A Poetic for Sociology
Toward a Logic of Discovery for the Human Sciences

- Contents

Acknowledgements
1. Poetics and sociology: an invitation
Assumptions and methods of approach
Contemporary sociology: a budget of crises
The central problematic
2. Cognitive aesthetics: symbolic realism and perspectival knowledge
Positive science against romantic art
Philosophic background to symbolic realism
Toward a cognitive aesthetics
Form and content
"Subjective" symbols versus "objective" science
3. Points of view
Point of view
Sociological distance
Point of view as a resource
Point of view as an instrument of self-reflection
4. Metaphor
The cognitive status of metaphors
Metaphor in art, science, and social theory
Objections of our scientific critics
Criteria of adequacy for metaphors in sociology
Illustrative metaphor
Metaphor as model
The root metaphors of sociological thought
5. Irony
Of irony
Irony in sociology theory
Goffman and Sorokin: two styles in ironic social thought
Ironism as a humanism
Irony as a logic of discovery
6. Coda
Concluding argument
On theory and practice
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Political Science: Political and Social Theory
Sociology: Theory and Sociology of Knowledge
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