Abstract
The article focuses on three sociological streams as regards the relationship between social evolution and history: functionalism and neofunctionalism, from Parsons to Alexander; the British `historism' of Gellner, Giddens and Mann; and genetic structuralism, from Habermas to Eder. It demonstrates how historical contingency and collective subjectivities have found a prominent role in these discussions. It points to the necessity of combining contingency, social creativity and collectivities with the theorization of stages and mechanisms of evolution.
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