Descriptive Accuracy in History: The Case of Narrative Explanations

Tsilipakos, Leonidas

doi:10.1177/0048393120917757

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…A common piece of sociological reasoning (that is occasionally used in theoretical paper openings) reiterates this ideology in inferring from the fact that no sociological work has taken up a topic to the conclusion that the topic is poorly understood in general and that no systematic exploration is required of the understanding that is available (see Tsilipakos, 2016Tsilipakos, , 2017, for example, available understanding of emotion concepts before problems in the sociology of the emotions are formulated (Bericat, 2016). This neglect of endogenous sources of understanding and their presumptive replacement by sociological technical concepts (Banton, 2016) or their cavalier treatment in taking various interpretative liberties under the influence of doctrines of radical indeterminacy of meaning (see Tsilipakos, 2020; sometimes also coupled with postmodernist or post-structuralist programmes) is the reason why sociologists may have trouble in cementing a claim to autonomy in front of the public. People see sociological claims as requiring them to 'abdicate their powers of reasoning' (Berlin, 2012(Berlin, [1998) and experience this as a form of unwarranted pretension on sociology's part.…”

Section: Sociology Does Not Have a Monopoly On Understanding Society ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Winch’s Idea at sixty-five: Its point and implications for the prospects of sociology

Tsilipakos

2023

European Journal of Social Theory

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This article demonstrates the underappreciated import and potential of Peter Winch’s The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, a classic work published 65 years ago. Its aim is not simply to correct misunderstandings of Winch but to rehabilitate the text as indispensable for understanding past and present woes and cementing the future of sociological endeavour. I reconstruct and defend the claims put forth by Winch and then explicitly draw out their implications, which demonstrate the incoherence of the predominant disciplinary self-image that sees sociology as having a method and/or critical thinking prerogative. This problematic self-conception is jeopardizing the coherence and wider relevance of sociology and is responsible for its perennial difficulties in articulating a mode of discourse that can be seen as cogent by the public. A defensible alternative sees sociology as a second-order study of practices that is premised on a conceptually accurate relation to those practices and on answerability to the criteria and abilities of understanding, description, explanation and criticism they afford. This conception can support the reconfiguration of existing forms of sociological inquiry as well as the development of new ones.

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Section: Sociology Does Not Have a Monopoly On Understanding Society ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Winch’s Idea at sixty-five: Its point and implications for the prospects of sociology

Tsilipakos

2023

European Journal of Social Theory

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“…Concepts play a constitutive role in social life. This fact bears the implication that demands of accuracy bind the descriptions of the social scientist to the conceptual forms of the society they are studying (see Tsilipakos, 2020). Winch illustrates this point in various ways, including with reference to the economist's second-order notion of liquidity preference, arguing that its validity depends on its being parasitic on autochthonous terms such as money, selling, and assets, and the concepts they express.…”

Section: Our Morally Resonant Vocabulary Is Necessary For Accurate An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The idea of an ethically committed social science

Tsilipakos

2021

History of the Human Sciences

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This article presents a long overdue analysis of the idea of an ethically committed social science, which, after the demise of positivism and the deeming of moral neutrality as impossible, has come to dominate the self-understanding of many contemporary sociological approaches. Once adequately specified, however, the idea is shown to be ethically questionable in that it works against the moral commitments constitutive of academic life. The argument is conducted with resources from the work of Peter Winch, thus establishing its continuing relevance and critical importance for the social sciences, sociology in particular. Special reference is made to heretofore unappreciated aspects of Winch’s work, including within the groundbreaking The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy, but focusing specifically on his later contributions to ethics.

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“…These goals never intended to banish explanation from the human sciences, but instead aimed to reconstruct meanings in such a way as to build explanations appropriate to the human sciences. In order to effectively render meaningful ‘forms of life’, narrative reconstructions ought to rely upon, and take seriously, the categories used by social participants themselves (Tsilipakos 2020 ; Winch 1958 , pp. 40–65), though this does not mean they need not remain inside such categories in offering their explanations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why meaning-making matters: the case of the UK Government’s COVID-19 response

Morgan

2020

Am J Cult Sociol

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Through analysis of the UK government's management of the COVID-19 outbreak, this paper offers an empirical demonstration of the principle of culture's relative autonomy. It does so by showing how the outcome of meaning-making struggles had impacts on political legitimacy, public behaviour, and control over the spread of the virus. Ultimately, these impacts contributed to the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of UK citizens. Dividing the crisis into phases within a secular ritual passage or 'social drama', it shows how each phase was defined by struggles between the government and other actors to code the unfolding events in an appropriate moral way, to cast actors in their proper roles, and to plot them together in a storied fashion under a suitable narrative genre. Taken together, these processes constituted a conflictual effort to define the meaning of what was occurring. The paper also offers more specific contributions to cultural sociology by showing why social performance theory needs to consider the effects of casting non-human actors in social dramas, how metaphor forms a powerful tool of political action through simplifying and shaping complex realities, and how casting can shift responsibility and redefine the meaning of emotionally charged events such as human death.

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Descriptive Accuracy in History: The Case of Narrative Explanations

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Winch’s Idea at sixty-five: Its point and implications for the prospects of sociology

Winch’s Idea at sixty-five: Its point and implications for the prospects of sociology

The idea of an ethically committed social science

Why meaning-making matters: the case of the UK Government’s COVID-19 response

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