The previous sections suggest that any new discipline is a product of a multitude of interactions between different disciplines, covering the various fields of the physical sciences, biological sciences, arts and humanities, and other social sciences. The interdisciplinarity of such attempts produces a new discipline. Thus, any new speciality should be regarded as a hybrid progeny. Its entry into the academia in different countries follows different routes. Depending on its promoter, it may be introduced as a special course in a preexisting programme and, in due course of time, it may establish its credentials as an independent discipline. We have seen that in Germany, it gained entry via economics or political economy, and in France, Durkheim brought it into the academia via Education.
Although sociology’s origins are to be found in Europe, its systematization and formalization occurred in the United States. The textbook that is regarded as a landmark, and is used even today as a reference, was inked by Robert Morrison MacIver,9 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University (New York). It came out in 1931 under the title Society: Its Structure and Changes10 MacIver also did a textbook in Political Science with the title The Web of Government (1947).
It is important to mention that Robert M. MacIver (1882–1970)—born in Scotland and educated in Edinburgh—took his degrees in classics. He began his teaching career in political science in 1907, and started teaching sociology at Aberdeen University in 1911. In 1927, he became the Head of the Department of Economics and Sociology at Barnard College, and in 1929, he joined Columbia University as Lieber Professor of Political Philosophy and Sociology, where he remained until his retirement in 1950. MacIver’s theories tended to be modelled after scholars like Plato, Aristotle, Durkheim, Simmel, and Levy-Bruhl. He rejected the growing notions of professionalism, specialization, quantification, behaviourism, and positivism, instead focusing on human agency, methodological diversity, and ethical issues. He sought to define an integrated social science.
At a time when MacIver was writing the textbook for sociology, Pitirim A. Sorokin (1889–1968) was working on his Contemporary Sociological Theories (1928).11 In this book, he covered the main currents in sociological thought of the last 40 years (from the late 1880s till the 1920s). In doing so, he focused on the classification of ideas in terms of theories, rather than describing or reviewing the works of earlier sociologists, as was the practice. Many early books on sociological theory present, to use Sorokin’s attribution, ‘a gallery of individual sociologists’. Instead, he preferred to prepare a ‘guide to orient the reader in the bewildering jungle of general sociologies’. He wrote a second book, a companion to Contemporary Sociological Theories, towards the end of his career—Sociological Theories of Today (1966).12
This pioneering sociologist was Russian by birth. Born in a remote village in Russia’s Vologda province, this farmer’s son had little education as a child and was employed to paint in churches. Later, he moved to St Petersberg, where he studied at the Psycho-Neurological Institute and then at the University. Since sociology was not yet acknowledged as a discipline, some courses in law, economics, history, and criminology included a sociological orientation. Sorokin had hardly begun his teaching career in Russia when he became involved in revolutionary activities against the Czar, and was imprisoned for several years. During this period of incarceration, he studied the behaviour of the criminals in prison and wrote his first book, Crime and Punishment, Service and Reward. The government first pronounced a death sentence against him, but later brought it down to exile; this brought him, in 1923, to the United States, where he was appointed at the University of Minnesota. Naturalized as a US citizen in 1930, Sorokin moved to Harvard University, where he founded the department of Sociology and worked there until 1955.
Talcott Parsons (1902–79), whose works influenced theoretical perspective not only in sociology, but in all the social sciences, was his colleague. Robert Merton, another major theoretician of America, was a product of this department. These three personalities played an important role in formalizing sociology, and influencing later generations of sociologists the world over.
Parsons, like his predecessors, entered sociology from a different academic background. He was originally trained in biology and economics, and was exposed to the works of Harold Laski, R. H. Tawney, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Hobhouse. He then went to the University of Heidelberg in Germany to do his Ph.D. in Economics and Sociology. With such an interdisciplinary orientation, Parsons came out with his Structure of Social Action in 1937, leading to his other works that influenced social sciences worldwide. Oriented more towards theory, Parsons engaged himself, along with his collaborators from the fields of anthropology and psychology, to develop a general theory of the social system. He himself employed his Action Frame of Reference in the area of medical sociology, and in fact developed the ‘sociology of sickness’, and engaged in the analysis of small group dynamics.
Robert K. Merton (1910–2003) in his study in 1995 (Photo: Yogesh Atal)
A student and later collaborator of Talcott Parsons, Robert K. Merton13 (1910–2003) had a degree in sociology. When Merton launched his career as a sociologist in the 1940s, the field was still earning credibility. ‘He established the sociology of science, and indeed, sociology itself as a legitimate and major scientific discipline,’ said Gardner Lindzey, a psychologist and former Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, which Merton helped to found, along with Paul Lazarsfeld. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Science and Technology in Nineteenth Century England. As the title of the work suggests, this was based on library research. Despite being influenced by Parsons, Merton talked of the ‘Theories of the Middle Range’ as against the ‘General Theory’ of the deductive type propounded by Parsons. He talked of the bearings of theory on empirical research and the bearings of empirical research on theory. Prefacing his book on Social Theory and Social Structure with two essays on ‘bearings’, Merton demonstrated the construction of middle-range theories in this classic work that carries a collection of his seminal essays on theory, which should remain a ‘must read’ for any student of sociology (see Atal, 2006: 115–26).
Struggling to systematize sociology in terms of theory, Merton had this to say about the contributions of the so-called founding fathers:
The clearly visible fact is that the early history of sociology—as represented, for eample, in the speculations of a Comte or a Spencer, a Hobhouse or a Ratzenhofer—is very far from cumulative. The conceptions of each seldom build upon the work of those who have gone before. They are typically laid out as alternative and competing conceptions rather than consolidated and extended into a cumulative product. Consequently, little of what these early forerunners wrote remains pertinent to sociology today. Their works testify to the large merits of talented men, but they do not often provide guidelines to the current analysis of sociological problems. They were grand achievements for their day, but that day is not ours. We sociologists of today may be only intellectual pigmies but, unlike the overly-modest Newton, we are not pigmies standing on the shoulders of giants. The accumulative tradition is still so slight that the shoulders of the giants of sociological science do not provide a very solid base on which to stand (Merton, 1957: 5).
What Merton said in 1957 still holds true. There are various schools of thought, and varying approaches followed in sociological research and writing. Schools in an intellectual field are like religious sects; those belonging to any such schools treat the writings of the founder almost as dogmas and become fundamentalist in their orientation, disregarding inconvenient facts and data. It is in this sense that people talk of a Marxist sociology or a capitalist sociology. Those interested in developing testable theories and dependable generalizations have offered paradigms as a prelude to theory. As such, it cannot be said that there is ‘a’ sociological approach. We are still living in the midst of paradigmatic battles. Three important paradigms prevalent in current sociology are: the Structural-Functional Paradigm, the Social Conflict Paradigm, and the Symbolic-Interaction Paradigm. Since this is not a book on Sociological Theory, we shall not deal with these paradigms in detail. Keeping our focus on the theories of the middle range, we shall analyse the key concepts and orientations developed around them to facilitate both research and understanding.
SOCIOLOGY: MOVING TOWARDS BECOMING A SCIENCE
As Merton remarked, the forerunners of sociology offered speculations and competing conceptions of social reality as they observed it, and also offered scenarios of a desirable social order. While knowing their views and appreciating their concerns is significant, we must admit that they cannot be cumulated. They do not offer compatible building blocks for a systematic theory of society.
When we talk of sociology, we are talking of a discipline that deals with some significant aspect of Man—with a capital M, or the Anthropos—a more neutral term applicable both to men and women. The Anthropos lives in an environment that is natural or physical on the one hand, and social and cultural on the other. The Anthropos has a long history of existence on this earth and, therefore, has a past, and is also concerned with the future of the species in the changing environs, mainly through human actions and choices. In this sense, Man is seen by different specialist groups from different vantage points, including the sociological. By placing Man in the middle of his natural and social environment and dividing the concerns into past, present and future, one can locate the positioning of various disciplines dealing with this complex subject matter, the humans, or the homo sapiens. This is shown in the following diagram.
As shown in Figure 1.1, both sociology and social anthropology are engaged in dealing with the present; the past and the future are subject matters of other cognate disciplines such as history, ancient history, prehistory, archaeology and futurology. But as sociology grew as a discipline, these artificial boundaries began to crumble. Just as a new discipline develops through the contributions of scholars working in widely disparate areas, so do occurs finer specializations within a discipline. It is through such interactions in an interdisciplinary framework that the seeds of a new discipline are sown. When sociologists apply the perspective of their discipline to the investigation of a society long since dead, or to a society’s past, they develop ‘historical sociology’ or ‘sociological history’. Similarly, subsystems of a society other than the social have led to the development of ‘economic’ or ‘political sociology’. A similar thing may occur in methodology: ‘Mathematical Sociology’ is a clear example of this trend. Even the difference between sociology and anthropology is sought to be explained in terms of the methodology followed by the two disciplines, despite their dealing with the same subject matter. People often believe that sociologists use survey research while anthropologists emphasize observation, both participant and non-participant. However, this is a wrong perception. A technique of data gathering is selected keeping in mind the type of population studied, or the topic of research. A discipline is distinguished from others in terms of its subject matter. Since both sociology and social anthropology study the structure and functioning of human society, they are virtually the same discipline with different nomenclatures, and different histories of their origin. Anthropology traditionally focused on societies ‘other’ than those of the researcher; they concentrated on the study of relatively small, less complex, tribal societies characterized as ‘primitive’. Sociology, on the other hand, was developed by those scholars who concentrated on the study of their own society, or civilization.
Figure 1.1 Academic Disciplines Dealing with Different Aspects of the Environment
This distinction was blurred when modern education spread among countries of the developed world and scholars there began studying their own societies, which were earlier regarded as the province of anthropology. The phenomenon of caste in India, to take one example, was studied both by Indians and Western scholars. To regard the work of the latter as anthropology and that of the former as sociology makes no logical sense when the methodology employed by both remains the same.
It may be said that concern with developing a universal science of sociology has brought the two disciplines closer. Theories, or generalizations, emanating from the study of advanced societies of the industrializing West were challenged by the studies of other societies, and created a ground for comparative research and employment of the scientific method.
Since we call sociology a science, we must ask: What do we mean by science?
There is an agreement that science is empirical, objective, and aims at developing generalizations about a phenomenon with a view to developing powers of prediction.
- Empirical: This word signifies that a scientific pursuit requires the observation of phenomena, as distinct from philosophical speculation.
- Objective: This characteristic emphasizes value neutrality, disallowing the value biases of the researcher. Debates still continue in academic circles about the possibility of a value-free social science.
- Theoretical with Powers of Prediction: Theory should be understood as a logically interconnected set of propositions to derive empirical uniformities. This requires the study of a sufficient number of cases of a particular phenomenon in all its diversities, in order to enable a theoretician to cull out both similarities and differences and build generalizations at different levels—from micro situations to macro situations, and then to a higher level of abstraction. Some scholars begin with developing general schemes of grand theories and invite people to test them in concrete situations. Other scholars begin with empirical studies of small communities or groups, or of chosen sub-systems, and propose the findings as hypotheses to be tested in different settings to pave the way for theory building.
When we employ these criteria to judge the candidature of sociology as a science, qualified by the adjective ‘social’, we may find that it has not yet reached the level of sophistication that other sciences—physical and biological—have achieved. As Merton remarked, earlier speculative thinking about society did not prove to be cumulative. Ideological predispositions similarly go against the criterion of objectivity.
When objectivity is defined as being value-free, it stresses the need for a scientist to accept the ‘values’ of science.
Although the concept of ‘value’ remains debatable, one can still say that any scholar carries with him/her a veritable bag of values. A researcher is socialized (i) in the values of his society; (ii) in his/her own religious persuasion; (iii) in his/her political-ideological values; and (iv) in the values of science. A scientist needs to maintain the distinction between these different values, which may come into conflict at times. S/he has to guard against the intrusion of values from other, non-scientific domains.
Let us illustrate this with the profession of an architect. An architect designs buildings to meet the demands of the client. In developing a blueprint for a building, an architect is expected to consider variables such as type of land and soil, direction of winds, strength of materials, availability of resources—both material and financial—labour, skilled manpower; in addition, the architect is also expected to give due regard to the values and preferences of the client. For example, the client may be guided by the principles of ancient Vastushastra, which prescribe the location of gates and windows, kitchen and bedrooms. The client may belong to a religion other than that of the architect. In such circumstances, a value-free architect is one who includes the values of her/his client into the plan of the proposed building, while refraining from inserting his own value biases. So a Muslim architect can be approached to design a Hindu temple; similarly, a Hindu architect can be quite competent to prepare the blueprint for a mosque. It is a different matter if any one of these architects refuses to build a religious place for practitioners of a religion that is not her/his own. But this refusal cannot be on the ground of the science of architecture. It is in this sense that the science of architecture is value-free.
The same applies to the profession of medicine. The religion of both the medical practitioner and the patient being treated is irrelevant. Religion may play a role in the prescription of diets, but not in the diagnosis of a disease or its treatment.
It is in this sense that one can say that sociology is neither an ideology nor a religion that requires its adherents to follow the dictates of their master. Surely, however, there are sociological analyses of ideologies, and there is a sociology of religion. The point is that you do not have to be Hindu to study the sociology of Hinduism, or a Christian to study Christianity.
A scientific pursuit can be simply described as a journey from Q[uestion] to A[nswer]. The questions that initiate a scientific quest may come from a wide range of sources, and not only from within the discipline. While searching for a scientific answer, one may find several probable answers based on impressions, ideologies, or limited observations. These may serve as ‘hypotheses’ to guide the research process, so that from I[mpressions] we move to a dependable answer based on systematic and objective O[bsevation]. The training in science alerts the researcher to the fact that any plausible answer obtained through sustained observations is tentative; it is valid as long as there is no fresh data that could challenge the existing generalization. It is this humility and respect for facts that distinguishes science from philosophy or idle theorization.
As a developing science, Sociology is still far from perfect. When people talk of sociological theory, they may mean either of the following:
- Contributions of individual scholars, particularly the founding fathers of the discipline.
- Discussion of concepts.
- Hypotheses, hunches, systematized assumptions.
- Body of logically interdependent generalized concepts in a systemic frame of reference.
- Ideal Types or typologies.
- Models and paradigms—such as society as an organism, mechanical vs. organic solidarity, equilibrium, hierarchy or ladder, etc. Similarly, statistical or mathematical models, cybernetic models, game theories.
We quote, with approval, what Francis Abraham has said in his introductory book, Modern Sociological Theory.
Sociologists can—and must—learn to live with diversity. It is not the existence of diverse theories but their abuses that must concern us. The weakness of the discipline lies not in the multiplicity of theories, but rather, in the sociologists’ eagerness to be defensive about them, for it betrays their pious hope for a true theory some day (Abraham, 1982: 18).
Let us conclude by saying that there is a remarkable change in the orientation of all social sciences, including sociology, in the sense that they are all opting for a multidisciplinary approach. The Gulbenkian Commission identified three developments in the post-1945 era that ‘profoundly affected the structure of the social sciences’. These were: (i) change in the world political structure; (ii) an expansion in the scale of all human activities (population explosion and expansion of productive capacity); and (iii) quantitative and geographic expansion of the university system everywhere in the world. These factors together brought in new perspectives from which to view social reality. All social science disciplines began to be comparative, change-oriented, and multidisciplinary in terms of theory, and quantitative and mathematical in terms of research, thus sharing a common ground with sister disciplines both in the social and natural sciences.
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