ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the foundational and classical principles of sociology to show that from its beginnings there has been a complexity to the sociological project that cannot be confined to or dismissed by a too simplistic approach to positivism or structuralism, or both, as argued within the postmarxist critique. Marx's critique of the Hegelian dialectic approach as a means of positively overcoming contradiction, which included a dismissal of the fundamentals of formal logic, emphasise inter alia the complexity of social reality, albeit within a capitalist structure. For Weber, the new spirit of capitalism was constituted by Protestantism as a primary force. Emerging in the post-Reformation period, it marked a radical change in religious and social thought and feeling, a change that would now bestow purity upon any person who acts within the world in the right manner and as part of Christian life, but most importantly, it would make that person open to salvation.
