{"title":"Ontological Anti-Foundationalism in Sociology","authors":"Yannis Trophardy","doi":"10.1177/00483931231210349","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Social ontology studies the nature and properties of social reality while social metaontology examines the relationship between ontology and the social sciences, which is often treated as a normative question. However, social sciences themselves contain ontological theses, raising the descriptive question of how these internal ontologies relate to the rest of the social sciences. This paper argues that important parts of sociology have an anti-foundationalist metaontology. This descriptive claim is used to build a normative argument against foundationalism and is supported by examining the works of Durkheim and Weber and how their metaontological beliefs continue to influence many sociologists.","PeriodicalId":46776,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of the Social Sciences","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Philosophy of the Social Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00483931231210349","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Social ontology studies the nature and properties of social reality while social metaontology examines the relationship between ontology and the social sciences, which is often treated as a normative question. However, social sciences themselves contain ontological theses, raising the descriptive question of how these internal ontologies relate to the rest of the social sciences. This paper argues that important parts of sociology have an anti-foundationalist metaontology. This descriptive claim is used to build a normative argument against foundationalism and is supported by examining the works of Durkheim and Weber and how their metaontological beliefs continue to influence many sociologists.
期刊介绍:
For more than four decades Philosophy of the Social Sciences has served as the international, interdisciplinary forum for current research, theory and debate on the philosophical foundations of the social services. Philosophy of the Social Sciences focuses on the central issues of the social sciences, including general methodology (explaining, theorizing, testing) the application of philosophy (especially individualism versus holism), the nature of rationality and the history of theories and concepts. Among the topics you''ll explore are: ethnomethodology, evolution, Marxism, phenomenology, postmodernism, rationality, relativism, scientific methods, and textual interpretations. Philosophy of the Social Sciences'' open editorial policy ensures that you''ll enjoy rigorous scholarship on topics viewed from many different-- and often conflicting-- schools of thought. No school, party or style of philosophy of the social sciences is favoured. Debate between schools is encouraged. Each issue presents submissions by distinguished scholars from a variety of fields, including: anthropology, communications, economics, history, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Each issue brings you in-depth discussions, symposia, literature surveys, translations, and review symposia of interest both to philosophyers concerned with the social sciences and to social scientists concerned with the philosophical foundations of their subjects.