The Structure of Social Theory

Anthony King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN:
  9780415263344
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134574735
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Drawing on the work of Gadamer, the book demonstrates that a sociology which focuses on social relations does not imply a return to idealism, nor a retreat into individualism, nor a rejection of critique. Rather, a hermeneutic sociology which prioritises human social relations is the only coherent paradigm which is available today. The author argues that sociologists studying the dramatic social transformations which are currently occuring should focus on social relations between humans; they should not attempt to understand contemporary changes in terms of structure and agency.

Part I

Contemporary Social Theory

1 Structure and Agency

Social Theory

Sociologists today have an underdeveloped sense of humour. For all their talk of reflexivity, they themselves conspicuously lack a sense of self-awareness. This is unfortunate since it ensures that sociologists are incapable of appreciating the irony of their predicament. From its origins in the early nineteenth century, sociology made a distinctive intellectual contribution. Sociology sought to examine the general nature of social reality and to analyse the specific characteristics of emergent modern society. Auguste Comte, who invented the term ‘sociology’, emphasised the importance of this discovery of social reality. For him, the expansion of knowledge to this new and hitherto under-examined realm of human existence promised intellectual benefits on a par with physics or the other natural sciences. Although Comte’s method was untenably positivistic, his neologism ‘sociology’ remains a useful reminder of the original purpose of the discipline. Sociology seeks to demonstrate the decisive role which the social context plays in all human activity. In particular, sociology has illuminated the extraordinary potency of social relations between humans which are implicated in even the most apparently private individual acts. These all-pervading social relations cannot be reduced to psychological, biological or economic factors. Social relations constitute a fascinating reality which must be understood in its own terms. To use Durkheim’s term, social relations are sacred; in their effervescent interaction, humans develop a powerful emotional attachment to each other which binds them together, inspiring them to particular forms of activity.

It [collective life] brings about a state of effervescence which changes the conditions of psychic activity. Vital energies are over-excited, passions more active, sensations stronger; there are even some which are produced only at this moment. A man does not recognise himself; he feels himself transformed and consequently he transforms the environment which surrounds him.

(Durkheim 1976: 422)

In the course of social interaction, humans mutually transform each other to produce a completely new level of reality. This social reality is the world which humans inhabit. As Durkheim recognised, although this social reality is binding and indeed sacred, it depends upon the mere fact that humans recognise their relations to each other. Yet, although always dependent upon human understanding, social relations endow humans with powers which would be inconceivable if they were alone. The sacredness with which social relations are invested is unique to the intercourse of humans. These social relations which inspire the humans engaged in them should also excite the analytic interest of the sociologist. Certainly, Durkheim’s work, whatever its limitations, effuses a sense of wonder at human social interaction. Weber was similarly impressed by the potency of human social relations and he described sociology as ‘a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action’ (Weber 1978: 4, emphasis added). Weber clarified what he meant by social action: ‘action is “social” insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behaviour of others and is thereby oriented in its course’ (Weber 1978: 4). For Weber, human social action was distinctive because it was directed towards others. The mutual reaction of others was an intrinsic and dynamic element of human interaction. Moreover, these interactions were never independent of human consciousness. Humans had to come to a mutual understanding of what their interactions signified. They had to understand what their social relations involved and what they demanded of them. Human social relations were ultimately dependent on the shared meanings which the participants attached to their actions and relations. For Weber, these meanings transformed mere existence into something distinctively human: life. It was the task of the sociologists to analyse life in any historical period. Weber, like Durkheim, enthused about the infinite potential of human social relations: ‘Life with its irrational reality and its store of possible meanings is inexhaustible’ (Weber 1949: 111). Although Marx concentrated on the alienation and degradation of human life, he too recognised the unique character of human social relations. Indeed, his disgust with capitalism was primarily motivated by a belief that it represented a negation of human social existence. For Marx, human existence was fundamentally social.

Therefore, even when the manifestation of his life does not take the form of a communal manifestation performed in the company of other men, it is still a manifestation and confirmation of social life. The individual and the species-life of man are not different.

(Marx 1990: 91)

Even when they are alone, humans cannot be understood in individual terms. The very individual characteristics which they display are a product of their social existence: their relations to others. Humans could never be considered separately from the social relations in which they existed: ‘for only to social man is nature available as a bond with other men, as the basis of his own existence for others and theirs for him, and as the vital element in human reality’ (Marx 1990: 90). Humans could not be identified in some primordial natural state apart from their social relations. Their specific humanity – their species being – lay precisely in their social existence; in their mutual interrelations with each other. For Marx, human existence was, by nature, social. Human history could only be comprehended by recognising this fertile interdependence of humans on each other, making each what they were. Durkheim, Weber and Marx were all inspired by the power of human social relations and dedicated themselves to the analysis of the unique and sacred properties of this reality. In this way, they represent the distinctive intellectual contribution of sociology; they tried to explain human action in terms of the social relations in which it arose. As Durkheim declared: ‘Thus sociology appears destined to open a new way to the science of man’ (Durkheim 1976: 447). As Durkheim, Marx and Weber recognised, sociology will be significant as long as social relations between humans remain the primary focus of all research which is conducted in the name of this discipline.

Unfortunately, sociologists have increasingly forgotten what is distinctive about sociology. Today, sociologists seem incapable of recognising the special character of social reality. Sociology has become a misnomer for a discipline which is no longer interested in the social relations between humans. Instead, the dynamic power of social intercourse has been reduced to a deadening dualism. For sociologists now, society consists of two divisible elements; structure and agency. On the one hand, stand the cold institutions of the modern society and, on the other, the creative individual. This dualism is particularly prevalent in contemporary social theory, even though it has been involved in philosophical debates which have focused precisely on the nature of social reality. Social theory emerged as a distinctive subdiscipline within sociology in the 1970s to become particularly prominent in the 1980s and 1990s. It sought to elaborate specifically upon the ontological and epistemological basis of sociology often independently of empirical analysis. Ironically, its search for ontological and epistemological grounding led it in almost every case away from the reality of social life. Contemporary social theory seems determined to ignore the fecund interplay of human social life, in favour of abstraction. In the last two decades, realism, represented most prominently in Britain by Roy Bhaskar and Margaret Archer, has attained an increasingly central position in social theory. According to realism, society consists of a dual or stratified ontology in which the individual reproduces an already existing social structure. Thus, Archer insists that ‘it is fully justifiable to refer to structures (being irreducible to individuals or groups) as pre-existing them both’ (Archer 1995: 75). Bhaskar has similarly stated that ‘there is an ontological hiatus between society and people’ (Bhaskar 1979: 46).

While society exists only in virtue of human agency, and human agency (or being) always presupposes (and expresses) some or other definite social form, they cannot be reduced or reconstructed from one another.

(Bhaskar 1986: 124)

Bhaskar’s transformational model of social activity and Archer’s morphogenetic social theory propose a three-stage model of social reproduction in which pre-existing, independent and causally efficacious structure is reproduced or transformed by individual action. Anticipating realism, Peter Blau similarly argued for a dialectical social theory in which structure was reproduced and transformed by the individual in the course of social exchange: ‘structural change, therefore, assumes a dialectical pattern’ (Blau 1964: 338). Other social theorists, who have not always formally described themselves as realists, have similarly professed their support for this realist ontology of structure and agency:

The thesis I present is that an adequate account must come to terms with the fact that ‘society’ and its constituent elements are preconstituted and objective structures which constrain interaction.

(Layder 1981: 1)

Nicos Mouzelis has been even more forthright.

The subject–object distinction is another one that it is impossible to eliminate without paying too high a price…As with the micro–macro distinction, the divide between objectivist and subjectivist sociologies should neither be ignored (as in post-structuralism), nor transcended in a decorative, rhetorical manner (a la Bourdieu, Giddens or Elias).

(Mouzelis 1995: 156)

Similarly, Stones calls for a ‘post-modernist realism whose acknowledgement of a rich, complex ontology is accompanied and matched by the adoption of a finely grained set of reflexive guidelines’ (Stones 1996: 232). For Stones, social theorists must recognise that individuals are reflexive but that these individuals are themselves confronted by certain real structural conditions. They are ultimately reflexive about the objective conditions of their existence. He too has presumed a dualistic ontology of structure and agency.

Many other theorists are similarly committed to ontological dualism. In his encyclopaedic outline of sociology, Alexander has promoted a ‘multi-dimensional’ theory which takes account of the diverse aspects of society (Alexander 1983, 1984). Alexander calls his theory multi-dimensional because he advocates the consideration of social, cultural, political and economic factors. However, his criticisms of Weber, Marx, Durkheim and Parsons reveal that he too is ultimately committed to ontological dualism (Alexander 1984: 230, 241). He rejects sociologists when they promote an explanatory account which emphasises only the social interactions between humans. Alexander believes that to focus merely on human social relations is analytically flawed since society manifestly consists of objective subsystems which interact with each other independently of the individual and, indeed, which impose upon the individual. Underlying Alexander’s multi-dimensional theory is a commitment to ontological dualism. There are other extremely prominent figures, like Habermas, Foucault and Bourdieu, who are also implicitly committed to a similarly dualistic ontology in a large part of their writings. Thus, Habermas opposes the public, institutional system to the privatised and individual lifeworld (Habermas 1987b; 1991).

Other contemporary social theorists are committed to a similar dualism but employ the concept of structure (or equivalent) in slightly differing ways. They envisage structure as a set of rules which pattern individual action rather than as independent social institutions. In fact, the theorists who employ a ‘conceptual’ rather than a ‘real’ definition of structure are closely related since the purpose of structure as a net of concept is to ensure the reproduction of institutional structure. Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory is rightly prominent in contemporary social theory and it has also been employed in disciplines as diverse as geography and international relations. There is no doubting the academic importance of structuration theory but it is also a prime example of the ontological dualism of contemporary social theory. The primary task of Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory is to explain how the individual contributes to the reproduction of the social system. The central terms in structuration theory are system, structure and structuration. System refers to the social institutions of modern society (which realists call structure), structure (potentially confusingly) to certain rules which pattern individual action and structuration to the moment when individuals act in the light of these rules to reproduce the system. The curious ‘stretching’ of individual presence of which he writes refers to the way in which individual actions at one point in the system cohere with others elsewhere to reproduce the social structure as a whole. Structuration theory claims that individuals knowingly reproduce the social system, thereby avoiding the ‘derogation of the lay actor’ (Giddens 1988: 71). For Giddens, the social system is reproduced only by means of knowledgeable individual agency. Nevertheless, the social system has its own autonomous status; it is independent of the individuals who reproduce it. Giddens notes that structuration theory is compatible with a realist epistemology and, to emphasise the point, he insists that ‘society is not the creation of individual subjects’ (Giddens 1995a: xl). Institutions have structural properties which are not reducible to individuals. Giddens’ structuration theory operates around the divide between structure and agency, trying to reconcile the two without falling into either objectivism or subjectivism. In this way, and against many of his critics, Giddens is explicitly committed to ontological dualism; he wants ultimately to preserve both structure and agency. Giddens is one of the most significant examples of dualism in contemporary social theory but he is far from being alone.¹ Although adopting very different political stances to Giddens, Foucault describes the way that modern discourses oppress the individual subject (Foucault 1974a, 1995), while Bourdieu’s habitus imposes upon the lone individual (Bourdieu 1984).² Contemporary social theory assumes a dualistic ontology. It focuses on the interrelation of structure and agency.³ Ironically, Giddens’ critics share his ontological pre-suppositions. Alex Callinicos has rejected Giddens on the grounds that he has putatively reduced the objective existence of structure to individual agency (Callinicos 1985: 162). Callinicos affirms structure but, at the same time, he defends individual agency: ‘The explanatory autonomy of social structures is not inconsistent with the orthodox conception of agents’ (Callinicos 1987: 38). For Callinicos, society consists of structure and agents and the purpose of social theory is to reconcile the two distinct elements. Despite his evident disdain for Giddens, in the end, Callinicos promotes a dualistic ontology which is consistent with structuration theory. John Thompson similarly advocates a dualistic ontology against the putative individualism of structuration theory: ‘Structure and agency no longer appear to be the complementary terms of a duality but the antagonistic poles of a dualism, such that structural constraints may so limit the options of individuals that agency is effectively dissolved’ (J. Thompson 1989: 73). Thompson insists that there is an objective dimension to society, independent of individual interpretation: ‘I attempt to situate action within an overall context of social institutions and structural conditions’ (J.Thompson 1981: 140–1). Like Callinicos, Thompson replicates the ontological dualism of structuration theory. For these social theorists, society consists of structure and agency.

Indeed, ontological dualism threatens only to become more dominant and, at the moment, the divide between structure and agency is being emphasised ever more strongly. For some social theorists, structure has become the exclusive focus of attention, while, for others, individual agency has become analytically primary. In European sociology, Niklas Luhmann is becoming an increasingly important figure. His writings demonstrate an elaborate commitment to ontological dualism. However, in his work, the objective side of this dualism, the system, threatens to obliterate the individual. Luhmann accepts that any social system must be made up in the first instance of individuals and their actions (Luhmann 1995: 215) but he rejects the argument that sociological analysis can limit itself merely to human social interaction (Luhmann 1997: 47).

Even the idea, initially attractive for sociologists, of an ‘intersubjective’ constitution of the world no longer helps; it is too self-evident and insufficiently theoretically productive. We employ the concept of a world as a concept for the unity of the difference between system and environment.

(Luhmann 1995: 208)

For Luhmann, society cannot be analysed by reference to human social relations. Luhmann is concerned ultimately with the dialectic between the social system and the environment in which that system exists. As the system transforms, the environment in which it operates also transforms, producing a spiralling process of change. The environment is not an objective given which is independent of the system but the kind of environment which a system faces is partly a product of the character of the system itself. The world which confronts a system depends at least partly on what a system is trying to achieve. There is a dialectical relationship between system and environment. This immanent dialectic of system and environment is the central point of Luhmann’s sociology and from it follow the other key arguments of Luhmann’s system theory.

For Luhmann, the basis of all interaction between the system is communication. The system receives information about the environment through communication and therefore communication determines the way in which the system can evolve. For Luhmann, the evolution of the system is a critical focus which distinguishes his systems theory from Parsons’ structural-functionalism. While Parsons’ structural-functionalism prioritises systemic equilibrium through the interrelation of whole and parts, Luhmann emphasises differentiation (Luhmann 1995: 18). The system subdivides itself in the face of the environmental pressure created by its current relation to the environment. Yet, this differentiation necessitates further dialectic transformation because each differentiated subsystem is confronted by a new environment; the environment of each new subsystem now consists of the other subsystems. Luhmann calls this immanent dialectic between systems and their environments ‘autopoiesis’; the term refers to the fact that the system makes itself. As the system receives new information about the difference between itself and the environment, it resonates with this new information, stimulating self–transformation.

System resonance, then, is always in effect when the system is stimulated by the environment. The stimulation can be registered by the system if it possesses a corresponding capacity for information processing permitting it to infer the presence of an environment.

(Luhmann 1989: 22)

When resonance reaches a certain pitch, the (sub)system is forced to adapt to the new situation, usually involving functional differentiation (Luhmann 1989: 107–8).

According to Luhmann, the autopoietic process is structured by certain codes which underlie each (sub)system. Each subsystem is oriented around a binary code which mediates its relationship with its environment (Luhmann 1989: 36; 1995: 231–34; Luhmann 1997: 52). Thus, the legal system is structured by the code legal/illegal, the economic by the code possession/non...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• The Structure of Social Theory
• Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Contemporary Social Theory
• Part II Classical Sociology
• Part III Towards a Hermeneutic Sociology
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index