ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a doctrinal dispute amongst sociologists, which turns on dichotomy. It does so mainly to say something about the social situation of sociologists, through a brief survey of the contended positions. If oppositions are not seen as dichotomy but as contradiction (the latter being understood as the unity of opposites), then a relational, rather than a positional, understanding of the multidimensional (never static) social world is made possible. Because conflict is possible wherever power is unequally distributed, class draws attention to the sources of dissension in the society. Relational sociology seeks to grasp contradiction from a particular perspective, not as modular or factual dichotomy, but as the relation of constraint and construction. A sociology of autonomy would seek to expose those particular class qualities which effect constraints - humanly constructed however natural seeming-on possible collective victories over nature.
