Cinta de Moebio: Revista de Epistemología de Ciencias Sociales

Cordero, R. y Salinas, F. (2017) Hacia una sociología de la abstracción: observaciones acerca de la mediación entre lo conceptual y lo empírico. Cinta moebio 58: 61-73. doi: 10.4067/S0717-554X2017000100061

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Towards a sociology of abstraction: notes on the relationship between the conceptual and the empirical

Rodrigo Cordero (rodrigo.cordero@udp.cl) Escuela de Sociología, Universidad Diego Portales (Santiago, Chile) ORCID: 0000-0001-8441-7855

Francisco J. Salinas (f.lemus.15@ucl.ac.uk) Institute of Education, University College London (London, UK) ORCID: 0000-0002-3916-4833

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the sociological study of “abstractions” as a key to comprehend the relations between the conceptual and the empirical. Our argument is that “abstraction” is a third term that challenges the customary divorce between these domains in sociology inasmuch as interrogates their complex mediation in social life. To do so, we explore the possibilities of a sociology of abstraction as an exercise of thinking and observation aimed at: (i) comprehending the immersion of social theory’s practices of abstraction as immanent to the dynamics of abstraction of society; and (ii) deciphering the concrete movement of concepts that give form to society and durability to social relations. Thus, we intend to show that the project of a sociology of abstractions consists in an unavoidable reflexive retreat that displays concepts in order to reach what is beyond concepts.

Key words: abstraction, concepts, theoretical practice, sociology, society.