Marx & Comte, as the fathers of modern sociology, saw social processes as central & anchored in history. A theory of social processes has to diagnose & explain the long-term, unplanned, but structured trends in the development of social & personality traits that form the infrastructure of history. Modern sociology's self-concept - as a discipline primarily concerned with the present & devoted to the empirical study of short-term changes & causal relationships within given social systems - hampers the evolution of such a theory. This self-concept results from the division of intellectual labor between history & sociology & from sociology's increasing involvement in social practice, ie, bureaucratically controlled social planning. While contributing to this planning, sociologists ignore the long-term developments & underlying conditions of planning. Differentiation of functions, social integration, & civilization are strands in this complex, long-term development. A theory of social processes explores these dynamics. Modified HA

source:

Sociological Abstracts