Aesthetic agency and musical practice: new directions in the Sociology of music and emotion

Abstract

Abstract If psychology is concerned with human behaviour (Sloboda & Juslin, this volume), sociology is concerned with forms of social organization and the relation of these forms to social action, by which is usually meant, to paraphrase Max Weber (1978,Vol. 1, p. 4), conduct (real or hypothetical) that is meaningfully orientated in its course and outcome. The scope of material that falls within sociology’s compass is wide, and perhaps it is because of its substantive breadth that sociology is a diverse—some would argue, fragmented—field. Sociologists have traditionally employed a range of empirical strategies and theoretical perspectives, and have tended to engage in a high degree of intradisciplinary opposition such that is probably impossible to speak of ‘a’ sociological paradigm. For example, some sociologists seek to identify and quantify causes of collective and/or individual behaviour and to predict behavioural trends, while others seeks to understand meanings and meaning systems using ethnographic and qualitative methods of observation.

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