LA TROBE UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE/CHARLES UNIVERSITY, PRAGUE

language of a pre-existing theory of modernity (as Habermas did in his very

influential interpretation of Weber), it would seem appropriate to take it as a

starting-point for a more extensive comparison between civilizational modes of

demarcating, interpreting and evaluating basic socio-cultural spheres.

The Weberian problematic of world orders also has some bearing on the distinction

between cultural sociology and sociology of culture. To clarify this point,

we may begin with a quote from a historian who draws on contemporary theories

of culture: ‘If culture is the semiotic and semantic dimension of the social, the

separation of culture and society makes no sense. Culture is not a particular

domain of society, it is a dimension necessarily present in all domains’ (Flaig,

2003: 12). This is a usefully pointed reminder of the question at issue, but not

a satisfactory answer. The distinction between cultural sociology and sociology

of culture presupposes that we can analyze culture at two levels: as a specific

domain and as a general dimension; and we need a common denominator that

would allow us to theorize it on both levels. As suggested above, the notion of

imaginary signification would – so far – seem the most promising response to

that problem.

This twofold character may also be described as the paradox of culture, and

the task of theoretical analysis is to unfold it rather than to dissolve it. As a first

step, the distinction itself must be duplicated. On the one hand, the factors or

spheres with which culture intersects in the social field, particularly the economic

and the political, are structured around inbuilt cultural orientations that lend

meaning to corresponding activities and processes, but these orientations manifest

themselves in more or less autonomous sectoral dynamics. On the other hand,

the cultural premises that constitute an overall framework for social life are more

explicitly articulated (and in some cases problematized) in some spheres than

others; in Weber’s terms, this applies primarily to the religious, the intellectual

and the aesthetic spheres, and their autonomous logics add up to a rationale for

considering culture as a particular domain. But its particularity consists in a

specific capacity to express more general orientations, and to expose them to

further elaboration and questioning. On closer examination, the religious sphere

appears as a bridge between the two levels. It plays a key role in the development

and codification of cultural perspectives on the world, but it has also – for much

of human history – been decisively involved in the institutionalization of other

spheres, in particular, the political one.

All these considerations indicate ways of developing the distinction between

cultural sociology and sociology of culture, with proper emphasis on each side,

and in conjunction with the specific agenda of civilizational analysis. To round

off this part of the argument, the question of historical limits to the civilizational

framework – and more particularly to its focus on culture – should briefly be

raised. There is no denying that the comparative approach to cultural articulations

of the world has proved most easily applicable to the major traditional

civilizations; less has been done to develop our understanding of modernity along

the same lines, and those who conceive of modernity as a post-civilizational phase

of history (it would thus have achieved the ‘exodus from civilizations’ that