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In 1938, Joseph Oldham, a leading British Christian ecumenist, formed a discussion group that came to be known as the Moot. The Moot met in a retreat setting for several long weekends each year until early 1947, its discussions carefully organized and convened by Oldham. More than anything else, the discussions of the Moot revolved around the topic of order and, more particularly, around the problem of how order might be restored in British society and culture in the context of a 'world turned upside down'. Oldham and most members of the group sought a central place for Christian ideas and ideals in British social life. A striking feature of the Moot was the intellectual stature and the diversity of interests of its members. Among its 16 or so regular members were Oldham (1874-1969), his close friend T.S. Eliot (1888-1963) and Karl Mannheim (1893-1947). Among the later 'visitors' to Moot meetings was Michael Polanyi (1891-1976), who first came to the 20th Moot meeting in June of 1944. This article presents several papers that were produced for the Moot discussion of 15-18 December 1944 by Eliot, Mannheim and Polanyi. These papers have intrinsic and historical interest, and are published together for the first time here. The initial paper, written by Eliot, treats the role in society of 'the clerisy' - a term borrowed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge that points to an intellectual elite or vanguard. Eliot requested that Oldham solicit responses to his paper from Mannheim and Polanyi. Mannheim's response was a set of detailed answers to four questions that Eliot posed at the end of his essay. Polanyi's response was a short, coherent essay, which he identified as 'my own position with respect' to Eliot's discussion; his essay outlines a brief account of the role of the clerisy in science. Eliot wrote short comments on the responses of both Mannheim and Polanyi. These five pieces, which have a natural unity, should be of interest to anyone working in the history of social thought. We have abridged only Mannheim's lengthy response and have eliminated a few lines of illustrative material from Eliot's reply to Mannheim, but these excisions in no way detract from the clarity of the authors' perspectives in this rich trilogue. [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.

The paper begins by outlining the approaches to the development of a philosophy of social science in the work of Bourdieu, Passeron, and Habermas. The discussion of the positions of Comte and Mill which follows is an historical case-study of the tensions between competing stances adopted in the 1960s — between the tendency to formulate a logic of the social sciences and the tendency to ground a philosophy of social science in ontology or in the socio-political conditions of its production. The method adopted to compare the contributions to the philosophy of social science made by Comte and Mill displays sympathy with Bourdieu’s inclination to analyse the social conditions for the genesis of theory. The paper first considers comparatively the contexts in France and England for the emergence of social science and philosophy about social science. It then examines separately the developments of the projects of Comte and Mill before turning to an articulation of the contrasts between their positions, focusing on aspects of their correspondence as subsequently published and introduced by Lévy-Bruhl. The purpose of the paper is to raise the general question whether international intellectual exchange in relation to the analysis of society can occur within a universal discourse possessing a priori validity or through socio-cultural exchanges which assist the construction of universality through the mutual recognition of difference. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework for understanding the transformation of citizenship in complex societies. To this end, the paper is divided into six sections. The first section elucidates the main reasons for the renaissance of the concept of citizenship in the contemporary social sciences. The second section argues that a comprehensive sociological theory of citizenship needs to account for the importance of four dimensions: the content, the type, the conditions, and the arrangements of citizenship. The third section suggests that in order to understand the sociological significance of T.H. Marshall’s account of legal, political, and social rights we need to explore the particular historical contexts in which citizenship rights became ideologically and institutionally relevant. The fourth section offers some critical reflections on the main shortcomings of the Marshallian approach to citizenship. The fifth section draws an analogy between the transformation of social movements and the transformation of citizenship. The sixth section sheds light on the fact that contemporary citizenship studies are confronted with a curious paradox: the differentiation of citizenship has led to both the relativistic impoverishment and the pluralistic enrichment of contemporary accounts of ‘the social’ and ‘the political’. The paper concludes by arguing that, under conditions of late modernity, the state’s capacity to gain political legitimacy increasingly depends on its ability to confront the normative challenges posed by the ubiquity of societal complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In an age of apparently endemic globalization and globality, any form of sociological theorizing centred on an understanding of the term 'society' which took the latter as being always located within the boundaries of a particular nation-state, would be indictable as being iniprisoned within the confines of a naïve and analytically unsatisfactory 'methodological nationalism'. A superficial assessment of Durkheim's work might lead one to believe that of all the thinkers of the classical period of sociology, Durkheim is the most methodologically nationalist, and thus the most unpromising resource for analyses of globalization processes in the present day. However, this paper shows that such a view is a serious oversimplification of a multi-stranded oeuvre which contains within it intriguing elements that point towards a Durkheimian account of globalization processes and conditions of globality. While there are indeed methodologically nationalist strains in Durkheim's work, these are more than counter-balanced by certain other, more globally oriented, concerns. First, there are tendencies towards the development of a 'cosmopolitan' political theory, a stance which has been fairly well remarked upon by other authors. Second, at a more explicitly 'sociological' level, there are also certain orientations towards an account of the genesis and nature of social and cultural globality. This account is scattered throughout various locations in Durkheim's writings, most notably The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, and the paper reconstructs what it takes to be Durkheim's embryonic project in 'global sociology' to be found there and in sonic of his other works. Attention is drawn to the apparent debt Durkheim owed to Fustel de Coulanges in this regard. This paper concludes with the argument that Durkheim's endeavours to understand conditions of globality and planet-wide connectivity should be given serious attention in contemporary re-assessments of the capacities of classical sociologists to deal with globe-spanning processes and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Merton's two papers on the norms of science were written in a period of intense political activity in science, and responded to this context, using conceptual tools from classical sociology and Harvard thinking of the time. The basic reasoning was Weberian: science and politics each had a different ethos. One target was the Left view of science as a model for society. Another was the view of the American Left that complex societies required regulation, but that science should be free of control. Merton pictured science as already intensely policed, but threatened by the conflict between its special ethos and potential democratic demands, and requiring protection. Tis was a 'liberal' argument, but Merton used the language of the left to present it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that although Durkheim did not explicitly employ the notion of collective memory, his approach offers a very insightful understanding of the need for historical continuity. Durkheim's belief that every society displays and requires a sense of continuity with the past and that the past confers identity on individuals and groups allows us to see collective memory as one of the elementary forms of social life. The paper presents Durkheim's discussion of commemorative rituals in early societies, where he directly addresses the notion of social memory, which is seen as perpetuated by religious rites and as a means of ensuring shared morality and social cohesion. His conceptualization of the role of law and memory in sustaining organic solidarity is also considered. In conclusion it is discussed whether Durkheim's understanding of social memory provides us with relevant means to interpret social processes of remembering in today's societies. [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]

Famously, the final pages of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic present a powerful diagnosis of the condition of modern man trapped in an 'iron cage' of impersonal economic processes. Yet just above these famous words Weber tells us something else, that what we have sacrificed in entering the iron cage is 'the Faustian universality of man'. What does Weber mean by this phrase, and why does lie point us to the writings of Goethe at this key point in the book's conclusion? This paper argues that both the phrase 'Faustian universality' and Weber's philosophical footnotes reveal a deeper and hitherto neglected argument, giving us a very different diagnosis of modernity than that usually associated with the 'iron cage'. Following the clues Weber left us leads us to a more complex and challenging picture of The Protestant Ethic's lasting message. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists of science today take it for granted that science is a collective activity in a profound sense, and it was above all Robert Merton who established this at a time when a misconceived individualistic perspective was generally used to address it. Current work on science, whether as institution, normative order, moral community, sub-culture, set of peers or status group, is indebted to Merton's account of the norms of science, or else to his analysis of the system of honorific reward through which the norms are sustained. This paper concentrates on the second topic. How is normative order sustained in the sciences? It will reinforce Merton's original insight that no explanation of this is possible in terms of individual calculative action; show how Merton's alternative sociological approach can be linked to traditional sociological thought and particularly to Weber's account of status groups; and show also how more recent sociological work relates to Merton's now that his work has become a recognized resource in that same direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the classical sociology of Ludwig Gumplowicz, who was one of the forerunners of scientific sociology. Connected with Graz in Austria and primarily writing in German, he is generally regarded as a representative of Austrian sociology. This paper highlights the Polish origins of the scholar, as well as the multicultural influences that shaped his thought, and treats him as a classic of both Austrian and Polish sociology. His scholarly work and biography are presented with special regard to the historical reception of his thought. An attempt is also made to try to show the circumstances which led to a relatively quick depreciation of his work, and sonic new regenerative works on his sociology are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a paper written by T. S. Eliot to be discussed at the Moot meeting. Eliot discusses "clerisy", a term used by Samuel Taylor Coleridge which refers to a vanguard or intellectual elite, and its role in the society. He also distinguishes class and elite for the understanding of clerisy. He cited his political views on questions concerning society and culture. Eliot asked J. H. Oldham to seek responses from Karl Mannheim and Michael Polanyi regarding the questions he posed at the end of his discussion.

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]

This article provides an introduction to the 20th Anniversary Special Issue of the Journal of Classical Sociology. It begins with some brief observations on the key developments that have shaped the disciplinary core of sociology over the past decades. It goes on to reflect on the role of classical sociology in Europe and beyond, drawing attention to its continuing presence in British and Anglo-American intellectual circles. Far from existing in a bubble of academic ivory towers, the paradigms emerging from disputes in the social sciences in general and in sociology in particular are profoundly shaped by wider historical trends – notably those influenced by different forms of collective action, as illustrated in the impact of social movements on the university sector in the late 1960s. In light of recent calls for 'the decolonization of academia', we ask to what extent sociology can, and should, strive to go beyond the hegemony of the 'Western' canon. Having given a succinct overview of the 20-year history of JCS, we elucidate the different formats of the material published in the journal, stressing the importance of editorial flexibility. On a more substantive note, we point out that the thematic scope of the work published in JCS has been wide-ranging and inclusive – not only because of its editors' broad conception of 'classics' and 'classicality', but also because of the interdisciplinary spirit permeating the journal. This commitment, as we explain, manifests itself in the wide range of thinkers and topics discussed – from a multiplicity of perspectives – in the journal. We also grapple with noteworthy challenges posed by the academic publishing industry in the early 21st century, including the difficulties arising from peer-review processes. Finally, we express our gratitude to those who have contributed to this 20th Anniversary Special Issue and emphasize the journal's commitment to defending the legacy of classical sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Van Gennep’s research interests were located in the region where the fields of folklore, anthropology, sociology, and religion overlapped. His Rites de passage reflected a broad approach to ritual and social life that took into account the natural environment, biology, and history. This article scans his interests and emphases in relation to the American school of cultural anthropology that developed in the twentieth century. It assesses parallels and differences, and points to areas deserving further clarification such as Van Gennep’s understanding of language. [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]

Moving beyond Beck’s explicit opposition to Marx’s understanding of society, this article proposes to explore some of the deeper commonalities between Marxism and Beck’s theory of risk society. Rather than remaining at the level of propositional claims about society, at which Marx and Beck are opposed in several important ways, this article proposes to analyze these theories in terms of their key commonalities in the problem situations they address. In particular, this article identifies how both of these theories explore the implications of the development of productive forces and the resulting humanisation of nature in the context of widespread social estrangement. This article then identifies key commonalities in the structure of the theoretical solutions that each theory employs to address their commonly held problem situation. In this way, this article rethinks the relationship between Beck and Marx, as well as suggesting alternative ways of re-appropriating classical social theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Warrants for continued attention to the sociological classics take diverse forms. This variation appears to be linked to a diversity of narrative interpretations of the sociological tradition. Positivist narratives affirm classics as building blocks for a naturalistic social science and as sources of material not yet incorporated into mainstream sociology. Pluralist narratives celebrate classics as exemplars of different legitimate perspectives. In synthetic narratives, classics are hailed for raising fundamental problems and pointing the way toward culminating syntheses. In humanistic narratives, classics appear as texts of enduring significance for their admixture of poetic insight and moral rumination as well as deep sociological analyses. Contextualist narratives view classics as expressive documents, giving voice to a cultural ambience or complex of collective interests. Dialogical narratives hail classics as parties to transnational and transgenerational conversations. This schema helps organize the wide array of interpretations of Émile Durkheim. [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]

Georges Bataille and Émile Durkheim stand within the same broad tradition of social and anthropological theory, and their work also displays structural affinities in the ways in which they pose questions concerning the definitions of science and relations between science and religion and in the manner in which they represent the process of social inquiry. Rather than using social science as a tool to explain religion as a mere object in a social field, they both, in their own ways, bring religion and science into a dangerous but fruitful proximity to each other, and engage them in a sort of mutual interrogation concerning the status of human being, autonomy and knowledge, and the constitution of social life and of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the work of die French social philosopher and feminist Jenny P. d'Héricourt, who, in the mid-nineteenth century, debated the writings of contemporary 'master-thinkers' such as Auguste Comte, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Jules Michelet. Usually ranged exclusively as a contribution to feminist thought, d'Héricourt's writing has also to be understood as a contribution to the conceptual outlines and defining questions of emerging sociology. The stated objective of her main work, La femme affranchie, was not to explain society but to claim equality for women. However, it was precisely her critique of contemporary theories of sexual difference and gender inequality that led d'Héricourt into the territory of sociological thinking — the very same territory her opponents had left by devoting themselves to the creation of a dualistic and asymmetrical concept of gender relations which relied upon women's supposed adversity towards modernity. In her effort to render women's role as agents of modernization visible, d'Héricourt developed, albeit in fragments, a theorem of social integration in modern society that anticipates Émile Durkheim's concept of organic solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's response on the review of his book "On Bourdieu, Education and Society" by Bridget Fowler. He believed that Fowler's first sentence in the review is a slip of the pen and signified the unwillingness to acknowledge the importance of the form of the book. He added that she did not give justice to the integrity of the book and instead referred to Part I as suggestive of an affinity between himself and Bourdieu and Part II as a collection of pieces to be evaluated as contributions to Bourdieu scholarship.

Adam Smith (1723-90) and Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) shared a keen interest in the social, economic and individual effects of specialization. Though this mutual interest led to a protracted priority dispute between them, nevertheless their approaches differed significantly. Ferguson was generally more negative in his attitude and was also less interested in the economic effects of specialization, focusing instead on its adverse social ramifications. In fact, his work on the subject probably constitutes the first fully developed sociological account of the topic. Karl Marx quoted Ferguson approvingly and declared that he had been inspired by the latter's insights. But Smith too made some extremely negative and apparently pessimistic observations about the division of labour, giving rise to suggestions that his comments also ‘constitute a major source of inspiration for the socialist critique’ of commercialism. This article compares and contrasts the respective approaches of the two Scots. It also pays particular attention to claims that there are parallels with Marx in their thinking. To what extent is this true? Further, if it is true, do they anticipate him in the same way? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If it is to become a more widely used resource at the present time, when the demand is growing for explanations of the predicament of modern western society in the wake of the events of 11 September 2001 and various similar subsequent events around the globe, classical sociology might pay more attention than it usually does to a particular set of early modern developments. These developments, it is argued here, actually created the form of the social that became large-scale modern western society. This new form of the social was and remains distinct from those older forms that were seen to flow from the natural sociality of human beings. Between the middle of the 16th century and the end of the 17th the new form of the social emerged in different parts of Europe, contingently but not entirely accidentally, as a separate domain of relatively safe and free human interaction. It was a consequence - in part intended, in part unintended - of different bids to secure civil peace in times of extreme inter-communal, inter-confessional violence. These bids included, to name just three measures: the development of new forms of public law, especially in Germany; the development of the absolutist state, especially in France; and the separation of private religious conscience from public legal conscience, especially in England. As they were all, in one way or another, steps towards stemming, stopping, and/or preventing the flow of blood caused by religious hatreds, they are here called early modern limiting measures, and the social at the centre of the article is sometimes called the limited social or limited society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Merton's early analysis of the ethos science has gained increased relevance because recent developments - such as commercialization of research - have undermined basic norms, like impartiality. It is desirable to uphold the institutional realism in Metron's sociology of science in order to grasp contemporary challenges. But central elements in his analytical approach have also to be revised or rejected, especially his nomological conceptions of explanations, non-cognitivism in normative issues, and failure adequately to conceptualize Homo sociologicus as a reasoner. reasoners present and discuss cognitive claims, related to both descriptive and normative validity. Merton's analysis of an ethos of science should be evaluated as a reconstructive type of empirical analysis where the goal is insight and adequate identification of phenomena. Several critics denying the existence of Mertonian norms tacitly presuppose the validity of the norms, thereby entangling themselves in self-defeating contradictions. As an unintended consequence, these critics confirm the existence of a fundamental ethos of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of the classic text in the social sciences has come under fire in recent years. The authority of classics has been challenged on the grounds that they conceal a variety of ideological assumptions, tensions and discontinuities as well as being far removed from our experience of contemporary life. Drawing on Gadamer's account of the 'classical' in Truth and Method, the article contests these views, arguing that classic texts are a source of intellectual vitality and should not be jettisoned. Following the introduction the article divides into two main sections. The first deals with the issue of authorship, arguing that while 'names' remain intrinsic to sociology, attention should remain with the text. The second employs Gadamer's ideas to show why classic texts persist. The claim that subsequent historical horizons elicit from the text truths that continue to resonate is illustrated with Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the following: (1) the biography of Stanislaw Ossowski, including the evolution of his interests from logic and aesthetics to sociology, and a presentation of his scientific activities and major works against the background of the contemporary situation in social science; (2) an analysis of the basic motives of his sociology and the social values in which he believed in relationship to his focus upon a humanistic sociology, anti-naturalism, a science of science, and his critical discussions of neo-positivism and official Marxism- Leninism; and (3) Ossowski's influence upon the development of Polish sociology, along with the reception of his works in the world. The author documents a thesis that the significance of Ossowski for Polish sociology consists not only in his interdisciplinary work in relationship to various branches of scientific knowledge, but also in his participation in organizing various sociological institutions and in his personal authority as a scientist who displayed great courage and a resistance to the pressures of an ideological state. [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]

Max Weber's ambivalent attitude to the application of the concepts of selection and adaptation to the study of cultural and social evolution is readily understandable in view of his scepticism about the reducibility of sociology to biology and his suspicion that selectionist explanations will turn out on close inspection to be either value-laden or circular. His concerns can be dispelled with the help of developments in evolutionary theory which he could not have anticipated in his lifetime but which enable the basic agenda of his sociology of religion to be reformulated in more rather than less persuasive terms. That, however, requires his metaphor of `elective affinities' between religious ideas and the behaviour of ideal-typical agents to be replaced by empirically testable hypotheses linking the adaptiveness of specific religious memes to the adaptiveness of specific economic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents selected pertinent instances of the influence of (especially classical) sociological theory on economics. Its explicit justification and goal is to detect and illustrate the almost unknown, ignored or dismissed bearing of sociological theory on its economic counterpart. Its implicit justification is given by the epistemological principle of the unity of knowledge, especially of social science, serving as an analytical framework or master narrative for exploring these relations, which extends the scope of the article beyond simply a history of ideas. The key finding is that the influence of sociological theory on economics is related to the project for unification of social science and thus the epistemological principle of the unity of knowledge. As a rare attempt at exploring the theoretical impact of sociology on economics, the article aims to help abridge a gap in the current literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Leicester School of Sociology, and presents an interview of Eric Dunning, professor at Leicester School of Sociology. Eric Dunning is a prominent figure in the sociology of sport and has lectured widely throughout the world. Eric Dunning enrolled as a student in Leicester in 1956 and remains there to this day as an emeritus professor of sociology. His position as probably the best known advocate of the figurational/process perspective in Great Britain, together with his career connections with the Department of Sociology at Leicester, makes him uniquely placed to comment on the rise of the Leicester School. This interview sheds light on an important chapter in the development of British sociology, and attempts to assess the Leicester tradition of sociological activity. The British tradition in sociology has always tended to be more insular than its continental counterparts. The article further focuses on the interview where Dunning shares several facts regarding Leicester School of Sociology.

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]

When Philip Rieff's magisterial Freud: The Mind of the Moralist was first published in 1959, Freud's status as a scientific authority was at its height. Even within sociology, Freud was considered to be one of the discipline's essential theorists. At such a time, Rieff's text was clearly indispensable for its illuminating accounts of Freud's thought and of its social, moral and political implications. Today, Freud's status as scientist and social theorist has fallen to an all-time low. Nevertheless, his demise has left the value of Rieff's Freud unaffected. In fact, a re-reading of The Mind of the Moralist is a powerful reminder of what makes Freud so central as a cultural figure, and Rieff so essential as a social theorist of the present age. While Rieff highlights those aspects of Freud's thought that remain valuable and sociologically relevant, the real purpose of Rieff's book is to examine its cultural impact. In Rieff's view, Freud's anatomy of the soul and his reductionistic account of the dynamics of culture have proven to be dangerously antinomian and nihilistic in their effects, despite Freud's avowed positions. The `ethic of honesty' espoused by Freud for therapeutic reasons veered dangerously close to a `therapy of barbarism' and to a disenchantment of the inner life that has proven to be more oppressive than liberating. To find a way out from this `tyranny of psychology' became the focus of Rieff's subsequent theoretical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I present Rieff as a theorist and moralist of cultural change. The trajectory of his work is from the elusively descriptive to the elusively prescriptive. Descriptively, Rieff identifies the elements of what he calls our current `negative communities' and contrasts them with moribund `positive communities' and their `therapies of commitment'. He believes that, among others, Weber and Freud both recognized that negative communities emerge once positive communities are recognized as illusory. Prescriptively, while still accepting the intellectual justification for negative communities, Rieff became transparently critical of their byproducts: a `remissive' culture incapable of distinguishing `god-terms' from `transgressive depths'. This culture produces a relativist, permissive culture, a version of the cult of the individual, alienation, consumerism and indifference to tradition. In most of his work, Rieff acknowledged the inevitability of negative community but not the inevitability of its byproducts. In his most recent work he has tried to preserve the monotheistic `second culture' and oppose the approaching `third culture' of modernity. Through his teaching and scholarship, Rieff has tried to envisage what a contemporary model of the sacred might be like in a negative community. In doing so, he has been drawn back to the positive communities that he had believed were no longer viable. Rieff's dilemma is that the sacred order that he wishes to preserve can only be defined by what it forbids. Therefore, any effort to specify it is self-defeating. It is preserved not through celebrations but by the negative and in his view vital emotion of guilt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of social theory is introduced as a dialectic between primary and secondary thinking. Secondary thinking views the social and cultural world in determinate, positive, rational terms; primary thinking recognizes the indeterminate, negative and irrational as forever immanent in human action. Max Weber's work illustrates the dynamic interaction between the two forms of thinking, which are further developed with ideas from religion, the philosophy of pragmatism and the psychoanalysis of artistic imagination. The primary-secondary dialectic is then applied to a reanalysis of early sociological studies of mass society, which is reinterpreted as social mass. The primary nature of mass is revealed as an ever-present absence, which, like Weber's idea of `meaningless infinity', resists all secondary attempts to express it in clear, determinate, positive forms. The primary-secondary interaction is further illustrated through the technologies of the modern mass media and the `consumption' of space and time implied by globalization. [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]

This essay considers a question that Weber scholarship seems to have left untouched: is Weber's concept of value rationality coherent? In making the case that it is not, I begin with the premise that value rationality is a product of processes of value rationalization that operate in value spheres. Because of self-destructive defects that undermine Weber's analysis of these processes, his account of value rationality is invalidated as well. I conclude with some skeptical observations on his distinction between value rationality and instrumental rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charisma is a concept with a peculiar history. It arose from theological obscurity through social science, from which it passed into popular culture. As a social science concept, its significance derives in large part from the fact that it captures a particular type of leadership. But it fits poorly with other concepts in social science, and is problematic as an explanatory concept. Even Weber himself was torn in his use of the concept between the individual type-concept and a broader use of it to characterize the sacral character of culture and institutions. Which use is fundamental? Neither use seems to be able to be extended to account for the other, and in practice the term serves as a heterogenous residual category. Shils'' argument that the charisma of central institutions was fundamental was an attempt to make sense of the examples of institutional charisma that fell into this residual category, such as the jury, and assimilated charisma to the idea of the holy. But this conflicts with Weber''s idea of the originary or creative character of individual charisma, which by definition cannot derive from pre-existing sacral qualities. Weber''s account of individual charisma focuses on success, and this suggests the idea that the power of the charismatic leader arises from the ability to confound and surpass expectations - to be extraordinary. This allows us to reconsider ''originary'' charisma, and assimilate it both to rational choice and to Steiner''s account of taboo. A leader who produces a change in our risk perceptions by proving our previous perceptions wrong by the success of the leader''s actions is providing a novel rational choice for us: a new option together with new estimates of the risk in a course of action. Weber explained the situation of primitive or magical morality in terms of magical charisma producing taboos that were then rationalized, leading to permanent norms - which relies on the notion of charisma without explaining it. But Steiner goes further, by suggesting that taboo represents the intellectual organization of danger through the act of interdiction. The power to interdict is not based on some other power, but rather the power to organize danger through interdiction is originary. Is there originary charisma today? Or is the commonplace use of the term ''charisma'' a transformation of the concept into something else? In popular culture, the term refers to role-models who break new ground, and if we consider the ''dangers'' that they appear to their audiences to overcome, the phenomenon is not so different. Charisma seems to collapse into personal style, but in a world in which the old interdicts have lost their power, style itself becomes a matter of experimental success in the face of social danger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having translated into French the 'Methodological Note' that introduces The Polish Peasant in Europe and in America by William Isaac Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, the present authors compare this theoretical statement with that of Émile Durkheim laid out in The Rules of Sociological Method. In both works sociology is considered to be a nomothetic and teleological science. The major difference between the two works lies in the analysis of causality. The sociological method is based on different types of reasoning (inductive/deductive) and different types of data (objective and general in the first case, specific and individual in the second). Their differential definitions of science lead Durkheim, on the one hand, and Thomas and Znaniecki, on the other, in directions, which, up to a point, are mutually exclusive. This being said, there are similarities between the Durkheimian school (which includes Bouglé and Halbwachs) and Florian Znaniecki's later (1934) work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article points to a distinct puzzle in the analyses of capitalism that can be found in the works of Weber and Schumpeter, and gives a new introduction to their analysis of capitalism. Both Weber and Schumpeter wrote voluminously on capitalism, as testified to by such giant works as Economy and Society (Weber, 1978c [1922]) and Business Cycles (Schumpeter, 1939). One can also discern a distinct development in their thought over time: from emphasizing the role of various voluntaristic elements (such as the spirit of capitalism and the spirit of entrepreneurship) to stressing the role of institutions. The puzzle that one can find in their writings is as follows. Weber and Schumpeter both argue that a vigorous and healthy capitalism requires certain economic and non-economic institutions, in addition to something else. An absence of this 'something else' may lead to capitalist petrification or collapse, according to both authors. The answers of Weber and Schumpeter to the above puzzle, it is shown in the article, is somewhat different in their early and in their later works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-reads the six evolutionary stages contained in The Division of Labour so as to uncover the key importance of human emotion in Durkheim's early views on the nature and social role of religion. This important, yet hitherto neglected, thematic link in Durkheim's early writings will be used to defend Nisbet's (1972[1966]) belief that it is the religious and emotional foundations of order that provide the true germinative link between Durkheim's early and later work, and not structural functional differentiation, as commenta-tors like Wallwork (1984, 1985) had otherwise suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally thought that Durkheim based his theory of knowledge on a theory of representations. However, in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915 [1912]) he places great emphasis on concrete and witnessable aspects of practice such as sounds and movements and downplays the importance of beliefs and representations. He argues that ritual sounds and movements, when collectively enacted, can create sentiments that give rise to the essential concepts that he refers to as the categories of the understanding. Representations are, in his view, secondary phenomena that arise only after participation in social practices. This article demonstrates through an analysis of Durkheim's text that he carefully referred to ritual practices in concrete and not representational terms at strategic points in the argament. Furthermore, it is argued that the collective experience of concrete sounds and movements was, on Durkheim's view, a prerequisite for the subsequent development of representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]