Researching taste: an interview of Antoine Hennion

ABSTRACT

Antoine Hennion is a Professor of Sociology at the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation (Mines-Paris Tech, PSL/CNRS). He has been researching taste and cultural practices through a pragmatic lens for three decades. He has developed an original and impactful theoretical framework bridging the Actor-Network Theory to Cultural Studies. More precisely, he reconceptualized the notions of mediation and attachment. Antoine Hennion has explored various empirical settings, including music, wine, and sports. More recently, he has contributed to a large research project on migration. His books and academic articles have had an impact on Sociology, and are getting greater attention in consumer research.     

Reasserting Institutionalist Insights on the Good Society: 30 Years After Petr’s Call for a Mixed Economy

In this research note, I revisit the issues raised by Jerry Petr (1987) in “The Nature and Necessity of the Mixed Economy.” The institutionalist mixed economy is still a sound model for the good society. However, Western industrialized countries have been losing ground on the goals of the mixed economy. The struggle to defend pragmatism over ideological attachment to neoliberalism, has evolved into a distributional struggle that cannot be resolved without institutional change.     

转型时期中国品牌崛起的制约因素研究

改革开放30多年来,中国实现了经济大国的崛起,但是,崛起过程中"中国品牌"成了短板。通过企业价值导向、政经环境、文化传承以及管理人才等角度分析后发现,机会主义的企业价值导向从目标设定上背离了品牌发展的方向,不成熟的政治经济环境是约束品牌成长的背景变量,实用主义的传统文化让中国品牌迷失了方向。此外,中国缺乏商界领袖等管理人才也是制约中国品牌崛起的重要因素。     

简析实用主义的真理观

实用主义是西方哲学中的一个重要流派,而真理观是其重要而具有代表性的一个观点。长期以来,我们对实用主义有过多的偏见与误解,甚至有时完全否定其科学价值。通过考察詹姆士真理观的基本内涵和基本特征,可以看出实用主义真理观中,既有需批判的谬误又有可吸收的真理。我们应以科学的态度来评价它。     

The State,Public Policy and Heterodox Economics: An Introduction

While most heterodox economists endorse some amount of policy activism, there is no unified conception of the state and public policy in heterodox economics. To help clarify the similarities and differences within heterodoxy – and between heterodox and mainstream economics – a panel addressing this subject was convened in 2007 at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Institutional Thought. This article introduces the essays prepared for that symposium. They include an examination of the position of Marx and Engels, a clarification of the institutionalist views of Veblen and Commons, an outline of the perspective of Post Keynesian Institutionalism, and an account of some essential contributions of Classical Pragmatism (a major school of thought within the philosophy of science). The collection advances what Robert Heilbroner called “the worldly philosophy” by seeking to understand the role of the state in a world where institutions, defined broadly as social habits, adjust to other institutions.

Is Pragmatism Good for Anything? Towards a Theory of Impractical Economics

This article discusses the relationship between classical pragmatism, political economy and economic policy. Classical pragmatism is contrasted with vulgar meanings and uses of the term pragmatism. Classical pragmatism aims at a deep, substantive theoretical understanding of real-world economic systems and supports application of well-warranted claims to knowledge to improve the human condition. The article reviews the contributions of the founder of pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce, to the areas of ontology and epistemology as well as their further development by contemporary classical pragmatist philosopher Susan Haack. Hilary Putnam’s argument that we can have ethics without ontology and objectivity without objects is then critiqued. We need ethics based on an ontology that is rooted in actual human experience; this provides better guidance for evaluating policy proposals. The paper concludes by discussing the affinity of classical pragmatism with different approaches to political economy and policy.

Domestic Political Institutions,Diplomatic Style and Trade Agreements: A Comparative Study of China and Japan

Through an analysis of the formation of free trade agreements (FTAs), this article seeks to examine the factors that caused the gap in Japan and China's relationship with Southeast Asia to emerge and expand in the new millennium. In order to address this question, the article focuses on China and Japan's diplomatic styles and domestic political institutions and examines how these two elements influenced negotiations on the formation of FTAs, as well as the evolving perceptions that the Southeast Asian nations have of these two states. The article argues that Japan and China possess different kinds of weaknesses in implementing feasible external policies – a lack of policy decisiveness for Japan and weak policy credibility for China – which have resulted from the operation of domestic political institutions. Given these differences, while China implemented pragmatic diplomacy that helped improve its policy credibility, Japan's bargaining diplomatic style did not serve to rectify its weak policy decisiveness. Such differences in their diplomatic approach have led to the differing influence of these two states on Southeast Asia.     

History and Class Consciousness. Studies in Marxist Dialectics

Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen were two of the major contributors in the field of economics and sociology in the beginning of twentieth century. This paper argues that the works of both authors underline a "rationalization process" that occured in Western societies. We compare the respective analyses of Weber and Veblen on this subject. Despite a formal similarity, the analysis manifests some major divergences concerning the nature and the significance of the rationalization process. We suggest that the major divergences originate in the philosophical and epistemological foundations of the work of each author.     

实践社会科学：理论与方法

我们对待所有现有理论的基本态度,是把它们当作问题而不是答案。相对千变万化的实际而言,理论只可能是片面的或局部的,不可能是普适的,只可能是随真实世界的演变而相应变化,不可能是给定的永恒真理。学术可以,也应该借助不同流派的现有理论来协助我们认识实际,来推进我们对实际的概括,但绝对不应该像高度科学主义化的主流西方理论那样用来表达虚构的普世规律,或对真实世界实际片面化和理想化。真正求真的学术是根据精准的经验研究,通过对现有理论的取舍、对话、改造和推进,来建立带有经验界限的、行之有效的、更符合经验实际的概括,再返回到经验/实践世界中去检验。如此的学术,探索的应该是由求真和崇高的道德价值动机出发的问题,不该局限于如今流行的比较庸俗和工具主义/功利主义的研究方法或其所谓的"问题意识"。这才是这里提倡的"前瞻性的实践社会科学研究"的实质含义。