New Pragmatist Sociology

Neil Gross is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Colby College. He is the author of Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? (2013) and Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher (2008).Isaac Ariail Reed is professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Power in Modernity: Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King’s Two Bodies (2020) and Interpretation and Social Knowledge: On the Use of Theory in the Human Sciences (2011).Christopher Winship is Diker-Tishman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and a senior faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is coauthor of Counterfactuals and Causal Inference: Methods and Principles for Social Research (second edition, 2014).

The New Pragmatist Sociology introduces readers to the long sociological tradition of pragmatism and shows how it can be harnessed effectively to address a wide range of empirical problems central to the discipline. The editors are widely considered among the leading voices in the pragmatist revival, and this volume illuminates a promising path for sociology to take.

• Introduction1. Pragmatist Sociology: Histories and Possibilities, by Isaac Ariail Reed, Neil Gross, and Christopher WinshipPart I: Inquiry2. What Sociologists Should Get Out of Pragmatism, by John Levi Martin3. Self-Reflection and Social Responsibility in Research: Lessons from Early Pragmatist Historical Investigations, by Daniel Huebner4. Problem Situation Misassessment and the Financial Crisis, by Luis Flores and Neil Gross5. Pragmatism, Aesthetics, and Sociology, by Daniel Silver6. Disambiguating Dewey; or Why Pragmatist Action Theory Neither Needs Nor Asks Paradigmatic Privilege, by Josh WhitfordPart II: Agency7. Problem-Solving in Action: A Peirceian Account, by Iddo Tavory and Stefan Timmermans8. Projective and Responsive Creativity Among On-Demand Workers, by Mazen Elfakhani9. Words Versus Actions in the Network Behavior of Low-Income African Americans, by Mario Small, Cayce C. Hughes, Vontrese D. Pamphile, and Jeffrey N. Parker10. Scientific Innovation as Environed Social Learning, by Natalie B. Aviles11. Why Do Biologists and Chemists Do Safety Differently? The Reproduction of Cultural Variation Through Pragmatic Regulation, by Susan SilbeyPart III: Democracy12. Accidental Discovery and the Pragmatist Theory of Action: The Emergence of a Boston Police and Black Ministers Partnership, by Christopher Winship13. Pragmatist Comparative-Historical Sociology, by Isaac Ariail Reed and Paul Lichterman14. American Pragmatism and the Dilemma of the Negro, by Karida L. Brown and Luna Vincent15. The Public Arena: A Pragmatist Concept of the Public Sphere, by Daniel Cefaï16. Finding the Future in Pragmatist Thought: Imagination, Teleologies, and Public Deliberation, by Ann MischeIndex