Download Note: this is a tentative syllabus, subject to revision. It is intended to

Note: this is a tentative syllabus, subject to revision. It is intended to provide a flavor for what
will likely happen in the seminar.
Also note: many of the listed readings are long books. We will be reading selections, which are
TBD. I will also provide a more extensive set of supplementary readings, as a resource for
pursuing various themes further.
More notes: the assignments are TBD, but they will likely involve a course paper and some
exercises designed to practice and stimulate creative theorizing in the pragmatist mode.
SOC6201H
Sociological Theory III: Pragmatism
D. Silver
Winter 2016
Course Description:
Pragmatism is in the midst of a revival in contemporary sociology. What does it have to teach us?
In this seminar we will find out by intensively studying the ideas of four classical pragmatists:
Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. Our primary
focus will be close examination of their ideas and texts, often in connection with how they have
been recently taken up by contemporary sociologists. Key themes include: action theory, the
constitution of the self, the logic of inquiry, democracy, religion, the social practice of science,
semiotics, creativity, and the genesis of values.
To get a sense of some of the inspiration contemporary sociologists are drawing from pragmatism,
students may wish to peruse the discussion papers from a recent conference that brought “some of
the leading sociologists in the United States to discuss the place of pragmatist philosophy in their
work and in contemporary sociology.”
http://sociology.uchicago.edu/pragmatismconf/program.shtml
Assignments:
TBD
Charles Sanders Peirce
Week 1: Peirce’s Pragmatism
Background:
Louis Menad, The Metaphysical Club
“Peirce and the Founding of American Sociology,” JCS, Norbert Wiley 2006
Peirce:
“How to make our ideas clear”
“The Fixation of Belief”
“The Maxim of Pragmaticsm”
Contemporary Uptake:
Richard Swedberg, “Charles Sanders Peirce: On the Sociology of Thinking” in Sociological
Insights of Great Thinkers
Week 2: Semiotics
Background:
John Kaag, Thinking Through the Imagination
Peirce:
“Deduction, Induction, Hypothesis”
“Abduction and Induction”
“What is a Sign?”
Contemporary Uptake:
Timmermans and Tavory, “Theory Construction in Qualitative Research: From Grounded Theory
to Abductive Analysis”
Week 3: Science and Religion
Background:
Michael Raposa, Pierce’s Philosophy of Religion
Peirce:
“The Architecture of Theories”
“Evolutionary Love”
“A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God”
Contemporary Uptake:
“Problems in Applying Peirce to Social Science,” Erkki Kilpinen,
http://www.helsinki.fi/peirce/MC/papers/Kilpinen%20%20Problems%20in%20Applying%20Peirce.pdf
William James
Week 4: Principles of Psychology
Background:
Robert Richardson, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (Part III)
James:
“Habit,” “The Stream of Thought,” “Consciousness of Self,” “Will”
If you are interested in more, start with: “Attention,” “Conception,” “Reasoning,” “Emotions,”
Contemporary Uptake:
Barbalet, Jack. "William James: pragmatism, social psychology and emotions." European
Journal of Social Theory 7, no. 3 (2004): 337-353.
Week 5: Varieties of Religious Experience
Background:
Robert Richardson, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (Part IV)
James:
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature
Contemporary Uptake:
Hans Joas, The Genesis of Values (ch. 3)
Week 6: Pragmatism
Background:
Robert Richardson, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (Part V)
James:
Pragmatism: a new name for some old ways of thinking
Contemporary Uptakes:
Emirbayer, Mustafa, and Douglas W. Maynard. "Pragmatism and ethnomethodology."
Qualitative Sociology 34, no. 1 (2011): 221-261.
Rawls, Anne Warfield. "Garfinkel, ethnomethodology and the defining questions of pragmatism."
Qualitative sociology 34, no. 1 (2011): 277-282.
Winship, Christopher, and Christopher Muller. "Ethnomethodology and Consequences: Comment
on Emirbayer and Maynard’s “Pragmatism and Ethnomethodology”." Qualitative sociology 34,
no. 1 (2011): 283-286.
John Dewey
Week 7: Action
Background:
Robert Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Part I)
Dewey:
“The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology”
Human Nature and Conduct
Contemporary Uptake:
Crossley, Nick. "Habit and habitus." Body & Society 19, no. 2-3 (2013): 136-161.
Christopher Muller and Christopher Winship, “John Dewey: The Sociology of Action,” in
Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers
Week 8: Creativity
Background:
Robert Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Part III)
Dewey:
Art as Experience
Contemporary Uptake:
Hans Joas, The Creativity of Action, chapter 2.5
Week 9: Values
Background:
Robert Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Part IV)
Dewey:
A Common Faith
Maybe: The Public and its Problems
Contemporary Uptake:
Hans Joas, The Genesis of Values, ch. 7
Maybe: Emirbayer, Mustafa, and Erik Schneiderhan. "Dewey and Bourdieu on democracy."
Bourdieuian Theory and Historical Analysis (2012).
George Herbert Mead
Week 10: The Social Self
Background:
Filipe da Silva, GH Mead: A Reader, Introduction
Mead:
GH Mead: A Reader, Part I
Contemporary Uptake:
Stryker, Sheldon. "From Mead to a structural symbolic interactionism and beyond." Annu. Rev.
Sociol 34 (2008): 15-31.
Week 11: Science and Epistemology
Background:
Daniel Huebner, Becoming Mead: The Social Process of Academic Knowledge
Mead:
GH Mead: A Reader, Part II
Contemporary Uptake:
Maines, David R., Noreen M. Sugrue, and Michael A. Katovich. "The sociological import of GH
Mead's theory of the past." American Sociological Review (1983): 161-173.
Week 12: Democracy
Mead:
GH Mead: A Reader, Part III
Contemporary Uptake:
da Silva, Filipe Carreira. "Outline of a social theory of rights: A neo-pragmatist approach."
European Journal of Social Theory (2013): 1368431013484001.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1987. The theory of communicative action. Vol. 2. Translated by Thomas
McCarthy. Cambridge, UK: Polity. (Chapter V)
For a bibliography of all things Mead and sociology:
http://www.filipecarreiradasilva.net/papers/G.H.%20Mead%20-%20Sociology%20%20Oxford%20Bibliographies.pdf