Journal of Classical Sociology

Copyright 2001 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi Vol 1(1): 512 [1468795X(200105)1:1;512;019797]

Introduction The Fragmentation of

Sociology
In the second half of the 20th century, there was a rapid expansion of journals
dealing with sociology and social theory. This development in the field of
academic social science publications was an effect of the growth of sociology as
part of the undergraduate university curriculum, but more importantly a consequence of sub-disciplinary specialization and disciplinary fragmentation. At the
same time, there has been a significant growth of interdisciplinary activity (cultural
studies, gender studies, film studies, international relations, communications and
media, and queer theory). Many versions of academic collaboration in teaching
and research (multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity) became popular in the
curricula of universities. The result of this growth has had one peculiar consequence, namely the defence of specific disciplinary traditions and objectives has
been strangely neglected. While the hinterland has proliferated, the heartland has
been lost to view. In fact, disciplinarity is often treated as an intellectual weakness,
as mental narrowness and as a lack of vision. Interdisciplinarity often conveniently
forgets that disciplinarity (in teaching and research) is logically a necessary
precondition for interdisciplinary activity. Interdisciplinarity in practice often
means lack of intellectual rigour and absence of educational progression through
a system of study.
There appears to be no forum in the mainstream journals for the specific
study of classical sociology, despite the relevance of the study of the classics for the
survival and continuity of the social sciences. National journals, of which there are
a great number, do of course publish work on classical sociology texts and
traditions. But the sociological project has never been exclusively defined by a
national intellectual tradition. Early journals of sociology were typically international, for example in their reviewing policies. The defence and promotion of
sociology can be effectively undertaken through the Journal of Classical Sociology,
which is committed to the exploration and articulation of its intellectual roots and
traditions. The Journal of Classical Sociology can provide an important intellectual
bridge between European and American traditions, while also being determined
to publish contributions that support the global development of sociology.
In the 20th century, academic sociology was fragmented by various
theoretical traditions and a variety of methodological practices. It was also

fractured by numerous ideological battles and diverse national perspectives. The

discipline of sociology has often been strangely lacking in any sense of cumulative
theory or research findings. The MarxWeber debate was a classic illustration of
the divisions and conflicts within sociology, especially during the period of the
Cold War. It appeared to lack any real sense of progression, accumulation or
finality. In Europe, where Marxism as a social philosophy remained a robust
alternative to sociology, criticism of Weber from the standpoint of Althusserian
Marxism had to create a caricature of Weberian sociology as a misdirected science
of action. Ironically, the post-communist period now makes the re-reading of
Marx once more a productive possibility. While the 20th century was a divisive
and contested period, it was also the case that it developed a recognizable canon
of classical sociology (Turner, 1999).

The Possibility of a Canon

The orthodox canon has been constituted by specific ways of doing sociological
theory, various modes of collecting evidence and various forms of analysis. A
canon, however uncertain and contested, has been important as a common
platform in the study of sociology, as a framework for teaching sociology students
and as one component in building a common research purpose. It provides the
conditions for a reflexive and cumulative approach to empirical research and
empirical investigation study. The canon came typically to include a number of
social theorists (Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Mannheim, Simmel and Parsons), a set
of core topics (capitalism, social class, ideology, legitimation, institutions, culture,
social structure and social conflict) and a range of methodologies (ethnography,
survey methods, participant observation, oral history and historical techniques). A
commitment to defending classical sociology is important if contemporary sociology is to flourish without destructive fragmentation and dispersal (Levine, 1995).
The notion of a canon implies the possibility of an orthodox sociological
tradition or even a professional code of practice, but sociological orthodoxy has
been seriously under attack (by feminism, postmodernism, queer theory, the
techniques of literary deconstruction, critical theory, rhetorical analysis, textual
critique, postcolonial theory and so forth). In fact, the contents of the canon were
always open to criticism, because the notion of a crisis in sociology has been a
persistent theme in sociology (Gouldner, 1971). At the beginning of the millennium, there is perhaps a more basic question: is there anything of the canon still in
place? The Journal of Classical Sociology is based on the recognition that the
sociological canon is highly contested, but it also assumes that the debate is
significant and that canonical authority is important if sociology is to survive as a
convincing intellectual practice and as a distinctive discipline. A canon does not
have to be an exclusionary professional hurdle; it is rather a field for debate and
analysis, the consequence of which is to nurture a specific disciplinary activity.
What constitutes the canon is something that the Journal of Classical Sociology will

JOURNAL OF CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY VOL 1(1)

help to shape and define, but the precise features of that canon must remain fluid.
The canon is an evolutionary project or intellectual ambition, whose specific
contours and contents must remain open to debate. The purpose of a defence of
classical sociology is not to achieve a set of professional pronouncements to secure
the infallibility of the canon. Our purpose is to secure a hinterland for disciplinary
discussion, teaching and research. To continue with the metaphors of continents
and maps, classical sociology is a journey rather than a destination.

What is Classical Sociology?

The possibility of any academic canon has become deeply political, in part as a
consequence of the impact of literary deconstruction and postmodernism on the
English canon (Bloom, 1994). The defence of a canon has become associated
with opposition to the dumbing down of academic study, especially in the
humanities and social sciences. The very idea of a canon has become politicized.
In the context of taken-for-granted relativism, many sociologists would presumably have considerable difficulty with the idea of canonical sociology. We
know that claims about orthodoxy can often function as a form of social closure to
exclude categories of persons rather than to encourage academic excellence. How
did it manage until recently to exclude the work of W.E.B. DuBois (Katz and
Sugrue, 1998) or Mirra Komarovsky (Reinharz, 1989)? A constructive canon of
sociology should have the normative goal of nurturing the sociological imagination rather than functioning as a narrow principle of professional exclusion.
What is classical sociology? In part, it embraces the foundational theories
and paradigms that constituted sociology in the decades from 1890 to 1920
(Morrison, 1995). In this period, sociology was constructed in the academy
around a set of problems that were the legacy of social and political change that
can be dated to the French Revolution. Sociology is the study of social institutions
that are shaped by the dialectical tension between solidarity and scarcity. It has
been classically concerned with the nature of social order, and with the destructive impact of capitalist markets. It has addressed the tensions between liberal
democracy and the inequalities of social stratification. It has been concerned to
understand the rituals that sustain a common culture. It has been fascinated by the
civilities that make everyday social life possible. The term sociology was used in
the correspondence of Auguste Comte in 1824 and was employed more fully in
his Positive Philosophy of 1838. As the etymology of the word (socius) suggests, it
became the study of the roots of sociality. Later theories of reciprocity, social
exchange, consensus, networks, groups, associations, social bonds and communities follow from this primary concern with the conditions for and nature of
the social. But why start with the French Revolution? In Talcott Parsonss The
Structure of Social Action (1937), the problem of the social starts with the attempt
by writers like Thomas Hobbes to frame an account of the relationship between
civil society and the state. The so-called Hobbesian problem of order was taken by

INTRODUCTION

Parsons to be constitutive of the sociological critique of utilitarianism that

preoccupied Weber, Durkheim, Simmel and Pareto. Another alternative is to
locate the origins of classical sociology with Michel de Montaignes reflections on
the nature of human violence and the problem of agreement in a civilized society
divided by religious differences. Montaignes essays provide a model of writing
about the social as a self-reflexive activity (ONeill, 1982). For other sociologists,
the sociological imagination is coterminous with the processes of modernization
itself, such that sociology is the self-reflexivity of the modern.
In our view, these difficulties of providing a precise date for the founding
of the sociological tradition indicate that such specific questions about origins
and periodization may be inappropriate. Acceptance of the canonical status of a
particular period in the history of sociology may achieve a premature closure. By
contrast, the Journal of Classical Sociology will attempt to present the view that
sociology is an evolving rather than static tradition. It should not attempt to
canonize a particular period, but rather focus on how the notion of the social
emerged and developed under different sets of conditions. It follows that the use
of the definite article in the notion of the classics is also misleading, since we
should be attentive to the idea of different traditions and seek to nurture classical
sociologies. There are clearly profound differences between North American
and European traditions and approaches. The differences between for example
C. Wright Mills and Norbert Elias are perfectly obvious. While recognizing this
diversity in the evolution of classical sociology, there is a recognizable sociological
vision. Both Wright Mills and Elias had a definite sociological imagination,
regarded themselves as sociologists, embraced a common understanding of social
process and shared some common tastes and dislikes including a hostility to
Parsonian functionalism. Both men were hostile to the grand theories of structural
functionalism. Eliass emphasis on understanding process in social life and his
attention to state formation and the growth of class-based taste are not incompatible with Wright Millss focus on the American class structure and the social
production of elites. In every other respect, their orientations were wholly
different (Mills and Mills, 2000).

Constructing a Tradition
The Journal of Classical Sociology will consider the various modes of doing
(writing and reading) sociological theory, the national and international forms
within which sociology evolved, and the nature of cross-disciplinarity (between,
for example, economics, history, psychoanalysis, literature, geography, politics,
anthropology and sociology). Clearly sociology did not emerge in a vacuum, and
it was specifically shaped by a debate with orthodox economics. The work of early
sociologists was an attempt to understand the non-rational components of
economic action and to show that the utilitarian paradigm of action had serious
limitations. Sociology as a result took a determined position on the importance of

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culture as a topic of scientific inquiry. It is difficult therefore to understand the rise

of sociology without a grasp of the importance of both social anthropology and
psychoanalysis. Both Sigmund Freud and Bronislaw Malinowski are critical to the
evolution of classical sociology. In more specific terms, it is assumed that
contributions to the Journal would include discussions of cultural theory, social
anthropology and sociological theory. It will explore the interface between
sociology and psychoanalysis in terms of theories of subjects and agents, agency
and structure, identities and subjectivities. Anthropology raised specific problems
about the scientific method through the development of fieldwork and ethnography. The tensions between a natural science model of explanation versus
normative and hermeneutic approaches to social phenomena will shape debate
within the Journal.
The study of classical sociology will necessarily include the analysis of
academic institutions within which sociology is located, namely universities,
research institutes and centres, including the growth of the profession of sociology itself. The institutionalization of sociology as a form of knowledge and the
conditions for its reproduction are crucial sociological topics in their own right.
The study of sociology requires the sociology of knowledge, if it is to achieve
critical self-assessment. There is the pessimistic point of view that sociology
flourished in the 1960s as part of social movements against authoritarianism, and
that it is difficult for sociology to sustain its position in the universities without
adopting a politically conservative standpoint. The professionalization of sociology means that, with the commercial development of the university as a
component of corporate research interests, a critical vision of society will be
suppressed, or at least marginalized. The corporate invasion of the university
means that sociology can only survive as an aspect of policy sciences (Agger,
2000). These challenges to sociology suggest to us that the maintenance of a
robust tradition of classical sociology is an important precondition for the survival
of the discipline. We also need to consider how the teaching of sociology will
be transformed by globalization and the spread of information technology.
Will the website become the future kernel of research activity and with what
consequences?

Sociology versus Social Theory

We take the view that in recent years the preference for social theory has in fact
diluted the intellectual vitality and force of sociological theory. One might take
the charitable view that social theory is simply parallel to political theory. It is
intended to avoid the narrow idea of science based on the natural sciences in order
to embrace forms of social philosophy and normative debate (ONeill, 1972). It
also wants to be expansive to include for example aspects of theological discussion
into the arena of social reflection. Such a view of the province of social theory is
indeed attractive and laudable. Unfortunately, there is a negative side to the

INTRODUCTION

growth of social theory. The promotion of social theory has often been a
publishing strategy to situate theory books in a larger and more effective market
strategy. However, this strategy may have little intellectual value for sociology.
Social theory becomes a ragbag for almost any set of observations on modern
society. There is no sense of an effective distinction between opinion and theory.
Social theory has as a result become almost identical with cultural theory.
There has been a tendency for cultural theory to re-orient sociology away from
the study of specifically social institutions to a vague reflection on cultural
phenomena from chocolate bars to Bachs concertos. In the contemporary
context of interdisciplinarity in cultural studies, there is an important disciplinary
need to defend the authenticity of sociological theory (Rojek and Turner, 2000).
This sociological project includes the study of major institutions as the determining contexts of micro-cultural behaviour.
Our approach to sociological theory is to avoid writing sociological theory
as simply a history of ideas, or treating theory as merely a list of substantive areas
(such as theories of the family, or theories in the sociology of work), or suggesting
that sociological theory is only an exegesis of conventional texts. This was not the
practice in any of the texts that we regard as classics of sociology. While studies of
individual sociologists are perfectly legitimate and important activities, we do not
interpret classical sociology as involving simply a respectful study of a phalanx
of great names. The Journal of Classical Sociology will consider how classical
sociological theory is produced, how it relates to other forms of theoretical work
(in economics and politics for example), where classical sociological theory has
been constructed, and under what intellectual and social conditions, and how
canonical theory is contested. Reflexivity about how sociology gets done is an
important prerequisite to the development of a critical canon that can provide
some shared assumptions about what constitutes good work, namely what are the
criteria of scholarly excellence that can drive the discipline. How do we discipline
sociology?
Another underlying assumption is that sociological theory has to have
some creative relationship to sociological practice, namely with empirical research.
The sociological tradition has thrived when research and theory have been
mutually supportive. Marxs engagement with the conditions that produce
working-class radicalism, Durkheims employment of suicide statistics, Webers
research on east Elbian labour relations or Tonniess attempt to engage with the
emergence of public opinion were empirical research interests that drove their
theoretical activities. Current trends in pedagogy unfortunately keep theory and
methods apart, and most American sociology departments have adopted the idea
of a theory chair, as if adequate sociological theory could ever be divorced from
social research, specifically empirical research. Our notion of canonical sociology
specifically includes an engagement with the history of sociological methods, and
the relationship between methods and theory. Equally it is difficult to see how
sociology could remain a relevant or vital discipline without specific interests

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in political institutions and the structure of power relations. The separation

of sociology and politics in many university faculties is detrimental to both
disciplines.
Sociology is inevitably a mode of writing about ideas, about societies and
their cultures. The Journal of Classical Sociology provides an opportunity for
probing and scrutinizing the textuality of sociology and its claims to speak
authoritatively about social institutions. The Journal of Classical Sociology welcomes and encourages close textual readings and interpretations of classical works.
There has been, because the undergraduate market requires it, a tendency for
sociologists to provide glossaries, summaries and overviews of sociology, rather
than focused study of specific sociological texts. There is a craft of textual analysis
that we seek to encourage that involves serious respect for the specific mechanisms
of argumentation that in turn depend on style and rhetoric. Bland surveys of
sociological trends do not produce advances in sociological theory. Models of
textual criticism would include Charles Taylors reading of Hegel (Taylor, 1975),
Wilhelm Henniss studies of Webers concepts of personality and life orders
(Hennis, 1988) or Steven Lukess classic study of Durkheim (Lukes, 1972). The
Journal will contribute to the renaissance of sociology and challenge the fragmentation of sociological theory through attention to how sociological theory is
produced. It wants to recover the historical, analytic and textual practices that
make classical sociology a distinctive enterprise.

Conclusion: Voice and Tradition

Sociology has been characteristically a critical vision of society. A critical vision
should not be confused with a socialist critique of the problems of industrial
capitalism. There was clearly an important association between socialism and the
work of St Simon and Durkheim in France; it also included the critical voices of
Wright Mills and Alvin Gouldner. But romanticism and conservatism also produced a radical critic of industrial society. The Journal of Classical Sociology makes
the assumption that sociological theory is necessarily critical theory, but that
critical vision can come from a variety of ideological positions.
Because sociology is critical, the idea of a classical sociology may be
provocative. It is clear, as we have indicated, that an exclusionary canon has served
to marginalize a variety of voices; women and black intellectuals were underrepresented or simply not represented in the traditional formulation of classical
sociology. The question of gender and classical sociology is an issue that we wish
to explore systematically (McDonald, 1997). The Journal of Classical Sociology
will seek out critical articles on classical sociology from a variety of perspectives
feminism, postcolonial theory, subaltern studies and postmodernism. It does not
exist to defend a bland rehearsal of the legacy of sociology, but to ask by contrast:
what is valid and vital in the sociological tradition today? The classical sociological
tradition is a living body of social knowledge, which the Journal will explore and

INTRODUCTION

11

develop. Indeed we recognize a variety of sociological traditions across a range of

societies and cultures. The Journal of Classical Sociology welcomes manuscripts
that fall within its manifesto. We undertake to provide prompt critical assessments
by our reviewers to assist authors publication of their work in accordance with
peer standards of excellence.

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