Where do new ideas and directions of thought come from? Is it possible to set a context for important changes in intellectual culture, in the sciences or the humanities? Can we give any explanation for the development of individual thinkers' thought? These are the key questions that Neil Gross raises in his sociological biography of …
Neil Gross’s pragmatist sociology
An earlier post discussed Neil Gross's attempt to understand social mechanisms from the point of view of a pragmatist sociology. Gross's attempt to flesh out a pragmatist theory of action is intriguing and worthy of further exploration. So here I'll look at a subsequent article, "Charles Tilly and American Pragmatism" (2010), in which Gross extends this …
Neil Gross on mechanisms
Neil Gross offers a friendly amendment to the growing literature on social mechanisms within sociology in "A Pragmatist Theory of Social Mechanisms" (link). He offers general support for the framework, but criticizes the main efforts at specifying what a social mechanism is. (James Mahoney makes a major effort to capture the main formulations in "Beyond Correlational …
Mapping sociology
Sociology is now composed of a wide expanse of approaches, theories, methodologies, and paradigms. The American Sociological Association has 49 sections, and even this variation doesn't capture the full diversity of the field (link). In fact, Jonathan Turner refers to the current situation as one of "hyper-differentiation of theories" (1). It is therefore useful to …
Abbott on mechanisms
Peter Hedstrom and Richard Swedberg's Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory (1998) announced to the world the power of social mechanisms as a foundation for social explanations. It was based on a conference on this approach in Stockholm in 1996, and the volume includes contributions by outstanding authorities such as Thomas Schelling, Jon Elster, Aage …
Pragmatic inquiry
Intellectuals are sometimes accused of being out of touch with the real world. But there is a strong thread of intellectual life that proceeds on the basis of a commitment to linking thought to action, theory to practical outcomes. Karl Marx and John Dewey had at least this in common: they both urged intellectuals to …
Understanding Society 