ABSTRACT
Metatheory, analytical theory, noble abstraction, conceptual model or scheme are all words which sociologists have used to refer to those speculations which, while themselves untestable by reference to evidential criteria, serve to point to the type of causal factors which might be appropriate for the explanation of a given situation. The types of metatheory that can be used to interpret social reality are many and various. Inkeles, for instance, lists the following kinds of model that are used in sociology: the evolutionary model, which sees society ‘progressing up definite steps of evolution leading through even greater complexity to some final stage of perfection’; the organismic model, which sees society as being similar in nature to an organism; the conflict model, of which Marxism is a variant, and which sees society as being torn by omnipresent conflict; the physical science model and various types of mathematical
model.1 To these might be added the machine model2 and the cybernetic model, the latter of which sees society as working in a similar manner to the communications system in
the human brain or computer.3 Partly cross-cutting these types of conceptual model is perhaps a more basic division of metatheoretical approaches. This division is between approaches that see the basic fact of social living as the stability of equilibrium of the social fabric, and those which see it rent apart by constant strife. Structural-functionalism, whose original insight owed much to organic analogy, sees social solidarity as the important category of social explanation, as in a way do the various evolutionary models. On the other side are those who feel that conflict between individuals and groups is the stuff of society and politics, and that our understanding of these realms can only be furthered by understanding social conflict. In recent decades, this simple division of approach has been complicated by those who feel that the most salient fact of modern living is neither stability nor conflict, but the incomprehension of most people of the demands made on them by leaders and social organizations. This then constitutes a third basic approach; that of anomie or the theory of mass society. It will be apparent that these three basic metatheoretical approaches are analogous of the three types in which the simplest sociological formation is manifested, which we termed perfect co-operation, perfect conflict and perfect anomie. This should not be in the least surprising. It is merely to say that the metatheoretician who talks about social stability is emphasizing those social interactions which nearest approach perfect co-operation. Similarly, he who emphasizes social dissensus depicts the world as one based on perfect conflict, and he who points to the manipulated aimlessness of modern man sees in everything perfect anomie.
