The history of Western metaphysics has predominantly given priority to the notion of substance. The concepts of subject and object are therefore usually regarded as two discrete entities in the history of both philosophy and sociology. This can be partially explained by inherent epistemic limitations of human reasoning and partially by the historical development of the Western philosophical tradition. The separation of subject and object into two separated substances poses problems for epistemology and thus leads to exacerbated ontological attitudes, whereas phenomenology offers a middle way between the two. This thesis presents the way process philosophy (i.e. an anti-substantialist understanding of reality) has been received in the history of philosophical reasoning and the way it stands in opposition to the more “classical” conceptual pair of the subject and object. The thesis also investigates the impact this philosophical tradition has had on sociological assumptions and theories about the relationship between individuals and the social world they inhabit. This relationship is expressed in the methodological conflicts which Elias's Figurative Sociology and Adorno's Critical Theory attempt to solve.
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