文档介绍：AGAINST ESSENTIALISM
Against
Essentialism
A Theory of Culture and Society
STEPHAN FUCHS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England
2001
Copyright © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fuchs, Stephan.
Against essentialism : a theory of culture and society / Stephan Fuchs
p. cm.
Includes biblographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-00610-0
1. Culture. 2. Social groups. 3. Social structure. I. Title.
HM621 .F83 2001
306—dc21 2001024389
Acknowledgments
My first thanks goes to Randall Collins, friend and fellow traveler.
Peggy and Ellen Plass provided shelter and nourishment. Many people
have helped make this book what it is; I owe intellectual and other
debts to James Davison Hunter, Mel Leffler, Richard Harvey Brown,
Robert Merton, t Berger, John Ziman, Peter Weingart, Ansgar
Weymann, Charles Case, Steven Shapin, Richard Rorty, Jon Turner,
and Mark Schneider. I dedicate this book to the memory of Niklas
Luhmann.
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Theory after Essentialism 12
Accounting for the Observer 17
Observing Observers 20
Levels of Observing 24
Ideological Conflicts in Observation 29
Inside and Outside Observers 35
Value-Freedom and Disinterestedness 40
The Myth of “Going Native” 43
A Few Pretty Old Rules of Method 47
The Classics Revisited, Briefly 58
Networks and Systems 63
Some Elements of a Working Epistemology 67
2 How to Sociologize with a Hammer 71
The Crisis of Representation 71
Underdetermination and Theory-Ladenness 74
The Indeterminacy of Translation 78
Empiricizing Contexts and Demarcations 84
mensurability 92
The Double Hermeneutic 95
Things and Persons 104
3 Cultural Rationality 111
After Reason 115
viii • Contents
Causes and Reasons 116
The Unity of Persons 119
What Do Persons Want and Believe? 123
Decisions, D