|  |
 |
Faculty Bio | |
|
|
| |
| | |
| | |
|
|
Allan A. Silver
Professor
Columbia University
Sociology |
|
Biography
I have two main interests—an historical approach to theory, and aspects of political sociology. By an historical approach to theory, I do not mean the history of theory, but rather the historical contextualization of theory, with a view to its consequences for theory today. This is developed in a seminar addressing a historically and culturally informed sociology of moral order in personal relations. Rational choice approaches suggest that instrumental and calculative orientations are interpretively efficient accounts of moral order, while communitarian approaches suggest that sentiments, solidarity and norms have independent explanatory status. Such divergent accounts reflect an antipodal distinction between the utilitarian and the personal domains, largely inherited from "classical" social theory, and reflecting the transition to modernity. However, a range of research—not only in sociology, but also in anthropology, history and literature—calls this dichotomy into question and informs my study of friendship, loyalty, exchange, trust and forgiveness, and its implications for theory. One expression of these concerns is an essay, "'Two Different Sorts of Commerce'—Friendship and Strangership in Civil Society", in Jeff Weintraub and Krishan Kumar (eds.), Public and Private in Thought and Practice, University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Current CV
| |
|
|
|
