Summary

Summary

With the following outline summary, I conclude this episode in what Whitehead has called the adventure of ideas. I have set out a generative structuralist conception of general theoretical sociology. In Chapter 1, the focus was metatheoretical: The structure of theory was treated as a meaning control hierarchy, exhibiting change that might be progressive under certain conditions, including the more effective implementation of specified cognitive operative ideals for the form of theory and of explanation in sociology. In Chapter 2, the focus was on the dynamics of linkage creation and dissolution in a social network, with social structure as an emergent outcome. Chapter 3 stressed action representation principles and their role in the development of theoretical models focused on problems of social structure. Analytical action theory suggested the vision of a network of socially coupled dynamical normative control systems. Structural–generative theory aims to forge a link between this vision and the stress on actors as embodying and interpreting institutional forms through tacit social knowledge processes. Adaptive rationality theory develops in detail the implications of social coupling of actor models. Chapter 4 presented one development within structuralism, focused on biased networks, which permitted an illustration of the ideaof a unification dynamic based on tradition and formalization. It also set out the theoretical method of E-state structuralism, along with its illustrative use in theory formulations that might embody generative structuralism.