Formal and substantive multidimensionality in Jeffrey Alexander's work

Abstract

In the present article, I propose the notion of “multidimensionality” in theory construction as the underlying motive of Jeffrey Alexander's intellectual development and use this to reconstruct his work in four connected steps. In the first part, I analyze his explorations of the theoretical logic in social sciences and the way the notion of multidimensionality emerges, at the end of this process, as a solution, an evaluative standard, and a driving force in theory construction. In the second part, I analyze how this understanding orients Alexander's reconstruction of sociology's history from classics to post-Parsonian sociology and how it leads him to elaborate a kind of new convergence thesis. In the remainder of the article, I try to show how, in the hands of Alexander, these formal considerations on multidimensionality are turned into substantive multidimensional theories. In the third part, I analyze how this transition is done, in the case of neofunctionalism, as an attempt to make Parsonianism more multidimensional through a synthesis between some of its more flexible branches and recent developments in symbolic interactionism. In the fourth part, I explore how this passage toward substantive multidimensionality is carried out in cultural sociology through a fourfold move where culture is inquired in terms of its symbolic patterns (codes and binary oppositions), ordering structures (discourses/narratives), symbolic practices (performances), and surrounding materiality (iconicity).

Introduction

Serious intellectual enterprises are usually multifaceted and open to diverse possibilities of reconstruction. Classical figures in humanities and social sciences tend to achieve such status, in part at least, due to the understanding of their works as inexhaustible sources of meaning to which every new generation of readers can return and find something that talks to them—and, ultimately, to the very human condition. Biographical experience, historical sensitivity, and intellectual temper will play a role in the exercise of interpretation, reconstruction, and evaluation of such works. Yet the dialogical process in which such exercises take part is, in principle, endless.

In the business of interpreting classics, it is not uncommon to find attempts to dissect someone's work by retracing it to a core set of ideas or a foundational first project. Strategies like these are hardly exhaustive, but they can shed light on fundamental aspects of the theoretical activity of an author or school of thought. In this article, I take Jeffrey Alexander as a sort of contemporary sociological classic, whose intellectual development can be accessed, analyzed, and reconstructed by a similar procedure. As the very title openly indicates, the interpretive position here advanced shares the same spirit as that one moving Alexander himself at the beginning of his career (Alexander, 1978). In applying his metatheoretical standards to make sense of his own intellectual development, however, my intent is somehow different from that of internal critique and reform. The point here is to unveil a meaningful nexus and a possible line of continuity connecting cultural sociology to the achievements of theoretical logic. While many might see a “break” in his thinking in which, so to say, the cultural sociologist of drama and iconicity bears virtually no resemblance with the young theorist of neofunctionalism, I would like to insist on the continuity of some fundamental ideas cross-cutting his intellectual development ¹ —ideas that are not only present along the way as themes and motives reappearing here and there, but also as guiding signs informing the path. The image here is not that of a master key serving to unlock all doors but that of some evaluative standards against which the theory is measured and self-corrected over and over again, even when taking significant shifts.

In the present article, I propose the notion of “multidimensionality” in theory construction as the underlying motive of Alexander's intellectual development and use this to reconstruct his work in four connected steps. In the first part, I analyze his explorations of the theoretical logic in social sciences and the way the notion of multidimensionality emerges, at the end of this process, as a solution, an evaluative standard, and a driving force in theory construction. In the second part, I analyze how this understanding orients Alexander's reconstruction of sociology's history from classics to post-Parsonian sociology and how it leads him to elaborate a kind of new convergence thesis. In the remainder of the article, I try to show how, in the hands of Alexander, these formal considerations on multidimensionality are turned into substantive multidimensional theories. In the third part, I analyze how this transition is done, in the case of neofunctionalism, as an attempt to make Parsonianism more multidimensional through a synthesis between some of its more flexible branches and recent developments in symbolic interactionism. In the fourth part, I explore how this passage toward substantive multidimensionality is carried out in cultural sociology through a fourfold move where the meanings of social life are brought to center stage and inquired in terms of their symbolic patterns (codes and binary oppositions), ordering structures (discourses/narratives), symbolic practices (performances), and surrounding materiality (iconicity).

Formal multidimensionality (I): Theoretical logic and sociological synthesis

Any systematic assessment of Alexander's thinking cannot avoid going back to his entry work into the sociological world, Theoretical Logic in Sociology. This monumental four-volume work (1982a, 1982b, 1983a, 1983b), counting 1567 pages, is the extended version of his doctoral thesis, defended a few years before at Berkeley under the advisory of Robert Bellah and Neil Smelser. Everything surrounding this first work seems to be “big,” and its publication was certainly an event in recent sociological history. Not only the material production by the University of California Press was quite impressive, but the dust jackets of the four volumes were full of references to the “magisterial range,” “enormous sophistication,” and “brilliancy” of Alexander's enterprise by some of the big social theorists of the day. One of the many distinguished reviewers of the book came to say it marked the entry of sociological publishing into the era of “mega-hypes” (Collins, 1985). The goal of the work was in fact quite ambitious: to render intelligible the theoretical logic underlying the diverse ramifications of sociological thinking, to provide the conditions for correcting the series of blind spots that have plagued it for more than one century, and to bring it, finally, to a more “universalistic,” “synthetic,” and “multidimensional” track (Alexander, 1982a: 113–126). Put this way, it is no wonder that the book has sparked divisive critical responses and skepticism in the subsequent years (Burger, 1986; Joas, 1988; Jones, 1987; Sica, 1983; Wallace, 1984). To complete the image, in the background of such herculean effort, one might clearly hear echoes of Alexander's old hero, Talcott Parsons, who assigned himself quite the same task in 1937.

In order to achieve such an ambitious goal, Alexander engages in a threefold move that I will explore in the following paragraphs of this section: first, to clarify the nature of sociological activity; second, to identify the most decisive and generalizing levels of such activity, in which the decisions made might have a critical impact on overall scientific development; finally, to emphasize the proper solutions that once taken at those same critical levels may lead to the overcoming of long-lasting dualisms and recurrent conflations in the theoretical logic. With these three moves, Alexander believes theoretical antinomies can be solved and partial gains from diverse sociological ranks can be actually brought together and integrated into a strong, cumulative theoretical frame. The notion of “multidimensionality,” which I selected as key for accessing Alexander's intellectual development, takes place in this very context, since it is one of the alleged achievements of this first work. However, before accessing these layers, it is important to retrace the steps taken by the author.

First move: Clarifying the nature of (social) scientific activity

In his attempt to clarify the nature of sociological activity, Alexander starts, like Parsons before him, by engaging in a close dialogue with the philosophy of science of his day. His main target here is what he calls the “positivistic persuasion.” What Alexander has in mind is the more or less pervasive assumption (open or tacit) that theoretical/nonempirical and observational/empirical languages should be clearly distinguished as characterizing two domains of knowledge statements, with science being restricted to the latter and philosophy or metaphysics being oriented to the former. The attempt to suppress nonempirical elements from scientific activity would lead, for him, to both a reduction of its empirical scope and an impoverishment in its theoretical formulations. Alexander's whole effort throughout the book is to thematize these nonempirical elements in scientific activity, thus shedding light on the very nature of the sociological enterprise. Since these elements cannot be eliminated from science without cutting it off from itself, the most reasonable approach would be bringing them to a rational, disciplined discussion. After all, the fact that nonempirical statements cannot be decided on empirical grounds does not entail that other cognitive and intellectual standards might not be used to provide good reasons along their selection process.

The criticism of positivism Alexander has in mind here is not that provided by the “human studies,” with its alleged idealistic and relativistic overtones, but that of postpositivistic thinkers, such as Kuhn, Laudan, and Lakatos, who emphasized the nonempirical aspects of scientific “paradigms,” “traditions of research,” and “research programs.” Although the nature of such aspects was not always clear in the writings of postpositivist thinkers such as Kuhn or Feyerabend, the refinements coming from authors such as Lakatos, Toulmin, and Holton at distinguishing the diverse analytical levels of scientific activity would point in the right direction. Alexander's contribution to this clarification comes in his famous bidirectional continuum between metaphysical and empirical environments and its many intermediate levels: presuppositions, ideologies, models, propositions, methodology, observations, and so on. Science in general, and social sciences in particular, would be fundamentally analytical (rather than concrete) enterprises operating along diverse levels through a continuous twofold process of abstractions and specifications.

Second move: Identifying the most critical level of (social) scientific activity

After shedding light on the overall analytical nature of sociological activity with the help of the continuum metaphor, Alexander engages in the task of delimitating the scope and decisiveness of stances taken at each of its levels (1982a: 36–63). As it becomes clear amid his extensive discussion, all of them entail proper decisions and debates with a long history in the discipline: at the ideological level, one may find the debates on radical and conservative affiliations of theories; at the level of models, the debate over the adoption of the functionalism is a prominent one; at the level of propositions, one finds the debates on conflict and equilibrium patterns then drawn from the models; at the methodological level, the endless debates on positivism come to the fore. However, from the fact that these levels present analytical autonomy—which means that their debates are irreducible to those taking place at other levels—Alexander does not conclude that the decisions made at these levels are all equally general and decisive. On the contrary, in all these cases, the lack of generality of such debates and the limited range of their ramifications across the continuum leads to systematic distortions in the understanding of the theoretical logic.

When looked at closely, debates on ideology, models, propositions, and methodologies can be better understood as specifications of more abstract decisions regarding two fundamental or presuppositional problems every scientific theory has to deal with: on the one hand, the fundamental units or building blocks of the phenomenal world and, on the other, the patterns of articulations among them. In the case of social sciences, these two problems turn into what Alexander—and Parsons before him—called the “problem of action” and the “problem of social order.” Such intertwined but analytically distinct problems would be not only inescapable to all sociological theories, but their answer would be responsible for opening or closing some subsets of specifications and commitments at other levels: “decisions about action and order are the most fundamental issues that confront any social theory: the positions taken in regard to them structure each theory's most general logic” (Alexander, 1982a: 122).

Third move: Overcoming the critical problems in (social) scientific activity

Once the proper character of social science is clarified and the significance of its presuppositional level is recognized, the final move consists of disclosing the range of its logical permutations and identifying the best available solution for tackling its two constitutive problems. This requires, once again, an extensive reconstruction of the historical debates taking place at the specific level analyzed—in this case, that of the general presuppositions (Alexander, 1982a: 64–112). In the history of the discipline, the issues of action and order were thematized as revolving around two fundamental debates with cross-cutting consequences: the dispute about the ultimate forces underlying human behavior, opposing strategic and normative understandings of social action, and the discussion around the nature of its ordered patterns, opposing individualistic and collectivistic understandings of social order. In general terms, the strategy employed by Alexander is to show that in these two types of historical debates, social theory recurrently found itself thorned by pervasive antinomies. Again and again, concrete and empiricist understandings of action and order led to problematic (one-dimensional) presuppositional decisions which, in turn, were responsible for the accumulation of conflations and residual categories inside theoretical edifices at stake, thus pushing them, ultimately, to some kind of unsustainable position.

The proper way to escape these recurrent antinomies—e.g., between freedom/constraints, individual/society, materialism/idealism—in sociological theories could be summed up in one word: multidimensionality. The insistence on the analytical character of the scientific enterprise, on the one hand, and the proper understanding of the critical role played by its presuppositional issues, on the other, paves the way toward an adequate solution capable of bringing the developments inside theoretical logic to a more sound, synthetic, and universalistic path. The intellectual conditions for such a move can only be given by a truly analytical theory of presuppositional issues or, in other words, a multidimensional theory of action and order: action is to be conceived as a complex set of analytical dimensions whose values cover both strategic and normative elements of human behavior and its environments; order is to be understood, in the same way, as the intersection of elementary and emergent dimensions of interaction patterns whose values cover not only material and ideational factors but also internal and external reference points.

Multidimensionality and its meanings

By the end of the Theoretical Logic's first volume, multidimensionality emerges thus as the proper solution provided by Alexander in his search for a true sociological synthesis: it points to the basic formal traits every social theory should observe if it is to take seriously the intricate theoretical challenges found in the history of social sciences; at the same time, it also opens the possibility of bringing together empirical gains from diverse schools of thought whose presuppositional decisions are found to be a limited subset of a broad multidimensional perspective. The nature of this solution is formal, at first, since it indicates the structural coordinates making possible theoretical and empirical achievements without necessarily engaging in substantive articulations. Yet, multidimensionality here is not an empty notion devoid of semantic content. Its rationality (i.e., the set reasons provided for its support) is properly accessed when its epistemological (theoretical) meaning is taken in connection with a broad moral (practical) horizon. In Alexander's words:

A multidimensional perspective encompasses the voluntary striving for ideals without which human society would be bankrupt indeed, and does this without emphasizing individualization to the point of foregoing the communality and mutual identification without which such striving becomes a hollow shell. But multidimensionality preserves also the reality of the external conditions that impinge on action. It recognizes in them both the barriers that so often prevent the realization of human ideals and also the concrete opportunities for their actualization. (1982a: 124)

Implicit in this view of multidimensionality as an adequate solution (whose reasoning is given in both theoretical and practical terms) there is a second idea: that it should be viewed not as a mere set of logical coordinates to be observed but as an evaluative standard for accessing theoretical developments in sociological history. At the end of the first volume, Alexander makes this second meaning of the term very clear: “As a generic term, ‘multidimensionality’ thus provides an effective standard by which to evaluate presuppositional argument” (1982a: 125). A multidimensional perspective provides a framework in terms of which residual categories can be identified, explanatory hypotheses can be evaluated, and theories can be sharply criticized. This evaluative aspect, it must be said, is also connected in the following works of Alexander with a third meaning of the term, according to which multidimensionality could be understood as a sort of driving force underlying sociological history. When taken together, these meanings combine the possibility of a transcendental critique of sociological theories and the access to immanent development of sociology itself. In the following volumes of the Theoretical Logic (vols 2, 3, and 4) and in his Twenty Lectures (1987a)—which could be read as a fifth volume—this articulation becomes quite clear, as we will see in the next section.

Formal multidimensionality (II): Theoretical logic and its dialectics

After the heavy metatheoretical job is done in the first volume and multidimensionality finally emerges in its full significance as a kind of gold standard of theoretical building, Alexander moves, in the following volumes, from formal considerations to evaluative critiques. In this context, his task is to bring the most relevant sociological systems of the past under close multidimensional scrutiny. In all volumes, the procedure is more or less the same: on one hand, the limitations of one-dimensional strands in sociological thinking are identified and systematically criticized; on the other, the accumulation of persisting residual categories in the schemes are shown as being responsible for pushing theories to their limits, thus indicating a calling for logical reformulations toward more balanced positions. In this section, I will first show how Alexander reconstructs the history of sociology in these terms. Secondly, I will show how he seems to see the appeal of multidimensionality as igniting a new theoretical movement, thus serving not only as an evaluative standard but as a constitutive intellectual force in sociological history.

Theoretical logic and history of sociology: From classics to postwar sociology

In the second volume of the Theoretical Logic (1982b), dedicated to the antinomies of classical sociology, this analytical strategy is evident. The classics selected by Alexander in this volume, namely Marx and Durkheim, are portrayed as departing from the recognition of proper emergent properties when it comes to the problem of order, but as developing distinct understandings of action which push their collectivism to opposing directions throughout their intellectual unfolding. The empiricism underlying their theoretical frames makes it impossible for them to truly transcend the antinomies they face. As a result, in their attempts to bring residual categories to their initial scheme, their theoretical frame swings little by little in the opposite direction without stabilizing in the middle. Marx and Durkheim then appear, at least according to this interpretation, as inverted mirrors: initially engaged with a more voluntaristic theory in the early 1840s, Marx develops his critique of capitalism by shifting towards an instrumental type of structuralism in which coercive elements of technological, economic, and political environments push subjective categories out of the explanatory scheme; while initially interested materialist and morphological structures of social life, from his middle-phase period in the late 1890s on, Durkheim starts to embrace a voluntaristic sort of structuralism that pushes him into an idealistic approach of collective representations.

In the third volume (1983a), dedicated to the first synthesis attempt, Alexander argues that among the classics it was Max Weber who actually came closer to a multidimensional perspective on presuppositional issues. Despite the diversity of strands and emphasis found throughout Weber's writings—which can be understood as a type of non-resolved eclecticism—Alexander identifies some key moments in which he reaches a multidimensional framework, especially in the methodological studies and some parts of his sociology of religion. In such moments, Weber would be capable of integrating diverse aspects of social life, thereby moving beyond reductive theoretical approaches. Yet while part of his work hits the target of theoretical integration, Weber's achievements are inconsistent. Some of his later writings, particularly those on political sociology and parts of his comparative studies in religion, reveal a shift toward a more dichotomized perspective and, at times, even a strong instrumentalist bias. This retreat from multidimensionality ultimately leads such a promising attempt at synthesis to fail.

In the fourth volume (1983b), dedicated to modern sociological synthesis, Parsons finally emerges as a true multidimensional champion, whose achievements would present the potential for putting social theory on the right track. In the first part of the book, the reader can contemplate one of the most far-reaching defenses of Parsons's synthetic legacy ever written. At the core of Parsons's voluntaristic theory, Alexander finds a true multidimensional strand in which presuppositional issues are finally solved in satisfactory terms: action retains a fundamental element of freedom while sociologically informed by coercive elements of material and ideal conditions of actors; order keeps its internal rationality and its patterned aspect, thus enabling sociological explanation, without a fundamental reference of subjective/voluntaristic categories being ruled out of the logical scheme. However, to this multidimensional strand underpinning Parsons's intellectual development Alexander opposes in the second half of the book a series of deviations that undermine his overall project: at the methodological level, Parsons is found to succumb to a neopositivism position by reifying social system and sidelining individual autonomy; the equation between functional exchange and stability also leads to distorted understandings with modeling, empirical, and ideological consequences; finally, at the presuppositional level, Parsons is caught sliding off into idealism in both his early and late writings. Parsons's legacy is therefore a troubled one. But the criticism put forward by Alexander is internal and directed to a positive revision in which materialism and conflict-oriented sociological strands are brought to balance the overall scheme. The goal is to reach a Parsonianism that is stronger than that of Parsons himself; this seems to be at least the spirit of Alexander's neofunctionalism, as we will see in the following section. By the end of this large historical reconstruction from classics to Parsons, what one sees as resulting from such metatheoretical criticism is the immanent development of theoretical logic put on its feet.

In his Twenty Lectures (1987b), which can be viewed as a sequel to the Theoretical Logic, Alexander moves forward to the analysis of postwar sociology. In this series of lectures, he shows how the difficulties encountered within the structural-functional edifice ended up leading to a “revolt against Parsons,” which took over North American sociology in the 1960s and 1970s. While insisting on important dimensions of the empirical world, however, one to one the challengers of Parsonianism would have failed to grasp the nuances of the theoretical logic and the positive significance of his multidimensional strand. Once again, the action-order grid is mobilized to reveal presuppositional commitments, one-dimensionalities, and residual categories found along the way. The volume can be read, to some extent, as a form of revenge for Parsonianism. By radicalizing each of the logical paths opened up within the theory of action without reaching a balanced synthesis, each of Parsons’s challengers would end up falling short of his position: exchange theory (Homans) would combine a strategic understanding of means–ends chains in action with an individualistic orientation regarding social order; conflict theory (Rex) would follow the same limited approach to action but in an instrumental–collectivistic direction; a more appropriate understanding of symbolic patterns and values at the level of action would characterize both symbolic interactionism (Blumer/Goffman) and ethnomethodology (Garfinkel), but all would slide, at some point, to an unsustainable form of individualism; culturalism (Geertz) would follow the same normative–idealist path, but now in a rather antitheoretical, relativistic form of collectivism. By clearly showing in each case that what has been neglected due to one-sided commitments at the action/order level ends up returning to the schema through the back door under the form of “residual categories,” the book suggests, at least tacitly, a certain historical progression in theoretical logic towards multidimensionality. This leads Alexander to what could be counted as a new “convergence thesis,” which will be explored in the next point of the present section.

New theoretical movement and new convergence thesis

In the period analyzed by Alexander, it becomes clear that after the decline of Parsonianism, none of its challengers seemed to have achieved the same sort of hegemony. Nevertheless, such a fragmentary state of affairs, far from being considered routine, tended to appear for many sociologists back then as a pressing problem. According to the empirical view of the 1950s and early 1960s—classically represented in North American sociology by authors such as Zetterberg, Homans, and Wallace—theoretical divergences like those that started to emerge in the post-Parsonian sociology could be solved with the growing of empirical research as well as by improvements in research methodologies. However, as empirical research continued growing, with methodologies becoming more precise, and theoretical fragmentation remained without a proper solution, this overall understanding started to lose plausibility. As a result, the sociological interests started to turn more and more to the problem of the production of the theories themselves. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, this change was expressed, for instance, in the classical work of Stinchcombe on the construction of theories in sociology, the attempt of Friedrichs to promote a “sociology of sociology,” and the works of Ritzer on the paradigms in sociology. In this overall shift of sensibility, Alexander identifies the conditions for a large convergence that started to take place in sociology, which he calls the “New Theoretical Movement” (1988c). For schematic purposes, this movement can be identified into three successive steps taken by the sociology of that period: epistemological considerations, critical balances, and substantive synthesis.

The perception of a growing fragmentation within sociological discourse underscored the necessity of clarifying not only the logic underlying discoveries and empirical observations but also the theoretical foundations informing research programs in sociology. Influenced by the insights of postpositivist philosophy, as discussed in the previous section, sociology increasingly engaged in debates concerning the nature of theories, their logical and semantic structures, as well as the models of explanation they employ, whether causal, interpretive, functional, or genealogical. These discussions, in turn, became central not only for methodological inquiry but also for a new generation of ambitious young sociologists who would emerge as key figures in the intellectual movement identified by Alexander. Within this context, one may recall the epistemological and methodological debates of the late 1960s and early 1970s, exemplified by works such as Bourdieu's The Craft of Sociology, Habermas's Logic of the Social Sciences, and Giddens’s The New Rules of Sociological Method. Although appearing a few years later, Alexander's first volume of Theoretical Logic in Sociology can be situated within this same intellectual tradition.

As previously noted, however, this broader orientation toward the clarification of theoretical logic and the refinement of sociological theories came together with an equally pressing concern: the challenge of overcoming the theoretical fragmentation that followed the decline of the Parsonian hegemony. This undertaking was pursued through a series of critical efforts to review, reinterpret, and restructure the debates inherited from the preceding generation of theorists. Consequently, the initial wave of epistemological and theoretical reflections gave way to a series of reassessments of the legacy of key sociological traditions, including functionalism, structuralism, interactionism, ethnomethodology, rational choice theory, phenomenology, and historical materialism. These traditions became focal points of critical reconstruction in works such as Habermas's Reconstruction of Historical Materialism, Giddens’s Central Problems in Social Theory, and Collins’s Sociology since Midcentury. Alexander's Twenty Lectures can also be considered part of this corpus of reflective critiques.

Ultimately, these critical reassessments would be followed by the emergence of ambitious attempts at theoretical synthesis, in which foundational dichotomies in sociological theory—i.e., agency versus structure, micro versus macro, objectivism versus subjectivism, systems versus lifeworld, hermeneutics versus structuralism, and materialism versus idealism—would be reconfigured and, ostensibly, transcended through novel conceptual frameworks. While some of these efforts at synthesis took the form of direct theoretical exposition, as exemplified by Bourdieu's Logic of Practice and Giddens’s Constitution of Society, it is significant that this period of intellectual synthesis frequently returned to Parsons’s analytical strategy. According to this approach, the resolution of fundamental sociological dichotomies required deep exegetical engagement and metatheoretically oriented reconstruction. Unsurprisingly, several of the most influential synthetic endeavors of this period, such as Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action, Münch's Theory of Action, and Alexander's four-volume Theoretical Logic in Sociology, explicitly adopt Parsons’s reconstructive model. As will be explored in the following section, Alexander's most substantive synthesis emerged in subsequent years through his neofunctionalist explorations and his efforts to outline a revised theory of action.

In the end, the reading frame suggested by Alexander offers a specific interpretation of the history of sociology, which is narrated through a dynamic oscillation between synthesis and fragmentation, with its phases of development, convergence, exhaustion, and dispersion. This is how Alexander seems to divide the significant moments in his sociological narrative: (i) at first, one finds the maturing of sociological thought in the attempts to deal with fundamental theoretical antinomies by the classics; (ii) then, the assimilation of the classics through the Parsonian synthesis; (iii) after some time, the exhaustion of the universalist ambitions of structural functionalism; (iv) the following fragmentation and theoretical entrenchment through new divisions between micro–macro, objectivism–subjectivism; (v) finally, at the end of this cycle, the emergence of large-scale convergence toward a new theoretical synthesis.

Bearing in mind this brief overview, one could ask if those authors from the 1980s have succeeded in their synthetic ambition: have they established a general framework or any minimum consensus on the theoretical field capable of avoiding the intense fragmentation of sociological discourse as well as the general feeling of disorientation that usually follows from it? The question is, in fact, a complicated one, and contemporary theorists may have different answers to it. Considering the more general level of theoretical discourse, there seems to be, in fact, a conventional wisdom according to which social theory should seek to avoid one-dimensional explanations of social phenomena, as well as the old rigid dualisms that have for a long time plagued sociological theory. These general (negative) orientations, however, are hardly translated into a common set of (positive) substantive statements about how social reality should be understood and explained. Yet it is in this passage from formal requirements of multidimensionality to substantive articulations involving issues on ideology, models, propositions, and methodology that Alexander will focus on the remainder of his intellectual development. In the next sections, I will briefly indicate two paths he opened in this kind of attempt: neofunctionalism and cultural sociology.

Substantive multidimensionality (I): Neofunctionalism

Alexander's first attempt to come up with a substantive rather than formal, metatheoretical synthesis in sociology can be found in the articulation of a neofunctionalist position. As previously mentioned, this effort emerged as the result of the revision and critical reassessment of Parsonianism, which Alexander saw as a pressing task of his day. While a balanced recovery of Parsons’s legacy was almost impossible in the 1960s and early 1970s due to the heavy criticism coming from both conflict (macro) theories and interactionism/interpretive (micro) approaches, the situation started to change in the late 1970s and early 1980s. On one hand, a significant part of social theorists then came to embrace, or at least recognize, key Parsonian themes in more positive, appropriative ways (cf. Alexander, 1984a). On the other, without having the burden of defending the tradition from radical attacks, old functionalists could now feel more comfortable in expressing their differences with Parsons in an increasingly critical, reconstructive language.

This is the general context in which Alexander and others start to engage in outlining a properly neofunctionalist perspective in social sciences. The collective volume edited by Alexander (1985) titled Neofunctionalism—with contributions from David Sciulli, Mark Gould, Ino Rossi, Schmuel Eisenstadt, Neil Smelser, Paul Colomy, Frank Lechner, Jeffrey Prager, Bernard Barber, and Richard Münch—is the reference point here. From the beginning, however, it becomes clear that the term is used to express an intellectual movement rather than a clearly defined theoretical edifice. The preferred analogy used by neofunctionalists is with neo-Marxism: a broad intellectual movement (rather than a coherent school of thought) whose development involved, to some extent, a criticism of the orthodox tradition they depart from, and the creative incorporation of other intellectual lineages. The analogy is a good one, and neofunctionalism should be understood indeed as a multifaceted movement. In a way, then, its full analyses exceed the present article. Therefore, without losing complete sight of the movement, I will try to focus, for the present purposes, on the way Alexander navigated through it and how, in the end, both the neofunctionalist frame and its themes are reconfigured into a new path. To clarify this, we have to understand his increasing ambivalence towards Parsons, a process that started to be delineated in the last volume of the Theoretical Logic and took more radical contours in the years to come.

Going beyond Parsons

In general, the revision and reconstruction of functionalism proposed by Alexander and his colleagues take seriously the criticism leveled against Parsons by conflict theories and micro-sociologists. Its whole spirit is to come up with a version of functionalism that is sensitive to conflict and coercive forces of the material world as well as a theory capable of grasping voluntarism beyond formal terms, so actually bringing man, creativity, and contingency back in. If we follow the scheme provided by Alexander in the first volume of the Theoretical Logic, we can map the continuities and the breaks between Parsons and the neofunctionalists as taking place in terms of distinct levels. As already mentioned, at the presuppositional level, the “synthetic” or “ecumenical” strand of Parsons’s thought, in which a multidimensional theory of action is to be intertwined with a multidimensional approach to order, is recognized as a key contribution to theory construction: “more than anything else, perhaps, neofunctionalism has presented itself as a prototypically synthetic form of theorizing” (Alexander and Colomy, 1990a: 59). But also at this same level, according to Alexander and his colleagues, Parsons would have deviated from this gold standard along his intellectual development: his approach to action would have presented a pronounced idealist tendency whose emphasis on the normative aspects of behavior would have distorted his overall understanding of action courses by sidelining material rewards and power coercion; his approach to order and his overall understanding of social change would have been couched sometimes in teleological terms and the proper place of contingency had not been seriously theorized.

These general problems pointing to idealist and collectivist biases would have a connection with distortions taking place at more substantive levels of ideology, models, propositions, and methodology. In the realm of ideology, neofunctionalism would distance itself from orthodox functionalism in at least two directions: first, it makes the ideological level explicit; second, while clearly drawing from the democratic and humanist trust underlying Parsons’s work, it also takes distance from some of its alleged conservative overtones and its overconfidence in modernity. In the introduction of the collective volume on neofunctionalism mentioned above, Alexander is clear: “there is also the unmistakable strain in these chapters of ideological critique; virtually every contributor [in this volume] pushes functionalism to the left” (Alexander, 1985: 14). When it comes to model level, much of the discussion points to reifications and conflations going on through the use of the functionalist model. Broadly speaking, neofunctionalism also models society as a set of interrelated parts operating as an intelligible system in which interactions take place by patterns that differentiate these parts from their environments. Many neofunctionalists see problems, however, in the rigidity of the four-function paradigm (adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency; AGIL) and its persisting conflations with the concrete differentiations taking place at the empirical level. Moreover, when the model is envisioned as a cybernetic system, with one subsystem exerting control over the other through values, presuppositional multidimensionality is on the way to being specified into normative dominance. In this context, many neofunctionalists tend to see the triadic distinction between personality, social, and cultural systems, from Parsons's early-middle period, as a more flexible alternative in which the content of subsystems is not necessarily defined in advance by the AGIL armchair or the cybernetic hierarchy. Following the general neofunctionalist arguments, when one turns from the level of the models to the level of the general empirical propositions regarding the observed patterns drawn from it, other problems might be observed as well. While at the model level the concept of equilibrium is taken analytically, as a mere reference point, when the model envisioned is taken as descriptive of actual patterns, as Parsons sometimes does, the functional exchanges among systems (as hierarchical and uneven as they might be) tend to be misleadingly taken as conditions for empirical stability. At the methodological level, finally, the constant derivation of lower concrete levels from those of presuppositions and models would characterize a kind of “conflationary strategy” that pervaded Parsons’s functionalist writings (cf. Alexander, 1983b: 170–211).

Having this series of criticisms in mind, neofunctionalism seeks to pursue the synthesis strand found in Parsons’s work by correcting—at the levels of ideology, models, propositions, and methodology—the deviations that have prevented so far its formal multidimensionality from being specified into a substantive multidimensionality. The general lines of this concrete correction are indicated by Alexander right in the introduction section of Neofunctionalism:

The idea of a system with interrelated and relatively autonomous parts, the tension between ends and means, the reference to equilibrium, the distinction between personality, culture, and society, the sensitivity to differentiation as a master trend, and a commitment to independent theorizing—all of these basic fundamentals of “functional” thinking permeate the chapters included here … [however] Within a neofunctionalist framework, materialist reference is never separated from culture or personality systems; contingency is related to systemic process; ideological criticism of society occurs within a multifaced understanding of social differentiation; and thinking about conflict is intertwined with theories of integration and societal solidarity. (Alexander, 1985: 15–16)

Outlining a new synthesis

In their first theoretical effort to outline a neofunctionalist position, Alexander and Colomy (1985) pursue this general path by bringing together Eisenstadt's more open and balanced version of functionalist theory and recent developments within the symbolic interactionist tradition. With this creative combination, they believe one might have the conditions for opening the main analytical axes of the AGIL functionalist scheme towards “an emphasis on process and innovation, on the role and the significance of [group and individual] interests, the omnipresence of conflict, and the disruptive aspects of culture” (cf. Alexander and Colomy, 1985: 12, 16).

In the first half of the article, Alexander and Colony show how this series of openings would take place in different phases of Eisenstadt's work. In the first moment, under the influence of Weber, different functional requisites of social systems are linked with the diverse interests of social groups, thus indicating that social change involves differentiation of power as well as active engagements in the mobilization of (material and symbolic) resources by concrete social actors. A second move, under the influence of Shils, opens the functionalist concept of “values” to its sacred, charismatic, and ritualized qualities, thus emphasizing some of its disruptive possibilities: the understanding that sacredness requires both specific conditions and actors endowed with special qualities leads to the problem of participation in the symbolic order, as well as the dissensus and conflicts involved in this dynamic. A third, metatheoretically ambitious move addresses the inescapability of the uncertainty/openness underlying the subsystems responsible for resource allocation, goal establishment, and solidarity formation. A further refinement in which cultural codes play a flexible role in social change and differentiation would come as a final, fourth move.

Having this in mind, Alexander and Colomy find theoretical and substantive reasons that justify the extension of functionalist openings into a connection with symbolic interactionism. The point of reference for this articulation would be the nuanced and dynamic analysis advanced by Turner and Killian on the social movement's institutionalization. Their emphasis on the broader social and cultural conditions shaping this process would provide a key for understanding how interactionist tradition can extend “the subjective, voluntarist, and conflictual elements of Eisenstadt's theory of social differentiation and change” (Alexander and Colomy, 1985: 17). The neofunctionalist synthesis resulting from this is articulated in three extensions.

The first refinement connects the functionalist notion of strain with interactionist meaning making at the collective level: Eisenstadt acknowledged that systemic strain requires institutional entrepreneurs who can identify and address it, leveraging both material and cultural sensitivities; interactionists expand on this by emphasizing that strain must be symbolically defined and negotiated by groups based on a shared “sense of injustice.” The second refinement links functionalist discussions of value specification with interactionist views of the public arena: Eisenstadt noted that social actors mobilize resources and pursue goals in culturally sensitive ways, but did not explore how symbolic codes are redefined by motivated groups; interactionists, in turn, focus on public negotiation and symbolic disputes, showing how institutional forms evolve under the scrutiny of and are creatively adapted by institutional entrepreneurs. The third refinement concerns the dynamics of social movements and differentiation: interactionist analysis suggests that social differentiation results from the dialectical interaction in which movements and countermovements, by adopting each other's demands, respecify cultural codes and drive differentiation at various levels of generality, with broad cultural shifts providing legitimacy for more structured, goal-oriented movements engaged in specific disputes (Alexander and Colomy, 1985: 16–21).

Beyond neofunctionalism

Many of the themes and concepts outlined in this first synthesis will be reworked and better elaborated by Alexander during the development of his cultural sociology. In the years that immediately followed, however, there was some ambivalence about his project, with Alexander's interests advancing in different directions: the search for a micro–macro link in sociology (Alexander et al., 1987), the reformulation of action theory (1988a), the rereading of the Durkheimian sociology (1988b), the engagement on debates about differentiation theories (Alexander and Colomy, 1990b), cultural theories (1990), and civil society (1991) are some of many paths followed in this period. Some years later, in Neofunctionalism and After (1998), the ambivalence of the early 1990s gives place to a proper departure from neofunctionalism. From that point on, for Alexander, the pursuit of a substantive theory with multidimensional character will not be given through a systematic correction of orthodox functionalism. By following his works in that period, one might already notice the growing impatience with the functionalist limits as well as changes in sensibility that would lead to this theoretical shift.

Although the reasons for this change are not systematically worked out, Alexander tried to articulate some of them in the last chapter of the aforementioned book (cf. 1998: 210–233). On a general level, he seems to be unsatisfied with the developments taken in action theory, which include not only the Parsonian tradition (first postwar generation) but the lack of generality of micro theories from the 1960s and 1970s (second generation) and lack of true analyticity in the theories from the new theoretical movement (third generation), which he found to be “guilty of misplaced concreteness” fallacy (1998: 214). The concerns underlying this sort of abstract critique become more evident, however, when one understands how this is connected, in Alexander's mind, to the problem of culture. Such flawed action theories would thematize cultural symbols and patterns as something against which agency—the analytical dimension corresponding to freed effort in concrete action—is projected, but not something through which it unfolds. Even Parsons, whose understanding of the analytical nature of theory was sharper than that of the second and third generations of postwar sociology, came up with an inadequate, not-flexible-enough understanding of the (analytical) autonomy of the culture domain in his action theory. The problem here is that such limitations would have consequences in several areas of sociology, including “the most important contribution to macro sociology that Parsons ever made”: his elaborations on societal community (1998: 223), a central object of interest for Alexander himself, whose inadequacies would call for the reformulations leading to his theory of civil sphere in the years to come (2006).

But how exactly can one make sense of these limitations? The crucial point, for Alexander, is that Parsons would not have come to terms with the “linguistic turn” and its proper impacts on social sciences. Although his triadic division of personality, social, and cultural systems is taken by Alexander as an enduring theoretical contribution, Parsons's preferred language to deal with cultural elements would be inadequate most of the time: he would talk much more about “values” than codes and symbolic patterns. For Alexander, however, this focus on “values”—as stable points of reference to be specified by institutional sets of roles and interaction patterns—ends up narrowing cultural dynamics by blending it with functional imperatives of the social system. Values are, in the end, just one subset of cultural symbols—the ones the theorist finds underlying normative specifications and evaluative judgments in social action systems. Thus, even though admitting the possibility of tensions or strains between cultural symbolic patterns broadly conceived and social systems’ needs, functionalism (and allegedly neofunctionalism too) would have little to say about the deep fabric of culture and the multiple layers of meanings given in its codes, its narratives, its performances, its iconic symbols, and its dramas. It is to break free from the limitations coming from an allegedly narrow understanding of the cultural domain that Alexander will reorient his path from neofunctionalism to cultural sociology in the following years.

Substantive multidimensionality (II): Cultural sociology

Like neofunctionalism, cultural sociology is not an individual enterprise, but the outcome of a collective effort with multiple layers, nuances, and internal variations. Here, too, its extensions exceed by far the purposes of the present article. So, as in the previous section, I will focus on Alexander's intellectual share: how he helped to give life to this research program, and how he navigated through it. So far, I have followed his steps by stressing a line of continuity underlying the eventual shifts in his theoretical formulations, intellectual sensibility, and themes of interest. In stressing the role of multidimensionality as a theoretical argument with both evaluative/critical potential and constitutive force, I made sense of his steps by identifying neofunctionalism and cultural sociology as distinct attempts to move from formal to substantive elaborations. In putting things like this, of course, I try to give a particular intelligibility to his overall work. With this move, however, the actual proportion of the parts might appear distorted in the name of an equidistant, logical narrative. The truth is that Alexander's engagement in cultural sociology occupied more than half of his academic career. In the present section, therefore, I cannot provide more than a brief overview of this rich, extensive phase of his work.

As mentioned, the intellectual origins of this shift might be retraced back to a perception of sociology's inability to bring social meanings and symbolic patterns to center stage. According to its proponents, cultural sociology would be an attempt to do that by coming to terms with the culturalist turn in humanities and social sciences of the 20th century—for which Wittgenstein's philosophy, French structuralism/semiotics (Lévi-Strauss, Barthes) and symbolic anthropology (Douglas, Turner, Geertz) would be relevant reference points. Sociology, however, would have lagged behind due to particularities in its disciplinary history: the revolt against Parsons's idealism and his value theory, which took place in the second generation of postwar sociology, would have led it to turn away from culture as a valid mode of explanation. At the end of the day, even culturally sensitive approaches would have to return to power, interest, and class as the main explanatory forces of social phenomena. Ultimately, even interactionist versions of sociology that stuck to meaning and culture the whole time would not have been able to do the job; due to their emphasis on concrete situations and interpersonal experiences as elementary units of the social world, they would have had problems coming to terms with the textual orientation of the cultural turn. The outcome of this situation would be that the most influential approaches to culture in the 1970s and 1980s (Bourdieu, Foucault, Birmingham school), although playing a role in sensitizing sociology once again to the problem of culture, ended up staying on the surface and elaborating “weak programs” in cultural analysis (cf. Alexander and Smith, 1993: 151–156, 1998, 2010: 13–16).

According to their proponents, cultural sociology does not operate as a regular sociology of culture in which meanings would be ultimately retraced back to field structures, power positions, and strategic reasoning. Rather, it would elaborate on meanings’ internal structures and dynamics, thus constituting what they call a proper “strong program” in cultural analysis. In so doing, they would draw from a variety of schools and intellectual traditions: cultural readings of Durkheim and Weber, Parsons’s functionalism, French structuralism, hermeneutics, symbolic anthropology, dramaturgic theory, poststructuralism, and so on. However, this intellectual flexibility should not be equated with inconsistency or loose intellectual development. In the next points in this section, I will try to show how this move towards social meaning is done, at least in the case of Alexander's writings, by following, once again, a kind of multidimensional logic. In the unfolding of his work, this is realized by a fourfold specification where culture is envisioned in terms of its inner symbolic patterns (codes and binary oppositions), its ordering structures (discourse and narrative), its articulations in symbolic practices (performances), and its materiality (iconicity). Putting things this way, I am drawing a clear analogy with Parsons’s fourfold scheme (AGIL). After all, any Parsonian-inspired theory of culture would have to deal with these same fundamental problems of how meaning is operated when it comes to its surrounding material objects (A), motivated practices (G), connective nexus (I), and symbolic patterns (L). Without necessarily having the ballast of connecting all into a grand theory of society, Alexander and his colleagues are committed to elaborating theoretical concepts and analytical tools that can work on each one of these diverse levels and questions. In this section, I will briefly outline how these elaborations took shape.

Codes and narratives

One of the first and most consequential attempts to develop cultural sociology can be found in the analysis of the North American civil discourse advanced by Alexander and Smith in the early 1990s (Alexander and Smith, 1993). At this moment, the development of a multidimensional theory is still carried out in close dialogue with the third generation of postwar sociology. Departing from the triadic division of practices/structures/discourses (echoing that of personality/social/cultural systems), they argue that even the champions of the new theoretical movement—Giddens, Bourdieu, Habermas—would not have reached a satisfactory theory of culture due to reductions and distortions in each of these levels: drawing on Garfinkel's take on reflexivity, Giddens would have been mainly concerned with discursive consciousness as situated practices, without really developing a model to grasp the internal structure of symbolism (reduction to practices); while acknowledging the existence of cultural codes in structured patterns, due to its systematic reference to determining structural conditions in the fields, Bourdieu would offer a sociology of culture rather than a cultural sociology (reduction to structures); by recognizing culture as analytically independent, Habermas could not be blamed as committing a conflation, but his emphasis in speech acts would suffer from a sort of rationalistic bias in which meanings would be grasped as resulting from efforts to reach consensual understanding under practical-rational evaluative standards (discourse distortion). (cf. Alexander and Smith, 1993: 151–155).

In order to circumvent these hermeneutic deficits and pave the way to an adequate understanding of social meanings and symbolic structures, Alexander and Smith lay out a theoretical model inspired by the late Durkheim—as well as semiotics, poststructuralism, and hermeneutics—that is at the heart of what they will later call “structural hermeneutics.” According to them, culture is to be conceived as a structure made out of diverse symbolic sets whose organization or patterns are not immediately derived from organic, individual, or social needs. The semiotic take on meaning as something given in the very series of differences among signifiers guarantees this analytical autonomy. Among the relevant cultural structures, they identify codes—assigning meaning to the elements of the other levels—and their articulation in terms of narratives: “people, groups, and nations understand their progress through time in terms of stories, plots which have beginnings, middles, and ends, heroes and antiheroes, epiphanies and denouements, dramatic, comic, and tragic forms” (Alexander and Smith, 1993: 156). Still in the semiotic and structuralist paths, one might find the codes underlying such narratives to be built up in terms of binary structures. In their drawing from the late Durkheim, Alexander and Smith qualify these binary sets as presenting both cognitive and moral/evaluative dimensions. Apart from shaping reality's perception in conceptual and classificatory ways, these binary symbolic structures operate around the poles of the “sacred” and the “profane”: they set apart the good from the evil, the desirable from the undesirable, the pure from the polluted; even more, they give rise to taboos and inspire rituals of different sorts.

Cultural sociology has its starting point, so to speak, in this synthesis between the late-Durkheim sociology of sacred and profane, a semiotic reflection on codes, and hermeneutic sensibility to narratives. This combination guarantees, at once, the analytical autonomy of culture, a flexible language to deal with its internal elements (codes and narratives, at first, but also expressive symbols and scripts later), and a multidimensional understanding of its character as being at once cognitive and evaluative—but also, in a Durkheimian sense, expressive (due to its ritualistic/performative and material/iconic elements), as will be clear in the next points. At this first moment, what is relevant to note is that cultural sociology elaborates on Durkheim and sheds light on the codified nature of symbolic patterns (L) and the narrative nature of the ordering structures (I) in cultural systems.

Once this alternative conception of culture is outlined, as mentioned, Alexander and Smith seek to demonstrate its pertinence by applying it to the analysis of the North American civil discourse. Here, the theoretical conception of culture is more systematically combined with the authors’ interest in civil society, a fundamental theme that is always in the backdrop of the strong program. ² Although not aiming for an exhaustive analysis in this initial paper, they successfully illustrate how to operate their model. In diverse historical episodes of American civil life (presidential elections, scandals, impeachments, revolts, etc.), they identify, at the level of cultural discourse, the organizing presence of symbolic sets—what they call the “democratic” and the “counter-democratic” codes—with sacred and profane poles. They show in critical historical episodes how such codes provided binary series of signs—autonomous/dependent, reasonable/hysterical, open/secret, citizen/enemy, impersonal/personal, rule-regulated/arbitrary—in terms of which motivations, social relations, and institutions were identified and typified as democratic (sacred) and counter-democratic (profane) (cf. Alexander and Smith, 1993: 160–198).

Performances and icons

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the strong program in cultural analysis underwent a shift to what became known as “cultural pragmatics.” Alexander and his colleagues came to realize that while an inquiry into the inner structure of meanings and its modes of assignment can be advanced by the text-based approaches of semiotics and hermeneutics, it cannot be exhausted with them. In an early Durkheimian language, one might say that social facts or collective representations are not only modes of “thinking” and “feeling,” but also modes of “acting.” Social life, in other words, presents its own pragmatics, and a theory of social meanings should cover this practical element in a multidimensional way. Cultural pragmatics emerges, then, as an attempt to do so and render intelligible the situated processes of symbolic communication.

In order to move beyond structuralist and pragmatic approaches—so that meaning is not reduced to either formal structures or interested, materially grounded practices—Alexander (2004) comes to elaborate a multidimensional model of social performances. Drawing from performance studies (Schechner), ritual anthropology (Turner), and dramaturgic social theory (Goffman), he lays out a model of symbolic communication that operates through the combination of elements analogous to those found in theatre: background symbols, foreground scripts, actors, means of symbolic production, mise-en-scène, observers/audience, social power. In so doing, he articulates ideal and material factors at both individual and collective levels of symbolic communication in a single coherent scheme. Once the model is defined by the interdependence of elements, it becomes clear that successful performances can only take place when the elements are well connected or, in Alexander's terms, “fused”—that is to say, when cultural codes and narratives underlying scripts are decoded by actors who are emotionally invested and when their interpretation is conducted in such a way that meanings can be culturally extended to an audience capable of hermeneutic understanding and psychological identification. The more easy-going and effortless the process of connecting the elements—e.g., if codes and narratives are taken as self-evident by everyone involved; if actors believe (or seem to believe) in the meanings they perform; if audiences lose sight of their physical (but also emotional, social, and intellectual) distance from what is happening on stage—the more the performance is perceived as successful. Conversely, the more the elements are unconnected or “defused,” the more the performance is perceived as artificial, unauthentic, and contrived.

With this multidimensional model in hand, Alexander seeks the same strategy he applied for his semiotic model of culture: to show its relevance for the analysis of symbolic action in diverse historical formations. In this case, this is done from tribal societies to antique empires, from medieval fragmentation to the emergent industrial cities in Europe (2004: 533–547). In a nutshell, his argument is more or less the following: when it comes to social formations displaying low levels of organizational and cultural differentiation/conflicts, the elements of performance tend to be insufficiently differentiated for it to take place, and symbolic action tends to be predominantly ritual; due to the overlapping of elements, or its fusion, symbolic communication is, in a way, less problematic; in highly differentiated social configurations—characterized by strategic rationality, open-end negotiations, and reflexivity—the social elements of performance tend to show up in their independence, and performance can take place as a kind substitute to ritual activity. But precisely because such elements are differentiated, the symbolic communication is never taken for granted; on the contrary, it can only be socially effective and convincing through an active effort of “re-fusion,” in which social action is performed and social life is dramatized. By calling attention to this intrinsic dramatic dimension of social life—in which social groups and institutional entrepreneurs seeking effective communication cannot evade formulating convincing narratives and engaging in persuasive performances—Alexander is recasting part of his neofunctionalist reflections and using them to provide an image of public sphere alternative to that one advanced by philosophers like Habermas:

A more sociological formulation would point to the rise of a public stage, a symbolic forum in which actors have increasing freedom to create and to project performances of their reasons, dramas tailored to audiences whose voices have become more legitimate references in political and social conflicts. (Alexander, 2004: 544)

Such understanding will be critical to his analysis of the civil sphere in the following years.

By the end of that same decade, however, another development started to take place in the strong program in cultural analysis: after reflecting on the inner structure of symbolism and the pragmatics of symbolic communication, its participants turned to the materialization of meaning in iconic, sensuous, and aesthetic representations (cf. Alexander et al., 2012). In Alexander's case, this move towards a material turn took place at first on his reflection on the surface/depth distinction in icons (2008a) and the elaborations on what he called “iconic consciousness” (2008b). At stake here is the attempt to rescue the materiality of culture from the auspices of the crude materialism underlying Marxist and utilitarian approaches to social objects. In the hands of Alexander, the cultural sociology of material life emerges as a phenomenology of aesthetic experience in which the moral depth of social meanings and the opaqueness of codes are made visible and accessed through sensuous surfaces endowed with symbolic power. Yet, in galvanizing social meanings, the iconic objects neither limit themselves to reflect discourse and meaning on another level nor do they simply articulate the general into the particular. In this process, they acquire an inner life (an aura), evoke feelings, tell stories, call for engagement, and reveal themselves as actants in social life. They display a proper symbolic power steaming from a constitutive, horizontal imbrication between aesthetic form and discursive depth.

For Alexander, the iconic consciousness, which is achieved in the experience of this specific symbolic power, should be taken as a constitutive part of contemporary life. Although departing at first from reflections on sculpture and from a philosophical discussion on the place of aesthetics, he indicated how this overall model can be expanded to a diverse series of icons: family photos, household and domestic objects, advertisements and branding, movie stars, and celebrity heroes. Moreover, by indicating how invisible meanings are woven into the fabric of material reality, Alexander not only helps cultural sociology to cover a different layer of social life but offers a response to the modern disenchantment thesis: icons surrounding us are, in a way, enchanted objects with expressive and symbolic powers that continuously shape our social imagination, as well as our modes of thinking, feeling, and acting in the world around us.

Once again, the fundamental reference for cultural sociology is the late-Durkheimian sociology: one might recall that in his last work on religion, Durkheim (1912) developed what could be understood as a multidimensional theory of representations in which systems of concepts and beliefs (cognitive dimension) organized around notions of sacred and profane (value dimension) came to be symbolically represented and dynamically (re)created (expressive dimension) in both time, through ritual/performances, and space, in totemic objects/iconic symbols. If one has such a Durkheimian scheme in mind, it is possible to say that the pursuit of substantive multidimensionality, which characterizes Alexander's cultural sociology, although framed along Parsonian general lines—symbols (L), structures (I), practices (G), materiality (A)—is followed, most of the time, in the steps of Durkheim. In a way, with this last move toward materiality, such pursuit completes a full arc.

Concluding remarks

In this article, I have argued that the notion of multidimensionality is critical to the understanding of Alexander's intellectual trajectory. From his first metatheoretical interventions to his later substantive sociological projects, he has consistently sought to move beyond theoretical antinomies, articulating frameworks that integrate diverse perspectives into a broader, more dynamic synthesis. I have argued that his early concern with formal multidimensionality—first formulated in response to the logical dilemmas of social theory and then elaborated as a way of evaluating and accessing sociological history—found substantive elaborations that, despite their differences, preserve this overall spirit. Both the neofunctionalist attempt to balance orthodox functionalism—by emphasizing innovation rather than simply adaptation (A-sector), the role of interests in social action (G-sector), conflictual strains in the social arena (I-sector), and disruptive potentialities in culture (L-sector)—and the later conceptual developments on culture sociology—codes (constitutive symbols—L), narratives (connective articulations—I), performances (motivated practices—G), and icons (surrounding materiality—A)—can be understood as ramifications of this multidimensional search. In so doing, these developments represent a non-linear but cumulative effort that testifies to the synthetic ethos animating Alexander's intellectual enterprise.