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The article presents abstracts of two articles published in the September 1, 1974, issue of the periodical "Quality and Quantity." One article focuses on structural models of voluntaristics social action. Using a broad characterization of recent liberal, pluralistic, social science research interests defined in terms of Parsonian social theory, this article reviews recent developments in social science statistical practices. These developments are seen as converging toward a cross-disciplinary synthesis of rigorous "structural" or "causal" modeling approaches. The major negative thesis of the paper is the frequent inadequacy in empirical practice of simply specified, statistically manipulable structural models. The other article focuses on change and unreliability. The analysis is concentrated on the dichotomous case, two observations, and two response classes. Using a latent structural approach, two true latent classes are analytically separated from two manifest response categories.

The article presents information on structural models of voluntaristic social action. In the Western democratic tradition, freely given consent has long been considered a necessary basis for the legitimate development and institutionalization of political systems, such as the state. Similar assumptions have also guided much of economic and social theory. Using a certain class of complex structural equation models, the present paper will argue that it is possible to specify, to test for, and partly to explain such peculiarly human, consensual behaviors, often called social actions by philosophers and sociologists. On the way to this realization, another, more negative, lesson has been learned, the frequent inadequacy of simpler, statistically more elegant and popular structural approaches modeling social actions. The article suggests a partial typology of specification options for those trying to use structural equation models to test for or to explain social actions, especially those with significant political content. In terms of this typology and the proffered theses, the article reviews two areas of considerable causal modeling activity repeated Prisoner's Dilemmas experiments and non-experimental work concerning United Nations decision-making on collective security issues. Finally, a fuller statement of the basic argument is offered, joined with a brief discussion of its implications for further research and teaching on voluntaristic action systems in political, social or economic science.

This article discusses two methods for making a sociological theory untestable. The term theory stands for the symbolic dimension of experience, as opposed to the apprehension of brute fact. However, not only do theories go beyond fact but they do so by virtue of their use of universal categories. Scientific theories are a special type of theory defined in terms of a set of normative criteria to which scientists seek to conform and in terms of which their theories are evaluated. Central among these is the principle that scientific theories should be empirical. That is, they should have an empirical referent and be capable of being tested by experience. Because scientific statements are universal and empirical observations are of particular events, if a theory is to be refutable there must be some agreement whereby theoretical statements can be linked to ordinary propositions about empirical particulars. The first method for making sociological theory untestable, that is for making it unscientific, make certain that no empirically refutable statements can be deduced from the theory. A second method for making theory untestable is to ensure that the theory is internally inconsistent. That is, to take steps to ensure that one's theory does not take form a deductive system where all the propositions of the theory can be deduced from a set of axioms.

This article focuses on the sociology of sociology. Persons working in the sociology of sociology are allegedly groping for some model or means by which to understand and measure changes in dominant sociological perspectives. In addition to attending primarily to the making and maintaining of meanings, rather than the functional integration of institutions, one approach tends more toward field work or participant-observation as a research style. To view a social theory from its own perspective can allegedly be an interesting index of sociological self-consciousness. It seems that any thoroughing reality constructionist would analyze the shifts in the perspectives that dominate sociology in terms of the process of conversion. It should be made clear at the outset that a distinction is made between the moral careers of good and bad converts. The distinction comes from various sources within establishment sociology but is also accepted by some of the more pure converts. A bad convert is a person who has taken on the new sociology and defined it as pleasurable, yet has failed first to undergo the necessary personal and intellectual struggle with the old sociology. In addition, the morality of the moral career of the bad convert is somewhat questionable.

The article presents a report of the Section on Theoretical Sociology, a committee of the American Sociological Association of the U.S. The Section has confined its activities to the presentation of programs at the Annual Meeting. For the 1970 meetings John McKinney developed two sessions: one on "New Perspectives on Max Weber" was chaired by Talcott Parsons and involved the contributions of Benjamin Nelson, Vatro Murvar, Thomas Burger, and Vytautas Kavolis; the other on "Problems of the Interface Between Theory and Methodology" was chaired by John McKinney and consisted of presentations by Karl Schuessler, Edgar Borgatta, Norman Denzin, and Frank Young. For the 1971 meetings Peter Blau has organized two sessions. The first will be a panel discussion on "Contrasting Approaches to Social Theorizing." The other session comprises four invited papers on the general topic "Social Theory and Research." The contributors will be Richard Emerson, Hubert Blalock, Morris Zelditch, and Peter Park. The issue of what activities other than annual program sessions should be undertaken by the Section will in great likelihood rise again at the next Council Meeting and at the Business Meeting.

This article is the author's response to sociologist Glenn Goodwin's criticism of his article "Heeding Skinner's Call," published in the November 1973 issue of the periodical "The American Sociologist." The author says that the type of social theory he refers to is social-action theory. To him social-action theory always represented an exercise in pure epistemology. By locating the causal nexus of action in the subjective meaning attached by the individual to a social stimulus, social-action theorists have called for the development of a subtle science of the subjective, so subtle, and so subjective that it has little hope of providing constructive guidelines for pragmatic utilization of sociological knowledge. The author says that in "Heeding Skinners Call," he placed major emphasis upon the operationalized knowledge being produced by the experimental psychologist. But one need not and must not stop with this type of technology. He also made passing reference to the contribution that could be made by refinements in architectural technology in designing human social space. Likewise, one could proceed to include the biological and chemical technologies that are expanding one's understanding of the human nervous system.

The article analyzes the article "The Potential Impact of B.F. Skinner Upon American Sociology," by Robert Friedrichs. In his article, Friedrichs appears fully conscious of the possibility that his predictions will be self-defeating. Ironically, the anxiety which Friedrichs conveys about the prospects of a Skinnerian sociology is most evident at those points at which his argument is both the strongest and the weakest. On the one hand, Friedrichs, indulging in conspiracy theory somewhat, puts together seemingly disparate pieces of a puzzle to construct an essentially convincing image of a chamber of horrors-and one need not share his conspiratorial passion to grasp the integrity of his logic. On the other hand, his article seems particularly weak when he attempts to glue the puzzle he has constructed to the notion of the invisible college. Friedrichs attempts to show that the invasion of the body snatchers is in full swing based on his recitation of a number of individuals, perhaps conspiratorially linked together, but found in various departments. This does not seem totally convincing for two reasons. First, the assumption that the graduate departments he cites are monolithic research factories may be fallacious, and second, with a few notable exceptions those departments are not high producers of graduate students destined to leap into positions of power, prestige and moneyed research slots.

This article has a double purpose, first, it draws a distinction between two types of research procedures, or two types of explanation, between such explanation which answers why something occurs, or is the case, by pointing to its meaning, and such explanation which refers to its functional reason. The former type is called humanistic interpretation, while the latter case deals with functional explanation. The terms here employed, such as meaning, functional reason, humanistic interpretation, functional explanation will be elucidated with some more precision in the course, of further discussion. In the second place, it answers the question, what are the attitudes towards these two types of explanation of some approaches usually labelled as structuralism on one hand, and Marxism on the other, such a comparison will allow to grasp and relate with each other the methodological consequences of the two outlooks. At the outset it might be asked if the opposition between humanistic interpretation and functional explanation, and the parallel opposition of meaning and functional reason, is not something familiar to, and well kept in mind by all.

According to social philosopher Karl Marx in all social forms a given type of production determines the rank and importance of all other types, and hence relations in that type of production determine the rank and importance of all other relations. In bourgeois society agriculture is on an increasing scale becoming just a branch of industry and is totally dominated by capital. The same applies to ground rent. Ground rent cannot be understood without capital. But capital can be understood without ground rent. Capital is that economic force in bourgeois society which dominates everything. It must be both the point of departure and the point of arrival and must be analysed before landed property is analysed. Since in Marx's times agriculture under capitalism was on an increasing scale becoming just a branch of industry, hence in order to arrive at a pure model of capitalist economy let it be assumed that agriculture does not differ from industry in any respect, and that it has, from the economic point of view, the same properties as industry has.

The key role of Verstehen in social research is linked with the specific nature of the subject matter of the social sciences, as Verstehen is the only way of obtaining access to other people's mental states. One has access to his own thoughts and experiences through introspection, but he can have access to other people's thoughts and experiences through Verstehen only. The social sciences and the humanities would be impossible without Verstehen. Verstehen is an operation that is known to everyone, and not only to a social scientist, from one's own experience. Reference to it is made in all contacts between men. Obviously, some people make a more efficient use of it than other do, and that depends on a number of factors to be mentioned below. First of all, Verstehen does not consist in a reproductive experiencing of another person's emotions, thoughts, etc. It is a cognitive operation, and as such it is something else than original or imitative experiencing of what is the object of cognition. But, still more, reproductive experiencing even is not a condition of Verstehen. By referring to the Verstehen operation a person can, being himself quite composed, state that another person is excited, likewise, a person can with joy state that another person is sad.

The theory of graphs has found wide application in social science as a tool for representing group structures. Concretely, a set of social units is represented by a set of vertices, and relations within pairs of units by edges between the corresponding vertices. The article systematizes the use of graphs to study some important concepts in the theory of social structure: integration, polarization, and centralization. A graph is a set of points, vertices, some (or none) of which are connected by lines, edges. The distance between two vertices is the smallest number of edges one must traverse to get from the one to the other. If it is impossible to get from one vertex to another the distance between them is taken to be infinite. The greatest distance in a graph is called its diameter. If this is finite the graph is connected, otherwise disconnected. The concept of polarization is closely linked to conflict theory. It refers to the degree to which positive relations are concentrated within subgroups, with negative relations between them.

The article discusses the teaching of sociology in a metropolitan college. A principal bar to the attainment of the rationality of ends and means envisaged in the liberal arts tradition is the easy availability of cultural prescriptions for action. Immersion in a culture provides a substitute for thinking in nearly all aspects of life. Culture acts by eliminating the alternatives for action in a given situation to either a single one or to an oversimplified few. A sociological education can inform students of the nature of social constraint, of the fact that norms, values and beliefs are social in origin rather than biological or physical. It can explain the mechanisms that sustain cultural prescriptions, the relations between culture and personality that result in individuals bearing the culture without consciousness of this fact. Sociological theory implies that what might be good or functional for the group as a whole may not necessarily be in the best interests of individual members of the group, and that individuals may resist group prescriptions and at times be the better off for their resistance. The ultimate goal of a liberal arts education is the making of rational choices between studied alternatives on the basis of considered values.