Articles/books on Adorno and (empirical) sociology

[Neil McLaughlin]

Filipe's point is a good one, and well put.
Yes, it makes sense to me to break apart a theory-empirical dualism.
Robert Alford's book The Craft of Inquiry (1998), for example, makes the
very important point that theory and methods, and theory and research are
always in a dialectical relationship. A method only makes sense in the
context of a theory that provides the framework in which a certain
evidence makes sense. And research without theory, is not possible nor
desirable. Many on this list will have thoughts about the philosophical
roots of ideas such of these, but the tough part is doing this in
practice.
So another way of putting my question is what theoretical ideas and
methodological approaches specifically  from
Adorno can help move sociology forward today?
No-one is expected to have these ideas all worked out - trying stuff out
on a list-serve is what they exist for.
But I would be interested in hearing the outlines of a research agenda
flowing from Adorno...


Neil G. McLaughlin     			KTH-620
Associate Professor			McMaster University
Department of Sociology			Hamilton, Ontario
E-mail: nmclaugh@mcmaster.ca		L8S 4M4
Phone (905) 525-9140 Ext. 23611		Canada

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, filipe ceppas wrote:

> Is this empirical-theoretical sociology dualism worthwhile? Although we have
> enough critic of Adorno "empirical" work, and it is a commom place to
> aknowledge the insignificance of "Adorno's empirical contributions", I would
> ask why we can't envisage Adorno "theoretical" contribution to some
> empirical sociological work to be made as some sort of "empirical
> contribution", since it seems hard, or usefuless, to freeze the
> theoretical/empirical border. And we can think on several "empirical"
> subjects that could be easily worked with the help of Adorno's philosophical
> ideas, even music or authoritarian personality, in spite of the appraisal of
> Adorno's own "empirical" work on these subjetcs (and of course I'm not
> saying that this appraisal is irrelevant). I'm sorry if I put the question
> in a so "tranchant" manner (the foreing language doesn't help me at all),
> but I would like to understand the problem better. What have we done with
> "sociological imagination"? Isn't it a challenge to do better empirical work
> with the help of any theoretical ideas at hand?
>
> Trying to learn...
>
> Best wishes, Filipe.
>
> > From: Neil McLaughlin <nmclaugh@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>
> > Reply-To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu
> > Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 12:36:30 -0400 (EDT)
> > To: frankfurt-school@lists.village.virginia.edu
> > Subject: Re: Articles/books on Adorno and (empirical) sociology
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I have to admit some scepticism regarding the possibilities of creating an
> > Adorno inspired empirical sociology. But I would be interested in hearing
> > here on this list, an argument for what might come out of such an effort.
> > There has been, it seems to me, enourmous progress in sociology over the
> > decades since Adorno came on the scene specifically around the issue of
> > methods (advances in quantitative methods, important work in
> > historical/comparative methods and increasing sophistication in
> > qualitative methods) and the theory/method connection. I am going to try
> > to put aside my relative disinterest in Adorno's empirical contributions,
> > since (putting aside the Lazarsfeld/Adorno issue) it hardly seems like he
> > made many important empirical contributions in the past. I would try to
> > learn to
> > take free kicks from Beckham in soccer, since trying to bend it like
> > Beckham makes sense, since he did does it so well.
> > But trying to study things empirically like Adorno? Seems a stretch...
> > But I would be interested in hearing the core of the argument for trying
> > to build on Adorno's empirical approach, hopefully from someone up to date
> > with recent developments in sociology regarding thinking about the
> > relationship between theory and methods.
> >
> >
> > Neil G. McLaughlin                 KTH-620
> > Associate Professor            McMaster University
> > Department of Sociology            Hamilton, Ontario
> > E-mail: nmclaugh@mcmaster.ca        L8S 4M4
> > Phone (905) 525-9140 Ext. 23611        Canada
> >
> > On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Claus Hansen wrote:
> >
> >> Dear list,
> >>
> >> I was wondering if any of you knew any articles dealing with Adorno's
> >> sociological works and especially his visions on how to conduct empirical
> >> sociology. I would also be glad if anyone knew if anyone had tried to
> >> elaborate a bit on his 'epistemology' and how it could be utilised for
> >> sociology. So far I have found the following:
> >>
> >> Stefan Mller-Doohm has published a book called - Die Soziologie Theodor W.
> >> Adorno's (1996, Campus Verlag) that sketches both some substantial issues
> >> in Adorno's 'sociological theory' and some answers as to how one should
> >> 'conduct' Adornian inspired empirical sociology. He has also published a
> >> few articles dealing with the same issue. Then there is the part of the
> >> 'Adorno-Konferenz 1983' (1983, Suhrkamp)  that deals on his methodology -
> >> all in all three articles by Wolfgang Bonss, Jrgen Risert and Ulrich
> >> Oevermann. There is also a single English article by Ryan Drake called
> >> 'Objectivity and Insecurity. Adorno and Empirical Social Research'
> >> (Philosophy Today, Summer 2000). There are of course also a chapter in
> >> Rose's, Melancholy Science and Buck-Morss', The Origin of Negative
> >> Dialectics.
> >>
> >> Does anyone know of any other articles in English, German or any
> >> Scandinavian language?
> >>
> >> Thank you,
> >>
> >> Claus
> >>
> >> ____________________________________________________________________________
> >> "Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, nr de siger 'jeg'"
> >> (T.W. Adorno)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>