La sociologie française est-elle pragmatist compatible ?

Abstract

This article tries to answer a question: are social sciences in France pragmatist compatible? This article explores the uses and appropriations of pragmatism in French social sciences, focusing on two major intellectual examples in the past twenty years: the group “Raisons pratiques” which is linked to the “École des hautes études en sciences sociales”, and Bruno Latour’s anthropology of science. Is the use of pragmatism the sign of a general paradigm crisis? Is it simply a fashionable trend? Can we now talk of a new pragmatic paradigm in social sciences and how could it be defined?

Keywords

• pragmatism
• sociological theories of action
• Latour’s anthropology of sciences
• pragmatic turn