ROLE ANALYSIS AND THE SOCIOLOGICAL ENTERPRISE.

It is the argument of this paper that the sort of sociology that one practises is based upon the nature of the ontological assumptions that one makes implicitly or explicitly. In other words, one's presuppositions as to the essential nature of man's being-in-the-world are utterly crucial to the sociological enterprise in which one is engaged. It can be maintained that contemporary sociology has made one or other of two mistakes. The first alternative has been to operate with a notion of the society-actor relationship in which society is postulated as a superior entity, standing apart, beyond and above the individual actor. The individual experiences his role as pre-given by the environing society and it is one within which he performs, per- haps non-reflectively, in accordance with its prescriptions. Language thus arises out of particular intersubjective processes rather than being simply the outcome of inter- individual imitation. Action is constructed by the individual who is an active interpreter within each social situation. Such construction of action occurs intersubjectively: it arises within and through communication with others.