The Status of the "Material" in Theories of Culture: From "Social Structure" to "Artefacts"

Compares the conceptualizations of the realm of the 'material' or 'non-cultural' in different versions of 20th-century cultural theory to distinguish between three phases of historical development. The classical sociology of knowledge (in the works of Mannheim and late Durkheim)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal for the theory of social behaviour Vol. 32; no. 2; pp. 195 - 217
Main Author: Reckwitz, Andreas
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Science Ltd 01.06.2002
Blackwell
Subjects:
Agency and Structure
Culture
Epistemological Doctrines
Epistemology
General points
History of science and technology
History of science in relation to other disciplinary fields
Intellectual History
Latour, Bruno
Mannheim, Karl
Material culture
Materialism
Ontology
Philosophy
Social behaviour
Social Structure
Social theory
Sociological Theory
Sociology
Sociology of Knowledge
Theoretical Problems
Century 20
Wittgenstein (L.)
Material
Poststructuralism
Neokantianism
Artifact
Culture
ISSN:0021-8308, 1468-5914
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Compares the conceptualizations of the realm of the 'material' or 'non-cultural' in different versions of 20th-century cultural theory to distinguish between three phases of historical development. The classical sociology of knowledge (in the works of Mannheim and late Durkheim) understands the material as a separate realm of 'social structures', which acts as the 'foundation' for the realm of symbolic orders. The instabilities of this theoretical option of a 'materialist-culturalist double' are resolved in radical culturalism, which appears in different versions in (post)-structuralism, phenomenology, constructivism and so on, and which interprets the non-cultural as 'objects of knowledge' or 'symbolic objects'. The problematic neo-Kantian subject-object-distinction in these approaches is the target of a third, novel culturalist option of dealing with material entities: in the work of Bruno Latour, these entities are rehabilitated as 'artefacts' or 'things' that are necessary, effective components of social practices or networks. Latour's approach should be embedded in the wider framework of a post-Wittgensteinian theory of social practices as it is formulated above all by Theodore Schatzki. (Original abstract - amended)
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-BLMLHHSC-2
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ISSN:0021-8308
1468-5914
DOI:10.1111/1468-5914.00183