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Arguments from Language/Understanding

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Arguments and Actions in Social Theory

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Abstract

The social world is one that is familiar; it embraces the spheres of routine action, it embraces the spheres ofroutine understanding and it is a world that requires no explanation to its inhabitants, those whose practices constitute that world. Social theorists in Europe have addressed in numerous ways the ‘given-ness’ or ‘taken-for-granted-ness’ of the ordinary social world: in terms taken from ancient Greek philosophy, in terms of the sacred texts of the Christian church, in the empiricist inflected theories of the liberal philosophers of early capitalism and — recently — in terms of the idea of language. The interest has found various expressions and all have it in common that the realm of human ‘being-in-the-world’ is understood as both constituted, and amenable to reflexive grasp, in language.

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Birmingham, UK

    Peter Preston

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  1. Peter Preston
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© 2009 Peter Preston

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Preston, P. (2009). Arguments from Language/Understanding. In: Arguments and Actions in Social Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230234178_3

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