ABSTRACT
The central fact of recent social theory, which is evident in some postmodern theory but strongest in theories such as Weber’s and Heller’s, is the turn away from grand theory to the celebration of contingency. The issue at risk here, more often the subject of heated than enlightening argument, is the question of how social theory is created at all. In the classical conception theoria is produced ex nihilo in the empirical or experiential sense: it offers primary understanding, or foundational knowledge. Social theory matters because it addresses social problems, questions of the human condition in modernity. The logic of the pragmatic turn in social theory is a turn to partial rather than synthetic theories.
