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1 - The Emergence of Social Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

By
Johan Heilbron
Edited by
Peter Kivisto
Peter Kivisto
Affiliation:
Augustana College, Illinois
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Summary

The emergence of “social theory” as a distinct intellectual genre represents a historic renewal of considerable importance. Tracing the development of key concepts allows us to understand its analytical specificity as compared to the traditional genres of inquiry (politics, law, morals, and political economy). It makes it possible to identify its formative period (between the Enlightenment and the early nineteenth century), and its most prominent pioneers – Montesquieu, Rousseau, and the Scottish moral philosophers.

Johan Heilbron is a historical sociologist, currently Professor of the Sociology of Education at Uppsala University and affiliated with the Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique (CESSP-CNRS-EHESS) in Paris and Erasmus University Rotterdam. Relevant books include The Rise of Social Theory (1995), The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity (coedited, 2001), Pour une histoire des sciences sociales: hommage à Pierre Bourdieu (coedited, 2004), French Sociology (2015), and The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations (coedited, 2018).

Keywords

Enlightenmentintellectual genresocial sciencesocial theorysociology
Type
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The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory , pp. 1 - 23
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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