Alan F. Blum approaches theory as a form of speech and social conduct: a way of displaying reason, establishing authority and making certain questions intelligible while excluding others.
The book moves through Aristotle, Plato, rhetoric, science, ethics, aesthetics and language, often all presented as monoliths of authority and propositions, and reframes then as simply described most commonly, as a particular manner of appearing to think.
He presses a lot where inquiry becomes institutional habit. Rational speech may promise openness, yet it also creates rules about what can be discussed, what counts as an answer and who appears qualified to speak. Chapters on commonality, communal life, unity, difference and language examine how agreement produces a social world—but can also disguise the authority required to secure that agreement. It is a difficult, recursive book, closer to philosophical sociology and the study of discourse than to a conventional introduction to social theory.
For readers of phenomenology, semiotics, rhetoric and critical theory, particularly those interested in how knowledge becomes credible through tone, form and social recognition.
Heinemann Educational Books, 1974. First edition paperback. Good condition with moderate cover rubbing, creasing and edge wear; internally clean and firmly bound.
