When Theory Fails: On the Conditions of a Theoretical View of Reality

Abstract

This article examines the conditions under which sociological theory can fulfil its promise, understood as the capacity to grasp the relationship between history, biography, and society. Drawing primarily on the classical insights of C. Wright Mills and Robert Nisbet, it treats theory as a form of vision. The point of departure is the claim that sociological theory provides a cognitively useful image of reality, yet this image is never a neutral representation: it is a form of theatrical staging of the social world. On this basis, the article discusses four conditions of possibility for theory understood as theatricalization: the context of theoretical creativity, the relationship between theory and empirical research, the tension between dynamic and static conceptions of theory, and the ambivalent role of classical theory. The final section identifies three distortions that frequently hinder the fulfilment of theory’s cognitive promise: imperialism, alienation, and assimilation of theory. Each of these distortions weakens the tension between social reality and its theoretical staging, a tension that constitutes the proper source of the cognitive value of sociological theory.