Peter Emmerson

 6. Recap and Conclusion

 6.1

 In this essay I have tried to show how in using the model developed by Norbert Elias we may be able to confront more clearly some of the problems facing sociology, and probably social science in general, using sociological frameworks rather than those from theology or metaphysics: theometaphysics. I want to argue that this involves developing a process style of analysis that questions any material that tends to petrify or misrepresent the dynamism of social life. The language and concepts that sociologists use are crucial in this undertaking and with this in mind I have attempted to explore the use of social influence as an alternative to power, and relative uncertainty as opposed to uncertainty. We might call these the tools of process sociology: process technology.

I have also tried to argue that what Elias’ sociology does is offer the possibility of resuming the social scientific business of sociology that Comte inaugurated by ditching the idealistic material that qualifies as theometaphysics so that we can do better science. Thus, there should be no claims to the truth, no claims of objectivity, no speaking of freedom or causality – all that process sociology can establish at present, other than banal causal explanations, is that sociological variables are interdependent with one another in a web of probabilities. In the spirit of this model I have argued that we should use the less-idealistic relative uncertainty, in order to help the move beyond static, dichotomous methods of thinking and analysis that paralyse our understanding of the social and natural universe.

This is a big task because of the immense complexity of social processes, which are arguably more challenging than those of natural science. I think it is fair to say that in life’s webs of activity, there is control, but only to a degree: we can predict with reasonable accuracy the time at which we arrive home from work. However, a person’s wider fates are much more relatively uncertain because of the complexity of the variables involved, whether it be those of absolute monarchs such as Louis XIV, or billionaire capitalists like Warren Buffet. We need more Homines aperti in sociology, people who think figurationally, who live at closer proximity to the outside world, who are sensitive to the flux that exists there and are willing to apply process technology to gain greater levels of conceptual proximity and perceptual interdependence: people who are in better shape to clear the utopian clutter that litters the social scientific path. The evidence suggests that such people are in a quite small minority, even in the West; hence the frustration of Darwinian disciples such as Richard Dawkins.