Weber, Bourdieu and Heidegger in Postmodern Sociology: On the Way Towards Rethinking Subjectivity between Culture and Globalization

This thesis will analyse and re-evaluate some of the historical and systematic views of Weber, Bourdieu and Heidegger in the context of postmodern sociological debates. Postmodern social theory is characterized by a radical relativism based on the critique of the subject's reason and language. In the study, we will try to develop a perspective on how Weber, Bourdieu and Heidegger can be read in the face of these postmodern theses. Firstly, as one of the founding fathers of modern sociology, Weber offers an extremely fruitful intellectual background in his rich insights to a unique synthesis of the value based spiritual romanticism of the German historicist tradition and the Neo-Kantian scientific objectivism. Secondly, Bourdieu is today one of the world's most referenced name between classical sociology and contemporary postmodern critique. Bourdieu's unimaginable provocation or "permanent" contribution is critically related to the reflective epistemological subject of overcoming habitus' practical theory, in his own words in Le Sens Pratique, in contrast to both "positivistic materialism" and "intellectualist idealism." Bourdieu's practical theory interrogates both deep French and German influences on him: Heidegger, Weber, Cassirer, Durkheim, Pascal, and Marx. Thirdly, Heidegger draws attention as the thinker who has made the strongest criticism or destruction of subjectivity and Nietzschean nihilism in twentieth century philosophy. Today in America and Europe, Heidegger is an extremely influential name in the ongoing postmodernism debates between the German hermeneutic tradition and the French poststructuralist historical-libidinal materialism. The objective here is to highlight the rediscovery of different horizons on some of the seminal works in this field, previously delineated mainly by T. R. Schatzki, H. L. Dreyfus and Gadamer. Consequently, this thesis attempts to express a new interpretive intention towards Weber, Bourdieu and Heidegger from a perspective that emphasises subjectivity, culture and globalization.