Estudios de la Economía

[Javier Hernández avisa de este evento que se ve muy bien].

Weber/ Simmel antagonisms. Staged dialogues. University of Edinburgh,10/11 December 2015. A conference organized by the Max Weber Group of the British Sociological Association & Sociology Edinburgh.

Call for outlines

Much has been said about the strong oppositions between Simmel and Weber as founding fathers of sociology – as well as about their shared concerns. Capitalism and culture, ‘worlds’ and their tensions, rationalization and objectivation, the city, music, the methodology of the social sciences and ideal types, equally exercised their thought and yielded very different creatures. But rather than merely intellectual or methodological quarrels, the antagonisms between Simmel and Weber engaged their whole way of being and acting in the world – the constantly renewed aspiration yet impossibility of reconciliation with oneself and the world, for Simmel; agonic tension, struggle with oneself and the world, for Weber. This is perhaps the reason why Weber/Simmel antagonisms have had continuity in social theory and shaped some of its major currents of thought. More importantly perhaps they spur us to be and act in the world in very different ways: hence this conference, which does not only explore these differences, but stages them. The format of the conference is inspired after the staging of the Tarde/Durkheim debate by Latour/Karsenti, but rather than recreating a real debate with prominent actors, we invite outlines for short ‘imagined dialogues’ between Weber and Simmel on topics which were addressed by both. The topics chosen should not be of merely scholarly interest but rather capture problematics mattering today. Continue reading →