Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- THE CASE FOR POSTMODERNISM AS SOCIAL THEORY
- CONTESTING FOUNDATIONS: THE CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION
- 6 The end of sociological theory
- 7 The theoretical subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American feminism
- 8 Contingent foundations: Feminism and the question of ‘postmodernism’
- 9 Subjectivity in social analysis
- HUMAN STUDIES AS RHETORIC, NARRATIVE, AND CRITIQUE
- POSTMODERN SOCIAL ANALYSIS: EMPIRICAL ILLUSTRATIONS
6 - The end of sociological theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- THE CASE FOR POSTMODERNISM AS SOCIAL THEORY
- CONTESTING FOUNDATIONS: THE CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION
- 6 The end of sociological theory
- 7 The theoretical subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American feminism
- 8 Contingent foundations: Feminism and the question of ‘postmodernism’
- 9 Subjectivity in social analysis
- HUMAN STUDIES AS RHETORIC, NARRATIVE, AND CRITIQUE
- POSTMODERN SOCIAL ANALYSIS: EMPIRICAL ILLUSTRATIONS
Summary
Sociological theory has gone astray. It has lost most of its social and intellectual importance; it is disengaged from the conflicts and public debates that have nourished it in the past; it has turned inward and is largely self-referential. Sociological theory today is produced and consumed almost exclusively by sociological theorists. Its social and intellectual insularity accounts for the almost permanent sense of crisis and malaise that surrounds contemporary sociological theory. This distressing condition originates, in part, from its central project: the quest for foundations and for a totalizing theory of society.
To revitalize sociological theory requires that we renounce scientism – that is, the increasingly absurd claim to speak the Truth, to be an epistemically privileged discourse. We must relinquish our quest for foundations or the search for the one correct or grounded set of premises, conceptual strategy, and explanation. Sociological theory will be revitalized if and when it becomes “social theory.” My critique of sociological theory and advocacy of social theory as a social narrative with a moral intent will be advanced from the standpoint of postmodernism.
Anticipating the end of sociological theory entails renouncing the millennial social hopes that have been at the center of modernist sociological theory. Postmodernism carries no promise of liberation – of a society free of domination.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Postmodern TurnNew Perspectives on Social Theory, pp. 119 - 139Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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