Justice in reality: overcoming moral relativism in Luc Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology of critique

The Spirit of Luc Boltanski: Chapter Outline, in The Spirit of Luc Boltanski: Essays on the ‘Pragmatic Sociology of Critique’

Abstract: This Introduction contains a brief summary of the key themes, issues, and controversies covered in each of the following chapters.

New Technologies Supporting the Shift to User-Led Approaches in Social Services: A Study of the Implementation of Baromètre

Abstract: User-led approaches are increasingly common in the field of social services and call for significant change in social service culture and practices. This research1 aims to study the implementation ...

Meaningful Moments at Work : Frames Evoked by In-House and Consultancy Designers

Abstract: Design is increasingly recognized as a competitive advantage for companies, but we know relatively little of the activities and perceptions of designers in different organizational contexts...

Means without ends: justifying supportive home care for frail older people in Canada, 1990–2010

Abstract: The challenges associated with ageing populations are very much on the policy and research agenda of many nations, with significant discussions focused on establishing appropriate, acceptable parameters of home care for those who are older and frail. This paper develops an analysis of changing justifications of home care in Canada (1990�2010) through examination of governmental and non-governmental home care policy documents and position papers, as well as observations from recent fieldwork in home care. Boltanski and Thevenot�s sociology of justification provides a framework for analysis of these situations where competing and irreducible pluralities of goods complicate discussions of the �right� way to proceed.

Retfærdiggørelse, ideologi, kritik

Abstract: Denne artikel har tre formal. For det forste er det hensigten at udrede forbindelserne mellem begreberne retfaerdiggorelse, ideologi og kritik, som de foreligger hos Luc Boltanski og Eve Chiapello i Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme (1999) (NEC i det folgende) og denne bogs forudsaetninger. For det andet skal forholdet mellem kritisk sociologi og kritiksociologi afklares. Boltanski markerer sig i 1980-90erne med en tese om, at sociologien om de sociale aktorers kritiske kompetencer bor erstatte en sociologi, som selv vil vaere kritisk. I NEC vender imidlertid en ide om kritisk sociologi tilbage. Her skal de to tilgange integreres, som det hedder i forordet til den engelske udgave af NEC (Boltanski & Chiapello 2005:xii). Hvordan haenger dette sammen? For det tredje skal Boltanski og Chiapellos (B&C i det folgende) begrebs- og teoridannelse praeciseres gennem konfrontation med dels en marxistisk forstaelse af ideologi og kritik, dels aktor-netvaerksteorien i Bruno Latours udgave, ifolge hvilken kritisk sociologi er noget af det vaerste og mest skadelige, der er haendt samfundsvidenskaben. Et kort blik pa den anerkendelsesteoretiske fornyelse af kritisk teori (Axel Honneth) bidrager til praeciseringen. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Niels Albertsen: Justification, Ideology, Critique The aim of this article is threefold. The first task is to explicate the connections between the concepts of justification, ideology and critique in Luc Boltanski’s and Eve Chiapello’s magnum opus, The New Spirit of Capitalism. The second is to elucidate the relationship between sociology of critique and critical sociology. In the1980-90s Boltanski argued that critical sociology, which approaches social actors critically in search of “hidden“ explanations “behind their backs“, should be replaced by sociology of critique, which investigates the critical competencies of the social actors themselves. In The New Spirit of Capitalism, however, critical sociology shows up again. How consistent is this move? The third aim is to clarify Boltanski’s and Chiapello’s theoretical position by confronting it with Marxist conceptions of ideology and critique (Karl Marx and Slavoj Žižek) and with actor-network theory (Bruno Latour). A quick look at Axel Honneth’s recognition-oriented renewal of critical theory further contributes to the clarification. The main conclusion is that sociology of critique has helped reformulate critical sociology as pragmatic critique, as critical sociology of critique that does not operate with deep, transcendent foundations. Key words: Justification, ideology, critique, Boltanski, Latour, Žižek.

Luc Boltanski: His Life and Work – An Overview

Abstract: Biographical Facts Luc Boltanski is widely regarded as one of the most influential French sociologists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He is one of the leading figures of the ‘pragmatic’ tradition within contemporary social and political thought. More specifically, he is – along with Laurent Thevenot – one of the founding figures of an approach that he himself characterizes as the ‘pragmatic sociology of critique’. Boltanski was born in 1940. He is the brother of the artist Christian Boltanski and of the linguist Jean-Elie Boltanski. He studied social sciences at the University of Paris, La Sorbonne, and completed his These de troisieme cycle in 1968. This dissertation – entitled Prime education et morale de classe – was supervised by Raymond Aron; it was published by Mouton Publishing Company (152 pp.) in 1969 and subsequently translated into Italian (Guaraldi) and Spanish (Laia). Boltanski was awarded his Doctorat d'Etat in 1981 for his thesis entitled Les cadres : La formation d'un groupe social ; this study, completed under the supervision of Pierre Ansart, was published by Editions de Minuit (523 pp.) in 1982. Throughout his career as a professional academic, Boltanski has been based at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France. At the EHESS, he has held three major academic positions: Chef de travaux (1965–69), Maitre de conferences (1970–81), and Directeur d'etudes (since 1982). Between 1965 and 1984, he was a member of the Centre de Sociologie Europeenne (EHESS/CNRS), directed by Pierre Bourdieu. In 1985, he co-founded – together with Laurent Thevenot – the Groupe de Sociologie Politique et Morale (GSPM, EHESS/CNRS), of which he was the Director between 1985 and 1992. At the GSPM, he carried out several research projects and led numerous research programmes until its closure in 2013. He has been a Visiting Professor at various universities, both in Europe and in the United States, and he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University during the academic year 1991–92. Currently, he is a member of the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Enjeux Sociaux (Sciences Sociales, Politique, Sante) (IRIS, EHESS).

Pierre Bourdieu and the Early Luc Boltanski (1960–1975): Collective Ethos and Individual Difference

Abstract: Introduction In his Foreword to Richard Nice's translation into English of Bourdieu and Passeron's La Reproduction as Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977 [1970]), Tom Bottomore noted that the book expounded ‘the theoretical ideas which have guided the research on cultural reproduction over the past decade or so’ (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977 [1970]: v) of the Centre de Sociologie Europeenne (CSE) in Paris. He recognized that the book was the product of the collective activity of a group of researchers and that it demonstrated ‘the continuous interplay between theory and research’ (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977 [1970]: v) as well as the overcoming of the division between ‘thinkers’ and ‘researchers’, which – in the view of some – was ‘a major failing of sociology as a science’ (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977 [1970]: v). He considered that it may well be that this division could be transcended effectively, not by the ‘intermittent launching even of large-scale research projects’ (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977 [1970]: vi) but, as he commented somewhat enviously, by this kind of long-term involvement in the exploration of a particular broad domain of social life, by a group of researchers who acquire to some extent the qualities of a ‘school’ of thought. (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977 [1970]: v–vi) For Bottomore, the secret of the success of the CSE as a ‘school’ lay in its concentration over a sustained period of time on clearly demarcated objects of analysis – those associated with education and culture. There are, however, alternative explanations, both of which emphasize, instead, the a priori affective or cognitive dispositions of the group, generating its particular categories of research objects. Leaving aside the undoubted ‘charisma’ of Bourdieu, the Weberian connotations of which Bourdieu would have been anxious to disown, there is the possibility that there existed an elective affinity between the members of the group and that its intellectual identity was collectively constructed.