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SAGE Handbook of European Studies

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European Journal of Social Theory
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A Tale of Two Sociologies

The Critical and the Pragmatic Stance in Contemporary French Sociology

Thomas Bénatouïl

UNIVERSITÉ PARIS XII-VAL DE MARNE

This paper draws a parallel between two contemporary French conceptions of sociology. Each is first considered in terms of the principles and strategies of its sociological method. Through an analogy with Marx's philosophy of social science, critical sociology is shown to make an heuristic use for the analysis of cultures and social structures of the resistance to sociology that the sociologist encounters in the social objects, whereas pragmatic sociology adopts a pluralistic and descriptive strategy towards actions, actors and things. The paper then tries to show how common interests or trading zones could allow both critical and pragmatic sociology to profit from their competitive relation by taking each other as objects of sociological analysis.

Key Words: action • critique • objectivity • pluralism • pragmatism

European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 2, No. 3, 379-396 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/136843199002003011
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