Conceptual Implications in Social Sciences for Inquiring into the Social. Insights from Michael E. Brown's The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Social Sciences and Humanities

Abstract

What do we mean by “the social” exactly, and above all, are we attempting to define it as a static issue or a dynamic one? Consequently, as a theoretical concept or as a grounded empirical concept? Furthermore, should this concept be uniting two orders of knowledge such as the social sciences and the humanities in a broad sense? Or should this knowledge be considered within a reciprocal relationship, creating a tension that can have some kind of consequence uniting in some cases, but also differentiating and conflicting in others? The book of Brown is extraordinarily detailed and consequent in this sense. There is a continuous attempt to develop a terminology which can move from static concepts of the social in favor of dynamic ones.

Citation

Riccioni, I. (2022), "Conceptual Implications in Social Sciences for Inquiring into the Social. Insights from Michael E. Brown's The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Social Sciences and Humanities ", Halley, J.A. and Dahms, H.F. (Ed.) The Centrality of Sociality (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 39), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 183-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-120420220000039010