Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations for frequently cited texts
- Introduction
- 1 Nothing under the sun
- 2 Sociological material
- 3 Sociological reflection
- 4 The socio-critical dimension
- 5 The sociological text
- 6 Sociology and the non-social
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Adorno's sociology in chronological perspective
- References
- Index
4 - The socio-critical dimension
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 April 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations for frequently cited texts
- Introduction
- 1 Nothing under the sun
- 2 Sociological material
- 3 Sociological reflection
- 4 The socio-critical dimension
- 5 The sociological text
- 6 Sociology and the non-social
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Adorno's sociology in chronological perspective
- References
- Index
Summary
Sociology's political dimension – its socio-critical, practical and, in recent discussions (Burawoy 2005; Calhoun 2005), public role – is a prevalent issue in contemporary social science debates. For Adorno, too, sociology's theoretical task is not exhausted by deciphering empirical material, investigating phenomena in their social mediation and examining the social whole. In his reflections on the discipline, the problems and potentials of sociology's socio-critical project are prominent themes. Moreover, these themes are interlinked with questions about sociology's involvement in social praxis and its status as a public intellectual activity.
Socio-critical sociology
Adorno rejects prohibitions upon sociological evaluations of whether social conditions are desirable and acceptable or undesirable and in need of transformation. He problematises the notion of value-freedom in Weber, positivism and administrative research. ‘[A]llegedly purely scientific interests’, Adorno holds, are actually ‘channels … of extra-scientific interests’. Scientific ‘instruments’ are ‘means for answering questions which … originate beyond science’ (PD 18). Even the instruments themselves are shaped by ‘particular interests’, as ‘administrative[ly]’ determined social research methods exemplify (PD 79). Plus ‘a strictly apolitical stance’ is political in that it ‘becomes … capitulation in the face of power’ (PD 59). Adorno's defence of sociological analyses of exchange society which criticise society contains a range of intricate, partly problematic arguments.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Sociology of Theodor Adorno , pp. 125 - 161Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011