内容简介

While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history. Logics of History argues that both history and the social sciences have something crucial to offer each other. While historians do not think of themselves as theorists, they know something social scientists do not: how to think about the temporalities of social life. On the other hand, while social scientists’ treatments of temporality are usually clumsy, their theoretical sophistication and penchant for structural accounts of social life could offer much to historians.

Renowned for his work at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, Sewell argues that only by combining a more sophisticated understanding of historical time with a concern for larger theoretical questions can a satisfying social theory emerge. In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.

作者简介

William H. Sewell Jr. is the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of three previous books, including Work and Revolution in France and A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution.

精彩摘录

读过前几章的人，应该留意到了我对方法论的强烈偏好。坦率地说，我承认自己是把社会生活首先视为阐释（诠释）性和历史性的。在此前提下，思考任何社会行动、公共团体或事件时，都涉及两个核心问题：其一是受众体验；其二是，对我们自己和我们研究的对象来说，变动的框架在彰显意涵的过程中扮演了什么角色。研究者所面临的最大挑战，是如何重构变动世界的意义和经验，使读者也认可这种解读，尤其读者本身也在研究研究和捕捉这些内容。

——引自第315页

但把“社会”当成话语事实理解，最终想解决的问题，与其在18世纪新出现的用法试图解决的一致，是要为人类生活提供本体论基础。

——引自第321页