A Real Live Positivist

Sometimes it’s hard to find a sociologist who is easily put into one of the rather artificial boxes or categories which are used at A level. They are useful - up to a point, but if you are ambitious and fairly sophisticated, don’t be fooled into thinking all sociologists fit neatly into such categories. Remember, sociological theories are tools - to be used - and different sociologists adapt them in different ways.

But anyway, do you know of any real positivists? Here’s one I’ve found - Diego Gambetta of Nuffield College Oxford. He has written a great website where he explains some of his views. I don’t necessarily agree with him, but you’ve got to admire the bluntness of the man who can say this: ” I detest jargon, which has done so much to ruin, often deservedly, the reputation of sociology. I do not mean technical words, or new words that identify something for which we have no synonyms in our vocabulary. I mean all embracing loose metaphors – such as liquid modernity or risk society or space of flows. Jargon is the make up donned by bad theorising to veil its hollowness. When I encounter words such as discourse, modernity or structuration I stop reading.” If you want to read more you will find it in his his essay More Hedgehog than Fox: a self-presentation.