ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that humanism is an immortal idea, which, as long as human beings are still around to make use of it, like the mythical phoenix, continue to rise up from the ashes. Antihumanism has taken aim at humanism's metaphysical buttresses and what is therefore most interesting about James's humanism is its explicit formulation as an alternative to metaphysics and therefore its immunity to this recurrent complaint. The chapter demonstrates, with the ascent, of poststructuralism, and even newer developments such as actor-network theory or posthumanism, humanism's terms of reference have now been almost entirely discarded from what is considered to be theoretically sophisticated social theory. The challenge of rearticulating humanism within sociology is in large part the challenge of synthesising the productive critiques of antihumanism identified in this chapter with a clear-sighted recognition of their various blind spots.
