Condition of contemporary general sociological theorising: global experience and local specifications
The article presents specific features and characteristics of the Ukrainian sociology development in general and sociological theorizing in particular; author traces the influence of the “Soviet heritage” in sociology in Ukraine and the difficulty of producing its own general sociological theory, resulting in the methodological crisis of 1990s–early 2000s, which is now is being slowly mastered.
Paper suggests analysis of the similar processes for Russian sociology, and highlights a number of common and specific features in their development. With the experience of John Ritzer, the essence, stages, and varieties of sociological metatheorizing as the highest type of the general sociological theory are viewed and the possibilities and limits of application are defined. Based on this, a comparative analysis of the current state of metatheorizing in Ukrainian and Russian sociology made a generalization about their local specifications, which constitute separate cases of development of theorizing in a global sociology.
These include (according to the classification of J. Ritzer) both sociologies being at the first stage of metatheorizing (Mu), but with a more profound its representation in Russian sociology and solitary interventions of the representatives of Ukrainian sociology at the second stage (Mp); increased researchers’ attention to new images of social reality either in stabilization or in transformation types of metatheorizing (by typology of D. Ivanov) in both sociologies. At the same time, in the Ukrainian and Russian versions of metatheorizing there are noticeable differences in the magnitude and time of the discussion of these issues; in the intensity or weakness of the “Soviet heritage” in the area of theorizing; in the degree of expansion of the discussion and debates of metatheorizing; the outcome of these discussions on the problems of interdisciplinarity and methodological turns of the present.
The paper concludes with a statement of a number of problematic issues that require clarification and elaboration of agreed positions and highlight prospects for further research in the field of general sociological theory and metatheorizing.
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