Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Tear Your Mask, and Have it Too: A Reply to Peter Baehr

  • Special Feature: An Exchange of Ideas
  • Published:
Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Peter Baehr highly praises Berger’s contribution to sociology, and yet sharply criticises his claim that unmasking or debunking is he signature method of sociology. Baehr hold such method of enquiry to be dangerously corrosive and in tension with the humanist intentions of Berger. I largely agree with this critique, but I have doubts that a viable alternative could be developed within the framework of the social sciences. Thus, I would suggest that Berger was right in linking unmasking/debunking with the humanist enterprise, despite the negative implications highlighted by Baehr.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Baehr discusses “Arendt vs social science” at length in various works, see: Baehr (2002, 2010)

  2. Baehr might want to maintain a sharper distinction between the two, allowing unmasking in political but not in scientific discourses. On the one hand, for any meaningful sociological enquiry, a relevant separation cannot be kept, while, on the other hand, unmasking is equally condemnable, largely for the same reasons, in politics as it is in social science.

  3. As a corollary, perhaps debunking, which does not explain anything, could be considered less demeaning than unmasking.

Further Reading

  • Arendt. 2005. Understanding and Politics. In Essays in Understanding, 1930–1954: Formation, Exile, and Totalitarianism. New York: Schocken.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baehr. 2002. Identifying the Unprecedented: Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, and the Critique of Sociology. American Sociological Review, 67(6), 804–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baehr. 2010. Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, and the Social Sciences. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baehr, & Gordon. 2012. Unmasking and Disclosure: Contrasting Modes for Understanding Religious and Other Beliefs. Journal of Sociology, 48(4), 380–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Columbia University, 420 W. 118th St., New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Guido Parietti

Authors
  1. Guido Parietti
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guido Parietti.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Parietti, G. Tear Your Mask, and Have it Too: A Reply to Peter Baehr. Soc 50, 391–394 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-013-9683-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-013-9683-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation