Theoretical logic in cultural sociology: Semiotics,hermeneutics and dialectics in the work of Jeffrey Alexander

In the Introduction to this issue of Thesis Eleven, we present the general theme that explores the theoretical logic in cultural sociology, by bringing to attention the three main threads of semiotics, hermeneutics and dialectics that seem to frame the analytical project of Jeffrey Alexander's works in sociology. We first position the term “culture” in its historical and theoretical origins in the nineteenth century, and question its further evolution in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in order to highlight the background of Alexander's own attempt at grasping its internal dynamics, as it has been disputed in various traditions of the social sciences. Second, we delineate Alexander's position of considering the autonomy of culture with respect to both the break and the continuity that he is establishing by choosing to downplay Parsonss functionalism through a reappropriation of Dilthey, Durkheim, and Geertz, together with structuralism and pragmatic performance theory, in his efforts to theorize a true and genuine cultural sociology. While we underscore some lines of tension that run across the threads of semiotics, hermeneutics and dialectics in Alexander's own synthesis that finally coalesces in the civil sphere theory, where cultural sociology gets its overt political dimension, we open up on questions leading to the contributions of each of the participants in this issue.