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The article analyzes the Amherst papers in relation to development of Parsons' theory. A careful analysis of the Amherst papers reveals that the basic ideas and philosophical principles that Parsons followed throughout his life were already in place, some more fully developed than others, yet forming an integrally coherent pattern to a surprising degree. The clear existence in Parsons's Amherst papers of a metatheoretical framework predating his later professional writing calls into question some still existing myths about radical breaks in the development of Parsons's theory. In one version of this mythology, Parsons began his theory as a voluntarist, then became a structural-functionalist, later moved on to become a systems-theorist and ended up as a social evolutionist. Despite such claims, Parsons always was a voluntarist, even during his so-called structural-functionalist middle period. The Amherst papers reveal an amazingly complex and logically coherent theoretical system-in the mind of a twenty-year-young man-and testify to an extraordinary scope of philosophical depth, and intellectual maturity.

The article discusses economic and social theory of Talcott Parsons. Parsons's persistent attention to economic theory has been relatively neglected by critics of Parsons who, in attacking the alleged functionalism of Parsonian sociology, concentrated on the issues of value consensus and normative integration, believing that Parsons had relatively little interest in the economic base of society. This neglect of Parsons's economic sociology was probably intensified by the Marxist undercurrent of much so-called conflict theory. In recent years there has fortunately been considerable interest shown in Parsons's analysis of economic theory and more specifically in his economic sociology. At Amherst, Parsons came under the influence of the philosopher Alexander Meiklejohn, who prompted his students to consider broad questions relating to alternatives to industrial capitalist society and who created an educational environment within which students were involved in a general analysis of the social sciences. It was this engagement with institutional economics that marked Parsons's departure from biology into the social sciences as an academic career. Parsons was introduced to a broad spectrum of social theory relating to cultural and biological dimensions of human existence as explanations of social differentiation.

This paper examines Charles Tilly's relationship to the schools of thought known as historicism and critical realism. Tilly was committed to a social epistemology that was inherently historicist, and he increasingly called himself a 'historicist.' The 'search for grand laws in human affairs comparable to the laws of Newtonian mechanics,' he argued, was a 'waste of time' and had 'utterly failed.' Tilly's approach was strongly reminiscent of the arguments developed in the first half of the 20th century by Rickert, Weber, Troeltsch, and Meinecke for a synthesis of particularization and generalization and for a focus on 'historical individuals' rather than abstract universals. Nonetheless, Tilly never openly engaged with this earlier wave of historicist sociology, despite its fruitfulness for and similarity to his own project. The paper explores some of the possible reasons for this missed encounter. The paper argues further that Tilly's program of 'relational realism' resembled critical realism, but with main two differences: Tilly did not fully embrace critical realism's argument that social mechanisms are always co-constituted by social meaning or its normative program of explanatory critique. In order to continue developing Tilly's ideas it is crucial to connect them to the epistemological ideas that governed the first wave of historicist sociology in Weimar Germany and to a version of philosophical realism that is interpretivist and critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines Neil Smelser's paper on the history of American sociological theory. Smelser distinguishes three hegemonious stages: first, evolutionary theory, reaching from the beginnings of sociology until around 1900; second, positivism, dominating the first third of this century, and third, structural-functionalism, rising in the 1940s and 1950s and declining in the 1960s and 1970s. He also distinguishes a pluralist, nonhegemonious stage, extending from the decline of functionalism into the present. The inadequacies of Smelser's view of the past take their toll in his analysis of the present. He does not understand the historical relations among the major competing groupings so he shifts to such common sense categories as names, book titles, national grouping and lists of research topics. The national grouping that Smelser singles out, the Germans, are heavily centered on the Habermas-Luhmann dispute. This limits their theoretical range. The near-future of social theory is certain to be pluralist. The strength of Smelser's paper is in its statesmanlike simplification of the issues. The weakness, already implied in the strength, is that it does not have a firm grasp of the categories.

The paper revisits and restates the Merton Theorem of American religious conservatism (Puritanism) and European fascism (Nazism) as functional analogues. The original formulation the Merton Theorem identifies and describes them as functional analogues in nativism or nationalism through exclusion of and aggression against non-native out-groups. The paper offers an extended restatement of the Merton Theorem in which American conservatism and European fascism function as functional analogues in that both represent the model of a closed, or the antithesis to an open, society, of which nativism is a special case. In the extended Merton Theorem they are functional analogues specifically in terms of such indicators or dimensions of a closed society as political absolutism, closure and oppression, religious absolutism and nihilism, moral absolutism and repression, and extremism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of the concept of rationality in (especially classical) sociological theory. This exploration is prompted by widely held views, especially among economists and rational choice theorists, that classical sociology is the science of the irrational lacking a conception of rationality. By using pertinent examples (mostly) from classical and post-classical (or early contemporary) sociological theory, the paper casts serious doubt on such claims. Specifically, classical sociological theory is characterized by the following features in analyzing rationality: conceptual and methodological pluralism, theoretical and empirical richness, treating rationality as a complex social phenomenon, differentiating economic and noneconomic rationality, acknowledging the social character and foundation of (economic) rationality, and contrasting epistemological or scientific rationality and ontological or real-life irrationality, including the revelation of the irrationality of extreme (economic) rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodologically, the most advanced social science discipline is considered economics, especially its neoclassical version. A number of practitioners in the other social sciences, especially sociology and political science, perceive economics as a scientific exemplar in methodological (and theoretical) terms. This methodological exemplar has been, particularly in the last decades, attempted to emulate by some of these social scientists. The outcome of this emulation, by adopting and extending its methods, of neoclassical economics in parts (but not all) of sociology, political science, and elsewhere has been rational choice theory as a general social paradigm. This paper tries to show that many misapplications of the methodology of neoclassical economics in rational choice theory have ensued from such methodological emulation. That neoclassical economics does not necessarily contain or lead to a mathematical rational choice model is the core argument of this paper. The paper fills in a gap created by the current literature's focus on the methodological bases of mathematical rational choice theory in neoclassical economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1885 and 1930, as sociology was becoming an academic discipline, sociology was also being practiced intelligently, innovatively, and self-consciously outside the academy in the social settlements that grew up in America's major cities. In this paper, we first define and give a brief overview of the settlement movement in America; second, we show how the settlement workers were sociologists in their self-definition and action and in their relations with other sociologists; third, in the body of the paper, we describe the sociology done by the settlements in terms of the empirical research they undertook and the theory they created. Our argument is that settlement sociologists produced empirical studies that were both substantively significant and methodologically pioneering; that they did so in terms of a coherent social theory unique in its focus on "the neighborly relation"; and that both their research and theory were part of a critical, reflexive, and activist sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the work of sociologists as expert witnesses and how sociological theory is used in criminal trials. The study describes how alternative sociological theories were propounded by sociologist expert witnesses and used by competing lawyers to establish the correct understanding of the case. The paper indicates that the sociological testimony was relevant to the deliberations and verdicts and details how the judge's and jurors' practical treatment of the law and evidence reconciled the adversaries' mutually exclusive, partisan positions and the theoretical bases for those positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being a decade into the 21st century, sociological theory continues to be taught at the undergraduate and graduate level in nearly every program in the United States as if it were still 1970. 40 years ago, it made sense to dichotomize theory into two courses-'classical' and 'contemporary'-because the latter of the two only covered theory from about the 1930s to the 'present.' Today a literal and figurative time crunch has emerged that makes teaching theory difficult and at times, arbitrary based on the professor's training, mentor, ideological/epistemological biases, and structural factors like textbook choice and number of academic weeks allotted per course. That is, we spend a large amount of time debating who should be in or out, and not enough time preparing our students for the application of theory towards the ultimate goal: knowledge about the social world. Students, then, leave confused at how one uses theory, what theory actually is, and, often times, disengaged from theory because of the density with which some theories approach the social world. In the paper below, the time crunch and its tendency to produce a 'lost generation' of theorists is examined. After elucidating how the time crunch constrains sociology, four possible solutions are presented. This list of solutions is neither definitive nor exhaustive, and is meant to generate a rich discussion about the direction the discipline should head in the new century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical review of the burgeoning literature on social capital. While our focus is primarily on social capital's place in economics, we do consider its broader social science context. In recent years, social capital literature has produced many insights, however, a number of conceptual and empirical problems remain. In this setting, we trace a panorama of ideas of the principal theorists of social capital for then focusing us on the numerous critics whose it is the subject. Finally we provide recommendations for a prudent use of the concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Charles Tilly as an important but underappreciated theorist of nationalism. Tilly's theory of nationalism emerged from the 'bellicist' strand of his earlier work on state-formation and later incorporated a concern with performance, stories, and cultural modeling. Yet despite the turn to culture in Tilly's later work, his theory of nationalism remained state-centered, materialist, and instrumentalist-a source of both its power and its limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Tilly's social theories shifted over the course of his career from an early focus on quantitative and macro-sociological approaches to a later focus on relations and agency. His studies of state-making also shifted, from a focus on conflict and capitalism to explorations of democracy. This paper details these shifts and places them in the context of broader trends in comparative-historical and political sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the observation made by Ward and Grant (Current Perspective in Social Theory 11:117–140, ) that there had been a “peculiar eclipsing” of women in sociological theory. It provides longitudinal studies of women’s participation and recognition in three conventional outlets for sociological theorizing: the theory section of the American Sociological Association (ASA); sociological theory textbooks; and sociological theory journals. It finds that the percentage of ASA Theory Section members who were women increased from 12% in 1982 to 31% in 2008, but is not nearly as high as the 53% in all ASA sections taken together; that women’s recognition in sociological theory textbooks grew, more between the 1980s and the 2000s than between the 1960s and the 1980s, undoubtedly reflecting the increasing respectability of feminist theory within the profession; and that women’s relative participation as authors in sociology theory journals increased from the 1980s to the 2000s by about 33%, but nowhere near as much as their participation as authors in the American Sociological Review, where their relative participation in the 2000s was more than three times what it had been in the 1980s. We speculate that, given women’s increasing leadership roles in both the Theory section and the theory journals, women may be using less conventional outlets for their theorizing than is offered by either the section or the journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that sociological theory provides a sound basis for analyzing the social organization and reorganization of the college or university and for guiding the activities of the college dean. Frame analysis theory, developed in the study of social movements, and the attendant concepts of frame shifts and frame disputes, are drawn on to facilitate understanding of the organizational change being experienced by many comprehensive universities today. Various university constituencies proffer sometimes competing frames that can be characterized as “old school” vs. “new school” or “theoretical” vs. “practical,” yet collective and at least moderately harmonious action is required to attend to the tasks at hand. More specifically, the processes of frame alignment detailing the way that the frames held by various individuals and groups link to larger frames, offer a valuable theoretical tool for a dean. The dean’s task is one of adjudicating frame disputes within the college, navigating frame shifts in the university and reframing the concerns of the college to both internal and external audiences. The author concludes that the use of frame analysis demonstrates that sociological theory can be a vital contributor to the leadership of colleges and universities and to leaders’ understanding of the changes occurring therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article places an episode in the history of sociological theory into intellectual history in the twentieth century. The perspective is chronological as well as contextual. The themes are two theoretical approaches, both embedded in both American and German history, Parsonian Systems Theory and "Frankfurt School" Critical Theory. The chronology shown spanned mainly from the 1940s to the 1960s. The context of the two theories is a period that is crucial in twentieth century history. The protagonists of the two approaches were, in the 1940s, Americans and Germans exiled in the United States. In the 1950s, both approaches were affected by McCarthyism in different ways. The 1960s, however, were the culmination. The dynamics of the two approaches led into a schism which came into the open on the occasion of the 1964 German Sociology Conference in Heidelberg celebrating Max Weber. The article shows the stages in the evolution of the schism, emulating three acts in a drama. The final split was over whether Weber or Marx should be the classic whose oeuvre was to influence sociological thinking today. My aim is to exemplify how these two authoritative approaches in sociological theory, far from escaping the vagaries and vicissitudes of their times, were embedded in twentieth-century history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses two methods for making a sociological theory untestable. The term theory stands for the symbolic dimension of experience, as opposed to the apprehension of brute fact. However, not only do theories go beyond fact but they do so by virtue of their use of universal categories. Scientific theories are a special type of theory defined in terms of a set of normative criteria to which scientists seek to conform and in terms of which their theories are evaluated. Central among these is the principle that scientific theories should be empirical. That is, they should have an empirical referent and be capable of being tested by experience. Because scientific statements are universal and empirical observations are of particular events, if a theory is to be refutable there must be some agreement whereby theoretical statements can be linked to ordinary propositions about empirical particulars. The first method for making sociological theory untestable, that is for making it unscientific, make certain that no empirically refutable statements can be deduced from the theory. A second method for making theory untestable is to ensure that the theory is internally inconsistent. That is, to take steps to ensure that one's theory does not take form a deductive system where all the propositions of the theory can be deduced from a set of axioms.

The article discusses the social construction of sociology. Some examples are presented regarding what the author means when he says that sociology is socially constructed and also examples from case studies in the field of medical research and in evolutionary biology. The disciplinary paradigm in sociology is closer to an ideology than to a set of commonly held theories, methods, and exemplars. It is a type of victimology in which poor people are seen as the victims of capitalism and the capitalist class.

This article focuses on the sociology of sociology. Persons working in the sociology of sociology are allegedly groping for some model or means by which to understand and measure changes in dominant sociological perspectives. In addition to attending primarily to the making and maintaining of meanings, rather than the functional integration of institutions, one approach tends more toward field work or participant-observation as a research style. To view a social theory from its own perspective can allegedly be an interesting index of sociological self-consciousness. It seems that any thoroughing reality constructionist would analyze the shifts in the perspectives that dominate sociology in terms of the process of conversion. It should be made clear at the outset that a distinction is made between the moral careers of good and bad converts. The distinction comes from various sources within establishment sociology but is also accepted by some of the more pure converts. A bad convert is a person who has taken on the new sociology and defined it as pleasurable, yet has failed first to undergo the necessary personal and intellectual struggle with the old sociology. In addition, the morality of the moral career of the bad convert is somewhat questionable.

The article presents a report of the Section on Theoretical Sociology, a committee of the American Sociological Association of the U.S. The Section has confined its activities to the presentation of programs at the Annual Meeting. For the 1970 meetings John McKinney developed two sessions: one on "New Perspectives on Max Weber" was chaired by Talcott Parsons and involved the contributions of Benjamin Nelson, Vatro Murvar, Thomas Burger, and Vytautas Kavolis; the other on "Problems of the Interface Between Theory and Methodology" was chaired by John McKinney and consisted of presentations by Karl Schuessler, Edgar Borgatta, Norman Denzin, and Frank Young. For the 1971 meetings Peter Blau has organized two sessions. The first will be a panel discussion on "Contrasting Approaches to Social Theorizing." The other session comprises four invited papers on the general topic "Social Theory and Research." The contributors will be Richard Emerson, Hubert Blalock, Morris Zelditch, and Peter Park. The issue of what activities other than annual program sessions should be undertaken by the Section will in great likelihood rise again at the next Council Meeting and at the Business Meeting.

This article is the author's response to sociologist Glenn Goodwin's criticism of his article "Heeding Skinner's Call," published in the November 1973 issue of the periodical "The American Sociologist." The author says that the type of social theory he refers to is social-action theory. To him social-action theory always represented an exercise in pure epistemology. By locating the causal nexus of action in the subjective meaning attached by the individual to a social stimulus, social-action theorists have called for the development of a subtle science of the subjective, so subtle, and so subjective that it has little hope of providing constructive guidelines for pragmatic utilization of sociological knowledge. The author says that in "Heeding Skinners Call," he placed major emphasis upon the operationalized knowledge being produced by the experimental psychologist. But one need not and must not stop with this type of technology. He also made passing reference to the contribution that could be made by refinements in architectural technology in designing human social space. Likewise, one could proceed to include the biological and chemical technologies that are expanding one's understanding of the human nervous system.

Charles Tilly's work on repertoires of contention and social mechanisms was pathbreaking. In this article, I argue that his understanding of both concepts overlaps with social-theoretical work informed by the philosophical tradition of classical American pragmatism. There is no evidence that Tilly was influenced by pragmatism, but I argue that the overlap is substantial enough that large portions of his oeuvre can serve as illustrations of the explanatory power of pragmatist social science-and that Tilly's theorization of mechanisms in particular would have been even stronger had he engaged pragmatism directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about Bernard Barber's theory of the social system. The formulation of this theory given by Barber in his "late in career" essays brings to the fore a theoretical development that goes back, at least, to Barber's undergraduate education in the 1930s, and has been implicit in his published writings ever since, including seminal works in that subspecialty of sociology for which he is well-known, the sociology of science. In formulating this theory, Barber has had to give special and extended consideration to how his own thinking on the social system compares and contrasts with that of Talcott Parsons. Barber does write social system theory in a style that is more transparent than Parsons' prose, and it can be argued that this is an integral component of Barber's social system theory. But Barber's social system theory also needs to be considered as social system theory in it's own right. The article encounters various problems that Barber has encountered in his attempts to state his own theory. One can indeed derive certain valuable insights not only about social system theory, but also about the processes of theory construction and the way in which scientific work is a collective enterprise requiring careful rethinking of basic assumptions.

This article provides information on the origins and development of the sociology of law in Italy. In general terms, it is said that sociology of law in Italy is a deeply rooted and well institutionalized scientific discipline. Italian studies in law and society usually appear in Italian, an idiom whose international diffusion does not correspond to its noble tradition. Italian titles seldom appear in scientific bibliographies, irrespective of the intrinsic significance and value of the writings with the only exception of the Spanish speaking area, where sociology of law developed later than in Italy and was therefore to a certain extent affected, in its origins, by the relatively large production already accumulated within the closest linguistic community. As a premise, it should be said that a sociological approach to law in Italy had an early flourishing in the second half of the 19th century, alongside the diffusion of Positivism in philosophy and general sociology. During the early 1960s, the period was dominated by neo-positivism in general philosophy, by open normativism and realism in jurisprudence and by theoretical functionalism and methodological empiricism in sociology.

The article aims at reexamining the origins and character of economic sociology by comparison with rational choice within the history of economic and social ideas, particularly neoclassical economic and classical sociological theory. Some suggestions for a rational choice approach to economic sociology are particularly curious in that they tend to conflate the distinct characters and origins of these two disciplines throughout this history and have in turn provided an impetus for this reexamination. Modern rational choice theorists display a predilection for reducing economic (and, all) sociology into an economic approach to human behavior, with many economic sociologists evincing some degree of lenience or benevolence vis-à-vis such tendencies. Both tendencies do not seem justified in light of the different nature and origin of economic sociology and rational choice in the history of social and economic ideas. Since the current literature lacks coherent attempts at specifying the nature and historical roots of economic sociology versus those of rational choice, the article contributes toward filling in this hole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists tend to believe our field is noncumulative because little knowledge is widely recognized throughout the discipline. Disagreement is most widely publicized among theorists. This social recognition criterion of knowledge begs the question of how large a group must be to validate knowledge. Specialized cumulation of knowledge has however taken place in particular research communities. Examples include world-system research, state-breakdown theory of revolution, military-centered theory of state development, social movement theory, and some micro-sociological research programs. There are also instances of lost specialized cumulation, in which fields shift course and ignore previous results, for example in organizational research and small group research. Some independent specialties converge on parallel findings but do not recognize cumulation across fields (as in different specialties studying networks). We can identify and possibly overcome obstacles to recognizing cumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike philosophy, a sociological theory of cumulation cannot legislate the logical or metaphysical criteria which make cumulation in science universally possible. Instead, sociology must explain under which structural conditions cumulation events are more likely to occur than different varieties of change. Organizationally, cumulation events are rational myths, which tend to surface on ritual and ceremonial frontstages directed at concerned and skeptical outsiders. Historically, cumulation presupposes the retrospective closure and coherent periodization of episodes. Structurally, cumulation tends to occur when the intellectual and design spaces of a network or specialty are highly focussed on narrow and isolated dimensions of performance. Technically, much as in natural evolution, cumulative advances are more likely when experimental controls allow for restrictive tinkering on machines and machine-like devices. Cumulation is local, not global; it occurs in the short, not the long, run, and prefers non-turbulent environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article presents a brief survey on the development of the author's sociological studies and research, especially on the ways in which he has explored in these studies the relations between comparative studies and major problems and developments in sociological theory. The article analyzes how the central focus of his interest has been the problem of human creativity and its limitations, especially as it related to the social arena, the construction of different social formations--ranging from the so-called microsituations to the more formalized institutional and macroinstitutional formations--the problem of charisma and its routinization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents philosopher Talcott Parsons's essay on sociology. The theoretic essay was the analytic social science equivalent of the laboratory report of scientific experiments-maybe at the outdoor open-air laboratory at Wood's Hole, or in the Amherst chemistry laboratory. Second, the essays are part of Parsons's ongoing attempt to develop his own scientific worldview. This was encouraged by his Amherst mentors. For Parsons, theory writing was integral to the task of theory construction itself. Parsons's theory writing was always an attempt to document cumulative progress in resolving theoretic problems. These essays confirm Parsons's concern for professional competence, as in the passage where he suggests that physicists should keep to physics and mathematics and not pontificate upon matters that require an expert in biblical studies and ancient textual criticism. Parsons was concerned for the entire scientific encyclopedia without allowing one or other of these sciences an imperial position vis a viz the other sciences. The article considers his references to Durkheim, his appropriation of cultural anthropology, psychology and psychiatry.

The idea of standardizing concepts in sociology is not new, but we have made little progress, despite the early hopes of such theorists as Durkheim and Weber. This article refutes the arguments of some who contend that we do not need standard concepts, we cannot make standard concepts, social phenomena are too complex and changeful sociologists are too individualistic and sociological concepts are too context-dependent. The author proposes that the American Sociological Association appoint a Committee on Basic Sociological Concepts to investigate and recommend the official adoption of a basic conceptual language in American sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A brief model of the rise, salience, criticism, and relative decline of theoretical perspectives in sociology is sketched, citing the dominance of sociological positivism in the early part of the twentieth century as an example. Classical evolutionary theory and structural-functionalism are also mentioned as illustrations. Viewing the contemporary theoretical scene, the author sees a kind of peaceful pluralism as a visible motif, and some modest signs of integrative or synthetic theoretical activity on the horizon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the article "The Potential Impact of B.F. Skinner Upon American Sociology," by Robert Friedrichs. In his article, Friedrichs appears fully conscious of the possibility that his predictions will be self-defeating. Ironically, the anxiety which Friedrichs conveys about the prospects of a Skinnerian sociology is most evident at those points at which his argument is both the strongest and the weakest. On the one hand, Friedrichs, indulging in conspiracy theory somewhat, puts together seemingly disparate pieces of a puzzle to construct an essentially convincing image of a chamber of horrors-and one need not share his conspiratorial passion to grasp the integrity of his logic. On the other hand, his article seems particularly weak when he attempts to glue the puzzle he has constructed to the notion of the invisible college. Friedrichs attempts to show that the invasion of the body snatchers is in full swing based on his recitation of a number of individuals, perhaps conspiratorially linked together, but found in various departments. This does not seem totally convincing for two reasons. First, the assumption that the graduate departments he cites are monolithic research factories may be fallacious, and second, with a few notable exceptions those departments are not high producers of graduate students destined to leap into positions of power, prestige and moneyed research slots.

The article presents information on framing of sociological theories. The author states that theory, as a distinct specialty in sociology, is characterized by multiple, often isolated and mostly dysfunctional personalities. Most of those personalities appear largely irrelevant to sociologists who do not define themselves as "theorists" and to students required to study them. Scholars who do not label themselves as such or affiliate with the theory organs of the discipline, however, produce much good theory. According to the author, at least five different personalities coexist, often uncomfortably and usually unprofitably, within "sociological theory." As sociologist Craig Calhoun pointed out in his October 1991 essay in the periodical "Perspectives," theorists need to stop simply reading other theorists and begin to attend to explaining historical and contemporary social life. The reason so many do not do so, emanates from two facts. Firstly, many theorists, by personality or lack of training, are poorly equipped to leave their libraries and offices to attend to the world around them and secondly, many have no burning substantive interest or expertise within sociology.

The article discusses disorders in sociological theory. The author comments that in characterizing the field of sociological theory as suffering a present from a dysfunctional "multiple personality disorder," sociologist Janet Saltzman Chafetz applies a bit of psychiatric terminology to commentary on the theory area. But the general thrust of her remarks and particularly her derogatory comments about the "exegesis of classics" suggest that another clinical concept might be more appropriate, which is "identification with the aggressor." The concept coined by sociologist Anna Freud, refers to the process in which individuals struggle to defend themselves against condemnations and criticisms of threatening authority figures by taking on aggressors' hostile attitudes and turning those back upon other persons. Chafetz's denunciation of "exegesis" and related activities echoes a view that some in the theory area are increasingly voicing in articles, exchanges, reviews of one another's work and so on and that now meets considerable assent in theory circles. It is a view that critics outside the field have long expressed, namely, that all this about what sociologists like Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and the rest had to say is pretty superfluous to the real sociological task of analyzing the social world.

The article discusses the teaching of sociology in a metropolitan college. A principal bar to the attainment of the rationality of ends and means envisaged in the liberal arts tradition is the easy availability of cultural prescriptions for action. Immersion in a culture provides a substitute for thinking in nearly all aspects of life. Culture acts by eliminating the alternatives for action in a given situation to either a single one or to an oversimplified few. A sociological education can inform students of the nature of social constraint, of the fact that norms, values and beliefs are social in origin rather than biological or physical. It can explain the mechanisms that sustain cultural prescriptions, the relations between culture and personality that result in individuals bearing the culture without consciousness of this fact. Sociological theory implies that what might be good or functional for the group as a whole may not necessarily be in the best interests of individual members of the group, and that individuals may resist group prescriptions and at times be the better off for their resistance. The ultimate goal of a liberal arts education is the making of rational choices between studied alternatives on the basis of considered values.