Social Theory, Political Economy, Phenomenology

Welcome to Indications by Besnik Pula, Ph.D. I am a social scientist and Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Virginia Tech, where I also direct the International Studies Program. My areas of expertise are in political economy, social theory and world politics, focused especially on Europe’s periphery. Current explorations: the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz, critical realism, philosophy of social science, global histories of computing and technology transfer. See my books, publications, and research profile at besnikpula.com.

Follow me on Bluesky.

Indications is so named inspired by Schutz’s distinction between four forms of social communication: marks, indications, signs, and symbols. Marks are traces of one’s own subjective life. Signs and symbols reference other lives and transcendent realities. Indications, by contrast, are traces of the acts of others whose meaning is only partially transparent to the observer. Indications are indeteminate, multivalent, and imply real limits to knowledge. The only meaning possible of indications is what the observer makes of them. I see my products here as mostly dealing indicatively with the world, i.e., providing partial interpretations given the indicative nature of the objects dealt with.