Introduction

The task of this chapter is to state the main philosophical and metatheoretical elements that form the general presuppositions of generative structuralism, the approach taken in this book. The assumption made is that there is a single time-extended and comprehensive research tradition to which this work aims to be one contribution. This tradition is termed general theoretical sociology. Thus, this chapter constitutes a statement of a philosophy of general theoretical sociology.

General theoretical sociology is a research tradition. In fact, I take it to be a comprehensive research tradition, within which the familiar paths of sociological theorizing from the classics to the present find their niche. This book both assumes this metasociological proposition and tries to contribute to its further realization. In other words, the claim has normative as well as descriptive significance. It functions both as a premise of the position developed in this book and as a tentative conclusion the work might be seen to make more or less plausible. Research traditions occur within communities of people committed to some more or less articulated worldview. This book takes the position that most of the worldviews discussed in contemporary theory, such as idealism or materialism, are simply inadequate as proposed presuppositions of classical theory or contemporary theory. My claim is that the tradition of general theoretical sociology is in fact characterized by what I will call a process metaphysics or worldview. Hence, one task of this chapter is to discuss general theoretical sociology as a comprehensive research tradition with a process philosophical worldview.