Introduction to a critique of modernity as a sociological concept

• Autor(a) principal: Feres Junior, João
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Mediações - Revista de Ciências Sociais
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/mediacoes/article/view/8232
• topic: Modernity; Conceptual history; Sociology; Temporality; Max Weber.; Modernidade; História conceitual; Sociologia; Temporalidade; Max Weber

This article borrows the methodological framework from the conceptual history, as well as some of the substantive findings from the principal essay of conceptual history on the concept of modernity by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, to criticize the present-day use of the concept of modernity by sociology, paying special attention to the sociology produced in Brazil. I demonstrate that two fundamental meanings historically associated with the concept of modernity are also present in the sociological material although in a rather non-reflexive manner. They are: modern as something opposed to traditional within a scheme of linear temporal evolution and modernity as a transitional period as opposed to that which is eternal and immutable. The lack of critical reflexivity on the concept combined with the plethora of meanings attributed to it lead to a situation entirely opposed to what one would expect from an analytical concept. Instead of clarity, we have confusion and the implicit importation and universalization of major ethnocentric European narratives, which sociology uses as a sort of measurement to evaluate non-European societies.