Theorizing Modernity: Inescapability and Attainability in Social Theory

by Peter Wagner (Brand)

This book argues that sociology has lost its ability to provide critical diagnoses of the present human condition because sociology has stopped considering the philosophical requirements of social enquiry. The book attempts to restore that ability by retrieving some of the key questions that sociologists tend to gloss over, inescapability and attainability. The book identifies five key questions in which issues of inescapability and attainability emerge. These are the questions of the certainty of our knowledge, the viability of our politics, the continuity of our selves, the accessibility of the past, and the transparency of the future. The book demonstrates how these questions are addressed in different forms and by different intellectual means during the past 200 years and shows how they persist today.

160 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Andrejs M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wagner sets out a decent set of conceptual categories with which to 'theorize modernity'. However, for whatever reason, his writing is excessively and unnecessarily dense. There are some authors who require a complex and depth-filled writing style in order to convey a particularly difficult or nuanced concept; Wagner's work does require this approach, and it makes the work frustrating to read. It took a serious amount of concentration and discipline just to sit still and finish it with only a mild contribution to theories of modernity and postmodernity. There is little I would consider actually original in terms of theoretical innovation. Most of his points are part of a sort of summary or schematizing approach.

That being said, it is a solid work of modern social theory that may be helpful to students and academics across many fields.