What Is a Person?
Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up
What is a person? This fundamental question is a perennial concern of philosophers and theologians. But, Christian Smith here argues, it also lies at the center of the social scientist’s quest to interpret and explain social life. In this ambitious book, Smith presents a new model for social theory that does justice to the best of our humanistic visions of people, life, and society.
Finding much current thinking on personhood to be confusing or misleading, Smith finds inspiration in critical realism and personalism. Drawing on these ideas, he constructs a theory of personhood that forges a middle path between the extremes of positivist science and relativism. Smith then builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and William Sewell to demonstrate the importance of personhood to our understanding of social structures. From there he broadens his scope to consider how we can know what is good in personal and social life and what sociology can tell us about human rights and dignity.
Innovative, critical, and constructive, What Is a Person? offers an inspiring vision of a social science committed to pursuing causal explanations, interpretive understanding, and general knowledge in the service of truth and the moral good.
CHOICE - Association for College and Research Libraries: CHOICE Top 25 Academic Titles
Won
International Critical Realist Association: Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize
Won
Association of American Publishers: PROSE Book Award
Honorable Mention
“What Is a Person? boldly raises the fundamental questions about the understanding of the person in social science that many thinkers either want to ignore or are content to say mindless things about. I know of no better example of a social scientist employing the resources of philosophy to deepen, clarify, correct, and enrich his own field. It is lucidly organized, philosophically sophisticated, written in clear prose, and takes account of an astounding amount and variety of literature. For me, a philosopher rather than a social scientist, Smith’s way of typologizing and critiquing the main options in his field was extraordinarily illuminating. It’s a terrific contribution to a topic of fundamental importance.”--Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University
“Smith has addressed a crucial and unanswered question in social theory and philosophy and has done so from an entirely original angle. Although sociology in the United States has long abjured any systematic discussion of ontological issues, many sociologists now realize that they cannot move forward without addressing the questions Smith raises here. In addition to this ontological turn, sociologists have also shown increased interest in alternatives to neopositivist sociological orthodoxy. Given a century of philosophical underdevelopment in the discipline, an author like Smith and a book like this one are more important than ever. What Is a Person? is destined to be something of a classic.”--George Steinmetz, University of Michigan
“What is a Person? is a clear and comprehensive reconsideration of the meaning of human personhood as the central core of social structures. With breadth of intellect and balance of wisdom, Smith resets the frame of reflection for the most important discussions of the twenty-first century.”—William B. Hurlbut, Stanford University
“Smith combines a meticulous command of sociological theory, philosophical analysis, and moral passion to argue against reductionist theories of human personhood and agency. . . . This book is crucial reading for political scientists and sociologists, as well as theologians and philosophers.”—Choice
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Initial Arguments
Chapter 1. The Emergence of Personhood
Chapter 2. Key Theoretical Resources
Part II. Critical Engagements
Chapter 3. The Reality of Social Construction
Excursus: Getting to Truth
Chapter 4. Network Structuralism’s Missing Persons
Chapter 5. Persons and Mechanisms (Not) in Variables Sociology
Part III. Constructive Development
Chapter 6. The Personal Sources of Social Structures
Chapter 7. The Good
Chapter 8. Human Dignity
Postscript
IndexPhilosophy: Ethics | Philosophy of Society
Religion: Religion and Society
Sociology: General Sociology
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