Historical and political interpretations of jurisprudence and the social action perspective in sociology

Abstract

It is argued that a full comprehension of classical and contemporary manifestations of the “social action perspective” in sociology will be significantly facilitated by placing it within the context of jurisprudential theory, especially the theory of legal actors. The Weberian and Parsonian views of social action theory are outlined in some detail, and these positions are related as a whole to the concept of legal action in late-nineteenth-century German jurisprudence. Having established structural similarities between the two perspectives, an historical argument is developed within which it is asserted that: (a) Among the academic disciplines of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Germany, jurisprudence held a relative autonomy derived from ideological circumstances which may ultimately be traced to the political economy of the nascent German state. (b) Given such an autonomy, jurisprudence provided a paradigm for the sociocultural sciences. Each of these contentions is phrased within the intellectual milieu of the day which included both Kantian and Hegelian currents. (c) Finally, certain implications are drawn from the foregoing analysis concerning ideology and contemporary social action theory, the sociology of law, and the need for future research on the relationships between jurisprudential and other forms of social theory.