Sociology and the Regimes of Reality
By placing the relationship between action and reality at the center of social theory, the article aims to explore possible new directions for sociological work. The first question of sociology must be for a social world, in which whatever the force of coercion might be, it is always possible to act otherwise. Facing the elasticity of social life, and to confront the vertigo generated by the non-limitation of the action, societies have instituted various impassable limits of reality. Four major areas giving shape to different regimes of reality have historically performed this function (religion, politics, economics, ecology), articulating imaginary assumptions and effective experiences. In contemporary societies, it is Economy, the current hegemonic regime of reality, and partly to Ecology, that operate this function. The recognition of the specifics of this dimension opens new sociological issues.