Survival Units as the Point of Departure for a Relational Sociology

Abstract

European social theory has always been characterized by different dichotomous positions. Action-structure, subjectivism-objectivism, and methodological individualism-methodological holism are conflicting positions that have been competing throughout the history of European social theory. Each of these positions enables and constrains one’s framework for sociological analysis. With the rise of modern sociological theory in the late nineteenth century, a more explicit debate and contest between these different positions has taken place. The “Methodenstreit” in Germany in the late nineteenth century between historians and economists is one well-known example. Almost a century later we had “die Positivismus Streit” in Germany between critical rationalism (Karl Popper, Hans Albert) and the Frankfurt School (Theodor W. Adorno, Jürgen Habermas) in 1961. Another example is the conflict in sociology between Durkheimian methodological holism and Weberian methodological individualism. In almost any theoretical or methodological discussion, we have been faced with the problem of these “two sociologies” (Dawe, 1970). What position is to be preferred? What key concept is the most suitable to use as a point of departure? Action or structure, individual or society? What sort of ontological status do we assign our concepts?

This is a different and longer version of an argument we first presented in Sociological Review 56(3) (August 2008): 370–387.