This article is a plea for the idea of society in sociological theory. Even though the industrial national societies no longer exist, the successive crises that we have encountered show that we need a general concept to account for social life. Thus sociology should be enabled to remain a moral and political philosophy.

The idea of society as a functional totality and cultural unity was at the heart of the project of modernity. For nearly half a century this representation of social life has been declining due to changes in industrial societies, both national and modern, but also because this paradigm was no longer dominant in social thought. This article aims to show that it is not easy to dispense with the idea of society. Not only can a whole range of social and (...) political movements be understood as demands of the society, but a large number of social problems can not be addressed without assuming the existence of societies as cognitive and moral ensembles. (shrink)