How Is Social Order Possible?

Abstract ‘How Is Social Order Possible?’ takes up a profound line of questioning that concerns the formation of sociology as a scientific discipline. The question in the title arises with and through the constitution of sociology, thus requiring an answer that includes the conditions that enable the formulation of this question. Thus, the approach is twofold: one line of thought concerns the historical formations that have led to this question from Aristotle to Hobbes and to Marx; another traces how sociology from Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel to Parsons has tried to present an answer. All that includes further reflections on the epistemological status of this type of question. The chapter shows that the question ‘How?’ cannot simply be answered ‘In this way.’ The Hobbesian as well as Parsonian answers, the shift to answer the question with a focus on ethics or with focus on politics or on the economy, have proven to be insufficient. The answer must allocate the question to a coordinated effort of different parts of a theory, such as meaning, system and complexity, and sociocultural evolution.