Stephen Frederick Cotgrove - The Science of Society (RLE Social Theory)

If sociology is a relatively new star in the academic firmament, it is one which is rising rapidly. It lacks therefore the settled and established perspectives of the older disciplines. It is also a subject with a voluminous literature, and the task of selecting what is most appropriate in an introductory text is especially difficult.

Two main criteria therefore, have guided the selection and presentation of the material. Firstly, there is the claim that sociology is a science; that it is, in fact, possible to apply the perspectives of science to the study of social systems. Throughout, the emphasis had been on getting across the sociological perspective rather than conveying a mass of factual information. Science is essentially analytical. It involves the isolation of variables, tracing their relations with other variables, and in this way mapping out systems and sub-systems of interrelated elements. The rag-bag notion of sociology as being the study of the odds and ends left over by economists, historians, and political scientists has been decisively rejected. Nor is sociology simply political arithmetic, counting heads and providing demographic data for governments. But if it is developing a distinct perspective, it must of necessity develop a special language. It is no more possible to undertake sociological analysis without special language symbols than it is possible to study physics or chemistry.

There has been no hesitation then in using the vocabulary of sociology. But technical terms have been introduced in a context which indicates their meaning and have been italicized when first used. Where the word italicized is a familiar word, such as culture, this serves also to draw attention to the fact that it is being given a precise and special meaning.

There is one further guiding principle. Science, like other intellectual activities, can be exciting. The excitement of discovery, of pitting ones intellectual resources against a tough problem, is one of the most rewarding aspects of science for the scientist. It is not easy to preserve this excitement in an introductory text. But it is perhaps easier in sociology than in some subjects because its study inevitably involves new ways of looking at familiar things. Attention has been directed therefore wherever possible to recent researches and to the problems that are now attracting the interest of sociologists, in the hope that students may catch some of the excitement of scientific research by some exploration at the frontiers of knowledge.

Finally, the emphasis throughout is on the sociological study of industrial society, with particular reference to modern England. It is hoped that this text may be one of an increasing number which attempts a more systematic and analytical approach, and tries to tread a middle way between highly theoretical and abstract studies and the all too voluminous largely descriptive literature whose relations to sociological perspectives are hard to find.

It will be necessary for the advanced student to undertake some further reading, selected from the recommendations for each chapter. The aim has been to provide a systematic framework to which wider reading can be related. (Suggestions for basic reading are marked with an asterisk.) There is little point in incorporating detailed summaries of readily available texts. Moreover, the exercise involved in relating the perspectives of this book to the sometimes differing approaches of the supplementary reading is an essential experience in developing a critical approach. No attempt has been made to keep footnotes to a minimum. On the contrary, these are important indications to the student of where to look for a more detailed development of the points briefly made in the text.

The indebtedness of the textbook writer to others is always extensive. The footnotes and references are some indication of this. But this book owes more than most to the help and encouragement of others. In particular, I must acknowledge my debt to a group of former students, who became the founder members of a graduate seminar at the Polytechnic in which many of the perspectives to be found in this text were hammered out. Distinctions are always invidious, but I must mention in particular Steven Box, Penri Griffiths, Stanley Parker, Noel Parry, and Douglas Young, some of whom have still further increased my gratitude by reading and criticizing draft chapters. I am also grateful to Anthony Taylor for his valuable assistance with , and to Mary Couper, Theo Nichols and Dr Ram Srivastava for reading draft chapters. Any inadequacies and errors are, of course, my own. I would also like to express my appreciation to Mrs Avril Fordham who patiently typed a none too legible manuscript, and, by no means least, to my wife and family for their forbearance during the many months of intensive preoccupation with its production.

Finally, I wish to thank New Society and Mr S. Parker for permission to reproduce in parts of an article written jointly with Mr Parker, Work and Non-Work.

Bath University of Technology

July 1966