ABSTRACT
An important feature of classical sociology was its relative non-differentiation between the two types of theory outlined above. In so far as the founding fathers attempted to understand the unique social arrangements that had emerged in the aftermath of the Industrial and French Revolutions, there were very close connections in their writings between their analyses of industrial societies on the one hand, and their conceptual/methodological insights on the other. The work of Marx, for example, when seen as a whole, contains extensive analyses of other scholars’ theories (that were to become part of his major raw material-what Althusser calls Generalities I); an emphasis on such basic conceptual tools as mode of production, forces and relations of production, etc. (Gen. II); and a fully developed substantive theory on the genesis and basic ‘laws of motion’ of the capitalist mode of production (Gen. III).
