Max Weber, Alvin Gouldner en Zygmunt Bauman over kennis en cultuur

Samenvatting

Fundamental influences on the author's development as a sociologist are discussed, describing the gradual loss of moralist perspectives. Max Weber's The Methodology of the Social Sciences (1949), in which the epistemological importance of the researcher's culturally determined values is described, addressed an essential aspect of sociological analysis; a comparison between Karl Marx's and Emile Durkheim's views on modern society is used to illustrate its relevance. In Alvin Gouldner's The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (1970), the thesis, implied by Weber's views on the relationship between culture and sociological values, that an increase in cultural diversity leads to an increase in theoretical disagreement, is found to be confirmed in an exceedingly convincing way. In Zygmunt Bauman's Legislators and Interpreters (1987), changes in the notion of "truth" since Enlightenment are described, arguing that the main goal of sociology in (post)modern, multicultural societies is to offer insight into the concrete and intellectual environments of various cultural groups. 14 References. S. Paul