ABSTRACT
Introduction: Mouzelis-back to sociological theory In 1990 Nicos P.Mouzelis published Back to Sociological Theory, which was followed in 1995 by another book, Sociological Theory: What Went Wrong. These were only one author’s contribution to a number of books expressing concern about the state and identity of sociology-by which is meant, primarily, sociological theory-to appear in recent years. At the same time, books were also being published with highly indicative titles welcoming The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences (Skinner 1985). Similar articles were also written. For example, Frederick Crews (1986) complained of the way theorising in the social sciences had virtually run away with itself and become theoreticism.
Such theorising very largely involved the theorists using recombinations of elements of one another’s schemes. Crews’s complaint was against the way theorising seemed to have dissociated itself from the business of informing and organising empirical inquiry (and its results). In losing sight of the connection to empirical work, it had also loosened itself from the constraint and discipline which this connection entails. In short, the need to relate the constructions of theory to (evidence of) the real world can provide a check upon the excesses of theory. Consequently, our original thought was to title this chapter ‘The synthesists’ in order to reflect the extent to which the theorists we shall look at — Mouzelis, Randall Collins, Jeffrey Alexander, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu and, Jürgen Habermas-all contribute few new theoretical ideas to the schemes they propound. Their schemes are constituted by ideas taken from previous and diverse sociological theories and traditions. To this extent, our treatment confirms Crews’s complaint about theoreticism.
