Gouldner, Alvin (1920–1980)

Abstract

Described as an “outlaw sociologist” and political radical, social theorist Alvin Ward Gouldner is most widely recognized for his critical intervention in mid‐century American sociological theory during a historical moment marked by the dominance of structural functionalism. Gouldner's criticisms of academic sociology were as tumultuous to the discipline as was his biographical reality. His life and career seemed to be beset with contradictions and intellectual turmoil, evidenced most profoundly in his retreat to the Swiss mountains in search of a refuge conducive to his intellectual and political projects (which were inextricable for Gouldner). Both his life and work possess ongoing movement between positivism and postpositivism, radicalism and academicism, and objectivism and reflexivity. Despite Gouldner's criticisms of professionalization, his training by Robert Merton at Columbia University in many ways made possible a successful career in mainstream sociology.