THEORIES
... all our knowledge
results
from questions, which is another way of saying that question-asking is
our most important intellectual tool. I would go so far as to say
that the answers we carry about in our heads are largely meaningless unless
we know the questions which produced them. ... What, for example, are the
sorts of questions that obstruct the mind, or free it, in the study of
history? How are these questions different from those one might ask
of a mathematical proof, or a literary work, or a biological theory? ...
What students need to know are the rules of discourse which comprise the
subject, and among the most central of such rules are those which govern
what is and what is not a legitimate
question.
--Neil
Postman, Teaching as a Conserving Activity,
1979.
THE
SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
So what is the "sociological
imagination"? It is the perspective described thusly (in pre-gender-sensitive
times) by C. Wright Mills:
Neither
the life
of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without
understanding both. Yet men do not usually define the troubles they endure
in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. ... The
sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger
historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external
career of a variety of individuals. ... The first fruit of this imagination--and
the first lesson of the social science that embodies it--is the idea that
the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate
only by locating himself within this period, that he can know his own chances
in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances.
...We have come to know that every individual lives, from one generation
to the next, in some society; that he lives out a biography, and that he
lives it out within some historical sequence (The Sociological Imagination,
1959:3-10).
THEORISTS
AND THEORETICAL TRADITIONS
Judge a man by
his questions
rather than by his answers.
--Voltaire
(1694-1778)
A definition is no
proof.
--William Pinkney,
American
diplomat (1764-1822)
A theory is more impressive the
greater the simplicity of its premises, the more different the kinds of things it
relates and the more extended its range of applicability.
--Albert Einstein, 1949
According to Karl
Popper
(Logik der Forschung, 1935: p.26), Theory is "the net which we throw
out in order to catch the world--to rationalize, explain, and dominate
it." Through history, sociological theory arose out of attempts to make
sense of times of dramatic social change. As Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills
observed in Character and Social Structure
(Harbinger Books, 1964:xiii), "Problems of the nature of human nature are
raised most urgently when the life-routines of a society are disturbed,
when men are alienated from their social roles in such a way as to open
themselves up for new insight." Consider the historical contexts spawning
the theoretical insights below:
-
SocioSite:
Noted Sociological Theorists and Samplings of their
Works
-
Frank E'well's Great Social Theorists: Malthus, Comte, Marx, Spencer, Veblen,
Durkheim, Weber and DuBois
-
Alan
Liu's Voice of the Shuttle: Great collection of synopses and primary works
of the great theorists
-
Society
for Social Research Page: Classical Sociological Theory. Good site for
excerpts from the classics, courtesy of the University of
Chicago.
-
Serdar Kaya's The Sociology Professor, a portal
to social theories and theorists
-
Sociolog: many
phenomenological links
-
Larry
Ridener's Dead Sociologists' Society Index: Biographies of and excerpts from those
who carved the discipline
-
Ed
Stephan's "A Sociology Timeline from 1600"
-
Carl
Cuneo's Course on Theories of Inequality
-
Marxist Internet Archive
-
Marxism Made Simple
-
Marx
and Engels' Writings
-
Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
-
Antonio
Gramsci writings
-
Habermas links collected by Antti Kauppinen
-
The Durkheim Page from Hewett
-
Verstehen: The Sociology of Max Weber
-
Mannheim
Centre for European Social Research
-
Charles
Horton Cooley's Social Organization: A Study of the Larger
Mind
-
George
Herbert Mead Repository at Brock University
-
All
Things Simmelian--Georg Simmel Homepage
-
Erving Goffman
-
Game Theory Society--mathematically modeling
"strategic interaction in competitive
and cooperative environments"
-
Thorsten Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure
Class
-
Foucault
Homepage
-
Jean Baudrillard speaks
-
Anthony Giddens
-
Howard S. Becker's Home Page--replete with recent papers, biographical updates and web recommendations
-
Amitai Etzioni's Articles in Professional Journals and Books
-
"Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern Thought" from the University
of Denver
-
Norbert
Elias site from University of Sydney
-
FreudNet:
The A.A. Brill Library
-
An evolving site to keep an eye on is
Jim Spickard's Social Theory Pages, with historical backgrounds
and intellectual biographies of the key players
-
Need a dictionary for those
works of critical theorists and postmodernists? Try
the Red Feather Dictionary of Critical Social
Science
-
Gene Shackman's Social,
Economic and Political Change--featuring links to theory, data and research about large scale long term political, economic and social systems change at the national and
international level
-
World-Systems Archive
The Research Committee on
Sociocybernetics (of the Intl. Sociological
Association)
Want to see what theories
sociologists are currently cooking up? Below is a sampling of sociological
journals.
-
Electronic
Journal of Sociology Home Page
-
Sociological
Research Online
-
Journal
of World-Systems Research
-
Journal
of Mundane Behavior (first issue February 2000)
-
Annual
Review of Sociology--with 12-years of searchable
abstracts
-
Sociological
Abstracts Home Page
-
The
Canadian Journal of Sociology
-
Tables
of Contents for all issues of Postmodern
Culture
Return to A Sociological Tour Through
Cyberspace