**4. The scientific form of reflexive sociology: Dialogue**

The domination of one type of sociology, as well as its professionalizing within the boundaries of its own particular world of science, freezes sociological development; and, would nearly make one believe that sociology has reached its goal, so that it only needs to refine its tools of enquiry. Against this one-sidedness, reflexive sociologists have stressed that it is instead through contradictions, scientific diversity, rivalry, clash of doctrines, and *Methodenstreit*, that sociology develops (Merton, 1976: 116). Sociology develops through the generation of reflexivity. The fragmentation and provisional nature of all sociological knowledge, which follow from the ambiguity of social existence, make a dialogue that relates different sociologies from the present as well as from the past highly appropriate.

Ideologies simplify reality and illegitimately fail to embrace ambivalence as a side-product

Reflexive sociologists not only embrace ambivalence in the theorization of society, but, correspondingly, they also emphasize that social existence is fundamentally ambiguous. Donald Levine (1985: 8; 17) stresses that, for sociologists to become reflexive, they are called to grasp the imprecision and multiplicity of meanings of social experiences. Embracing ambiguity implies recognition that sociological concepts, such as nation, anomie, alienation, bureaucracy, freedom, and so forth, that are designed to represent specific social experiences, are essentially contested. And their contestation must be embraced because social existence is ambiguous, that is, social life is filled with opposing tendencies in everything that ties and divides people (power, ideologies, beliefs, religions, classes, ethnicities, education levels, salary scales, and so forth), makes that society is perpetually moving, with arbitrarily fixated categories, false certainties and bygone hierarchies dissolving in random contingencies (Bloch, 1983; Bachika and Schulz, 2011). According to Levine, embracing ambiguity, and thereby be reflexive, is to disentangle the multiple meanings of concepts and to represent experiences through plurivocal modes of

Reflexive sociologists have made use of, and radically criticized, the four sociologies. They point out the danger of reification, of imprinting a particular theory of society on social reality. They criticize the objectification of social existence, whereby so many dimensions and so many movements are left out. They demolish theories that ignore the very ambiguity of social existence, as, for them, social existence cannot be defined by a few, arbitrarily selected, social processes or phenomena. They reject one-dimensional thinking in sociology. They reject the idea of society as a coherent entity, be it a nation, class or world society, in which a presumed whole society comes to determine which processes, phenomena or experiences are to be perceived as relevant. The message of reflexive sociological voices, which are not necessarily fully developed sociologies, is critical: they stress the need to unmask the distortions of existing theories and judgments of sociologists. Hence, reflexive sociologists often restrict themselves to formulating the fragmentation of social experiences, and unceasing disruptions that undermine any social stability, in the scientific form of sociological fragments. Through speaking and writing about society in fragments, and hence treating data as interesting splinters of social existence, reflexive sociologists attempt to deal responsibly with issues of ambivalence and ambiguity, against all attempts of simplification

that they consider to be fundamentally biased (c.f., Levine, 1995: 7; Agger, 2008).

The domination of one type of sociology, as well as its professionalizing within the boundaries of its own particular world of science, freezes sociological development; and, would nearly make one believe that sociology has reached its goal, so that it only needs to refine its tools of enquiry. Against this one-sidedness, reflexive sociologists have stressed that it is instead through contradictions, scientific diversity, rivalry, clash of doctrines, and *Methodenstreit*, that sociology develops (Merton, 1976: 116). Sociology develops through the generation of reflexivity. The fragmentation and provisional nature of all sociological knowledge, which follow from the ambiguity of social existence, make a dialogue that relates different sociologies from the present as well as from the past highly appropriate.

**4. The scientific form of reflexive sociology: Dialogue** 

representation, using parables, allegories, metaphors, and so forth.

of theorizing society (Bauman, 1991).

Such dialogue is an open form of communication in which sociologists refuse to impose their sociological cultures and ways of doing sociology on each other. According to such a dialogical perspective, sociology, as contrasted with ideology or sophistry, moves and evolves through a clash of minds, ideas, scientific languages and methods, in and through dialogues (Levine, 1995: 327-328; Ossewaarde, 2010a; Ossewaarde, 2010b).

In this way, sociologists from clashing, rivalling sociological positions are enabled to make contributions to the conversations of each other, and contribute towards moving beyond contradictions and fragmentations in the creation of newly envisioned social alternatives (Gouldner, 1976: 21). Sociological theorizing that has been informed in and through dialogical relationships of sharing and reconciling can better fulfil its social responsibility or its scientific vocation. Such theorizing through dialoguing assumes the scientific form of playful intellectuality (c.f. Agger, 2008: 429), a childlike, Socratic, playfulness that most great sociological theorizers and innovators manifest. The dialogue between sociologies is a kind of compensation or antidote to the fragmentation of sociological knowledge, by bridging sociologists and sociologies, without enforcing a dominant sociology, theory of society, method, or definition of science. Instead, dialogue has the potential of revealing the ambivalence of existent sociological knowledge, but also of overcoming deadlocks through patient questioning, exploration, and self-questioning, with the knowledge that absolute certainty of sociological knowledge is not possible and even not desirable. The dialogical sociologist is highly vigilant of abuse of power, which often rests on the claim to absolute knowledge.

A flourishing sociology, then, depends on the availability of the appropriate social form – the dialogue – that enables sociologists to sustain reflexive scientific discourses about social worlds (Gouldner, 1973: 96). The establishment of dialogue is therefore a precondition for genuine (that is, reflexive) sociological existence, one that is devoid of ideological bias, as far as this is possible. Originally, in ancient Athens, (Socratic) dialogue was conceived as the social form most appropriate for developing scientific insights. It was through dialoguing that science could come to flourish. For Plato, the Socratic dialogue is the opposite of the oration, which he identified as a social form in which ignorance and bias comes to be publicly represented (Voegelin, 2000: 66). In other words, science, and hence sociology, is best organized in dialogues. Science comes to flourish through dialoguing, and it is destroyed through the destruction of dialogue, either from within (via scientific tribalism) or from without (via the invasion of non-scientific forces). Through the establishment of dialogue, sociology can develop as a genuine conversation, sociological otherness can be accepted, and sociologies can provide a liberating perspective on each other. Sociological freedom is optimal when neither of the sociologies is insulated from others, when no sociology is repressed or marginalized, when all are allowed to provide critical perspectives on each other, and when all are brought into a dynamic, vitalizing tension with each other (Gouldner, 1973: 361).

Such dynamism, Alvin Gouldner (1973: 96) emphasizes, is socially created through the dialogizing activity of sociologists; the latter are called 'to create tension, conflict, criticism and struggle against conventional definitions of social reality, to extricate oneself from them, and to undermine their existential foundations by struggling against the social conditions and institutions that sustain them.' Through dialoguing, Gouldner asserts, sociologists not only reveal the ambivalence in dominating theories of society, but they also contest the

Fulfilling the Promise of Sociology: Some Steps for Generating Reflexivity in Organizations 365

reductions of paradoxical, moving, and ambiguous reality in scientific modelling and

The reflexive sociologist who recognizes the irreconcilable contradictions between the various sociologies, between their peculiar concepts, jargons, methods, mind-sets, worldviews, and so forth, can choose to draw on all these traditions to form an own scientific approach to social life. This is not exactly the same thing as eclecticism since the European values freedom and reason, and more specifically, the sociological traditions that represent them, remain the most authoritative in such acrobatic exercises. In any case, the reflexive sociologist knows why the functionalist sees society as an organism, and on which assumptions this rests; the same reasoning holds for the other sociologies. Though it is incoherent to say that all these perspectives are equally 'true', the sociologist can use certain insights and languages in particular cases. Hence, the positivist concept of causal mechanism can be useful to explain how the level of education is linked to social positions. Such sociologists, to repeat once again, are not impartial observers; there is an ongoing dialogue between their own visions or values, and rivalling others. In this way, they are obliged to question and re-question their commitments, hence avoiding the pitfall of reification. Hence, the attempt is not made to (literally) grasp society as a whole – in some complete, all-embracing, harmonious and systemic model of social order – but the somehow humbler endeavour is made to try to understand social aspects, dimensions, phenomena, or

processes. This is how the different sociologies can be sources of knowledge.

theory of society no longer matches with changed social realities.

reason (Ossewaarde, 2007b).

Once the contradictions are recognized, certain theoretical claims – that, of course, always have practical implications – can be, ought to be, negated, so that theories can be 'purified' of well-established falsehoods and bias (Gouldner, 1976: 21). Negation is therefore a second dialogical activity. Through negation, the obstacles to theoretical development, such as arbitrary fixations, dogma, prejudice, cliché, arbitrary predispositions, and so forth, are removed and reflexivity is developed. Negation is the creative destruction of a (typically predominant) theory of society, with the view of creating a new theory. It is a demolishing scientific activity, needed to make a new scientific creation possible, in the form of a new theory of society that matches more with a current or new state of social existence. Hence, negation is inspired by social transformations, in the sense that the necessity of negation becomes obvious when some theorization turns outdated in the sense that such a particular

The negation of theories of society, however, does not imply a total demolishing. The creation of new theories may well contain elements of the old theory of society. On the contrary, negation does not imply that all known categories – such as the nation-state, class, capitalism, democracy, university, science, media, technology, European identity, and so forth – can be discarded. Instead, elements of the outdated theory are subsumed in the new theorization and are invested with a new significance, in a new movement, towards a new becoming of a new society (c.f., Couldry, 2009; Urry, 2010). In other words, negation implies both destruction and continuation. The four sociologies cannot be discarded as superfluous surpluses without damaging the sociological enterprise. Also in the act of negation, reflexive sociologists still stand on the shoulder of the great founders of sociology and work to constantly revitalize the sociological tradition as a representation of the European value of

analysis (Ossewaarde, 2010a).

practices and social contexts that sustain the theories or obstruct the dialogue. Conversing sociologists cannot tolerate any preconceived view or conceptual foundation on which society, and hence sociology, rest. The practice of dialogue can therefore recall and confirm the inseparability of theory (modelling of society) and practice (shaping society in accordance with such models); in other words, sociologists are made aware of the social consequences of their practices, which is to say that they develop reflexivity in their mindsets. Indeed, sociology not only entails theorizing society, but also shaping it; and, since all theories of society have a practical implication for governing societies, sociologists must, according to reflexive sociologists, assume responsibility for the practical ends to which their theories and research findings are used (Gouldner, 1976: 182). In other words, reflexivity entails that sociologists are obliged to make sense of their own work. They cannot legitimately do their scientific work and then leave it to the public to deal with their scientific results (c.f., Sennett, 2008: 5).

Doing reflexive sociology, accordingly, requires an awareness of the possible practical implications of theories and methods, of the possible ways in which sociology or research can be used or misused by others, in particular by elites who are most powerful in shaping society. Reflexive sociological research, in order to be as free as possible from blind spots, moves in a sort of spiral or pendulum between the study of society and its elements (empirical objects), and sociological dialogue, and back to the same study with renewed minds. Such is the core of reflexive sociology. Reflexivity means that sociologists are aware of their own subjectivities and social backgrounds, represented in their own research, and are conscious of how they participate in constructing their own research objects (Gouldner, 1973: 105). Such reflexive self-examination is one of the virtues that are the prerequisites for a fruitful dialogue. Reflexivity demands from sociologists that they be willing to live in intimate tension with the social things they speak and write about, therefore excluding all forms of complacency and desire for absolute certainty. Clearly, such a sociological virtue, just as sociological knowledge, can only be striven after without the illusion of ever possessing it completely.
