Social theory

This introduction gives a comparative overview of the most important social theories. From Enlightenment thought (Hobbes, Hume, Smith) via 'early sociologists' (Comte, Marx, Spencer) and 'sociological classics' of the first (Weber, Durkheim, Simmel) and second generation (Horkheimer/Adorno, Mannheim, Geiger), the range extends to Talcott Parsons and the debate with him (Elias, Habermas, Luhmann), to power-analytical (Foucault, Bourdieu, Coleman) and restructuring-theoretical designs (Beck, Bauman, Urry), to more recent approaches to world society (Wallerstein, Eisenstadt, Meyer). The focus is on the question of how society is conceived and how the relationship between the individual and society is conceived in each case. In this way, an overview succeeds that makes the different theoretical traditions recognizable and yet at the same time relates them to each other. Ei.