Transformatieproblemen bij het sociologisch denken

Samenvatting

The patterning of empirical observations in terms of covariation is a common characteristic of sociological thinking, despite its diversity in other respects. An analysis is offered of the extent to which this tendency for linear or curvilinear ordering of observations can be blurred by the interference of inductive & deductive reasoning. Methodologically self-conscious inductive procedures may help to avert these effects. Once these problems are eliminated, another trait of sociological reflection commands attention: the tendency to fall back on Weberian Verstehen even where authors have openly embraced the tenets of neo-positivistic scientific explanation. Thus, even the catascopic perspective of systemic functionalism can be inadvertently imbued with anascopic elements. This interference offers a strategic possibility for the fusion of the various paradigms which, in the recent "crisis" of sociology, have found such explicit formulation as the consensus, exchange, & coercion paradigms. These paradigms can be phenomenologically conceived as images of society actually held by social actors. Through time these images of society may alternate according to specific configurations of societal relations, which in turn may be conceived of as alternating between the extremes of orderly competition & conflictual confrontation. Modified HA.