A Physiognomic Paradigm for the Social Sciences: From Simmel to Benjamin and Adorno
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.1971-8853/23598Keywords:
Carlo Ginzburg, Indiciary paradigm, Physiognomic, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. AdornoAbstract
This article reconstructs the physiognomic paradigm as a distinctive cognitive style within the social sciences and argues that it represents a sociological counterpart to Carlo Ginzburg’s indiciary paradigm. Drawing on the works of Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno, the article shows how physiognomic reasoning privileges marginal details, involuntary expressions, and fragmentary phenomena as key sources of social knowledge. Through a comparative analysis, it highlights the abductive and conjectural logic underlying Simmel’s sociological aesthetics, Benjamin’s historical physiognomy of modern urban culture, and Adorno’s critical physiognomics of mass culture and personality structures. Rather than proposing a codified method, the physiognomic paradigm is understood as a situated and interpretive practice that links epistemology to sensorial experience and expressive forms. The article argues that this approach offers contemporary sociology a valuable framework for interpreting empirical materials — such as interviews, cultural artifacts, and everyday practices — while remaining attentive to power asymmetries, historical residues, and the critical potential of fragments.
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