Mundane Reason
Reality in Everyday and Sociological Discourse

This book assumes that an objective world exists independently of the knower and shows shows that it is historically emergent, culturally contingent and situationally constructed.

Melvin Pollner (Author)

9780521153126, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 June 2010

200 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.3 kg

Sociology and common sense both assume that there is an objective world that exists independently of the knower and that is accessible to competent perceivers. This assumption, and the idiomatic possibilities to which it gives rise, forms the basis of 'mundane reason'. As self-evident as mundane reason may appear, in this book the author shows that it is in fact historically emergent, culturally contingent and situationally constructed. Using close empirical observations from everyday settings in which people are concerned with 'what really happened' Pollner examines the practices of mundane reasoning in everyday life. He also analyses selected sociological texts and explores how mundane assumptions are used and sustained; how they affect conceptions of truth, mind, and reality; and how they may be brought within the purview of sociological analysis. The probing study will appeal widely to sociologists, social theorists, anthropologists, philosophers and psychologists, as well as to other readers concerned with understanding the social construction of the everyday world.

Preface
Acknowledgements
1. The problem of mundaneity
2. Mundane idealizations
3. The self-preservation of mundane reason
4. Mundane puzzles and the politics of experience
5. Mundane autobiography
6. Mundane reflection
7. The social construction of mundane reason
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA]