A Quest for Universalism more

European Journal of Social Theory 10(1): 17–35 Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi A Quest for Universalism Re-assessing the Nature of Classical Social Theory’s Cosmopolitanism Daniel Chernilo U N I V E R S I T Y A L B E RTO H U RTA D O , S A N T I AG O , C H I L E Abstract This article re-assesses classical social theory’s relationship with cosmopolitanism. It begins by briefly reconstructing the universalistic thrust that is core to cosmopolitanism and then argues that the rise of classical social theory is marked by the tension of how to retain, but in a renovated form, cosmopolitanism’s original universalism. On the one hand, as the heir of the tradition of the Enlightenment, classical social theory remains fully committed to cosmopolitanism’s universalism. On the other, however, it needed to rejuvenate that commitment to universalism so that it could work without the normative burden that its traditional natural law elements now represented in the modern context. The article then argues that, in the cases of Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, they all started to differentiate the claim to universalism into three different realms: (1) the normative idea of a single modern society that encompasses the whole of humanity; (2) the conceptual definition of what the social element in modern social relations is; and (3) the methodological justification of how to generate adequate empirical knowledge. The conclusion is that, despite differences and shortcomings, it is precisely this claim to universalism that makes classical social theory classical. Key words ■ classical social theory ■ cosmopolitanism ■ Durkheim ■ Marx ■ Simmel ■ universalism ■ Weber We now seem to be in a good position to look back at the writings of classical social theorists from the point of view of cosmopolitanism.1 Our epochal situation mirrors theirs, for instance, in that neither can take the current sociopolitical forms of modernity as pre-determined, inevitable and eternal. We all equally face the problematic question of the position of the nation-state in the context of an always ‘novel’ global (re-)shaping of modernity. There is also the shared challenge of providing a clear assessment, in the present, of the extent and www.sagepublications.com DOI: 10.1177/1368431006068754 18 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1) depth of the structural transformations of modernity. At the same time, there was as much need then as there is now to find new definitions for those key terms with which we try to describe modern social life. As the original over-excitement with globalization starts to calm down, we can also hope that current cosmopolitanism may start unburdening itself of its many ‘-isms’ and become less ideological and doctrinal (Fine, 2003). There is now room to realize the extent to which some of classical social theory’s basic ideas advance key themes in current cosmopolitan thinking (Fine and Chernilo, 2004; Turner, 2006). Of course, this does not mean that everything has remained unchanged since their time or that a mechanical repetition of classical social theory’s theorems makes, in itself, good social theory. However, the outright rejection of classical social theory’s insights into modernity’s structural features on behalf of an alleged epochal change (Albrow, 1996), the dismissal of its key concepts because they are now only ‘zombie categories’ (Beck, 2002), and the abandonment of its claim to universalism because of radically altered epistemic conditions (Urry, 2000), are theses that have been advanced all too quickly and may have become common currency all too readily. Rather than opposing what seems to have been valid then to what no longer looks so, I suggest that not only the national origins but also the global impact of modernity must be re-assessed under our current circumstances. A specifically social theory reconstruction of classical social theory’s engagement with cosmopolitanism can only arise from our own concern with their present: the reconstruction is crucially determined by the conditions and issues we now consider as the most urgent tasks of the day. A critical engagement with this tradition of thinking, then, is in order, not least because the intellectual perplexity and historical uncertainty we now experience are part and parcel of social theory’s mode of understanding modernity (Chernilo, 2006a). My strategy for re-assessing the relationship between classical social theory and cosmopolitanism is based on the idea that there is a certain claim to universalism that they both – classical social theory and cosmopolitanism – share. My main thesis is that as classical social theory emerged out of the universalistic legacy of the Enlightenment – embracing a normative universalism based on traditional natural law theory – it needed to construe a subtler and more differentiated conception of universalism to face adequately the challenge of explaining modern social life. Classical social theory attempted to understand the rise of modern social relations through a universalistic conception of humanity and equally universalistic analytical tools and methodological procedures. The next section thus unfolds the link between cosmopolitanism, universalism and the rise of classical social theory. I would then like to advance further, for each of the four thinkers – Marx, Simmel, Durkheim and Weber – the argument of classical social theory’s universalism on three levels: (1) the normative idea of a single modern society that encompasses the whole of humanity; (2) the conceptual definition of what the social element in modern social relations is; and (3) the methodological justification of how to generate adequate empirical knowledge. Towards the end, I draw the conclusion that it is precisely this claim to universalism that makes classical social theory classical. Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 19 Cosmopolitanism, Universalism and the Rise of Social Theory According to Stephen Toulmin’s comprehensive study on cosmopolitanism, universalism is a key feature of the early cosmopolitan programme that originated in Greek Stoic philosophy. In this tradition, things in the world manifest: in varied ways an ‘order’ which expresses the Reason that binds things together . . . The practical idea that human affairs are influenced by, and proceed in step with heavenly affairs, changes into the philosophical idea that the structure of Nature reinforces a rational Social Order. (Toulmin, 1990: 68) By the time of European absolutism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this universalistic claim was to find expression in such ways of thinking as traditional natural law theory. The particularly normative kind of universalism that characterizes it is turned into a world-view that comprised a unified explanation and justification for all possible realms of human experience: Everything in the natural order testifies (or can be made to testify) to God’s dominion over Nature. That dominion extends through the entire fabric of the world, natural or human, and is apparent on every level of experience. What God is to Nature, the King is to the State. It is fitting that a Modern Nation should model its State organization on the structure God displays on the world of astronomy: the Roi Soleil, or Solar King, wields authority over successive circles of subjects, all of whom know their places, and keep their proper orbits. What God is to Nature and the King is to the State, a Husband is to his Wife, and Father to his Family . . . In all these ways, the order of Nature and the order of Society turn out to be governed by a similar set of laws. (Toulmin, 1990: 127) Within the context of traditional natural law theory, then, the role of human reason is to set the standard within which any event in the world becomes intelligible but human history is not yet considered to be the result of humanity’s own actions. Human beings may be able to understand, but cannot alter, the inner and God-given nature of the world’s ultimate rationale. The universalism of this early cosmopolitan tradition cannot distinguish that it is working articulately and simultaneously at three levels: normatively, on the basis of a divine conception of human nature; conceptually, as human reason provides the causal explanations to describe the functioning of all different fields of life, and methodologically, via the analogies that help the practical organization within all different fields of human experience. These three different planes work necessarily and unproblematically together as a unified world-view. The finest hour of this connection between universalism and cosmopolitanism is, of course, found in Immanuel Kant’s (1999) writings on Perpetual Peace and the Idea of a Universal History. In relation to cosmopolitanism, the position of Kant is one of rupture and continuity with traditional natural law theory and its undifferentiated conception of universalism. On the one hand, Kant breaks with earlier forms of cosmopolitan thinking, as he explicitly regards it as the incarnation – in the fields of politics and international relations – of 20 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1) those moral principles that draw their validity from the fact of being postulates of practical reason. Kant is also an innovator because he added an explicitly political dimension to cosmopolitanism; he understands that some conception of the whole world as one’s own polis – the fact of being a citizen of the world as an emerging reality – is inscribed into the very idea of cosmopolitanism. The institutional innovation advanced in his idea of a voluntary Federation of States and the legal innovation of his Law of Peoples, which included the principle of hospitality towards foreigners, are both based on the universalism of his moral postulates and therefore apply to all human beings without distinction. With this move, Kant begins to unpack the different dimensions of cosmopolitanism’s universalism: while it is still based on its original normative core (although in a modified way, owing to the form of Kant’s own practical philosophy), it now also includes a more procedural dimension. On the other hand, Kant still belongs to the tradition of natural law theory as he resorts to Providence for cosmopolitanism to become a necessary evolutionary accomplishment of humankind. If historical trends do not accommodate the postulates of practical reason, we human beings have little to be afraid of as providence will do its job well to curb men’s ‘unsociable sociability’ (Fine, 2001: 134–5, 2006: 51–5). He trusts that providence will eventually lead us to build up cosmopolitan institutions and allow us to enjoy a cosmopolitan way of life. Kant is therefore a key transitional figure in the development of cosmopolitanism’s more differentiated conception of universalism. Kant is the last of the old cosmopolitans as he, at least partly, follows traditional natural law theory, but Kant is also the first of the modern cosmopolitans as he starts unpacking universalism’s normative core into different, more operational, realms. The critique of traditional natural law theory must be seen as an important theme in explaining the rise of classical social theory (Fine, 2002). Classical social theory emerged, by the late nineteenth century, as an intellectual programme focused on trying to understand and conceptualize the nature of a whole new set of social relations that were having an impact all across the globe. As a part of the tradition of the Enlightenment, classical social theory inherited the claim to universalism which we have argued is core to all cosmopolitanism. However, classical social theory developed also as empirical political philosophy (Wagner, 2001), so it was no longer in a position to deploy cosmopolitanism’s normative project uncritically. My argument is that classical social theory remained committed to the universalistic core of all earlier forms of cosmopolitan thinking but that, in contradistinction to Enlightenment formulations, it needed a more differentiated claim to universalism. It required an argument for universalism that could work without the legitimating pillars provided by traditional natural law theory; there was the need to allow for ethical disagreement and empirical variation without, in the same move, discarding the possibility of universalism altogether. My claim here is that instead of surrendering normative universalism, classical social theory puts it into brackets and starts unpacking it. Or, in other words, that the commitment to universalism stays but now starts differentiating between its normative, conceptual and methodological dimensions. Separate work Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 21 needed to be done within each of these three realms because, although they could still in principle converge, they no longer did so automatically or necessarily. Normatively, classical social theory upholds cosmopolitanism’s original universalism but without the burden that its natural law baggage now represented; no doubt, one of classical social theory’s key themes was ‘the study and critique of society’s normative structures’ (Freitag, 2002: 175). Indeed, from Kant’s writings onwards, it became increasingly clear that the rise of modernity could only be meaningfully understood if attached to an image of a global modernity. Common to Marx’s understanding of capitalism, Weber’s studies on economics and religious ethics, Simmel’s analysis of widening processes of sociation and Durkheim’s assessment of world patriotism is precisely the claim that the modern society is local in origins, national in organization and universal in impact. Classical social theory tries to answer the key question of to what extent a geographically particular set of historically circumscribed processes have led to the rise of a number of evolutionary tendencies that were having a universalistic impact all over the world. The simple but by no means trivial normative corollary of this claim is that, despite all differences, humankind is effectively one and could justly be theorized only as such. The conceptualization of modernity’s global reach effectively requires the normative assumption of a universalistic conception of humanity from which no one is in principle excluded. This understanding of humanity works as one of classical social theory’s regulative ideas (Kant, 1973: 485–7). In classical social theory, the emergence of the modern society is understood as humanity itself being able to forge its destiny at last. Even if modernity is not conceptualized as humanity’s conscious development, this idea of humanity now differs from previous notions of human nature because it is seen for the first time as an evolutionary accomplishment of humanity’s own history. Classical social theory’s conceptual and methodological developments pointed in a direction that is broadly compatible with cosmopolitanism’s normative universalism. Conceptually, then, classical social theory attempted to grasp emerging forms of ‘sociality’ in a universalistic fashion; the project of classical social theory is closely associated with such terms as ‘the social’, ‘society’ and ‘sociation’. The main feature of these concepts is that they tried to grasp what constitutes modern social relations without any of the old elements of traditional natural law theory such as tradition, human nature, providence or the gods. The ambiguities in the use of these concepts reflect the real problems they were expected to solve. If we take the idea of society, for instance, at times it was meant to mark a political, geographical or cultural reference, a ‘society’ was an abstract name given to relatively recent socio-political structures, such as the nation-state – thus the idea of ‘national societies’ (Calhoun, 1999; Smelser, 1997). Yet, there was also a second, and, in my view, a more consistent, use of the term ‘society’ which had to do with the attempt at an abstract conceptualization of the nature of truly ‘modern social relations’ (Frisby and Sayer, 1986; Outhwaite, 2006). On the one hand, then, the idea of the national society emphasizes what could constitute a group of people into a single unit so that it wins its right to national 22 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1) self-determination. It emphasizes the fact that any nation is different from any other nation due to its weather (warm Latinos versus cold Saxons), colour (of the skin) or even flavour (preferably of wine or beer). On the other hand, however, the use of society more closely associated with the concepts of ‘the social’ and ‘sociation’ places more emphasis on the question of what constitutes modern social relations: the claim to universalism which makes us all human beings and allows us to speak of social relations in whatever place (Europe or Latin America) and time (before or after the birth of Christ). We shall see that classical social theory battled hard to find a regulative principle that could set the foundations for universalistic social scientific knowledge on the basis of modernity’s global reach. The one feature to which society needed to subscribe, however, was a claim to universality in its normative assessments as well as in its conceptualizations of empirical diversity. The universalistic conceptual tools being created by classical social theory could only function if, in practice, they were being complemented by workable methodological procedures. At first sight at least, there does not seem to be much in common between, say, Weber’s insistence on the imputation of rational behaviour when constructing ideal-types, Marx’s inversion of Hegel’s idealism, Simmel’s Kantian argumentation on the a-priori nature of society, and Durkheim’s statement on the external and coercive nature of social facts. Moreover, as general guidelines, they neither are intrinsically faultless nor were always deployed faithfully even by the writers themselves. Yet, all these procedures share two features worth mentioning here. First, critically, all classical social theory’s methodological rules rejected the translation of political preferences towards nationalistic politics into theoretical stances for explicating ‘the social’. Even if at the beginning of World War I, Durkheim (1915), Weber (Palonen, 2001) and Simmel (Harrington, 2005) fell prey to nationalistic chauvinism, this not only proved short-lived but, more importantly, it was never translated into their more abstract social scientific principles. Although, to my surprise, this theme has not attracted much attention in the secondary literature, classical social theory criticized the tendency towards reification and hypostatization to be found at the time around the idea of the nation. They all opposed what is now called ‘methodological nationalism’, the idea that the nation-state and the principle of nationality were the natural and necessary representations of modern social life (Chernilo, 2006b). In one word, they all thought that decent social science could not be found on any particularistic völkisch principle! Second, and more importantly, all their procedures share some pledge to universalism as a methodological principle. The validity of the new knowledge to be produced could only be granted because the methodological procedures involved would account for cultural and historical diversity while still remaining committed to universalism. Even if their concepts and methods did not always prove as successful or workable as originally anticipated, universalism remains a regulative principle, a standard to strive for (Emmet, 1994). If the empirical vocation of classical social theory was expected to work as an antidote against any reified version of the universal, the claim to universalism of its concepts and Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 23 methodological procedures represents an equivalent antidote against any sacred treatment of the particular. In the rest of the article, then, I would like to substantiate my claim of classical social theory’s commitment to universalism at these three levels. Normatively, in its conception that the idea of modern society is meaningful only when it encompasses the whole of humanity; conceptually, in its delimitation of what is social in modern social relations, and methodologically, in its establishment of procedures that could guide and justify the results of empirical research in different historical and cultural settings. Although I will unfold the argument on universalism at these three levels for each of the four writers, it is also apparent that each one of them came up with stronger claims at particular points: Marx, because of the definitive advancement represented by his critique of traditional natural law theory and his claim of the global nature of capitalism; Simmel, with the argument of the universalistic conceptual and methodological foundation of the idea of society; Durkheim, via his thesis on the normative universalism underlying the relationship between cosmopolitanism and the nation-state, and Weber, in relation to the universalistic proceduralism upon which he bases his methodological insights. Marx One of Karl Marx’s key themes was his attempt to break away from the essentialism he found in traditional natural law theory. His adoption of a materialistic viewpoint is based on the rejection of any conception of immutable human nature. Rather, he understands the evolution of human history – via the key concepts of praxis, first, and then labour – as the fully historicized development of the material reproduction of social life. The starting-point of his critique of German idealism focuses precisely on the dogmatism of its nationalistic presuppositions. Thus, very early on, in the context of his dispute with the young Hegelians, Marx (1978: 59) took Hegel as the highest representative of ‘German philosophy of right and of the state’ and of ‘the modern state and of the reality connected with it’. He criticized this view of Germany in which the country is taken as self-sufficient and without consideration of broader social processes and refers to Hegel’s view of Germany as ‘the deficiency of present-day politics constituted into a system’ (Marx, 1978: 62). Without entering into the dispute of whether Marx interpreted Hegel correctly, the critique of Hegel is that of turning the project of a German nation-state into a form of religion. Marx’s first methodological concern is thus that of trying to get rid of the limitations that one’s own place and time impose upon thinking; he strives for universalism and aims at a position within which the broadest possible viewpoint can be achieved. Marx’s philosophical concerns were increasingly re-shaped in social scientific language as he became interested in political economy as the empirical science that could provide the best possible account of the actual material reproduction of society in capitalism. Marx bothered with bourgeois political economy because 24 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1) he regarded that body of literature as an attempt to produce universally valid and applicable scientific knowledge. His critique of political economy, in turn, was developed to advance that scientific project further so that it could effectively work to uncover in-depth processes by penetrating through its appearances – as masterfully represented in his thesis of commodity fetishism in Chapter 1 of Capital (Larraín, 1979: 180–4). Therefore, when the young Marx (1978: 145) refers to a conception of society as ‘socialised humanity’ in Grundrisse an older Marx similarly argued that ‘[s]ociety does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand’ (Marx, 1973: 265). His idea of society points then more to a generic concept of ‘social relations’ and less to the nation-state or, in fact, to any particular form of socio-political organization. All through Marx’s œuvre, then, ‘reified conceptions of society . . . reflect the real alienation of social relations from their participants characteristic of bourgeois society’ (Frisby and Sayer, 1986: 95). This attempt at the development of a universalistic conceptual and methodological viewpoint finds, from very early on, a clear normative counterpoint. In On the Jewish Question, for instance, Marx’s argument is that political emancipation is a necessary stepping-stone in the process of the modern state and society reaching their own limits. While the project of political emancipation makes possible the full realization of modern socio-political relations – represented in the division between the state and civil society – its critique exposes the limitations of the current form of organization of social life. The ultimate problem with political emancipation is that although it accomplishes an important stage in the development of humankind, it does not go far enough: Political emancipation is a reduction of man, on the one hand, to a member of civil society, an independent and egoistic individual, and on the other hand, to a citizen, to a moral person. Human emancipation will only be complete when the real, individual man has absorbed into himself the abstract citizen; when as an individual man, in his everyday life, in his work, and in his relationships, he has become a species-being . . . as social powers so that he no longer separates this social power from himself as political power. (Marx, 1978: 46) Marx argues that the political programme which aims to the reform of the modern state within the limits of that state fails to grasp not only its historical and contradictory character but also the ultimate source of alienation and inequality of modern social life. There is the need for a wider conception of human emancipation, one that is based on transcending the contradictory form of reproduction of modern social and political life: capitalism. The normative universalism underlying the idea of human emancipation is fully consistent with Marx’s general conception of modernity as truly a global one: the expansion of capitalism is global and nothing but global. Indeed, the political call for the proletarians of the world to unite is fully consistent with the more empirical argument on the ‘cosmopolitization’ – the rise of world literature, science, commerce and means of transport, among others – that capitalism brings with it (Marx and Engels, 1976). Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 25 We cannot begin to understand Marx’s intellectual project without grasping the role universalism plays within it. For my purposes here, these arguments have now come full circle: Marx began with the critique of the restrictions that particular socio-historical conditions placed upon certain intellectual trends in Germany at the time and he tried to overcome these limitations precisely by placing them within the widest – i.e. global – context. Even if we were to state that Marx could not totally control the different planes at which universalism operates within his own work, what he has none the less achieved is remarkable. From normative universalism down, he managed to translate the normative kernel of his conception of human emancipation into increasingly universalistic and more workable concepts and procedures. From conceptual and methodological universalism up, these concepts and methods could effectively provide rejuvenated arguments for a modern normative project. Simmel We can similarly start this presentation of Georg Simmel via his critique of the shortcomings he found in the social sciences of his time. Simmel arrives at a positive definition of society only after a long exercise of delimitation. He first of all rejects any conceptualization of society in which it is reduced only to individuals’ subjective representations; he is against what we would today call a methodologically individualistic definition of society. He equally opposes the illusion of metaphysical notions of society such as those of a mystical kind to be found in German Völkerspsychologie: [i]t is no longer possible to explain facts in the broadest sense of the word, the contents of culture, the types of industry, the norms of morality, by reference solely to the individual, his understanding, and his interests. Still less is it possible, if this sort of explanation fails, to find recourse in metaphysical or magical causes. (Simmel, 1909: 292) The idea of society is always in danger of being wrongly treated as ‘a collective name arising from our inability to treat single separate phenomena . . . we do not make the required distinction between that which takes place merely within society, as within a frame, and that which comes to pass through society’ (Simmel, 1994: 34). Simmel thus contrasts society as a frame against society as an active force and only the latter comes close to an acceptable definition of society. The influence of one individual upon others leads to the creation of emergent forces which none of them could effectively anticipate nor indeed control. He is now ready to introduce the idea of society as ‘types of reciprocal influencing . . . If, therefore, there is to be a science, the object of which is to be “society” and nothing else, it can investigate only these reciprocal influences, these kinds and forms of socialization’ (Simmel, 1909: 297–8, my italics). Having arrived at a universalistic concept of society as a principle of reciprocal influencing, and thus opposed to the sum of individuals’ actions or the nation-state, Simmel needs now to elucidate some methodological difficulties in 26 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1) order to avoid ‘treating society either as a “real product” or as a “purely transcendental presupposition of sociological experience”’ (Frisby and Sayer, 1986: 63). In other words, he cannot study society as if it were a natural force independent of human interaction nor as a purely conventional device devoid of substantive reference. The best methodological possibility for Simmel is phenomenological: the positive knowledge of society arises only from the actual ways in which people experience this reciprocal influencing in their own life. The fact that society cannot be known beyond how it appears in everyday experiences means, from a methodological viewpoint, that society is the most abstract way of accessing the objective nature of intersubjectivity in individuals’ experiences. As the active principle of reciprocal interaction, society is now the required general framework to make social scientific analysis possible without anticipating or exhausting the actual content with which that framework may eventually be filled in. Society is an impossible object for empirical social research and yet it is its condition of possibility. Because society helps us isolate what is truly social in a universalistic fashion it now works as a regulative idea (Chernilo, 2007; Schrader-Klebert, 1968). Simmel is interested in sociology because, conceptually as well as methodologically, it tries to grasp universalistically what is strictly social in modern social life. Sociology emerges because of the rise of certain unprecedented historical trends. As an idea, then, society arises because there are now real social forces to be reckoned with. Simmel is particularly interested in those social settings in which the rise of modern forms of reciprocal influencing gives also rise to modern individualization processes (Honneth, 2004). The study of ‘sociability’ as social relations in their purest form offers him the chance to test rigorously his methodological and conceptual universalism. In modern social gatherings, says Simmel: everyone should guarantee to the other that maximum of sociable values (joy, relief, vivacity) which is consonant with the maximum of values he himself receives. As justice upon the Kantian basis is thoroughly democratic, so likewise this principle shows the democratic structure of all sociability . . . Sociability creates, if one will, an ideal sociological world, for in it – so say the enunciated principles – the pleasure of the individual is always contingent upon the joy of others; here, by definition, no one can have his satisfaction at the cost of contrary experiences on the part of others. (Simmel, 1949: 257, my italics) Even if the issue of the normative implications of Simmel’s social theory has proved taxing for the secondary literature (Gangas, 2004), we can see here how his sociological depictions start to have normative strings attached to them. The deployment of the conceptual and methodological universalism associated with his understanding of sociability now makes apparent equally universalistic normative implications: a conception that modern social life is intrinsically democratic. The claim is that the more the individual is enmeshed in webs of social relations, the more he or she emancipates himself of herself: he or she may gain in moral autonomy, political freedom, economic entrepreneurship, aesthetic innovation Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 27 or erotic fulfilment. Although this increment in individual freedom comes with a price in terms of loneliness, social deprivation and even indifference, the question is one of the correct balance between the forms of sociation and individualization. Always analysing sociability as society’s neatest representation, Simmel argues that in these meetings social interaction takes place with ‘no ulterior end’; it is oriented totally for the sake of the personalities taking place in it. Yet, ‘precisely because all is oriented about them, the personalities must not emphasise themselves too individually’ (Simmel, 1949: 255). A normatively universalistic conception of humanity is now an integral part of the argument: If we now have the conception that we enter into sociability purely as ‘human beings,’ as that which we really are, lacking all the burdens, the agitation, the inequalities with which real life disturbs the purity of our picture, it is because modern life is overburdened with objective content and material demands. Ridding ourselves of this burden in sociable circles, we believe we return to our natural personal being and overlook the fact that this personal aspect also does not consist in its full uniqueness and natural completeness, but only in a certain reserve and stylizing of the sociable man. (Simmel, 1949: 257) Universalism then becomes a defining feature in Simmel’s social theory as it underpins his concept of modern social life, his method of studying society and the normative orientation behind both. Simmel’s normative thesis is not only that with the rise of modern society all individuals will in due course take part in those social trends that constitute it but more importantly that the very humanity of the modern individual is crucially attached to its belonging in modern society. We are all human beings because, as individuals, our inner core is shaped in society, although at no point can we or should we fully disclose our individuality in society. In other words, while the society of the modern society is understood as phenomenologically objectified intersubjectivity, the modernity of the modern society lies in the fact that more and more aspects of social life are reshaped because they are the result of these processes of reciprocal influencing. Durkheim Emile Durkheim also came up with an idea of how social theory might look by contrasting it with what he considered the dogmatic and mystical ways of thinking dominant in the French intellectual scene. Interestingly, he particularly opposed the doctrines of Ernest Renan, a leading intellectual who is best known for his little pamphlet, ‘What Is a Nation?’. Against Renan’s elitism and rather religious faith in science, Durkheim offered an ‘optimistic and universalised rationalism’ within which ‘all individuals, however humble, have a right to aspire to the higher life of the mind’ (Durkheim, Discours aux lycéens de Sens, cited in Lukes, 1973: 72). Conceptually, Durkheim (1964a) understands the division of labour as modernity’s key structural development. In terms of social solidarity, he argues that the consequences of the division of labour were to be felt mostly 28 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1) at the national scale. However, the actual explanation of its emergence, key features and long-term development could only be achieved if conceived of as a world-scale phenomenon. Methodologically, he developed new procedures not only to allow the researcher to treat complex phenomena as objectively as possible but also to comply with the inner nature of social facts: hence his methodological rules of treating social facts as external to individuals and with the capacity of exercising coercion over them (Durkheim, 1964b). In defining society as an emergent reality, he expected to theorize it as something that occurs somewhere ‘in between’ individuals and social institutions: society coincides with neither but equally it cannot be thought of as totally independent of either. Yet, the most conceptually and methodologically taxing feature of society lies in its moral nature; the sacred character of life in common finds expression in the fact that external social facts become effectively internalized as society’s legitimate values and norms. Therefore, Durkheim tried to find a methodological strategy to make possible the empirical understanding of society’s hidden life. The unrelenting universalism of Durkheim’s particular conception of positivism is apparent in his original yet problematic solution to the highly vexing issue that society’s normative integration could not be accessed directly but needed to be studied empirically via its visible symbols. Social solidarity was to be best studied via its predominant legal forms and the state of the conscience collective via the types and ratios of suicide. Normatively, Durkheim is the only writer in this group to have made explicit use of the term cosmopolitanism. On the one hand, he believed in the nationstate as a modern and rational form of socio-political organization. He speaks positively of the state’s role in social life and of patriotism as the necessary sentiment of attachment and value towards one’s state. On the other, he equally makes the point that the state and patriotism can only find justification if based upon a universalistic commitment towards humanity as a whole. Durkheim’s (1973: 54) cosmopolitanism – following Kant’s argument on perpetual peace – points to the expansion of individual liberties all across the world on the basis of the increasingly moral character of modern social life within a state. He constantly tries to find a system of balances between individual freedom and state control which effectively can help curb the anomic effects of modernity’s structural development. Durkheim’s idea of cosmopolitanism is that of a moral sentiment that needed to find sociological expression within nation-states (Poggi, 2000; Bryan S. Turner, 1992). In Durkheim’s (1992: 74) own words: If the State had no other purpose than making men of its citizens, in the widest sense of the term, the civic duties would be only a particular form of the general obligations of humanity . . . The more societies concentrate their energies inwards, on the interior life, the more they will be diverted from the disputes that bring a clash between cosmopolitanism – or world patriotism, and patriotism. Universal values must be anchored in ‘really-existing’ communities and Durkheim thought that the nation-state was indeed one very important form of sociopolitical organization in modernity: social practices, norms and values are Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 29 reproduced only through ‘concrete’ social relations such as the nation. To be practical and useful, the regulation of social life has to be carried out within a certain scale and range and, so far, that scale has been provided by the nationstate. Yet again, the ‘identity’ of the state – national patriotism – must be centred on world patriotism, the cosmopolitan horizon behind the idea of humanity’s intrinsic worth. His social theory is torn apart between the moral autonomy of the individual, on the one hand, and the determinism that was implied in his conceptualization of the externality of social facts, on the other. So, although no compelling defence can currently be provided for the adequacy of Durkheim’s treatment of statistical trends or for his prescription of treating social facts ‘as things’, his normative universalism is surely consistent with the conceptual and methodological standpoints he had matured at earlier stages of his intellectual development. In this context, Durkheim’s strategy was to develop a differentiated argument for universalism on all three levels so that his more descriptive arguments could complement, and yet remain independent of, his normative position. Weber We can begin this final section with Max Weber’s reflections on the problems of reification he found within German academic circles at the turn of the twentieth century. For instance, the core of his long critique of Wilhelm Roscher and Karl Knies lies precisely in the fact that he remained suspicious of the ways in which these two writers tried to abolish any universalistic thrust to social scientific explanations and re-introduced from the back door, in the form of intuitionism and chauvinism, a traditional natural law type of argument. Weber (1992: 27–37) criticizes Roscher, for instance, because he understands peoples as ‘closed organisms’ and nations as ‘individuals’ and ‘biological entities’. Weber rejected any attempt at conceptualizing the nation as a cultural individual that would find expression not only in such spheres as arts, language and politics but also in that each nation would have ‘its own wine’. This conception, Weber (1992: 31) argues, is nothing but the nation being ‘hypostatised as a “social-psychological” unity which experiences development in itself ’. Weber wrote furiously against this intuitionism that sought to understand socio-historical life via any form of empathy – the worst version of which was that based on ‘common blood’ or ‘shared culture’. He emphatically repudiated the idea that the value spheres which composed his most abstract diagnosis of the development of modern Western culture could be understood, in a methodologically nationalistic fashion, as ‘emanations of the Volksgeist’ (Bendix and Berger, 1959: 106–7). Weber’s methodological universalism is buttressed by his idea of science’s value-freedom. Scientific knowledge is in no position to grant, justify or indeed establish ultimate values. And it is precisely in the context of this argument on scientific neutrality that Weber (1997: 147–8) argued that ‘the nation’ is a concept which belongs to the realm of values. Science cannot and should not be made instrumental to the nation! 30 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1) In fact, Wolfgang Schluchter (1996: 39–45, 273) has documented exactly this via the polemic created by Weber’s lecture on Science as a Vocation in 1919. Schluchter mentions papers by leading German scholars at the time (among them Ernst Troeltsch, Max Scheler, Erich von Kahler and Heinrich Rickert) who, in one way or another, all opposed the content of Weber’s lecture. According to Schluchter, he received attacks from different (indeed, at times opposite) flanks but most of them seemed to concentrate on Weber’s (1949: 28–37) refusal to justify philosophically some kind of valid hierarchy of ultimate values in the form of a nationalistic world-view, some notion of progress or a proletarian revolution. It is because Weber seemed to have embraced the universalistic programme of the Enlightenment, and taken its legacy of an ultimate clash of world-views to its limits, that he was seen to uphold an ‘un-German’ kind of universalism. This seems to have had more to do, however, with Weber’s thesis that the polytheism of values represents the ultimate ‘tragedy of the modern culture’ (Charles Turner, 1992). Universalism turns out to be a defining feature of Weber’s sociological programme, as it underlines his conception of ideal-types as the preferred methodological procedures for the nascent social sciences. Weber’s aim was to construe sociological explanations of individual historical cases that could successfully pass the test of universality and he introduced two clauses to secure this. First, what we may call the principle of the ‘Chinese researcher’: if properly applied and explicated, methodological rules should allow a researcher from whatever socio-cultural background to arrive at similar results. Weber (1949: 59) acknowledges that this may not be totally achievable in practice but he none the less expects that this methodological universalism will work as a regulative idea – a type of ‘regulative universalism’. On the other hand, the claim that ‘one need not to be Caesar in order to understand Caesar’ works as a critique of the idea that social science must be based on – or can be reduced to – empathy (Weber, 1997: 176). Weber chose means–end rationality as the preferred form of causal imputation – and decided to construe ideal-types on the basis of this imputation of rationality – because means–end rationality provided him with clear procedures and standards to reconstruct and then assess different possible causal explanations. It was a kind of universalistically oriented procedure that could help transcend the relativism that he thought came with all forms of empathetic understanding. This is also the reason why – despite recent arguments to the contrary (Swedberg, 2003) – I would hold that Weber’s preference for means–end rationality is methodological rather than ontological. Problematic as it is, the preference for means–end rationality does not seem to bear the implication that Weber thought that individuals, or collective actors such as classes or the state, behave in their everyday practice in this rational way. Ideal-types grant the possibility, for any researcher, to clearly establish his or her own explanations so that any fellow investigator (one who comes from China and has never ruled over an empire) could independently re-assess these explanations and come to an understanding of the actor’s choices (Weber, 1949: 27). Rationalistic ideal-types help set empirical cases within a universalistic analytical framework. Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 31 This methodological rule is consistent with the way in which Weber set his enquiry at the beginning of his comparative sociology of world religions. There, he is concerned with the issue of how the world-historical relevance of modernity is to be disentangled from – but then also re-associated with – that which is particularly western in modernity: to what combination of circumstances the fact should be attributed that in Western civilization, and in Western civilization only, cultural phenomena have appeared which (as we like to think) lie in a line of development having universal significance and value. (Weber, 2001: xxviii) So, even if no unified normative programme can be derived from Weber’s social theory, at least two comments can be made here in favour of their being interpreted as compatible with normative universalism. First, it can be argued that only a cosmopolitan outlook is compatible with his comparative sociology of world religions. This last quotation illustrates that the issue at stake is the recognition of historical specificity – the West’s particular combination of circumstances – in the context of the claim to universalism; the intended research is significant precisely because it points beyond its historical and geographical location. There can only be a single modern society for Weber and that includes the whole of humanity. Second, it has been demonstrated that the only normative position compatible with Weber’s methodological reflections is one based on a universalistic application of procedures or ‘reflexive principles’ similar to Kant’s categorical imperative – as they are found in such ideas as value freedom, scientific neutrality and individual autonomy in ethical matters (Schluchter, 1996: 69–101). Because the modern world is ethically irrational – evil deeds can result from good intentions – normatively sound decisions are only those that emerge from the application of reflexive principles. Similarly to what Jürgen Habermas (1998) has referred to as the proceduralist nature of current postmetaphysical thinking, Weber’s idea of sound moral reasoning is also procedurally shaped. The justification of moral decisions in the context of a clash between values or maxims needs to be formal in character, be based on an internally-driven commitment, remain open to criticism and take into account the action’s foreseeable consequences. Conclusion Let me now come back to the historical analogies with which I started this piece. In the same way as the critique of a nationalist Weltanschauung was a primary concern for classical social theory, we are still in need of a similar move. Equally, just as this did not mean an uncritical celebration of chauvinism, particularism and reification for classical social theory, it needs not lead us to respond to postmodern relativism and the most recent globalist taste for the new with a return to fundamentalism or dogmatic natural law metaphysics. The challenge therefore remains, today as well as yesterday, to find a balance between being sensitive to 32 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1) empirical differences and historical variations without pre-deciding against the possibility of making claims with universalistic intent. Classical social theory fought hard – and was not always successful – to retain the normative universalism that is core to the whole of the cosmopolitan tradition. Yet, it could only legitimize such a move if it were to find those conceptual tools and methodological devices that could set the basis for reliable social scientific knowledge. Despite the differences we have witnessed within this group of writers, the one feature to which they all subscribed was a claim to universalism; this is the tie that binds the rise of classical social with the tradition of cosmopolitan thinking. Classical social theory developed as a critical heir of the tradition of the Enlightenment so it had an ambivalent position towards its universalistic legacy. In the footsteps of Kant’s pioneering translation of cosmopolitan principles into legal and institutional arrangements, classical social theory needed to come up with new ways of actualizing cosmopolitanism and started to disentangle its universalistic normative core from its conceptual and methodological dimensions. I have tried to demonstrate that although classical social theory clearly upheld the value of universalism as a regulative principle, it equally required a more differentiated conception of universalism than earlier forms of cosmopolitanism could offer. It increasingly emptied the normative core of cosmopolitanism’s universalism from the legitimating power of the divine and its unified representation of the world; classical social theory emphasized an idea of modernity that could only be adequately conceptualized via universalistic concepts and methodological procedures. It is a kind of universalism based on the abstractive strength of its analytical tools and the neutral nature of its methodological devices; one that may not always be achievable in practice but which none the less remains a standard to strive for. This claim to universalism is classical social theory’s key regulative principle. Classical social theory’s quest for universalism considered cultural, geographical and historical variation as part of what needed to be explained within the increasing and all-encompassing advance of modern social relations. If it retained cosmopolitanism’s normative universalism, it did so because it increasingly became the only normative standpoint compatible with its conceptual and methodological universalism. For the intellectual challenges we now face, then, this claim to universalism is what makes classical social theory classical. Acknowledgements First and foremost, I should like to thank Robert Fine for his friendship and intellectual inspiration. My gratitude also goes to Vivienne Boon, Robert Fine and William Outhwaite for their invitations to deliver this article at the Universities of Liverpool and Sussex in November 2005. I must here acknowledge all the participants in those sessions for comments and criticisms, in particular Ulrich Beck, Andrew Chitty, Matthew David, Gerard Delanty, María Pía Lara, Darrow Schecter and Charles Turner. Thanks are equally due to Margaret Archer, Jorge Larraín, Aldo Mascareño, Cristóbal Rovira, Guido Starosta and Marcus Taylor for a great deal of help and support while carrying out this research. Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 33 Finally, Robert Fine, Aldo Mascareño and William Outhwaite made extremely useful suggestions to sharpen the arguments contained here. As always, only the author must be held responsible for the errors contained in this article, which is part of a larger research project funded by the Chilean Council for Science and Technology (Grant 3040004). Note 1 Although their status as classics is no longer unproblematic, I can only take for granted here that these four writers deserve such a position. In fact, I understand this article’s re-assessment of classical social theory’s universalism as a contribution to the renovation of their classical standing under our current circumstances. 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Turner, Charles (1992) Modernity and Politics in the Work of Max Weber. London: Routledge. Urry, John (2000) Sociology Beyond Societies. London: Routledge. Wagner, Peter (2001) A History and Theory of the Social Sciences. London: Sage. Weber, Max (1949) The Methodology of the Social Sciences. New York: The Free Press. —— (1992) El problema de la irracionalidad en las ciencias sociales. Madrid: Tecnos. —— (1997) Ensayos sobre metodología sociológica. Buenos Aires: Amorrortu. —— (2001) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge. Chernilo ■ Daniel Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 35 was a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Warwick. He is currently academic convenor of the PhD in Sociology programme at the University Alberto Hurtado in Santiago, Chile, and Fellow of the Warwick Social Theory Centre. He has published a number of papers on contemporary social theory, historical sociology and cosmopolitanism. He is the author of A Social Theory of the NationState (Routledge, 2007). Address: Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Alameda B. O’Higgins 1869 4º Piso, Santiago, Chile. [email: dchernil @uahurtado.cl] ■