Social Theory as a Vocation

Donald N. Levine has published nine books, including The Flight from Ambiguity, Visions of the Sociological Tradition,and Powers of the Mind. He is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Chicago, USA and was founder of an NGO, Aiki Extensions. He received an honorary doctorate from Addis Ababa University; a festschrift, The Dialogical Turn; and a lifetime achievement award from the American Sociological Association.

• List of FiguresPrefaceAcknowledgmentsPrologue: Social Theory as a VocationPart I Custodial Theory Work1 Note on Park, The Crowd and the Public2 Max Weber's 1908 Note Regarding Simmel3 Review of the Variorum Edition of Max Weber's Economy and Society4 Taking the Measure of Auguste Comte5 emile Durkheim, Univocalist Manque6 Robert K. Merton On and In Ambivalence7 Revisiting Georg Simmel8 Simmel's Stranger and His Followers9 Simmel and Parsons ReconstructedPart II Heuristic Theory Work: Internal to the Discipline10 The Concept of Cultural Integration11 The Organism Metaphor in Sociology12 The Concept of Rationality: From Kant to Weber13 Rationality and Freedom, Weber and Beyond14 Putting Voluntarism Back into a Voluntaristic Theory of Action15 "Ambiguity and Modernity": Engaging a Serendipitous Problem16 Somatic Elements in Social Conflict17 Reconfiguring Ethiopia's Nationhood in a Global EraPart III Heuristic Theory Work External to the Discipline18 Simmel as a Resource for Sociological Metatheory19 Sociology after MacIntyre20 Images and Assumptions in a Scholarly Domain: Ethiopian Studies21 Missed Opportunities as a Diagnostic Issue:Ethiopia, 1960–200522 A Problem of Collective Identity23 Modernity and Its Endless Discontents24 Crises in Liberal EducationAppendixesA Syllabus: American Sociological Theory, 1900–1980B Syllabus: Perspectives on Modern Social TheoryC Syllabus: The Forms and Functions of Social KnowledgeD Syllabus: Organizations of the Social SciencesE Organizing a Practicum in Social TheoryReferencesIndex

"[Social Theory as a Vocation] is a worthy conclusion of a lifetime of work on rejuvenating, or indeed resurrecting, the genre of sociological theory... Levine was one of the most prominent custodians of the sociological tradition in American scholarship... A crucial aspect of social theory as vocation, as explained in the book's prologue, is to enhance 'morally informed discourses resting on good sociological knowledge' in order to 'promote more enlightened public policies and ideas for creating better lives.' ...There can be no doubt as to the profound interplay between Levine's vision of sociological theory as vocation and his ideal of the university, another Leitmotif of his writing." - M Max Weber Studies "Examining the career of Donald N. Levine ... theory is rarely or never isolated from actual empirical work ... Levine remained critical of narrow empirical research undertaken without supporting clear aims, dissecting caches of data with no arguable significance; uses concepts in sloppy and unrevealing ways; propounds claims that rest on facile argumentation; and ignores relevant prior work ... " - Bryan S. Turner , Journal of Classical Sociology