In this article, I criticize the state of art in contemporary Norwegian sociology. My main argument is that disciplinary growth and extensive specialization has led to a situation of fragmentation where Norwegian sociologists have more or less renounced sociology's original totalizing ambition of constructing an empirically based, theoretically mediated and critical diagnosis of the present. Taking the fourth edition of the anthology Det norske samfunn ("The Norwegian Society") as my

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... g case and point of departure, I then produce four interpretations of contemporary Norwegian society to show how the totalizing ambition still could be redeemed. I conclude the article by arguing that one way to overcome the fragmentation of our collective sociological consciousness would be a social philosophical revitalization of the sociological public sphere in Norway.