Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:39:31.151Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

21 - Luc Boltanski and the Problem of Time: Notes towards a Pragmatic Sociology of the Future

from Part VII - Luc Boltanski and Contemporary Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2014

Lisa Adkins
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle
Get access

Summary

Introduction

This chapter is concerned with issues of temporality and the programme of pragmatic sociology. It outlines a problem of time operating within this programme. This problem is identified as concerning the location of social change and the new as external to situations and events, a positioning which, I will argue, eschews the indeterminacy and openness of the contemporary world. I suggest further that such a positioning of the new also cannot come to grips with forms of critique that have no time, or, better said, forms of critique that have run out of time or are dispossessed of time and, in addition, make demands for time itself. In identifying the latter form of critique, I contend that the logic of change elaborated in The New Spirit of Capitalism (2005 [1999]) – namely, the incorporation of the dynamic of external critique into capitalism – has reached its limit, a limit which in turn demands that sociologists address questions of change and time anew. To this end, in this chapter I outline some of the axes along which a pragmatic sociology of change, innovation, and the new may be elaborated. Yet, to grasp fully how and why the issues of change and the new require attention, I will also propose that it is crucial to register that the significance of the programme of pragmatic sociology lies not only in a post-Bourdieusian renewal of social science, as is often assumed, but also in its relevance for and in an increasingly pragmatic world. To begin to unfold these lines of intervention, I turn first to the issue of the development of pragmatic sociology and the renewal of the social sciences.

The Renewal of the Social Sciences

The programme of pragmatic sociology or the sociology of critical capacity, of which Luc Boltanski is a key proponent, has been understood as an attempt at a renewal of the social sciences (Blokker, 2011).

Type
Chapter
Information
The Spirit of Luc Boltanski
Essays on the 'Pragmatic Sociology of Critique'
, pp. 517 - 538
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×