Our decision to begin this lecture series on modern social theory with the question ‘What is theory?’ may raise some eyebrows. After all, a fair number of you have attended courses on the great figures of sociological theory – such as Emile Durkheim, George Herbert Mead and Max Weber – which featured no discussion of the ‘nature’ of theory. The course organizers rightly assumed that you already have an intuitive understanding of ‘theory’ or soon will have. At any rate, you should by now be in a position to characterize the quite different approaches to social reality taken by Weber, Mead or Durkheim. As is well known, Weber described the state or political phenomena from a completely different point of view from Durkheim; the former thus had a quite different theoretical conception of the nature of the political from the latter, though both referred to the same empirical facts in their sociological accounts. Mead's conception of social action clearly differed markedly from that of Weber, though some of the terms they used were similar, and so on. All these authors thus underpinned their sociological accounts with differing theories (plural!). But has this insight not brought us a decisive step closer to resolving the issue of the ‘nature’ of theory? If we were to compare all these theories and pin down what they have in common, thus finding the lowest common denominator, would we not, we might wonder, already have achieved an adequate understanding of theory (singular!)? A comparison of this kind would surely provide us with, as it were, the formal elements that make up a (sociological) theory; we could grasp what social theory in fact is.

The crucial turning point in Habermas' career came in the early 1970s, when he broke finally and unmistakably with key elements of the Hegelian and Marxian legacy; it was in this context that he wrestled with the utopias of the student movement. Habermas thus cut the cord connecting him to this tradition, which he previously seemed to be continuing with mere critical modifications. As a consequence of this break, he was to introduce a number of new theoretical elements into his thought, enabling him to advance towards his own theoretical synthesis.

First, Habermas abandons the idea that history can be understood as a process of the formation of the human species as a whole. In the work of Marx, humanity had been conceived in Hegelian fashion as, so to speak, a macrosubject. Following lengthy periods of alienation, this subject would regain consciousness in the post-capitalist era. This single subject of humanity as a whole – Habermas emphatically states – does not exist; the notion that later generations as a whole are always able to stand on the shoulders of those who came before and that we can thus expect humanity as such to develop further in seamless fashion is an utterly unjustified idealization. It is simply not the case that the knowledge held by the forebears is simply transferred to all their descendants, that the future generations need only to build on that which the forefathers knew and what they established in fixed and immutable fashion.

As we learned in the previous lecture, symbolic interactionism is not the only theoretical school to which the label ‘interpretive approach’ has been attached. The other is what is known as ethnomethodology, whose frighteningly complex name alone might be enough to scare one off. In fact, the name is less complicated than it looks: it consists of two components, each of which is perfectly understandable in itself. The first element, ‘ethnos’, alludes to sociology's neighbouring discipline of ethnology (also known as anthropology), while the second is the term ‘methodology’. This in itself helps us begin to grasp the agenda of this theoretical approach. Here, the methods of ethnology, a subject which investigates other ethnic groups, are deployed to examine one's own culture, in order to reveal its taken-for-granted and characteristic features, of which we are oft en entirely unaware – precisely because they are taken for granted.

Defamiliarizing one's own culture is intended to unveil its hidden structure. But ethnomethodologists had even more ambitious aims in mind. They not only sought to identify the unnoticed structural characteristics of their own culture; their aim was ultimately to uncover the fundamental universal, quasi-anthropological structures of everyday knowledge and action. How must this knowledge, the knowledge held by each member of each society, be structured to enable action to take place? This was the central issue which the ethnomethodologists wished to address – one which they believed had been utterly neglected by traditional sociology.

You will no doubt have already come across the founding fathers of sociology, the classical figures of the discipline, over the course of your studies or through your own reading. Indisputably, these include the German Max Weber (1864–1920) and the Frenchman Emile Durkheim (1858–1917). Their German contemporaries Georg Simmel (1858–1919) and Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936), and the Americans George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), William Isaac Thomas (1863–1947) and Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929) are oft en mentioned in the same breath as the two disciplinary giants. Now we can argue till the cows come home about who else ought, or ought not, to be included in such a list of key authors, in the ‘canon’ of classical sociological theorists. The names of Adam Smith (1723–90) and above all Karl Marx (1818–83) crop up particularly oft en in this context and inspire intense controversy. Though not sociologists in a narrow sense, they have nonetheless had an enormous influence on sociological thought and, above all, on theory building in the social sciences as a whole.

As interesting as the debate on the classical status of certain authors may be, it is striking that the debaters tend to forget who was responsible for the formation of this canon, for drawing up this list of classical authors, who originally established the basic structure of the canon as pertains to this day. Should we examine this frequently neglected question, we will find that there is no getting away from the name of the American Talcott Parsons (1902–79).

Having laid out the key foundations of his theory of action in Structure in 1937 and made vigorous efforts to develop a theory of order in The Social System and Toward a General Theory of Action, the multi-authored volume that appeared almost simultaneously at the very beginning of the 1950s, Parsons' subsequent work was also characterized by consistent attempts to resolve theoretical problems. However, it very quickly became apparent that a certain tension existed between his theory of action and his functionalist theory of order; it was unclear how these related to one another. While Parsons managed to further refine and enrich his theory of action, as well as adding new ideas to his functionalist concept of order, he ultimately failed to integrate the two theoretical models. In fact, the exact opposite seemed to occur: the more Parsons polished his subtheories, the more obvious it became that they were ultimately out of synch. Looking back on the development of Parsonian theory between the early 1950s and his death in 1979, we are left with the impression that while he made progress with many of the key points of his theory (or theories), he never again managed to achieve a true synthesis, a coherent grand theory. As we set out this stage in the development of Parsonian theory in the present lecture, you will probably have the sneaking suspicion, and for good reason, that Parsons' ‘middle’ or ‘late’ work is more a matter of disparate theoretical building blocks than a unified theory.

Niklas Luhmann was the other major figure within German sociology who, like Jürgen Habermas, was unwilling to accept the theoretical diversity apparent from the 1960s on, which we have described in the previous lectures, and strove instead to achieve a new synthesis of his own. Admittedly, we cannot take the word ‘synthesis’ too literally in Luhmann's case. Habermas, in an enormous hermeneutic effort, did in fact attempt to comprehend the various theoretical schools and preserve those insights he considered valid while developing his own theoretical construct in such a way that certain elements of these ‘source theories’ remained quite apparent in its architecture. Luhmann, meanwhile, took a far more direct approach. He lacked the grasp of hermeneutics that is such a major feature of Habermas' work. Rather, he endeavoured to evade or reformulate the key concerns of the competing theoretical schools within sociology – with the help of a functionalism markedly more radical than that of Parsons. From the very beginning Luhmann made use of the functionalist method of analysis, which he gradually turned into a kind of ‘super theory’ as his work developed over time and with which he attempted to assert his claim to synthesis or, we might better say, comprehensiveness. Thus, in comparison to that of Habermas, Luhmann's oeuvre developed in amazingly straightforward fashion. Though Luhmann himself and his supporters have been talking about a theoretical reconstruction (the ‘autopoietic turn’, which we shall look at later) since the early 1980s, the foundations of his theory have remained unchanged.

This book is based on lectures originally conceived by one of the authors (Hans Joas) for a visiting professorship at the University of Chicago in 1985 and which he has held regularly since then. The first attendees, towards the end of the 1980s, were students at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, followed, for more than a decade, by students at the Free University of Berlin, along with their counterparts at various American and European universities during certain semesters. The younger of the two authors (Wolfgang Knöbl) contributed to the planning and constant improvement of these lectures at various stages of his academic career: as a student in Erlangen, as junior and assistant lecturer in Berlin and New York, and subsequently as a colleague at the University of Göttingen.

It goes without saying that the precise character of this lecture series has changed considerably over the course of time – not only because of the obvious necessity of keeping them constantly up to date, but also in response to students' needs and the imperative of clearing up points they struggled to understand; the authors' own ongoing theoretical projects have also had an important impact. We have now reached a point at which we feel confident enough in our basic approach and in the validity of our overview to sally forth from the lecture theatre and present our ideas to the reading public. We hope our survey will satisfy the needs of both students in the social sciences and those of non-specialist readers keen to understand international developments in the field of social theory since around the end of the Second World War.

Should you glance back over our lectures so far, you may come away with the impression that the development of modern sociological theory has been an overwhelmingly American, British and German affair, with other nations playing no more than a minor role. But the reality is quite different. The (geographical) focus of our account is due primarily to the fact that these national traditions of sociology were very much aware of and generally responded quickly to one another, allowing us to proceed more or less chronologically in the preceding thirteen lectures: ‘First came Parsons, then his predominantly American critics, followed by attempts at synthesis in Europe by Habermas, Luhmann and Giddens, who in turn criticized each other, along with certain attempts to develop Parsons' legacy in modified form’ – this has been the ‘plot’ of our story so far.

However, the simple elegance of this ‘plot’ cannot be sustained within the framework of our lectures – at least if one takes the French contribution to the development of modern sociological theory as seriously as it deserves. For until the late 1960s, the social sciences and humanities in France formed a continent apparently sufficient unto itself. This was bound up with the fact that there are vigorous and productive intellectual traditions in France that laid the foundations for a highly autonomous, not to say isolated national development. This was particularly apparent in the case of sociology. Here, the work of Emile Durkheim dominated to a degree unknown in other countries.

In the preceding four lectures we outlined the most important attempts at synthesis made in the 1970s and 1980s; these aimed to fuse differing theoretical traditions and advance to a new grand theory à la Parsons. Do not let this lead you to false conclusions. Our claim that the centre of theoretical gravity shifted to Europe from around 1970 is not meant to imply that American sociology subsequently played no role at all theoretically. And our observation that Parsons was sharply criticized by neo-utilitarians, symbolic interactionists, ethnomethodologists and conflict theorists does not mean that the edifice of Parsonian thought lost all its appeal in the 1970s and 1980s. Rather, it became apparent that his highly comprehensive, multilayered, if sometimes inconsistent work offered a good deal of room for differing interpretations, enabling followers of Parsons to pursue their own paths, more or less independent of the thought of the ‘master’. Above all, Parsons' theory of social change offered much scope for comprehensive revision. Parsons himself had in fact never stopped developing his ideas in this field (see Lecture IV). Yet because his evolutionary arguments became increasingly abstract, he could only go so far. The historical vagueness of such constructions generally held little appeal for those sociologists intent on serious empirical work.

This was the point of departure of so-called modernization theory, which can be understood only in light of Parsons' work but which was at variance with it in crucial respects. What is modernization theory? Simply put (on what follows, see Knöbl, Spielräume der Modernisierung, pp. 32f.), this was a theory of social change that attempted to grasp the developmental history of societies through comparative historical analysis.

The Structure of Social Action, which appeared in 1937, attracted a great deal of criticism precisely because Parsons had such great ambitions for it (see Charles Camic, ‘Structure aft er 50 Years: The Anatomy of a Charter’ and Hans Joas, The Creativity of Action, pp. 18ff. for comprehensive overviews). Some of the criticisms were made immediately after the book appeared, but many only after it had become very well known. As we pointed out in the previous lecture, Structure was received rather slowly at first. Over the course of time, however, coming to terms with Parsons became increasingly central to others' attempts to explain and contextualize their own equally ambitious theories, and inevitably criticisms became ever more systematic and comprehensive. In what follows, we shall present to you those criticisms that were of the greatest significance to the development of theory; in the second part of the lecture, we examine whether and to what extent Parsons answered or perhaps even anticipated these criticisms, as he attempted to refine his theoretical edifice.

If we look first at the debate on the so-called convergence thesis, it is apparent that it addressed a number of key problems; we examine these here. We can understand the sometimes passionate way in which scholars have grappled with this thesis only if we grasp that we are not dealing with a purely historiographical problem summed up by the question ‘Whose interpretation of the classical figures is (at least somewhat) better?’ Parsons claimed to have produced a synthesis of the work of these leading figures.

In light of the increasing dominance of the Parsonian school in the 1940s and 1950s, first in the United States and then internationally, one might have presumed that the age of utilitarian intellectual movements was finally past. Parsons' incisive arguments had demonstrated the inadequacy of utility-oriented models of action; in his first major work, The Structure of Social Action, he had already shown how the edifice of utilitarian ideas had disintegrated from within and how leading theoreticians from various disciplines had turned away from this theoretical model as a result. According to Parsons, this was because utilitarianism had never managed to conceptualize the existence of a stable social order in consistent and non-contradictory fashion. After this great feat of criticizing utilitarianism comprehensively yet precisely, there was some justification for Parsons' view that it was no longer possible to take models of utility-oriented action seriously as theoretical approaches within sociology. He did not dispute the applicability of these models to the discipline of economics. But he considered them unacceptable as an integrative theory of the social sciences.

Despite all that, utilitarianism underwent something of a renaissance in the late 1950s; its supporters even launched massive counter-attacks on the edifice of Parsonian thought. One of the reasons for the revival of an intellectual movement that had been presumed dead was that the concept of ‘utility’, which was constitutive of utilitarianism and gave it its name, was multifaceted and thus open to interpretation. Some believed that Parsons' objections could be got round if one understood ‘utility’ somewhat differently.

We refer in the title of this lecture to feminist social theories, the plural indicating that we are confronted with a fundamental problem in seeking to describe this field – namely the fact that there is no such thing as feminist social theory, but at best a variety of such theories. The theoretical landscape within feminism is so tremendously multifarious because feminist theorists, whose concrete goals and projects do not, of course, always tally, draw on very different theoretical building blocks to construct their arguments. You have encountered the vast majority of these theories in the previous lectures. While few feminists build directly on Parsonian ideas, a large number make use of conflict theoretical arguments, for example. And the strongest and most influential currents within the feminist debate at present can be traced back to ethnomethodological, poststructuralist and Habermasian positions. In addition, the strong influence of psychoanalysis is also unmistakable.

The question thus arises as to whether this heterogeneous theoretical field of feminism features any kind of common denominator, especially given that feminist debates are being carried on not just within sociology, but also in psychology, anthropology, history, philosophy and political theory; here, disciplinary boundaries play a rather minor role (see for example Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, pp. 238ff.).

As our remarks on symbolic interactionism in Lecture VI laid bare, the founding generation of American sociology, such as George Herbert Mead and the members of the Chicago School of sociology, had close links with American pragmatist philosophy. It would in fact be fair to say that authors such as Mead played a crucial role in developing pragmatist ideas and harnessing them for the analysis of social processes and relations. There is thus no doubt that pragmatist philosophy strongly influenced the development of American sociology, at least until well into the 1930s.

But pragmatism's influence on sociology subsequently diminished markedly. One of the key factors in sociologists' increasing lack of interest in pragmatist thought was Parsons' contribution to the establishment of a sociological canon, a contribution which resulted, with some delay, from his The Structure of Social Action, first published in 1937. In Lectures II and III we alluded to the fact that those thinkers whom Parsons declared the key founding fathers of sociology (especially Weber and Durkheim) were exclusively European. American authors influenced by pragmatist thought he ignored entirely. Given the emerging dominance of Parsonian sociology in the late 1940s, it is unsurprising that the development of sociological theory occurred almost exclusively without reference to pragmatist traditions. Only in the 1960s did this begin to change to some extent, when symbolic interactionism positioned itself as a ‘new’ theoretical approach and as an alternative to Parsonianism. Yet symbolic interactionism was not really ‘new’.

Any attempt to describe the development of sociology worldwide from the mid-1960s must inevitably make mention of the palpable shift in the locus of theoretical production that occurred during this period. If modern sociological theory was initially linked closely with the name of the American Talcott Parsons, and if the rival approaches of neo-utilitarianism, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism and – with major caveats – conflict theory were also ventures strongly influenced by their American context of origin, theoretical work in sociology was subsequently ‘Europeanized’ to a quite astonishing degree. The reason for this change is, paradoxically, to be found above all in the higher degree of professionalization characteristic of US sociology, which was established as an independent university discipline with a clear profile more rapidly than in Europe. As a result, scepticism towards the theoretical diversity that emerged following the end of the Parsonian hegemony set in very quickly and to a greater extent than in Europe. Many American sociologists interpreted this diversity as the fragmentation of the discipline or as an expression of damaging (political) ideologization that threatened to undermine the professional identity of sociology that had taken so much hard work to achieve. Thus they either stuck with existing, seemingly ‘tried and tested’ theoretical schools (primarily Parsonianism and the rational choice approach), attempting merely to refine or slightly modify them – or they turned away from grand theories entirely, concentrating exclusively on empirical research. In brief, theoretical work was increasingly marginalized.

Looking back over Lectures IX–XIX, there can be no doubt that the classical approaches and those schools that evaded integration into the edifice of Parsonian theory were joined by new and promising syntheses in the field of social theory in the 1970s and 1980s. But these were merely additions to the stock of existing approaches. They did not succeed, as their exponents undoubtedly intended, in dominating the field of social theory institutionally rather than merely synthesizing it intellectually. Thus, despite the widespread desire to produce syntheses, it is by no means easy to sum up the current state of social theory. Furthermore, the recent past has seen far-reaching historical changes of a global nature, such as the collapse of the Soviet empire, which it will take some time for social theorists to digest. In this concluding lecture, we therefore wish to avoid creating the impression that there is a straightforward solution to every problem. Rather, we offer you a tableau of the contemporary situation, an overview of the most recent creative trends, intended to help orient you within this confusing field and with respect to your own studies. You should of course keep in mind at all times that these new trends are all in one way or another further developments of the work of the theorists or theoretical schools dealt with in the preceding lectures.