Problems, Solutions, and Resilience: A Dilemma Emerged from Individualistic Explanations for Social Knowledge

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  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 09. Culture and Materiality

Abstract

This paper tries to demonstrate three problems that emerge when we try to define knowledge within Max Weber’s Sociology: the indetermination of semantic acts, the paradox of magical contents, and the presup-position of meaning for meaning creation. We demonstrate how it is possible to solve two of them with the work of the American philosopher John Searle due to their converging hardcore theoretical assumptions. Nevertheless, because of their similar individualistic position to explain social knowledge there remains one of the problems, which is a dilemma. At the end, we indicate the limitations of the individualistic assumptions.

Author

• Hugo Neri, University of São Paulo