Beyond sociology

cultivating an ontological epistemology of participation

Ananta K. Giri

pp. 29-51

in: Ananta K. Giri (ed), Beyond sociology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

Sociology is part of the agenda of modernity which privileges epistemology to the neglect of ontological issues. In the modernist mode, sociology was considered only an epistemic project, a project of knowing about the world with proper procedure and scientific method and neglected issues of consciousness, self, relationship of subject and object, and ontological issues of self-nurturance and self-transformation. The neglect of ontology is a crucial gap in modernistic sociology which continues to persist even in contemporary new formulations such as cosmopolitan sociology, offered by Ulrich Beck. For Beck, sociology needs to move from methodological nationalism to methodological cosmopolitanism. But this move is primarily methodological and epistemic and does not address the ontological preparation needed for the transformation of sociology from its contemporary binding in nation-state to a cosmopolitan one. This needs a new self-conception on the part of sociologists, not only as citizens of the nation-state but also as citizens of the world and children of Mother Earth. The later self-conception calls for not only reiteration of self-identity as sociologically constituted but also transcendentally nurtured, urging both the sociologists as well as all human beings to realize that they are not only role occupants but also transcendental selves living in varieties of communities but at the same time transcending these. The chapter explores some of these issues as it puts forward the idea of society as multiple movements of ontological epistemology of participation.

Cited authors

Beck Ulrich