Realism and the supposed poverty of sociological theories

I. C. Jarvie

pp. 35-49

in: I. C. Jarvie, Thinking about society, Berlin, Springer, 1986

Abstract

My title may be misleading. This paper will argue that contemporary socio logical theories are not impoverished. On the contrary, it is my observation that contemporary sociological theories are rich and diverse.² There are abroad Marxists, functionalists, structuralists, phenomenologists, symbolic interactionists, ethnomethodologists, conflict theorists, labelling theorists, critical theorists, and so on. That they battle and proliferate strikes this philosopher of the social sciences as healthy, fruitful and exciting.³ As an editor, I never know what is going to flop into my in-tray next. In addition, there are certain maverick figures who are doing incredibly illuminating thinking at the theoretical level, especially Edward Shils, Raymond Aron, Ernest Gellner and Erving Goffman.⁴ So, much of my space will be given over to explaining how such richness can be denigrated and the claim of theoretical poverty made.

Cited authors

Marx Karl

Aron Raymond

Goffman Erving

Gellner Ernest