What social science must learn from the humanities

Abstract

Identifying a shift away from a more humanistic approach in the sociology and political science practiced in the United States since the 1950s, Jeffrey Alexander seeks to recuperate an intellectual tradition of the social sciences that places the cultural meanings and subjective dimensions of social actions at the very centre of analysis, while simultaneously considering the structure nature of social life. Opposing the 'great divide' between social sciences and humanities, therefore, Alexander proposes, via his strong program of cultural sociology, a conception of sociology that considers social facts not as 'things' but as 'texts,' analysing how cultural meanings are socially rooted and structure social life.