Dialectical sociology: toward a resolution of the current 'crisis' in Western sociology.

The crisis confronting Western sociology is seen to hinge on a fundamental re-examination of the identification of the logic of natural and social sciences. The dialectical logic involved is viewed as providing a bridge between Marxist and non-Marxist sociology which are battling for the mantle of orthodoxy in Western sociology. Sociologist Karl Marx viewed his method as scientific and its product, historical materialism, as a reality. The dominant forces in Western sociology shape their self-image to foresee and relegate anticipation to those engaged in policy planning. Western sociology has been inhospitable to dialectical imagery. Sociology is dialectically linked with alienation, the two working together as a single interactive process. Sociologists began to suspect that the consistency and closure demanded by the system assumption failed to provide a place for fundamental social change. The decision of sociologist Charles Loomis to title his presidential address before the American Sociological Association granted both official sanction and encouragement to the dialectical mode from the Western sociological orthodoxy. The division that has taken place in the house of Western sociology is evidenced within Marxist sociology.