Actor-Centered Sociology and the New Pragmatism

Abstract

Theory and research in sociology need to be grounded in the fundamental truth that social phenomena are constituted by the actions and thoughts of socially constituted and socially situated individuals. This truism may be described as “methodological localism.” This does not imply that explanations must proceed from individual to social; but it does imply that we need to be confident that our hypotheses about social entities and processes have “microfoundations” at the level of the actors who constitute them. The article draws out an important consequence of this set of ideas: the necessity for sociology of developing a more adequate theory of the actor—an account of the ways the individual represents the world, the things that motivate him or her, and the ways that he or she arrives at actions and plans based on these features of practical cognition. To date the most common theory of the actor in the social sciences is the rational-intentional model and its cousin, rational choice theory. However, American pragmatism offers a significantly richer framework in terms of which to understand actors and their actions. This framework emphasizes habit, practice, and creativity in the genesis of action. Contemporary sociologists such as Neil Gross, Andrew Abbott, Mark Granovetter, and Hans Joas have taken this framework seriously in their theorizing with good effect. The article concludes that sociology gains when researchers arrive at more nuanced understandings of the constitutions and situations of the actors with whom they are concerned.