Česká zkušenost a sociologická reflexe Poznámky ke knize Pavla Machonina Česká společnost a sociologické poznání

The article deals with some key arguments in Pavel Machonin's book 'Czech Society and Sociological Knowledge', but does not review the whole book. Critical comments focus on four themes. Machonin's conception of sociology as a discipline and a tradition does not do full justice to the inherent pluralism of the sociological imagination. It is useful to link sociological debates to the ideological contest between socialism (more particularly Marxism) and liberalism, but this problematic is more complex than Machonin's analyses tend to suggest; that applies, in particular, to the interpretations of freedom and equality as fundamental modern values. Machonin's attempt to reconstruct modernization theory is open to some criticisms, especially with regard to the debate on 'multiple modernities'. Finally, the concept of state socialism does not help to grasp the complex patterns of modernity that developed under Communist rule.