Balogh István – Karácsony András

Social Theory in Germany

(Preface, Introduction)*

 

 

 

Preface

 

 

         The present book, like every comprehensive summary, is a selection based on conception and is not without both personal points of view and evaluations, and because of that needs explanation. In the present case, we had to follow three points of selection. The first one of them concerns the (disciplinary) division of the knowledge on society and consists of the questions of the origins, the disciplinary specificities and  the self definition of social theory. The second one is the point of view of the internal division of the social theory, therefore we should give an answer to what extent the endeavours, directions and schools in the postwar German social theory may be considered particularly interesting as far as their angle of view, topics, terminological constructions and language are concerned. The third direction of the selection, in turn, refers to the recent past and the present of the diverging and immense German social theory: we have to give our reasons concerning the criteria of selection among the authors, topics and schools.

         The preliminary criteria of selection for the elaboration of the subject – the half century long history of the German social theory – can be justified only by the detailed treatment. It seems to be suitable, however, to outline briefly the main considerations that support the selection adapted. Its more lengthy specification will be carried out by the introductory and, in our intention, short historical summary, which expounds the origins of the social theory, and also by the description of the outline. Before all that, however, we should mention some motives of selection that were followed not because of essential considerations but rather because of necessity or incidence. We should mention, first of all, that the limits of size had to be taken into account as an inevitably important factor, even if not a principle, in the description of the lively German social theory which is almost incomprehensibly rich in topics, schools and publications. This necessity of selection is the main reason why we do not deal with the sociological works of René König in this summary, and why we pay the oeuvre of Ralf Dahrendorf, one of the most influencing personalities in the postwar German sociology and social theory, much less attention than it would deserve. In this summary, we have to ignore entirely the works of the members of a whole generation (for eample, Mühlmann, Popitz, Stammer, Plessner), which played an outstanding role in the institutionalization of the sociology in Germany during the fifties, though their oeuvres deserve recognition also from the point of view of social theory. It seems to be even more difficult to justify the missing of the attempt of that school that was called sociology of figure by its initiator, Norbert Elias. We can explain it only by stating that in our opinion Elias' attempts ought to be characterized mainly as falling under social history and sociology first of all. We have also left out of the summary the introduction of the "Heidelberg School" as well as that of the "Erlangen School", and, at most, we just mention the social theory attempts of some of their youngest scholars and researchers (for example, Harold Wenzel, Sigrid Brandt, among others) to give a new interpretation of Parsons. In our hope, these decisions are justified not only by the limits of size, but also by the essential points of view that determine the structure of the book.

         As far as the latter, that is, the structural considerations, are concerned, for the time being, we only mention that our purpose was to give a detailed picture of three definite tendencies in the German social theory, and therefore we would like to limit the scope of our work to the tracing of those three tendencies. We are convinced that the three tendencies, which we consider prevailing, are in direct connection with the questions of the social theory of modernity. Consequently, at first we are going to analyse the shift of conceptual accent in the theoretical labor that has been trying to interpret or ground social change, a shift that may be summarized and characterized briefly as a tendency from the revolutionizing of social critique to the institutionalizing of the reform projects. We are describing that shift of accent in the chapters on the critical theory and in those on the problems of law. The connection of the theory of action and the systems theory as well as the constant clashes of the two pradigms form another definite theoretical trend. We give a comprehensive outline of that trend in the chapters on the recent endeavours of systems theory and on the new projects of the theory of action, as well as in the chapters where we describe the main stages and turns of the continuing debate between Habermas and Luhmann. Finally, the third definite tendency is the fundamental change going on in the problematization of the subject and, within it, that of the subject – object relationship, which is meant to be the philosophical and theoretical ground of the Enlightenment tradition; the social theory consequences of that change manifests itself in a radically new approach towards modernity. That process is illustrated by the discussion and the intended overview of the topic of rationality and, within it, those of the attempts of the discourse as well as the argumentation theories.

         With the main points being justifiably stressed, it may hardly seem to be acceptable for the ones who have a bit more thorough knowledge on the developments in the German social theory during the past decades, to draw the works of the philosopher Wolfgang Schluchter partially, at least, into the present comprehensive summary. In our opinion, however, the elaboration of Schluchter's oeuvre in connection with the problem of rationality cannot have been omitted, since Schluchter, leaning on the elaboration and thinking over of the religion sociological works and manuscripts of Max Weber, has been aiming  more and more definitely at the grounding of a new synthesis (or paradigm) of a kind of social theory, which can be definitely distinguished from the philosophical tradition.

         Beside the limits of size, in some cases the necessary selection was based on other, not less incidental factors. One of them was the attempt to preserve a kind of thematic unity, and another, in turn, was the international or the domestic, German reputation, and a final one was that, as far as the younger scholars, who have published their first or second works only, are concerned, hardly could we talk about definite and long standing schools of research or of theory, however important books those might be.

         We also ought to mention finally the undoubtedly incidental but inevitable selection resulting from the limited knowledge and scope of interest of the authors of the present volume. The presence of the latter kind of selection in this summary is really inevitable not at last because of the fact that there are no comprehensive and detailed works on the recent period of the German social theory either in Germany or in Hungary. We can refer to this volume as a first attempt of that kind, and beside the diligent additional investigation on the side of the authors, the opinion and critiques of the readers are indispensable for the work to be carried on.

         We are convinced that by the introduction, representation and conceptualization of the crystallization in Germany of the social theory point of view, which is differing from both philosophy and theoretical sociology, we help the Hungarian reader get more closely acquainted with one of the most recent streams of the knowledge on society. At the same time, by the present work, we would like to remember and also to remind the reader of our as a young man departed friend and colleague, Zsolt Papp, because, in our opinion, we are carrying on his initiative and weaving the net of thought he started.

         We must acknowledge this time too that both the formation of the idea of the book as well as the elaboration of the different topics in it were immensely helped by the continuing discussions and friendly talks with the possibility of which we were always kindly granted by Professor Richard Münch at his home or at the university first in Düsseldorf and then in Bamberg. We are glad to meet our commitment and express our gratitude for his attention, advices and encouraging remarks. The visits just mentioned that were so important for us, as well as the long studies in Germany were mostly sponsored by German institutions, particularly by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. We would like to express our gratitude to them and to all the other institutions that provided us with scholarships and supports. We also have to mention that we could not have brought about and finished our many year long work without the support of the Institute of Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and that of the Research Fund of the Academy, or without the continuous discussions and talks with our colleagues.

         We have also benefitted from the advices of the colleagues of ours who read the manuscript and helped us make the final version of the text. It is not their fault that inspite of our purpose, we were unable to give it to the readers earlier, and hence we could not thereby guide those interested to the remarkably lively and vivid developments of the German social theory earlier.

 

the authors

Introduction

(Balogh István)

 

         By social theory one can mean different things. The most obvious way to define social theory is to refer to it as comprising all the fundamental theses of the different disciplines that belong to the social sciences, their interrelationships, and also their fundamental methodological considerations. In this way, we will have to realize the variousness of the theoretical grounds of the social sciences, and if we want to carry out the summing up or the generalization of the social sciences that are diverging as far as both their approaches and methodologies are concerned, we would have to define social theory as a generalizing metatheory.

         Another approach would make us to define social theory within the system of sciences; and then we would examine what kind of specificities can be found if we compare so different disciplines as natural sciences and social sciences and what kind of consequences of those specificities can be found concerning the process, structure and methods of theory building. In that case, social theory should be referred to as a part of the general theory of science. We may finally consider to belong to the scope of social theory all the theoretical constructions that were invented in order to ground and explain theoretically society as a world sui generis. In the following, we are going to speak about social theory exclusively in the latter context.

 

1. Social theory on the way to independence

 

         One can say for sure: the end of the formation of new disciplines is far from being over. Not only in the sphere of the natural sciences but in that of the knowledge on society as well, the process of the formation of new sciences and their integration into the universal system of science are going on. It can be considered to be one of the newest results of the dynamics mentioned that nowadays one can see social theory become independent more and more definitely, a process which is only the completing of some rather long standing tendencies.

         Preliminaries in the history of theory: The formation of social theory as a relatively independent realm of the knowledge on society, and its separation from philosophy and sociology are a present day process that has not come to an end yet. That tendency towards independence could be seen more and more definitely since the fifties and particularly in Germany, and is in close connection with the transformations of philosophy and of theoretical sociology. That is, on the one hand, with the continuous attempts of philosophy to find its place and to reformulate itself facing the approaches which question its grounds, and also with the relativity of the results of those attempts. That is, with the process on which Peter Sloterdijk made the following, proper, remark: "Philosophy has been dying for a whole century but, not having done its duty, it is unable to die." (Sloterdijk 1983/I.:7). On the other hand, the process of social theory to become independent is connected to the theoretical crisis of sociology. In this regard, we may quote one of the most important works of Luhmann where he writes: "Sociology has got into theoretical crisis. Although the fairly fruitful empirical researches have resulted in the increase of our knowledge, they have not concluded in the formation of a theory that may provide the special researches with unity. As an empirical science, sociology cannot give up its endeavours to match its statements to the facts … But that is the very principle which hinders sociology in grounding both the specificity of its object of investigation and itself as a scientific discipline" (Luhmann 1984:7).  These examples and statements also demonstrates that the dilemmas of the philosophy and the theoretical sociology were those that have repeatedly provided social theory with starting-points and impulses towards its recent attempts to become independent, whose particular problems of approach, methodology and structure we have to return to below.

         The recently strengthening process of social theory becoming a separate sphere of knowledge is not a new phenomenon at all. One can trace back its beginnings as far as the Greek philosophy. Namely: the specific issue of social theory was already given a systematic elaboration by Aristotle when he claimed that neither the forms of the coexistence and relationships between people (e.g., family, state) nor their institutions (government, law) could be directly deduced from general metaphysical, philosophical, logical principles, they form rather a sphere sui generis. For Aristotle, metaphysics and politics (ethics) were to be strictly separated (The Nicomachean Ethics). While from the general philosophical doctrine on the tripartite division of soul Plato finds deduceable not only the virtues (wisdom, courage, temperance and the overall comprehensive justice), but the doctrine of the social articulation of society as well as the doctrine of the divison of labour and other connections between the orders (teachers, soldiers, farmers), and the doctrine on the state itself, in the works of Aristotle, we do not find a deduction of that kind. For him, logic, metaphysics are considered to be the realms of knowledge on the never changeable, from which the realm of politics, containing ethics and economy, should be separated. The latter is a dynamic and changeable sphere under the influence of the human practice, decisions and action. The communities of the people (that is, family and the household community, the village and the polis) are not based directly on general philosophical, metaphysical principles, but on the natural human capability of building community: by his nature, man is a being that lives community life and, by that, is a being that constitutes state, states Aristotle (The Politics). Consequently, the social theory of Aristotle – just like his economic theory – is in fact a political theory, the goals and the laws of function of which cannot be directly deduced from general metaphysical considerations (Bayer, 1998).

         That performance of the Aristotelian philosophy, which is of decisive importance as far as the founding of an indepedent social theory is concerned, became overshadowed by its contact with and reinterpretation by the Christian philosophy even if it was never entirely forgotten. Inspite of the Christian philosophy's approach to philosophy (philosophy of religion) and to social theory (political theory), an approach differing from that of Aristotle, and inspite of the (closer) connection between those two realms also differing from the way Aristotle used to apprehend it, the issue of the relating the two sphere to each other survived. Thus, speaking of the City of God (De civitate Dei), Augustine not only claims that the City of the World is founded by a kind of love that is different from the one founding the City of God but also considers the fight of two cities possible, including the possibility of a self-love that may lead even to the rejection of God. Although in his philosophy of law, Thomas Aquinas claims in general terms that human laws should not oppose the divine laws, softening the strictness of the use of that principle, he recognizes that "...the end of the law is not always the common good..." (Summa Theologica), and more than that, speaking on the problem of kingdom, he literally repeats the view of Aristotle and defines man as "a political and social animal". Accordingly, Thomas Aquinas, on the one hand, distincts the divine wisdom that governs everything, the eternal law (lex aeterna), the natural laws (lex naturalis) from the human laws (lex humana), and refers to the human communities and the specific statutes of governments as the scope of the latter, and does not question, on the contrary, he does claim, the existence of free will. On the other hand, however, in the course of the normative grounding, leading finally to the divine laws, of the rules determining the coexistence of people, and within that attempt in the course of their adjustment to the requirements of the community of Christ, he at least brings relativity into the independent and original grounding of the human coexistence that was aimed at by Aristotle, and that he himself considers so important in defining the nature of man. Whereas the philosophy of the Middle Ages is far from being invariable even concerning the question of the relationship between the eternal divine law and the human community law (e.g., Occam's political philosophy founds the legitimity of the earthly power on the agreement of the citizens), the first important attempts that the contemporaneous philosophy made towards the independence of the social theory after the return and the renewal of the Platonic thought mentioned above were inevitably accompanied by the loosening and the disintegration of the philosophy of religion. That logic was followed by Hugo Grotius, when he laid the direct foundation of the human communities on the natural law in close connection with the human gregarious instinct which man is bestowed with by God in the last analysis but which is postulated directly as an independent principle. Accordingly, the social theory point of view asserts itself in the frameworks of political theory: within the philosophy of religion, beside the power of God and that of the church, the secular powers, because of the necessary recognition of the state, the political philosophy, and finally, within law, the idea of natural law appear as the undeveloped preliminaries of social theory. Consequently, the fact, that although "…politics was neither one of the independent special realms in the universities … nor was it mentioned explicitly among the 'seven liberal arts' of the Middle Ages… and, more than that, political theory was not in the center of the theoretical activity, politics was still present as an important topic within the frameworks of theology and jurisprudence" (Miethke 1991: 69-71) has an importance that concerns not only the history of the political ideas and doctrines. It was Machiavelli who, at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, stepped over these frameworks of the approach to politics and, even if limiting his thoughts on the political practice and government, questioned the idea of the inhesion of politics, philosophical ethics and law, the idea that had been maintained since the end of antiquity (Paczolay-Szabó 1984; Lieber 1991; Bayer 1998).

         The loosening of the philosophy of religion and, from the seventeenth century on, the rise of the philosophical doctrine of rationalism (Descartes) seem to be, however, only the remote prehistory of the unfolding of social theory. The decisive turn was brought about by Thomas Hobbes's empricism based on mathematics and natural sciences and opposed to any kind of metaphysical consideration as well as by his theory of the state elaborated in the Leviathan, the latter resting on the former one. Hobbes is criticized, usually sharply and justifiably, because of his radical empiricism and, mainly, because of his thesis of bellum omnium contra omnes. At the same time, however, it is mostly forgotten, that Hobbes, in fact, expounded not one, but two inseparable principles (not historical stages) conditional upon each other, which was followed by consequences of decisive importance concerning the development of social theory until the present day. One of the principles concerns the original, natural conditions: that is the playground of the above metioned principle of "the war of all against all". The other principle means the end of this natural condition: by the recognition and realization of the necessity of contract, a new system of relations and an institution, created rationally by the people themselves, begin to function among the people and become the basic condition for human existence. Although Hobbes does not make it clear, at what extent one may speak about the logical grounding of human coexistence and at what extent one could consider those principles to be "laws of development" that distinguish real historical stages, one thing is certain. On the one hand, those principles together interrupt the logical necessity of the philosophical systems that they should arrange their statements and theses on the different realms of reality into a hierachic order (including society) on the top of which one could find a single principle, idea (e.g., God, reason, absolute spirit) which solves and, at the same time, lays foundation to, the differences and oppositions. On the other hand, by the inseparable principles of bellum omnium contra omnes and the contract, Hobbes endeavoured to draw a dividing line between the natural conditions of man – in fact, the nature – and the existence of the human community, a limit deriving from the logic of the human relations themselves and therefore makes superfluous any kind of logical deduction from some transcendental principle. The main point of Hobbes's principles is that man himself creates his world of cooperation and his social-communal life, there are no laws and norms beyond him. While "…the agreement of these [natural] creatures is natural; that of men is by covenant only, which is artificial…" (Leviathan, Part II, Chap. XVII.). Recognizing the importance of the contract as an act that creates a new sphere of reality Locke claimes: "…when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body. …or else this original compact, whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact if he be left free and under no ties than he was before in the state of Nature." (An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Governement, Chap. VIII, Sections 96 and 97).

         The theoretical grounding of the separation from the philosophy of religion differs, however, from the theoretical, scientific justification of the sui generis character of the human community. And there is another definite difference between that issue and the historical studies on the origins of society. It is without doubt that Hobbes does not separate these aspects of his theory, he rather considers them identical. One should therefore think it natural that the historical and logical arguments raised against the Hobbesian theory of contract stimulated new investigations and theoretical attempts. Hereby we list the the main directions and types only.

         a) Attempts to correct or to replace the Hobbesian theory of contract. All the theories, however different and debating with one another they may be, can be considered to belong to this group which refer to the system and the forms of the communal and social relations from a theoretical and methodological point of view as a sphere of reality that cannot be reduced to more basic principles and units, and cannot be deduced from more general principles. In the frameworks of those theories, just like according to Hobbes, society is a reality sui generis, the grounds, laws and functioning of which have to be analyzed in themselves but the origins and the continuance of the society cannot be understood on the basis of the principle of contract. The theories of necessity and utility (e.g., Hume, the utilitarianism), of solidarity (e.g., Durkheim), of action (e.g., Weber and certain marxist schools) among others, can be considered to fall under that type.

         b) The theories that recognize the particularity of the cummunal and social relations as a specific shere of reality on the one hand, on the other, however, tend to find the scientific criteria of the knowledge on society in the taking over and adaptation of the methods used by the exact sciences (natural sciences, mathematics). These "universality theories" interpret society or the knowledge on society as a realtively independent part (cosmos, sciences) of a more general (more universal) overall unit. The schools of the sociological positivism (e.g., Comte, Merton) and some schools of the systems theory (e.g., the theories of social cybernetics) may be considered to come under this category.

         c) The schools, relating to the latter group, of the (re)integration into philosophy after the separation of philosophy and the philosophy of religion from each other. They refer to society as a specific way of the realization of an absolute and universal principle. The principle may be either material or spiritual. The social theories of the classical German philosophy (e.g., Kant, Hegel, the philosophical period of Marx and the schools of the Marxist philosophy of history) can be considered to come under this group.

         Sociology was without doubt the first, after the political, economic or legal interpretations, to apprehend the realm of sociality, as a system or network of relations among people, positively and in general as sociality (Heilbron 1995). This way sociology brought about a decisive turn again in the history of social theory, since it got beyond the special, single and therefore onesided approach towards human relations. At the same time, however, since the very beginning, in sociology, there has been a contradiction between the above mentioned approach to sociality and the scientific idea and ambition of sociology, which have the model and the methodological views of the natural sciences (the experimental sciences) in sight. The adaptation of the sociality as a point of view means that we found our concepts, and among them, the scientific categories that are to serve cognition, on the relations among people. Consequently, contrary to the experimental or fact-statements of the natural sciences, the basic concepts and statements of sociology are concepts and statements of relation. The increase of that original tension, which can be seen in the recent history of modernity, is on the way to force apart sociology nowadays: the empirical, fact-giving sociology is getting separated from the theoretical problems of sociality drawing a dividing line between itself and social theory that is becoming independent by that process.

         The definition of social theory: One could draw two important conclusions on the basis of the tendencies, we have outlined above in its main characteristics, on the basis of the tendencies that demonstrate the way social theory is becoming independent. On the one hand, one can see that the centuries old process of social theory becoming independent has not come to an end even by these days, on the other hand, however, the main cleavages of separation have become distinct. We have to pay a bit more attention to the latter in order to be able to define the essence, history and approach of social theory more closely. In advance, and in order to complete those we expounded above, we could say that as belonging to the group of social theories we refer to the realm of the systematic knowledge and analyses, where the inner and interrelated systems of relations of the human interactions and those of the communities are regarded as the realm sui generis of sociality and where, in that framework, questions are raised concerning its characteristics, dynamics, and tensions, those questions are to be answered by hypotheses on macro level, using logical approach as well as empirical references to test them. Thus, in the following, by social theory (in singular) we mean the new discipline of social science that is approaching the definition outlined above. We name social theories (in plural) all the theories or certain smaller or larger groups of them that belong to the realm of that discipline. Finally, we give indication of content to the single schools, positions and works (e.g., systems theory, theory of action).

         It is a consequence of the description on social theories given above that the main dividing lines needed for their becoming independent realm of knowledge concern the realms of philosophy, particularly philosophy of society and of history, and of sociology first of all, without breaking the connections and, in some cases, the overlappings. That is why, beside stressing the relative separation, it is suitable to compare social theory with the two other branches of science in detail. Accordingly, social theories, just like the philosophies of society and history, are macro-level theories, whose subject is the system of the social and communal relations, that suppose that the transformations, dynamics and interrelations of the phenomena they consider relevant can be understood only by stepping beyond the realm of the phenomena themselves, in a conceptual system and on a level of explanation and interpretation not deduceable directly from the phenomena themselves. In this connection, they follow, explicitly or implicitly, the methodological principle that their empirical objects of investigation, that is, the social facts and data, are not given elementary things but constructions of fact that presuppose theoretical involvement. At the same time, in contrast to the philosophical approach, social theories do not endeavour to interpret the interrelations, contradictions and dynamics of the phenomena as realizations of either transcendental or ontological principles beyond the community. Just the opposite: they also interpret the transcendental or ontological principles as the results of the functioning and activity of the communities and the human interactions. Consequently, the external-normative logic, external to the human relations, cannot be found in the social theories: in social theory, one can regard that kind of logic not as a pregiven thing, not as ultimate principles, but as a historical result, as an attempt to solve problems. That point of view implicitly contains not only the recognition that the social organizations are not without conflicts, but also the acceptance that the contradictions are manageable even if inevitable. Accordingly, in his comprehensive work, Robert Nisbet, among others, defining the tendencies within philosophy towards social theory as attempts of social philosophy, refers to the inevitability of the conflicts as "the incurable essence of the Western social philosophy since its very beginning". Although "...we commonly think of conflict as disintegrative in effect. Only a moment's thought, however, is required to remind us that it is in circumstances of conflict with external forces that almost every social group achieves its highest unity." (Nisbet 1973:5). As far as the approach towards the contradictions and conflicts is concerned, social theories are not far away from the theories of sociology. That is the reason why social theories, not without any basis, have usually been considered, particularly in the early period of the discipline, to be a part of sociology (Heilbron 1995). The fact that, inspite of the common characteristics, social theories are separating from sociology is in connection mainly with the transformation, accelerating during the recent decades, and the difficulties of sociology, particularly with regard to the place, function and characteristics of the sociological theory, namely with the problematic connection between the empirical research and the theoretical investigations. And, in concrete terms, mainly with the fact that on the one hand, the increasing predominance of the empirical research, due to several political, financial, scientific and other circumstances, as well as its direct practical applicability by itself, decreases the need for theory and the conviction with regard to the reliability of the theories. On the other hand, in close connection with the foregoing, in the framework of the sociological theories, the more and more central role of the micro-macro problem, which includes also the relating of the emprirical research and the theoretical analyses into its programme, also narrows the macro-theoretical horizon. The third factor, which is closely connected with all that, is the sharpening methodological contradiction of sociology. The contradiction can be traced back to the unfolding, on the one side, of new, more and more complicated and sophisticated precedures, technics and considerations to help the empirical research find data, whereas, on the other side, the empirical methodological refinement is accompanied by a theoretical simplicity, regarding the nature of the "processed" data, in the course of the elaboration of the interpretative frameworks. In the course of inventing and empirically testing hypotheses and explanatory schemes, after their production, the data constructed by complicated procedures more and more difficult to adapt, are referred to as basic and original facts as if they were physical entities. As a consequence, in the frameworks of the empirical sociology, the theoretical questions are being transformed into the methodological questions of the empirical datahunt.

         Within philosophy and sociology, the differentiation that leads towards the formation of social theories also appears as a breach from certain traditional topics and doctrines. As far as philosophy is concerned, with regard to the German philosophical tradition, it means firstly the critique of and the transcending both the philosophy of subject and, in connection with that, the issues of epistemology. It is well known that the dissatisfaction with the philosophy of subject, beyond the "great tradition" of social philosophy too, has accompanied the whole history of both the German and the American philosophy since the second half of the nineteenth century (Joas 1980; Habermas 1985; Böhme 1994). At the same time, as far as sociology is concerned, it was the American sociology, where one could see the separation and the breach of the "grand theory", a process not yet come to an end even today, start. In that story of separation, it was Parsons, without doubt, to play the decisive role of initiator: although he steadily regards his own theory sociology, already in the term that designs his programme, he expresses that he wants to do something more. Namely, he refers to his "voluntaristic" theory not as just one of the possible theories but the single possible social theory, which synthesizes the most different attempts (Parsons 1937). Parsons not only considers the sociological theory and the social theory to be connectible but, in the elaboration, he regards them identical in his synthesis on the very high level of abstraction. The later history of the issue of the "grand theory", particularly since the mid-range theories, which are generally considered to be sociological par excellence, were designed as such by Merton (as a matter of fact, against Parsons' "too general and abstract" theory), shows the increasing differentiation. On the basis of the sociological conception of the mid-range theories, Merton drew rather radical conclusions concerning the possibilities of the "classical" theoretical tradition: he simply relegated it in its entirety into the past of the history of theory, into a past that has no actual relevance even if it is not dead (Merton 1949: 35-38).

 

Bibliography

 

Bayer J., A politikai gondolkodás története. Budapest, Osiris 1998.

Böhme, G., Weltweisheit, Lebensform, Wissenschaft. Eine Einführung in die Philosophie. Frankfurt/M. Suhrkamp 1994.

Habermas, J., Die philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen. Frankfurt/M. Suhrkamp 1985.

Heilbron, J., The Rise of Social Theory. Cambridge, Polity Press 1995.

Joas, H., Praktische Intersubjektivität. Die Entwicklung des Werkes von G.H. Mead. Frankfurt/M. Suhrkamp 1980.

Lieber, H-J. (Hrsg.), Politische Theorien von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Bonn 1991.

Luhmann, N. Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt/M. Suhrkamp 1984.

Merton, R. K. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York-London. The Free Press-Collier Macmillan 1949.

Miethke, J., "Politische Theorien im Mitelalter". In: Lieber, H.-J. (Hrsg.) Politische Theorien von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart.  Bonn. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Bd. 299, 1991.

Nisbet, R., The Social Philosophers. Community & Conflict in Western Thought. New York. Th. Y. Crowell 1973.

Paczolay P. – Szabó M., A politikaelmélet rövid története. Budapest. Kossuth Könyvkiadó 1984.

Parsons, T., The Structure of Social Action. A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference to a Group of Recent European Writers. New York – London. The Free Press-Collier, Macmillan 1937.

Sloterdijk, P., Kritik der zynischen Vernunft 2 Bde. Frankfurt/M., Suhrkamp 1983.