A Short History of Sociological Thought

Also by Alan Swingewood

The Sociology of Literature {co-author)

Marx and Modern Social Theory
The Novel and Revolution
The Myth of Mass Culture
Sociological Poetics and Aesthetic Theory
 A Short History of
Sociological Thought

Second Edition

Alan Swingewood
Lecturer in Sociology, London School of Economics

Macmillan Education
ISBN 978-0-333-55861-4 ISBN 978-1-349-21642-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21642-0
©Alan Swingewood 1984, 1991
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 2nd edition 1991
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, No Y. 10010

First edition published in the United States of America in 1984

Second revised edition first published in the United States of America

in 1991

ISBN 978-0-312-06735-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-312-06736-6 (paperback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Swingewood, Alan.
A short history of sociological thought I Alan Swingewood. - [2nd
ed.]
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-06735-9 (hardcover).- ISBN 978-0-312-06736-6 (paperback)
I. Sociology-History. I. Title
HM19.S975 1991
301'.09-dc20 91-16561
CIP
 Contents

Introduction
Note to the Second Edition 4

PART I FOUNDATIONS

1 Origins of Sociology 7
Human nature and social order 8
Vi co: science and history 10
Montesquieu 13
The Scottish Enlightenment 17
Problems of method 20
The emergence of class 22
The dialectics of social change 24

2 Industrialisation and the Rise of Sociological

Positivism 29
Empiricism and positivism 30
The French Revolution and sociology 32
The concept of industrial society: Saint-Simon 36
Comte and positive science 40
Positivism and determinism 47
Sociology, political economy and the division of
labour 48
Evolutionism and sociological positivism: Mill and
Spencer 51

v
 Contents

3 Marxism: A Positive Science of Capitalist

Development 59
The development of Marxism 62
Alienation of labour 63
The concept of ideology 72
Marx's method: base and superstructure 80
Class formation and class consciousness 84
Laws of development: the problem of historical
determinism 88

PART II CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY

4 Critique of Positivism: I Durkheim 97

Durkheim and the development of sociology 97
Durkheim's method: social facts and society 105
Division of labour, social cohesion and conflict Ill
Anomie 116
Suicide and social solidarity 118
Functionalism, holism and political theory 124

5 Critique of Positivism: II Social Action 128

Understanding and the social sciences: Dilthey 128
Formal sociology: Simmel and sociation 133
Understanding and the problem of method: Weber 142
Ideal types and social action 146
Religion and social action: capitalism and the
Protestant ethic 150
The logic of rationality: Simmel and Weber 158
Social action and social system: Pareto 163

6 The Sociology of Class and Domination 171

Marx's theory of domination 172
The state and class domination 174
The theory of class: Weber 182
Capitalism, bureaucracy and democracy: Weber's
theory of domination 185

Vl
 Contents

7 Marxism and Sociology 194

Marxism after Marx 194
Marxism as revolutionary consciousness: Lukacs and
the concept of totality 199
Culture and domination: Gramsci and the concept of
hegemony 205
Marxism and the sociology of intellectuals:
Garmsci 209
Lukacs and Gramsci on sociology 214
Western Marxism and the problem of
sociology 219

PART III MODERN SOCIOLOGY

8 Functionalism 225
Sociological functionalism: general features 231
The concept of system 234
Functionalism and the dialectic of social life:
Merton 239
Functionalism, social conflict and social change 244
Functionalism and stratification 249

9 Self, Society and the Sociology of Everyday

Life 252
Action theory and the concept of self: the early and
later Parsons 252
Psycho-analysis and self: Freud 258
The social self: Mead and symbolic
interactionism 262
Sociological phenomenology: Schutz and the reality of
everyday life 268
Social action and interactionism:
ethnomethodology 272

10 Critical Theory, Ideology and Modern

Society 275
Mannheim: the problem of ideology 276

Vll
 Contents

Ideology and Utopia 282

The theory of mass society 283
The origins of critical theory 285
Habermas: crisis theory 289
Emancipation and communicative action 294

11 Structuralism 296
The development of structuralism: Saussure 297
The concept of structure 299
Marxism and structuralism 306
The problem of agency and structure: structuration
theory 311

12 Modernity, Industrialisation and Sociological

Theory 313
Marxism, industrialism and modernity 314
The theory of post-industrial society 316
Modernity and post-modernity 320

Further Reading 323

Bibliography 331

Index 343

Vlll
 HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

Origins

Eighteenth-century social thought (Vico, Montesquieu,

Smith, Ferguson, Rousseau)

The development of nineteenth-century sociological

positivism (Comte), sociological evolutionism (Spencer) and
Marxism (Marx and Engels)
t
Classical Sociology

Weber, Simmel, Pareto Durkheim 's critique of the

(the tradition of verstehen positivist tradition
sociology and critique of
positivism and evolutionism)

The development of Marxism after Marx involving a critique of materialism

and evolutionism: Labriola, Gramsc* Sorel, Lukacs

Modern Sociology

Phenomenological Sociology (Schutz) Functionalism

Freud, Mead, Mannheim Systems Theory and Action Theory
(Parsons)
Structuralism

Structuration Theory
Critical Theory (Habermas)

IX
 Introduction

This book is neither a history of sociology nor of sociological

theory but a selective history of sociological thought from its
origins in eighteenth-century philosophy, history and political
economy. By sociological thought is meant an awareness of
society as a distinctive o~ject of study, as a system or structure
objectively determined by laws and processes. Eighteenth-
century social thought was sociological in this sense although it
failed to develop an adequate sociological concept of the social,
too often assimilating it to political and economic elements. In
effect eighteenth-century social thought posed many of the
critical issues of sociology without resolving them sociologi-
cally. In contrast, early nineteenth-century sociological
thought (specifically Comte, Spencer, Marx) sought to define
the social both in terms of society as a complex structural whole
and in its relation with specific institutions, notably the division
of labour, social classes, religion, family and scientific/profes-
sional associations. Society was industrial society and the
broad themes of the early sociologists were those of social
conflict, alienation, community, social cohesion and the pos-
sibilities of evolution and development. The task of social
science was to identify the forces promoting historical change.
Early sociological thought was concerned with the separation
of an autonomous social sphere (or 'civil society') from
centralised state institutions (or 'political society'). It is this
notion of 'finalisation', that history has a meaning apart from
the actions of everyday life, which differentiates early sociologi-
cal thought from later, classical sociology and the various
schools of 'sociologised' Marxism.
Early sociological thought was broadly optimistic: the
 Introduction

certainties of the natural sciences could be applied to the social

sciences unproblematically. Classical sociology emerges as a
reaction to this form of positivist scientistic thought. The broad
themes of classical sociology were pessimistic: industrialisation
produces social structures which alienate the individual from
the community, transform cultural objects into commodities,
rationalise human life into bureaucratic systems of domination
and effectively strip the individual of autonomy. Classical
sociology becomes centred not on large-scale changes but on
the human subject: 'voluntarism' and action replace the
historical determinism of nineteenth-century systems theory. It
is this distinction which sets the agenda for the later develop-
ment of modern sociology.
Modern sociological thought begins with the breakdown of
the classical, voluntarist model. The dominant paradigm
becomes functionalism, its pre-eminence bound up with the
emergence of American sociology in the years following the
Second World War. Classical sociology had been almost
entirely European: the rise of European Fascism, Communism
and the Second World War shifted the focus of sociological
thought across the Atlantic. And it was not until the 1960s that
new schools of sociology - phenomenology, action theory,
structuralism, Marxist humanism - which drew much of their
inspiration from classical sociology, emerged.
In this book I have attempted to describe these develop-
ments. In particular, there is extended discussion of Marxism
both as a distinctive theory of society and for its influence on
classical and modern sociology. It has become fashionable to
argue that Marxism is a sociology. I suggest that Marxist
thought is certainly sociological and as such has been absorbed
into sociology itself and, increasingly, that Marxism assimi-
lates sociological concepts and thought in order to offer
adequate accounts of modern industrial society and historical
development. Many of the crucial differences between soci-
ology and Marxism resolve themselves around the relation of
centralised state structure to decentred social structures. By
defining its object of study as civil society sociology developed
theories which emphasised the differentiated and potentially
autonomous nature of modern industrial society. In contrast,
Marxist thought articulated a theory of the social formation

2
 Introduction

built around a deterministic relation of economic 'base' to

socio-cultural 'superstructure'. It is this decentred, sociological
concept of the social which links together the various schools of
sociological thought. This does not imply a single sociology.
Since the rise of classical sociology there have been many
different sociologies but they share a common object of study
and their focus is broadly similar.
Part I examines the historical rise of sociological thought and
its development into positivism, evolutionism and Marxism.
Part II describes the complex reaction to positivist social
science and Marxism by classical sociologists such as Weber,
Durkheim, Sombart and Simmel. Because Marx's thought
played such an important role in the formation of classical
sociology I have discussed his theory of class and power in Part
II contrasting it with Weber's work on social stratification.
This is not an argument that sociology developed through a
'debate with Marx's ghost'. Indeed, classical sociology
'debated' with Kant as much as Marx. Kant's epistemology
and moral philosophy played as vital a role in the development
of classical sociology as Hegelian dialectics in the development
of Marxism. Part III explores the development of modern
sociology, first in the form of sociological functionalism, and
then in its attempts to rediscover the insights of classical
sociology. It is the depth of this renewal which suggests a
convergence of sociological thought in the midst of apparent
fragmentation and diversity.
The development of sociological thought is the result of
collaborative, communicative and dialogic interaction involv-
ing individuals, social groups and communities. Of all areas of
the history of sociology this is perhaps the most complex and
neglected although there have been valuable contributions by
Coser, 197l;Jay, 1973; Clarke, 1973; Schwendinger, 1974 and
Therborn, 1976. Certain themes- race and gender, for example
- are not discussed, largely because they have not been in the
forefront of sociological thought. This book is, as I have said, a
selective history. At the end I have listed a number of works by
chapter which refer the reader to further general discussion as
well as more specialised studies. A history of sociological
thought- from Vico to Bakhtin- can easily become a 'shopping
list' of great names: I have tried to avoid this by concentrating

3
 Introduction

in some detail on major themes of sociological relevance as well

as significant thinkers.

November 1983 ALAN SWINGEWOOD

Note to the Second Edition

For this second edition I have substantially revised the

accounts of critical theory and structuralism. I have also made
a number of minor changes to the chapters on Marx, Weber,
Durkheim and Marxism after Marx. In this way I hope to
have strengthened the basic argument of the book and made it
more useful for students studying sociology and related
subjects.

August 1990 ALAN SWINGEWOOD