Processes and Persons in Norbert Elias's Sociology of Knowledge

In this chapter, I argue that Elias’s vision, suitably interpreted, largely coheres with a critical realist sociology of knowledge – and provides valuable augmentations to it by offering a more dynamic and consistently sociological framework. But this requires correcting the interpretation of Elias that has been bequeathed to contemporary sociology in two areas. First, Elias consistently worked towards an emergentist social ontology in his sociology of knowledge, but refused to embrace a fully-fledged theory of emergence. This requires correction. Second, Elias over-extended his homo clausus critique – that is, his criticisms of theoretical models that unduly privilege the individual knower. I argue that this is incompatible with Elias’s own perspective. By correcting these elements in Elias’s approach, it can be made more fully consistent with insights drawn from critical realism.