A critique of anti-essentialist sociology. Contours, performative impact and limits of a paradigmatic understanding of science in the "post-truth era"

• Applicant: Dr. Jenni Brichzin
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 443532822

This research project revolves around anti-essentialist thinking. Anti-essentialist thinking can be understood as one of the key characteristics of contemporary sociological theorizing. Its signifi-cance is considerable – not because anti-essentialist approaches convey a somewhat different perspective on society, but because they oppose the classical notions of how to achieve scientific knowledge with a fundamentally different understanding of science. Instead of attempting to gain knowledge by unambiguously determining the object of research, they assume, conversely, that reality is in principle indeterminate. The crucial scientific achievement, then, is not to show how the object of research may be determined through analysis. The achievement lies in revealing the degrees of freedom reality possesses.The aim of the research project is to comprehensively work out the contours, potentialities and limits of the anti-essentialist mode of doing science. To this end, the study is designed as a cross-theoretical study: Although poststructuralist, systems theoretical, neopragmatist/practice theoretical and network theoretical approaches – four of the most important theoretical ap-proaches available to sociological theorizing at present – differ with regard to how the social and the society are conceptualized, remarkable commonalities emerge with regard to the underlying understanding of science. To gain a comprehensive understanding of anti-essentialist sociology is important right now as anti-essentialist approaches are currently, in the context of the so-called ‘post-truth era’, put into question. Could it be possible, critics ask, that the current crisis of truth is linked to a scepticism nurtured by anti-essentialists? It is this and similar questions that must be explored in order to find out: how to continue with anti-essentialist sociological thinking. This goal is achieved in two complementary subprojects. The first subproject is a theoretical reconstruction of the anti-essentialist paradigm within the discipline of sociology, it renders visible different paths of conceptualizing society in an anti-essentialist way and it reveals their potential for understanding and influencing the social. The second subproject is an empirical reconstruction of the current discourse on the “post-truth era”. It reveals which ideas about science, truth and knowledge are currently negotiated within society and what significance, in this context, is attributed to anti-essentialist thinking. Together, these two projects uncover the current state of anti-essentialism, and they help to show how it may be further developed in future.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants