ABSTRACT
Anthony Giddens is a fellow of King’s College and Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Giddens argues that social theory from the time of the classics to the 1960s has been characterised by a set of pre-theoretical assumptions that are unsuitable for the study of social life. Erstwhile thinkers tended to have a naturalist interpretation of social theory and relied heavily on positivist philosophy. Giddens’ account of practices in terms of rules enables him to join a theory of action with structural explanation. Giddens’ reworking of the concepts of action, structure and system forms the basis of his theory of structuration. The very activity of synthesis requires separating the methodological from the substantive and granting priority to the methodological. When confronted with important questions concerning the nature of the contemporary human condition, structuration theory is mute. It provides no interrogation of the world, no elucidation of emergent possibilities and limited conception of social theory as critique.
