The Sociological Ambition; Elementary Forms of Social and Moral Life

This book situates sociology in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts and examines how the founders of the discipline developed competing analyses of the processes elementary to social and moral life through their distinctive sociological contributions. Surveying a range of sociological analyses from Comte to feminism, postmodernism and rational choice theory, this book examines the various attempts that have been made to reconstruct the discipline over the last century, and the challenges facing it today. Individual chapters examine 'Human Sociology', 'Sacred Sociology', 'Tragic Sociology', 'Heroic Sociology' and 'Normative Sociology'. The book moves on to discuss post-classical thought, and the attempted reconstruction o