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According to its critics, the "old" secularization paradigm has been tried, convicted, and executed by recent scholarship in the social sciences of religion, and is being replaced by a "new" (postsecularization) paradigm which highlights the continued vitality of religion in modern societies. This paper argues that claims to have definitively refuted secularization theory are exaggerated. It mounts a defense of a neosecularization paradigm which retains the core insights of the old paradigm while incorporating criticisms leveled against the hubris and laziness of some deployments of the concept of "secularization." Following Chaves (1994), this paper argues that the core of neosecularization theory is the proposition that secularization means not the decline of religion but the declining scope of religious authority at the individual, organizational, and societal levels of analysis. Three exemplars of this perspective in the area of religion and politics are highlighted: the work of Hertzke (1988), Demerath and Williams (1992), and Casanova (1994). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ethnographic technique of the focused revisit -- rare in sociology but common in anthropology -- when an ethnographer returns to the site of a previous study. Discrepancies between earlier and later accounts can be attributed to differences in: (1) the relation of observer to participant, (2) theory brought to the field by the ethnographer, (3) internal processes within the field site itself, or (4) forces external to the field site. Focused revisits tend to settle on one or another of these four explanations, giving rise to four types of focused revisits. Using examples, the limits of each type of focused revisit are explored with a view to developing a reflexive ethnography that combines all four approaches. The principles of the focused revisit are then extended to rolling, punctuated, heuristic, archeological, and valedictory revisits. In centering attention on ethnography-as-revisit sociologists directly confront the dilemmas of participating in the world they study -- a world that undergoes (real) historical change that can only be grasped using a (constructed) theoretical lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quantitative analysis of geoscientists' published opinions on continental drift theory between 1907 and 1950 indicates that the more prominent scientists resisted this revolutionary theory. Was this resistance based on the greater knowledge of these productive geoscientists, or were they protecting their reputations? The latter interpretation gains plausibility because the current acceptance of plate tectonics implies that the previous evidence given for drift should have established it as a plausible theory. The analyses and discussion in this paper illustrate (a) how quantitative evidence can be related to the 'interests' perspective; (b) the importance of assumptions in distinguishing 'social' and 'scientific' interests; and (c) some of the elements in the 'strong programme' in the sociology of scientific knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology has fractured into a number of schools, each claiming to be distinct from the others and to have its own theory. The trouble with the theories is that most of them fail to make their general propositions explicit. Were they made explicit, all the theories would turn out to contain at least the general propositions of behavioral psychology, and the intellectual unification of sociology could begin. The paper discusses the reasons why many sociologists are reluctant to accept this argument. It also discusses other claimants to the status of theory, including "pattern" theories, functional theories (one of which is really behavioral), and the difficulties created by some uses of the concept, social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By any standard, nonrationality is an undertheorized concept in sociology. This paper attempts to open a discussion on nonrationality by analyzing one of the most fruitful theorizations of the concept: Simmel's Simmel deveioped a theory that placed nonrationality on the same plane with rationality and attributed to the former a role as fundamental as the latter's in the foundations of action, and as central as the latter's in the generation of existential meanings. The gradual eclipse of the nonrational elements of life in the expanses of a modern, highly rationalized world imply, then, an impoverishment of being. I argue that Simmel's theory of the nonrational can serve as a model capable of enriching our understanding of society and of the person and can, in this sense, serve as a counterpoint to current sociological theories that emphasize the rational elements of life and conceive the person in primarily rational terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article replies to comments of David Klein on a discussion of the role of conceptual frameworks or paradigms in the development of theory in sociology and the social sciences. The three major points of the discussion are summarized, and the author claims that Klein failed to refute any of these major points. At several points Klein seems to confuse conceptual analysis with conceptual frameworks. The paper is not a blanket condemnation of conceptual frameworks or theoretical perspectives, and it does not suggest that they play no role in theoretical advances. What it suggests is that much of the work on conceptual frameworks, though couched in theoretical terms, is illusory.

The article introduces as series of articles dealing in a variety of ways with critical theorists and critical theory. The first three papers offer insightful analyses of the work of several critical thinkers Erich Fromm, David Riesman, C. Wright Mills and Leo Strauss. Neil McLaughlin examines David's Riesman's synthesis of the German critical tradition and U.S. pragmatism in his best known work, The Lonely Crowd. In McLaughlin's view, Riesman's classic analysis of U.S. society in 1950 bears a strong resemblance to many postmodern writings, particularly since Riesman self-consciously assumed the mantle of the public intellectual. James Abbott examines the thought of political philosopher Leo Strauss, with particular attention to its relevance for contemporary controversies concerning facts and values. Abbott is drawn to Strauss's analysis of the crises of modern liberalism and of twentieth century social science, and brings this to bear on the contemporary paradox of a sociology that simultaneously advocates visions of the good society while denying the possibility of trans-historical standards that would validate such visions. Joel Best offers incisive reflections on sociology's status in the academic world. Ironically, despite its image as a minor field, sociology has arguably been among the most influential of disciplines and has spawned a series of specialties that migrated to independence.