ABSTRACT
Giddens defines social structure as 'rules and resources, recursively implicated in the reproduction of social systems. Giddens employs also the notion of (social) system defined as 'the patterning of social relations across time—space, understood as reproduced practices. While in the definition of structure the notion of 'rules' is accompanied by that of 'resources', it is the former that primarily describes structure for Giddens. Giddens makes no distinction between perception corresponding to practical consciousness and perception corresponding to discursive consciousness. Giddens's theorization of the actor introduces, therefore, two, rather than three, significant levels: a biologically determined 'basic security system', in the mechanisms of which the social has no influence or relevance, and, second, a level of primarily cognitive 'memory traces' expressible either in practical or discursive consciousness. Giddens's epistemological position is also worth discussing. He considers that the mode of knowledge proper to the social sciences is that of 'double hermeneutics'.
