ALEXANDER AND THE CULTURAL REFOUNDING OF AMERICAN SOCIOLOGY

ABSTRACT This paper considers and evaluates Jeffrey Alexander’s strong program in cultural sociology, which represents an exercise in paradigm for-mation and an ambitious attempt to refound American sociology along interpretive lines. Cultural sociology is assessed according to four axes, namely its social constructivist epistemology, culturalizing methodology, analytical realism, and internal and external positioning. In addition to discussing the accomplishments and limitations of cultural sociology in all these areas, the paper indicates ways to strengthen it by setting it in conversation with other and more explicitly critical currents of thought. KEYWORDS critique • culture • interpretation • social constructivism • sociology SETTING THE SCENE Having entered the third century of its disciplinary existence, sociology finds itself in the midst of an identity crisis. Indeed, if it could speak, its first question to us would likely be ‘what exactly am I? ’ On the one hand, the natural scientific ambitions that animated some of its founders continue unabated in certain circles, where the dream of a science of society is eagerly pursued via the development and application of ever more refined quanti-tative measurements techniques and comprehensive models purporting to reveal the true functioning of particular institutions or phenomena and, thus, to produce knowledge applicable across settings and periods. On the other hand, the rise and rapid expansion of cultural studies over the past few decades has meant that sociology has lost part of its raison d’être and effec-tive analytical monopoly over one of its prime objects of study – culture. I