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This paper aims to discern, clarify, criticise, and advocate some uses of phenomenology in sociological research. Phenomenology is increasingly evoked or implicitly employed in sociological endeavours. Little attention, however, is paid to what is entailed in taking a phenomenological approach, and whether it is employed to advance empirical or theoretical knowledge. I build an analytic typology of different empirical and theoretical uses of phenomenology, criticise a range of these uses, and argue that other uses bear significant potential for the advancement of theoretical and empirical knowledge. The paper's main contribution lies in comparing and contrasting the many invocations of phenomenology in contemporary social scientific research to discern their benefits and shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visualization of social theory is an important part of the development and communication of our theoretical ideas. While most theorists use figures of some kind, few if any have formal training, or guiding rules or principles for the representation of theory. This has often led to poor visualization efforts, and the visual culture of sociology continues to lag behind the natural sciences. The intent of this paper is to serve as a practical and empirically aided guide for social theorists, by providing insights surrounding the cognitive and perceptual properties of certain elements and figures. Through these properties we identify four major problems in theory visualization: vagueness, reduction, unwanted spatial inferences and unwanted metaphorical inferences. We offer solutions to these problems, and to improving theory visualization more generally. Our hope is that this paper will serve as a resource for more thoughtful and informed visualization for practicing social theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A serious consideration of pain has largely been absent in sociology, especially physical pain's close neurobiological relative, social pain. Social pain is the process by which rejection and exclusion recruits similar neural circuits as physical pain, generating an affectual response that mirrors the response one feels from physical trauma. Pain is essential to any sociological analysis of motivation and action because, like many affective responses, it is a necessary ingredient in cognition and behavior; and, in many cases, it preconsciously commands and even controls how we think and act. While exploring this concept, it becomes apparent that sociology has an entire set of distantly related concepts that can be classified as different processes of social pain that reveal the structural, cultural, and situational conditions shaping the distribution of social pain. The paper concludes by thinking through the implications social pain portends for neuroscience and sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: John Searle's theory of social reality is among the most influential accounts in the history of philosophy. His theory also implicates concepts and issues of foundational interest to sociologists, including social structure, institutional differentiation and the relationship between linguistic performativity and institutional reality. Despite this overlap with sociological theory, and despite some sustained attention from sociologists (e.g., Lukes, ), no formal theoretical model of Searle's work exists within sociology. This paper reviews the core concepts of Searle's theory before concisely describing and then formally modelling their propositional structure. Though the overlap of Searle's approach with classical and contemporary sociological theory is discussed throughout, the paper concludes with a specific argument about his proper assimilation into sociological theory vis‐à‐vis Durkheim, Bourdieu and Giddens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of the relations between emotions and personhood, with a view to advancing a critical realist account of the role of emotions in social life. It is argued that the constitution of persons has to be approached from an ontological perspective, and that this raises questions about how sociology has addressed the meaning and role of emotions. Margaret Archer's critical realist perspective on them as commentaries on human concerns is broadly endorsed, but some significant correctives are proposed, especially with respect to the important distinction between primary and secondary emotions. To this end, it is argued that the affect spectrum theory advanced by Warren TenHouten can be fruitfully appended to a critical realist theory of emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decisionists use decision/choice concepts to understand and represent X: bees, Deep Blue, and Ron Carter make decisions. Explicit decisionists argue that X should be understood and represented using decision/choice concepts: it's correct to speak of bees', computers', and jazz improvisers' decision‐making. Explicit anti‐decisionists disagree: bees, computers, jazz improvisers, algorithms, and drug addicts aren't correctly understood and represented as decision‐makers. Sociologists look at decisionism and explicit decisionism as social phenomena, which show up in discourses, practices, technologies, and organizations. I make a contribution to the sociology of decisionism and the sociology of morality by examining three kinds of explicit moral anti‐decisionism: Murdochian, sociological/structural, and Confucian/Daoist. I show why these discontents are discontent, what theories and evidence they draw on, what assumptions they make, and how they conceive of morality without decision/choice concepts. Then, I consider how moral anti‐decisionism might matter, how the sociology of decisionism might matter, and where to go from here (if anywhere). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]