Naslov
Singular sociology? On the work of the German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz

Autori
Magerski, Christine

Izvornik
Thesis Eleven. Critical Theory and Historical Sociology (0725-5136) 173 (2022), 1; 127-136

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
Cultural Sociology ; German Social Theory ; Andreas Reckwitz

Sažetak
None other than Jürgen Habermas recently credited the German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz with establishing a new view of society. But his praise is not free from criticism. "If you like, " Habermas added, "he is the sociologist of the 'Generation Golf'" (Habermas 2020, Illies 2001). According to Habermas Reckwitz has the descriptive power of representation of a David Riesman, but transforms his ´inner-directed´ character from a late-romantic libertarian perspective to what he believes to be the decisive ´outer-directed´ character of the subject in late modernity. The richness of the phenomena that he opens up with this social character eager for recognition of his uniqueness is impressive but it disconnects a social-psychologically expanded notion of culture from its social-structural distortions. Habermas does not shy away from criticism but nonetheless recognizes that Reckwitz has permanently changed our view of society. In order to understand this view, it is not enough to just look at his last three works, which are also available in English. Reckwitz`s perspective, as the present critique wants to show, is more than the specific view of a hedonistic ego generation or a social character eager solely for the recognition of its uniqueness. Rather, Reckwitz, currently professor at the Institute of Social Sciences at Humboldt University Berlin, developed an independent research program very early on. This program can be understood as a radical social-theoretical processing of the aestheticizing tendencies that have been observed since the 1960s. Comparable in its rigor to Niklas Luhmann's theoretical program, Reckwitz anchors a paradigm at the center of his writings. If with Luhmann it was difference, with Reckwitz it is aestheticization or culturalization. In both cases, a paradigm observed in and taken from the social world guides all further observations and decriptions of the social world ; a procedure that, given constant socio-cultural change, naturally runs the risk of losing its way.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija, Interdisciplinarne društvene znanosti, Interdisciplinarne humanističke znanosti

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