A critical humanist intervention: agency, structure and values

Arukia izabel

Authors

Arukia izabel Federal University of Goiás

Keywords:

Marxism, Humanism, Anti-humanism, Subject, Structure.

Abstract

The main aim of the article is to suggest what and how a contemporary and revised version of humanism, inflected with critical realism and Marxism, can contribute to sociology. I mainly focus on two areas in which sociology is often lacking today: theorizing the relationship between structure and agency, and deciding what to do with moral evaluations in sociological analyses. I submit that the solution for both lies in trying finally to transcend the traditionally hostile and mutually exclusive paradigms of "humanist" or "cultural" Marxism on the one hand and "anti-humanist" or "scientific" Marxism on the other. This allows us to carefully re-establish the agency of human subjects and the moral dimension, both of which were and continue to be dismissed by anti-humanist or post-humanist social science, without neglecting the objective and causally relevant existence of social structures at the same time

References

Althusser, Louis, and Balibar, Etienne (1970). Reading Capital. London: Verse.

Archer, Margaret S. (1995). Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Archer, Margaret S. (2000). Being Human . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Archer, Margaret S. (2010). Can Reflexivity and Habitus Work in Tandem? In: M. Archer. (ed.): Conversations About Reflexivity: 123–143 . London: Routledge.

Benton, Ted (1984): The Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism: Althusser and His Influence . New York: St. Martin's Press.

Bloch, Maurice (2005). Essays on Cultural Transmission . Oxford: Berg.

Boucher, Geoff (2008): The Charmed Circle of Ideology: A Critique of Laclau & Mouffe, Butler & Žižek . Melbourne: re.press.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1990). The Logic of Practice . California: Stanford University Press.

Bourdieu, Pierre, et al. (1990):. The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society. Cambridge: Polity Press

Bourdieu, Pierre, and Wacquant, Loic (1992). Invitation to a Reflexive Sociology . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Boyd, Richard (1991). Realism, Anti-Foundationalism and the Enthusiasm for Natural Kinds. Philosophical Studies, 61: 127–148.

Boyd, Richard (1999). Homeostasis, Species, and Higher Taxa. In: RA Wilson (ed.): Species 141–185. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Braidotti, Rosi (2013). The Posthuman . Cambridge: Polity Press.

Brenner, Robert (1985): The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism . In: TH Aston and CHE Philpin (eds.): The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe: 213–327. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brereton, Derek (2011). Requiem for Relativism in Anthropology. Journal of Critical Realism, 10 (3): 358–391.

Bunge, Mario (2010). Mind and Matter. A Philosophical Inquiry . London: Springer.

Burr, Vivien (2003). Social Constructionism. London: Routledge.

Carling, Alan (1986): Rational Choice Marxism. New Left Review, I ( 160): 24–62.

Chernilo, Daniel (2016): Review Essay: Humanism and Sociology. Journal of Classical Sociology, 16 (3): 310–317.

Chibber, Vivek (2006). On the Decline of Class Analysis in South Asian Studies. Critical Asian Studies, 38 (4): 357–387.

Chibber, Vivek (2013). Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital . London: Verse.

Collins, Randall (1981). On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology. American Journal of Sociology, 86 (5): 984–1014.

Coole, Diana, and Frost, Samantha (2010). Introducing the New Materialisms . In: D. Coole and S. Frost (eds.): New Materialisms. Ontology, Agency, and Politics, 1–46. Durham: Duke University Press.

Craib, Ian (1992). Anthony Giddens . London: Routledge.

Creaven, Sean (2001). Marxism and Realism. A Materialistic Application of Realism in the Social Sciences . London: Routledge.

Creaven, Sean (2015). The 'Two Marxisms' Revisited: Humanism, Structuralism and Realism in Marxist Social Theory. Journal of Critical Realism, 14 (1): 7–53.

Cruickshank, Justin (2003). Realism and Sociology. Anti-foundationalism, Ontology and Social Research . London: Routledge.

Devitt, Michael (2008). Resurrecting Biological Essentialism. Philosophy of Science, 75 : 344–382.

Durkin, Kieran (2014). The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Elder-Vass, Dave (2010a). Realist Critique Without Ethical Naturalism and Moral Realism. Journal of Critical Realism, 9 (1): 33–58.