Historical Sociology and our Positivist Unconscious: A case study of relational sociology

• In Event: 1455 - Section on History of Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 2

Abstract

Within the tradition of historical sociology C. Calhoun and G. Steinmetz have articulated two particularly illuminating concepts. On Calhoun’s account, we struggle to recognize that the basic theoretical concepts and categories of (positivist) thought that might have been the subject of critique have themselves succeeded in domesticating historical sociology as a comparative method. According to Steinmetz, the result has been our disciplinary maintenance of a positivist unconscious. We maintain deeply held methodological commitments to positivist tenets in spite of our nominal rejection of positivism. The resolution of such a confused problem-situation requires recourse to metatheoretical reflection. Unfortunately, radical positivists since A. Comte have categorically denounced such dialogues—along with the whole of metaphysics—as “empty wordplay”. Consequently, as a discipline, sociologists are generally unprepared for the uphill metatheoretical battle they face. In this paper I contextualize our disciplinary maintenance of a positivist unconscious in the relational sociology of and around Harrison White. As relational sociologists took the cultural turn some almost immediately began to critique their over-socialized models of persons. Even as they rally to move their relational sociology from the cultural turn to the incorporation of agency, they don’t see the incompatibility of this apodictically justified maneuver with the critical rationalist metatheory that has guided the development of relational sociology from its inception in the 1960s. While retracing the historical development of relational sociology I contextualize the main contours of the three principle Methodensteiten in an effort to introduce the key themes behind the critical realist prioritization of the problem of naturalism and their dialectical synthesis of positivism and constructivism. My goal is to further stimulate metatheoretical dialogues in the social sciences.

Author

• Paul David Erb, University of Massachusetts