Introduction

There is an unhappy irony about modern social theory. Virtually all academic disciplines can claim to have made notable if not extraordinary advances in this century in the elaboration of theoretical perspective or in their critical application to various empirical problems. This is unfortunately not the case with sociology and, most distressingly, its handling of social theory. Indeed, one can hardly say that social theory thrives when its most prominent characteristic is the extent to which it has turned in on itself. There is currently more social theory written about social theory than about the social world itself. What is even more strange is the fact that the most recent developments in this area of intellectual discourse take it one step further: theory about theory about theory or an interpretation of an interpretation of a social theory. This is not to say that there is no validity in this kind of work. On the contrary, intellectual history, social philosophy and even empirical research have been well-served by the many useful and clarifying insights into theoretical logic and conceptualization made in some of these efforts. The problem from our perspective is that virtually all of the intellectual work falling under the heading, ‘social theory’ is taken up in precisely this kind of conceptualization to the second, third and even fourth degree of abstraction. (How does Alexander interpret Gouldner’s interpretation of Parson’s interpretation of Weber? And what did Marx’s historical materialism really, really, really mean?) Introverted in substance and often inaccessible in style, the ‘queen of the sciences’ has become languid if not inert in intellectual vision.