DONALD N. LEVINE
S O C I A L T H E O R Y A S A VOCATION
GENRES OF THEORY WORK IN SOCIOLOGY
Forthcoming from TRANSACTION PUBLISHERS
August 2014
Prospectus
In this book I seek to rejuvenate the field of social theory. Assuming that some of
the decline in institutional support for this area reflects a lack of clarity about the goals of
teaching and scholarship in this field, I offer a paradigm of diverse types of theory work
in sociology and lay out rationales for cultivating them. The book proceeds to present two
dozen exemplars of these types from ym previous work. These include chapters on the
recovery of classic authors (Comte, Durkheim, Simmel, Weber, Parsons, and Merton);
disambiguation and reformulation of core concepts (cultural integration, rationality,
freedom, voluntarism, nationhood, the stranger, and the organism metaphor); discovery
of new problems (ambiguity and modernity, somatic elements in conflict); and epistemic
foundations in academic fields (sociology, Ethiopian studies).
The concluding section of the book reopens a discourse regarding the bases for
diagnosing conditions of social well-being, with applications to the modern order and, in
particular, to political and cultural dimensions of modernization in Ethiopia, and the
contemporary crisis of liberal education. In so doing, I present suggestions for ways that
Ethiopians can resolve some of their current problems; seek to locate both the benefits
and the costs of modernity in a evolutionary perspective; and offer guidance to educators
regarding ways to think afresh about the goals of liberal learning. The book concludes
with suggestions and curricular examples for ways to stimulate fresh efforts in teaching
and learning to do social theory.
Contents
List of Figures
vi
Preface
vii
Acknowledgments
xii
Prologue: Social Theory as a Vocation
PART ONE. CUSTODIAL THEORY WORK
1
14
Recovering texts
1. Note on Park, The Crowd and the Public (1972)
18
2. Max Weber’s 1908 Note Regarding Simmel (1972)
22
3. Review of the Variorum Edition of Max Weber’s Economy and Society (1981)
30
Reconsidering authors
4. Taking the Measure of Auguste Comte (1975-7)
34
5. Émile Durkheim, Univocalist Manqué (1985)
39
6. Robert K. Merton On and In Ambivalence (1978/2006)
55
7. Revisiting Georg Simmel (2014)
67
Constructing schemata
8. Simmel’s Stranger and His Followers (1985)
83
9. Simmel and Parsons Reconstructed (1991)
99
PART TWO. HEURISTIC THEORY WORK INTERNAL TO THE DISCIPLINE 116
Conceptual articulation, disambiguation, and reformulation
10. The Concept of Cultural Integration (1968)
119
11. The Organism Metaphor in Sociology (1995)
134
12. The Concept of Rationality: From Kant to Weber
154
13. Rationality and Freedom, Weber and Beyond
176
14. Putting Voluntarism Back into a Voluntaristic Theory of Action
194
Theorizing new areas, creating new frames
15. “Ambiguity and Modernity”: Engaging a Serendipitous Problem
212
16. Somatic Elements in Social Conflict
236
17. Reconfiguring Ethiopian Nationhood in a Global Era
250
PART THREE. HEURISTIC WORK EXTERNAL TO THE DISCIPLINE
262
Epistemological foundations
18. Simmel as a Resource for Sociological Metatheory
265
19. Sociology after Macintyre
284
20. Images and Assumptions in a Scholarly Domain: Ethiopian Studies
293
Social diagnosis and criticism
21. Missed Opportunities as a Diagnostic Issue: Ethiopia, 1960—2005
304
22. A Problem of Collective Identity
313
23. Modernity and Its Endless Discontents
338
24. The Crisis of Liberal Education
358
APPENDIX
370
Teaching and Learning Social Theory
A. Syllabus: American Sociological Theory, 1900-1980
371
B. Syllabus: Perspectives on Modern Social Theory
374
C. Syllabus: The Forms and Functions of Social Knowledge
376
D. Syllabus: Organizations of the Social Sciences
378
E. Organizing a Practicum in Social Theory
380
References
382
Index
List of Figures
Figure 1. An Agenda of Theory Work in Sociology
12
Figure 2. A Typology of Stranger Relationships
92
Figure 3. A Paradigm for the Sociology of Strangers
94
Figure 4. Objectified Rationality in Three Institutional Spheres
172
Figure 5. The Various Meanings of Rationality in Weber’s Work
173
Figure 6. The Functions of Ambiguous Discourse
228
Figure 7. The Functions of Univocal Discourse
229
Figure 8. The Ethiopian Diaspora, 1973-2003: First-Generation Immigrants
255
Figure 9. Modernity Revolutions and Their Effects
336
Figure 10. Flyer. Ethiopian Students on the March: December, 1960
337
Figure 11. Issues and Openings
337
Figure 12. Three Factors Leading to Sub-optimal Outcomes
338
Figure 13. Conceptions of Modernity: Essential Process
342
Figure 14. The "Revolutions" and the Benefits of Modernity
349
Figure 15. The Modern Revolutions and Their Associated Discontents
351
Figure 16. The Hallmarks of Modernity in Action Theory Terms
354
Figure 17. Notions of General Education: 1900-1950
369