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The main objective of the paper is to identify the logic of the sociological field in the GDR, looking at how it was spatialized in the city of East Berlin. In this regard, I am less interested in providing an overview of the different research streams of the main sociologists operating in the scientific and academic institutes located in Berlin than in reconstructing some crucial dynamics at work there and highlighting their effects at the social and symbolic levels. The underlying idea is that, especially in East Berlin, the sociological knowledge produced was less homogeneous than it has been represented in the existing literature. Without negating the existence of shared aspects characterizing Marxist-Leninist sociology, also superimposed on the political elite, a field analysis enables us to see how the different positions and trajectories of GDR-sociologists had an impact on their approaches to theoretical, epistemological, and methodological questions, and on their understanding and uses of concepts deriving from both Marxist-Leninist and "bourgeois" sociology. In the analysis, I will first compare the social trajectories of two of my interview-partners as paradigmatic of two different sociological habitus depending on their different academic/political socialization, networks, and positions in the field. As a second step, I will present a sketch of the sociological field drawn from 63 curricula of sociologists active in East Berlin in an attempt to pinpoint, on a larger scale, the homologies between the social and symbolic spaces of the field. Thus, the underlying idea is to examine the intersection of the "quasi-structural properties" of the field with its "phenomenological aspects" concerning the "feel for the game." While the two understandings of field are interdependent, it is in the second one that the physical space as a localized social space played a crucial role in defining the material, social, and cultural constraints and opportunities actors faced which, in turn, influenced their practices and choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the appointment of its first full-time professor in L.T. Hobhouse in 1907, British sociology lost an environmental approach that might have substantially altered the shape of the discipline. The environmental approach was that of Patrick Geddes, who made the relationship between people and their environments central for individual and social well-being. In spite of the fact that urban Britain was undergoing environmental crisis due to the negative effects of unrestrained industrialization, a range of other circumstances, personal as well as political and both inside and outside the academy, conspired to coalesce in the more or less deliberate exclusion of Geddes' ideas. The paper suggests that sociologists need to take a radically reflexive approach to the history of their own discipline that recognizes its embeddedness in the wider social world, since both individual and social action, as well as structural forces, may be as influential as quality or coherence in determining the fate of the ideas and theories that they create. In Geddes' case, this leads to a re-examination of both the historical context and the debate surrounding the establishment of sociology at the London School of Economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author explores the legacy of the late sociologist David Frisby and his contribution to sociology. The author highlighted Frisby's translation of "Philosophy of Money," by Georg Simmel. The author describes Frisby's generosity and thoughtfulness. An overview of the papers included in the February 2013 issue of the "Journal of Classical Sociology," as a tribute to Frisby is provided.

This is one of the final volumes in the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe and is entitled Verstehende Soziologie und Werturteilsfreiheit. It is ostensibly on Weber's methodological writings but most of the contents appear to be rather minor pieces— a large number of conference comments, small contributions, and several book reviews. Yet, this is an important work because of those pieces as well as the two major essays on methodology: "Über einige Kategorien der verstehende Soziologie" (1913) and "Der Sinn der 'Wertfreiheit' der soziologischen und ökonomischen Wissenschaften" (1917), both of which were originally published in the journal Logos. As with all of Weber's writings on methodology, these two essays are difficult to comprehend; yet, they are critical for grasping Weber's sociology. The first one sets out Weber's conception of "understanding" in history while the second explains why he believes his distinction between facts and values is critical for scholars. He suggests that we may not understand everything that occurred in history but we can understand enough; if we did not, then there would be no historical discipline. His words concerning the need for intellectual honesty are as important today as when he wrote them more than one hundred years ago. This book is a worthy companion to the forthcoming volume Zur Logik und Methodik der Sozialwissenschaften and is crucial for understanding Weber's path to sociology. It is a worthy final addition to the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe. And, it is a worthy successor to the Gesammelte Schriften zur Wissensschaftslehre. For anyone hoping to understand how Weber became the famous sociologist, this book is necessary reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the classical sociological hypothesis of conservatism, specifically the 'Mannheim Hypothesis,' and its bearing on liberty or liberal modernity. The original formulation of the Mannheim Hypothesis posits that conservatism tends to oppose the 'principle of liberty' and, hence, liberal modernity or liberalism, defined as its immediate antagonist. This paper presents the Mannheim Hypothesis of conservatism and liberty, as well as its initial general solution by Mannheim and other classical sociologists. Then it attempts to solve this hypothesis by presenting relevant theoretical arguments and supporting empirical evidence. Overall this essay reaffirms the classical sociological solution of the Mannheim Hypothesis of conservatism and liberty in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Charles Sanders Peirce contributed significantly to the founding of American sociology, doing so at the level of philosophical presuppositions or meta-sociology. I emphasize two of his ideas. One is semiotics, which is virtually the same as the anthropologists' concept of culture. This latter concept in turn was essential to clarifying the sociologists' idea of the social or society. Peirce also created the modern theory of the dialogical self, which explained the symbolic character of human beings and proved foundational for social psychology. Politically Peirce was a right-wing conservative, but his ideas eventually contributed to the egalitarian views of cultures and sub-cultures. In addition his ideas contributed, by way of unanticipated consequences, to the 20th-century human rights revolutions in the American legal system. Thus he was both a founder of sociology and a founder of American political liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper first offers a brief account of the competition between the Durkheimian sociological tradition and German philosophy in the period in which Bourdieu was a student at the École Normale Supérieure. It indicates the intellectual influences of the early years that Bourdieu subsequently acknowledged and then examines his use of the work of Weber in his first book, Sociologie de l'Algérie (1958). The paper then focuses on the development of Bourdieu's thought from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, a period in which he strategically presented himself as an anti-humanist sociologist whilst also articulating a view of science that was in tune with phenomenological and ontological philosophy. Bourdieu's 'Sociology and Philosophy in France since 1945' (1967a) receives particular attention since his analysis of sociology and philosophy in France in the post-war period was a key element in his own position-taking in respect of the two disciplines. The paper then examines Bourdieu's critiques of Weber at this time and suggests that his dissatisfaction with Weber's epistemology logically became a dissastisfaction with the claims of sociological explanation as such. There followed an attempt to reconcile a commitment to social science with an allegiance to elements of phenomenological thought. The outcome was a willingness on Bourdieu's part to see reflexivity as a means to problematizing sociological explanation more than as a means to refining it or making it more sophisticated. The consequence was that commitments to phenomenological ontology and social science co-existed in this period. The balance was to change again subsequently in Bourdieu's thought, and his responsivenesss to changing conditions exemplifies how we should ourselves rethink the relations between possible future social theories and the classical theories of Western sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing accounts of American sociology’s founding years during the early twentieth century assume that the discipline was ‘metrocentric.’ They assume that it was only interested in processes occurring within the United States; that American sociologists fell prey to state-centrist thought; and that, therefore, contextualizing America sociology’s emergence necessitates understanding relations, events, and processes within the confines of US territorial boundaries. By contrast, this paper shows the imperial and hence global aspects of early American sociological thought. Early American sociologists were interested in imperialism and, therefore, in cross-societal, transnational, and global processes and relations. Implicitly or explicitly they approached imperialism as a process by which social groups, not least ‘races,’ interacted and conflicted. They also saw it as a route towards new global forms. Early American sociology thus articulated a sociological imagination that looked beyond American society and to the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The idea of a social (or general) mind was prevalent in early American sociology from the 1880s through about the 1910s. As a concept, the social mind served as a proxy for what would later be defined and understood as culture and other collective phenomena such as social movements, crowd behavior, organizational behavior (e.g. ‘corporate actors’), and so forth. In the early stages of the development of sociology in America, sociologists such as Lester F. Ward and Franklin H. Giddings (1855-1931) were struggling to establish sociology as a legitimate science, and they needed to ground this new science of society in an object or reality that existed above the level of the individual members of society (for not doing so would bring the charge that sociology was nothing more than a watered-down version of psychology). In this paper I examine specifically Giddings' writings on the social mind, for they illustrate how subjectivist or idealist elements can be incorporated into an overtly positivistic or naturalistic theoretical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is a thriving industry of classical sociology within the discipline of sociology, not much attention has been focused on the early American sociologists. This paper offers a six-fold typology of the uses of the classics within sociology, and argues that the neglect of early American sociology among contemporary sociologists requires correction. For reasons delineated, Lester F. Ward is the overlooked early American sociologist most deserving of renewed attention and study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a few notable exceptions, Alexis de Tocqueville's contributions to the formation of the sociological canon have been ignored. Most sociologists are likely to recognize him as a key source for current work on social capital and the civil society. But, in this paper I argue that Tocqueville's importance for sociology extends far beyond those uses. Tocqueville is the author of a sophisticated and powerful theory of culture that solves the key problem of reconciling culture with the claims of methodological individualism. He does so by shunning the disciplinary boundaries that have sprung up after him, integrating political, historical, institutional and psychological building blocks of culture in a subtle yet powerful analytical framework. He thus avoids many of the pitfalls that plague other theories of culture, which makes his contribution to the sociological canon equal to that of many other canon-forming writers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the writing of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) is neglected within sociology. Yet building on the work of Auguste Comte, Proudhon was an influential, if controversial, social theorist throughout the 19th century. Proudhon, "the father of anarchism," held an understanding of progress antagonistic toward that of Marx, his contemporary within the emerging socialist movement. While Comte and Marx focused on knowledge or class struggle respectively as the source of progress within society, Proudhon argued that only justice generates social progress. Several notable French sociologists have written on the importance of Proudhon's work, but contemporary sociology continues to neglect his ideas. In what follows, I first outline Proudhon's place in sociology. Then, I describe his law of progress and the "three revolutions in justice." Next, I derive several theoretical propositions from Proudhon's idea of justice. Lastly, I examine what a serious study of Proudhonian justice can contribute to the discipline of sociology as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses works about social theorist Marcel Mauss.

This article is exploratory in nature and attempts to address the following two questions: What is the role of abstractions in sociology? and How can you learn to become better at using them? Noting that there exists next to no literature in sociology on the topic of abstraction, a presentation is first made of two statements on this subject by Durkheim and Weber. Their content can be summarized as follows: abstractions are produced through isolation and generalization. Durkheim and Weber, like other sociologists, do not, however, address the issue of the general nature of abstraction, and for this, some ideas by Charles S. Peirce and Alfred North Whitehead are brought in. They suggest that an abstraction is characterized by the fact that its nature is derived from the reality of another phenomenon. The consequences of this view for sociology are discussed. The article ends with an attempt to show what a practical definition of abstraction would look like, in which the focus is on how to construct and use an abstraction, rather than on just define it in a formal manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his introduction to the first German translation of Durkheim’s Division of Labour in Society, Luhmann hails the work as a “classic” of sociology, stressing its continued relevance and the need to persist in thinking with Durkheim. The present study focuses on this interpretative gesture, that is, on how Luhmann read Durkheim and set out a research program for sociology by defining its field of investigation, paying particular attention to his discussion of Durkheim’s approach to modern individuality. According to this interpretation, the French sociologist worked out a “sociological” conceptualization of the individual. On the one hand, in Luhmann’s view, Durkheim’s theory sheds light on a decrease in social control. On the other hand, he stresses that this inquiry into individuality was closely connected with a critical investigation of another conception of the individual that seems to derive from it, namely, the idea of human beings as “self-constituting.” Nevertheless, a complete examination of Luhmann’s interpretative gesture must also consider what is overlooked, namely the political conception of the individual Durkheim aimed to develop. In an attempt to fill this gap, this article highlights the political effects that such an occultation may entail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simmel was the only German sociologist who directly cooperated with Durkheim. After an initial impression of convergence between the sociology of social facts and the sociology of social forms, a break between the two founders of sociology became inevitable. Yet, Durkheim and Simmel went on positioning themselves against one other in the years ahead. Durkheim’s allegation of ‘individual psychologism’ induced Simmel to a veiled reception of Durkheim’s methodological approach that permitted him to refine the sociological epistemology he eventually presented in the Soziologie published in 1908. On this basis, he was able to formulate a final criticism of the sociology of social facts as a social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the following transcription, the reader will witness the progress of a board game invented and played by two sociologists. In the round of ‘Sociology, the game’ described here, the two players chose to play two classical sociologists, Max Weber and Georg Simmel. Upon picking question cards relating to different themes (on concepts, writing and methods, among others), they answer with their authors in mind, translating their approach in contemporary language and trying to address some of today’s issues. As the game moves on, the reader will observe that the players engage in a dialogue and seem increasingly concerned with the sociological form and the place of imagination in doing sociology: moving back and forth between each author’s stance and their own concerns as contemporary sociologists, the game helps them at once to bring two different thinkers closer together, and to gain perspective on current issues in doing and writing sociology. The reader will note that the format of the game provides an interesting laboratory of ideas, while not precluding humour and entertainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social theory outlined by Patrick Geddes has been largely ignored in writings on the history of sociology and in contemporary discussions of social theory. This neglect reflects the fact that his contributions were scattered and incomplete and were never drawn together into a coherent statement. He and his followers failed to engage with other sociologists and their insights were lost. This article draws on Geddes’ published statements to present a systematic account and reconstruction of his theoretical ideas. It is argued that he built a strikingly modern system theory that is relevant to contemporary discussions in social theory and that his role in the development of sociology must be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sociological or political-theoretical discussions of monarchy, the voice of Émile Durkheim is mostly absent. Although Durkheim himself had little to say on the topic, his theory of religion, and elements of his political sociology, provide resources for an engagement with monarchy both as a social institution and as a political possibility. The twentieth-century crisis of religion which Durkheim addressed in a particularly trenchant fashion has an analogue in the twentieth-century crisis of monarchical sovereignty: its supposed collapse into irrelevance, its survival, and its return in other forms. In the work of Schmitt and Agamben, this is represented as a theologico-political dilemma. This article explores what Durkheimian sociology might still contribute to a discussion of sacral and juridical aspects of sovereignty. By this is meant not only examination of its sociopolitical location and functions, but also a study of the ‘fictions’ and paradoxes of monarchical sovereignty as exemplary instances of the paradoxicality of the social. What are the features and consequences of a king-shaped hole or an empty throne in modern political imaginaries? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aron made a distinctive, cognitively high-powered addition to classical realism. As a sociologist he stressed that war was likely to be relatively limited if two conditions were fulfilled. First, the international system needed to be relatively homogeneous, so as to increase understanding between states. Second, states needed to become intelligent, able to calculate clearly. In the absence of these factors war was likely to move towards the extremes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Classical sociology is generally equated with analyses of late nineteenthand early twentieth-century thinkers whose writings ranged seamlessly across what, subsequently, would become differentiated fields of inquiry. One twentiethcentury analyst whose texts replicate aspects of the works of the classical sociologists is J.K. Galbraith, a figure whose disciplinary home is conventionally considered to be economics, but whose writings transcend disciplinary boundaries to explore the articulation of economic, social and political phenomena. Galbraith's studies, addressing such matters as increasing inequality and growing economic insecurity; the cultivation and management of consumer demand; the imbalance between private consumption and public provision; and the growth in military and defence expenditure, continue to be of contemporary relevance and warrant a prominent place within sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic divide between economics and sociology suggested by Talcott Parsons in the 1930s is based on a fundamentally mischievous and incoherent reading of various authors from the tradition of political economy. The interpretations proposed by Parsons are criticized, and it is thereby concluded that this divide has inhibited more than propitiated the intellectual commerce within social sciences, although no doubt enhancing Parsons' academic position. At any rate, it has also assured an academic recognition for sociology, if in a subaltern - situation vis-à-vis economics. Further theoretical reformulations by Parsons are confirmation of previously mentioned incoherence and misunderstandings, without resolving them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert E. Park played a central part in defining sociology as a natural science. He imagined sociologists as unbiased and unaffected by the human behavior they studied. He particularly criticized the work of female sociologists who applied their sociological knowledge with the help of hundreds of thousands of clubwomen. He mocked these clubwomen and their ‘do-goodism’. Clara Cahill Park, his wife, was one of these clubwomen who engaged in all the work he mocked and she was allied with female sociologists. This resulted in a curious situation where Park supported his wife and engaged in social reform while simultaneously he criticized clubwomen and the work of applied sociologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most textbooks today reserve the history of sociology for names like Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Mead. This abbreviated version of the history of the discipline leaves the reader with only a rudimentary understanding of the evolution of sociology, yet at the same time it deviates from the basic premise of sociology, which suggests understanding the relationship of the individual to society and the history of both. We have McDonaldized the history of sociology and in the process erased many individuals who were paramount in its development. The following study addresses the influence of Charles Abram Ellwood on the development of sociology, specifically the development of Herbert Blumer and subsequently symbolic interactionism. There are four main areas where Ellwood's ideas can be found in Blumer's work as well as within symbolic interactionism: (1) interactionism; (2) methodology; (3) emotions; and (4) group behavior. It is advocated here that Ellwood should be included among the names of Dewey, Mead, Cooley and Thomas as a central figure in the development of both Blumer and symbolic interactionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent sociological debates, the concept of 'society', understood as a delimited, bounded entity, has come under much critical scrutiny, especially as it seems increasingly inadequate as a frame of analytical reference in an age characterized by 'global' flows and processes beyond national boundaries. In this article, we suggest that this understanding of `society' is analogous to, and was in part generated by, the conception of the city-state (polis) favoured by ancient Greek thinkers of the 4th century BC, most notably Plato and Aristotle. Standard accounts of the history of sociology see the roots of the discipline as originating in this type of Greek political theory, for it provided many of the bases of the social analyses of 'classical' sociologists such as Durkheim. The development of forms of sociological thought that can grasp phenomena that exist in certain senses beyond 'society' requires not only a reconsideration of the relations that can or should pertain between present-day sociologists and the 'classical' 19th-century thinkers, but also a rethinking of the connections between these two groups and their ancient predecessors. We suggest that it is today fruitful to reconfigure our understanding of the nature of the history of sociological thought, such that thinkers of a later, Hellenistic, period in Greek history, especially the historiographer Polybius, are recognized as important predecessors in the search for analytic categories that are not restricted to the study of particular bounded social entities. Thinkers of the Hellenistic period rejected the polis as the central analytic category in favour of the study of the whole 'inhabited world' (oikoumene). The ways in which Polybius in particular transformed the nature of historiography should be seen as important precursors of modern notions of 'global sociology'. A recognition of the importance of this Hellenistic revolution in analytic orientation compels us to rethink what texts we take to be 'classical' vis-à-vis contemporary sociological endeavours to grasp the 'global'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two particularly important dichotomies for anyone studying modern social theory are Marx's distinction between use values and exchange values and Weber's distinction between substantive and formal rationality. Indeed, it might be argued that in these dichotomies lies a basis for understanding core elements of several of their most central arguments concerning capitalism as one of the three or four key institutions of/in modernity. In this article, I want not only to discuss the functions performed by these dichotomies in their respective theoretical structures, but also to indicate some later instances of parallel forms of thinking. My aim here is to address both the central role of dichotomies and dichotomization, and some important differences in the ways they are deployed in and/or function as theoretical strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I offer a discussion of Simmel's Philosophy of Money in comparison with the analyses of money in the writings of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Based on this analysis, I argue that Simmel's ambiguous status as a classic can be accounted for by some of the characteristics of his approach as well as the historical (non-)reception of his work. Simmel's relative neglect in sociology for the better part of the century as well as his recent revival with the rise of the new cultural studies and the postmodern paradigm shift hint at an important interdependence between the history and systematics of sociological theory. The theme of money has not managed to be accepted as an undisputed topic of sociological reflection because of its non-independent status in most social theories (apart from Simmel's) as well as the factual resistance to totalizing accounts (like Simmel's) in the history of sociology. Recent transformations in social theory, however, indicate that money may, and to some extent already has, become a more autonomous topic of inquiry. In conclusion, I argue that Simmel's work does lend itself to be taken up in postmodern perspectives and that the sociological study of money can likewise be appropriated by the new cultural studies. However, these new perspectives will have to come to terms with the modernist resistance of Simmel and the other sociological classics' remaining influence in contemporary sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]