(THE5a) Classical Social Theory I

This session aims to provide a space for the engagement with a wide range of 'classical' social theory, including not only the typical classics such as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, but a wider range of interdisciplinary influences in what has developed over time into contemporary sociology, ranging from Plato and Aristotle, to Ibn Sina and Ibn Khaldun, to Smith and Kant, to Saint-Simon and Comte, to Hegel and Nietzsche, to Wollstonecraft, Cooley, Simmel, DuBois, and beyond! This session seeks to critically revive engagement with sociology's interdisciplinary past, both challenging narrow assumptions many have in their readings of the classics and allowing for the redeployment of 'living theory,' from the past to the present, and into the future. Tags: Knowledge, Theory

Organizer: Reiss Kruger, York University; Chair: Reiss Kruger, York University; Discussant: Dean Curran, University of Calgary

Presentations

Valerie Haines, University of Calgary

Spencer's Social Theory Revisited

The social theory of Herbert Spencer has long been the subject of ongoing debate. After a gap of more than 30 years, the publication of three general books on Herbert Spencer and two books reassessing the Spencerian legacy suggests that now is an opportune time to revisit Spencer’s social theory. This paper responds to this suggestion. Because it is situated at the intersection of the fields of classical social theory and the history of sociology, its objectives are substantive and methodological. Substantively, it explores whether this resurgence of interest in Spencer’s social theory has resolved ongoing disputes about what Spencer actually believed, wrote and accomplished. Methodologically, it explores the value of double contextualizing in the history of sociology by offering properly contextualized analyses of both Spencer’s social theory and rival interpretations of this theory. It focuses on two questions that my reading of Spencer’s social theory argues help structure the form and content of this theory and its subsequent fate. The first question is: Does Spencer bring biology into his social theory and if so, then how? The second question is: Is Spencer’s social theory “evolutionary” in the modern biological sense of the term evolution or is it teleological by virtue of Spencer’s progressive deism, metaphysics, or biological borrowings? To answer these questions, I conduct a detailed textual analysis of each book that gives close attention to (1) how each interpretation contextualized Spencer’s social theory, (2) what each interpretation took from Spencer and what it left behind, (3) what textual evidence from Spencer’s writings was used to support each interpretation and what textual evidence was set aside when this evidence contested this interpretation, and (4) where, why and how each interpretation engaged with rival interpretations. To ensure an accurate assessment of the extent and nature of these engagements I bring in earlier publications by authors of the five books and reviews by these authors of each other’s books. I begin with my answers to the two questions that frame this paper: first, Spencer developed his social theory by participating in nineteenth century debates about the fact and mechanism of biological evolution, making it hard to overstate the importance of his biology for his sociology and second, Spencer’s social theory is evolutionary in the modern biological sense of the term evolution. Then I use these answers to anchor my engagements with the interpretations of Spencer’s social theory set out in the books that prompted this paper. None of these interpretations engages systematically with these answers, the way in which they are contextualized, the textual evidence that supports them, or the arguments for their structuring role—even where an interpretation is highly critical of my reading of Spencer’s social theory. Nor do any of these recent contributions to the scholarship on Spencer engage systematically with the others or with earlier publications that had already adumbrated core features of these interpretations. Despite the recent resurgence of interest in Spencer and his ideas, then, disputes about the role of biology in Spencer’s social theory, the evolutionary status of this theory and theoretical implications of both for the place of this theory in the development of sociology remain unresolved. When it comes to producing a better understanding of Spencer’s social theory and the Spencerian legacy, the critical question is not “Who now reads Spencer?” but rather “How do we read Spencer?”

Jeffrey Stepnisky, MacEwan University; Danylo Sudyn, Ukrainain Catholic University

Mykhailo Drahomanov's proto-sociology

In this paper we present research from an ongoing project on the history of sociological theory in Ukraine. Here we focus on the work of Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841-1895). Though his formal training was in ancient history and folklore, typically Drahomanov is presented as a political philosopher. That said, in his writing he frequently refers to classical social theorists including Spencer, Comte, Tocqueville, and Marx, and his ideas were featured prominently in Max Weber’s (1995) essays on the “Russian Revolutions.” In addition, in his introduction to Drahomanov’s 1880 essay “Political and social ideas in Ukrainian folk songs” historian and Drahomanov scholar Ivan Rudnytsky says “we hope that this fragment will characterize Drahomanovs scientific methods, in which studies of folklore merge into sociology.” Though Drahomanov does not develop a systemic social theory, we argue that a set of coherent sociological ideas underlies his political and cultural writings. We break the argument into five components. First, we argue that Drahomanov is a relational thinker. This view, we suggest, is a product of Ukraine’s history as a multi-ethic nation with constantly shifting borders. Here, Drahomanov challenges essentialist views of social identity and emphasizes that identity is created through interactions that include cultural borrowing and mixture. Second, Drahomanov’s sociology emphasizes social practices, or “zvichai,” rather than essential social substances. Zvichai is a Ukrainian word often translated as “customs” though we offer a more technical sociological interpretation of the term. Drahomanov says that zvichai are local ways of “doing” and “thinking.” A society is defined by its history of zvichai – it’s ways of doing and thinking. Though zvichai resemble one another over time and place, constructing a homogenous nation, they also vary and change. As such, we suggest that rather than searching for essences (as was common in the era of nation-building), Drahomanov lays the foundation for a sociology based in the process of identity construction through shared practice. Third, consistent with his view on local practices Drahomanov’s theory of social organization is expressed though the concept of hromada. Hromada is a widely used term in Ukrainian politics, culture, and scholarship. In general, it means “community” but also refers to 19th century Ukrainian political, cultural, and intellectual societies that advocated for Ukrainian culture and opposed Russian Imperialism. We argue that hromada is a useful term to describe Drahomanov’s emphasis on small-scale social organizations connected to local practices. To be meaningful and just, social organizations must be connected to local practices. Fourth, Drahomanov offers a powerful critique of centralized, Russian Imperial bureaucracy and consequently the abstractions of modern mass society. This idea complements his attention to small scale social organization. World views, social structures, and practices imposed from above are at odds with local ways of doing and thinking, and therefore alienating. This view is also consistent with Weber’s more famous critique of rationalization. For Drahomanov, centralized bureaucracy was a source of Imperial violence and power that alienated people from local ways of life and thereby authentic forms of social organization. For this reason, centralized bureaucracy will always meet resistance and fail as a means of organizing social life. We conclude with the idea that Drahomanov offers a “dual ontology.” By dual ontology we mean that the source of authentic and valuable human being is grounded in two sources. First, consistent with Enlightenment Europe, Drahomanov advocates for individual human rights and the use of reason in organizing social life. For this reason, he is often referred to as a cosmopolitan thinker. Second, individual rights are best exercised within small-scale, self-organizing communities – hromada – that are grounded in local practices. As such, Drahomanov offers an alternative to both large-scale bureaucratic concepts of mass society and individualistic, utilitarian conceptions of society.

Clayton Fordahl, University of Akureryi

Is Time a Flat Circle? On the Varieties of Cyclical Analysis in Sociological Theory

In the beginning, sociology was an obviously historical discipline. Foundational works in sociology, produced in the late 19th and early 20th century, were focused on grand historical processes and often deployed historical methodologies. This is true of the canonical works of Weber, Marx, and Durkheim, but also of those influential thinkers, like W.E.B. Du Bois and Jane Addams, who have been marginalized and neglected. Whether they were concerned with the rise of capitalism, the character of industrial society, or the nature of racism, these works all compared The grand historical narrative remained relevant into the 20th century through the work of thinkers like Elias and Habermas and continues to have an indirect influence over the discipline given the prominence of works like The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in sociological syllabi the world over. But if sociology remains a historically-oriented discipline today, it is in a form divergent and in many ways opposed to the historical vision of the discipline’s early practitioners. Historical sociologists today are varied in their empirical interests and theoretical orientations. But, from sociologists who practice genealogical critique to those who study path dependencies, one tendency seems to mark all contemporary historical sociology: contingency. Where once history was seen as a grand story, one which featured a definite narrative arc, today history is viewed as a matter of chance, a collection of random events that accumulate to form the present. In the first decades of the 21st century, the consensus on contingency as the animating force in history seemed near-universal and all but unassailable. That is, until the emergence of the upstart discipline of cliodynamics. Approaching history from the perspective of natural science and drawing on the proliferation of historical data in the internet age, practitioners of cliodynamics have challenged a contingent approach to historical analysis, arguing that recurring patterns in social life can be identified and specified to such a degree that the seemingly chaotic processes in politics, economics, and culture can now be subject to all-but-unassailable prediction. In their scientism and their emphasis on recurring historical patterns, the advocates of cliodynamics unconsciously resemble one of sociology’s great “black sheep”, the 20th century Italian polymath Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto is often consigned to the footnotes of sociological theory, but when he is discussed, it is often as a theorist of historical cycles. His work on elite cycles, captured by the striking bestial image of “lions” and “foxes”, has had a minor influence on contemporary elite theory and a more obvious, if often unstated, influence on cliodynamics. To what extent do the perspectives on history developed by cliodynamics and Pareto constitute a theoretical school or tradition? How does the cyclical approach to history vary—in both its core concepts and its normative implications—from both the grand narrative approach of earlier sociologists and the contingent methods of contemporary practitioners? In answering these questions, this article traces connections between a range of thinkers who have advocated cyclical approaches to history, including ancient thinkers like Polybius, “classical” thinkers like Marx and Pareto, modern thinkers like Eisenstadt, and contemporary movements like cliodynamics. The article demonstrates that there have been two divergent and competing approaches to cyclical history in social theory: one a fatalist vision based on a cynical reading of human nature, the other an optimistic and rationalist approach which pursues historical knowledge for technocratic ends.