Table Of ContentRoutledge Revivals
Towards a Critical Sociology
For the better part of its history sociology shared with commonsense its assumption of
the ‘nature-like’ character of society—and consequently developed as the science of
unfreedom. In this powerful and engaging work, first published in 1976, Professor Bauman
outlines the historical roots of such a science and describes how the contemporary trends
in sociology emerging from phenomenology and existentialism did little to challenge this
preoccupation. Rather, he claims, they deepened and extended it by stressing the key role of
commonsense, particularly the ways in which it is sustained and embedded in the routines
and assumptions of everyday life.
Professor Bauman sets out the form of a critical sociology, based on emancipatory reason.
His main concerns are the ‘validity’ of commonsense and the truth of a theory which
would resolve to transcend the limitations of commonsensical evidence. Aimed at human
liberation, this book is designed to question the very same routines and assumptions of
everyday life informed by commonsense.
Towards a Critical Sociology
An essay on commonsense and emancipation
Zygmunt Bauman
First published in 1976
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
This edition first published in 2010 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of
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please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 1976 Zygmunt Bauman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Publisher’s Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points
out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.
Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes
correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.
ISBN 0-203-85570-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 13:978-0-415-57164-7 (hbk)
ISBN 13:978-0-203-85570-6 (ebk)
ISBN 10:0-415-57164-2 (hbk)
ISBN 10:0-203-85570-1 (ebk)
TOWARDS A CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY
By the same author
CULTURE AS PRAXIS
TOWARDS A CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY
An essay on commonsense
and emancipation
ZYGMUNT BAUMN
If a decent society has been a possibility for
at least a very long time, the real problem
becomes to explain why humanity did not or
perhaps could not want one
Barrington Moore, Jr
ROUTLEDGE DIRECT EDITIONS
ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL
London and Boston
First published in 1976
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
Broadway House, 68–74 Carter Lane,
London EC4V 5EL and
9 Park Street,
Boston, Mass. 02108, USA
Manuscript typed by Pam Pope
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by Unwin Brothers Limited,
The Gresham Press, Old Woking, Surrey
A member of the Staples Printing Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of
Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks
please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© Zygmunt Bauman 1976
No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form without permission from the publisher,
except for the quotation of brief passages
in criticism
ISBN 0 7100 8306 8
CONTENTS
1 THE SCIENCE OF UNFREEDOM 1
‘Second nature’ defined 1
‘Second nature’ deified 12
‘Second nature’ and the commonsense 25
2 CRITIQUE OF SOCIOLOGY 39
The Husserlian revolution 39
The existentialist restoration 48
‘Second nature’ vindicated 57
3 CRITIQUE OF UNFREEDOM 64
Technical and emancipatory reason 64
‘Second nature’ seen historically 73
Can critical sociology be a science? 81
Truth and authentication 92
NOTES 102
Chapter 1
THE SCIENCE OF UNFREEDOM
‘SECOND NATURE’ DEFINED
Whatever may be currently said about the form sociology ought to take, sociology as we
know it (and as it has been known ever since it was given this name) was born of the
discovery of the ‘second nature’.
‘Nature’ is a cultural concept. It stands for that irremovable component of human
experience which defies human will and sets un-encroachable limits to human action.
Nature is, therefore, a by-product of the thrust for freedom. Only when men set out self-
consciously to make their condition different from what they experience, do they need
a name to connote the resistance they encounter. In this sense nature, as a concept, is a
product of human practice which transcends the routine and the habitual, and sails on to
uncharted waters, guided by an image of what-is-not-yet-but-ought-to-be.
The realm of unfreedom is the only immutable meaning of ‘nature’ which is rooted in
human experience. All other features predicated upon the concept are once, or more than
once, removed from the ‘directly given’, being outcomes of the theoretical processing of
elementary experience. For instance, nature is the opposite of culture, in so far as culture
is the sphere of human creativity and design; nature is inhuman, in so far as ‘being human’
includes setting goals and ideal standards; nature is meaningless, in so far as bestowing
meanings is an act of will and the constitution of freedom; nature is determined, in so far
as freedom consists in leaving determination behind.
Neither the images nor models of nature prevalent at any given time can be considered
necessary attributes of the concept. The ‘thematic content’ of the concept (as Gerald Holton
would put it) (1) has changed in the last century almost beyond recognition. The intrinsic
order and harmony of the law-abiding cosmos has been replaced by an impenetrable
labyrinth which, only thanks to the scientist’s chalk marks, becomes passable; discovery
of the ‘objective order’ has been replaced by the imposition of intelligible order upon
meaningless diversity. The one element which has survived, and, indeed, has emerged
unscathed from all these ontological revo-lutions, is the experience of constraint effectively
placed on human action and imagery. And this is, perhaps, the only ‘essence’ of nature,
pared to the bones of theoretically unprocessed pristine experience.
There is, however, yet another sense in which nature can be conceived as a by-product
of human practice. Nature is given to human experience as the only medium upon which
human action is turned. It is present in human action from its very beginning, from its very
conception as a design of a form yet to be objectified by action; nature is what mediates
between the ideal design and its objectified replica. Human action would not be possible
but for the presence of nature. Nature is experienced as much as the locus, as it is perceived
