Social theory

Social theory is an academic term that refers to the models and frameworks used to study and interpret social facts and events. Although it is often related to the discipline of sociology, social theory is an interdisciplinary field that draws from multiple academic disciplines. As an interdisciplinary approach, social theory explores a broad range of social phenomena, such as human culture, the development and changes of a society, power and social structures, social behavior, intercultural dynamics, social and political transformation, public health issues, gender, class, and ethnicity, among others. The results from studies in the field of social theory are social methods and frameworks that cross a wide spectrum of disciplines, including critical theory, political science, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, marketing, and many others. Today, social theory remains connected to a methodology of sociological systematic analysis but is far from a unified academic endeavor.

Background

The origins of social theory are diffuse but can be traced to ancient history when ancient Greek philosophers and historians attempted to explain the human experience. However, it is generally considered that the modern foundations of the field were established in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Enlightenment era. During this period, knowledge based on objective scientific methods—systematic observation, testing, measurable facts, correction, and hypothesis—became the accepted paradigm for understanding social phenomena and its context. Prior to the Enlightenment, during the medieval era, scholars had sought to understand the world around them through oral histories, narration, and religious scripture. Enlightenment-era scholars combined empiricism with philosophy to guide their theories, giving way to what would eventually become the social sciences.

In the nineteenth century social theory became strongly aligned with the new scientific philosophy known as positivism. Positivism and its related branches are rooted in the idea of scientific knowledge as the only valid perspective on objective reality. Moreover, this philosophy adhered to the rigorous logic of mathematical sciences. Positivism became a very influential social theory during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Scholars at the time wanted the field of social theory to be taken seriously and considered closer to the traditional sciences than to the humanities. Many wanted to be considered social scientists rather than philosophers or humanists and emphasized objectivity over subjectivity and perception. Theories that follow positivist tenets persist to this day and coexist with theories that emphasize a more subjective perspective.

In the twentieth century, social theory scholars began to move toward an interest in modern mass popular culture, and the field branched out into different schools of thought. Some of its major representatives were the Frankfurt School in Germany; the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham, United Kingdom; and the fields of French structuralism, poststructuralism, and deconstruction. In time the theoretical fields continued to branch out, and the postmodernist, postcolonialist, and decolonialist schools of thought arose, among many other interdisciplinary theories in the arena of the social sciences.

Social Theory Today

Perspectives and topics of study have changed over time. Social theory today is in a constant state of evolution. It has witnessed the revival of traditional forms of theory, such as hermeneutics and various perspectives of Marxism, as well as the emergence of new approaches, such as ethnology. There are also theoretical traditions that arose from major language groups, such as the British, German, and French schools of thought. Although all share the purpose of developing social theory, different tendencies exist within the parameters of all major schools of thought.

Despite the differences between intellectual perspectives in contemporary social theory today, the importance of subjective experience is considered paramount. Different theories help shape how researchers study social phenomena. For example, theories based on scientific thought view social phenomena through the perspective of the relationship between subject and object. Such theories tend to favor approaches that look at social macro levels—how society affects individuals, for instance—or micro levels, how individuals understand and create the world they live in. Theories based on subjectivities, on the other hand, are interested in understanding the dynamics of identity and the relationship between subjects—between the “us” and “the others,” for instance.

When social theories conflict it is often due to the existence of disparities in research strategies and ways of viewing the subject matter. Some of the conflicts have arisen because of the dissatisfaction felt by many scholars who perceive that traditional social theory emphasizes a Western perspective. Social theory, in this view, studies social phenomena—including in non-Western societies—through a Eurocentric perspective. From the work of non-Western scholars emerged the concept of postcolonialism as a school of thought. Postcolonialism and its related branches have broadened social theory to include contributions by scholars from Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and other non-Western regions.

Other theories that are important in contemporary social theory include critical theory, related to the Frankfurt School tradition born in the 1930s. Critical theorists drew from the methods of Marxism and psychoanalysis and profoundly influenced modern social theory. Its fields of study generally included mass culture and the means of production in a capitalist society. Critical theory today, however, is closer to the American philosophy of pragmatism.

The postmodern perspective opened the door to a great diversity of theoretical paradigms, among which are structuralism, poststructuralism, and deconstructionism, related to the French school of thought. The deconstructionist approach, based on the fragmentation of postmodern society, argues that events and artifacts in society have a multiplicity of meanings, and such meanings depend upon the interpretation of the individual. One of the critiques of postmodernist theories, however, is that the disciplinary field is so wide and its theoretical principles so vague that at its extremes, it risks bordering on meaninglessness.

Although the social sciences encompass a vast array of fields of study, today some fields of inquiry are more common than others, such as the nature of everyday social life; societal fragmentation; organization dynamics; the relationship between self and society, media, and mass culture; and issues of social transformation, globalization, gender, race, and class.

Bibliography

Baert, Patrick, and Filipe Carreira da Silva. Social Theory in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. Stafford: Polity, 2010. Print.

Elliott, Anthony. Contemporary Social Theory. London: Routledge, 2008. Print.

Gartman, David. Culture, Class and Critical Theory: Between Bourdieu and the Frankfurt School. London: Routledge, 2012. Print.

Harrington, Austin. Modern Social Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.

Inglis, David, and Christopher Thorpe. An Invitation to Social Theory. Stafford: Polity, 2012. Print.

Lemert, Charles. Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global and Classic Readings. Boulder: Westview, 2012. Print.

Morrison, Kenneth. Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Formations of Modern Social Thought. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006. Print.

Preves, Sharon E., and Jeylan T. Mortimer. Classic and Contemporary Perspectives in Social Psychology: A Reader. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.

Winch, Peter. The Idea of Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge Classics, 2007. Print.