On the Freedom of the Will

List of Contributors vii Introduction 1 Part I Toward Postmodernism: Reconfiguring Theory and Politics 1 General Social Theory, Irony, Postmodernism 17 2 Postmodern Social Theory as Narrative with a Moral Intent 47 3 On the Postmodern Barricades: Feminism, Politics, and Theory 82 4 The Strange Life and Hard Times of the Concept of General Theory in Sociology: A Short History of Hope 101 Part II Critics of Postmodernism: In Defense of Scientific Theory 5 Defending Social Science against the Postmodern Doubt 137 6 The Promise of Positivism 156 7 The Confusion of the Modes of Sociology 179 8 Daring Modesty: On Metatheory, Observation, and Theory Growth 199 Part III Between Modernism and Postmodernism: Toward a Contextualizing General Theory 9 Social Science and Society as Discourse: Toward a Sociology for Civic Competence 223 10 Culture, History, and the Problem of Specificity in Social Theory 244 11 The Tensions of Critical Theory: Is Negative Dialectics All There Is? 289 12 General Theory in the Postpositivist Mode: The Epistemological Dilemma and the Search for Present Reason 322 Name Index 369 Subject Index 376

Critical theory · Dialectic · Epistemology · Irony · Metatheory · Positivism · Postmodernism · Relativism · Social science · Social theory · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Free will and determinism