It concerned itself “with the conditions of human obedience and conformity.” As a consequence, the subject matter of conventional sociology concerns humans stripped of their subjectivity of people having an identity, and who can therefore make choices. By doing so, conventional sociology presupposes that a neat separation can and should be made between the subject and the sociological research object. Bauman’s own conception of sociology’s task is quite different. Sociology is, in his view, “a critical activity.” It pursues a “perpetually unfinished” critique of taken-for-granted knowledge and common sense. This activity is conducted in conjunction with self-criticism and the task of de-objectifying the social world and the mind or perceptions of its inhabitants. Bauman’s ultimate goal is a kind of sociology that endeavors to “re-establish itself as cultural politics in the service of human freedom.” This kind of sociology requires unconventional research methods, of which the systematic use of literary sources is an example (Bauman 2012: 213. See also Jacobsen 2013a: 15–16).
Another example is the great relevance Bauman imputes to metaphors as sociological tools. As he has stated in an interview, metaphors “are the indispensable scaffoldings for imagination and perhaps the most effective tools of comprehension.” They suggest similarity, not identity, and “have the crucial advantage of opening new sights while simultaneously exposing their limitations, their incurable non-comprehensiveness and non-finality” (Jacobsen 2013a: 17–18). Bauman has authored several metaphors, of which he makes frequent use in his own works (cf. Bauman et al. 2014: 83–84; Jacobsen and Marshman 2008; see also Bauman 2012: 213), and to which we shall return later.
These metaphors designate and counterpose types of societies (liquid vs. solid modern), of actors (vagabonds vs. tourists), and of social utopias (gamekeeping vs. gardening). Sociological hermeneutics means that Bauman’s sociology endeavors to provide ongoing interpretations of other peoples’ interpretations, through which a common and shared lived world is constructed and preserved. This world, as Bauman sees it, is fragmented and ambivalent. Academic sociology, whose members have been trained in conventional research methods, is doomed to irrelevance. It is no coincidence, as Bauman observes, that Marx and Simmel never held an established academic position, while Weber “spent most of his academic life on leaves of absence” (Bauman et al. 2014: 38). This conception of sociology does not possess a preestablished model of an ideal society or truth of its own, which would turn sociologists into moral preachers seeking to impose their value choices on others. It does not renounce, however, either the search for truth, or the hope for a better world. In this respect, it is close to Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s critical social theory (Bauman et al. 2014: 25–26, 47–48, 74–75).
Sociology involves understanding social phenomena, that is, “to grasp the meaning with which the actor’s intention invested it” (Bauman 1978: 12), their intentions and purposes, which set them apart from natural phenomena. It therefore involves what Bauman calls sociological hermeneutics. This calls for using sociological tools, such as metaphors, in order to accomplish a number of different tasks, such as understanding human realities; “providing orientations in an admittedly changing world,” thus making individuals able “to assert themselves; to choose the kind of life they wish to lead” in the predicament in which they find themselves; and finally, engaging “in a continuous dialogue with the daily experience” of the men and women of our times (Bauman et al. 2014: 54, 98, 110). The subjective aspect of sociology and the social sciences in general involves their effort, therefore, “to penetrate and to capture the meaning of human deeds” (Bauman 1978: 17).
This effort raises the twofold question of how to obtain a consensus on their conclusions, and what are the standards of truth for the interpretation of meaning (Bauman 1978: 14). Briefly stated, this is the problem of how to reach true understanding of other people’s experiences and private mental states. This is possible, as Bauman maintains with reference to Wittgenstein, Lévi-Strauss, Giddens and Habermas, “by enlarging both the alien and one’s own experience so as to construct a larger system in which each ‘makes sense’ of the other” (Bauman 1978: 214). To this end, it is necessary to generalize the social scientists’ own experiences in such a way that “the smallest common denominator is found between the experience of the era whose meaning they want to capture and their own” (Bauman 1978: 221). “An intense interest” is also necessary “in the conditions which underlie the attainment of consensus in society at large.” Therefore, Bauman’s epistemological recommendation is for a sociology that actively engages itself “with the task of promotion of equal opportunity and democracy” (Baumann 1978: 246).
It may be convenient at this point to dwell on Bauman’s reception of sociologists, such as Giddens and Habermas, who have dealt with the themes of understanding and meaning within their own theoretical frameworks; for this reception may shed light on Bauman’s own vision of sociology. As we shall see, in both cases his reception has been ambivalent. As for Giddens, Bauman’s appreciation is clearly and emphatically stated. He states that “Giddens’ power of synthesis has few equals” (Bauman 1989a: 34) and points to “the richness and complexity of Giddens’ manifold concerns.” His project—Bauman adds—“lies at the very heart of contemporary sociological discourse” (Bauman 1989a: 35). Bauman, nonetheless, has a few objections to Giddens’s theoretical construction.
Like Parsons, as Bauman contends, Giddens “needs some sort of an outer force” in order to “account for the non-randomness of action”; to account, in other words, for “how the structure comes into being and how it operates” (Bauman 1989a: 43). What is more, Giddens fails to confront the question of “who is to judge the ‘accuracy’ of understanding” (Bauman 1989a: 47). If the social scientists are such persons, whence do they draw their authority to adjudicate? Moreover, how is the social scientist able to attain understanding, if this is “interpreted as the reconstruction (or construction) of actors’ motives and orientations”? (Bauman 1989a: 49). Weber gives pride of place to understanding goal-oriented action, according to Bauman: “the structure of instrumental-rational action emerges as the only framework in which sociological study as an activity aimed at the objective understanding of human behaviour can take place” (Bauman 1978: 82).
Sociological understanding does not differ from common sense, as Giddens has maintained with his notion of double hermeneutics. However, a changing world has resulted in “a crisis of the authority