Classical Social Theory and the Origins of Modern Sociology

The object of this paper is both critical and constructive. The first section contains a critical account of some leading interpretations of the rise of modern sociology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe, concentrating primarily on Durkheim but refering also to Max Weber. I try to show that these interpretations, still very commonly held, have to be abandoned as myths. Like all myths, however, they contain a rational kernel, and in seeking to show what this might be, I indicate some lines of development which I consider to be important in sociology in the present day. Most characterizations of the current travails of social theory are concerned with issues of epistemology, that is, with problems of the sorts of "truth claims" that can be made in sociology. These matters, undeniably of pressing importance, are related to legacies from 19th-century social thought which we have to disavow. But there is another residue of the 19th century with which we have also to break: this is represented by what I cal the theory of industrial society. An essential task facing contemporary social theory is that of reconciling a revised epistemology of social science with new frameworks for the analysis of the development of advanced societies.