European Journal of Social Theory

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A Quest for Universalism: Re-assessing the Nature of Classical Social

Theory's Cosmopolitanism
Daniel Chernilo
European Journal of Social Theory 2007 10: 17
DOI: 10.1177/1368431006068754

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 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1): 17–35
Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi

A Quest for Universalism

Re-assessing the Nature of Classical
Social Theory’s Cosmopolitanism
Daniel Chernilo
U N I V E R S I T Y A L B E RTO H U RTA D O , S A N T I AG O , C H I L E

Abstract
This article re-assesses classical social theory’s relationship with cosmo-
politanism. It begins by briefly reconstructing the universalistic thrust that is
core to cosmopolitanism and then argues that the rise of classical social
theory is marked by the tension of how to retain, but in a renovated form,
cosmopolitanism’s original universalism. On the one hand, as the heir of the
tradition of the Enlightenment, classical social theory remains fully committed
to cosmopolitanism’s universalism. On the other, however, it needed to re-
juvenate that commitment to universalism so that it could work without the
normative burden that its traditional natural law elements now represented
in the modern context. The article then argues that, in the cases of Karl
Marx, Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, they all started to
differentiate the claim to universalism into three different realms: (1) the
normative idea of a single modern society that encompasses the whole of
humanity; (2) the conceptual definition of what the social element in
modern social relations is; and (3) the methodological justification of how
to generate adequate empirical knowledge. The conclusion is that, despite
differences and shortcomings, it is precisely this claim to universalism that
makes classical social theory classical.

Key words
■ classical social theory ■ cosmopolitanism ■ Durkheim ■ Marx ■ Simmel ■

universalism ■ Weber

We now seem to be in a good position to look back at the writings of classical

social theorists from the point of view of cosmopolitanism.1 Our epochal
situation mirrors theirs, for instance, in that neither can take the current socio-
political forms of modernity as pre-determined, inevitable and eternal. We all
equally face the problematic question of the position of the nation-state in the
context of an always ‘novel’ global (re-)shaping of modernity. There is also the
shared challenge of providing a clear assessment, in the present, of the extent and

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18 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1)

depth of the structural transformations of modernity. At the same time, there

was as much need then as there is now to find new definitions for those key terms
with which we try to describe modern social life. As the original over-excitement
with globalization starts to calm down, we can also hope that current cosmo-
politanism may start unburdening itself of its many ‘-isms’ and become less ideo-
logical and doctrinal (Fine, 2003). There is now room to realize the extent to
which some of classical social theory’s basic ideas advance key themes in current
cosmopolitan thinking (Fine and Chernilo, 2004; Turner, 2006).
Of course, this does not mean that everything has remained unchanged since
their time or that a mechanical repetition of classical social theory’s theorems
makes, in itself, good social theory. However, the outright rejection of classical
social theory’s insights into modernity’s structural features on behalf of an alleged
epochal change (Albrow, 1996), the dismissal of its key concepts because they
are now only ‘zombie categories’ (Beck, 2002), and the abandonment of its claim
to universalism because of radically altered epistemic conditions (Urry, 2000),
are theses that have been advanced all too quickly and may have become
common currency all too readily. Rather than opposing what seems to have been
valid then to what no longer looks so, I suggest that not only the national origins
but also the global impact of modernity must be re-assessed under our current
circumstances. A specifically social theory reconstruction of classical social theory’s
engagement with cosmopolitanism can only arise from our own concern with
their present: the reconstruction is crucially determined by the conditions and
issues we now consider as the most urgent tasks of the day. A critical engagement
with this tradition of thinking, then, is in order, not least because the intellec-
tual perplexity and historical uncertainty we now experience are part and parcel
of social theory’s mode of understanding modernity (Chernilo, 2006a).
My strategy for re-assessing the relationship between classical social theory
and cosmopolitanism is based on the idea that there is a certain claim to univer-
salism that they both – classical social theory and cosmopolitanism – share. My
main thesis is that as classical social theory emerged out of the universalistic
legacy of the Enlightenment – embracing a normative universalism based on
traditional natural law theory – it needed to construe a subtler and more differ-
entiated conception of universalism to face adequately the challenge of explain-
ing modern social life. Classical social theory attempted to understand the rise
of modern social relations through a universalistic conception of humanity and
equally universalistic analytical tools and methodological procedures. The next
section thus unfolds the link between cosmopolitanism, universalism and the
rise of classical social theory. I would then like to advance further, for each of
the four thinkers – Marx, Simmel, Durkheim and Weber – the argument of
classical social theory’s universalism on three levels: (1) the normative idea of a
single modern society that encompasses the whole of humanity; (2) the concep-
tual definition of what the social element in modern social relations is; and (3)
the methodological justification of how to generate adequate empirical knowl-
edge. Towards the end, I draw the conclusion that it is precisely this claim to
universalism that makes classical social theory classical.

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 19

Cosmopolitanism, Universalism and the Rise of Social

Theory

According to Stephen Toulmin’s comprehensive study on cosmopolitanism,

universalism is a key feature of the early cosmopolitan programme that origi-
nated in Greek Stoic philosophy. In this tradition, things in the world manifest:
in varied ways an ‘order’ which expresses the Reason that binds things together . . .
The practical idea that human affairs are influenced by, and proceed in step with
heavenly affairs, changes into the philosophical idea that the structure of Nature
reinforces a rational Social Order. (Toulmin, 1990: 68)
By the time of European absolutism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
this universalistic claim was to find expression in such ways of thinking as
traditional natural law theory. The particularly normative kind of universalism
that characterizes it is turned into a world-view that comprised a unified expla-
nation and justification for all possible realms of human experience:
Everything in the natural order testifies (or can be made to testify) to God’s dominion
over Nature. That dominion extends through the entire fabric of the world, natural
or human, and is apparent on every level of experience. What God is to Nature, the
King is to the State. It is fitting that a Modern Nation should model its State organiz-
ation on the structure God displays on the world of astronomy: the Roi Soleil, or Solar
King, wields authority over successive circles of subjects, all of whom know their
places, and keep their proper orbits. What God is to Nature and the King is to the
State, a Husband is to his Wife, and Father to his Family . . . In all these ways, the
order of Nature and the order of Society turn out to be governed by a similar set of
laws. (Toulmin, 1990: 127)
Within the context of traditional natural law theory, then, the role of human
reason is to set the standard within which any event in the world becomes intel-
ligible but human history is not yet considered to be the result of humanity’s
own actions. Human beings may be able to understand, but cannot alter, the
inner and God-given nature of the world’s ultimate rationale. The universalism
of this early cosmopolitan tradition cannot distinguish that it is working articu-
lately and simultaneously at three levels: normatively, on the basis of a divine
conception of human nature; conceptually, as human reason provides the causal
explanations to describe the functioning of all different fields of life, and method-
ologically, via the analogies that help the practical organization within all differ-
ent fields of human experience. These three different planes work necessarily and
unproblematically together as a unified world-view.
The finest hour of this connection between universalism and cosmo-
politanism is, of course, found in Immanuel Kant’s (1999) writings on Perpetual
Peace and the Idea of a Universal History. In relation to cosmopolitanism, the
position of Kant is one of rupture and continuity with traditional natural law
theory and its undifferentiated conception of universalism. On the one hand,
Kant breaks with earlier forms of cosmopolitan thinking, as he explicitly regards
it as the incarnation – in the fields of politics and international relations – of

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20 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1)

those moral principles that draw their validity from the fact of being postulates
of practical reason. Kant is also an innovator because he added an explicitly
political dimension to cosmopolitanism; he understands that some conception
of the whole world as one’s own polis – the fact of being a citizen of the world
as an emerging reality – is inscribed into the very idea of cosmopolitanism. The
institutional innovation advanced in his idea of a voluntary Federation of States
and the legal innovation of his Law of Peoples, which included the principle of
hospitality towards foreigners, are both based on the universalism of his moral
postulates and therefore apply to all human beings without distinction. With this
move, Kant begins to unpack the different dimensions of cosmopolitanism’s
universalism: while it is still based on its original normative core (although in a
modified way, owing to the form of Kant’s own practical philosophy), it now also
includes a more procedural dimension. On the other hand, Kant still belongs
to the tradition of natural law theory as he resorts to Providence for cosmo-
politanism to become a necessary evolutionary accomplishment of humankind.
If historical trends do not accommodate the postulates of practical reason, we
human beings have little to be afraid of as providence will do its job well to curb
men’s ‘unsociable sociability’ (Fine, 2001: 134–5, 2006: 51–5). He trusts that
providence will eventually lead us to build up cosmopolitan institutions and
allow us to enjoy a cosmopolitan way of life. Kant is therefore a key transitional
figure in the development of cosmopolitanism’s more differentiated conception
of universalism. Kant is the last of the old cosmopolitans as he, at least partly,
follows traditional natural law theory, but Kant is also the first of the modern
cosmopolitans as he starts unpacking universalism’s normative core into differ-
ent, more operational, realms.
The critique of traditional natural law theory must be seen as an important
theme in explaining the rise of classical social theory (Fine, 2002). Classical social
theory emerged, by the late nineteenth century, as an intellectual programme
focused on trying to understand and conceptualize the nature of a whole new
set of social relations that were having an impact all across the globe. As a part
of the tradition of the Enlightenment, classical social theory inherited the claim
to universalism which we have argued is core to all cosmopolitanism. However,
classical social theory developed also as empirical political philosophy (Wagner,
2001), so it was no longer in a position to deploy cosmopolitanism’s normative
project uncritically. My argument is that classical social theory remained
committed to the universalistic core of all earlier forms of cosmopolitan thinking
but that, in contradistinction to Enlightenment formulations, it needed a more
differentiated claim to universalism. It required an argument for universalism
that could work without the legitimating pillars provided by traditional natural
law theory; there was the need to allow for ethical disagreement and empirical
variation without, in the same move, discarding the possibility of universalism
altogether. My claim here is that instead of surrendering normative universalism,
classical social theory puts it into brackets and starts unpacking it. Or, in other
words, that the commitment to universalism stays but now starts differentiating
between its normative, conceptual and methodological dimensions. Separate work

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 21

needed to be done within each of these three realms because, although they could
still in principle converge, they no longer did so automatically or necessarily.
Normatively, classical social theory upholds cosmopolitanism’s original univer-
salism but without the burden that its natural law baggage now represented; no
doubt, one of classical social theory’s key themes was ‘the study and critique of
society’s normative structures’ (Freitag, 2002: 175). Indeed, from Kant’s writings
onwards, it became increasingly clear that the rise of modernity could only be
meaningfully understood if attached to an image of a global modernity.
Common to Marx’s understanding of capitalism, Weber’s studies on economics
and religious ethics, Simmel’s analysis of widening processes of sociation and
Durkheim’s assessment of world patriotism is precisely the claim that the modern
society is local in origins, national in organization and universal in impact.
Classical social theory tries to answer the key question of to what extent a
geographically particular set of historically circumscribed processes have led to
the rise of a number of evolutionary tendencies that were having a universalistic
impact all over the world. The simple but by no means trivial normative corol-
lary of this claim is that, despite all differences, humankind is effectively one and
could justly be theorized only as such. The conceptualization of modernity’s
global reach effectively requires the normative assumption of a universalistic
conception of humanity from which no one is in principle excluded. This under-
standing of humanity works as one of classical social theory’s regulative ideas
(Kant, 1973: 485–7). In classical social theory, the emergence of the modern
society is understood as humanity itself being able to forge its destiny at last.
Even if modernity is not conceptualized as humanity’s conscious development,
this idea of humanity now differs from previous notions of human nature
because it is seen for the first time as an evolutionary accomplishment of
humanity’s own history. Classical social theory’s conceptual and methodological
developments pointed in a direction that is broadly compatible with cosmo-
politanism’s normative universalism.
Conceptually, then, classical social theory attempted to grasp emerging forms
of ‘sociality’ in a universalistic fashion; the project of classical social theory is
closely associated with such terms as ‘the social’, ‘society’ and ‘sociation’. The
main feature of these concepts is that they tried to grasp what constitutes
modern social relations without any of the old elements of traditional natural
law theory such as tradition, human nature, providence or the gods. The ambi-
guities in the use of these concepts reflect the real problems they were expected
to solve. If we take the idea of society, for instance, at times it was meant to
mark a political, geographical or cultural reference, a ‘society’ was an abstract
name given to relatively recent socio-political structures, such as the nation-state
– thus the idea of ‘national societies’ (Calhoun, 1999; Smelser, 1997). Yet, there
was also a second, and, in my view, a more consistent, use of the term ‘society’
which had to do with the attempt at an abstract conceptualization of the nature
of truly ‘modern social relations’ (Frisby and Sayer, 1986; Outhwaite, 2006). On
the one hand, then, the idea of the national society emphasizes what could
constitute a group of people into a single unit so that it wins its right to national

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22 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1)

self-determination. It emphasizes the fact that any nation is different from any
other nation due to its weather (warm Latinos versus cold Saxons), colour (of
the skin) or even flavour (preferably of wine or beer). On the other hand,
however, the use of society more closely associated with the concepts of ‘the
social’ and ‘sociation’ places more emphasis on the question of what constitutes
modern social relations: the claim to universalism which makes us all human
beings and allows us to speak of social relations in whatever place (Europe or
Latin America) and time (before or after the birth of Christ). We shall see that
classical social theory battled hard to find a regulative principle that could set
the foundations for universalistic social scientific knowledge on the basis of
modernity’s global reach. The one feature to which society needed to subscribe,
however, was a claim to universality in its normative assessments as well as in its
conceptualizations of empirical diversity.
The universalistic conceptual tools being created by classical social theory
could only function if, in practice, they were being complemented by workable
methodological procedures. At first sight at least, there does not seem to be much
in common between, say, Weber’s insistence on the imputation of rational
behaviour when constructing ideal-types, Marx’s inversion of Hegel’s idealism,
Simmel’s Kantian argumentation on the a-priori nature of society, and
Durkheim’s statement on the external and coercive nature of social facts.
Moreover, as general guidelines, they neither are intrinsically faultless nor were
always deployed faithfully even by the writers themselves. Yet, all these
procedures share two features worth mentioning here. First, critically, all classical
social theory’s methodological rules rejected the translation of political prefer-
ences towards nationalistic politics into theoretical stances for explicating ‘the
social’. Even if at the beginning of World War I, Durkheim (1915), Weber
(Palonen, 2001) and Simmel (Harrington, 2005) fell prey to nationalistic chau-
vinism, this not only proved short-lived but, more importantly, it was never
translated into their more abstract social scientific principles. Although, to my
surprise, this theme has not attracted much attention in the secondary literature,
classical social theory criticized the tendency towards reification and hypostati-
zation to be found at the time around the idea of the nation. They all opposed
what is now called ‘methodological nationalism’, the idea that the nation-state
and the principle of nationality were the natural and necessary representations
of modern social life (Chernilo, 2006b). In one word, they all thought that
decent social science could not be found on any particularistic völkisch principle!
Second, and more importantly, all their procedures share some pledge to univer-
salism as a methodological principle. The validity of the new knowledge to be
produced could only be granted because the methodological procedures involved
would account for cultural and historical diversity while still remaining
committed to universalism. Even if their concepts and methods did not always
prove as successful or workable as originally anticipated, universalism remains a
regulative principle, a standard to strive for (Emmet, 1994). If the empirical
vocation of classical social theory was expected to work as an antidote against
any reified version of the universal, the claim to universalism of its concepts and

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 23

methodological procedures represents an equivalent antidote against any sacred

treatment of the particular.
In the rest of the article, then, I would like to substantiate my claim of classical
social theory’s commitment to universalism at these three levels. Normatively, in
its conception that the idea of modern society is meaningful only when it encom-
passes the whole of humanity; conceptually, in its delimitation of what is social
in modern social relations, and methodologically, in its establishment of
procedures that could guide and justify the results of empirical research in differ-
ent historical and cultural settings. Although I will unfold the argument on
universalism at these three levels for each of the four writers, it is also apparent
that each one of them came up with stronger claims at particular points: Marx,
because of the definitive advancement represented by his critique of traditional
natural law theory and his claim of the global nature of capitalism; Simmel, with
the argument of the universalistic conceptual and methodological foundation of
the idea of society; Durkheim, via his thesis on the normative universalism
underlying the relationship between cosmopolitanism and the nation-state, and
Weber, in relation to the universalistic proceduralism upon which he bases his
methodological insights.

Marx

One of Karl Marx’s key themes was his attempt to break away from the essen-
tialism he found in traditional natural law theory. His adoption of a materialis-
tic viewpoint is based on the rejection of any conception of immutable human
nature. Rather, he understands the evolution of human history – via the key
concepts of praxis, first, and then labour – as the fully historicized development
of the material reproduction of social life. The starting-point of his critique of
German idealism focuses precisely on the dogmatism of its nationalistic presup-
positions. Thus, very early on, in the context of his dispute with the young
Hegelians, Marx (1978: 59) took Hegel as the highest representative of ‘German
philosophy of right and of the state’ and of ‘the modern state and of the reality
connected with it’. He criticized this view of Germany in which the country is
taken as self-sufficient and without consideration of broader social processes and
refers to Hegel’s view of Germany as ‘the deficiency of present-day politics consti-
tuted into a system’ (Marx, 1978: 62). Without entering into the dispute of
whether Marx interpreted Hegel correctly, the critique of Hegel is that of turning
the project of a German nation-state into a form of religion. Marx’s first
methodological concern is thus that of trying to get rid of the limitations that
one’s own place and time impose upon thinking; he strives for universalism and
aims at a position within which the broadest possible viewpoint can be achieved.
Marx’s philosophical concerns were increasingly re-shaped in social scientific
language as he became interested in political economy as the empirical science
that could provide the best possible account of the actual material reproduction
of society in capitalism. Marx bothered with bourgeois political economy because

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24 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1)

he regarded that body of literature as an attempt to produce universally valid and

applicable scientific knowledge. His critique of political economy, in turn, was
developed to advance that scientific project further so that it could effectively
work to uncover in-depth processes by penetrating through its appearances – as
masterfully represented in his thesis of commodity fetishism in Chapter 1 of
Capital (Larraín, 1979: 180–4). Therefore, when the young Marx (1978: 145)
refers to a conception of society as ‘socialised humanity’ in Grundrisse an older
Marx similarly argued that ‘[s]ociety does not consist of individuals, but expresses
the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand’
(Marx, 1973: 265). His idea of society points then more to a generic concept of
‘social relations’ and less to the nation-state or, in fact, to any particular form of
socio-political organization. All through Marx’s œuvre, then, ‘reified conceptions
of society . . . reflect the real alienation of social relations from their participants
characteristic of bourgeois society’ (Frisby and Sayer, 1986: 95).
This attempt at the development of a universalistic conceptual and methodo-
logical viewpoint finds, from very early on, a clear normative counterpoint. In
On the Jewish Question, for instance, Marx’s argument is that political emancipa-
tion is a necessary stepping-stone in the process of the modern state and society
reaching their own limits. While the project of political emancipation makes
possible the full realization of modern socio-political relations – represented in
the division between the state and civil society – its critique exposes the limi-
tations of the current form of organization of social life. The ultimate problem
with political emancipation is that although it accomplishes an important stage
in the development of humankind, it does not go far enough:

Political emancipation is a reduction of man, on the one hand, to a member of civil

society, an independent and egoistic individual, and on the other hand, to a citizen, to
a moral person.
Human emancipation will only be complete when the real, individual man has
absorbed into himself the abstract citizen; when as an individual man, in his everyday
life, in his work, and in his relationships, he has become a species-being . . . as social
powers so that he no longer separates this social power from himself as political power.
(Marx, 1978: 46)

Marx argues that the political programme which aims to the reform of the modern
state within the limits of that state fails to grasp not only its historical and contra-
dictory character but also the ultimate source of alienation and inequality of
modern social life. There is the need for a wider conception of human emancipa-
tion, one that is based on transcending the contradictory form of reproduction of
modern social and political life: capitalism. The normative universalism underly-
ing the idea of human emancipation is fully consistent with Marx’s general
conception of modernity as truly a global one: the expansion of capitalism is
global and nothing but global. Indeed, the political call for the proletarians of the
world to unite is fully consistent with the more empirical argument on the
‘cosmopolitization’ – the rise of world literature, science, commerce and means of
transport, among others – that capitalism brings with it (Marx and Engels, 1976).

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 25

We cannot begin to understand Marx’s intellectual project without grasping

the role universalism plays within it. For my purposes here, these arguments have
now come full circle: Marx began with the critique of the restrictions that
particular socio-historical conditions placed upon certain intellectual trends in
Germany at the time and he tried to overcome these limitations precisely by
placing them within the widest – i.e. global – context. Even if we were to state
that Marx could not totally control the different planes at which universalism
operates within his own work, what he has none the less achieved is remarkable.
From normative universalism down, he managed to translate the normative
kernel of his conception of human emancipation into increasingly universalistic
and more workable concepts and procedures. From conceptual and methodo-
logical universalism up, these concepts and methods could effectively provide
rejuvenated arguments for a modern normative project.

Simmel

We can similarly start this presentation of Georg Simmel via his critique of the
shortcomings he found in the social sciences of his time. Simmel arrives at a
positive definition of society only after a long exercise of delimitation. He first
of all rejects any conceptualization of society in which it is reduced only to indi-
viduals’ subjective representations; he is against what we would today call a
methodologically individualistic definition of society. He equally opposes the
illusion of metaphysical notions of society such as those of a mystical kind to be
found in German Völkerspsychologie:
[i]t is no longer possible to explain facts in the broadest sense of the word, the contents
of culture, the types of industry, the norms of morality, by reference solely to the indi-
vidual, his understanding, and his interests. Still less is it possible, if this sort of expla-
nation fails, to find recourse in metaphysical or magical causes. (Simmel, 1909: 292)

The idea of society is always in danger of being wrongly treated as ‘a collective

name arising from our inability to treat single separate phenomena . . . we do
not make the required distinction between that which takes place merely within
society, as within a frame, and that which comes to pass through society’ (Simmel,
1994: 34). Simmel thus contrasts society as a frame against society as an active force
and only the latter comes close to an acceptable definition of society. The influ-
ence of one individual upon others leads to the creation of emergent forces which
none of them could effectively anticipate nor indeed control. He is now ready
to introduce the idea of society as ‘types of reciprocal influencing . . . If, therefore,
there is to be a science, the object of which is to be “society” and nothing else,
it can investigate only these reciprocal influences, these kinds and forms of social-
ization’ (Simmel, 1909: 297–8, my italics).
Having arrived at a universalistic concept of society as a principle of recipro-
cal influencing, and thus opposed to the sum of individuals’ actions or the
nation-state, Simmel needs now to elucidate some methodological difficulties in

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26 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1)

order to avoid ‘treating society either as a “real product” or as a “purely transcen-

dental presupposition of sociological experience”’ (Frisby and Sayer, 1986: 63).
In other words, he cannot study society as if it were a natural force independent
of human interaction nor as a purely conventional device devoid of substantive
reference. The best methodological possibility for Simmel is phenomenological:
the positive knowledge of society arises only from the actual ways in which
people experience this reciprocal influencing in their own life. The fact that
society cannot be known beyond how it appears in everyday experiences means,
from a methodological viewpoint, that society is the most abstract way of access-
ing the objective nature of intersubjectivity in individuals’ experiences. As the active
principle of reciprocal interaction, society is now the required general frame-
work to make social scientific analysis possible without anticipating or exhaust-
ing the actual content with which that framework may eventually be filled in.
Society is an impossible object for empirical social research and yet it is its
condition of possibility. Because society helps us isolate what is truly social
in a universalistic fashion it now works as a regulative idea (Chernilo, 2007;
Schrader-Klebert, 1968).
Simmel is interested in sociology because, conceptually as well as methodolog-
ically, it tries to grasp universalistically what is strictly social in modern social life.
Sociology emerges because of the rise of certain unprecedented historical trends.
As an idea, then, society arises because there are now real social forces to be
reckoned with. Simmel is particularly interested in those social settings in which
the rise of modern forms of reciprocal influencing gives also rise to modern indi-
vidualization processes (Honneth, 2004). The study of ‘sociability’ as social
relations in their purest form offers him the chance to test rigorously his
methodological and conceptual universalism. In modern social gatherings, says
Simmel:
everyone should guarantee to the other that maximum of sociable values (joy, relief,
vivacity) which is consonant with the maximum of values he himself receives. As
justice upon the Kantian basis is thoroughly democratic, so likewise this principle
shows the democratic structure of all sociability . . . Sociability creates, if one will, an
ideal sociological world, for in it – so say the enunciated principles – the pleasure of
the individual is always contingent upon the joy of others; here, by definition, no one
can have his satisfaction at the cost of contrary experiences on the part of others.
(Simmel, 1949: 257, my italics)
Even if the issue of the normative implications of Simmel’s social theory has
proved taxing for the secondary literature (Gangas, 2004), we can see here how
his sociological depictions start to have normative strings attached to them. The
deployment of the conceptual and methodological universalism associated with
his understanding of sociability now makes apparent equally universalistic norma-
tive implications: a conception that modern social life is intrinsically democratic.
The claim is that the more the individual is enmeshed in webs of social relations,
the more he or she emancipates himself of herself: he or she may gain in moral
autonomy, political freedom, economic entrepreneurship, aesthetic innovation

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 27

or erotic fulfilment. Although this increment in individual freedom comes with

a price in terms of loneliness, social deprivation and even indifference, the
question is one of the correct balance between the forms of sociation and indi-
vidualization. Always analysing sociability as society’s neatest representation,
Simmel argues that in these meetings social interaction takes place with ‘no
ulterior end’; it is oriented totally for the sake of the personalities taking place
in it. Yet, ‘precisely because all is oriented about them, the personalities must not
emphasise themselves too individually’ (Simmel, 1949: 255). A normatively
universalistic conception of humanity is now an integral part of the argument:
If we now have the conception that we enter into sociability purely as ‘human beings,’
as that which we really are, lacking all the burdens, the agitation, the inequalities with
which real life disturbs the purity of our picture, it is because modern life is overbur-
dened with objective content and material demands. Ridding ourselves of this burden
in sociable circles, we believe we return to our natural personal being and overlook
the fact that this personal aspect also does not consist in its full uniqueness and natural
completeness, but only in a certain reserve and stylizing of the sociable man. (Simmel,
1949: 257)
Universalism then becomes a defining feature in Simmel’s social theory as it
underpins his concept of modern social life, his method of studying society and
the normative orientation behind both. Simmel’s normative thesis is not only that
with the rise of modern society all individuals will in due course take part in those
social trends that constitute it but more importantly that the very humanity of
the modern individual is crucially attached to its belonging in modern society.
We are all human beings because, as individuals, our inner core is shaped in
society, although at no point can we or should we fully disclose our individual-
ity in society. In other words, while the society of the modern society is under-
stood as phenomenologically objectified intersubjectivity, the modernity of the
modern society lies in the fact that more and more aspects of social life are
reshaped because they are the result of these processes of reciprocal influencing.

Durkheim

Emile Durkheim also came up with an idea of how social theory might look by
contrasting it with what he considered the dogmatic and mystical ways of
thinking dominant in the French intellectual scene. Interestingly, he particularly
opposed the doctrines of Ernest Renan, a leading intellectual who is best known
for his little pamphlet, ‘What Is a Nation?’. Against Renan’s elitism and rather
religious faith in science, Durkheim offered an ‘optimistic and universalised
rationalism’ within which ‘all individuals, however humble, have a right to aspire
to the higher life of the mind’ (Durkheim, Discours aux lycéens de Sens, cited in
Lukes, 1973: 72). Conceptually, Durkheim (1964a) understands the division of
labour as modernity’s key structural development. In terms of social solidarity,
he argues that the consequences of the division of labour were to be felt mostly

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28 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1)

at the national scale. However, the actual explanation of its emergence, key
features and long-term development could only be achieved if conceived of as a
world-scale phenomenon. Methodologically, he developed new procedures not
only to allow the researcher to treat complex phenomena as objectively as
possible but also to comply with the inner nature of social facts: hence his
methodological rules of treating social facts as external to individuals and with
the capacity of exercising coercion over them (Durkheim, 1964b). In defining
society as an emergent reality, he expected to theorize it as something that occurs
somewhere ‘in between’ individuals and social institutions: society coincides with
neither but equally it cannot be thought of as totally independent of either. Yet,
the most conceptually and methodologically taxing feature of society lies in its
moral nature; the sacred character of life in common finds expression in the fact
that external social facts become effectively internalized as society’s legitimate
values and norms. Therefore, Durkheim tried to find a methodological strategy
to make possible the empirical understanding of society’s hidden life. The un-
relenting universalism of Durkheim’s particular conception of positivism is
apparent in his original yet problematic solution to the highly vexing issue that
society’s normative integration could not be accessed directly but needed to be
studied empirically via its visible symbols. Social solidarity was to be best studied
via its predominant legal forms and the state of the conscience collective via the
types and ratios of suicide.
Normatively, Durkheim is the only writer in this group to have made explicit
use of the term cosmopolitanism. On the one hand, he believed in the nation-
state as a modern and rational form of socio-political organization. He speaks
positively of the state’s role in social life and of patriotism as the necessary senti-
ment of attachment and value towards one’s state. On the other, he equally makes
the point that the state and patriotism can only find justification if based upon
a universalistic commitment towards humanity as a whole. Durkheim’s (1973:
54) cosmopolitanism – following Kant’s argument on perpetual peace – points
to the expansion of individual liberties all across the world on the basis of the
increasingly moral character of modern social life within a state. He constantly
tries to find a system of balances between individual freedom and state control
which effectively can help curb the anomic effects of modernity’s structural
development. Durkheim’s idea of cosmopolitanism is that of a moral sentiment
that needed to find sociological expression within nation-states (Poggi, 2000;
Bryan S. Turner, 1992). In Durkheim’s (1992: 74) own words:
If the State had no other purpose than making men of its citizens, in the widest sense
of the term, the civic duties would be only a particular form of the general obligations
of humanity . . . The more societies concentrate their energies inwards, on the interior
life, the more they will be diverted from the disputes that bring a clash between
cosmopolitanism – or world patriotism, and patriotism.

Universal values must be anchored in ‘really-existing’ communities and Durkheim

thought that the nation-state was indeed one very important form of socio-
political organization in modernity: social practices, norms and values are

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 29

reproduced only through ‘concrete’ social relations such as the nation. To be

practical and useful, the regulation of social life has to be carried out within a
certain scale and range and, so far, that scale has been provided by the nation-
state. Yet again, the ‘identity’ of the state – national patriotism – must be centred
on world patriotism, the cosmopolitan horizon behind the idea of humanity’s
intrinsic worth. His social theory is torn apart between the moral autonomy of
the individual, on the one hand, and the determinism that was implied in his
conceptualization of the externality of social facts, on the other. So, although no
compelling defence can currently be provided for the adequacy of Durkheim’s
treatment of statistical trends or for his prescription of treating social facts ‘as
things’, his normative universalism is surely consistent with the conceptual and
methodological standpoints he had matured at earlier stages of his intellectual
development. In this context, Durkheim’s strategy was to develop a differenti-
ated argument for universalism on all three levels so that his more descriptive
arguments could complement, and yet remain independent of, his normative
position.

Weber

We can begin this final section with Max Weber’s reflections on the problems of
reification he found within German academic circles at the turn of the twentieth
century. For instance, the core of his long critique of Wilhelm Roscher and Karl
Knies lies precisely in the fact that he remained suspicious of the ways in which
these two writers tried to abolish any universalistic thrust to social scientific expla-
nations and re-introduced from the back door, in the form of intuitionism and
chauvinism, a traditional natural law type of argument. Weber (1992: 27–37)
criticizes Roscher, for instance, because he understands peoples as ‘closed organ-
isms’ and nations as ‘individuals’ and ‘biological entities’. Weber rejected any
attempt at conceptualizing the nation as a cultural individual that would find
expression not only in such spheres as arts, language and politics but also in that
each nation would have ‘its own wine’. This conception, Weber (1992: 31) argues,
is nothing but the nation being ‘hypostatised as a “social-psychological” unity
which experiences development in itself ’. Weber wrote furiously against this intu-
itionism that sought to understand socio-historical life via any form of empathy
– the worst version of which was that based on ‘common blood’ or ‘shared culture’.
He emphatically repudiated the idea that the value spheres which composed his
most abstract diagnosis of the development of modern Western culture could be
understood, in a methodologically nationalistic fashion, as ‘emanations of the
Volksgeist’ (Bendix and Berger, 1959: 106–7). Weber’s methodological universal-
ism is buttressed by his idea of science’s value-freedom. Scientific knowledge is in
no position to grant, justify or indeed establish ultimate values. And it is precisely
in the context of this argument on scientific neutrality that Weber (1997: 147–8)
argued that ‘the nation’ is a concept which belongs to the realm of values. Science
cannot and should not be made instrumental to the nation!

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30 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1)

In fact, Wolfgang Schluchter (1996: 39–45, 273) has documented exactly this
via the polemic created by Weber’s lecture on Science as a Vocation in 1919.
Schluchter mentions papers by leading German scholars at the time (among
them Ernst Troeltsch, Max Scheler, Erich von Kahler and Heinrich Rickert) who,
in one way or another, all opposed the content of Weber’s lecture. According to
Schluchter, he received attacks from different (indeed, at times opposite) flanks
but most of them seemed to concentrate on Weber’s (1949: 28–37) refusal to
justify philosophically some kind of valid hierarchy of ultimate values in the form
of a nationalistic world-view, some notion of progress or a proletarian revolution.
It is because Weber seemed to have embraced the universalistic programme of
the Enlightenment, and taken its legacy of an ultimate clash of world-views to
its limits, that he was seen to uphold an ‘un-German’ kind of universalism. This
seems to have had more to do, however, with Weber’s thesis that the polytheism
of values represents the ultimate ‘tragedy of the modern culture’ (Charles Turner,
1992).
Universalism turns out to be a defining feature of Weber’s sociological
programme, as it underlines his conception of ideal-types as the preferred
methodological procedures for the nascent social sciences. Weber’s aim was to
construe sociological explanations of individual historical cases that could
successfully pass the test of universality and he introduced two clauses to secure
this. First, what we may call the principle of the ‘Chinese researcher’: if properly
applied and explicated, methodological rules should allow a researcher from
whatever socio-cultural background to arrive at similar results. Weber (1949: 59)
acknowledges that this may not be totally achievable in practice but he none the
less expects that this methodological universalism will work as a regulative idea
– a type of ‘regulative universalism’. On the other hand, the claim that ‘one need
not to be Caesar in order to understand Caesar’ works as a critique of the idea
that social science must be based on – or can be reduced to – empathy (Weber,
1997: 176). Weber chose means–end rationality as the preferred form of causal
imputation – and decided to construe ideal-types on the basis of this imputation
of rationality – because means–end rationality provided him with clear
procedures and standards to reconstruct and then assess different possible causal
explanations. It was a kind of universalistically oriented procedure that could
help transcend the relativism that he thought came with all forms of empathetic
understanding. This is also the reason why – despite recent arguments to the
contrary (Swedberg, 2003) – I would hold that Weber’s preference for
means–end rationality is methodological rather than ontological. Problematic as
it is, the preference for means–end rationality does not seem to bear the impli-
cation that Weber thought that individuals, or collective actors such as classes or
the state, behave in their everyday practice in this rational way. Ideal-types grant
the possibility, for any researcher, to clearly establish his or her own explanations
so that any fellow investigator (one who comes from China and has never ruled
over an empire) could independently re-assess these explanations and come to an
understanding of the actor’s choices (Weber, 1949: 27). Rationalistic ideal-types
help set empirical cases within a universalistic analytical framework.

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 31

This methodological rule is consistent with the way in which Weber set his
enquiry at the beginning of his comparative sociology of world religions. There,
he is concerned with the issue of how the world-historical relevance of modernity
is to be disentangled from – but then also re-associated with – that which is
particularly western in modernity:
to what combination of circumstances the fact should be attributed that in Western
civilization, and in Western civilization only, cultural phenomena have appeared which
(as we like to think) lie in a line of development having universal significance and value.
(Weber, 2001: xxviii)

So, even if no unified normative programme can be derived from Weber’s

social theory, at least two comments can be made here in favour of their being
interpreted as compatible with normative universalism. First, it can be argued
that only a cosmopolitan outlook is compatible with his comparative sociology
of world religions. This last quotation illustrates that the issue at stake is the
recognition of historical specificity – the West’s particular combination of circum-
stances – in the context of the claim to universalism; the intended research is
significant precisely because it points beyond its historical and geographical
location. There can only be a single modern society for Weber and that includes
the whole of humanity. Second, it has been demonstrated that the only norma-
tive position compatible with Weber’s methodological reflections is one based on
a universalistic application of procedures or ‘reflexive principles’ similar to Kant’s
categorical imperative – as they are found in such ideas as value freedom, scien-
tific neutrality and individual autonomy in ethical matters (Schluchter, 1996:
69–101). Because the modern world is ethically irrational – evil deeds can result
from good intentions – normatively sound decisions are only those that emerge
from the application of reflexive principles. Similarly to what Jürgen Habermas
(1998) has referred to as the proceduralist nature of current postmetaphysical
thinking, Weber’s idea of sound moral reasoning is also procedurally shaped. The
justification of moral decisions in the context of a clash between values or
maxims needs to be formal in character, be based on an internally-driven
commitment, remain open to criticism and take into account the action’s fore-
seeable consequences.

Conclusion

Let me now come back to the historical analogies with which I started this piece.
In the same way as the critique of a nationalist Weltanschauung was a primary
concern for classical social theory, we are still in need of a similar move. Equally,
just as this did not mean an uncritical celebration of chauvinism, particularism
and reification for classical social theory, it needs not lead us to respond to post-
modern relativism and the most recent globalist taste for the new with a return
to fundamentalism or dogmatic natural law metaphysics. The challenge therefore
remains, today as well as yesterday, to find a balance between being sensitive to

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32 European Journal of Social Theory 10(1)

empirical differences and historical variations without pre-deciding against the

possibility of making claims with universalistic intent. Classical social theory
fought hard – and was not always successful – to retain the normative universal-
ism that is core to the whole of the cosmopolitan tradition. Yet, it could only
legitimize such a move if it were to find those conceptual tools and methodo-
logical devices that could set the basis for reliable social scientific knowledge.
Despite the differences we have witnessed within this group of writers, the one
feature to which they all subscribed was a claim to universalism; this is the tie
that binds the rise of classical social with the tradition of cosmopolitan thinking.
Classical social theory developed as a critical heir of the tradition of the
Enlightenment so it had an ambivalent position towards its universalistic legacy.
In the footsteps of Kant’s pioneering translation of cosmopolitan principles into
legal and institutional arrangements, classical social theory needed to come up
with new ways of actualizing cosmopolitanism and started to disentangle its
universalistic normative core from its conceptual and methodological dimen-
sions. I have tried to demonstrate that although classical social theory clearly
upheld the value of universalism as a regulative principle, it equally required a
more differentiated conception of universalism than earlier forms of cosmo-
politanism could offer. It increasingly emptied the normative core of cosmo-
politanism’s universalism from the legitimating power of the divine and its
unified representation of the world; classical social theory emphasized an idea of
modernity that could only be adequately conceptualized via universalistic
concepts and methodological procedures. It is a kind of universalism based on
the abstractive strength of its analytical tools and the neutral nature of its
methodological devices; one that may not always be achievable in practice but
which none the less remains a standard to strive for. This claim to universalism
is classical social theory’s key regulative principle. Classical social theory’s quest
for universalism considered cultural, geographical and historical variation as part
of what needed to be explained within the increasing and all-encompassing
advance of modern social relations. If it retained cosmopolitanism’s normative
universalism, it did so because it increasingly became the only normative stand-
point compatible with its conceptual and methodological universalism. For the
intellectual challenges we now face, then, this claim to universalism is what
makes classical social theory classical.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I should like to thank Robert Fine for his friendship and intellectual
inspiration. My gratitude also goes to Vivienne Boon, Robert Fine and William Outhwaite
for their invitations to deliver this article at the Universities of Liverpool and Sussex in
November 2005. I must here acknowledge all the participants in those sessions for
comments and criticisms, in particular Ulrich Beck, Andrew Chitty, Matthew David,
Gerard Delanty, María Pía Lara, Darrow Schecter and Charles Turner. Thanks are equally
due to Margaret Archer, Jorge Larraín, Aldo Mascareño, Cristóbal Rovira, Guido Starosta
and Marcus Taylor for a great deal of help and support while carrying out this research.

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 33

Finally, Robert Fine, Aldo Mascareño and William Outhwaite made extremely useful
suggestions to sharpen the arguments contained here. As always, only the author must
be held responsible for the errors contained in this article, which is part of a larger research
project funded by the Chilean Council for Science and Technology (Grant 3040004).

Note

1 Although their status as classics is no longer unproblematic, I can only take for granted
here that these four writers deserve such a position. In fact, I understand this article’s
re-assessment of classical social theory’s universalism as a contribution to the renova-
tion of their classical standing under our current circumstances. Further textual
support to substantiate my claims is available in Chernilo (2007).

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 Chernilo A Quest for Universalism 35

■ Daniel Chernilo was a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Warwick. He

is currently academic convenor of the PhD in Sociology programme at the University
Alberto Hurtado in Santiago, Chile, and Fellow of the Warwick Social Theory Centre.
He has published a number of papers on contemporary social theory, historical
sociology and cosmopolitanism. He is the author of A Social Theory of the Nation-
State (Routledge, 2007). Address: Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad
Alberto Hurtado, Alameda B. O’Higgins 1869 4º Piso, Santiago, Chile. [email: dchernil
@uahurtado.cl] ■

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