BOOKS
THE STATE OF SOCIAL THEORY
THE RESTRUCTURING OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEORY.
By
Richard J . Bernstein. Basi l Blackwell
&
Mott. Ltd. £9.S0p.
This interesting and important book shows the same virtues
as those displayed in the same author's earli er
Praxis and Action.
In
that work Bernstein showed himself
to
be a rarity among Anglo–
American philosophers, capable of connecting previously discrete
themes in social theory and philosophy, and of spanning the distance
between English-speaking and Continental traditions of thought. He
now brings these abilities to bear upon issues of ep istemology and
method in the social sciences, offering a wide-rangi ng discussion that
extends from orthodox sociology and politi cal science, or what he
called "mainstream social science," through the post-Wittgensteinian
theory of action, Kuhn 's philosophy of natural science, Schutz's
phenomenology, and H abermas's version of criti cal theory.
It
has become common to acknowl edge that the social sciences
today display a dazzling heterogeneity of theoretica l perspectives,
apparently the result of the collapse of the modes of thought that had
achieved an ascendancy in the 1950s and I960s. Some have greeted the
emergence of this kaleidoscope of influences with enthusiasm , others
with despair. Bernstein 's response is a different one: that the present
stage of development in the social sciences both poses the demand, and
provides the opportunity, for the reconstruction of social and pol itica l
theory. He begins by attempting to characterize the main themes of
mainstream social science, admitting that thi s is only an inadeq ua te
label, but giving it flesh by concentrating his ana lysis upon a limited
number of high ly influentia l writings in American sociology, espe–
ciall y those of Merton , Smelser, and Homans. The views of these
authors differ considerably, but nevertheless express certain common
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