ABSTRACT
First Published in 1998. This is Volume XI of twenty-two in a series on Social Theory and Methodology. Notions are widespread that sociological theory is either an industrious activity on the drawing boards of the architects of fantasy or a branch of esoterics operating in a shadowy realm of semi-darkness. The present study holds neither of these conceptions of sociological. The present study’s function is to illuminate the difference between one theory and another. The power and reliability of a theory are not always evident all at once. A theory may have a power to explain what was not originally anticipated; it may also disclose the existence of problems it cannot explain.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |47 pages
Sociology and the Sciences
chapter |26 pages
The Road to Sociology
chapter |19 pages
The Birth of the Social Sciences
part |75 pages
Positivistic Organicism
chapter |27 pages
The Social and Philosophical Origins of Positivistic Organicism
chapter |21 pages
The Classical Period of Positivistic Organicism
part |83 pages
Conflict Theory: The Paradox of Maturity
chapter |23 pages
The Foundations of Conflict Theory
chapter |26 pages
Major Conflict Ideologies of the Nineteenth Century
chapter |32 pages
Sociological Conflict Theories
part |74 pages
The Formal School of Sociological Theory
chapter |22 pages
The Philosophical Foundations of Sociological Formalism
chapter |34 pages
The Neo-Kantian Branch of Sociological Formalism
chapter |16 pages
The Phenomenological Branch of Sociological Formalism
part |156 pages
Social Behaviorism
chapter |20 pages
The Conceptual Foundations of Social Behaviorism
chapter |34 pages
The Pluralistic Behavioral Branch of Social Behaviorism
chapter |37 pages
Symbolic Interactionism
chapter |37 pages
The Social-Action Branch of Social Behaviorism
chapter |26 pages
Further Developments in Social-Action Theory
part |84 pages
Sociological Functional
chapter |23 pages
The Nature and Origins of Sociological Functionalism
chapter |37 pages
Macro-Functionalism in Contemporary Sociology
chapter |22 pages
Micro-Functionalism: Group Dynamics
part |19 pages
Conclusion