Institute of Sociology NASU

Latent markers of sociological synthesis in the representation of the epistemological construct of "Entrepreneurship" as a factor of class-stratification development

stmm. 2025 (4): 180-190

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/sociology2025.04.180

Full text: https://stmm.in.ua/archive/ukr/2025-4/10.pdf

YEVHEN SIRYI, Doctor of Sciences in Sociology, Professor, Leading Research Fellow at the Department of Theory and History of Sociology, Institute of Sociology, NAS of Ukraine (12, Shovkovychna St., Kyiv, 01021)

socio1@ukr.net

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3396-8168

The article, based on theories of social differentiation as a representation of the construct of "entrepreneurship", shows the theoretical coordinates of thіs concept in sociology in terms of identifying new markers of its epistemological potential in the interpretation and explanation of social phenomena and processes in their development, solving issues of social structuring and social reproduction (class-stratification development), as well as overcoming certain dilemmas in sociological theory.

The material, in a descriptive-analytical format, presents a wide variety of examples of the fact that in most theories of social differentiation, entrepreneurship, albeit indirectly, is still presented as one of the factors and mechanisms for ensuring the possibility of social advancement. Systematization of markings of the entrepreneurial factor in such a segment of theories reveals the fact of scientific legitimation of the epistemological potential of “entrepreneurship” in sociological theorizing. This is both about one of the structural-generating components in the mechanism of social-stratification restoration, and about overcoming/avoiding some corresponding dilemmas in certain segments of sociological theorizing, in particular such dilemma as “macro-micro” and “nominalism-realism”. This is manifested both in the reproduction, support, growth of a separate micro-subject (individual), and in the reflection of evolutionary changes in the economic (institutional) structure of society with the emergence of its new components — macro-subjects, as well as in playing the role of a “connecting” link in the coordinate systems of “social action” and “social process”. Synthesis, in this case, is marked in the purposive assignment of cognitive possibilities to this concept.

Keywords: sociological theorizing, epistemological potential, the concept of "entrepreneurship", theories of social differentiation/social structuration, theoretical construct, synthesis, dilemma

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Received 05.06.2025