Grateful acknowledgment is made to Random House, Inc., New York for permission to use the excerpt from p. 497 Remembrance of Things Past, Vol I, translated by C. K. Scott Moncreiff.
First published 1983 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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Copyright 1983 Walter L. Wallace.
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2009041277
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wallace, Walter L.
Principles of scientific sociology / Walter L. Wallace.
p. cm.
Originally published: Hawthorne, N.Y. : Aldine Pub. Co., c1983. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-202-36333-2
1. Sociology. I. Title.
HM585.W353 2009
301--dc22
2009041277
ISBN 13: 978-0-202-36333-2 (pbk)
Acknowledgments
Six earlier efforts are brought together, revised, and expanded in this volume (see Wallace, 1966:817, 185191; 1968; 1969:vii-xi, 159; 1971; 1975; and 1981). Neither they nor it could have been accomplished without a lot of help from my friends and colleagues. First among these is Alexander Morin, publisher of three of those earlier efforts and editorial consultant for this one. Alex read two drafts of the present book, made invaluable editorial suggestions, and gave strategic administrative supportfor all of which he has my sincere thanks.
Marvin Bressler, Lewis A. Coser, Herbert Costner, Jonathan Turner, and Robin M. Williams, Jr. also read the manuscript in one or another version, and Sarane Boocock, Harry Bredemeier, Orville G. Brim, Jr., Hugh F. Cline, Howard Freeman, Margaret Gilbert, Michael Inbar, John I. Kitsuse, Michael Mulkay, Eleanor Sheldon, Conrad Snowden, Stanton Wheeler, and Margaret Wilson read various chapters. I am very grateful for their suggestions and encouragement. Several other colleagues at Princeton and elsewhere, including Alan Gewirth, Alex Inkeles, Robert Jastrow, George A. Miller, Walter J. Ong, Gilbert Rozman, Robert A. Scott, Paul Secord, Peggy Thoits, Charles Westoff, and Robert Wuthnow, were helpful in steering me to a particularly useful part of some relevant literature.
I am also grateful for the many stimulating responses of students in my courses over the yearsespecially at Princeton, but also at Northwestern, Columbia, Spel-man, and in three summer seminars at Howardand I regret that because of their number (and a memory that rarely fails to fail me) they must remain anonymous here.
Blanche Anderson and Cynthia Gibson (aided by Michelle Mistretta, Kim Naticzak, and Theresa Kuzianik) rendered an essential contribution by cheerfully and expertly typing tons of handwritten manuscript, and Cindy, in addition, helped immensely with the index. I also wish to thank Sheila Heller, managing editor at Aidine, for her expert and sympathetic handling of the publication of this book.
Finally, for help at crucial junctures in the past, Myrna Ingram Schuck, Sabra Holbrook, Gelolo McHugh, Lawrence Kamisher, Hylan Lewis, Raymond W. Mack, Orville G. Brim, Jr., Robert K. Merton, and Peter M. Blau, have my special gratitude.
Princeton, New Jersey
July, 1983
... so that I spent my time running from one window to the other to reassemble, to collect on a single canvas the intermittent, antipodean fragments of my fine, scarlet, everchanging morning, and to obtain a comprehensive view of it and a continuous picture.
Marcel Proust
1 General Introduction
This chapter outlines the books objectives, its method, its contents, and some uses to which these contents may be put.
OBJECTIVES
Although they rely upon four very different traditions in sociology, Merton, Blalock, Luckmann, and Alexander all assess the present state of our discipline in roughly the same way, and all tell us to do roughly the same things to secure its future.
Mertons estimate is that No one paradigm has even begun to demonstrate its unique cogency for investigating the entire range of sociologically interesting questions, and he warns against changing this situation: it is not so much the plurality of paradigms as the collective acceptance by practicing sociologists of a single paradigm proposed as a panacea that would constitute a deep crisis (1975:28, 29). Blalocks estimate points to the same facts but makes a different evaluation of them: in many respects we seem badly divided into a myriad of theoretical and methodological schools that tend to oversimplify each others positions, that fail to make careful conceptual distinctions, and that encourage partisan attacks (1979:881). Blalocks warning, predictably from the tone of this estimation, is different from Mertons:
it is crucial that we learn to resist overplaying our differences at the expense of common intellectual interests.... We can ill afford to go off in our own directions, continuing to proliferate fields of specialization, changing our vocabulary whenever we see fit, or merely hoping that somehow or other the product of miscellaneous studies will add up (1979:881, 893).
Although they are indeed different, I believe these two warnings need not be antithetical; their reconciliation can be achieved by applying Blalocks plea for consensus at a more broadly encompassing level (i.e., the level of common intellectual interests) than the level at which Mertons defense of dissensus is applied (i.e., the level of specific paradigms for investigating different sociologically interesting questions"). The desirability of some such reconciliation is indicated by both Merton and Blalock. Thus, Merton warns that too much theoretical pluralism can be a bad thing: full cognitive segregation [can set] in, with members of rival thought-collectives no longer making an active effort to examine the work of cognitively opposed collectives 1981:vii), and he therefore asserts that Sociological theory must advance... through special theories adequate to limited ranges of social data and through the evolution of a conceptual scheme adequate to consolidate groups of special theories (1948:168). For his part, Blalock promises that even within the framework of unanimity which he urges us to create, There will still be plenty of room for differences in terms of the kinds of propositions we wish to state and test, the assumptions we are willing to make, the problems we study, the courses of action we recommend, and the theoretical and ideological biases with which we operate (1979:898). Thus, it is not the end of controversy but the systematization and specification of controversy within the bounds of an overarching consensus that seems to be the order of the day in Blalocks, as well as Mertons, eyes.
