Pragmatist thought is central to sociology. However, sociologists typically encounter pragmatism indirectly, as a philosophy of science or as an influence on canonical social scientists, rather than as a vital source of theory, research questions, and methodological reflection in sociology today.
In The New Pragmatist Sociology, Neil Gross, Isaac Ariail Reed, and Christopher Winship assemble a range of sociologists to address essential ideas in the field and their historical and theoretical connection to classical pragmatism. The book examines questions of methodology, social interaction, and politics across the broad themes of inquiry, agency, and democracy. Essays engage widely and deeply with topics that motivate both pragmatist philosophy and sociology, including rationality, speech, truth, expertise, and methodological pluralism.
Contributors include Natalie Aviles, Karida Brown, Daniel Cefaï, Mazen Elfakhani, Luis Flores, Daniel Huebner, Cayce C. Hughes, Paul Lichterman, John Levi Martin, Ann Mische, Vontrese D. Pamphile, Jeffrey N. Parker, Susan Sibley, Daniel Silver, Mario Small, Iddo Tavory, Stefan Timmermans, Luna White, and Joshua Whitford.Reading this book, many of us will discover that we have always been pragmatists, without knowing it. The New Pragmatist Sociology proposes to lead the social sciences out of the wilderness of crisis in which we have been wandering for the past fifty-odd years. Its rich and diverse range of topics-from everyday life to structural issues of racism and inequality-simultaneously demonstrates and enacts pragmatism's breadth and significance. More than a theory or methodology, it becomes a double mode of engagement, of sociologists in pragmatic inquiry and sociologists coming to understand people engaging in pragmatic action.