THE EFFORTS OF OVERCOMING THE DICATHOMY BETWEEN FUNCTIONALIST AND ACTION THEORIES IN MODERN SOCIOLOGY

Abstract

In contemporary sociology, the dualism or, in other words a contrast is regarded a serious issue between functionalism which views that every element forming the society has a specific function and each of them has a mutual function on one another, and action theory which gives an active role to individual. Sociological theories which are divided as functionalism and action theory have brought about other dualities such as structure vs. actor , subjectivism vs. objectivism, methodological holism vs. methodological individualism . In modern sociology, research on overcoming the dichotomy of classical sociology in new theoretical approaches stand out in contemporary sociology. For this reason, in this article I will analyze Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), Jürgen Habermas (1929-) and Anthony Giddens (1938-) with their new approaches which aim to overcome the duality between functionalism and action theory and consequently James S. Coleman‟srational choice theory . Furthermore I will discuss the assumptions of modern sociologists that the fundamental paradigms of the classical sociology is not enough for analysing the complex structure of modern society and hence the social process on micro-macrolevels must be refocused on the modern concepts and theories of actor vs. structure.