Social theory in the Enlightenment

Abstract

This article defends the interest for Sociology of the social theory of the Enlightenment, starting from an analysis based on the works of some of the most important authors of the French Enlightenment, the Scottish thinkers and Kant for the German strand. This analysis results in three proposals. First, we identify analytical perspectives developed by social theory in the 18th century: a perspective derived from the political theory of Natural Law; a dramaturgical approach; and finally an approach related to an idea of progress. Second, we identify four features shared by perspectives of that period: their historical meaning, their social realism, their sociological perspective, and their unsystematic and speculative character. Finally, we review their responses to three central questions for later sociological theory: the dialectics of agency-structure, the foundations of society, and conflict in collective social phenomena. The richness and complexity of the social theory of the Enlightenment are highlighted against alternative approaches that consider it to be nominalist and contractualist.