It's the Conscience Collective, Stupid: Philosophical Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art

In: Thesis eleven: critical theory and historical sociology, Volume 103, Issue 1, p. 26-34

Abstract

The article begins with a sociologically triumphalist critique of philosophical aesthetics, grounded in the work of Ernest Gellner and Emile Durkheim. It proceeds to note the practical failure of this kind of sociology to become institutionalized within the wider discipline. It explores a number of possible explanations for this failure, but finally suggests that a normalized sociology of art requires a normalized conception of art itself, such as that tentatively advanced by Pierre Bourdieu and Franco Moretti. The article also has an autobiographical subtext.