Discourse, Power, Society, and Words

the “Babel” of Sociology

Abstract

Contemporary sociology is often said to be built on multiple paradigms, but there is little substance behind this assertion. New theories or methods such as Foucault's concept of power, discourse analysis, and social constructionism, are not destruction, not even reconstruction, but merely reproduction of traditional sociology. Although they reject concepts such as “subject” or “society”, through their rejection they reintroduce equivalent concepts. If we will really wish to go beyond traditional sociology, we must abandon all terms that attempt an overview of society as a whole and discard almost all attempts to explain social phenomenon. Only a small set of basic concepts, like “addressing and addressed” (J. Butler), and a few regulative concepts based on them, like “response” and “action”, can help us.