Abstract
During his long academic career, Bauman has asked many times what does it mean ‘understanding’ in social sciences. This question lead him to marxism, to structuralism and finally to hermeneutics. From the beginning, though, his approach is decisively humanistic, near to philosophy, arts and literature, and strongly critical to the positivistic and empirical approach to society. Humanist sociology is, according to him, concerned with linking individual experiences to systemic situation, applies imagination and figuration, and is engaged with the existential troubles of common people, with their freedom from coercion and their freedom to actively participate in society. For these reasons, it is a way of doing sociology close to morality and concerned with issues far from the classical socio-economic prevailing themes, such as freedom, love or culture. Bauman is still strongly critizised for a sort of “lack of method”. The proposal of this paper is to review the genesis of this paradigm for social interpretation in Bauman’s sources, to assess how it meets of the requirements of scientific knowledge, and to give reason of its impact upon the broad public and among social philosophers and social scientists. We focus on some works by Bauman about social interpretation, such as “Towards a Critical Sociology” (1976) and “Hermeneutics and Social Science” (1978), “Thinking Sociologically”, and “Intimations of Postmodernity” (1992). Though they are far before Bauman got known as the sociologist of “liquid modernity”, these works set the basis for a humanist perspective on society that provides a still useful approach.
Presenters
Elena Alvarez-AlvarezTeacher - Researcher, Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, La Rioja, Spain
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2022 Special Focus—At the Crossroads of Paradigms: Considering Heterodoxy in the Social Sciences
KEYWORDS
Hermeneutics, Morality, Ethics, Interpretive Reason, Positivism, Humanism, Simmel
