Outhwaite William

Curriculum Vitae

William Outhwaite, Fellow of the Academy of Social Science, taught at the universities of Sussex, in the School of European Studies, and Newcastle, where he is emeritus professor of sociology. His interests include the philosophy of the social sciences (especially realism), social theory (especially critical theory), political sociology and the sociology of knowledge. He is now working mainly on contemporary Europe. He is the author of Understanding Social Life: The Method Called Verstehen (1975, 2nd edn 1986), Concept Formation in Social Science (1983), New Philosophies of Social Science: Realism, Hermeneutics and Critical Theory (1987), Jürgen Habermas: A Critical Introduction (1994), The Future of Society (2006), European Society (2008), Critical Theory and Contemporary Europe (2012), Social Theory (2015), Europe since 1989: Transitions and Transformations (2016), Contemporary Europe (2017) and (with Larry Ray) Social Theory and Postcommunism (2005). He edited The Habermas Reader (1996), Brexit: Sociological Responses (2017), (with Tom Bottomore) The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought (1993, 2nd edn 2004), (with Luke Martell) The Sociology of Politics (1998), and (with Stephen P. Turner) the Sage Handbook of Social Science Methodology (2007) and Sage Handbook of Political Sociology (2018). Other publications include ‘European Civil Society and the European Intellectual’, in C. Fleck, A. Hess and E.S. Lyon (eds), Intellectuals and their Publics, Ashgate, 2009, ‘Legality and Legitimacy in the European Union’, in Samantha Ashenden and Chris Thornhill (eds), Legality and Legitimacy: Normative and Sociological Approaches, Baden-Baden: Nomos, and ‘Migration Crisis and „Brexit”‘ in The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises (forthcoming).