Interpreting a Social Theory

Abstract

Taylorean social theory is a particular interpretation of Taylor’s meta-narrative on secularization. It is “social theory” in the sense that it offers a theoretical understanding of the social processes and social agents involved in secularization as social change. This understanding requires a greater hermeneutical work than that by mainstream sociology. Its analysis makes particular use of the ideas of social imaginaries and elite-masses dynamics. Its sources include those coming from Taylor philosophical anthropology and his views on the method of the social sciences. They also include the sociological sources for his meta-narrative, as well as the work by Margaret Archer and other sociologists and thinkers. Taylorean social theory can be characterized by seeing the interaction between structure and human agency as circular, by the recognition of the ability of human agency (particularly that organized as social movements) to change structures, by insisting on an equally important role of social and cultural factors when explaining social change, by considering social system always open (and social processes leading both to either stability or change), by studying social change always in its historical development and by proposing a necessarily complementary use of quantitative and qualitative studies on the same phenomenon. Taylorean social theory uses a set of general basic concepts and practical criteria and guidelines for an interpretive ad casum study, expresses its results in the form of narratives and acquires its validating strength from “transcendental arguments.” In its current formulation it is about Western secularization, although it seems it could be generalizable to other macro-social processes.