From Society to System: The Social Theory of Michel Freitag

From Society to System presents sociologist Michel Freitag’s (1935-2009) distinctive, multifaceted and interdisciplinary work. Elaborated within the grand sociological tradition, his dialectical sociology redefines sociality as the realm of the symbolic to pinpoint its ontological frailty. Such a perspective expands the borders within sociology to rejoin classical philosophical preoccupations, revisiting social ontology as a radical critique of contemporary society where not only life and planet earth is at stake as a result of capitalism but reflexivity as well. This collection of essays touches on topics that have been of central concern for social theory since the end of the 20th century: the discussion about holism versus individualism and the dissolution of transcendental identity; the current state of the social sciences, both epistemologically and practically; the end-of-20th century debate over the nature of society along with its future in the context of globalisation. These essays show how Freitag’s sociology is part of a larger unified framework that integrates ontology, epistemology, anthropology and philosophy into a coherent vision of the world – testifying to the distinctiveness of Freitag’s social theory, standing next to other great social theorists such as Margaret Archer, Jürgen Habermas, Murray Bookchin and Ulrich Beck.