An Introduction to Reading Georg Simmel's Sociology

This study begins by viewing Georg Simmel's sociology as the focal point of controversy. That is, it begins with an interest in the historic dialogue between Simmel and the academic community. Through an explication of critics'complaints against Simmel's work, and through an analysis of Simmel's own essay, "The Secret Society," this investigation succeeds in uncovering in Simmel's writing a significant, alternative form of sociological life.     

Georg Simmel as an Eidetic Social Scientist

The article shows the affinity of Simmel's formal sociology with Husserl's notion of eidetic science. This thesis is demonstrated by the corroboration of Simmel's revision of neo-Kantian epistemology for sociology with Husserl's phenomenology, and the parallel discussion of Simmel and Husserl concerning cognitive levels and exact and morphological eide. Simmel's analysis of dyads is explored as an exemplar of his eidetic insights. An important consequence of this demonstration is the vindication establishing the scientific legitimacy of Simmel's methodology regarding the sociology of the forms of association. Woven throughout is discussion concerning the docctrine of the complementarity of eidetic and empirical science. Simmel's methodology is shown to have been ahead of its time through conjoining these two modes of scientific investigation.     

Complaint as a form of association

Complaining is a common pattern of interaction that can be viewed as a form of association. Our understanding of complaint and other forms of association is enhanced by applying insights from Simmel's formal sociology. The emergence of complaint, like other forms of association, adheres to a general developmental process and has specifiable social consequences. The integrative and disintegrative social consequences of complaint are spelled out.     

Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman: Legitimators of the Sociological Investigation of Human Experience

By originating and developing the sociological investigation of human experience, Georg Simmel and Erving Goffman have shifted social phenomena at the edge of awareness to the center of attention, and have legitimated their study for contemporary sociologists. Both Simmel and Goffman describe these subtle social phenomena by distinguishing their perceptual boundaries and crossover elements, pointing out their common features when their statuses differ, and reversing their traditional location in means-end and cause-effect chains. But Durkheim's influence on Goffman's basic conceptions of interaction, individual, and society differentiated his interpretation of these social phenomena from Simmel's. Moreover, Simmel's and Goffman's explanations of these social phenomena evolve in different directions, revealing the antithetical goals toward which spiritual transcendental Simmelians and cynical reductive Goffmanians would lead sociology.     

THE PROBLEM OF TEMPORALITY IN THE WORK OF GEORG SIMMEL

While Georg Simmel's work is predominantly recognized as contributing to the formal analysis of social interaction and temporally is an issue not conceived of as a feature of his work, formal analysis is not incompatible with a temporal approach to the study of social life. This article discusses issues of temporality as they appeared in the work of Georg Simmel by first presenting some general comments about his work and its status within the discipline, as well as some problems present in his writings that contribute to confusion regarding his views on temporality as well as formal sociology itself. Next, his views on temporality as they relate to his dualistic perspective are discussed. This is followed by a discussion of his evolutionary epistemology, which is also relevant to the issue of temporality in his work. In conclusion, the ways in which Simmel's view of temporality could enhance current sociological inquiry are discussed.     

Sociology's misfortune: disciplines, interdisciplinarity and the impact of audit culture

This paper is about tendencies to the subversion of sociology as a discipline. It connects external factors of the wider socio-political environment of higher education in the UK, especially those associated with the audit culture and new systems of governance, with the internal organization of the discipline. While the environment is similar for all social science subjects, the paper argues that there are specific consequences for sociology because of characteristics peculiar to the discipline. The paper discusses these consequences in terms of the changing relationship between sociology and the growing interdisciplinary area of applied social studies as a form of 'mode 2 knowledge'. It argues that while sociology 'exports' concepts, methodologies and personnel it lacks the internal disciplinary integrity of other 'exporter' disciplines, such as economics, political science and anthropology. The consequence is an increasingly blurred distinction between sociology as a discipline and the interdisciplinary area of applied social studies with a potential loss of disciplinary identity. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this loss of identity is associated with a reduced ability to reproduce a critical sensibility within sociology and absorption to the constraints of audit culture with its preferred form of mode 2 knowledge.     

Toward an Appreciation of Simmel's Fragmentary Style

The rationality that guides the sociological community has generated principles to evaluate members' work. Under the sway of these principles, Georg Simmel surfaces either as a peripheral member of the community or as an outright failure. His critics have argued that his work is "fragmented," that he begins without having formulated "guiding statements," that he is "unsystematic" and "undisciplined." Yet we can discover in Simmel's writings a distinct rationality that upsets this criticism by its transcendence of it. Had these particular critics read his work more carefully they might have discovered that Simmel had anticipated their criticism and had carefully reevaluated its source of authority. In this paper I address the problems of discipline and systematic unity in sociological writing in order to unmask the rationality held within the sociological community and to formulate Simmel's unique contribution as a member of that community.     

Reflections on Public Sociology: Public Relations, Disciplinary Identity, and the Strong Program in Professional Sociology

Public sociology is an attempt to redress the issues of public engagement and disciplinary identity that have beset the discipline over the past several decades. While public sociology seeks to rectify the public invisibility of sociology, this paper investigates the limitations of it program. Several points of critique are offered. First, public sociology's affiliations with Marxism serve to potentially entrench existing divisions within the discipline. Second, public sociology's advancement of an agenda geared toward a "sociology for publics" instead of a "sociology of publics" imposes limitations on the development of a public interface. Third, the lack of a methodological agenda for public sociology raises concerns of how sociology can compete within a contested climate of public opinion. Fourth, issues of disciplinary coherence are not necessarily resolved by public sociology, and are potentially exacerbated by the invocation of public sociology as a new disciplinary identity. Fifth, the incoherence of professional sociology is obviated, and a misleading affiliation is made between scientific knowledge and the hegemonic structure of the profession. Finally, the idealism of public sociology's putative defense of civil society is explored as a utopian gesture akin to that of Habermas' attempt to revive the public sphere. The development of a strong program in professional sociology is briefly offered as a means to repair the disciplinary problems that are illustrated by emergence of the project of public sociology.     

Two main problems in the sociology of morality

Sociologists often ask why particular groups of people have the moral views that they do. I argue that sociology’s empirical research on morality relies, implicitly or explicitly, on unsophisticated and even obsolete ethical theories, and thus is based on inadequate conceptions of the ontology, epistemology, and semantics of morality. In this article I address the two main problems in the sociology of morality: (1) the problem of moral truth, and (2) the problem of value freedom. I identify two ideal–typical approaches. While the Weberian paradigm rejects the concept of moral truth, the Durkheimian paradigm accepts it. By contrast, I argue that sociology should be metaphysically agnostic, yet in practice it should proceed as though there were no moral truths. The Weberians claim that the sociology of morality can and should be value free; the Durkheimians claim that it cannot and it should not. My argument is that, while it is true that factual statements presuppose value judgments, it does not follow that sociologists are moral philosophers in disguise. Finally, I contend that in order for sociology to improve its understanding of morality, better conceptual, epistemological, and methodological foundations are needed.

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Boundary Politics in the Public Sphere: Openness, Secrecy, and Leak

The issue of openness/secrecy has not received adequate attention in current discussion on the public sphere. Drawing on ideas in critical theory, political sociology, and cultural sociology, this article explores the cultural and political dynamics involved in the public sphere in modern society vis-à-vis the practice of open/secret politics by the state. It argues that the media, due to their publicist quality, are situated at the interface between publicity and secrecy, which thereby allows for struggles over the boundary of state openness/secrecy in the public sphere. A theory of boundary politics is introduced that is contextualized in the relationship among state forms, the means of making power visible/invisible (media strategies), and symbolic as well as discursive practices in the public sphere. In explaining the dynamics of boundary politics over openness/secrecy, three ideal-types of boundary creation are conceptualized: open politics, secrecy, and leak. The theory is illustrated with a case study of the Patten controversy in Hong Kong.     

Public Sociology and the Public Turn in the Social Sciences

Public sociology broadly conceptualized is a form of intellectuality involving dialogue between sociologists and the publics with whom they are concerned. Beyond this broad framing, what type of dialogue, with what purpose, which public(s), and the functions of intellectuals and the knowledge they produce are widely contested. In this essay, I explore the politics of academic disciplines, knowledge, and discourse as it has emerged within the debate over public sociology, while also highlighting what public sociology and the rise of other ‘public’ disciplines tells us about these themes in relationship to the possibility of public culture.     

When the University Went 'Pop': Exploring Cultural Studies, Sociology of Culture, and the Rising Interest in the Study of Popular Culture

This article examines why the study of popular culture has taken off as a subject of university course offerings and as a topic of scholarly inquiry since the 1980s. Placing the current explorations of popular culture in historical context, the article argues that popular culture's study and studies in the sociology of culture can illuminate many of the classic concerns that animate sociology and related fields, such as the social organization and power of institutions, debates about public life and the formation of public opinion, concerns about the relationship between consumption, social status, and politics of the privileged elite, and the role of media in the development of social movements and in individual and subcultural understandings. The article considers how popular cultural studies are currently shaping the study of social life, and concludes by considering trends that might be encouraged among students and emergent scholars seeking to study in this area.     

SOCIOLOGY IN AN ERA OF FRAGMENTATION:From the Sociology of Knowledge to the Philosophy of Science, and Back Again

In this article we revisit Alvin Gouldner's The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (1970). In part, this article is an attempt to apply Gouldner's own lessons about the sociology of knowledge to his own work, situating it with respect to the dominant epistemological unconscious of late 1960s American sociology as well as the broader historical context of a still-vibrant Fordist mode of societalization. Gouldner's critique of positivism was limited because he was still partially caught up within the dominant epistemological framework in American sociology at that time, a formation we call methodological positivism. With thirty years of hindsight, it is not surprising that contemporary readers interested in following up Gouldner's call for a reflexive sociology of knowledge will find certain aspects of his own program unsatisfactory. We propose an alternative sociology of knowledge based on a more explicit philosophy of scientific understanding, namely, contemporary critical realism. We also trace the vicissitudes of the trope of a "crisis in sociology" which Gouldner unleashed into the world and unpack the tensions between the "western" sociology referred to in the book's title and Gouldner's actual focus on the United States.     

A Sociology of the Unmarked: Redirecting Our Focus

This article suggests that American sociology has developed a de facto tradition in the sociology of the marked that devotes greater epistemological attention to "politically salient" and "ontologically uncommon" features of social life. Although the "unmarked" comprises the vast majority of social life, the "marked" commands a disproportionate share of attention from sociologists. Since the marked already draws more attention within the general culture, social scientists contribute to re-marking and the reproduction of common-sense images of social reality. This has important analytic consequences. This article argues for developing a stronger tradition in a sociology of the unmarked that explicitly foregrounds "politically unnoticed" and taken-for-granted elements of social reality. Three strategies are proposed toward this end: (1) reversing conventional patterns of markedness to foreground what typically remains unnamed and implicit, (2) marking everything by filling in all the shades of social continua so that each shares the same degree of epistemological ornamentation, and (3) developing an analytically nomadic perspective that observes social phenomena from multiple vantage points.     

Reflexivity and the Sociology of Practice

Reflexive theories offer an alternative perspective on sociological intervention and an interpretation of current social conditions that open up new possibilities for the theoretical, professional, and societal recentering of sociological practice as what I will call the sociology of practice. From a reflexive perspective, sociological knowledge and everyday knowledge are related through a process of mutual transformation in ways that foster a convergence of theoretical and applied issues, redraw the boundaries between sociological and the extrasociological activities, and require new forms of lay–expert engagement in which lay knowledge plays a substantive role. Discursive models of engagement are typically advocated, but I argue that an interventive model of lay–expert engagement organized as the sociology of practice optimizes the possibility that engagement will meet reflexive criteria. The sociology of practice is recentered as a substantive body of knowledge relevant to the work of all sociologists and essential for ameliorating social problems.     

Urban culture and physical and sports activities. The "sportification" of parkour and street golf as cultural mediation

The article explores the process of "sportification"--i.e., processing physical activity in a sport regulated by a set of rules and standards, legitimized by supervisory institutions--from two originals practices, parkour and urban golf. To study these practices, we crossed the contributions of urban sociology and of the contemporary sociology of sport while respecting the methodological principles of qualitative sociology. A first point concerns the process of"sport" itself, its definition, its various stages, and the role played by communication of stakeholders on public space. The cultural mediation shows us how to institutionalize the movement that represents the "sports" resulted in the same time reconfiguration of physical practices themselves. Recent events illustrate the ongoing reconfiguration, we will detail them. Finally, we show the effects produced by the process on the definition of urban culture and sports: setting sight of activities, enhanced cooperation with the media-cultural, polarization between different types of practical in the case of parkour, around a confrontation between two of the founders.     

The Science and Profession of Involved Sociology

Abstract

In this essay, I examine the contextual and historical relationship between the national and regional associations in American sociology. Four findings emerge from the analysis of this relationship. First, the regional associations underutilize the populations they represent. Second, the constituencies of the national and regional associations are diverging. Third, the regional associations appear no longer to serve as a viable pathway for involvement in the leadership of the national association. Fourth, the disciplinary visibility of the regional associations journals has declined, on average, since 1990. These four outcomes reflect a disciplinary drift toward internal differentiation, which can only be understood as a manifestation of the culture of American sociology. Specifically, the discipline is becoming increasingly incoherent as a result of the inaccurate perception it holds of itself as a science. This misperception, historically embedded within the disciplinary culture of American sociology, appears to guide the discipline toward an overemphasis on the production of research and the establishment of a governance structure that draws heavily on faculty from doctoral-granting departments. Accordingly, following from my analysis of the discipline's culture. I concude that sociology is better positioned as a profession than a science.     

Shifting Symbolic Boundaries: Cultural Strategies of the Animal Rights Movement1

How do activists create cultural change? Scholars have investigated the development and maintenance of collective identities as one avenue for cultural change, but to understand how activists foster change beyond their own movements, we need to look at activists’ strategies for changing their targets’ mindsets and actions. Sociologists need to look at activists’ boundary work to understand both the wide‐sweeping goals and strategies that activists enact to generate broad‐based cultural changes. Using data from participant observation and interviews with animal rights activists in France and the United States, and drawing on research on ethnic boundary shifting, I show how activists used two main strategies to shift symbolic boundaries between humans and animals, as well as between companion and farm animals—(1) they blur boundaries through focusing and universalizing strategies and (2) they cross boundaries physically, discursively, and iconographically. This study contributes a new theoretical and empirical example to the cultural changes studied by scholars of social movements, and it also provides a useful counterpoint to studies of symbolic boundary construction and maintenance in the sociology of culture.     

Understanding Symbolic Boundaries and Improving Quantitative Analysis of Social Exclusion by Improving the Operationalization of Boundary Work

In survey research, how can we measure actors' judgments concerning who is a member of a particular social group and who is not? How can we measure changes in this process over time? Within the sociology of culture, the operationalization of boundary work, or decisions of group membership, has been relatively overlooked. Similarly, measurement of changes in boundaries has been relatively overlooked as well. An important first step is to better match the operationalization of boundary work with theory. To do so, I argue that survey items concerning decisions of social exclusion measured in the Likert scale can be used. In addition to allowing scholars to compare those who exclude with those who include (often measured as Strongly Agree/Agree vs. Disagree/Strongly Disagree), the Likert scale offers a measurement of boundary strength: how strongly respondents are committed to their exclusionary judgments (Agree vs. Strongly Agree, Disagree vs. Strongly Disagree). A novel element of boundary change can then be measured as variation over time in commitment to exclusionary judgment in time series data. A boundary that has increased in strength would be one for which respondents increase in their emotional commitment to their exclusionary judgment over time.