Martin Strauss | Doktorand Stipendiat

Former Member
Critical Thinking in the Plural. Conceptual Approaches in Research in the Social Sciences
Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstraße 191, D-10117 Berlin
Email: martin.strauss  ( at )  univie.ac.at Tel: +49(0) 30 / 20 93 70700

Home Institution : Universität Wien & École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris | Position : Doctoral student | Disciplines : Philosophy , Sociology , History of Science |

Biography

Martin Strauss studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, completing a master’s thesis on rules and rule-following in the work of Pierre Bourdieu. His current research interests centre on the philosophy, history, and sociology of the social sciences in a transnational perspective, especially on the relationship between philosophy and sociology in the 19th and 20th century in France and the German-speaking world. Martin does his doctoral research in the framework of a co-tutelle de thèse between the University of Vienna and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris. He has worked as a research assistant at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna and is currently a Marietta Blau fellow of the Austrian agency for international mobility and cooperation in education, science and research (OeAD).

(cotutelle)
Title of thesis
Sociologizing the A Priori. From Neo-Kantianism to the Sociology of Knowledge and French and German-speaking Academic Fields, 1870s-1940s.
Summary of thesis

The rise of sociology as a relatively autonomous area of knowledge at the turn of the 20th century coincides with the heyday of neo-Kantian philosophies at both French and German-speaking universities.  For each context, scholars have identified various exchanges between neo-Kantian thought and some of the founding figures of sociology (e.g. Weber, Simmel, Durkheim). While the parallel has been noticed, no systematic comparison and analysis of cross-national transfers has been presented. The pertinence of the prima facie similarity thus remains obscure (chapter 1). My dissertation project sets out to fill this gap. It draws on Bourdieusian field theory, the comparative history of disciplinary organisation (Lepenies 1985, Ringer 1992) and recent proposals for a transnational history of the social sciences (Heilbron/Guilhot/Jeanpierre 2008). The resulting approach seeks to explain differences and similarities in the use of neo-Kantian topoi in sociology in terms of the structure of the respective academic fields and corresponding dispositions of the agents.

The aim of the first part of the thesis is to provide elements for an historical evaluation of the interrelations of neo-Kantian philosophies and early sociologies in French and German-speaking academic fields (chapter 2). The second part then focuses specifically on one crucial aspect of the exchange between neo-Kantianism and sociology, a process described as a “sociologization” of the Kantian a priori. In both French and German-speaking contexts, the Kantian categories and the forms of sensibility, space and time, were reinterpreted as socially constituted and historically variable cognitive structures. Programmes in the sociology of knowledge were developed to investigate them empirically (chapter 3). The project illuminates successively (1) the genesis, (2) the reception and (3) the diffusion of these sociological theories of the a priori in a transnational perspective. It highlights the role of neo-Kantian theories of knowledge in the genesis of sociologies of knowledge (chapter 4); analyzes reactions to the associated challenges of relativism, reflexivity and “sociologism” in three national contexts (chapters 5 and 6); and offers elements for understanding the further trajectories and the systematic prospects of sociological theories of the a priori (chapter 7 and 8). The project thus contributes not only to a fuller picture of the relations between philosophy and sociology in France and the German-speaking world at the turn of the 20th century. It also illuminates the genealogy of notions of social categories, social space and social time which have become ubiquitous in today’s social and cultural sciences.

Institution of thesis
Universität Wien, Institut für Philosophie & École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre Maurice Halbwachs, Paris
Supervisor
Elisabeth Nemeth & Éric Brian

Sociologizing the A Priori. From Neo-Kantianism to the Sociology of Knowledge and French and German-Speaking Academic Fields, 1870s-1940s.

The rise of sociology as a relatively autonomous area of knowledge at the turn of the 20th century coincides with the heyday of neo-Kantian philosophies at both French and German-speaking universities.  For each context, scholars have identified various exchanges between neo-Kantian thought and some of the founding figures of sociology (e.g. Weber, Simmel, Durkheim). While the parallel has been noticed, no systematic comparison and analysis of cross-national transfers has been presented. The pertinence of the prima facie similarity thus remains obscure (chapter 1). My dissertation project sets out to fill this gap. It draws on Bourdieusian field theory, the comparative history of disciplinary organisation (Lepenies 1985, Ringer 1992) and recent proposals for a transnational history of the social sciences (Heilbron/Guilhot/Jeanpierre 2008). The resulting approach seeks to explain differences and similarities in the use of neo-Kantian topoi in sociology in terms of the structure of the respective academic fields and corresponding dispositions of the agents. The aim of the first part of the thesis is to provide elements for an historical evaluation of the interrelations of neo-Kantian philosophies and early sociologies in French and German-speaking academic fields (chapter 2). The second part then focuses specifically on one crucial aspect of the exchange between neo-Kantianism and sociology, a process described as a “sociologization” of the Kantian a priori. In both French and German-speaking contexts, the Kantian categories and the forms of sensibility, space and time, were reinterpreted as socially constituted and historically variable cognitive structures. Programmes in the sociology of knowledge were developed to investigate them empirically (chapter 3). The project illuminates successively (1) the genesis, (2) the reception and (3) the diffusion of these sociological theories of the a priori in a transnational perspective. It highlights the role of neo-Kantian theories of knowledge in the genesis of sociologies of knowledge (chapter 4); analyzes reactions to the associated challenges of relativism, reflexivity and “sociologism” in three national contexts (chapters 5 and 6); and offers elements for understanding the further trajectories and the systematic prospects of sociological theories of the a priori (chapter 7 and 8). The project thus contributes not only to a fuller picture of the relations between philosophy and sociology in France and the German-speaking world at the turn of the 20th century. It also illuminates the genealogy of notions of social categories, social space and social time which have become ubiquitous in today’s social and cultural sciences.
Publications

Strauss, Martin. 2020. ‘Cassirer, Ernst (1874-1945)’. In Dictionnaire international Bourdieu, edited by Gisèle Sapiro, 117–20. Culture & société. Paris: CNRS Éditions.

Strauss, Martin. Forthcoming. ‘Towards a Reflexive Intelligence of Emerging Sociology in France around 1900’. Revue de Synthèse 140 (3–4).

Strauss, Martin. Forthcoming. ‘D’un renouveau de l’historiographie de la sociologie germanophone : Le Handbuch Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Soziologie ’. Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines 37.

Moebius, Stephan, and Martin Strauss. Forthcoming. ‘“Créer ensemble un nouveau champ d’activité”: Entretien avec Stephan Moebius sur l’historiographie de la sociologie germanophone’. Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines 37.