Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Weak social theory, as originally conceived by the Dutch sociologist Dick Pels (2003) , is directly opposed to both the systematic reinforcement of the hegemonic “grand conception of sociology's role” (see Hammersley 1999 ) and the methodical concealment of the essential “epistemological circularity” of sociological accounts, which isolate us from the ethics/aesthetics of “imperfection” and scientific modesty. Hence, social theoretical knowledge is inescapably a fragile and contingent thing. In this respect, weak social theory advances “intellectual humility and tolerance” ( Rosenau 1992 : 22), recalling many essential postmodern features: no more compelling and compulsory truths, great and indubitable certainties, or all-purpose grand methodologies. And no more need to forcibly extract any universally binding agreement. Social theory must now self-consciously recognize and celebrate itself as inherently refutable, soft, weak, and vulnerable, “refusing to flex the muscle of a male-dominated epistemology” ( Pels 2003 : 217). For weak social theory, to say that an argument carries overwhelming force, or that it stands up in a definitely unproblematic way, is to “find it distasteful or even slightly obscene. To say: ‘that is a very vulnerable argument,’ is to pay a compliment to it” ( Pels 2003 : 220). In this sense, we must be proud of our (constitutive) weakness and reflexively ... log in or subscribe to read full text