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The emergence of processes of globalization has gone hand in hand with a theoretical “crisis” in sociology. According to an increasing number of scholars, “global society” has transformed the “social” to such an extent that classical sociological theory and that of the nineteenth century no longer seem adequate for conceptualizing not only the “new society,” but (human) society as such. The very distinction between human and non-human society has gone lost. In this context, is it still possible to formulate a “theory of society” and what form should such a theory take?
Notes
1. “Appresentation” is a term used in phenomenology (by E. Husserl and subsequently A. Schütz, N. Luhmann, and othersprovide full references for the authors mentioned in footnote 1 or delete the names) to indicate the way an observer “makes present” an object that can never be fully and immediately present, for example the back of an object whose front is seen (while “representation” is a way to describe an object that can be fully and directly apprehended).
2. A typical example of this view is provided by J. C. Alexander (1996).
3. I borrow the expression “the end of history” from Fukuyama (1992), although the idea was already introduced by Marx, who foresaw that capitalism would become a global phenomenon and that—as a result—it would have necessarily led to an age without a “traditional” history (Marx (2007) polemically called it “prehistory,”in opposition to the future era of communism).
4. There are three main types of time registers to which I refer: interactive (or événementiel according to J.F. Lyotard (1970)) historical-relational, and symbolic (cf. Donati 1994).
5. See note 2.
6. I am here referring to the understanding of the symbol as a “relational nexus” (Elias 1991) and as a form of connection in communication (Leach 1976). For a more general view on this issue see Donati (1991, passim chapters 1 and 4, and conclusions).
7. An example of circular reasoning within sociological analysis is provided by Portes's study on social capital (Portes 1998).
8. See Donati (1991), chapters 1 and 3.
9. In this connection, see Hedström and Swedberg (1998).
10. In the words of H.M. Johnson (1973, 208): “In its latest expression, Parsons's general theory of action is a generalization of economic theory.”
11. Held and McGrew (2000) provide an extensive range of definitions of globalization, although they fail to conceptualize them and compare them within a theoretical framework.
12. The concept of supra-functional latency refers to the latent sphere of society (“L” in the revised relational AGIL scheme), when it operates not in order to maintain the existing cultural pattern of society, but to give a new cultural meaning to social actions and relations, a meaning that cannot be reduced to a discrete number of functions and has no functional equivalents in the existing system.
13. Technically speaking, each society is characterized by a Gaussian redistribution of the specific ways of “making social relations,” which are qualitatively and quantitatively different from the others.
14. ‘Omnis determinatio est negatio’ translates to: every determination is a negation.
15. ‘Omnis determinatio est relatio’ translates to: every determination is a relation.