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Sociological Theory is an attempt to make sense of an intuited level of order transcending the level on which we as individuals live and think. This implies a dual explanatory task: on one hand, to provide a substantively meaningful third-person framework for the formation of theoretical statements, and, on the other, to provide an intuitively accessible answer to the question of why social order exists in the first place. A coherent linkage between these two forms of explanation, however, requires the introduction of undemonstrable but nonaxiomatic claims, which undermines the coherence of the Theory. Consequently, there is pressure upon Theorists either to completely jettison one of the two explanatory tasks, or to attempt to redefine them in a way more amenable to this linkage but substantively unsatisfying.

Abstract The article discusses to what extent sociological theories produced in the Brazilian academic field dialogue with a global intellectual movement criticizing coloniality and the Eurocentric foundations of the social sciences. Initially, we analyze the challenges regarding the attempts to define two theoretical approaches, Brazilian sociology, and Postcolonial Thought, without overlooking their internal heterogeneities. Then, we address the tensions between these approaches as conditions for research agendas that bring both contributions into proximity. Finally, we explore the epistemological potential of one of these agendas, which corresponds to a rereading of Brazilian sociological theory in light of postcolonial criticism. This exercise in rereading the canon is based on the methodological program of sociological reduction of Guerreiro Ramos, which indicates a reciprocal interrogation between Brazilian sociology and postcolonial thought, i.e., a decentered look at our sociological tradition that also reveals contributions from this tradition for the future of postcolonial epistemologies.

AbstractUsing theory syllabi and departmental data collected for three academic years, this paper investigates the institutional practice of theory in sociology departments across Canada. In particular, it examines the position of theory within the sociological curriculum, and how this varies among universities. Taken together, our analyses indicate that theory remains deeply institutionalized at the core of sociological education and Canadian sociologists' self‐understanding; that theorists as a whole show some coherence in how they define themselves, but differ in various ways, especially along lines of region, intellectual background, and gender; that despite these differences, the classical versus contemporary heuristic largely cuts across these divides, as does the strongly ingrained position of a small group of European authors as classics of the discipline as a whole. Nevertheless, who is a classic remains an unsettled question, alternatives to the "classical versus contemporary" heuristic do exist, and theorists' syllabi reveal diverse "others" as potential candidates. Our findings show that the field of sociology is neither marked by universal agreement nor by absolute division when it comes to its theoretical underpinnings. To the extent that they reveal a unified field, the findings suggest that unity lies more in a distinctive form than in a distinctive content, which defines the space and structure of the field of sociology.

Chapter 1: Introduction -- Chapter 2: Comte -- Chapter 3: Spencer -- Chapter 4: Marx -- Chapter 5: Durkheim -- Chapter 6: Weber. - Chapter 7: Pareto -- Chapter 8: Simmel -- Chapter 9: Functionalism -- Chapter 10: Marxism and Conflict Theory -- Chapter 11: Symbolic Interactionism -- Chapter 12: Phenomenological Sociology -- Chapter 13: The Theory of Rational Choice -- Chapter 14: Theory of Postmodernity -- Chapter 15: Feminist Theory -- Chapter 16: Postcolonial Theory.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1: Ordinary language and theoretical explanations -- Ordinary language explanations -- The construction of a data-language: behaviourism -- The logic of successful theory -- Chapter 2: Matching the physical science paradigm -- Cause and generality -- The failure of sociological theory: a priori or contingent? -- Chapter 3: Causal explanation and rational action -- The argument that causal accounts of human behaviour are ruled out a priori -- Rational action -- Chapter 4: An alternative conceptualisation: voluntaristic action theory -- The action frame of reference -- The definition of action -- Chapter 5: Bringing history back in: laws and the explanation of human action -- Uniqueness and contingency -- Concluding remarks -- Notes -- Index.