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SYMPOSIUM
Theme 4: But Do We Still Not Need Some Sort of Theoretical Unication?
As sociologists, we should ask ourselves the same sociological questions we so readily put when scrutinizing the intellectual and scientic productions of other disciplines. That is, whether the extremely particular type of knowledge of social phenomena called sociology can survive the passing of the specic contexts i.e. the dawning of industrial society and the forming of democratic nation-states and lines of questioning in and around which it came into being. Aristotle, Ibn Khaldun, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza and many other thinkers were certainly exceptional social thinkers, and we can accept the idea that they said most of what there was to say, but they cannot be considered sociologists. Despite, or indeed thanks to the existing hodge-podge of sociology textbooks and study programmes, there is a pantheon of sociologists and a version of sociology that can be considered classical, if only because contemporary sociologists are constantly returning to them, including as a means to generate new ideas.1 Given how useful expert social knowledge and specialized branches of the discipline are considered in our societies, given how fully sociological-style argumentation and demonstration partake of decision-making today and the legitimacy of the decisions made, and given how close the tie is between sociological reexivity and modernity, as Giddens put it, we need not worry about the academic and professional survival of sociology. But a discipline can survive academically even after losing its unity and epistemological raison dtre. This is what happened to geography and psychology, which have yielded to the battering ram of stronger disciplines: geography by earth sciences, economics, and sociology; psychology by psychoanalysis, ethnology, the neuro- and cognitive sciences. Can sociology hold its own against more formalized disciplines, such as economics, or better established ones, such as history and political philosophy, when the sociological ground in which it took root and developed is transformed or disintegrates?
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great religious systems was less of an individualist than the Weber who theorized rational action. Many such contemporary readings cloud the issue, turning Durkheim or Marx into individualists or structuralists who didnt know thats what they were. But we know that tradition is often nothing more than a projection of the present onto the past. The focus of classical sociology was not social phenomena or social facts, but society conceived as the way modern social life is organized. We may be surprised to see how the spontaneous functionalism of most pre-1960s sociologists, their conception of society as an integrated system, a sort of all-encompassing mechanism in which division of labour, institutions, social control, and conict itself all worked to shape an order that they unanimously thought of as no longer subject to natural ties or shared belief in the same gods we may be surprised to see how this idea has fallen into oblivion. The apprentice sociologists of the 1960s, Parsonians and Marxists alike, learned to think of this representation as an obvious fact. Its power was, and is, due to its capacity both to preserve and be critical without those actions affecting its fundamental nature. The feeling it gave us was of being confronted with alternative versions of the same narrative or myth. While sociology may be thought of as the social philosophy that carried forward the idea of society, it is also a particular philosophy in that it sought to be a positive science. The fact that sociology involves writing and style does not make it an art, and most classic sociologists sought in various ways historical methods, statistics, comparative study, experimentation to lay foundations for objective knowledge. This social philosophy endowed itself with methods, and accepted empirical criticism of its results. Though ours is no Popperian world, clearly not just anything goes in sociology. Moreover, it is fair to think that sociology has its own stock of methods, which, while not making it a genuine science, do make it something more than a philosophy founded on conceptual coherence. It is of course even less a literary exercise, though sociological writing does exist. I would be fairly willing to defend sociological methods and their demands and requirements as effective means of parrying the twin dangers of going off the subjective deep end (more readily imputable to journalists than sociologists) and reaching epistemological heights sometimes so lofty that anyone calling for nomological sociology would then hardly dare attempt to put it into practice. At the very least, sociology can be recognized as a discipline because it requires discipline: rules of demonstration, the establishing of bundles of facts. Traditions Revisited We can begin by observing that the sociological tradition is in ne shape. One need only run an eye down university programmes and the tables of contents of sociology textbooks to see that they are themselves a kind of sacred history where all paradigms are engendered rationally. More seriously, most theoretical works considered essential present themselves as combinations and syntheses of classical sociology: Simmel and Durkheim for Parks; Durkheim and Weber
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doubts thanks to its subjectless projects, its necessary freedoms, its disinterested interests, its clear-eyed blindness, its necessary exceptions. Critique because the social order involves a kind of domination that refuses to acknowledge itself, change is an illusion, immobility a ruse. Bourdieu used Durkheim, Marx, Weber the three pillars of Le sens pratique to obliterate the opposition between LviStrauss and Sartre that dominated France in the 1960s (Bourdieu, 1980). Undeniably, this theoretical and rhetorical power is the beacon that has attracted, or repelled, the members of an entire generation of French sociologists, just as an entire generation of American sociologists existed only in relation to Parsons. As for the method, Bachelards epistemology of the epistemological break made it possible for Bourdieusian sociology to be a science that does not really submit to validation criteria able to demonstrate that a theory is false. This reclarication of the bases of sociological tradition also marked the decline of that tradition, annihilating its open, anxious questions with the internal coherence of its answers. How to resist this theoretical power? Many have given in to it, especially sociology teachers. Researchers, on the other hand, have tended to nd more questions in it than answers. As for the popularity of Bourdieus work, and the appearance of his name in street demonstrations, Im tempted to explain by the fact that his theory has been the strongest defence of the idea of society, precisely the idea that galvanizes defenders of the nation-state and its institutions.2 Between Rationality, Culture, and the Subject The move in France to put classical sociology behind us may be understood with the help of the following idea: there is no continuity or reversibility between actor and system, subjectivity and objectivity.3 Action is no longer perceived as the subjective component of the system but has become instead a problem in itself. And after the structuralist-functionalist-Marxist wave of the 1960s and 1970s, the crushing majority of theoretical texts in the past 30 years have focused on action subjective action. This leaves us two ways of partaking in the return of the actor (Touraine, 1984) and getting out of the circle Bourdieu closed. The rst is methodological individualism in its utilitarian mould, in any case; that of Coleman and Gary Becker. The individual actor is rational and pursues his/her interests as a function of the situations in which he/she nds himself/ herself and the information he/she possesses. The idea is to apply micro-economic reasoning to conduct that seems non-economic, such as voting, marriage, school choice, delinquency, collective mobilization, organizations, social mobility, etc. Let me say that I have no moral repugnance for this type of reasoning since my own empirical studies have convinced me that much of social behaviour can easily be explained this way. In fact, it can be disturbing to see individuals who behave in this way plunge into abysses of self-justication, seeking to transform their honourable interests into disinterested virtue. Each of us is a bit Paretian. My reservations with regard to methodological individualism are of a different order. On the one hand, if we understand the social system as the tting
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At this time, the theoretical space of contemporary sociology as it may be observed in France seems structured by three major poles. In the rst call it pole A action is reduced to the system; in the second, B, the system is a product of rational action; in the third, C, the two terms stand in opposition. Clearly whats happening is that the very idea of society as the improbable, problematic integration of social integration and systemic integration is weakening, and it is reasonable to think that despite bows and curtsies to the classics, this is indeed a break from the classic age of sociology understood as the social philosophy that invented the idea of society. Habermas, as we know, proposed a complete separation between the problems of system and action. A sociologist like Touraine is perfectly in line with this when he afrms that sociology has to rid itself of the idea of society, whereas Boudon dissolves most of the classical concepts of society in an elementary syntax of rational action that becomes a cognitive grammar. Both approaches, however opposed they may be, must be granted the virtue of following their respective lines of reasoning out to the end. But most sociologists, who use theories rather than doing theory, do not go that far and in fact work far below the ambitious level of classical sociology. Dispersion in Interactions Looking over the space of a generation, we can only observe that the programme of classical sociology has gradually been broken down into a series of specialized sociology elds whose theoretical foundations are often quite local and result from an accumulation of strong individual works. This dispersion is due to the professionalization and massication of the sociology eld.4 A whole set of specialized sociologies have developed, each of which constitutes a relatively autonomous world, with its own reviews, its own games of reference and reverence as if there were a tight correspondence between its theories and its objects of research. We have to acknowledge the fact that young researchers often orient themselves this way in the disciplinary space: when they choose this or that empirical object indeed, because they choose it they take the theoretical package associated with it. In this way, multiple regional theoretical traditions have been created, as attested to by thesis bibliographies and what are considered de rigueur citations. It is hard to see these regional traditions as anything other than sedimentations and fashions that produce synthetic overviews the multiple Sociologies of . . . manuals: Sociology of the family, of education, Occupational sociology that in turn handle traditions as if they were so many bits of patchwork precisely because their purpose is to present a synthetic overview. In general, the outline of these works follows the conventional order, going from macro to micro, objective to subjective, culturalism to rationalism, this balanced with a critique of functionalism, itself reduced to straw man, necessary village idiot, and at the end ne-tuned down to symbolic interactionism and constructivism. Every sociology specialty arranges its own tradition for itself, its own tranquil dramaturgy, thereby fragmenting sociology in a way that
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between objectivity and subjectivity once again, exactly the dissociation that classical sociology refused to accept. A few of the ner feelings, democratic and respectful of identities, provide this sociological style with honourable, vaguely critical normative underpinnings. In Chapter 1 of these students theses, you set the scene, using general knowledge accumulated about a situation and a group; in Chapter 2, you present minute description of the behaviour of a few individuals; in Chapter 3, you take care of the epistemological by saying that the analysis and action categories are themselves constructed. In fact, because in interactionism, interactions are thought of as social reality itself rather than one level of social life that can only be explained by other such levels as the notion of role allowed, regardless of its weaknesses interactionism is perfectly malleable, readily adaptable to all possible conceptions of the system, including the most critical. The return to honest, straightforward Marxism in British new education sociology offers a clear illustration of these twists and turns. Obviously in my case against interactionism, I am not claiming that the approach fails to teach us anything and I am certainly not claiming that the works of Becker, Goffman, and Lemert are insignicant. What I do think is that this approach sweeps too many problems under the rug as Goffman said with irony, recalling that while social systems were undoubtedly very important, he wouldnt be talking about them. Actually, the problem is nothing less than the theoretical status of this theoretical family. Intermediate Considerations The intellectual space of current French sociology seems to me to be laid out thus: 1 2 3 4 The critical theory of reproduction is both the crystallization and a disenchanted reversal of classical sociology. Methodological individualism has tried to reconstruct classical sociology under the aegis of utilitarianism and broadened rationality. A return of the actor has been constructed on the basis of a kind of ethical, reexive, self-made individualism. Most sociological theories being used today are specialized and often use a kind of soft interactionism to escape the grip of classical sociology without choosing a stance and without looking like they are/arent choosing one.
The theories implicit in (1), (2), and (3) may be thought of as great theories because the intention is that they be genuinely general constructions; they are visions of the world that, whatever else may be said of them, have taken their building materials from the pantheon of the founding fathers (whose unity I readily admit to be a pure construction; however, that unity is operative in sociologists minds). (1) bets all on the system and reduces action to programming or an effect of the systems own contradictions. (2) understands action as the manifestation of individuals reasons. Finally, (3) continuously underscores
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theories have taken on the essential task of constructing ways of tting together the various composite areas. J.-D. Reynauds regulation theory and, in a completely different direction, the theory of conventions, are exemplary in this connection. Mid-range theories are not local ones adapted to a particular type of problemobject such as delinquency or school inequality. They are theories that seek to explain certain mechanisms while only being able to manage this by turning to theories other than themselves. They require both extremely ne grains and coarser ones. They are combinations, assemblages, that do not claim to produce a general vision of society yet cannot do without a representation of society and the concepts it implies: institution, role, classes, power, domination, change, etc. In France, the work of Latour, for example, and Boltanski and Thvenot belong to this family of theories. They offer a point of view on social action without claiming to gather all the threads together, since most of these constructions take off from the postulate that action develops in a plural world, that there are several levels or registers of action, several grammars or modes of justication (Boltanski and Thvenot, 1987; Latour, 1987). Some radicalize this point of view and are moving towards a kind of pragmatics of action sociology, more or less directly inspired by the ethnomethodology critique, itself perhaps the most radical and interesting break from classical sociology.7 Others continue to be more attached to classical sociology and resolutely engage in a kind of combination rhetoric. My own work belongs to this latter approach, and therefore runs the risk of not making the break and being less visible. I would qualify the attitude Ive chosen as neo-classic because it is characterized by a mode of theoretical elaboration less engaged in theoretical discussions than an attempt to resolve empirical and quite practical problems: Why is pupils motivation to work in school so low? Why is work becoming increasingly stressful when, objectively, it is less heavy than before? Why do young people in working-class neighbourhoods manifest irrational violence? This type of theoretical practice, impure because embedded in empirical research that is not primarily concerned to demonstrate or produce a theory but rather to resolve enigmas, is guided by certain principles. But the cameralist style is not necessarily an easy one to do. The following are some of the principles that led me to propose a theory of social experience (Dubet, 1994): 1 As we move away from the central gure of society developed by classical sociology, social action is motivated by several types of logic, one dened by integration mechanisms, another by strategic rationality, and a third by the relation to self or subjectivation. Each of these types of logic refers to a process in which social subsystems the subsystem of norms and identities, that of markets, that of culture are separated from one another. Society is structured around no central principle (Bell, 1978; Dubet and Martuccelli, 1998). Each type may be explained objectively in terms of its link to the subsystem it refers to, according to processes whose nature was established by classical sociology theories: socialization, limited rationality, and subjectivation.
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This type of theoretical development owes much to theories other than itself. For example, it readily accepts that statistical regularities can reveal mechanisms of holistic formation that determine behaviours and opinions and the socialstructure hypothesis is considered necessary. It also understands that within these structural frameworks, behaviour can be explained in terms of games and choice matrices. Finally, it accepts the idea that actors cannot be reduced to either of these two types of logic and that because they have no choice but to deal with them, they are capable of criticizing and transforming them, thereby producing unity when society no longer provides any. We could call all of these programmes A, B, and C, on condition that those three matrices are understood to determine the space of sociology at a time when the classic idea of society is slipping out from under us. But the slipping away of society, this end of the functionalist illusion, should not invalidate certain of classical sociologys questions. Nor does not exempt us from answering the questions it raised about the nature of the social order, domination, legitimacy, conicts . . . Conclusion Why maintain such a circumscribed, lack-lustre position when we may well think that the point of sociological theory is to construct a general theory which engenders deductive propositions? First, there are several ways of doing theory, several intellectual temperaments, one of which consists in starting with a set of empirical problems starting, therefore, with the aporia and impasses left by earlier theories. Theory is not made exclusively on blackboards; it is also made on the lab table. Sociological theory develops by responding to new questions or providing new answers to old questions without it being necessary to redene all foundations of the edice every time. Second, as I see it, the right reason not to break with classical sociology is that it allows us to hold together what has tended to come undone with the decline of the idea of society. Obviously we dont want to eternally repeat the classics in a series of reverential gestures. The point is rather to hold onto their vocation, i.e., to construct a reasoned representation of social life, and of what we will continue to call society, having no better term for it, even when society can no longer be identied with the nation-state. Sociology appeared at a time when modernity was destroying traditional social worlds; it appeared just as it was once again becoming possible to recompose an integrated image of social life. Now that this rst version of modernity seems to have come apart, if we dont want representation of the social world to be boiled down to
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an opposition between market rationality and the ineffable subjectivities of individuals or irreducibility of cultures, it is more than ever necessary to afrm the relevance of the sociological vocation. Constructing sociology today implies resolutely rejecting both the end of history and the clash of civilizations. Acknowledgements
This article was translated by Amy Jacobs.
Notes
1 I am of course talking about sociology as it exists in France which is not exclusively French sociology. Other traditions exist elsewhere. 2 Bourdieu reviens! [Come back to us, Bourdieu!] was among the slogans heard in demonstrations by French civil servants in spring 2003 a clear indication that they identied their cause with the defence of society as a whole, society itself. 3 I am referring here solely to French sociology, or more exactly the sociology read by most French sociologists (I am aware of what I dont know, and of the strong articiality of any world sociology, even in this era of globalization). 4 Since the 1960s, the number of professional sociologists in France has gone from a few dozen to nearly a thousand more, if we count unemployed sociology PhDs. 5 This is why the notion of post-modernity does not seem very useful to me. We are simply still more modern. 6 It is worth noting that Mertons mid-range theories seem to have better stood the test of time than Parsons supreme theory. 7 This perception can be refuted if we remember that Garnkel sought to re-appropriate the major issues of Parsonian sociology.
References
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