This paper aims to contribute to the sociological study of “abstractions” as a key to comprehend the relations between the conceptual and the empirical. Our argument is that “abstraction” is a third term that challenges the customary divorce between these domains in sociology inasmuch as interrogates their complex mediation in social life. To do so, we explore the possibilities of a sociology of abstraction as an exercise of thinking and observation aimed at: (i) comprehending the immersion of social theory’s practices of abstraction as immanent to the dynamics of abstraction of society; and (ii) deciphering the concrete movement of concepts that give form to society and durability to social relations. Thus, we intend to show that the project of a sociology of abstractions consists in an unavoidable reflexive retreat that displays concepts in order to reach what is beyond concepts.
Keywords:
abstraction, concepts, theoretical practice, sociology, society
Cordero, R., & Salinas, F. J. (2017). Towards a sociology of abstraction: notes on the relationship between the conceptual and the empirical. Cinta De Moebio. Revista De Epistemología De Ciencias Sociales, (58). Retrieved from https://actascoloquiogiannini.uchile.cl/index.php/CDM/article/view/45109
