Ethical Conduct in the Present Age: The Case of Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard is widely read in the disciplinary spheres of philosophy and theology. However, the sociological resonance of some of his work has been overlooked. This paper seeks to introduce aspects of Kierkegaard's account of 'the present age' to a sociological audience. Kierkegaard's concerns are explored in the context of themes and issues raised by Max Weber. The paper has two themes. First, the paper uses the example of Kierkegaard to explore the relationship of the Protestant Ethic (which is identified as a mode of the production of the personality of the individual) with the Spirit of Capitalism (which is identified as a life order). Second, the paper outlines aspects of Kierkegaard's diagnosis of 'the present age' which might be of interest to a sociological audience.     

Action as Will-Power

The concept of power, as commonly formulated in contemporary sociology, is noted to lack any reference to the critical dimension of personal conative striving, or will-power. This deficiency is shown to stem from an overly cognitive conception of action, one in which acts are seen to embody choice and meaning but not emotion or effort, a view that has been reinforced by the use of trivial, easily-accomplished acts as examples to illustrate the nature of action. A perspective is advocated that redresses this imbalance; one that accepts that the immediate cause of all true actions is an act of will and that action is best conceived of as behaviour that individuals allow to happen to them. Power is then defined as an individual's ability to initiate and maintain action despite behavioural resistance, a conceptualization that closely links it to the concept of 'character'. This perspective on human conduct is then shown to be identical to that adopted by Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism .     

Towards design sociology

In this review essay, I introduce and map the field of what I call “design sociology”. I argue that design research methods have relevance to a wide range of sociological research interests, and particularly for applied research that seeks to understand people's engagements with objects, systems and services, better engage publics and other stakeholders, work towards social change, and identify and intervene in futures. I discuss 3 main ways in which design sociology can be conducted: the sociology of design, sociology through design and sociology with design. I explain key terms in design and dominant approaches in social design research—participatory, critical, adversarial, speculative, and ludic design. Examples of how sociologists have already engaged with design research methods are outlined. The essay concludes with suggestions about what the future directions of design sociology might be.     

Weber's alleged emotivism

This paper seeks to refute Alasdair MacIntyre's contention that the sociology of Max Weber is emotivist. MacIntyre understands emotivism to involve the collapse of all moral judgment into statements of personal preference. It is shown that Weber's sociology analyses this condition and seeks to repudiate it. In no way does Weber embrace emotivism. MacIntyre misses Weber's repudiation because he misreads Weber's sociological project. The paper shows that MacIntyre's reading of Weber can be refuted if attention is paid to the 'Politics as a Vocation' lecture.     

The concept of adequate causation and Max Weber's comparative sociology of religion

Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, studied in isolation, shows mainly an elective affinity or an adequacy on the level of meaning between the Protestant ethic and the 'spirit' of capitalism. Here it is suggested that Weber's subsequent essays on 'The Economic Ethics of World Religions' are the result of his opinion that adequacy on the level of meaning needs and can be verified by causal adequacy. After some introductory remarks, particularly on elective affinity, the paper tries to develop the concept of adequate causation and the related concept of objective possibility on the basis of the work of v. Kries on whom Weber heavily relied. In the second part, this concept is used to show how the study of the economic ethics of India, China, Rome and orthodox Russia can support the thesis that the 'spirit' of capitalism, although it may not have been caused by the Protestant ethic, was perhaps adequately caused by it.     

Charitable giving and lay morality: understanding sympathy,moral evaluations and social positions

This paper examines how charitable giving offers an example of lay morality, reflecting people's capacity for fellow‐feeling, moral sentiments, personal reflexivity, ethical dispositions, moral norms and moral discourses. Lay morality refers to how people should treat others and be treated by them, matters that are important for their subjective and objective well‐being. It is a first person evaluative relation to the world (about things that matter to people). While the paper is sympathetic to the ‘moral boundaries’ approach, which seeks to address the neglect of moral evaluations in sociology, it reveals this approach to have some shortcomings. The paper argues that although morality is always mediated by cultural discourses and shaped by structural factors, it also has a universalizing character because people have fellow‐feelings, shared human conditions, and have reason to value.     

Faith, Reason, and Charisma: Rudolf Sohm, Max Weber, and the Theology of Grace

Charismatic authority has been central to twentieth-century politics and theory, yet confusion about charisma is rife. Max Weber's classic texts on this subject have been a major source of insight, yet key features of his analysis remain obscure–so much so that many scholars who call themselves Weber's disciples defend views opposed to his. For Weber, charisma is a social status; for many "Weberians," charisma is a personal quality. For Weber, charisma is a quicksilver, unstable form of authority; for his errant followers, it is an existential limit to democracy. One reason for this contradiction is that, influenced by the theologian Rudolf Sohm, Weber used the vocabulary of the theology of grace. Many readers, unfamiliar with the nature of Weber's debt to theology, have thought that Weber, like Rudolf Sohm, viewed charisma as a divinely given personal quality. In fact, however, Max Weber's sociology of charisma is radically opposed to Sohm's theology.     

Sur le langage et l’écriture en sociologie Brèves considérations théoriques et pratiques à partir de Bourdieu

After showing that language and writing are used as basic resources in sociology, this article seeks to identify issues raised by writing in sociology to produce the knowledge expected of this discipline as other social sciences. After considering the status of sociological knowledge and use of language that this knowledge requires, the article seeks to define the rules to be followed by sociologists in order to explain what it means in science. The arguments presented here differ from those developed in some post-modern theories, according to which sociology is after all only a matter of language, and sociologists are authors like novelists. The article is based on considerations developed in particular by Pierre Bourdieu.     

Contemplating a postmodern sociology: genealogy, limits and critique

As its title suggests, this paper explores certain directions a specifically postmodern sociology (rather than say a sociology of postmodernism) might take. It reinterprets Gouldner's prescient warnings of a crisis in ‘academic’ sociology as an expression of despair within modern sociology. In particular, three important ‘contradictions’ are examined as possible points of departure for a postmodern sociological discourse. Foucault's genealogical approach, it is argued, is useful in helping to orientate any attempts to develop a sociology of this kind. The analysis concludes by anticipating possible objections, showing how these might profitably be incorporated into future enquiries. The aim of the paper is not to offer concrete enunciations for a postmodern sociology, but to develop more modest rules of thumb through which such a discourse might be erected.     

The politics of figurational sociology

Figurational sociology is so often said to distance itself from the political issues of the day. Whilst this is certainly true with regards to the present day, it in no way follows that figurational sociology seeks to distance itself from politics as such. On the contrary, as will be shown within this paper, politics is and always has been a central concern for figurational sociologists. This political concern, however, is an exclusively long term concern; figurational sociology purposively postpones present political engagement for the sake of developing a sufficiently detached sociology that would eventually facilitate in the delivery of effective practical and political measures. This paper discusses the stakes involved in, as well as the reasoning behind, the assignment of such a place to politics. It gestures towards two distinct and separate concepts of social control that exist within figurational sociology and then proceeds to offer a critical consideration of the consequences that can be derived from any temporal demarcation of the political done on their basis. The paper ultimately suggests that figurational sociology's position on politics raises a series of as yet unanswered questions, questions which can no longer remain unanswered by the contemporary figurational sociologist.     

Max weber's vision of economic sociology

Max Weber's economic sociology is usually associated with The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–1905), but in this paper I show that what Weber himself called his “Wirtschaftssoziologie”, or economic sociology, looked quite different and was something that he developed during the last year of his life, 1919–1920. I present and outline Weber's (later) economic sociology and pay particular attention to his ideas of “economic (social) action” and of the three different forms of capitalism (rational capitalism, political capitalism and traditional capitalism). I also show that to Weber, economic sociology was part of a more general science of economics that he often referred to as “social economics” (“Sozialökonomik”). The paper ends with a comparison between the paradigm of economic sociology, which can be found in the work of Max Weber, and the paradigm of what is known as New Economic Sociology.     

Puritan perverts: notes on accusation

In the course of a variety of projects concerned with fundamentalism and evangelical Protestantism, a surprising number of claims about sexual misdemeanour have been collected. The fact that most of the individuals and movements accused of perversion were claimed to be, and were widely regarded as, puritanical in moral attitudes and behaviour suggests that the widespread distribution of such accusations calls for some explanation other than that they were made because they were true. This paper offers some preliminary thoughts on the appeal of claims of sexual deviance to those making the claims and to the audiences for such claims. As such it represents some introductory thoughts on what might be termed the sociology of accusation'.     

Spencer is dead, long live Spencer: individualism, holism, and the problem of norms

The debate between the advocates of sociological individualism and those of holism has been pervasive in the development of social theory. This debate is often situated in the false problems of sociology, since it is seen as a particular form of the perennial and irresolvable dilemma between social nominalism and realism, as well as between freedom and determinism. Nevertheless, the debate is far from over within contemporary sociology and other social science, as indicated by the resurgence of individualism in rational action theory and its repudiation by holistic social theories. The aim of this paper is to identify some modern variations on this theme as well as to discern certain common tendencies of two seemingly opposite theoretical perspectives, viz. the convergence upon a normative solution to the problem of social order. This convergence is therefore denoted normative convergence between sociological individualism and holistic sociology.     

Mobile sociology1

This article seeks to develop a manifesto for a sociology concerned with the diverse mobilities of peoples, objects, images, information, and wastes; and of the complex interdependencies between, and social consequences of, such diverse mobilities. A number of key concepts relevant for such a sociology are elaborated: 'gamekeeping', networks, fluids, scapes, flows, complexity and iteration. The article concludes by suggesting that a 'global civil society' might constitute the social base of a sociology of mobilities as we move into the twenty-first century.     

Six Rules of Qualitative Research: A Post-Romantic Argument

Qualitative sociology too easily succumbs to a ‘Romantic’ impulse. In a sociological context, the Romantic seeks to understand raw ‘experience’, usually by the use of unstructured interviews. Such work can lack analytic rigour, failing to distinguish the sociologist from the journalist. Following Wittgenstein and Garfinkel, the approach adopted here emphasizes the forms of representation and contexts which inform practical reasoning. It recommends a non-Romantic sociology–an aspiration curiously shared by Durkheim–and suggests some ways to pursue it.     

Institutional Barriers to Doing Public Sociology: Experiences of Feminists in the Academy

In recent years, the discipline of sociology has seen an increased discussion of public sociology, but the discussion has focused on whether or not it is a good idea for sociologists to become more engaged with their various publics. A different question motivates this research: What are the institutional arrangements that make doing public sociology difficult, and thus less likely? Following Dorothy Smith, we start from the perspective of frontline actors and ask them about their experiences. We combine data from two sources: individual interviews with a sample of 50 academic feminists, a group that has theoretical motivation to be interested in public sociology and group interviews with 15 feminists engaged in some form of public sociology. These informants tell us about two related institutional barriers to doing public sociology: the culture of professional sociology and the standards we use for evaluating scholarship. The impact of these disciplinary barriers probably varies by institution type and career stage but there is reason to suspect they generate costs not just for individuals but for the discipline. Taking steps to break down these barriers would ameliorate concerns some have raised about public sociology.     

Facing Each Other: Japanese and Russian Sociologies

The history of sociology as a subfield has long aimed to describe the historical developments of the discipline, within which national traditions offer unique voices while also contributing to a global sociology. How do various sociological paradigms and national traditions approach social reality in similar and different ways? This paper examines Russian and Japanese contributions to the history of sociology by reviewing some of their major concepts and perspectives. On this basis, this paper seeks to probe into the past and present self-understandings of the two sociological traditions, as well as their potentials for a more active role in global sociological discourse. Both countries have a history of protracted isolation, which has made them more or less invisible in the international sociological community. However, Russian and Japanese sociological traditions exist and are ready to be tapped, even as their production and mobilization of intellectual resources remain strongly embedded in their politics, cultures, and societies. A broader aim of this paper is to enhance mutual understandings and future collaborations between sociologists in Russia and Japan.     

Sociology and the virtual: interactive mirrors,representational thinking and intensive power

This article explores the role of images in the workings of contemporary power. It examines one of the central ways in which sociology has approached images as representations and proposes an alternative understanding of images through the concepts of interactivity, intensity and the virtual. Focusing on the examples of three interactive mirrors, one a piece of artwork, another designed to be located in a designer shop and the other a medical mirror for tracking ‘vital signs’, it suggests that the mirrors emphasize the screen and, in so doing, disrupt a notion of images of representations. Images are instead brought to life; intensively experienced rather than extensively read. The article engages, first, with the increasing prevalence of screens and, second, with the moves in sociology towards theorizing the value of the concept of the virtual. Arguing that images are felt and lived out, the article seeks to contribute to how sociology has dealt with, and might further develop, the concept of the virtual as a productive way of understanding the relationships between images, screens, power and life.     

The idea of secularization in the works of max weber: A theoretical outline

The last two decades have witnessed a re-discovery of the sociology of religion. Not accidentally, this resurgence roughly coincides with the publication of English translations of Weber's seminal theories and empirical studies of world religions. Many contemporary themes in the sociology of religion still draw heavily from Weber's ideas. Given his contemporary importance to the subject, it is somewhat surprising that no real attempt has been made to extrapolate from Weber's work a systematic theory of one of the most important themes of the sociology of religion: secularization. The author points to the fact that Weber himself rarely used the term “secularization,” though the idea is an important theme in much of his work. In this paper, the idea of secularization is examined in the context of Weber's work, paying special attention to the specific processes he had in mind whenever he referred to it. More generally, while not claiming to be comprehensive, the discussion attempts to fill the gap by presenting the general outlines of a systematic Weberian theory of secularization.