Abstract
Abstract Axiomatization of Homans' exchange theory has occasioned reexamination and clarification of many chronic issues central both to Homans' theory and its empirical assessment and to sociological theory and research at large. Often debated in the critical literature on Homans' work, these issues represent complicated, perennial controversies about such problems as tautology, codification of divergent perspectives, the theory-data chasm, and causality. Far from passe, these problems have important bearings on the conduct of contemporary sociological inquiry. Reappraising one such issue, reductionism, this paper analyzes (1) the historical vicissitudes of sociology's reductionism problem, (2) Homans' role in contemporary resurgence of interest in it, (3) the meaning of his “ultimate psychological reductionism” (4) his numerous critics' misconceptions of his position and the inappropriateness of their application of reductionist labels to it, and (5) his contribution to a refined conceptualization of re...
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