Abstract

The critics and adherents of analytical sociology are both too often engaged in a purification ritual whereby they try to eliminate the aspects of the approach that they consider to be polluted. If successful, these efforts will result in an analytical sociology as dry and unresponsive to the messy realities around us as rational choice. And if that occurs, very few actual sociologists would have an interest in the project. To keep analytical sociology open to possibility means that those who are in favor of good arguments about how things come to be and good descriptions of what things are or could be should spend less time talking about what is in and what is out of the canon and spend more time working on empirical problems.