The social theory of the 21st century: Needs and possibilities of mutation

Abstract

The challenges that currently make social theory are addressed and a modest proposal is presen ted about how 21st century social theory could make a “quantum leap” towards the understanding and transformation of the world in the 21st century. The metaphor of mutation is proposed to think about the kind of transformation that social theory could follow to make that leap. This mutation consists of two approaches developed here: A new epistemology that becomes aware of the pretensions of domination in the hegemonic theory developed in the two previous centuries and a radical transformation of the structure from which the theory is now constructed.