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The History of Sociology as Disciplinary Self-Reflexivity

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The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences

Abstract

This chapter addresses the question: how and why the history of sociology should be written. The chapter’s first conclusion is that the history of sociology is an essential methodological component of sociology in general. In order to develop this argument, the chapter surveys the emergence of research on the history of sociology and the other human and social sciences, paying attention to the concepts, methods, theories, and justifications that have structured this literature. The key conceptual advance was the creation of a sociology of social science that attends closely to texts and contexts at differing distances from the immediate site of scientific production. The second section asks why sociologists should write the history of sociology, and argues that this work contributes to sociology in four main ways, (1) uncovering repressed elements of disciplinary memory and sources of contemporary scientific doxa; (2) shedding light on the conditions for the flourishing of knowledge (including sociological knowledge); (3) examining the role of sociology itself as a determinant of non-sociological phenomena; and (4) working as under-laborers for scientific reflexivity, along the lines suggested by Pierre Bourdieu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    George Steinmetz

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  1. Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    David McCallum

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  1. University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia

    Fran Collyer

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Steinmetz, G. (2022). The History of Sociology as Disciplinary Self-Reflexivity. In: McCallum, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7255-2_60

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