Part One: The Scientific Character of Social Theory
1. Social Theory According to Positivism
Comte Lays the Foundations
Weber on Causality and Ethical Neutrality
Law and System According to Parsons
Homans on the Nature of Science
Merton on the Nature of Social Theory
2. Social Theory According to Antipositivism
The Antipositivist Methodology of Max Weber
Ideal-Type and Analytical Concept: Weber and Parsons
Concept Formation According to Schutz
The Indexical Expression in Ethnomethodology
Habermas's Critique of Positivism
The Hermeneutical Circle Reexamined
The Issue Reconsidered: Type Versus Class
Part Two: The Basic Units of Social Theory
3. Methodological Structuralism
The Structuralism of the Social Fact
Methodological Structuralism in Marx
Organism, Personality, Society, and Culture in Parsons's Action System
Methodological Structuralism
4. Methodological Individualism
The Forms According to Simmel
Homans Brings Men Back In
The Phenomenology of the Integrative Function
The Issue Reconsidered: The Reification of Structure
Part Three: Rules And Social Order
Comte on Morality and Religion
Durkheim Defines Morality
The Legitimate Order According to Weber
Norms and Values in the Social System
Habermas on the Legitimation of Norms
Theory of the Normative Order
6. The Construction of Order
Mead's Reconstruction of the Act
The Ethnomethodological Conception of Rules
Bentham's Theory of Order
Spencer's Law of Equal Freedom
Functionalist Critiques of the Utilitarian Theory of Order
Utilitarianism in Homans's Exchange Theory
The Issue Reconsidered: Duty and Interest
Part Four: The Duality of Consensus and Conflict
Collective Conscience and Representation in Durkheim
Consensus in the Social System
Consensus and Symbol According to Mead
Intersubjectivity in Schutz's Phenomenology
The Hobbesian State of Nature
Marxism and Functionalism
Status Groups as Conflict Units
Dahrendorf's Critique of Parsons
Dahrendorf's Theory of Class Conflict
Legitimation as Domination
Collins's Conflict Sociology
The Issue Reconsidered: Power and Authority
9. The Limits of Rationality
The Limits of Positivism Again
Rationality and the Reification of Social Structure
Rationality and Consensus
Legitimacy and the Limits of Rationality
