ABSTRACT
During the interwar period Japanese intellectuals experimented with the use of imported methodologies. They intended to understand and analyze the often dislocating processes their culture was experiencing. Disenchantment with traditional thought was great in every field of endeavour, and nowhere more so than in the field of sociology. The traditional concept of social order and its purpose changed. The traditional assumptions that were the basis of the European nineteenth and twentieth century social thinkers’ theories were no longer relevant. An examination of the development of social theory in Japan during this period and of the relationships between theory and practice could serve as a model for similar challenges in other areas of modern Japanese thought.
