates and enacts pragmatism's breadth and significance. More than a theory or methodology, it becomes a double mode of engagement, of sociologists in pragmatic inquiry and sociologists coming to understand people engaging in pragmatic action. -- John R. Hall, author of Apocalypse: From Antiquity to the Empire of Modernity
Book Information
ISBN 9780231203791
Author Neil L. Gross
Format Paperback
Page Count 456
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
In The New Pragmatist Sociology, Neil Gross, Isaac Ariail Reed, and Christopher Winship assemble a range of sociologists to address essential ideas in the field and their historical and theoretical connection to classical pragmatism. The book examines questions of methodology, social interaction, and politics across the broad themes of inquiry, agency, and democracy. Essays engage widely and deeply with topics that motivate both pragmatist philosophy and sociology, including rationality, speech, truth, expertise, and methodological pluralism.
Contributors include Natalie Aviles, Karida Brown, Daniel Cefai, Mazen Elfakhani, Luis Flores, Daniel Huebner, Cayce C. Hughes, Paul Lichterman, John Levi Martin, Ann Mische, Vontrese D. Pamphile, Jeffrey N. Parker, Susan Sibley, Daniel Silver, Mario Small, Iddo Tavory, Stefan Timmermans, Luna White, and Joshua Whitford.
About the Author
Neil Gross is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Colby College. He is the author of Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? (2013) and Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher (2008).
Isaac Ariail Reed is professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Power in Modernity: Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King's Two Bodies (2020) and Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the Use of Theory in the Human Sciences (2011).
Christopher Winship is Diker-Tishman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and a senior faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is coauthor of Counterfactuals and Causal Inference: Methods and Principles for Social Research (second edition, 2014).
Reviews
The New Pragmatist Sociology introduces readers to the long sociological tradition of pragmatism and shows how it can be harnessed effectively to address a wide range of empirical problems central to the discipline. The editors are widely considered among the leading voices in the pragmatist revival, and this volume illuminates a promising path for sociology to take. -- Peter Bearman, author of Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart
Reading this book, many of us will discover that we have always been pragmatists, without knowing it. The New Pragmatist Sociology proposes to lead the social sciences out of the wilderness of crisis in which we have been wandering for the past fifty-odd years. Its rich and diverse range of topics-from everyday life to structural issues of racism and inequality-simultaneously demonstrates and enacts pragmatism's breadth and significance. More than a theory or methodology, it becomes a double mode of engagement, of sociologists in pragmatic inquiry and sociologists coming to understand people engaging in pragmatic action. -- John R. Hall, author of Apocalypse: From Antiquity to the Empire of Modernity
Book Information
ISBN 9780231203791
Author Neil L. Gross
Format Paperback
Page Count 456
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press
