Against Essentialism: A Theory of Culture and Society Book

Introduction

1 Theory after Essentialism

Accounting for the Observer

Observing Observers

Levels of Observing

Ideological Conflicts in Observation

Inside and Outside Observers

Value-Freedom and Disinterestedness

The Myth of "Going Native"

A Few Pretty Old Rules of Method

The Classics Revisited, Briefly

Networks and Systems

Some Elements of a Working Epistemology

2 How to Sociologize with a Hammer

The Crisis of Representation

Underdetermination and Theory-Ladenness

The Indeterminacy of Translation

Empiricizing Contexts and Demarcations

Incommensurability

The Double Hermeneutic

Things and Persons

3 Cultural Rationality

After Reason

Causes and Reasons

The Unity of Persons

What Do Persons Want and Believe?

Decisions, Decisions

How to Locate Rationality

Some Covariates of Rationality

4 Foundations of Culture

Never Minds

Who Knows? No Idea!

The Meanings of Meaning

Observing Culture and Cultural Observers

What Is in a Culture?

Cultural Stratification

Art

Reputation

From Creativity to Genius

5 Modes of Social Association I: Encounters, Groups, and Organizations

The Bodies and Brains of Persons

Emotional Selves

Levels of Society

Encounters

Groups

Organizations

Variations in Organizational Cultures

6 Modes of Social Association II: Networks

Drift

Fields of Forces

Power to the Networks

Metabolism

Renormalization

Autopoiesis

Self-Similarity

Unity

Boundaries

Network Expansions

Networks of Culture

7 Realism Explained

A Continuum of Realism

Core Expansions and Time

Machines

Instruction

Density

Monopoly and Hegemony

Competition and Decentralization

Literacy and Printing

Orality, Perception, and Copresence

Consensus

Distance and Frontstages

Conclusion

Appendix: Theses

References

Index