Metatheorizing in Sociology.

This chapter presents an overview of metatheorizing in sociology. The coming of age of metatheorizing in U.S. sociology can be traced to the collapse of the dominant sociological paradigm during the 1960s. Metatheoretical reflections on theoretical practice often take place within a given philosophical orientation. In contemporary sociology, there are four broad approaches to metatheory that differ in their reflections on the purposes, processes, and products of sociological theorizing: labeled positivist, hermeneutic, critical, and postmodern.