A Tale of Two Sociologies: The Critical and the Pragmatic Stance in Contemporary French Sociology

Cet article est une traduction partielle de "Critique et pragmatique en sociologie. Quelques principes de lecture", Annales (Histoire Sciences Sociales), vol. 54, n° 2, mars-avril 1999, pp. 281-317.; International audience; This paper draws a parallel between two contemporary French conceptions of sociology. Each is first considered in terms of the principles and strategies of its sociological method. Through an analogy with Marx's philosophy of social science, critical sociology is shown to make an heuristic use for the analysis of cultures and social structures of the resistance to sociology that the sociologist encounters in the social objects, whereas pragmatic sociology adopts a pluralistic and descriptive strategy towards actions, actors and things. The paper then tries to show how common interests or trading zones could allow both critical and pragmatic sociology to profit from their competitive relation by taking each other as objects of sociological analysis.