Historicist Time and Pragmatist Time

Yang Zhang, American University

There are two distinct approaches to conceptualizing historical time—the historicist and the pragmatist—but a systematic comparison of these approaches and their implications for historical sociology has been lacking. This article addresses this gap by examining both the epistemological and methodological dimensions of these perspectives. The historicist approach emphasizes the singularity of macro-historical change, particularly focusing on modernity. In contrast, the pragmatist approach highlights the processual nature of social change without prioritizing modernity. Drawing on Charles Tilly’s work across different periods, the article demonstrates how historical sociology has engaged with pragmatist and historicist conceptions of time to varying extents. It then advocates for a synthesis of the two approaches to offer an incisive and dynamic analysis of sociopolitical change. Using recent scholarship on capitalism, populism, and state building as illustrative examples, the article outlines several strategies for synthesizing the two perspectives, including guiding historical investigations with pragmatist theorizing, examining the micro-interactions that drive historical events, analyzing the meso-level relational dynamics of historical change, contextualizing interactive processes through historicist frameworks, exploring the co-evolution of pragmatist and historicist ideas, and positioning pragmatism as a specific variant of historicism.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 186. Power and Normativity, 1: Capitalism and Orders of Time