Synthesis and fragmentation in social theory: a progressive solution more

Synthesis and Fragmentation in Social Theory: A Progressive Solution Author(s): John Holmwood and Alexander Stewart Reviewed work(s): Source: Sociological Theory, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp. 83-100 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/202037 . Accessed: 26/01/2012 07:30 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Sociological Theory. http://www.jstor.org Synthesis and Fragmentation in Social Theory:A Progressive Solution* JOHN HOLMWOOD ALEXANDER STEWART University of Edinburgh Postmodern claims for the lack of general coherence in social life and therefore in social research are merely a version of recurrentattemptsto accept incoherence as adequate in explanations.Incoherence, however, is less sharplydistinguishedfromthe syntheticand generalizing theories that it is held to have replaced than its proponents and critics suppose. Generalizingapproaches, infact, were builtaroundcontradictions that contributedto their instability and facilitated postmodernfragmentation. In this paper we demonstratethe central contradictionsin social theory,showingtheircommon and what it seeks to occurrence in apparentlyopposed positions. Both postmodernism are features of a conservativeand unproductivesocial science. We trace the replace contradictorycontinuities through major modern schools of social theory in order to clear the ground for a progressive social science which accepts contradictions as problems that must be solved creatively in the practice of social research. Recent commentarieson the state of sociological theory view the currentsituationas one of crisis. Alexander (1988b, p. 77) writes that the promise of the 1960s and the 1970s gave way a decade later to fragmentationand despair, whereby theories seemed "enervated" and "debilitated."This is no isolated judgment; a sense of crisis is a pervasive feature of currenttheoreticaldiscussion. Sociological theories appearto have exhausted their potential for insight and development. Seidman believes that "sociological theory has gone astray . . . unconnectedto currentresearch programs, divorced from current social movements and political struggles, and either ignorantof majorpolitical and moral public debates or unable to addressthem in ways that are compelling or even understandable by nontheorists"(1992, p. 47). The transformation the sociological conscience collective from optimism to despair of and fatigue has been rapid. Throughthe 1960s and 1970s, social theoristsfrom different traditionsbelieved in general theory as ultimatelyresourcefuland progressive. Yet those days of hope are not so distant from the currentpostmodernperceptionthat a general, integratedtheory is impossible in practice and even perhapsoffensive in principle, as is often supposed. We had differentand opposed hopes, each makinggeneral claims. There was no single general theory-only competing claims to generality.The patentfailure of all these general claims, accordingto postmoderntheorists, led to the denial of generality (see Seidman 1992), but others see new opportunitiesfor a new, all-encompassingsynthesis. Alexander writes that "where even 10 years ago the air was filled with demands for radical and one-sided theoreticalprograms,in the contemporary period one can only hear urgent calls for theorizing of an entirely different sort. Throughoutthe centers of Westernsociology-in Britain and France, in Germanyand the United States-synthetic * Address correspondenceto first author at Departmentof Sociology, 18 Buccleuch Place, EdinburghEH8 9LN, Scotland. Sociological Theory 12:1 March 1994 ? American Association. 1722N Street DC NW,Washington, 20036 Sociological 84 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY ratherthan polemical theorizing is now the order of the day" (1988a, p. 77. Also see Giddens 1987; Ritzer 1990). Once again, the novelty is ratherless thanis claimed. The most centralof the competing claims for generalityhas always been a "synthetic" approach(in the days of hope, variously The sense that this approach called Weberian, structuralfunctionalist, or voluntaristic).1 is novel owes more to the biographicalexperienceof social theoriststhanto an examination of the historyof the social sciences. In every era we can findtheoriesof both fragmentation and synthesis, and not only in opposing theorists. The contradictory impulses to synthesis and to fragmentationoccur within theorists, not merely between them.2 The problem is endemic to the project of social theory; it is not merely a moment in its history. In this paper we addresssome majortheoreticalapproaches-those of Weber, Parsons, Giddens, Alexander, and Habermas-in orderto identify common problems and to show characterof social theory. Our purpose is first to lay bare the substance the contradictory of this unprogressive,contradictorysocial theory, and then, once this has been done, to suggest necessary elements of a successful and progressive social science. STRUCTUREAND ACTION in When we argue that modem social theory is contradictory, truthwe are saying no more than is said by each of the differenttheoristswe discuss. Some initially deny the necessity of contradiction(although all find it in the writings of other social theorists), but each comes ultimately to acknowledge contradictionin the most elaboratedstatementof their own position. Ourclaims for an underlyingand contradictory unity of social theory, then, are based not on an externalimpositionof connectionsbetween approaches,but on internal demonstrationsof how they are related and how all are present in each, regardless of startingpoints. Because the apparentlydifferentpositions are drawn from an underlying position that they share, each, as it is developed, tips into the others. As an example, let us briefly consider Weber's argumentsand the criticisms directedat them. the Weber initially set himself the task of demonstrating absurdityof the "postmodernism" of Germanculturaltheoristsin their attackon generalcoherenceand their acceptance as of the "unknowable" peculiarly significant(see Weber 1975).3 The Methodenstreitin German social science presentedWeber with a dualism between the nineteenth-century of of categoriesand the particularity subjectiveexperience, generalrequirements structural which he proposedto answer by arguingfor their mutualconsistency within a means-end scheme of rationalaction (see Weber 1949, 1975). Yet no other synthetictheoristbelieves that Weber's solution is adequate (see, for example, Alexander 1983; Giddens 1977, pp. 89-95; Parsons 1937). Most accept that the problemsof dualism returnto undermine his synthetic claims; his synthetic theory gives way to distinct forms of action: one is zweckrationalaction, competentbut constraining;the other is wertrationalaction, apparently free but socially meaningless (see Weber 1968). Others, accepting this characteritheories of action, of zation of his theory, regardWeber as the forerunner complementary although his theory is overdeveloped in its zweckrationalaspects and underdevelopedin its other aspects (see, for example, Habermas 1984). Still others, Weber's later stoical I "Particularism" was present. Garfinkel(1967), for example, declaredhis hostility to the reconstructive also aims of general social theory during the 1960s and 1970s. 2 In his earlier work, for example, Seidman (1983) presentedthe integrationof classical social theory as a positive achievment, only to repudiateit in his later work (see Seidman 1992). 3 Weber, for example, writes of the Germanhistorical school that their arguments"areall based on the same curious idea: the idea that the dignity of a science or its object is due to those featuresof the object about which we can know nothing at all. In which case, the peculiar significance of humanaction lies in the fact that it is inexplicable and thereforeunintelligible"(1975, p. 238). SYNTHESIS AND FRAGMENTATION SOCIALTHEORY IN 85 resignationto the failure to overcome dualism makes him the embodimentof postmoder sensibility (see, for example, Lash 1987; Schroeder1987). The "synthetic"approachis the majordirectionof social theory, but each of those who propose it believes that he or she is correcting a contemporaryand historic division in approaches.The realitythey believe they confrontis a social theoryof competingcamps"structure" "action,""positivism"and "idealism"-where all of those who previously and claimed the necessity of synthesis are held to have contributedto division.4 Giddens, for example, writes of a mainstream,"positivist"position in social theory in which "thereis no place for a conception of the actor as a reasoning agent, capable of using knowledge in a calculatedfashion so as to achieve intendedoutcomes"(1977, p. 85). Giddens thinks this dominantconception has given way under the weight of criticism from continental, hermeneuticphilosophies. He believes, however, that this criticism, together with the dualismswhich characterize object of its criticism, has produceda series of contradictory the field of social theory-dualisms of subject and object, individual and society, and associatedvoluntaristicand deterministicsociologies. In place of these dualisms, Giddens proposes a "duality," or mutual consistency, of the opposed categories. According to is "duality,""structure not as such external to human action, and is not identified solely with constraint.Structureis both the medium and the outcome of the human activities it recursively organizes"(1987, p. 61). This, Giddens believes, will provide the basis of a new, fruitful synthesis in social theory. Giddens regardsParsons as a positivist, committedto one side of the dualistic form of modem social theory. Yet Parsons, too, had looked forwardto a synthesis of "objective" and "subjective"points of view. Like Giddens, he believed that the dominanceof positivism over social theory had had unfortunateconsequences; the emphasis on externally observed events and the neglect of subjective aspects of action, he argued, derived from the hostility of positivism to a conception of the human being as "essentially an active, creative evaluating subject"(1935, p. 282). The opposition to positivism within German culturaltheoryhad erredon the otherside, however, whereasWeber'sattemptedsynthesis, accordingto Parsons, had taken too much from the individual,unpredictable emphasis of culturaltheory to representan adequatesolution (see Parsons 1937). His own theory, he promised, would be adequatein providing"a bridge between the apparently irreconcilable difference of the two traditions,making it possible, in a certain sense, to 'make the best of both worlds"' (Parsons 1937, p. 486). Like Giddens, Alexander believes that Parsons ultimately failed, but once again, Alexandermaintainsan attachmentto the syntheticprojectand even to Parson's categories, arguing that they can be made adequate with a different development (see Alexander 1984, 1988a). He argues that the initial reactionto Parsons involved a polemical polarization of one-sided criticisms that now have become exhausted."Neithermicro nor macro theory is satisfactory,"he writes, and "action and structuremust now be intertwined" (1988b, p. 77). Every synthetictheorist, then, sets out to overcomecontradictory dualisms while accepting the categories of the dualisms. Each believes that there must be an approachin which the categories are noncontradictory, though no one else has found it. Weber sought an approachto meaningful action which would unite the freedom and creativity of the acting subject with the facilities and constraintsof the environmentin which action takes place. Although they accept the deficiencies of his approach, other 4 This presentationof the social sciences as divided between two competing camps is quite standard.Dawe, for example, writes of "two sociologies" that are "groundedin diametricallyopposed concerns with two central problems, those of order and control. And at every level they are in conflict. They posit antitheticalviews of human nature, of society and of the relation between the social and the individual"(1970, p. 24). (Also see DiTomaso 1982; James 1984; Lukes 1977; Martindale1971; Mayhew 1980, 1981). 86 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY synthetic theorists closely follow Weber's initial statementof the project. Each synthetic theorist accepts that the basic components of action are ends (the purposes of actors), means (what must be manipulatedcompetentlyin the realizationof ends), and conditions (what cannot be manipulatedcompetently, but must be accommodatedand calculated upon). Action, to be rational, must be adequate as to the knowledge necessary for the realizationof ends. Thus Giddens writes of "the 'technical grounding'of the knowledge that is applied as 'means' in purposiveacts to secure particular outcomes"(1976, p. 83), while Parsons writes of the "norm of intrinsic rationality"governing the relationship between means and ends, which is groundedin "valid knowledge"(1937, p. 600). When conditions and means are classified as "technical"in substanceand, as such, "external" to any given actor, the "subjective," voluntary aspect of action is associated with the actor's capacity to form ends (see Alexander 1982a, p. 62; Giddens 1976, p. 75; Parsons 1937, p. 45). The freedom of actors to form ends, however, cannot easily be separatedfrom issues of the organizationof systems of action. All synthetictheoristsagreethatcertainproperties of social relationships are not simply the aggregate of individual actions and must be addressedin the development of a theory of social action. These are what Parsons calls the "emergent properties"of systems of action, what Giddens calls their "structural issues of "order"(see Alproperties,"and what Alexander calls the "presuppositional" exander 1982a, p. 90; Giddens 1976, p. 122; Parsons 1937, p. 739). Synthetic theorists identify two major issues of orderin the coordinationof action; we can call these personal order and interpersonal order. The first is concerned with the individualactor's organizationof his or her activities accordingto a personalhierarchyof preferencesand the relationshipsamong the means of realizing those preferences. Every action occurs in contexts producedby past actions and, in turn, affects the possibilities of futureaction. The requirementof a "technical"efficacy of means must be complemented of by a requirement consistency in the relationshipamongpurposeswhere acts are mutually as means and conditions of other acts in personal means-end chains (see dependent Alexander 1982;, p. 71; Giddens 1976, p. 84; Parsons 1937, p. 740). Interpersonalorder concerns the coordinationof systems of action where these induce the activities of a numberof actors. Here the actions of any given actor form the means and conditions of other actors in the same system. As Giddens says, "[S]ystems of social interaction,reproducedthroughthe duality of structurein the context of bounded conditions of the rationalisation action, are constitutedthroughthe interdependence actors of of or groups"(1979, p. 76. Also see Alexander 1982a, p. 90; Parsons 1937, p. 51). There exist, then, an issue of the mutualdependenceof all actionsin the system and a requirement of consistency similar to that in personal order. In any stable system of interaction,the values, preferences, and other considerationsthat organize an individualactor's choice of ends must be consistent with those of other actors. In the light of these requirements,the openness of action cannot be maintained.The coherence of systems of interactiondepends on the predictabilityof purposes. Action is organized in relation to processes of the system whereby ends are mutually consistent. Thus, in fully integratedsystems, the individual appearsas an expression of structures, despite the almost universal perception that structuresshould be viewed as a human behaviors located, unintegrated production.In that all meaningfulbehavioris structurally are irrational. This problem in Weber leads to the interpretation Weber as trapped of between an "ironcage" of purposiverationality,which is indifferentto humanaction, and a meaningless"decisionism"as the escape from structural constraint(see Habermas1984; Parsons 1937): This position is not greatly removed from that which he dismissed so mockingly when he addressedit in the writings of the Germanhistoricalschool. IN SYNTHESIS AND FRAGMENTATION SOCIAL THEORY 87 Each synthetic theorist sees this problem quite clearly in other would-be synthetic theorists, not only in Weber. Giddens, for example, argues that in his developed theory, Parson's actors are offered no more than the routinereproduction structures.He writes, of "[T7hereis no action in Parsons' 'actionframe of reference', only behaviour which is propelled by need dispositions or role expectations. The stage is set, but the actors only performaccording to scripts which have alreadybeen written out for them . . . men do not appear . . . as skilled and knowledgeable agents, as at least to some extent masters of their own fate" (1976, pp. 16-17; author's emphasis. Also see Habermas 1987, p. 235). "Behavior,"Giddens implies, is a positivistic category in which human beings are viewed as carriersof social structure,whereas "action"has the connotationthat social structuresare the product of human activity. It would appearthat Parsons, whatever his initialclaims, neglected the special qualityof humanbeings as "active, creative, evaluating subjects." Yet Giddens's own startingpoint is the same as that of Parsons. If we briefly trace his own development throughhis criticisms of Parsons, we shall see how he converges with Parsons on the deficiencies of that position. Giddens cannot sustain his criticism that Parsons's actors have no skill or knowledge. Indeed, these qualities are implicit in his own statementof Parsons's position. "Knowledge"would be necessary to "role expectations"; "skill" would be a condition of adequate"roleperformance."The problem is not the presence or absence of "skill"or "knowledge"but the view that these could overcome the problem of agents as "carriers" social structure.In fact, as Giddens develops his of role performancebecomes "action"ratherthan "behavior."He writes, "Parargument, sons's actor is . . . portrayedas an unthinkingdupe of his cultureand his interactionwith others as the enactmentof . . . need-dispositionsratherthan as, as it truly is, a series of skilled performances"(1976, p. 113). The criticism of Parsons is still that he neglects action, but now the action he neglects is associated with role performance.Parsons, it seems, recognizes only need dispositions. Giddens's own version of actors' skill and knowledge in everydaylife is that it consists of "practical"consciousness rather than "discursive"consciousness. The substance of practicalconsciousness is "routines,"and Giddensbelieves thatmodem social theorytends to overemphasize the level of actors' motivational commitment to the social systems reproducedin their practices. "Most elements of social practices," he writes, "are not directly motivated. Motivational commitment more typically involves the generalised integration of habitual practices, as reflexively monitored productions of interacting agents, with the basic security system of personality" (1979, p. 128; my emphases). It would appear that an adequate approachmust stress the importanceof habituatedrole of performanceand of need dispositions in the understanding social structures.In the light of this notion, it is not surprisingthat others have found in Giddens exactly what he criticizes in Parsons. Archer, for example, writes that Giddens "commits himself to the enormous coherence of the signification system, such that actors' inescapable use of it embroils everyone in its stable reproduction. . . we are now presentedwith anotheroverintegratedview of man" (1988, p. 87). The convergence of Giddens with Parsons is a consequence of the components of their positions, not of any personal attitudetowards the development of those components. LEVELS OF STRUCTUREAND ACTION "Synthesis,"or "integration,"is proposed as a means of unifying apparentlyantithetical categories, particularlycategories of action-as exemplified by "ends"-and structureas exemplified by "means"and "conditions."The collapse of "ends"as creative entities, 88 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY however, does not eliminate the dualism to which it was addressed.That dualism is the failure of structural statementsto account adequatelyfor important aspects of behavior. It would seem that whatever form of structureis proposed, antistructural, unconstrained experiences exist. As a consequence, one tendency in synthetic theory is to argue that structuresare abstractpossibilities not fully realized. Parsons, for example, distinguishes as between "perfectintegration" an analyticalconstructand the "concrete"circumstances of systems, which manifest strains and disturbances(see Parsons 1951). Giddens distinguishes between the "structural point of view" and that of "strategicconduct," arguing that what appears, from the viewpoint of structure,"as a normativelyco-ordinatedlegitimate order" represents contingent claims from the viewpoint of strategic action (see Giddens 1979, p. 86). Alexander, for his part, writes that "functionalismis concerned with integrationas a possibility and with deviance and processes of social control as facts. Equilibriumis taken as a reference point for functionalistsystems analysis, though not for participantsin actual social systems as such" (1985, p. 9). Integrated structures, accordingto this view, are feasible but unrealized. In the separationof the "abstract" from the "concrete"or "empirical,"every synthetic theoristmoves from a duality of structureand action to a tripartite division. Parsons, for between personality,social system, and culture(see Parsons 1951). example, distinguishes In this, he is followed by Alexanderand Giddens, thoughthe latteruses the termsperson, society, and structure(see Alexander1984; Giddens 1979).5An examinationof the reasons for introducinga level of social system between individualand structure(or culture) will help us to identify the incoherenceintrinsicto the general undertaking. The deviations from structureare not only personal and idiosyncraticbut also, in more importantinstances, collective and stable. The initial synthetictendency, groundedas it is in a theory of voluntaristicaction, was to argue that any behaviormight be rationalas of long as it met the technical requirements successful accomplishment.It was as if any individual could draw on knowledge for his or her peculiar purposes. The purposes of others, however (and therefore, for others, those of the individual),soon were recognized as a crucial aspect of knowledge. Thus, successful social behaviorcould not be viewed in terms of peculiarpurposes. That individualsact in peculiar,unsocial ways is recognized and is the basis of a distinction between "personality"and the higher levels of "social On system" and "structure." close examination, however, those peculiar aspects of personality always are subject to irrational,usually subconscious, processes.6 The behaviors that are most problematicfrom the perspective of structure,then, are those which are not easily assigned to deviant individuals.These are the stable behaviors of groups within a society which cannot be explainedby structural principlesbecause the purposes they embody seem to be at odds with purposes that could be drawn from a coherent knowledge form. The behaviors are stable in the sense that participantsbelieve they realize their objectives. Their apparentlydeviant values and prioritiesdo not bring them into open conflict with othergroupsin society. Because of such problematiccollective (or behaviors, the level of "social system"must be separatedfrom the level of "structure" "culture"). or The vertical separationof levels is an attemptto purge the structural culturallevel in of the explanatorydifficultiesassociatedwith the circumstances which it does not apply. 5 Parsonsoffers an additionallevel of "organism" deal with unmotivatedaspects of individualbehavior. In to addition, the differences in terminology are a potential source of confusion. We shall use the terms structure and culture throughoutas interchangeable(even though Parsons uses the term social structure to mean the specific organizationof a social system). 6 Most theorists turn to aspects of personality(Giddens 1979; Habermas1971; psychoanalysis for "resistant" Parsons 1959; Wrong 1961). IN SYNTHESISAND FRAGMENTATION SOCIALTHEORY 89 of Indeed, most theorists' "observations" "deviant,"yet stably reproduced,behaviorsare the initial impetus to arguingthe need for an action perspectivefoundedon the subjective meaning of behavior to actors. If behaviors at the levels of social system or personality were consistent with structural cultural)principles, there could be no statementof one (or level that did not imply simultaneouslythe substance of the other levels (Giddens, for example, seemed initially to claim this for his "duality"of structureand action). The distinctionbetween levels is made so that one can argue that additionalprocesses exist, which can operate at the "lower"levels at odds with those which might be expected on the basis of the operationof the "higher,"structural principles. We can illustratethis argumentwith referenceto neo-Marxistapproaches.Paradoxically, Marxism is the one major traditionwith an essentially transformative methodology, but the failure of its specific accounts of developmentand change has caused Marxist methodology to degenerate into forms of apologia virtually identical to the nonprogressive approachesto which it is ostensibly opposed. Thus neo-Marxistsconfrontthe problemof a "structure" defines a set of "objective"interestsof the proletariat,from which the that behaviors of those accepted as proletariandeviate in practice. The "deviant"actions, apparentlyunproblematically,are reproducedand thus are regarded as "subjectively" meaningful to actors themselves, although they are "objectively" meaningless.7 NeoMarxisttheoristsgo on to distinguishan abstract,structural level of "modeof production" and a concrete, lower level of "social formation"(see, for example, Althusser 1969; Poulantzas 1973; Wright 1985). The latter is organized in terms of principles that are adequate to the reproductionof day-to-day life, but in certain instances contradictthe "higher"-levelprinciples of the mode of production. Neo-Marxists may believe, in a formal sense, that "in the last instance"the principles of the mode of productionmust triumph,but, as Althussersays, "the lonely hour of the last instancenever comes" (1969, p. 113). Parsonsproposes a similar formulationwhereby "higher"-level possibilities are contradicted by "lower"-levelexigencies. He writes, [T]his problemmay be summedup as that of whethera completelypattern-consistent culturalsystem can be relatedto the exigencies both of personalities of the social and with its standards be adequately can system in such a way that complete"conformity" motivatedamong all the individualactorsin the social system. Here it may be merely assertedwithoutany attemptto demonstrate, such a limitingcase is incompatible that with thefundamental both of personalitiesand of social systems functionalimperatives (1951, p. 16; my emphasis). Parsons is not denying conformity with cultural principles in a diversity of individual experience; he merely denies complete conformity. This relative freedom from cultural determination,he argues, gives personalityand social systems their meaning as distinct levels. At the same time, Parsons argues that there exist imperatives of interdependence, specifying consistentrelationshipsamong levels, and imperativesof independence,at odds with that consistency; interdependence contradictsany integrityof levels, while indepen7 Recalling the centralthemes of social theory,neo-Marxistwriterswarnof the consequencesof a "positivistic" determinantsand argue for the importanceof "praxis."Anderson, for example, overemphasison "structural" and as proposesthat "structure subject . . . have always been interdependent categories"(1983, p. 55), but finds that Marxist and post-Marxist approaches are divided between a "rhetoricalabsolutism"of structureand a fetishism" of the subject. Like other synthetic theorists, Andersonaccepts the categories, arguing "fragmented for "a theory of their relations. Such a theory, historicallydeterminate and sectorallydifferentiated,could only be differentiatedin a dialectical respect for their interdependence" (1983, p. 55). 90 THEORY SOCIOLOGICAL dence contradictswhat they have in common. Insofaras the levels of society and personality contain both interdependentand independentelements, they contain principles at odds with each other within each level.8 Personalityconsists of structurallymeaningful definitions of self and of antistructural imperatives;society (or social system) consists of collective activities. As the elaboration structuralrole expectations and of antistructural similar processes can be found in Alexander and in of our argument will make clear, Giddens. The statement of structureis not itself insulated from problems by these processes. problemas well as an individualor social problem, Every issue of meaning is a structural theorist goes on to develop contradictoryprinciples at the level of and each synthetic structure.We shall returnto this point shortly;at that time we shall see that all attempts from the explanatoryproblems fail, and that each theorist to insulate the "structural" ultimatelypresents functional, or structural,componentsas mutuallycontradictory. STRUCTURALAND FUNCTIONALIMPERATIVES theories as an At this point we need a slight diversion in order to survey complementary aspect of the movement towardsthe acceptanceof experienceas essentially contradictory. The recognition of division within each level gives rise to competing, complementary theories of action which argue for a horizontaldistinctionof forms of action, as well as for a vertical distinctionof levels. We have arguedthat all approaches,drawn as they are from an underlying contradiction, are present in each approach. As we shall see, the culmination of both the synthetic and the complementaryapproaches is that they are broughtto both horizontaland vertical contradictions. The most sophisticateddevelopmentof a complementary approachis found in the work of Habermas. He attempts to argue for a horizontal division between two analytically distinct forms of action. Habermasbelieves, as do synthetic theorists, that social theory has been dominatedby a positivistic, "system-theoretical" paradigmwhich is concerned with technical issues of action as the expression of systems. He argues, however, that there also exists a parallel, but underdeveloped,"action-theoretical" paradigmwhich is concerned with action orientedto the productionof meaning, or reaching understanding. The focus of this paradigm is communicativeaction, which is distinguished from the purposive-rationalaction of the system-theoreticalapproach(see Habermas1984, 1987). Both paradigmsare necessary, he states, but in contrastto synthetic theorists-who also recognize this dualism as it operatedin the history of social theory, seeking to integrate 8 infuse the neo-Marxisttreatmentof mode Obviously, similar problemsof independenceand interdependence of production and social formation. Poulantzas, for example, writes that different "levels" of structuresand effectiveness inside the unity of a mode practices"presenttheir own specificity, relative autonomyand particular of productionand of a historically determinedsocial formation"(1973, p. 41). Ironically, critics of Marxism who are committed to a synthetic approachargue that this sort of statementin neo-Marxismis incoherent,even though it converges with the position they are proposing(see, for example, Alexander 1982b; Lockwood 1992). Alexander, for example, writes, [E]very major revision of Marx's thought moves back and forth between the two equally unacceptable horns of the "Marxiandilemma." On the one hand, if it is to converge with the original theory, the revision must introduce determinism"in the last instance." This, of course, can only be achieved by partly neutralizingthe revisions themselves. On the other hand, if the theorists will not neutralizetheir contributions,and if, at the same time, they wish to avoid the direct opposition to Marx's theory that would place them outside the Marxist tradition,there is only one option available, they must leave their revisions largely unspecified and, in the process, open up their theories to serious indeterminacy.A theoretical revision of Marx can only resolve this choice between indeterminacyand the last instance only if it takes neither option; to that degree it moves beyond the boundariesof Marxism itself (1982b, p. 345). Beyond the boundariesof Marxism lies the very same formulation! IN SYNTHESIS AND FRAGMENTATION SOCIALTHEORY 91 its constituentelements-Habermas believes they must be developed separatelyas distinct forms of action in orderto clarify more fully the relationshipbetween them. Habermas's distinction between paradigmstakes what appearsto be problematic, or "independent,"at each level in the synthetic approachand attemptsto separateit from what appearsto be consistent across each level. As a consequence, he gives to commuto nicative action the form thatothershave attributed Parsons'stheoryof action. Habermas writes, "[U]nder the functional aspect of mutual understanding,communicativeaction serves to transmitand renew culturalknowledge;underthe aspect of coordinatingaction, it serves social integrationand the establishmentof solidarity;finally underthe aspect of socialization, communicative action serves the formationof personal identities" (1987, p. 137). Giddens views statements like this as indicative of Habermas's convergence with Parsons. Habermas, he believes, accepts "Parsons''model of society', which accords a the centralityto values and normsin social integration; thesis that society and personality in are homologous, or 'interpenetrate'; the significanceattributed 'internalisation' to and the theory of socialisation"(1982, pp. 159-60). Just as Giddens fails to recognize Parsons's emphasis on the independentoperationof levels, so he fails to addressthe role of the "system-theoretical" paradigmin Habermas'sapproach.This fact, however, does not really help Habermas,just as it does not help Parsons. His problemsare other than those attributed him by Giddens;they are problems that all of these writers share. to action Habermas'sparallel hierarchiesof communicativeaction and purposive-rational are associated with normativestructuresof "innernature,"on the one hand, and material of structures "outernature,"on the other. He believes that the lattercame to dominatein Parsons's theory, despite an early recognition of the significance of the former. Thus Habermaswrites of "the simultaneouslevelling of the once central distinction between functional and social integration;the two are broughttogether under 'integration'.This shift makes unrecognizable the seams that resulted from joining the two paradigmsof 'action' and 'system'. Parsons makes the important-but nowhere explicitly acknowledged-decision to drop the concept of a social integrationestablished via values and norms and to speak from now on only of 'integration' in general" (Habermas 1987, p. 241). Habermastakes from Lockwood the distinctionbetween"functional" system integration and social integration,thathe overemphasizedsocial integration the expense of a proper at developmentof the concept of system integration(see Lockwood 1964). Neithercriticism adequatelyrepresentsParsons'sposition (althoughthe fact thateach can be made indicates problems in the approachesof Parsons and his critics alike). Like Habermas, Parsons came to propose that the "realisticexigencies" of personalityand social system which are at odds with the "interdependencies" cultural processes form a parallel hierarchy. of Parsonswrites, of [A]ny processualoutcomeresultsfrom the operation pluralfactors,all of which are if thereis scientific them. .. Thiselementary reasonto distinguish mutually independent truthdoes not, however, precludethe hierarchical orderingof the factors. We have hierarchies-those of necessaryconditionsand of two distinguished basic, interrelated the control. .... In the sense, andonly thatsense, of emphasizing importance cybernetic of the cybemeticallyhighest elements in patterning action systems, I am a cultural rather thana social determinist determinist, (1966, p. 113). Just as the "ideational"is argued to be "counterfactual" its deviation from the in the implication of hierarchyin the statementof "practicalsystems" is that "practical," 92 THEORY SOCIOLOGICAL status. Lockwood, for example, argues that they can have an equivalent "counterfactual" certainpotentialitiesof practicalsystems need not apply. He writes of the possibility of a lack of fit between an institutionalorder and its materialstructurewhereby "the material substructurein such a case facilitates the development of social relationshipswhich, if actualized would directly threaten the existing institutional order" (1964, p. 252; my emphasis).9 Habermasmakes a similar claim with regardto societal "learningprocesses." He writes that there are two conditions of learning:"on the one hand, unresolved system problems that represent challenges; on the other, new levels of learning that have already been achieved in world views and are lately available but not yet incorporatedinto action systems and thus remain institutionallyinoperative"(1979, p. 121). The hierarchiesof "inner"and "outer"nature,then, each have abstract,unrealizedpotentialitiesand concrete circumstancesthat deviate from those potentialities. Whereas "nonnormative," practical intrusions intrusions"explain"the nonrealizationof normativepotentialities,"normative" "explain"the unrealized system potentialities. Two hierarchiesare no better than one. The statement of two hierarchies is an attempt to deal with the contradictionof one hierarchy, but the consequence is that contradictionis multiplied. It now defines both hierarchiesand the relationshipbetween them. Within the two hierarchies,the level of the personalityreceives less attentionthan the two higher levels of social system and culture(or society and structure).We would expect this because the peculiar characteristicsare of this level idiosyncratic and, from the perspective of social behavior, irrational.Parsons proposes four functional prerequisites that are necessary to the constitution and operationof any social system. Two of these imperatives-pattern maintenanceand integration-are concernedwith normativeissues; the two others-adaptation and goal attainment-are concerned with the nonnormative. This perspective gives us the horizontal distinction of hierarchies. Similarly, two are concerned with cultural (or structural)principles-integration and goal attainment-and two-pattern maintenanceand adaptation-with society issues of integrityin a potentially hostile lower-level environment.This perspectivegives us the vertical division of levels. According to Alexander (1984, 1988a), these are the categories of Parsons's most satisfactorytreatmentand are necessary to any adequateapproach.Adequateor not, they his are certainly found in other approaches.Notwithstanding criticismof Parsons, Haberand similarly associates them with his mas accepts the four functional prerequisites normativehierarchyof communicativeaction into nonnormative hierarchyof purposiveare necessary to any statementof action-theoreticaland rational action. Apparentlythey paradigmsratherthan indicatingthatthe latterparadigmdominatesover system-theoretical the former. Habermaswrites, [W]e [can] analyze events and states from the point of view of their dependencyon and functionsof social integration Parsons'svocabulary, integration pattern-mainte(in of the systemserve as limitingconditions. while the non-normative components nance) From the system perspective,we thematizea society's steeringmechanismsand the extensionof the scope of contingency.We analyzeevents and statesfrom the point of (in view of their dependencyon functionsof system integration Parsons'svocabulary, while the goal values serve as data(1976, pp. 4-5). and adaptation goal attainment), 9 Lockwood illustrates the unrealized potentialities of practical relationshipsin a Marxist division between where neither has the force of necessity. This is the very position to which neo"base" and "superstructure," Marxists are brought in their attempts to argue for the continued validity of Marxist categories despite their nonapplicabilityin specific circumstances. IN SYNTHESIS AND FRAGMENTATION SOCIAL THEORY 93 Giddens's hostility to Parsons's scheme of functional prerequisitesis apparentlyunequivocal. He writes that "the term 'function' . . . is of no use to the social sciences or history; indeed it would do no harm to ban it altogetheras any sort of technical term" features";they have the (1981, p. 18). He proposes in its place the concept of "structural same substance as do functionalprerequisitesin Parsons and Habermas.Giddens writes, "[F]our structuralfeatures are implicated in the reproductionof all social systems, and simultaneouslysupply the basic logic of a classificationof institutions"(1981, p. 47; my can emphasis). He states furtherthat "structure be conceptualizedabstractlyas two aspects of rules-normative elements and codes of signification.Resources are also of two kinds: authorative resources which derive from the coordinationof the activity of humanagents, and allocative resources, which stem from control of materialproducts or of aspects of the materialworld"(1984, p. xxxi). It would seem that functionis bannedonly as a term. Just as the contradictory of and requirements interdependence independenceundermine the coherence of different levels and of separatehierarchies, so functionalprerequisites are similarly incoherent. If they were merely the categories of a descriptive approachto societies, then it might be argued that they could serve a heuristicpurpose whereby the extent of their realizationin practicewould be an "empirical" issue. Each theoristsuggests that this is so in claiming that each may operateindependentlyof the others. Parsons, for example, argues that "these four dimensions are conceived to be orthogonal;their values are independentlyvariablein the sense thatchange of state with respect to any one cannot be interpretedto have an automaticallygiven relation to change of state in any of the others (except so far as this relation comes to be known and formulatedas a law of the system)" (1959, p. 631).10At the same time, however, each writeris also suggesting that meeting all four prerequisites(at least to some extent) is definitive of a society or social system. After all, Parsons calls them prerequisites, while Giddens argues that they are "implicatedin the reproductionof all social systems" (1981, p. 47). Neitherthe independenceof orthogonaldimensionsnor the mutualnecessity of functions can be established. That both are argued derives from the contradictory characterof the principlesor functions. As a consequence, theoristscome to argue that each principle, far from being either independent from each of the others or in a relationshipof mutual necessity with each of those others, actually requires the negation of the othersfor full realization. Just as Parsonsarguedthat there were "imperatives" personalityand social of system which limit the complete realization of culture, so he believes that there are imperativesof functions which are inconsistentwith their mutualrealization. He writes, "[I]t is also true that maximizationof all four, and probablyof any two, is not possible in the same state of any given system" (1959, p. 631).11 Alexanderhas said that functionalismis predicatedon "integration a possibility,"but as here Parsons is founding functionalism on its impossibility! The "interdependence" of functionalimperatives,or structural if principles, is held to be contradictory; all functions are implicated in all social systems, a necessary feature of human societies is that they are contradictory.For this reason Giddens writes that "structural contradictionrefers to 10 In The Structureof Social Action, the claim of generaltheoryin the action frameof referencemade possible the formulationof such "analyticallaws." Such laws, Parsons argued, state "a uniform mode of relationship between the values of two or more analytical elements" (1937, p. 622). Further,"analyticalelements, once clearly defined, will be found to have certainuniformmodes of relationto each other which hold independently of any one particularset of their values" (1937, p. 36). 1 Habermasand Alexander also argue for the mutual inconsistency of functional prerequisites, but in the context of a denial of Parsons's similar argument. Alexander writes that Parsons "demonstratesan alarming propensity to present 'adaptive' and 'goal attainment'institutions as facilitating the realization of norms and values, neglecting theirfunctional capacityfor antithesisand negation vis-a-vis normativeideals"(1984, p. 231). Habermaswrites, "Parsonshas no theoreticaltools with which to explain the resistance that cultural patterns with their own independentlogics offer to functional imperatives"(1987, p. 231). 94 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY the constitutivefeaturesof human societies. I suggest that structural principlesoperate in contradiction.What I mean by this is that structural principles operate in terms of each other but also contraveneeach other"(1984, p. 193). Giddens's"dualityof structure" offered (as were Parsons'sactionframeof reference was in its initial statement, and Habermas'scomplementarytheories of action) as a solution to the dualism of subjectand object, individualand society. Giddenshas come full circle, but now he accepts the substanceof that dualism, writing, I wantto suggestthe following,as a fundamental in theorem: all formsof society,human relation to nature . . . the "contradictory beings exist in contradictory unity"that is man's distinctiveness from naturesustainsthe accommodations reachedwith it, and the modes of controlto which natureis made subject.But the relationbetweenDasein and the continuityof Being is always mediated:by society, or the institutions termsof in is which, in the duality of structure,social reproduction carriedon. The existential contradiction humanexistence thus becomes translated of into structural contradiction which is reallyits only medium(1979, p. 161; author'semphasis). Not incidental to this undertakingis the development that has taken Giddens from the dualismsto social contradiction startingpoint which offered the solution to contradictory as the defining characteristicof human existence. There are many hopeful starts; each ends in contradiction. CONCLUSION In social theory, the cycle from integrationto disintegrationand back again is not, as it is usually presented, an uneasy relationshipbetween distinct theoretical traditions and philosophical presuppositions,but the working through of the internaldeficiencies of a single dominant conception of social theory. Contemporarysocial theory is formed in contradiction, and each approachis an expression from within that contradiction. The of explain the different, and seemingly quite distinct, general characteristics contradiction theoreticalclaims associated with each approach. Contradictionconsists of mutually exclusive but entailed categories. Attempts at synthesis reveal their antitheticalcharacter; attemptsto divide approachesand their categories reveal their entailment.The entailmentof the and to set them up as distinct undertakings in consists of the mutualnecessity andthe "overlap," certainrespects, divergentapproaches of their categories. A stress on this point leads to synthesis as a theoreticalstrategy,but, of course, entailmentis only one side. Mutualexclusivityof categoriesexplains the move toward fragmentationand separate development. Because both are contained within a mistakenenterprise,an emphasis on one tends to give way to the other as it is developed and as its inadequaciesbecome obvious. Thus, as syntheticprojectsfail, scholars attempt to make the components of their disintegrationthe bases of mutuallyexclusive, compleof mentaryelements in the understanding social behavior. This process involves a claim the that each element can be internallyconsistent, contradicting other only externally,but we have shown that accepting contradictory categoriesas necessaryin explanationlocates contradictionwithin each category as well as between them. As theories develop, it is impossible to keep the separateelements apart;each element occurs in the other as its negation. We have seen how contradictionsare embodied in the different categories of social (or theory-structure and action;levels of structure culture),social system, andpersonality; functional imperatives (or structuralfeatures) of social systems. It seems obvious that IN SYNTHESIS AND FRAGMENTATION SOCIALTHEORY 95 contradictory theorycould not advanceexplanation.Yet when we are faced with the reality of contradictionin social scientific constructions,it is accepted that contradictiondefines social science. Smart can stand for many, including (as we have seen) Giddens, against whom he believes he is arguingwhen he writes, [A]t the basis of the humansciences is a conceptionof man as both subjectand object and . . . this dualismis a precondition the field of inquiry.As such thereforeno of resolution synthesisof the dualismor dualitymaybe locatedwithinthe fieldof inquiry or of the humansciences. To considerthe conceptionof man as both subjectand object, and the analoguesof action and structure theirrespectivederivativesociologies as and a problem is awaitingsynthesisor resolution, to pose for solutionthatwhichmustremain insolublewithinthe termsof referenceof the humansciences (1982, p. 121). This embrace of contradictionis exemplified most clearly in postmodernism.Lyotard proposesthat social theoristsshould give up their false quest for generalityand coherence, for the "grand narrative"that will explain society. Social theorists, he argues, have a "nostalgiafor the whole and the one" (1984, p. 81) when they seek to reducethe complex of particularities social existence to a single scheme. Similarly, accordingto Baudrillard, "social reality" is a "chaotic constellation"that is "unpresentable" the terms of the in standardsociological theories (1983, p. 4). Lyotardclaims that instead we should "wage a war on totality; let us be witnesses to the unpresentable; us activate the difference let and save the honor of the name" (1984, p. 82). because social existence Ultimately the argumentis that theories must be contradictory is contradictory. But how could we apprehendthe "true" nature of social existence independentlyof the social theories mobilized to account for it? It is an unwarranted empiricism that accepts the incoherence of the social theorist's categories as describing social reality ratherthan theoreticalconfusion.12In fact, what postmoderntheorists represent as a response to "generaltheory"and its flawed concernwith "totality" the failure is of general theory. Stated simply, postmodemismis the acceptancethat theories which are descriptivelyinadequatein their own termsare, in that inadequacy,descriptivelyadequate as statementsof social existence. The substanceof the claims of postmodernism does not lie in the self-evident failure of general social theory to meet the exigencies of social life in the sense that its categories are irrelevant, or less than fully relevant, but in the conception that its internalflaws are the relevantfeatures in understandingsocial experience. This point explains why postmodernism,in confrontingthe inadequaciesof "general theory,"does not move to the need for a greateradequacybut accepts its contradictory particularities.Whateverits strictures,"generalsocial theory"in its failures is "postmodis em," just as "postmodernism" founded on the failures of "generaltheory." At the beginning of this paperwe offered a differentapproachto the theoreticaltask in with the attitude sociology. We can contrastthe social scientificacceptanceof contradiction that obtains in the physical sciences. In making this comparison, we are not committing ourselves to a form of positivism. Although new, postpositivist philosophies of science have challenged the standardaccounts of physical science, the explanatorydrive remains Baudrillard'saffirmationof the "chaoticconstellation"of reality, for example, evokes Marx's statementin the Grundrisse to the effect that the representationof a "chaotic whole" is a consequence of an uncritical Marx writes, "[I]t seems to be correctto begin with the real and the concrete ... acceptanceof "appearances." However, on closer examination this proves false" (1973, p. 100). The consequence of such a "beginning," according to Marx, is a "chaoticconception of a whole" (p. 100). 12 96 THEORY SOCIOLOGICAL firmly tied to problem solving as the creative activity of science.13To be sure, physical scientists will engage in all sorts of devices to "fit up" their theories, but the point is that Whereproblems they must addresstheirproblemsas intrinsicto their own understandings. lie and how they are to be addressed are not given a priori, but mutual coherence of theoreticalstatements, including their empiricalinstances, remainsa condition of explanatory adequacy. Naturalscientists must accept any problem as their problem-that is, as lying within their constructs as an indication of specific inadequacies. A new unity is possible only by creatively solving the problem that occasioned the separation of the "general"from the "particular." What, then, is so peculiar about the human sciences that it seems to excuse its practitioners the struggle with what is contradictory?How do social theorists come to claim that what they do not understandcould not be brought to sense? Elsewhere we have examined at some length what we called the "social scientific fallacy," whereby social failed explanations theoristsavoid what physical scientists accept-the need to reconstruct The substanceof this fallacy is the claim that behaviors (Holmwood and Stewart 1991). which are inexplicablein the categories initiallymobilizedto explain themcan be rendered intelligiblewithoutaddressingthe substanceof the social scientist's constructionsin which the behaviors occur as a problem. This claim is bound up with a distinction between physical and social science, one which is contained in the very distinction between and categories of "structure" "action." of the physical sciences merely reflect routine processes, it is Whereas the objects argued, human beings intervene in the world and thereby can produce novel and discontinuous effects. In contrast to what holds true for physical scientists, social scientists apparentlymay regardany apparentexplanatoryproblemas reflectingthe peculiarnature of theirobjects-that is, as derivingfrom their statusas humansubjectscapableof freedom and choice. Conversely, it is believed, any decision by actors to behave differently need not bear on the theoreticaladequacy of the constructpreviously held to obtain. It could have been "true"if it had been "chosen."On this basis it is statedthattheoreticalconstructs can be valid despite their lack of applicationto the specific behaviors to which they are of addressed.Thus it is believed that the social sciences need not requirea reconstruction theoretical objects and relationships; a lack of integration of the theoretical and the empiricalis regardedas definitive of social inquiryratherthan as an occasion for creative reformulation. distinctionbetween the "genAlexander, for example, argues for a "presuppositional" as eral" and the "particular" the basis of his attemptto establish the integrityand "autonomy" of general theory. He writes, "[t]hat theorizing at the general level-theorizing withoutreferenceto particular empiricalproblemsor distinctivedomains-is a significant, a crucial endeavor should, it seems to me, be beyond dispute"(1988b, p. 77). It indeed, seems to us that this sort of claim, far from being beyond dispute, is at the heart of the current malaise in social theory. To see what is wrong with such a claim from the perspectiveof postpositive philosophy of science, we need merely contrastit with Lakotos's criteria(1970, p. 116) for the replacementof one researchprogramby anotherwhen they all refer to superior resources in explaining empirical problems significant within each program. Stephen Turnerrecently argued that there are defensible successes in social science claims of "generaltheory"(see Turner1992). This, which are at odds with the "utopian" 13 The "standard" view of science is associated with a conception of science as a set of universally true statements of externally and independentlyestablished objects, where scientific development consists of the gradualaccumulationof true statements. The growing challenge to this view culminated with Kuhn's (1962) work. For a general discussion, see Hesse (1980), Newton-Smith(1981), and Papineau(1979). SYNTHESIS AND FRAGMENTATION SOCIALTHEORY IN 97 we believe, is the positive directionthatis necessaryin the social sciences, but the problem of general theory is not merely that its claims are "utopian."They are also contradictory in their own terms. In answer to the question "Whatis generalized in general theory?" we are now able to answer that "generaltheory"generalizes particularexplanatoryfailures.14 For this reason we offer no alternativein the same terms as those of the theories we are criticizing. To the question "How, then, would you relate structureto action?"the answer must be that the division of these categories is an indication of problems in sociological explanations, not the means of solving them. The categoriesderive from and lead us back to incoherence. This paper has shown that it is impossible to sustain the claim that contradictioncan be explained by mere difference in forms of social behavior. The proponentsof "action"present the rigid adherenceto "deviant"observationsas an appropriateform of humility, on the part of social scientists, toward the subjective meanings of actors, but in truth this adherence is an unwarranted privileging of social scientists' incompetence. We need to see knowledge as an expression of humanaccomplishment.Knowledge is not complete; there are problems to be solved, new resources to be created. The true natureof humancreativityis this expansion of resources.Where are we to locate creative activity? Obviously it must address the substantivefailures in our understanding,which set limits to our competence. From our argumentit follows that every occasion on which the division of the general from the particularseems descriptivelynecessary in the social sciences is (as in the physical sciences) an occasion on which that descriptionis unsatisconsist of representations that are neither thefactory. All "contradictory particularisms" oreticallyacceptablenor adequatelydefinedempirically.We requirea recognitionof every contradictionas an explanatoryproblem. If physical science is to be takenas the exemplarof generaltheories, we must recognize thatneitherphysical science nor social science can sensibly be regardedas a closed system of truths, more or less adequately realized. Both must be viewed as a process of the dynamic solution of located problems, which constantlyredefinesthe most general categories. The achievements of physical science are massive and do not depend on a final explanatoryadequacy. The temporaryperceptionof generalitythat scientific achievement produces exists in relation to the solution of specific problems. All forms of science advance as they solve located problems;in that advance, the ideas of their natureand of appropriatemethodologies change. The substance of the changes is not a cumulative of and approachto an unfoldingreality but the radicalredefinition understanding standards of adequacy. A conception of "totality"is not necessary if one is to move toward adequacy and coherence by solving specific problems. The orientationto the progressive task in the social sciences does not requirea generalset of principles,or frameof reference, specified in advance and external to specific forms of social scientific explanation. The irony of social theory is that despite an apparentacceptanceof the new understandcontemporary are ings provided by postpositivist theories of science, these understandings contravened in theories of social science. Whereaspostpositivistphilosophy of science is antifoundational, the proponentsof "generaltheory"in the social sciences are implicitly offering a foundationalsocial theory (albeit of final explanatoryinadequacy!).Where social theorists We do not have the space for a detailed treatmentof a specific explanatoryproblem which would show how the characteristicsof "general theory" are reproducedin a particularempirical case (see Holmwood and Stewart 1991). Even so, our brief example of the emergence of distinct "levels of analysis" in neo-Marxist accounts of capitalism suggests the practical context in which "meta-theoretical" claims emerge. Indeed, Habermas'sand Lockwood's claims for the abstractpotentialitiesof practicalsystems which need not be actualized are illustratedby reference to the Marxist conception. 14 98 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY are explicitly antifoundational,as in the case of postmodernism,they deny the coherence and integrationof theoreticalcategories and relationswhich, for postpostivisttheorists of science, are conditions of explanatoryadequacy. Our object in this paper has been to expose the contradictory natureof moder social as an antidote to its unprogressive definition of social issues. Social scientific theory achievements exist, but modem social theory has served to retardrather than advance social science at precisely those points where the exercise of creative reformulationis necessary. Moder social theory, in its various forms, has advanced the acceptance of contradictionas the substanceof social life. Although we attack social theorists for projecting their own confusions as adequate statementsof the natureof social existence, we are not denying that contradictionsare a feature of social life. Social theory is scarcely the only social practice in which contradictions can occur. In most areas, however, contradictionsare considered unresourceful and unacceptableas accounts of experience. The resolution of a contradictionmay not suggest itself immediately, but until it arrives, bringing an increase in resources and competence, the contradictorysubstance of experience is lived as incompetence. Social theorists attemptto rename incompetenceas human creativityor to promote it as human destiny. We hope we have shown that the contradictionwhich social theoristsembrace so readily is not beyond resolution and that the true issue for social science is not to accept or celebrate its own problems as definitive, but to solve them creatively in addressingthe solution of other social problems. 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