CLASSICAL HORIZONS

THE ORIGINS OF SOCIOLOGY IN ANCIENT GREECE

     This work relocates the origins of nineteenth-century sociology in classical Greece. From the early to the later writings of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim, Greek philosophy, art, and politics inspired their ideas, stirred their imagination, and defined their intellectual horizons. McCarthy shows how the world of classical antiquity was crucial in forming the discipline of sociology and the contours of modern social science. The Europeans looked upon modernity from the heights of the Acropolis as they judged industrial society by the dreams and ideals of the ancients. Moving beyond the Enlightenment, they integrated Science and Justice in a new form of critical social theory.

     The modern social theorists wrote dissertations that focused on the culture and structure of ancient society: Marx dealt with the post-Aristotelian philosophy of nature of Epicurus and Democritus, Weber's two dissertations were on commercial law and trading organizations in ancient Rome and medieval cities and Roman agrarian history, and Durkheim's two theses examined the division of labor and conscience collective in ancient and modern societies and the foundations of sociology in the writings of Montesquieu and Aristotle. This longing for classical Greece (Griechensehnsucht) was inspired by the writings of Winckelmann and Hölderlin, Goethe and Schiller, and Hegel and Nietzsche. The general interest of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim in the ancients continued throughout their careers and well into their major sociological writings affecting every aspect of their thought. Discussions in sociology about science, methods, and theory developed out of interest in classical antiquity, especially Aristotle's theories of science, social justice, and political wisdom in the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics.

     Following the approach of Greek political science, the modern theorists combined ethics, economics, and politics (law) into a new and exciting discipline. Behind their theories of alienation, rationalization, and the social pathologies of anomie, abnormal division of labor, and suicide lay the ideals of freedom, happiness, and democracy found in classical Greece. As a result of their integration of the ancients and moderns, the classical sociologists produced new forms of cultural and historical science -- dialectical, interpretive, and moral -- that rejected the Enlightenment view of science and positivism, liberal individualism, classical and utilitarian political economy, and the social and economic institutions of modernity. The development of sociology occurred at a time when the other social sciences were moving in the opposite direction toward an acceptance of the values of modernity and the research techniques and method of the natural sciences. Later, in its rush to positivism, American sociology lost its classical memory and critical identity. The goal of this book is to rediscover the forgotten dreams and lost classical horizons of these turn-of-the-century European social theorists.

     The classical horizons of ancient Greece and Aristotle's theory of social justice pervade every aspect of modern social thought. The foundations for Marx's early theory of universal social and economic rights, human emancipation, and species-being, as well as his later critique of political economy and capital, lie in Aristotle's philosophy of intellectual virtue, economic and political justice, polis economics, and his critique of chrematistics and a market economy. Marx's analysis of the structural contradictions and economic crises of capitalism in Capital has its justification and methodology in Aristotle's theory of substance, causality, and movement in his Physics and Metaphysics. Weber's analysis of the rationalization of social institutions, the disenchantment of modern science, and the formal rationality of the utilitarian sensualist and bureaucratic specialist in the iron cage is grounded in his historical understanding of the political capitalism of ancient Greece and Rome, in Nietzsche's existential philosophy of Greek tragedy, Dionysian wisdom, and the nihilistic decadence of Western rationality, and in the Aristotelian ideal of humanity (Menschentum) and self-realization (Persönlichkeit). And the source for Durkheim's theory of social solidarity and the conscience collective, education and public virtue, and guild democracy and social justice rests in Aristotle's theory of universal and particular justice, and in the Greek ideals of moral virtue, political culture, and civic friendship.

     Classical Horizons contributes to contemporary social theory because of its critical and provocative theses about the origins of the sociology and science of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim in classical humanism. The seven main theses are:

     (1)   The origins of German and French sociology rest in ancient Greece in general and in Aristotle's epistemological, political, and
        ethical philosophy in particular. That is, the key to unlocking the ideas and the ideals of classical sociology lies in Aristotle's
        theory of science and justice.
     (2)   Classical sociology is arguably the only social science that rejected the philosophical tenets of positivism and modern
        scientific rationality. By transforming and radicalizing the Kantian and Aristotelian theories of knowledge, it rejected epistemological
        realism or the copy theory of truth which argues that science reflects objective reality, as well as naturalism which maintains
        that science must apply the method of the natural sciences.
     (3)   Nineteenth-century sociology is distinctive among the social sciences because it was not justified by or grounded in the
        Enlightenment view of science and reason, the Cartesian dualism of subject and object, or the false neutrality and reified objectivity of positivism.
     (4)   Sociology's new views on methods, science, and theory were based upon Aristotle's philosophy of science and his theory of episteme
        (universal or contemplative knowledge), techne (technical or utilitarian knowledge), and phronesis (political or practical knowledge
        through public discourse) found in his Nicomachean Ethics and Politics.
     (5)   Classical sociology is the direct modern heir of Greek political science. Ancient and modern science were integrated,
        as were nineteenth-century historical/cultural science and classical social justice. Ancient political philosophy blended uniquely
        and creatively with modern science. Aristotle and Kant merged into a new science of society in the writings of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.
     (6)   Modern sociology married its views of society, personality, humanity, and education to Aristotle's theory of economic and political justice,
        particular and universal justice. Its theorists rejected the values and institutions of liberal individualism, the capitalist economy,
        and the modern state and sought alternative social formations.
     (7)   And as a result of all the above, sociology became a phronesic science or science of phronesis. The classical sociology of
        Marx, Weber, and Durkheim developed a view of science that was interpretive, moral, and historical, rather than positivistic,
        predictive, and technological.

     The sociologists sought self-realization and the development of humanity through social justice. They created a social science that integrated empirical and historical research with the values of classical and modern ethics and politics. Their horizons were broader, their visions deeper, and their science more comprehensive than their contemporaries and followers as they attempted to move beyond the structural and cultural limits of modernity. From the dazzling heights of ancient Athens they dreamed of a better world. The task of contemporary social theorists now is to rediscover these dreams and build upon them for a better future.