today. As Mouzelis (1995: 245–6) convincingly argues, the classics of sociology were not imposed on us by some kind of dictatorial decree but their work has been accepted and utilised on the basis of its ‘cognitive potency, analytical acuity, power of synthesis and imaginative reach and originality’.
The Layout of Chapters
The main aim of this book and its companion volume, Contemporary Sociological Theory, is to provide a critical and contextual introduction to social thought. In this context we analyse contributions of the key thinkers who have shaped and continue to influence sociological theory today. Hence the book contains 12 chapters focusing on the most influential representatives of different approaches within social theory. Some chapters are devoted to exposition of a single theorist, while other chapters analyse the contributions of two or more scholars who tend to be part of the same intellectual tradition. Since each chapter also explores the key contemporary influences of various theoretical perspectives, we briefly present the contributions of many other social thinkers. Thus, this book and its companion volume explore the work of over 100 social thinkers who have made substantial contributions towards advancing sociology as an explanatory and theoretical project. Even though we have attempted to be as comprehensive as possible we could not possibly cover all aspects of social thought and all theorists whose contributions could merit inclusion in this book. The latter remains an open possibility for others to pursue.
This volume explores the work of classical social thinkers starting with the pre-sociological and proto-sociological approaches of Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Ibn Khaldun, de Tocqueville, Martineau and Hegel. Our aim here was to trace the intellectual sources that have shaped thinking about the social world before and in the immediate aftermath of modernity. The first part concludes with the chapters zooming in on the four key classical theorists who have influenced the formation of sociological thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Simmel. In addition, we also analyse two sociological perspectives that had enormous influence for the birth of sociology as an academic discipline but have largely been ignored by the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century scholars – the elite theory (Pareto, Mosca and Michels) and the bellicist theory (Hintze, Gumplowicz and Ratzenhofer).2 Although classical theory derives for the most part from Continental Europe, two key North American figures, DuBois and Mead, are also discussed.
Each chapter is intentionally structured in a similar way so that the reader can get the sense of the time, place and key structural influences that have shaped individual theorists. Thus, we explore the biographical and intellectual context of the theorists and then focus on the wider historical, social and political environment in which respective scholars have lived and worked. Each chapter also discusses the central ideas and arguments associated with a specific theoretical approach and then looks at the contemporary relevance and applications of their ideas. The chapters end with the criticisms of each perspective and we also provide lists of references for each theorist.
One of the key ambitions of this book is to contextualise sociological thinking and to do this it is paramount to situate each theoretical contribution within its social, economic, political, historical and biographical context. Since sociology is an intellectual endeavour that is continuously shaped by its own social environment, it is crucial that the knowledge we produce, use and disseminate to others is understood within this wider context in which it is forged. Unlike physics, which perhaps can advance with the use of abstract and de-contextualised knowledge, sociology is a social and historical project that can never be completely removed from the time and place in which it is created.
Notes
1 Even these three ‘non-establishment’ scholars, as will be evident in the book, were relatively privileged in their own societies.
2 On the reasons for this, mostly deliberate, neglect of these two classical perspectives, see Malešević (2010: 17–49).
References
Collins, R. (1998) The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Coser, L. A. (1971) Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Hobsbawm, E. J. and Ranger, T. O. (1983) The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Malešević, S. (2010) The Sociology of War and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mouzelis, N. P. (1995) Sociological Theory: What Went Wrong? Diagnosis and Remedies. London: Routledge.
I Plato and Aristotle
It may seem odd to begin a book on sociological theory as far back as ancient Greece, but what is distinctive about Western thought and rationality – the view that the world has fundamental properties and processes accessible to the human mind – finds its origins there (Rossides, 1998: 2). Given the limited development of the division of labour the Greeks did not comprehend society in a compartmentalised way as contemporary thinkers do. Although the word ‘sociology’ does not appear until the eighteenth century with Comte, the ancient Greeks provided a number of terms that we now take for granted and use in the social sciences and humanities generally. These include the word theory theóría (θεωρία), from the Greek contemplation, often contrasted with the word ‘practice’ (praxis, πρα∼ξις) – for doing. But other indispensable concepts including science, art, criticism – for judging, as in a court case, or at a theatrical performance – also derive from ancient Greece. In addition to his philosophy Plato was one of the first thinkers to reflect systematically upon political society or the polis, and on the idea of what a just society should look like. However, it was with Aristotle that a more general analysis of human association became possible especially through his discussion of koinonia, which simultaneously included the notions of association, community and society since these were not conceived as separate (Frisby and Sayer, 1986: 13–14).
However, language as a practice is always embedded in broader social practices and relations (Wittgenstein, 1968), and there were fundamental differences between the ancient Greek structure of language, thought and life and modern ways of thinking. The writings of Plato and Aristotle, two thinkers whose thought not only directly shaped subsequent philosophy, but also, indirectly, sociological thinking and theorising, are indeed deeply rooted in the social, political, economic and cultural context of their time. This shaped and served as a frame of reference for many of the questions they asked about the human condition, and their diagnoses of the problems they faced, through philosophy (philosophia, ϕιλοσοϕία), meaning ‘love of wisdom’, and the images and metaphors with which to think about humans and human societies.
Plato
Life and Intellectual Context
Some of the biographical facts concerning Plato’s life are based on disputed evidence and much of what we know comes from the doxographer Diogenes Laërtius. Plato was born in 428 bce in Athens to a highly distinguished aristocratic family during a period in which the Peloponnesian War was already underway. The family was steeped in politics: Ariston, his father, was said to be a direct descendant of the last king of Athens, while his mother, Perictone, was reputed to have been related to the famous law-maker Solon (638–558 bce), who is credited with laying the foundations of Athenian democracy. When Plato’s father died his mother remarried, to Pyrilampes, a close acquaintance
