David Toews: The Social Occupations of Modernity: Philosophy and Social Theory in Durkheim, Tarde, Bergson and Deleuze (2001)

“This thesis explores the relationship between occupations and the ontology of the social. I begin by drawing a distinction between the messianic and the modern as concentrated in the affective transformation of vocation into occupation. I then, in the Introduction, sketch an ontic-ontological contrast proper to the modern, between modernity, as the collective problematization of social diversity, and the contemporary, as the plural ground of need which provides a source for these problematizations. I argue that this distinction will enable me to shed new light on the occupational as a distinctly modern event.” (from Abstract)

PhD thesis
University of Warwick, Department of Philosophy, August 2001
Supervisors: Peter Wagner, Keith Ansell-Pearson
270 pages

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