Social theory and the substantive problems of sociology

Abstract

The history of sociology indicates that social theory may be formu? lated from a great variety of perspectives and can have many sources and social functions. Regardless of the ideological standpoint from which it may be written, theory reflects the historical period of the author who has for? mulated it and reveals what its authors thought were salient problems for sociological investigation. In this sense, the sociological literature of a period is bound to its own historical content. From one perspective or another, all 19th and early 20th century theorists focussed upon issues that were connected with the decline and transformation of feudal society and the emergence of industrial capitalism. Some of these theorists focussed on the decline of liberalism and the ap? pearance of centralized, mass, bureaucratic society and the secondary social problems resulting from these developments. Thus, our images of the ear? lier history of the institutions of the modern capitalistic order are provided for us by those authors who attempted to analyze the then emerging social order of modernity.