Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures

Citation

Joas, H., & Knöbl, W. (2009). Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures (A. Skinner, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book has an introduction and twenty lectures, 618 pages in all, and the lecture format is kept: the text addresses an audience directly and recaps as it goes. The authors say it grew out of a lecture course first conceived at the University of Chicago in 1985 and taught for years in Germany and elsewhere. Its subject is social theory from the end of the Second World War to the present, drawn from English, French and German writing.

Introduction; Lecture I: What is theory?

The preface explains the lecture origins of the book and its two target audiences, students of the social sciences and non-specialist readers. Lecture I starts from a question some readers may find odd: students who have taken courses on Durkheim, Mead and Weber have met different theories of society, so what do we mean by theory? The lecture prepares the criteria that later lectures use to compare approaches.

Lectures II–IV: Parsons

Three lectures are given to Talcott Parsons. Lecture II presents him as the classical attempt at synthesis and starts from the founding figures (Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, Mead and others) whom readers will already know. Lecture III follows his path toward normativist functionalism, surveying the criticisms that his early work The Structure of Social Action attracted. Lecture IV follows the elaboration of his theory and the tension between his theory of action and his functionalist theory of order, which, in the authors' judgment, he never integrated.

Lectures V–VIII: Rivals to Parsons

Lecture V covers neo-utilitarianism, including rational choice and exchange theory. Lectures VI and VII cover the two interpretive approaches, symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology, whose conception of action differs from both the utilitarian and the Parsonian model. Lecture VIII covers conflict sociology and conflict theory. According to the opening of Lecture VIII, all three earlier schools wrestled mainly with Parsons's conception of action while saying less about social order and social change.

Lectures IX–XII: Grand syntheses

Lecture IX introduces Habermas and critical theory and the shift of theoretical production toward Europe; Lecture X turns to his theory of communicative action. Lecture XI presents Niklas Luhmann's more radical functionalism, and Lecture XII Anthony Giddens's theory of structuration and the new British sociology of power.

Lectures XIII–XVI: Renewals and French thought

Lecture XIII shows that Parsonian thought was not simply abandoned, through its renewal in modernization theory. Lecture XIV widens the geography to structuralism and poststructuralism, and Lecture XV treats Pierre Bourdieu, whom the authors distinguish by his close linking of theory and empirical research. Lecture XVI gathers the French anti-structuralists Castoriadis, Touraine and Ricoeur.

Lectures XVII–XX: Feminism, modernity, pragmatism and the present

Lecture XVII treats feminist social theories in the plural, since they draw on different traditions. Lecture XVIII deals with debates on a crisis of modernity, with Beck, Bauman, Bellah and the liberal and communitarian argument. Lecture XIX takes up neo-pragmatism, linked back to Mead and the Chicago School. The closing lecture, "How things stand", offers a picture of the present situation rather than a verdict, noting that new syntheses added to the stock of approaches without dominating the field.

Key Concepts

Lectures I–VIII

• Theory in the plural: Lecture I's starting point that sociologists work with different theories of the same facts.
• Normativist functionalism: Parsons's theory of action and order, the reference point for the next several lectures.
• Neo-utilitarianism and rational choice: attempts to revive a utility-oriented model of action that Parsons had dismissed.
• Interpretive approaches: the shared label for symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology.
• Conflict theory: the subject of Lecture VIII.

Lectures IX–XX

• Synthesis: the theme running through Habermas, Luhmann, Giddens and Bourdieu.
• Communicative action: Habermas's central theory in Lecture X.
• Structuration: Giddens's attempt in Lecture XII to link action and structure.
• Structuralism and poststructuralism: the French tradition in Lectures XIV and XVI.
• Modernity: the theme of Lecture XVIII and of the modernization theory in Lecture XIII.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Wide geographical range. The authors cover English, French and German writing, and Lecture XIV explains why the account up to that point has centred on American, British and German writing before widening to France.
• Critical rather than neutral. Robert Bellah, quoted by Cambridge, praises the way the authors combine exposition and criticism and are fair even to positions far from their own. Rob Stones in the Journal of Classical Sociology calls it an intellectually heavyweight textbook for graduate students and professors.
• A clear organising plot. The lectures follow a chronological story (Parsons, his critics, European syntheses) and then branch to France, feminism, modernity and pragmatism.
• Teaching origins. The text is shaped by years of lecturing, with recaps that look back over earlier lectures and orient the reader.

Limitations

• Length and density. At 618 pages the book is a long commitment, and Stones calls it a heavyweight textbook.
• Post-1945 focus. The book covers theory from the end of the Second World War, so the classical authors have to be learned elsewhere; the account assumes readers already know them.
• Summary, not primary text. Lectures summarise theorists' arguments; they are no substitute for reading Parsons, Habermas or Bourdieu directly.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the book on the introductory sociology list that surveys theory since 1945, rather than offering a first course. Introduction to Sociology 3e, Giddens and Sutton's Sociology and Bauman and May's Thinking Sociologically are first courses that cover the discipline in general; Mills's The Sociological Imagination is a short classic argument about connecting private troubles and public issues. Joas and Knöbl suit a second stage, once those basics and the classical authors are familiar.

Bourdieu and Wacquant's An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology is a book-length introduction to one theorist. Lecture XV offers a short account of Bourdieu in the context of rival approaches, so the two can be read side by side. The same goes for Giddens, whose theory of structuration occupies Lecture XII.

How to Use This Book

It is meant for students who have finished an introductory sociology course and know the classical authors, as well as postgraduates who want a map of modern theory. Begin with the introduction and Lecture I, then read the Parsons lectures (II–IV), since most of the later lectures react to him.

After that, follow your syllabus: Lectures V–VIII for rivals to Parsons, IX–XV for the major syntheses, XVI–XIX for French, feminist, modernity and pragmatist debates. Lecture XX works as a summary at the end of a course. Read each lecture next to a short primary text by the theorist concerned, and use the comparisons between schools when writing essays on contemporary debates.