The concept of “site” is at the center of current debates in theories of social practices as well as in cultural anthropology. It is unclear, however, how to assess the associated methodological assumption that overriding social structures or cultural formations can manifest themselves in sites. The article draws on the conception of social practices and introduces the notion of “publicness” in order to explicate how and why sociality and social structures can be accessed through “siting”. Sites as well as social (...) practices, it is claimed, have to be conceptualized as essentially public and thus principally observable phenomena. This assumption of publicness implicit to both site ontology and theories of social practices is unfolded on the basis of a praxeological reformulation of the paradigm of joint attention elaborated in developmental psychology. To avoid presentist misinterpretations, we then conceptualize sociality as chains of practices across time and space, drawing on the works of Theodore Schatzki, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anthony Giddens and Bruno Latour. The public carriers of practices (artifacts, symbols, media, bodies) and the translocal structures they establish acquire particular significance in these approaches. In a further step, we present some methodological consequences of the “publicness assumption” and support our arguments by referring to Pierre Bourdieu's study on Distinction. (shrink)

Even though both Dewey and Wittgenstein have been rightly classified as both being ‘pragmatist’ thinkers in a broad sense, they stand in stark contrast with respect to their writing style and their general attitude towards the future of western civilization. This article reflects these differences and traces them back to their diverging conceptions of knowledge. Dewey criticizes the philosophical tradition for erecting an artificial barrier between theory and practice, but he retains the traditional high esteem for knowledge by re-describing it (...) as practical inquiry. Consequently, all practically acquired beliefs and certainties are either justified or a potential subject-matter for further inquiries. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, shows the limitation of the very idea of knowledge by pointing to the knowing subject’s fragile relation to its own lived practices. He claims that there are practically acquired beliefs and certainties which are out of reach for the inquiring subject. Thus, the seemingly superficial divergence in style and method shows to be grounded in far-reaching philosophical differences. (shrink)

The article discusses Foucaults reading of Kants "Anthropology" (in French).