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This paper argues that the dominance of linear models has led many sociologists to construe the social world in terms of a "general linear reality." This reality assumes (1) that the social world consists of fixed entities with variable attributes, (2) that cause cannot flow from "small" to "large" attributes/events, (3) that causal attributes have only one causal pattern at once, (4) that the sequence of events does not influence their outcome, (5) that the. "careers" of entities are largely independent, and (6) that causal attributes are generally independent of each other. The paper discusses examples of these assumptions in empirical work, considers standard and new methods addressing them, and briefly explores alternative models for reality that employ demographic, sequential, and network perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the overlaps and divergences between network sociologist Harrison White’s second edition of Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge (2008) and poststructuralist theories from the past three decades. Although poststructuralist thought is barely discussed in White’s work, comparing the approaches reveals significant convergence. I detail two major overlaps: White’s ideas of control compared to Foucault’s concept of discipline, and White’s conception of identity compared to that of feminist poststructuralists. Differences are apparent also, especially as regards treatment of categorical identities such as gender and race. Then, I turn to two ways poststructuralism and White can be put into productive conversation: how focusing on gender as discursive rather than attributional can help network analysts develop theories that better explain the gendered dimensions of social life, and how using blockmodeling methods can aid feminist poststructuralism in understanding what gender looks like without men’s and women’s bodies present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Theory’ is one of the most important words in the lexicon of contemporary sociology. Yet, their ubiquity notwithstanding, it is quite unclear what sociologists mean by the words ‘theory,’‘theoretical,’ and ‘theorize.’ I argue that confusions about the meaning of ‘theory’ have brought about undesirable consequences, including conceptual muddles and even downright miscommunication. In this paper I tackle two questions: (a) what does ‘theory’ mean in the sociological language?; and (b) what ought ‘theory’ to mean in the sociological language? I proceed in five stages. First, I explain why one should ask a semantic question about ‘theory.’ Second, I lexicographically identify seven different senses of the word, which I distinguish by means of subscripts. Third, I show some difficulties that the current lack of semantic clarity has led sociology to. Fourth, I articulate the question, ‘what ought “theory” to mean?,’ which I dub the ‘semantic predicament’ (SP), and I consider what one can learn about it from the theory literature. Fifth, I recommend a ‘semantic therapy’ for sociology, and advance two arguments about SP: (a) the principle of practical reason—SP is to a large extent a political issue, which should be addressed with the help of political mechanisms; and (b) the principle of ontological and epistemological pluralism—the solution to SP should not be too ontologically and epistemologically demanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite frequent references in the sociological literature to Durkheim's theory about the division of labor, sociologists have made few attempts to test it. The paucity of attempts and the very debatable outcomes thereof are due largely to Durkheim's use of the traditional discursive mode of theory construction. A discursively stated theory's logical structure is likely to be obscure, and for that reason alone tests of it are difficult and controversial. Rather than perpetuate the exegetical tradition in sociological treatments of the subject, this paper restates Durkheim's theory in accordance with a particular formal mode. That restatement identifies the theory's shortcomings and problems. But the eight premises imply only one testable theorem, and the theorem's predictive accuracy appears minimal unless “population concentration” is substituted for “density” in the first axiom. Nonetheless, the restatement clearly shows how extension of the theory (additional postulates) could further its testability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authors find John Levi Martin's comments on their paper cogently argued and provocative. The main burden of Martin's comment is that authors should accept a false antimony between external determination and unexplainable chance and consequently are reluctant to see human action as causal. First, authors contend that the conception of human agency as cause entails certain insuperable difficulties in analyzing some forms of human conduct, whether on the individual or the collective level. Second, they believe that chance as others define it is defensible as a component of much social behavior. Although social behavior is self-directed, constructed by the actors. As authors have tried to show in their paper, there is a need to recognize an indeterminate, chance component in certain instances. Such instances are most likely to be those entailing blocked or ambiguous courses of action which require decision making. When human beings encounter problematic situations, many alternative possibilities may be present and the outcomes may resist best efforts to explain them causally. The authors insist that this difficulty is ontological not a product simply of ignorance.

The article draws attention to the importance of chance in sociological theory in the recent paper by sociologists Jerome Manis and Bernard Meltzer and their attempt to sketch alternatives to the causal determinism assumed by many sociologists, but they have not correctly specified tie challenges and possibilities in sociological explanation. Manis and Meltzer argue that there exists a class of events which possess the following overlapping features: 1) absence of cause, 2) absence of predictability and 3) absence of regularity in the sequence of the action and its antecedent conditions and that the existence of such events contravenes determinism, a fundamental postulate of science. They maintain that although some events are governed by causal laws, others are not and argue that this latter set includes chaos in the mathematical sense, quantum mechanics, evolution, trends in the arts, global politics and political movements, people actions and many key points in their lives, such as where they work and whom they mate with. The authors conclude that mainstream sociology and its search for causal laws cannot help in studying events in this broad set. This claim is especially significant because the broad set includes human action.

How do we go about understanding the "classic texts" of sociological theory? This paper begins by reviewing tile historicist position of Jones, with its foundations in the work of Quentin Skinner and other historians of political theory, This position then is criticized from the standpoint of the neo-Deweyan pragmatism of Richard Rorty. Specifically, Rorty's pragmatism encourages us to revise Skinner's and Jones's historicism on three specific points: the acceptance of treatments of classical texts that are undeniably anachronistic but nonetheless unobjectionable; the restriction of Skinners notion of an agent's "privileged access" to his or her intentions; and the adoption of a view of the history of sociological theory as a succession of vocabularies a view that encourages a new kind of dialogue between historians of sociological theory and theorists themselves. The last point is articulated in a concrete example of the interpretation of one of Durkheim's most characteristic arguments. The conclusion again stresses the benefits to be derived from viewing sociological theory - both past and present-from this pragmatist perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about structural sociology as practiced by one of the more important sociologists and social thinkers-Harrison White. The author has chosen this topic because structuralist thinking is an important feature of contemporary social thought; because Professor White's approach to the study of social structure is particularly influential, and because of the author's misgivings about certain features of the structuralist program. The principal claim that is made in "Social Structure" is that preexisting sociology has failed to understand social structure properly. The presently existing, largely categorical descriptions of social structure have no solid theoretical grounding. Furthermore, network concepts may provide the only way to construct a theory of social structure. Categories, White argues, are loose ways of talking about empirically existing structure, which appears only in the form of networks. The author comments on the topic of "culture marginalized." Specifically, it concerns the problematic implications of defocalizing the cultural bases of network structures. He also comments on "culture embedded" and "cultural absence."

In the 1950s and 1960s Freudian theory was deemed to be a vital part of the sociological tradition, but since then it has fallen from favor, largely because of the simplifications and misinterpretations both by Freud's sociological critics and by his supporters. Chief among such misunderstandings is the tendency to view Freud's social theory as a variant of that of Hobbes, in which a selfish and asocial human nature is made social through the imposition of external constraints; these constraints, as Durkheim stated, eventually are "internalized" into the personalities of social beings. Against such a claim this paper argues that Freud's views differ profoundly from those of Hobbes and that the myth of the Hobbesian Freud has so distorted Freud's most fundamental concepts that their social theoretical significance has been largely obscured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popper `s logic of scientific disco very and Kuhn `s paradigm switches in science have been considered competing schools of thought in the philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge. In the present paper the author establishes a unified three-dimensional frame work that synthesizes the quintessential ideas of these schools. Theories are tested for confirmation or falsification in the first dimension; their scope conditions are defined and redefined in the second dimension; and they replace their predecessors to become a dominant theory or possibly even a new paradigm in the third dimension. The development of fertility theory is examined in the three-dimensional framework. This framework helps us understand important aspects of theory construction, and thereby shed light on how to build viable sociological theory. Also discussed are major problems in formulating sociological theory. The overcoming of these problems is a necessary condition for a theory to be examined in the Three-dimensional framework, and thereby to become a candidate of a new theoretical paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article locates and examines the micro-macro problem in sociology in the context of the larger problem of levels, the latter tending to include solutions to the former. Levels theory is meta-theoretical, for it is presuppositional to substantive or "sectors" theory. Levels theory constitutes the levels and therefore the "kinds" of social reality, while substantive theory looks for causal connections within and among the levels. The priority of levels over sectors theory, however, is only analytic. Historically the influence can be reversed, as levels shift in power relative to each other. The rise of sociologist Emile Durkheim's sacred self in the nineteenth century or social system in the twentieth are dramatic examples of these shifts. The article attempts to clarify the concept of levels, distinguishing several meanings of the term and choosing one to work with in the paper. The body of the article discusses the levels themselves, that is, what they are and how each is characterized. The article finally comments briefly on the connections among levels.

The article presents the author's views on sociologist Darin Weinberg's paper "Lindesmith on Addiction: A Critical History of a Classical Theory," In the paper Weinberg takes up the attack on sociologist Alfred Lindesmith's theory of addiction, which was for decades an object of scorn by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and sociologist Harry Anslinger, the bureau's longtime director. Without attributing any particular motives to Weinberg, given what is known about official policy, it is not surprising the NIDA and other U.S. government agencies encourage and support criticisms of Lindesmith' s work. In any case, Weinberg correctly noted that Lindesmith made the symbolically mediated interpretations his subjects conferred upon their actions and experiences the central element of his theory. Weinberg argued that the position of Lindesmith and other symbolic interactionists was selected by these sociologists more for tactical than intellectual reasons to compete for professional advantage with other disciplines, especially psychology. The consequent prominence given to symbolic interpretations, Weinberg claims, created a dualism which is untenable on both epistemological and phenomenological grounds.

The article presents sociologist John F. Galliher's comments on the author's paper on addiction. Galliher suggests that the author's paper is guilty of the following failings. Firstly it is an attack on sociologist Alfred Lindesmith that is ideologically consistent with those mounted by sociologist Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, secondly it misleadingly casts the intimate relationship between physical reactions and human learning in Lindesmith's theory of addiction as a mindbody dualism, and it ignores the variable impact of drugs on the human actor depending on the cultural and symbolic context. Anslinger was an early and active proponent of a federal war on drugs, and his attacks on Lindesmith were based on his commitment to prosecuting drug users as criminals rather than providing addicts with therapy. The author holds that his article does not even vaguely imply an endorsement of this policy or the federal war on drugs. The author abhors the prosecutorial frenzy embodied in the war on drugs and its transparently repressive, racist, and classist consequences.