Can there be a sociological concept of interest?

Theory and Society

Volumn 34, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 359-390

  Swedberg, Richard ^a  

^a Department of Obstetrics Gynecology   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 27744578753     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: 15737853     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11186-005-1986-3     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. I am thankful for the comments from two anonymous reviewers at Theory and Society.
2. For works in English on the history of the concept of interest, see especially Albert O. Hirschman, "The Concept of Interest: From Euphemism to Tautology," in Rival Views of Market Society (New York: Viking, 1986), 35-55;
3. and Stephen Holmes, "The Secret History of Self-Interest," in Jane Mansbridge, editor, Beyond Self-interest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 267-286;
4. see also Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977);
5. and Pierre Demeulenaere, "Interest, Sociological Analysis of," in Vol. 11 of Neil Smelser and Paul Baltes, editors, International Encyclopaedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001), 7715-7718.
6. For non-English works, see especially Beat Huber, Der Begriff des Interesses in den Sozialwissenschaften (Wintherhur: Verlag P.G. Keller, 1958);
7. and E.W Orth et al., "Interesse," in Vol. 3 in Otto Brunner et al., editors Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1982), 305-365.
8. See also Johan Heilbron, "French Moralists and the Anthropology of the Modern Era: On the Genesis of the Notions of 'Interest' and 'Commercial Society,'" in Johan Heilbron et al., editors, The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity (Amsterdam: Kluwer, 1998), 77-106;
9. and Harmut Neuendorff, Der Begriff des Interesses. Eine Studie zu den Gesellschaftstheorien von Hobbes, Smith und Marx (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973).
10. Robert K. Merton, "Socially Expected Duration: A Case Study of Concept Formation in Sociology," in Walter W. Powell and Richard Robbins, editors, Conflict and Consensus (New York: The Free Press, 1984), 267.
11. For an elaboration of this theme, see my forthcoming Interest (London: Open University Press).
12. Albion Small, General Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1905), p. 434;
13. similarly Floyd House, "The Concept of 'Social Forces' in American Sociology. Section V The 'Interest' Concept," American Journal of Sociology 31(1926): 508.
14. E.A. Ross, Foundations of Sociology (New York: Macmillan, 1905).
15. ArthurBentley, TheProcess of Government: A Study of Social Pressures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1908).
16. Huber, Begriff des Interesses., 6
17. Gustav Ratzenhofer, Die Sociologische Erkenntnis. Positive Philosophie des socialen Lebens (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1898).
18. Ibid., 54-66.
19. Pitirim Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological Theories (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928), 643.
20. Small, General Sociology, 442.
21. Ibid., 96.
22. Ibid., 426.
23. Ibid., 426-427.
24. Ibid., 430.
25. Ibid., 433
26. Ibid., 197.
27. Ibid., 199.
28. Ibid., 438-439.
29. Ross, Foundations, 170.
30. Ibid., 169.
31. Ibid., 168.
32. Cf. Robert M. MacIver, "Interests," in Vol. 7 of E.R.A. Seligman and Alvin Johnson, editors, Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1932), 146.
33. Bentley, ibid., 26-37.
34. Ibid., 36-37.
35. Ibid., 211.
36. Ibid., 213.
37. Ibid., 219, 318.
38. David Frisby, e-mails to Richard Swedberg on the relationship between Georg Simmel and Gustav Ratzenhofer (2004).
39. Georg Simmel, "The Problem of Sociology," in Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, [1908] 1971), 24.
40. Georg Simmel, "The Sociology of Sociability," in David Frisby and Mike Featherstone, editors, Simmel on Culture (London: SAGE, [1911] 1997), 120.
41. Hirschman, "The Concept of Interest," The Passions and the Interests.
42. James Coleman, Individual Interests and Collective Action: Selected Essays (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 15.
43. James Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1990).
44. Ibid., 28.
45. James Coleman, "Introducing Social Structure into Economic Analysis," American Economic Review 74/2(1984): 84-88.
46. Coleman, Foundations, 305.
47. Ibid., 152.
48. Ibid., 242, 422.
49. Max Weber, Max Weber im Kontext. Literatur im Kontext auf CD-ROM 7 (Berlin: Karsten Worm InfoSoftWare, 1999).
50. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, trans. Ephraim Fischoff et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press [1922] 1978), 29.
51. Ibid., 24.
52. Ibid., 30.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid., 31-38.
58. Ibid., 40-43.
59. Ibid., 297-299.
60. Ibid., 41.
61. Ibid., 302-307, 926-939.
62. Ibid., 928.
63. Ibid., 928-929.
64. Ibid., 929.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid., 306.
67. E.g., Max Weber, Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1991), 16.
68. Max Weber, From Max Weber (New York: Oxford University Press, [1920] 1946), 280.
69. Max Weber, Political Writings (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 8.
70. For the exact expression, see, e.g., Weber, Economy and Society, 246 [twice], 315, 287, 1129;
71. for expressions that are very close, see, e.g.,Weber, ibid., 202, 224, 264.
72. Pierre Bourdieu, "Legitimation and Structured Interests in Weber's Sociology of Religion," in Sam Whimster and Scott Lash, editors, Max Weber, Rationality and Modernity (London: Allen & Unwin, [1971] 1987), 119-136.
73. Pierre Bourdieu, "The Interest of the Sociologist," 87-93, in In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, [1981] 1990);
74. "Is a Disinterested Act Possible?" in Practical Reason (Cambridge, UK: Polity, [1988] 1998), 75-91.
75. Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 115-120.
76. Bourdieu, "Legitimation and Structured Interests."
77. Pierre Bourdieu, Sociology in Question. London: SAGE, 1993), 77;
78. "Principles of an Economic Anthropology," in Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg, editors, The Handbook of Economic Sociology, 2nd revised edition (New York and Princeton: Russell Sage Foundation and Princeton University Press, 2005), 82.
79. Bourdieu, "The Interest of the Sociologist," 83.
80. Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 117.
81. Bourdieu, "Legitimation and Structured Interests," 22;
82. "Is a Disinterested Act Possible?" 78.
83. Bourdieu, "The Interest of the Sociologist," 86.
84. E.g., Mustafa Emirbayer, "Manifesto for a Relational Sociology," American Journal of Sociology 103(1997): 281-317.
85. Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1937), 96-97.
86. Ibid., 404.
87. John Meyer and Brian Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony," American Journal of Sociology 83(1977): 340-363.
88. Paul DiMaggio, "Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory," in Lynn Zucker, editor, Institutional Patterns and Organizations (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988), 4.
89. John Meyer and Ronald Jepperson, "The 'Actors' of Modern Society: The Cultural Construction of Social Agency," Sociological Theory 18(2000): 109.
90. John Meyer, "Globalization: Sources and Effects on National States and Societies," International Sociology 15(2000): 239.
91. Jean Baptise (Poquelin) Molière, "The Hypocondriac," in Vol. 8 of The Plays of Molière (Edinburgh: John Scott. [1673] 1907), 328.