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This comparative study of the origins of sociological theory in the work of George Fitzhugh, an American slaveholder, and Emile Durkheim, the French father of sociology, indicates that as a world view the science of sociology bears striking similarity to the science of slavery. Several major areas of sociology: social order, morality, division of labour, and education are developed and analysed by Fitzhugh in the mid-nineteenth century as a defence against the evils of capitalism and a programme to restore the natural moral order of slavery. Durkheim's analyses of these areas one half century later are substantively the same as he analyses the ‘pathology’ of modern industrialization and the ‘normalcy’ of nontransitional, stable society. The elevation of Society to the status of a diety is fundamental for both theorists in their defence of moral order. Both sociologists are examples of the development of sociology out of a historical period marked by the chaotic contradictions inherent in the growth of capitalism coexisting with feudalism and slavery around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the arguments of philosopher K. Popper, Marxism and the nature of social laws. It was said that Popper wants to distinguish science from non-science by distinguishing scientific statements from non-scientific ones and he wants to distinguish scientific statements from non-scientific ones by his criterion of testability, refutability or falsifiability where such terms were considered by Popper as synonymous. Popper also wants to distinguish science from non-science in terms of the method or attitude of the practitioners involved. It is curious to say that Marxism was or is a science. Popper says that Marxism was a scientific theory because it was refutable. Popper criticizes Marx for having a dogmatic attitude towards what Popper calls this theory. However, Popper presents no evidence that he was a dogmatist. He considers that Marxism is a form of historicism where by historicism means, an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their principal aim, and which assumes that this aim is attainable by discovering the rhythms or the patterns, the laws or the trends that underlie the evolution of history.

This paper concerns ethical issues raised by a covert research enquiry conducted in a community of primitive sectarians described as ‘old time pentecostals’. Covert methods — interviewing and fully participant observation — were chosen on pragmatic grounds and in view of the subjects' marked rejection of ‘the world’ in general and of sociology in particular. Two types of ethical problem are considered: matters of individual morality and those of professional ethics. Covert research is a pragmatic expedient, ideally nonreactive and giving access to secret transactions: but it is also justifiable in view of the right of subjects to be free from disturbance and inhibition. It is argued that covert methods are in certain cases favourable to and in the interests of subjects but potentially detrimental to the personality of the fieldworker, in whom certain traits may persist even after he has left the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the ethics of covert methods. Misinformation, dissimulation, deception and lying are features of a range of social relationship to a greater or lesser extent. The issue raised by covert participant observation is not whether lying is ever justified, for in some specified circumstances it may be. Behaviour in the research situation is professional behaviour as well as individual behaviour. The pretence of role playing and the individual moral consequences of doing so are bound up together. If the researcher employs a dishonest representation of his interests and indeed of his identity, he does so as a sociologist in a professional role as well as an individual in his role as citizen. A different objection to the use of deception in research is that it constitutes a betrayal of trust. Covert participant observation, looked at from the point of view of the individual subject, may clearly also be a gross invasion of personal privacy. Another pragmatic argument is simply that covert methods are often not necessary, and that the same objectives can be achieved by overt or open observational studies.

Recent discussions in the philosophy of the social sciences exhibit a remarkable agreement about what has become one of the most urgent problems for sociological methodology. The situation may be summarized thus: ethnomethodological developments in interpretative sociology have shown that there can be no firm and certain basis on which to ground truth claims for our propositions. The conclusion drawn from this is that the traditional aspirations of conventional sociology — to be objective and scientific — cannot be attained. However, the programme of work promised by those who have developed ethnomethodology as a critique of ‘conventional sociology’ itself contains certain difficulties. Thus, the problem addressed by those writing in the philosophy of social science is this: given the contradictions in sociology as traditionally practiced, and given the problems in the programme offered by those largely responsible for discrediting it, whither sociology now? The purpose of my paper is to show that the question may be unnecessary. This is not so much because interpretative sociologists are mistaken in their understanding of the conditions in which research is undertaken, but rather because the positivist epistemological assumptions taken to be necessary for an objective scientific sociology, are not required for this and indeed are erroneous. I shall argue specifically that a Popperian account of (objective) science is wholly compatible with the understanding contemporary interpretative sociologists have of the research context, and indeed that there are striking similarities between this and Popper's ideas, most especially those developed in recent years. Thus, I shall go on to suggest that, by adopting a Popperian epistemology we may thereby recognize the validity of the fundamentals of the ethnomethodological position without being forced to abandon the effort to be objective and scientific; we may also sidestep the particular dif... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A stratified sample (assemblers, support, craft) of 220 autoworkers located in Oshawa, Canada is used to assess Goldthorpe et al. 's claim that the industrial worker and his orientations towards labour are becoming increasingly instrumental. According to this view, work instrumentalism arises as a prior orientation and is independent of the material conditions of labour. By contrast, the results produced by this study overwhelmingly reveal the reverse, that work instrumentalism is most powerfully affected by job conditions and found to be a component of work alienation. These results serve as a powerful confirmation of the ‘technological implications’ approach within industrial sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the list of authors and reviewers of the December 1979 issue of the "British Journal of Sociology."

This article compares social radicalism in the French and British working classes. When stratification theorists began to edge out of the parochialism that had pervaded their work in the 1950s and the 1960s, the culture and patterns of action of the French working class structure became increasingly central to speculation about the determinants of working class radicalism. In different ways some sociologists counterposed the French working class to that of Great Britain as bearing a fundamentally different form of consciousness, and turned the explanation of such differences into a significant theme of textbooks. The attraction of France for stratification theorists was understandable. The second most powerful, and certainly the most ideologically rigid and pro-Soviet, of the major Western communist parties had proved capable of maintaining its electoral support despite the development of a prosperous and highly industrialized economy. The crisis of May 1968, when for three weeks the French economy and machinery of state lay paralyzed by the most powerful strike movement since the war, seemed the best approximation yet to a revolutionary situation produced by their direct action of the working class in an advanced industrial society.

Several ideas have been proposed to account for the apparent acceptance by the relatively deprived of their disadvantaged situation, among them deference and pragmatic acceptance or accommodation. Certain difficulties in these are considered, particularly those that arise from an undue concern with normative aspects of social integration. An alternative model is suggested which places greater stress on the cognitive elements, and which emphasizes the conflicting pressures of the constraints on cognition resulting from subordination, on the one hand, and the role of interests in structuring the individual's perception of the status quo, on the other. This model is explored with empirical data, using latent structure analysis to construct categories in relation to areas such as the conception of authority, fatalism, criteria for distribution of rewards, acceptance of attainment criteria and class consciousness. The interrelationships of these categories, and their relations to work experience and to social location are presented and discussed. The results strengthen doubts about previous explanations and provide good evidence for the model proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines intergenerational class mobility in England, France and Sweden. The starting point of almost all discussions of comparative social mobility rates has been the thesis advanced by Lipset and Zetterberg in 1959 that the overall pattern of social mobility appears to be much the same in the industrial societies of various Western countries. Although Lipset and Zetterberg recognized that the data on which this thesis rested were often of a doubtful quality, they none the less maintained that the reservations and cautious which are in order do nor invalidate such a finding, which a number of other researchers in this area also agree is warranted. Subsequent commentators have in fact been a good deal less sanguine about the possibility of deriving reliable comparative conclusions from the results of the national mobility inquiries that were available to Lipset and Zetterberg. But of perhaps still greater import are the several criticisms that have been leveled against their thesis on primarily conceptual grounds. Lipset and Zetterberg operate for the most part with the simple two-class model, based on the distinction between manual and non-manual occupational groupings.

This article discusses the concept of the typology of ethnic process. Sociologists, social and cultural anthropologists, ethnographers and students of other social sciences have increasingly concentrated on the problem of ethnic processes which have received an enormous impetus from the unfolding scientific and technological revolution. Ethnic processes are generally understood to imply changes in ethnic communities, so that an indispensable precondition for working out a typology of ethnic processes is a consideration of the accepted concepts on the type of ethnic communities. In accordance with the concepts of ethnic communities, the notion ethnic processes as used in modern Soviet literature embraces all the varieties and levels of such communities. Throughout its history, each ethnos is in a practically permanent state of ethno-evolutionary change due to inter-ethnic contacts as well as intra- and extra-ethnic factors. Perpetuation of the ethno-evolutionary changes is ensured by the intrinsic informational bonds of the ethnos. At the first stage, the active role is played by synchronous bonds which provide for the horizontal spreading of innovations within the ethnos. Transformational ethnic processes represent the sum of evolutionary ethnic changes and at the same time, their dialectic negation.

The article assesses recent sociological studies of social-democratic politics, to produce a map of their different conclusions in order to see whether some cumulative progress has been made, and also to examine the contribution of sociological analysis to present-day political debates on the European parliamentary left. The article tries to relate three levels of sociological-political analysis. The first of these is the study of the impact of social-democratic politics on social inequality, where the ‘meritocratic’ image of social-democracy is being challenged by recent studies on occupation mobility, income distribution and welfare. The second level is the interpretation of social-democratic politics from the perspective of Marxist theories of the state, where neo-Gramscian contributions seem to be a better instrument to interpret party politics than functionalist Marxism in its different trends. Finally, the third level refers to the analysis of social-democratic organizations, with particular attention to party programmes and parliamentary politics. Here, the absence of alternatives to the political economy of parliamentary socialism is noted – with the conclusion that the alternative suggested by politicalsociological critiques of parliamentary socialism, both in terms of strategy and in terms of a model of society, appears to be more political than economic. This is scarcely a rewarding conclusion on the limits of reformism and the present impasse demands a greater attention to the sociology of political programmes and potential decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests that the process of proliferation of schools and specialties is faster in Germany than in Britain. Though the phenomenon of German sociology developments is complex, two simultaneous processes are most noticeable. First, established theoretical concepts become more and more institutionalized, and thus reified, through their organized application in specialized empirical or pragmatic contexts, subjectively, this is associated with the familiar symptoms of loss of relevance, trivialization, reiteration, routinization and boredom. Second, as a counter movement, there is an irrepressible need to reconstruct reified concepts by recourse to theoretical, methodological or ideological innovations. The process of perpetual reconstruction tends to be faster than that of reification. For organized specialization is inevitably more time-consuming than the invention of new ideas. The high rate of proliferation is therefore the net effect of reification and reconstruction. In conclusion, a language-philosophical reflection suggests itself. The German language has a special capacity for creating complicated concepts by fusing several nouns into a single word. This facilitates the proliferation of theoretical reconstructions as a response to the interminable growth of empirical and pragmatic reifications.

This section comments on the article, Autonomy in the Research Role and Participation in Department Decision Making, by J. Gaston. Gaston is concerned with the problem of role strain produced in situations where professional personnel cannot exercise autonomy in the expression of their occupational activities. Gaston's views of autonomy leads him to erect a further erroneous hypothesis about British and American scientists. He states there is reason to believe that scientists in the U.S. may not feel completely justified in spending time and money doing basic research when that society might prefer them to work on practical problems. This is saying simply that the appropriateness of the research role may be less appreciated in the U.S. than in Great Britain. Gaston's discussion of the autonomy neglects the methodological requirements for defining a scientist and role strain. Gaston states that, while he does not expect scientists to get their day's work assigned as a maintenance or sanitation crew, he does erase any distinction between junior scientists and senior scientists or between post doctoral scientists and Nobel Prize winners. It is difficult to understand where Gaston derives his notion that, the generally accepted model of a scientist as a person who goes about his work is virtually free to choose the scientifically relevant research problems that he wants to attack with few if any major constraints is an exaggeration.

Occupational status is widely accepted as a valid index of social class. Its strength lies in the fact that it is highly predictive of many social and economic inequalities. This characteristic is also its main weakness, however, in terms of its power to ‘explain’ social class differences. The dependence on occupation alone to obtain a social stratification ranking also means that only economically active members of society can be classified reliably. Thus housewives, the unemployed and the retired may often only be classified according to a past occupation or the occupations of others, e.g. husbands or other heads of households who are employed. In addition, occupational classifications are likely to have different socio-economic implications for women than for men. It is suggested here that social class is a multi-dimensional phenomenon of which occupational status is one important aspect and an alternative Social Index is proposed which makes use of several variables hypothesized as being indices of a common socioeconomic dimension. A comparison of occupational status with this alternative Social Index in a study of child development reveals the advantages of using a compound rather than a single measure of social stratification. These advantages include a social ranking for economically inactive persons and achieving greater discriminatory power in the specific context of child development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article profiles sociologist David Glass. For some sociologists the unifying principle and ultimate objective lie in the building of an edifice of sociological theory. Although he read widely in sociological literature, Glass did not cultivate an interest in that direction, and he was much less at home in the academic world of sociology. He was extremely critical of some of the products of current trends, whose quality did not come up to his rigorous standards, and it must be admitted that his negative judgments were sometimes disconcertingly swift and uncompromising. Glass was thorough in all he did, including his hobbies. His friends knew they could get expert advice from him on tape recorders, first editions and cameras, because David loved music, books, and photography. He was never content to handle anything which he did not completely understand. The same thoroughness characterized his work. It could be seen in his capacity for organizing and administering, notably ion the case of his two great successes, the Population Investigation Committee and the journal Population Studies. And most conspicuously perhaps in Social Mobility. This work originated in a project to investigate channels and processes of movement from the working to the middle class, especially through educational success and qualifications.

This article examines the action theory developed by Talcott Parsons. Since the 1920s, Parsons has been trying to unify the social sciences, sociology in particular. Searching for unifying principles in the classical heritage of modern sociology, he has constantly been trying to interpret its founding fathers in this light and therefore in spite of the inconsistencies and ambiguities prevalent in their writings. Parsons claims that his action theory synthesizes the classical initiatives in a meaningful way and that it solves some fundamental dilemmas which have plagued social theory for a very long time. The scheme which is used here in analyzing the development in Parsonian action theory, is built around the basic notion of action theory itself. First of all, Parsons' use of the term action instead of behavior refers to his attempt at incorporating the subjective and symbolic aspects of societal life into a scientific theory. While the meaning of the first half of the term action theory cannot be misunderstood anymore, the definition of the term theory is still problematic. Paramount is the idea that all science is directed toward the construction of substantive of empirical propositions with regard to its subject matter and that it constantly keeps trying to combine such propositions and generalizations into more comprehensive systems.

This paper outlines an historically situated, gender-based perspective on crime and delinquency. The perspective is stated in propositional form and tested with data on juvenile delinquency. The fundamental propositions assert that there is a sexually stratified inverse relationship between structurally differentiated processes of social control, such that women are more frequently the instruments and objects of informal social controls, while men are more frequently the instruments and objects of formal social controls. Implications of our perspective for conflict and control theories of deviance are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1965, social scientists have claimed the growth of criminology. What advances in criminological knowledge have occurred to justify such claims? The extent, direction and consequences of these trends characterized in diverse ways. The most common is to see the trend as being a move from criminology to the sociology of deviance. The changes referred to in the article of Terence Morris in 1965 are principally the establishment of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology in 1959 and of the Home Office Research Unit in 1957. But he also refers to the growth of sociological criminology in Britain, and welcomes the shift in the parameters of the field to take in such matters as the administration of justice, the exercise of police powers, and the definition and redefinition of behavior as illegal or tolerable. By 1971, two further changes have occurred: the increasing polarization of criminology and the sociology of deviance, and the very marked increase in the sheer number of practitioners of the latter persuasion in particular, a matching of the growth of sociology teaching and higher education in general. Two landmarks in this polarization were the article by Stan Cohen and the text Michael Phillipson which both sought to differentiate traditional criminology from the sociology of deviance in terms of key analytical problems which rendered the two approaches incompatible.

The article examines the historical and sociological perspectives of nationalism diffusion from the standpoint of diffusionist theory. The diffusionist theory on nationalism can be better understood by comparison with other theories on nationalism. We may start by opposing the typical historical and sociological perspectives on social movements and social change, of which nationalism may be regarded as a specific application. Generally speaking, the traditional sociological models of social change posses explanatory power, but are barely relevant for nationalism. The traditional historical model, on the other hand, is specifically tailored to the nationalist case, but, even in its more refined versions, possesses little explanatory power. The traditional sociological models are, by and large, structuralist and endogenous in their assumptions. That is, they tend to invoke ideologies and movements like nationalism, as so many reactions, responses or instruments, often deviant ones, of the tensions and dislocations of industrialization or capitalism. The functional version of this is that nationalism is a major theme of modernizing protest movements and a symptom of strain and disturbance in an era of disintegrating traditional societies. In the classic Marxist account, nationalism is treated in an ad hoc manner, as one of the passing weapons of an expanding bourgeoisie in its search for territorial markets during the period of early capitalism. In a more recent Marxist versions, nationalism fulfills a second function: as the vehicle of the progressive native bourgeoisies, proletariats and intelligentzias in their struggle against traditional ruler and capitalist alike. The difficulty with these standard sociological accounts is their failure to recognize a specific problem of the diffusion of nationalism.

In a follow-up study of 83 Jamaican leaders after twelve years of nationhood, we conclude that attitudes towards political independence have become considerably more favourable. The theory linking social structural inequalities and favourable judgements of equality as joint causes of nationalist attitudes which had been formulated to account for the 1962 pre-independence relationships fits the data in post-independence 1974 too, but not as well as before—the explained variance in attitude towards independence going from 57 to 25 per cent. Additionally, path models reflect some important changes in the structural and ideational sources of attitudinal variation, especially the disproportionate increase in nationalist attitudes among economic dominants, the wealthiest leaders, and leaders with unfavourable attitudes towards equality. Another change was the new development of Restive Nationalists, élites who were more likely than other leaders to think that political independence had not gone far enough in producing structural change, that problems such as poverty and economic inequality had not been reduced adequately, that more radical changes were needed, and that such changes were not possible under a democratic political regime nor under an economy dependent on international capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The revival of romanticism and anti-science in the last decade provides a point of departure for an attempt to extend the traditional concerns of the sociology of knowledge to account for partisan support for and opposition to particular styles of thought. After first developing a typology of styles as a basis for analysis, it is argued that the case for some kind of natural affinity between a style of thought and a particular valued end (such as between romanticism and liberation) is not conclusive. Rather, it is necessary to explore the elective affinity between styles and the basic intentions of carrier groups in particular historical circumstances. The rise of romanticism in inter-war Germany is taken as a case study to illustrate the thesis that, though there is an affinity between romanticism and opposition to industrialization and modernization, partisan support for romanticism can be harnessed to the promotion of a variety of alternative and competing values, including order as well as freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the article written by Craig Littler entitled "Understanding Taylorim," which was published in the June 1978 issue of the "British Journal of Sociology." Littler's work has attempted to reconstruct the theory and practice of Taylorism in a more far-reaching and historically accurate way. As such it marks a considerable advance in the sociologists understanding of the theoretical and practical content of Taylorism, and it will remain as a starting point for debate for some time to come. The strength of Littler's article lies in three broad areas. Conceptually, it advances a threeforld characterization of Taylorism, in terms of division of labor, the structure of control and the employment relationship which, in principle, permits a more precise debate about the nature of Taylorism than has hitherto been possible. Methodologically, it attempts to ground analysis and discussion of Taylorism in its historical context, in contrast with writers in industrial sociology and elsewhere, who are quite properly criticized for their ideological treatment of Taylorism, divorced from its context, a view which leads them to erroneous conclusions about its alleged supersession by human relations theory. The point about human relations and Taylorism, as Littler notes, is that they operate on different dimensions and the continued existence of one in no way entails the demise of the other. The starting point of the article is built around the paradox obtained by the juxtaposing of the conventional view of Taylorism and the re-appraisal by Braverman, the paradox consisting of two diametrically opposed positions on its contemporary significance. Finally, the article sets out to correct prevailing misconceptions about the nature of Taylorism by pointing out the inadequacy of the notion of Taylorism as centered largely around pay and pay incentives and the falsity of the idea that Taylor was unaware of the social dimensions of work.

Sociology has frequently treated Taylorism as an abstracted ideas-system. It is also necessary to consider the institutionalization of Taylorism, as failure to do so leads to an unrecognized paradox. Taylorism is analysed here in terms of the division of labour, the structure of control over task performance, and the implicit minimum interaction employment relationship. Taylorism represents an organizational form without any notion of a career-structure, unlike other organizational models available at the turn of the century. Therefore, Taylorism can be defined as the bureaucratization of the structure of control, but not the employment relationship. In industrial organizations calculability requires processes of determining and fixing effort levels. Taylorism represents the historical switchover to the creation of new social mechanisms for constituting effort standards within an accelerated dynamic of deskilling. It is this, not incentive wages, which is the crucial element in Taylorism in relation to wage/effort exchange. Historically Taylorism was not the rabid destroyer of the craft system. It replaced, over time, systems of internal contract, which were indirect forms of employment and control. The notion of direct employment underlies both Taylorism and the bureaucratic model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to redress the imbalance in the study of witchcraft and the status of women in England. European witchcraft has long fascinated historians and sociologists and one result of this has been a wide range of different, and often competing, accounts of this bizarre social phenomenon. There are those who believe in both the existence of witches as a malevolent force and in the very spirits and demons which they allegedly worshipped. Some, on the other hand, dismiss witchcraft as pure fabrication. Others have discovered in witchcraft the remnants of an ancient fertility cult which once rivaled Christianity, while still others have attributed it to a reaction against the authority of the established Church. Sociologist Richard Kieckhefer, in his recent study, explains shifts in the nature of witch persecution before 1500 in terms of the imposition of the concepts of the learned elite upon a traditional culture based upon folk magic and sorcery. He suggests that a substitution of diabolism for sorcery took place in the fifteenth century in order to align popular practices with an Aristotelian orthodoxy which refused to admit magic to be an independent type of reality.

A good deal of research and theory construction in the sociology of knowledge relies on the ‘dominant ideology thesis’. This thesis suggests that there is in most societies a set of beliefs which dominates all others and which, through its incorporation in the consciousness of subordinate classes, tends to inhibit the development of radical political dissent. In this article we propose a number of reinterpretations of this thesis which at present systematically ignores the effect of the dominant ideology on the dominant class. There is good evidence that the subordinate classes are not incorporated into the dominant ideology and that, by contrast, the dominant classes are deeply penetrated by and incorporated within the dominant belief system. In most societies the apparatus of transmission of the dominant ideology is not very efficient and, in any event, is typically directed at the dominant rather than the subordinate class. We conclude that there is no well marked dominant ideology in the later phases of capitalism. Thus, the dominant ideology has the function of maintaining the dominant class's control over property in feudalism and early capitalism. In late capitalism, however, the changing nature of the dominant class in terms of a partial divorce between ownership and control means that the dominant ideology ceases to be crucial for the coherence of the dominant class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an answer to the review made by Edward G. Armstrong on article by R. E. Best dealing with phenomenological sociology. Phenomenological sociology distorts, rather than follow from, the work of Husserl, and that Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and the sociological investigation of the world out there are essentially different activities, asking different questions and adopting different methodologies to answer them. Thus, whilst Husserl brackets the world of the natural attitude in his search for the eidos of reality in the subjective experience of the transcendentally reduced sphere, sociologists, by contrast, bracket the subjectivity of individual experience in order to study social phenomena empirically. A belief prevalent amongst phenomenological sociologists is that a synthesis of these activities was achieved by Schutz, making a genuinely phenomenological sociology possible. This assertion is not accepted by R. E. Best. Rather Schutz may be depicted as dabbling in transcendental phenomenology in some works, indicating new directions for social science in others, and elsewhere trying to resolve the problems posed by any attempt to do both at once. The last, it seems,would be impossible anyway: how could both the worlds of the natural attitude and of transcendental subjectivity be bracketed at the same time?

This paper gives a systematic introduction to the major themes of Jürgen Habermas' formulation of critical social theory. A discussion of his views on knowledge, cognitive interests, and scientific method is followed by an account of his social theory and his attempt to combine Marxism with mainstream sociology. In criticism it is argued that Habermas has not yet solved all the problems of a ‘realist’ approach to sociology and that his synthesis is incomplete. It is argued that sociology can progress through a critical dialogue with Habermas' work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares one aspect of Max Weber's explicit conception of ‘interpretive sociology’ with his actual practices in his substantive investigations. It shows that Weber's overt emphasis on the importance of meanings and motives in causal explanation of social action does not correspond adequately with the true mode of explanation involved in his comparative-historical studies of the world religions. Rather, the ultimate level of causal explanation in Weber's substantive writings is that of the social-structural conditions under which certain forms of meaning and motivation can achieve historical efficacy. A model is developed to represent the actual nature of ‘Weberian sociology’. It is proposed that this internal comparative analysis and interpretation can have useful implications for contemporary sociological debates and approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines Weber's work on charisma from the original formulation in Economy and Society to the final statement in the essay on ‘Politics as a Vocation’. Both the intended meaning of charisma in the earlier formulation and the uses and limitations of the new formulation are discussed. The paper concludes with some observations on the place of charisma in Weber's ethical and intellectual life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weber's ubiquitous usage of the word ‘rational’ has been criticized by Steven Lukes, among others, as being ‘irredeemably opaque and shifting’. In the present essay, however, it is seen that Weber's usage is consistent. Six interdependent elements of the concept ‘rationality’ are identified, each of which is intended to contribute to the concept's overall meaning when any one is employed as the locus of primary significance. While ‘rational’ is thus shown to be conceptually rigorous if at times needlessly confusing, the distinction between formal and substantive rationality is examined and judged to be both theoretically confused and substantially biased, disguising the valuations inherent in the criteria by which formal rationality is assessed. This confusion, Weber's persistent usage of ‘rational’ when ‘calculable’ or ‘systematic’ would have served much better, and the implicit ironies of Weber's presentation, are traced to the Puritan schema on which Weber believed ‘rational conduct’ to be based, one precisely parallel to his own statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines capitalism and individuation in the context of Max Weber's sociological theories. Max Weber recognized two decisive features for the development of modern capitalism in the Occident. The rise, spread and predominance of inner-wordly asceticism and the existence of the Occident of plurality of structures of legitimate authority which could prevent totalizing control of a monolithic bureaucratic empire. Weber observed that in Chinese civilization the unbroken vigour and omnipotence of the patriarchal sibs which attached magical powers to sib relations, impeded any breakthrough towards individualization and fraternization. While Weber clearly recognized that traditionalistic economic ethic remained embedded in the Christian organization of economy and society, he attributed a world historical significance to the universality of Christianity. For Weber, this constitutes one precondition for the development of the medieval city as a confederation of individual burghers. The rational calculation and impersonality unleashed by the religious doctrines of the Reformation constitutes one spiritual precondition for a modern capitalist economy. The emergence of a market economy is, for Weber, the basis for the expansion of capitalism and allows for the elaboration of formal rationality in bureaucratic structures of domination.

The objective of the paper is to examines sociological ramifications of the philosophy of T. H. Green. The main arguments of the paper flow from the opening critical remarks on M. Richter's account of Green in The Politics of Conscience. (I) Green was innovative in respect of this Kantian philosophy of duty, philosophy similar to which were subsequently common at Oxford, rather than in respect of his Hegelianism, and (2) although Green had reformist intentions, the Kantian philosophy of duty was harnessed by others to the pre-emption of utilitarian reform: this is shown through an analysis of the direction of change prior to Green, and of the strategy of those who promoted his mode of thought. Senses in which this analysis substantiates conceptions of the peculiarly British pattern of pre-emption of middle class revolution by the aristocracy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the use made of psychoanalysis by two recent writers, Weinstein and Platt, who follow Talcott Parsons in the way they try to link sociology and psychoanalytic ideas. It is argued that they try to link sociology and psychoanalytic ideas. It is argued that they neglect Freud's work on ‘instincts’, both the sexual and the death instincts, and on the role of social institutions and thereby lose much of sociological value in psychoanalysis. Further, it is argued that Freud: (i) developed his later instinct theory in a rationally consistent way—consistent with other psychoanalytic concepts and data; (ii) developed a theory of society; and (iii) often used poor arguments derived from biology. The Parsonian use of Freud fails to take sufficient account of psychoanalysis as a new science of the unconscious. Psycho-analysis is not just an individualistic psychology, nor therapy, but contains many propositions about social institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the study of sociology. Elizabeth Wilkin's book gives emphasis on the development of thought about the social system and the institutional categories are well worn as they should be if there is a received tradition to introduce the student to. Change and conflict are seen by some to be central to the study of the subject. Jack Nobbs' Modern Society is a specially written textbook for social studies courses for children. It is wise, well illustrated and full of stimulating questions. Meanwhile, Deena and Michael Weinstein write on Choosing Sociology. The book moves to the college freshman who is presented with a vision of sociology as a human science based on freedom in contrast to a natural science based on determinism or determination. This is a more advanced, and equally treatment of the approach that Nobbs makes for it is designed to stimulate critical inquiry. It is not self-evident what the essence of sociology is, although Andrew Pilkington's essay attempts to outline the essentials of the subject in terms of it being a special perspective. The modern specialization in social studies may be said to focus attention on pedagogical task and to the extent stimulate thought and self-consciousness about it. Apart from this, however, there is the scholarly task of considering the state and development of an intellectual discipline and this is to be undertaken by those who study sociology.

This paper is an attempt to clarify the concept of cult and, in particular, an attempt to replace the present predominantly empirical concept with one which more closely resembles an ideal type. The key to such a formulation is seen to lie in the identification of a distinctly cultic system of beliefs, which possess internal coherence and imply a particular form of social organization. Such a system is found in Troeltsch's original description of 'spiritual religion and Mysticism' which is here presented as the ideal-typical cult religion. This form of belief is then shown as logically implying the existence of the mystic collectivity, whilst the cult, as this has been conventionally described, is relegated to the category of a primarily empirical construct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the interplay between patterns of intergenerational mobility and stability and those of worklife movement in Great Britain. Not only is the relation between inter- and intragenerational mobility basic to the process of social metabolism, through which individuals are distributed and redistributed within the occupational and class structures over time, but further it conditions the nature of individual experience within the process. A relatively high level of intergenerational stability found towards the peak of the class structure is consistent with what has come to be seen as the generic form taken by occupationally-based mobility patterns within industrial societies. Those who hold advantaged positions are presumed to have not only a strong motivation to see their children succeed them in such positions but the command over resources to enable them to realize their ambitions in a high proportion of cases. Intergenerational stability at the higher levels of the class structure has been maintained through counter-mobility. Counter-mobility is a work-life movement which has the effect of returning an individual back to his class of origin, following some initial shift away on his entry into employment.

Little is known about the nature and determinants of downward mobility. It has been suggested that downward movement implies the extension of meritocratic norms of selection and rejection. Alternatively, those who fall are seen as social casualties. A third explanation, that most middle-mass downward mobility represents a two generation process of status consolidation, is proposed here. Data for a sample of downwardly mobile urban British males and their fathers provide strong support for the status consolidation explanation. These data indicate that in the middle-mass there is, in fact, very little genuine downward mobility. Rather, most men who 'fall' come from risen working-class families, those which because of the upward mobility of one or both parents are peripheral rather than core members of the middle class. Sons were encouraged towards what fathers viewed as the less ambivalent status provided by skilled trades. In moving 'downwards' into these occupations sons were, in effect, fulfilling status and occupational aspirations of their fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the criticisms that were aimed at the sociological beliefs of Max Weber. Many generations of sociologists have been raised in the belief that Max Weber was a seminal founder of the discipline because he established a clear scientific basis for the analysis of social action. Weber's statement that sociology was a science aiming at the interpretative understanding of social behavior in order thereby to gain an explanation of its causes, its course, and its effects' became established as a stock-in-trade definition of the nature of sociology. Of course, Weber's methodology, epistemology, and his empirical research have long been subject to criticism. However, the criticisms of philosophers and sociologists, like Peter Winch, Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons, have been at least sympathetic to Weber's general approach to sociology. In the past years, far more radical criticisms have been raised against Weber's claims to scientificity by a group of writers who can be broadly labelled structuralism. By this category, they are those theorists who derive their epistemology from Canguilhem, Bachelard and Althusser, who argue that the proper object of social science is social structures and not individuals and who claim that knowledge is the product of theoretical activity and not a series of abstractions derived from empirical study. On these grounds, Weber's sociology is rejected in toto as pre-scientific work which cannot provide knowledge of the operations of the structure of societies.

The article addresses the issue of whether the concept of cultural relativism is self-refuting. Cultural relativist arguments come in two forms not always clearly distinguished. The first form makes the unexceptionable claim that a commitment to the relativist thesis is merely a methodological or contingent device employed to remind investigators of the dangers of ethnocentrism; the second form makes the far-reaching claim that a necessary feature of all social explanation is that it must be cast in the form of culturally internal accounts. In the former version of the thesis, a relativist reminder is issued to counter the tendency of the social scientist to impute to the fabric of the world his own cultural idiosyncrasies. It is clearly true that, faced with alien or apparently unintelligible behavior, there is a temptation both to translate what is occurring into familiar categories and to indulge oneself in essaying moral judgments on that behavior. In the sociological arena, the very existence of the sub-discipline of the sociology of knowledge is predicated upon the methodological device of contingent relativism. Cultural relativism in this sense then operates as a slogan-system requiring the investigator to maximize his understanding of alien cultures by honest-to-God field work, moral charity, intellectual humility and a determination of the taken-for-granted assumption of both his own and others' cultural milieu.

The concept of disenchantment has had varying interpretations within sociological theory. Defined as the progressive extirpation of magic from social life, the idea of a disenchanted world carries with it an atavistic, melancholy character. Within the same definition it has been seen as the programmatic liberation of the mind as it is related to the betterment of material conditions. Although interpretations of this nature are invariably tied to problems of value and politics, the concept of disenchantment, more than most other work of social theorists, has been the focus of quiet but intense debate. This article attempts to make the discussion more public in as much as disenchantment, on the historical level, is an important way of understanding the development of sociological theory and, on the analytic level, a promising line of inquiry for studying the effects of the culture of industrial societies. To underscore the polarities involved in the use of disenchantment by sociologists, two divergent approaches to this process will be examined in terms of the theorists' partisan evaluation of the contemporary world. Before the concept of disenchantment can be integrated into a viable critical sociology, it has to be first stripped of its ideological mask.

Ethnomethodology has emerged as an attempt to make problematic the everyday phenomena of the social world and to reintroduce sociology to those forgotten aspects of everyday life. This article is no more than a brief outline of a possible critique of ethnomethodology written from the viewpoint of an implicit Marxian sociology. The paper relates to particular problems at the time of writing and is intended as no more than a statement of the exploratory attempts to understand the confusing relations between meaning in contexts, and more importantly, their political significance within social processes which either grow out of those contexts or which shape them. It is suggested however, that because ethnomethodology neglects to take into consideration the character of certain events, it borders close on being an ideology of conservatism. While it is agreed that with ethnomethodological critique of positivism and conventional research, certain reservation is expressed concerning those areas of ethnomethodological study which ignore such important social features as social change, the relations between meaningful contexts and political processes, and alternative realities to those features under analysis.

The participant-observer study of the Cheshire Home in Great Britain which is described in this article was intended to bring some fieldwork evidence to bear on popular speculations in the field of the sociology of knowledge. These speculations are best known through the writing of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, which draws heavily on the work of Alfred Schutz. Berber's sociology of knowledge draws heavily on notions of socialization which are derived from Goffman's studies of institutional life and from a too simple interpretation of G. H. Mead. This article therefore examines a Cheshire Home as a marginal world which perhaps gave a base for a counter reality and a cluster of counter identities by focusing on processes of resocialization. In view of the great weight given by Berger and Luckmann to temporality as a constituent of reality, special attention was given to the temporal framework within which inmates apprehended both daily agenda and personal biographies. The picture that emerges is of a remarkably tenacious normality. The Cheshire Home was not a base for a counter reality. The three categories which give shape and meaning to the lives of most adults held firm and were still prime categories for interpreting their lives and the world and for structuring relationships.

The importance of Basil Bernstein's work on language in relation to education and child rearing is widely recognized, but his contributions to the sociology of the school are less well-known. It is not the purpose of this article to make an extended critique of the theoretical and other propositions made in Bernstein's series of writings, but to report an attempt to put some of them to the empirical test. The results of the investigation give only limited support for some of the propositions made by Bernstein about the sociology of the school. This statement must be qualified by a number of reservations. Firstly, the variables used to test the propositions were not constructed for this specific purpose, and may not therefore represent the best use of the concepts involved. Secondly, they do not cover all the examples suggested by Bernstein. Thirdly, the schools to which the measures apply are secondary schools. With these reservations, the results suggest that Bernstein's explanation of the relationship between the different aspects of the school should be reconsidered. The explanations appear to be based upon an adaptive view of education, in which its form and change are determined by, or closely related to, the nature of and changes in superordinate sectors of society.

Paternalism and patronage are two relationships which have received little systematic attention or rigorous analysis in the sociological literature. The categorization of phenomena as examples of paternalism or patronage is often unsystematic and slipshod as a result, and there have been instances of the two being confused with each other. One consequence has been the failure to develop an analytical framework which identifies the formal characteristics of the two relationships in such a way that diverse examples of each can be categorized. A second consequence has been an inadequate appreciation of how widespread the relationships of paternalism and patronage are, and of the extent to which they are to be found in a wide variety of cultural settings and historical epochs. This article undertakes the classification of the formal properties of the relationships on a number of dimensions, in order to highlight their points of similarity and difference. The article also considers a variety of empirical evidence drawn from different cultures, in order to demonstrate the substantive usefulness of the typology for comparative sociology and the real significance of the two relationships. This comparative approach involves some specifications of the conditions under which the two occur.

This article intends to outline an unfavorable assessment of one element in the approach of Emile Durkheim to religion and hope to develop some methodological claims as to the limits beyond which sociological studies of religion cannot go. These claims have a wider significance and hence the underlying theme is a concern with what can be said in sociological discourse. The major thesis of the Durkheimians which is inadmissible in principle permeates all their monographs on religious institutions. This states that the reality underlying religious beliefs can be discovered by a scientific sociology. In general terms, the arguments against positivist sociology seem convincing. The concern is with the inconsistency between the Durkheimians' own assumptions and their practice. The rejection of a sociological account of the reality of religious beliefs is not an apologia for religion. Sociology cannot decide either way. To employ a longstanding distinction, reason can come as an aid in deciding whether the earth is flat or not, but the truth or falsity of religious beliefs are equally matters of faith. The article stresses equally since it is less conventional to make the falsity of religious beliefs a matter of faith then their truth.

This article explores a world-system perspective on the social sciences. It is in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth that the organizational structures of the sciences of man became fixed. In 1800, the categories or disciplines, which currently are standard--history, economics, sociology, anthropology, political science--did not for the most part exist as concepts, and certainly were not the bias of differentiated groups of teachers and researchers. The process by which certain combinations of concerns and concepts took particular forms resulted in major methodological debates. Among the debates, one of the most influential was that between so-called nomothetic and idiographic knowledge, between the possibility and impossibility of generalization about human behavior, between the universalizers and the particularizers. The universalizers spoke of themselves as scientists. They tended to argue that human behavior was a natural phenomenon. The particularists, in contrast, often termed themselves humanists. The key difference between a developmentalist and a world-system perspective is in the point of departure, the unit of analysis. A developmentalists perspective assumes that the unit within which social action principally occurs is a politico-cultural unit--the state, or nation, or people--and seeks to explain differences between these units, including why their economies are different.

This article addresses several problems of interpretative historiography. Efforts to transform a social phenomenology of the present into a strategy for confronting the past are likely to encounter familiar difficulties. That phenomenology stresses the embeddedness of meaning, the ineffability of much experience, and the impermissibility of substantial generalization. Whatever its level of abstraction or magnification may be, historical analysis must finally be construed as an attempt to capture the daily reality of men. Any treatment of historical changes or minor occurrences is no more than a discussion of that reality. It receives its animation and intelligibility from its accounts of typical motives and courses of action. A construct such as class conflict, mercantilism, war or crisis may have an analytic usefulness for the historian, and in many circumstances, for the people whose behavior it describes. The traces which are clustered to form historical events must be assumed to have some factuality which is independent of the historian's imagination, but they can be interpreted and situated only by the exercise of that imagination. As personal ideal types, they acquire their unity and coherence chiefly from the historian's ability to order and synthesize ideas.

This article explores the use of literary evidence in sociology and in historical sociology. There are many written sources used by social scientists and historians which cannot be called literature in the sense, in which the word will be employed, where the expression high literature ought to be preferred. In fact, all materials other than those which were deliberately created as record go under the general title of literary evidence in ordinary usage. Thus, letters, diaries, autobiographies, sermons, journalism of all kinds, academic and otherwise, even sometimes official documents, especially, explanatory ones, are classed as literary, along with the poetry, the drama, and the novels, most of which fall below the aesthetic standard. The credibility exercise begin with the extreme, or polar, case where all that the social scientist has to go on is indeed literary evidence. Such examples are rather more difficult to find than might be expected. They are family and kinship amongst the Homeric Greeks, and the political and social structure of the ancient Hebrews, both rather loosely considered. The outcome of the credibility test is strongly persuasive, only when it comes to physical attributes.

This article examines the context of history and sociology in the work of Max Weber. Weber began his academic career as a historian and ended it as a sociologist, but intellectually, this move meant for him a division of labor, not an antagonistic relationship between the roles of historian and sociologist. In the course of his career, Weber gradually came to develop a new sociology, which differed from the old evolutionary sociology, against detractors among historians and economists who failed to comprehend the difference. He expected to be recognized as a partisan in methodological matters. One significant aspect of partisanship involved the struggle against organicist and other concepts of social life, which had been basic to the old sociology and its followers among evolutionary historians. One remark anticipated Weber's elaboration in the first chapter of the book, Economic and Society, which was about to be published after his sudden death. In his introductory methodological observations, he made it plain that with regard to this individualist method, there was no difference between sociology and history, since both for sociology in the present sense and for history the object of cognition is the subjective meaning of action.