ABSTRACT
In Part II the focus shifts from diagnosis to tentative remedies. By looking critically at theories that purport to transcend Parsonian functionalism (Elias’s theory in Chapter 4, and Bourdieu’s and Giddens’ in Chapter 6), and by trying to show how the Marxist notions of technology, appropriation and ideology can, via a more adequate handling of the agency-structure issue, contribute to an effective restructuring ofParsonian theory (Chapter 5), I try to formulate a set of conceptual tools which try both to solve certain puzzles related to functionalist theorizing and to help the empirically-oriented sociologist to move from micro to meso and macro levels of analysis-while avoiding both the reductive and reificatory treatment of social phenomena (Chapter 7, Appendix to the Conclusion, Appendix).
