Courses of action’s revenge against the scientistic illusion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-7289.2014.2.17147Keywords:
Scientism. Structuralism. Course of action. Self-employment. Life story.Abstract
The birth and development of academic sociology has been greatly facilitated by the ‘scientistic’ belief, shared by most of its founding fathers and especially Comte and Durkheim and revitalized by Bourdieu’s structuralism, in the possibility of a science of society that would not be fundamentally different from ‘the other sciences’; i. e. the natural sciences. There is not however in nature any self-determined action to be found, no courses of action focused on some goal or on some hard conviction (‘value’); there is no subject of action in the world of physics. Nevertheless, in order to defend a belief that –however false– had done and is doing so much to consolidate the scientific status of sociology, its establishment was and has remained consistently reluctant to consider –as Weber had done– that individual courses of action through time constitute the core element in producing and changing modern societies. And fifty years after the birth of constructivism, this establishment still looks with great suspicion at the only empirical method that allows reconstructing individual courses of (situated) action, the narrative interview or ‘life story’. Not that this method makes miracles; but if taken seriously, it might change the way sociologists look at societies: not as static ‘systems’ but as dynamic and ever-changing ensembles.Downloads
References
BELLAH, Robert et al. Habits of the heart: individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
BERGER, Peter; LUCKMANN, Thomas. A construção social da realidade: tratado de sociologia do conhecimento. 4ª ed. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1978 (orig.: The social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge, Anchor Books, 1966).
BERTAUX, Daniel. Le récit de vie. Paris: Nathan, 2009.
BERTAUX, Daniel. Destins personnels et structure de classe. Paris: P. U. F., 1977 (tradução para o português de José Saramago, Destinos pessoais e estrutura de classe, Edições Morais, 1978).
BERTAUX, Daniel. Reasons of the heart: comparing collective subjectivity and moral choices in the sixties student movement. In: Else Oyen (Org.). Comparative methodology, theory and practice in international social research. London: Sage, 1990.
BERTAUX, Daniel; BERTAUX-WIAME, Isabelle. Artisanal bakery in France: how it lives and why it survives. In: F. Bechhofer; B. Elliott (Orgs.). The petite bourgeoisie: comparative studies of the uneasy stratum. London: MacMillan, 1981.
BERTAUX, Daniel; BERTAUX-WIAME, Isabelle. Mistérios da baguete: padarias artesanais na França – como vivem e por que sobrevivem. Novos Estudos do Cebrap, v. 19, p. 116-142, 1987.
BOURDIEU, Pierre. A miséria do mundo. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2003.
BOURDIEU, Pierre. Question de sociologie. Paris: Minuit, 1980.
BOURDIEU, Pierre; PASSERON, Jean-Claude. Sociology and philosophy in France since 1945: death and resurrection of a philosophy without subject. Social Research, v. 34, n. 1, p. 162-212, 1967.
BOURDIEU, Pierre; PASSERON, Jean-Claude; CHAMBOREDON, J. C. Le métier de sociologue. Paris: Mouton de Gruyter, 1968.
CONTINI, Giovanni. The local worldview: social change and memory in three Tuscan communes. In: D. Bertaux; P. Thompson (Orgs.). Pathways to social class. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
DELCROIX, Catherine. Ressources subjetives et construction d’un capital d’experiénce biographique: l’exemple des médiatrices socioculturelles. In: C. Dardy; C. Frétigné (Orgs.). L’experience professsionelle et personelles en question. Paris: L’Harmattan, “Mondes Sociaux”, 2004.
ERIKSON, Erik. Childhood and society. New York: Norton, 1950.
FRASER, Ronald et al. 1968: a student generation in revolt. London: Chatto and Windus, 1988.
LEPENIES, Wolf. As três culturas. São Paulo: Edusp, 1996.
PASSERON, Jean-Claude. Le raisonnement sociologique. Paris: Nathan, 1991.
RICOEUR, Paul. Tempo e narrativa. São Paulo: WMF Martins Fontes, 2011. 3 v.
SUCHMAN, Lucy. Plans and situated action. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Civitas – Journal of Social Sciences

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The submission of originals to this journal implies the transfer by the authors of the right for printed and digital publication. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. If the authors wish to include the same data into another publication, they must cite this journal as the site of original publication. As the journal is of open access, the articles are allowed for free use in scientific and educational applications, with citation of the source (please see the Creative Commons License at the bottom of this page).