Affiliation
University of Leeds; University of ChesterPublication Date
2005-10-14
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This article looks at the problems Sociology has in theorising modern discourses in the light of the rise and consolidation of Postmodernism. The paper begins with an historical sketch of the emergence of Enlightenment and how its values helped to engender intellectual curiosity amongst the precursors of modernist sociological theorising. Indeed, the paper analyses how Sociology faces up to enlightenment thought and legacy via a critical analysis of the modern‐postmodern debate: its historiography, pathologies, and futurology. At the same time, there has been a huge escalation of neo‐Nietzschean theorists under the label of ‘postmodernist’ who have castigated the enlightenment to the dustbin of the history of ideas, that its metanarratives of ‘progress’ and ‘freedom’ have failed and that western rationality is exhausted (Lyotard, 1984). Subsequently, the paper assesses to what extent the values of the ‘project of modernity’ have to be abandoned, and whether, in turn, sociology can offer the epistemic stretching of postmodern narratives.Citation
Shipman, J., & Powell, J. L. (2005). Modernist sociology in a postmodern world? International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 25(11), 1-13Publisher
EmeraldAdditional Links
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/01443330510791351Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
0144-333Xae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1108/01443330510791351