ABSTRACT
Early in the 1960s Alvin W. Gouldner was nevertheless interested in solving some of the persistent problems of functionalist theory rather than working to overthrow the program entirely. Gouldner's realization was that sociology's unreflective embrace of positivism and the tenet of value-free knowledge makes sociologists less vital and potent as actors in the world because they subordinate their own human judgments, and designs for action to a sterile Apollonianism embodied in a set of doctrinaire slogans designating "good" science. By the end of the 1960s, Alvin Gouldner had made a wholesale break from establishment sociology, burning many bridges along the way. Between 1963 and 1965 Gouldner was occupied with several projects in addition to his routine university activities and finding time to work on the manuscript for Enter Plato. Beginning in 1963 Gouldner launched an ambitious new magazine titled Trans-action, its purpose, to bridge the gap between the highly technical language of social science and the ordinary language of laypersons.
