Jonathan Turner. Classical Sociological Theory: A Positivist\u27s Perspective. Chicago, IL: Nelson Hall, 1993. $ 18.95 papercover

Haines, Valerie A.

English

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The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Volume 22 Issue 3 September Article 14 September 1995 Review of Classical Sociological Theory. Jonathan H. Turner. Reviewed by Valerie A. Haines, The University of Calgary. Valerie A. Haines University of Calgary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw  Part of the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation Haines, Valerie A. (1995) "Review of Classical Sociological Theory. Jonathan H. Turner. Reviewed by Valerie A. Haines, The University of Calgary.," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 22 : Iss. 3 , Article 14. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol22/iss3/14 This Book Review is brought to you by the Western Michigan University School of Social Work. For more information, please contact wmu-scholarworks@wmich.edu. Book Reviews 165being placed with parents who were previously not candidatesfor adoption (foster parents, single persons, people with financiallimitations, gays, individuals with health problems, etc.) withsome degree of openness between all parties to the adoption.Modell contends that the move toward open adoption carries thepotential of changing the foundation of American views of family,because of its dramatic departure from the accepted idea thatbiological, or as-if biological, ties are the truly critical componentsof family connectedness.Who knows? Perhaps this society is moving toward KahlilGibran's admonition: "Your children are not your children. Theyare the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They comethrough you but not from you. And though they are with you yetthey belong not to you". Now that, like open adoption, is a trulyrevolutionary conception of kinship.Dorinda N. NobleLouisiana State UniversityJonathan Turner. Classical Sociological Theory: A Positivist's Perspec-tive. Chicago, IL: Nelson Hall, 1993. $ 18.95 papercover.This collection brings together twelve essays on classical so-ciological theory that were published between 1975 and 1990 andthree new essays that were written to fill in the gaps. The essaysare unified by one of the leading themes of Turner's writings:the claim that sociology can be a natural science that developsuniversal laws. To move the study of classical sociological theoryin this direction, Turner adopts a presentist strategy for readingComte, Spencer, Durkheim, Marx, Simmel, Weber, Pareto andMead. Concerns for context, authorial intent and biography areabandoned in favor of first extracting essential theoretical ideasand then presenting them formally as abstract laws and dynamicanalytical models that can be tested. By systematically followingthis theoretical strategy, Turner wants to demonstrate that his wayof reading classical sociological theory can contribute to culmina-tion of knowledge and ultimately "make books of classical theoryunnecessary" (p. ix).166 Journal of Sociology & Social WelfareThe first two essays return to Comte's call for a natural sci-ence of sociology and set out the "dos" and "don'ts" of read-ing classical sociological theory from this positivist perspective.The next five essays apply these rules to Spencer and Durkheim.The discussions of Spencer's law of evolution, militant-industrialdistinction, principles of growth, differentiation and adaptationand their empirical base, Descriptive Sociology, are intended tocounter persistent misunderstandings of Spencer's work and itsrelevance for contemporary sociology. Turner's 1981 attempt toextract from The Division of Labor in Society, Suicide and The Ele-mentary Forms of the Religious Life Durkheim's principles of socialsystem differentiation, integration and disintegration is followedby a more recent attempt to capture the essence of Durkheim'stheory first as a complex causal model that converts all of itsconcepts into variables and then as a series of formal laws ofstructural differentiation, cultural differentiation, socioculturaldiversity and sociocultural integration. The fifth essay in this setreassesses the Spencer-Durkheim relationship and concludes thatwhile they converged in their thinking on the causes of differenti-ation, Spencer and Durkheim offered divergent specifications ofthe process of differentiation.The five essays on the sociology of conflict focus on the worksof Marx, Weber, Simmel, Parteo and the exchange theorists. Ex-pressing Marx's ideas about conflict first as a set of propositionsand then as an analytical model allows Turner to explain "whereMarx went wrong" in his predictions about the transition fromcapitalism to communism as a specification error: in Marx's the-ory, positive curvilinear relationships between key variables aremisspecified as positive relationships. Turning to Weber, Turnerconstructs a model of delegitimation and conflict that highlightsthe importance of feedback loops and a model of geopoliticscomplete with causal arrows. Through these and other essays inthis set, Turner illustrates how his theoretical strategy allows so-ciologists (1) to clarify the classical foundations of contemporarysociology (e.g., by reassessing the influence of Marx and Simmelon the sociology of conflict), (2) to extract abstract principles thatare still useful (e.g., by stating formally those principles of socialsystem differentiation, political mobilization, political oscillationand political conflict set out by Spencer, Durkheim, Marx, Weber,Book Reviews 167Simmel and Pareto that are useful in political sociology) and(3) to synthesize ideas to produce more powerful theory (e.g.,by combining ideas from Marx, Weber and exchange theory intoan analytical model that yields laws of conflict potential, conflictand conflict violence).This emphasis on cumulating knowledge also informsTurner's positivistic refraining of Mead's sociology. Written toredirect attention to Mead's behaviorism and structuralism, thefirst essay locates Mead in the development of arguments for amicro-macro link. The second essay Bets out the core ideas ofMead's "social physics" through a series of abstract universallaws of action, human action, interaction and organization. LikeComte, Spencer, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Pareto and Simmel,then, Mead did develop abstract theoretical principles. But bytaking the series of "detours from the early masters" that led themto ignore these theoretical principles, contemporary sociologistshave failed to capitalize on the theoretical insights of classicalsociological theory and, as a result, have failed to move sociologyin the direction of a natural science that develops universal laws.For Turner the way around these detours is obvious: read classicalsociological theory from a positivist perspective.This collection covers much of the same ground as other stud-ies of classical sociological theory. It is the way in which Turnerapproaches social theory and, therefore, his strategy for readingclassical sociological theory that set it apart. As Turner acknowl-edges, both his positivism and his presentism are controversial.Readers who are familiar with the controversy about whethersociology can be a natural science will find in this book a clearstatement of Turner's position and its implications for resolvingthe so-called historicist controversy. Those who are not familiarwith these controversies will be unable to assess Turner's posi-tivist perspective without reading this work against the backdropof competing positions.Valerie A. HainesThe University of Calgary

Review of \u3cem\u3eClassical Sociological Theory.\u3c/em\u3e Jonathan H. Turner. Reviewed by Valerie A. Haines, The University of Calgary.

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2272&amp;context=jssw

Review of \u3cem\u3eClassical Sociological Theory.\u3c/em\u3e Jonathan H. Turner. Reviewed by Valerie A. Haines, The University of Calgary.

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