More Than a Discipline

ocial Theory has always had an uneasy relationship to disciplines. Early nineteenth century figures, such as Saint-Simon and Comte, never held university posts. Neither did Marx, Mill, or Spencer, in the late middle of the century. Much of the most original thinking in social theory was "outside the box" of the existing disciplines of their time -- such as philosophy, philology, law, and history -- by thinkers such as Nietzsche. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the present disciplines formed, by a more or less arbitrary division of topics. In this reshuffling, social theory became most closely related to academic sociology. Such rubrics as "philosophy of history" withered, and their subject matter became part of social theory as taught in sociology departments, which were created from the remnants of the failed attempt of the mid-nineteeth century to create a discipline of statistics and from reformist philanthropy, which later became "social work." This was an unstable mixture, and social theory never quite fit.

Attempts to recapture a space for discussion free of disciplines began in earnest in the late twenties and early thirties. The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research was the most successful example. The Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago followed in the forties. In the seventies, programs in Social and Political Thought were established at Sussex and York (Canada). Others followed, with various different emphases and structures, such as Social Theory and History (UC-Davis). Cultural Studies programs, notably that of Birmingham University, extended the concerns of social theory into the domain of culture. A chair and undergraduate program in social theory was established at the University of Melbourne.