Modernity and modern sociological theory: An analysis of modernity in the writings of Talcott Parsons, Erving Goffman, and Harold Garfinkel.

摘要

This dissertation addresses the relationship between modernity and modern sociological theory. It begins by raising the question: What is modern about modern sociological theory? To examine this, I focus on the works of three modern sociological theorists: Talcott Parsons, Erving Goffman, and Harold Garfinkel. In other words, the primary interest is not to outline the history of the relationship between modernity and sociology, but to scrutinize modern aspects of three leading twentieth-century theories of the social world. By arguing that there is a strong substantive relationship between the three theorists' works and modernity, I note the reflection of modernity in their works, especially relating to social order and agency.; I deal with characteristics of modernity, such as pluralism and abstraction. Next, I scrutinize the manner in which Parsons,' Goffman's, and Garfinkel's theory of social order and human agency reflect characteristics of modernity, whether they address modernity explicitly or implicitly. By relating the three theories to the problem of modernity, I examine and analyze them from a quite novel and promising perspective.; Ultimately, I find common ground between these rival theories, in their reflection of modernity. In all three theorists' understandings of social order and human agency, central characteristics of modernity can be observed, e.g., contingency, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Differences are acknowledged as well, but from a quite different perspective than existing critiques. That is, the three theorists attend to different objects and display different priorities in their studies of social order and agency, but their differences are not as strong as conventional critiques would suggest, at least in respect to the problem of modernity.