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Main trends of research in the
social and human sciences
Part one: Social sciences
Preface by Re& Maheu
Director-General of Unesco
Mouton/ Unesco
Paris The Hague
mcmlxx

~ Main
~
trends of research
in the social
’ and human sciences
This volume is the result of a study
initiated by UNESCO in 1965 and carried
out in collaboration with national and
international organizations and research
centres in the social sciences as well
as with scores of individual scholars.
The undertaking was designed to lead
to a report on the main trends of research,
not on the results achieved by
research or even on the state of current
research. In other words, to borrow the
terms used by certain specialists consulted
in the preliminary stages of the
study, the aim was to identify ‘the
paths on which . . the science of to-
morrow may embark‘ (C. Lkvi-Strauss),
‘the development of science, or science
in the making’ (J. Piaget).
The study includes an examination of
the present state as well as the perspectives
for development of the various
disciplines, but also deals with a series of
questions relative to the inter- and multidisciplinary
dimensions of research. A
concluding chapter is devoted to the organization
and financing of research in
the social sciences.
This work is intended not only for the
educated reader, for research workers
and their professional associations, but
also for those institutions, both national
and international, whose task it is
to organize, plan and finance scientific
research.
Continued on back flap

The following disciplines and areas are
treated by scholars eminent in their
field :
Introduction: The place of the sciences
of man in the system of sciences, by
J. Piaget.
I. Main trends of research in the d$-
ferent social sciences:
Sociology, by P. F. Lazarsfeld;
Political science, by W. J. h;I. Mackenzie;
Psychology, by J. Piaget;
Economics, based on the preliminary
work of 0. Lange, W. Brus, T. Kowalik
and I. Sachs;
Demography, by J. Bourgeois-Pichat ;
Linguistics, by R. Jakobson.
2. Interdisciplinary aspects of research:
General problems of interdisciplinary
research and common mechanisms, by
J. Piaget;
Mathematical models and methods, by
R. Boudon;
Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-
national research, by S. Rokkan.
3. Science policy and development of
research in the social sciences:
The organization and financing of re-
search, by E. Trist.
The Preface is by R. Maheu, Director-
General of UNESCO, and the Foreword
by S. Friedman, of the Department
of Social Sciences of UNESCO.

Main trends of research in the
social and human sciences
Part one: Social sciences

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70 - 114641
6 Unesco 1970, Place de Fontenoy, Paris
Printed by G. J. Thieme, Nijmegen (The Netherlands)

Table of contents
PREFACE, by Ren6 Maheu, Director-General of Unesco
FOREWORD, by Samy Friedman
M
XXIX
INTRODUCTION Theplace of the sciences of man in the system of sciences,
by Jean Piaget I
Classification of social disciplines and ‘human sciences’, p. I ; Major
trends in the history of the nomothetic sciences, p. 7; Special episte-
mological features and foundations of the sciences of man, p. 15; Ex-
perimental methods and the analysis of factual data, p. 25 ; The scien-
ces of man and the great philosophical or ideological trends, p. 33; The
sciences of man, the natural sciences and the system of sciences, p. 38;
Major theoretical trends : forecast and explanation, p. 45 ; Specializa-
tion and integration; basic research and applications, p. 51; Notes,
P. 56.
1. Main trends of research in the diflerent social
sciences
CHAPTER I Sociology, by P. F. Lazarsfeld 61
Introduction, p. 61 ; Conceptual contribution of survey analysis to
general sociology, p. 64; Macrosociology, p. 76; Quest for theory,
p. 90; National variations in sociological activities, p. I 19; Sociology
and the other social sciences, p. 130; Notes, p. 152.
CHAPTER 11 Political science, by W. J. M. Mackenzie I 66
Introduction, p. 166; Delimitation of scope, p. 167; Ecology of political
science, p. 180; Research in progress, p. 185; Concluding remarks,
p. 217; Notes, p. 221.

VI Table of confents
CHAPTER m Psychology, by Jean Piaget
Scientific psychology and philosophy, p. 226; Empiricism without
structuralism and the need for explanation in psychology, p. 229; The
organicist trend and the relations of psychology and biology, p. 235;
The physicalist trend and the various levels of perception, p. 239;
Psycho-sociological trends and the interactions between the general
and the social, p. 242; Psychoanalytic research into mental specificity,
p. 248;The speciiicityof behaviour and thestructures of memory,p. 252;
Psychogenetic structuralism with reference to animals and children and
theories of the intelligence, p. 258; Abstract models, p. 263; Relation-
ships between psychology and other sciences, p. 269; The applications
of psychology: basic research and 'applied' psychology, p. 274; Notes,
p. 280.
CHAPTER IV Economics 283
Introduction, p. 283; The development of economics and its place
among the sciences of man, p. 284; Economic thinking, models and
methods, p. 302; Some of the major issues facing economics today,
p. 322; Conclusion, p. 343; Notes, p. 344.
CHAPTER v Demography, by Jean Bourgeois-Pichat 351
General considerations concerning demographic research, p. 35 I ;
Demographic research and biology, p. 356; Demographic research and
economic development, p. 368 ; Demographic research and human
ecology, p. 378; Demographic research and sociology, p. 381; Demographic
research and means of observation, p. 383; The contribution
of demographic research to the other sciences, p. 385; Organization of
demographic research, p. 387; Survey of the present situation, p. 394;
A few closing remarks, p. 406; Notes, p. 407; References, p. 409.
CHAPTER VI Linguistics, by Roman Jakobson 419
Relationship between the science of language and other sciences, p. 419;
Sources cited, p. 448; Essentials and goals of contemporary linguistics,
p. 453; Recent surveys of current linguistic issues (1958-1968), p. 461.
2. Interdisciplinary aspects of research
CHAPTER w General problems of interdisciplinary research and common
mechanisms, by Jean Piaget 467
Position of the problems, p. 467; Structures and rules (or norms),
p. 479; Functioning and values, p. 493; Meanings and their systems,
p. 510; Conclusion: the subject of knowledge and the human sciences,
p. 521; Notes, p. 526.
CHAPTER
VIII Mathematical models and methods, by Raymond Boudon 529
Introduction, p. 529; The traditional uses of mathematics in the human
sciences, p. 530; The major trends characterizing the applications of
mathematical methods and models in the human sciences, p. 536; The
different types of models, p. 556; Tlie future, p. 573; Notes, p. 575.
225

Table of contents w
CHAPTER IX Problem-focused research, by Pierre de Bie
578
Introduction, p. 578; Problem-focused research, p. 579; The multi-
disciplinary dimension, p. 596 ; The difficulties of problem-focused re-
search, p. 610; Conditions of multidisciplinary problem-focused re-
search, p. 626; Notes, p. 641.
CHAPTER x Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research,
by Stein Rokkan 645
Some elementary distinctions, p. 645 ; Three traditions of comparative
research, p. 655; The decisive challenge: the construction of typologies
of ‘macro’ settings for variations in human behaviour, p. 666; The
organizational infrastructure, p. 676; Notes, p. 683.
3. Science policy and development of research in
the social sciences
CHAPTER XI The organization andfinancing of research, by Eric Trist 693
Nature and scope of the inquiry: social research as a policy concern,
p. 693; Survey of country groupings: current trends in the United
States, p. 699; transition in Western Europe, p. 725; new patterns in
Eastern Europe, p. 746; developing the social sciences in the develop-
ing world, p. 763 ; Analysis and commentary : building organizational
capability, p. 779; changing the scientific value system, p. 786; describ-
ing the resource base, p. 793; the search for a policy for the social
sciences, p. 798; Bibliography, p. 803.
SUBJECT INDEX 813

Preface
When, at the end of 1962, the General Conference of UNESCO at its twelfth ses-
sion decided’ to include in the Organization’s programme for the following
two years an examination of the basis upon which a study could be made of the
main trends of research in the social and human sciences, it was thinking in
terms of a companion-piece to the survey on trends of inquiry in the natural
sciences which had already been carried out under the direction of Professor
Pierre Auger in 1959 and 1960 in response to a request from the Economic and
Social Council.2
Pointing out how important this latter study was and drawing attention to the
contribution that research in the social and human sciences also had to make
to economic and social progress, the General Conference underlined the
desirability of elucidating the major trends at present discernible in those scien-
ces.
The usefulness of the undertaking will, I think, be borne out by the volume
which is today being presented to the public. It represents the first part of the
International Study on the Main Trends of Research in the Social and Human
Sciences, an undertaking finally approved by the General Conference at its
thirteenth session in 1964.3 Work on the first part of the Study began in 1965 ‘in
collaboration with competent national and international institutions, both
governmental and non-governmental, and with the help of a consultative committee
and other consultants and experts in different disciplines belonging to
different schools of thought and representing the principal cultural andideological
orientations in the contemporary world’.
In accordance with the directions laid down by the General Conference, this
study covers some of the major ‘law-seeking’ disciplines, such as sociology, political
science, social and cultural anthropology,4 psychology, economics, demography
and linguistics; consideration of the interdisciplinary dimensions of research,
and its organization and financing, also have an important place in it.
The second part of the project, on which work began in 1967, is now being
carried out; its object is to identify the principal research trends in the legal
sciences, the historical sciences, archaeology and prehistory, the study of forms

x RenCMaheu
of artistic and literary expression, and philosophy. A number of theoretical and
practical questions, concerning, among other things, the development of interdisciplinary
co-operation and the contribution that the study of man can make to
social progress and international understanding, will also be raised in the conclusions
to the various specialized chapters and taken up again in a chapter giving
a general summing up; certain types of convergent investigations, such as
those relating to the study of cultures and civilizations, wil thus be the subject
of preliminary inquiries paving the way for more detailed studies. The results of
this second part will be reported in a second volume, publication of which is
scheduled for 1972.
The whole undertaking has been planned to produce a work on the main trends
in research, not on results achieved by research or even on the status of current
research. In other words, the aim has been - to quote the striking phrases used
by two of the specialists consulted - to identify ‘the paths on which.. . the
sciences of tomorrow may embark‘ (Claude L6vi-Strauss), ‘the development of
science, or science in the making’ (Jean Piaget). The study is intended not only for
the educated reader, for research workers themselves and their professional associations,
but also for those institutions, both national and international, whose
taskit is to organizeand finance scientific research. Besides considerations regarding
trends and methods, therefore, this work also contains reflections upon certain
social needs prompting applied or ‘problem-focused‘ interdisciplinary research,
with particular reference to the organization of teaching and research,
methods of financing research, and the regroupings of institutions which seem
most likely to ensure progress in the social and human sciences and to overcome
the crisis through which teaching and research in this field are at present passing
in a number of countries.
In view of the diversity of aims thus described, several methods of work and,
more particularly, several methods of collaboration with the competent specialists
and bodies, have been followed. These methods, different but parallel, may be
grouped into three main categories: (a) collaboration with specialists called upon
to give a unified, universalistic presentation, in their own contributions, of the
scientific matters dealt with in the different chapters; (b) collaboration with national
or regional bodies and with certain individual specialists, called upon to
provide, through their contributions andtheir criticalcomments, appropriate documentation
on thevarious levels of scientific development and the different fields
of scientific interest; (c) co-ordination of these two complementary methods by
the UNESCO Secretariat, which has been responsible for the over-all planning and
execution of the project.
In January 1965, the Secretariat set up machinery for seekingoutthenecessary
documentation, and sent out questionnaires to some 150 specialists in different
disciplines and 500 national or regional bodies, councils, foundations, research
institutes and centres, universities, professional associations, etc., all or part of
whose activities relate to the fields covered by the first part of the Study. Furthermore,
twelve international non-governmental organizations, a list of which
is annexed,5 and all the National Commissions for UNESCO were invited to assist,
by their suggestions, advice and criticism, in clarifying the procedures for carry-

Preface XI
ing out the project and, indeed, the design of the Study itself, The Secretariat is
indebted to them for a considerable number of proposals and much information
of which account was taken in the writing of the various chapters. Lastly, this
over-all review is based upon the invaluable contributions made by many specialists
who were called in to write a series of relatively brief studies, elucidating,
or dealing in greater detail with, certain particular aspects of scientific work -
recent or still unpublished research, questions on the border line of several disciplines,
etc. - on which it would otherwise have been difficult to assemble information
and analyses. Most of these contributions have already been published
separately, and the majority have also been included in a corporate publication6
or in the International Social Science Journal.7 A list of the authors of these contributions,
and of the specialists consulted on various points who made particulary
significant contributions to the Study, is appended.*
The preparation of the different chapters was supervised by a panel of consultants,
set up in March 1965 after the necessary contacts had been made and after
the UNESCO National Commissions concerned had been consulted. The members
of the panel were responsible for giving specialist advice in their respective fields
to the Secretariat and to the writers of the contributions required for the project.
At the same time, most of them were either directly responsible or shared responsibility
for the preparation of thevarious chapters, and formed, together, an
editorial board for the first part of the Study as a whole. The following agreed
to serve on the panel :
P. Auger, professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris, the
author of the study already carried out under UNESCO’s auspices on the main
trends of inquiry in the natural sciences;
P. de Bie, professor at the University of Louvain;
R. Boudon, professor at the Sorbonne;
P. N. Fedoseev, Vice-president of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, assisted by
V. S. Semenov, of theInstituteof Philosophyof theU.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences;
R. Jakobson, professor at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology;
0. Lange, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, assisted by W. Brus, T.
Kowalik and I. Sachs who, after Professor Lange’s death in 1965, took over responsibility
for a preliminary version of the economics chapter, which was completed
and put into final form by the Secretariat.
P. F. Lazarsfeld, professor at Columbia University, New York;
C. LCvi-Strauss, professor at the Collkge de France who, owing to the pressure
of private work, had to surrender his place on the panel to P. Mercier, Director
of Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris;
W. J. M. Mackenzie, professor at the University of Manchester;
P. C. Mahalanobis, Director of the Indian Statistical Institute, latterly replaced
by J. Bourgeois-Pichat, Director of the Institut National $Etudes DBmographiques,
Paris;
J. Piaget, professor at the Faculty of Science of the University of Geneva;
S. Rokkan, professor at the University of Bergen;
E. L. Trist, member of the Human Resources Centre, Tavistock Institute of

w Reae'Maheu
Human Relations, London, and professor at the University of California (Los
Angeles).
The members of the panel, with the addition of thirteen other specialists, formed
an enlarged advisory body, whose membership allowed for representation of
various schools of thought as well as of the major cultural and ideological trends
in the world today. Drawn from eighteen countries of Africa, America, Asia and
Europe, the members of this body represented the following branches of scientific
study : demography, psychology, linguistics, social and cultural anthropology,
sociology, political science, economics, history, law and philos~phy.~ Like all
those who helped them, they were kept regularly informed of the progress made
in the preparation of the first part of the Study, and received all the preparatory
documentation and chapter drafts for comment and criticism.
Sincere and cordial thanks are due to all the distinguished scholars who responded,
in these various capacities, to UNESCO'S appeal and so generously placed
their skill, experience and talent at the service of the Study. The Organization is
profoundly grateful to the authors of the various chapters, who,, in spite of the
importance of their own personal work and the burden of their professional
obligations, gave so much of their time and energy to this joint enterprise. If this
work, dealing with such complex fields of research, has succeeded in presenting,
in relatively small compass, a series of co-ordinated surveys, in which a vast body
of information has been assembled and marshalled, clearly and impartially,
with an eye to the future and with the service of man in mind, the credit for
this achievement is primarily due to their scientific authority, their devotion to
truth and their attachment to the things of the mind and to international cooperation.
It fell, as1 have said, to the UNESCO Secretariat to organize and co-ordinate this
far-reaching undertaking and to secure the most favourable conditions for a synthesis
that would take due account of the diversities of inspiration. The work of
thesecretariat of an international organization is essentially collective and anonymous
and its virtue consists in self-effacement - I had almost said self-abnegation.
But noonecouldsuppose that an undertaking such as this could possibly be
brought to a successful conclusion unless those responsible for its execution gave
to it all their resources of heart and mind; unless, for all their rule of impartiality,
they left, in some sort, their personal stamp upon it. This personalelement,
at once inevitable and necessary - for it is the style which gives life to a work -
must not, in justice, go unmentioned.
It is for that reason that I wish, in this Preface, to pay tribute first of all to the
memory of Julian Hochfeld, Deputy Director of the Departqent of Social
Sciences, who until his premature death in 1966, conducted the preliminaryconsultations
and was responsible for planning the Study and setting up the machinery
for carrying it out: his clarity and breadth of vision, his infectious enthusiasm
and his gifts of organization and leadership provided this project, to which
he gave so unstintingly of himself, with the indispensable initial impetus and
the intellectual style that was to survive all subsequent adjustments. Next,
under Andrk Bertrand, the Director of the Department, who in his turn passed
away in November 1968 after a cruel illness, it fell to Samy Friedman to take

Preface XIII
on the heavy responsibility of completing the undertaking, realizing and developing
the initial inspiration, recruiting new contributors, co-ordinating
their efforts, and supervising the final editing of the manuscripts. He is the
author of the Foreword, with all its stimulating comments, which follows this
Preface. I take this opportunity of thanking him for all he has contributed to
the Study.
Ought one to venture a few general reflections on the nature and vocation of
the ‘social and human’sciences - or, let us say, the ‘sciences of man’ -whose main
trends are here identified, compared and examined? I think not. This volume,
together with the one that is to follow it, wil speak for itself, and it would be rash
to go further, in regard to general conclusions, than such a distinguished body
of eminent specialists has seen fit to do; and even more foolish and dangerous
to attempt to point out to the sciences in question where their future lies. Instead
I shall simply attempt - less ambitiously and probably more usefully - to show
the place of this Study within a broader scheme of things: first, by comparing its
intellectual style and method with those of the earlier Survey on the Trends of
Inquiry in the Nuturul Sciences; secondly, by explaining why it was decided to divide
it into two connected but nevertheless distinct parts; and, finally, by sketching
its significance from the point of view of the interests of UNESCO, concerned
as it is with international life and Man’s development.
While the Survey on the Trends of Inquiry in the Natural Sciences was obviously
bound to furnish a precedent and point of reference for the present Study, the
work and preliminary consultations carried out in 1963 and 1964 confirmed that
the social and human sciences, in which the variety - and indeed the rivalry - of
disciplines and epistemological standpoints is further complicated by the diversity
of schools of thought and cultural or ideological tenets, could not be treated
on exactly the same lines. Given the complexity of the field, and the fact that any
attempt to narrow it down must inevitably have been arbitrary and detrimental,
prudence dictated that, without losing sight of the whole, the work should at any
rate proceed by stages. In view of the differences existing with regard to basic
views, working hypotheses and motivations, and of the controversies to which
the general interpretation of research findings often gives rise, it seemed well to
reflect the various major aspects of the scientific work actually being done in
these fields, which is always - whatever objective, universal significance some of
its results may have-linked to a given social situation, a particular moment in
history. It appeared, however, that within the huge complex of the social and
human sciences, there were certain disciplines whose methods varied little from
country to couctry; whose proper subject was not, generally speaking, a matter
of controversy; and which sought to identify - at any rate in certain intellectually
isolable sectors - the objective laws that govern human, and more particularly
social, phenomena.
It was in the light of these considerations that the General Conference, at its
thirteenth session, recognized that it would be better to divide the Study into two
parts and to phase its execution accordingly. It decided that the project should be
launched, during the 1965-1966 biennium, in the field constituted by certain
‘law-seeking’ disciplines, some ofwhich it listed by way of examp!es; and that the

XIV Rene‘Maheu
two years should also be used to prepare for the start of work, in 1967, on the
second part of the Study, which would cover the historical, legal, artistic and lit-
erary disciplines.
This division of the Study into two parts and the spreading of the work over
two stages are thus not due solely to practical considerations dictated by the
vastness of the field to be covered and the broad international range of the co-
operation to be enlisted. Nor - and I should like to emphasize this point - are
they based on a distinction between ‘social sciences’ and ‘human sciences’, which
is generally regarded as being increasingly artificial. They reflect a certain dual-
ity of approach within the ‘sciences of man’ as a whole: a duality which, no
doubt, in differing degrees and with differences of emphasis, obtains within each
one of them, but which, on the whole, may nevertheless afford legitimate grounds
fora division of the disciplines concerned into two families - provided we do not
forget either the diversity that exists within each family or their mutual affinities
and the many ways open to co-operation between scholars, or again the natural
tendency of any soundly-based scientific approach to project itself as a model
for all sectors of the knowledge of man.
A first part of the vast range of sciences aimed at promoting the knowledge of
man, his social life and his individual existence, is constituted by a body of dis-
ciplines - those that are the subject of the present volume - which seek to iden-
tify laws and are motivated by the ideal of a learning as objective, as assured, as
independent of human opinions, attitudes and situations as that which charac-
terizes the natural sciences. In other sectors of scientific activity - those to which
a second volume is to be devoted - references to the order of values, norms and
objectives, the demand for reflection and the concern for man’s free self-deter-
mination at both the community and the individual level, dominate, without on
that account departingfrom the pursuit of rigorous and objectively based knoql-
edge; for in these other sectors thought is focused less on intellectual unanimity
with respect to a body of cumulative and universally valid truths than, notwith-
standing differences and divergencies, the mutual comprehension, interpenetra-
tion and, ultimately, the convergence of attitudes and preferences, under the
common rule of submission to truth. And it seemed reasonable to leave till the
last those of all the sciences of man whose ideal of knowledge and of truth is the
hardest to formulate and which remain profoundly linked to the particular exis-
tence of human beings and groups, to their creative expressions and the funda-
mental choices to which they commit themselves.
We thus have two series: parallel perhaps, different beyond a doubt, and with
differences that had to be respected, but above all complementary, and finally
interdependent. The practical manifestation of this interdependence is interdis-
ciplinary co-operation, which culminates in multidisciplinary research and is
embodied in teamwork: an indispensable basis for the knowledge of man, but
at the same time an idea which, in general, abstract terms, has a dangerous fasci-
nation, and which might remain no more than an empty and unproductive slo-
gan if its foundations and mechanisms were not clearly identified, by contact
with specific problems propounded to research, and with due regard to the
various institutional, financial, technical and human factors on which its

Preface xv
development, fruitfulness and capacity for renewal and creation in fact depend.
While it is true that research is less and less conceivable without a high degree
of specialization, close interdisciplinary co-operation is the natural and neces-
sary counterpart of this development. Co-operation of this kind is necessitated
firstly by the changes that are taking place at the present time in the intellectual
conditions of scientific work: everything is combining to break up the compart-
mentalization inherited from a bygone age of knowledge; within each disci-
pline recourse must be had to the hypotheses, methods, patterns of intellection
and findings of related disciplines, and even of disciplines that only yesterday
were considered to be the most remote and least germane. Yet still, all too often
this need is met only in response to the chance requirements of research or as
opportunities for encounter may occur, without a sufficiently broad over-all view,
without sufficient continuity, without real mutual openmindedness on the part
of the practitioners of the various methods, and above all, without sufficient elab-
oration and clarification of the foundations on which a combination of these
methods may be based. One of the most significant results that should naturally
ensue from a study such as this, is the preparation of a chart - admittedly provi-
sional and subject to constant revision - of the strong points and weak points of
interdisciplinary co-operation and of their substratum, and the identification of
priority areas to which research scientists should direct their thinking and insti-
tutions their activities.
But that is not all; the evolution that has begun in our time in the epistemolog-
ical style of research cannot be dissociated from the evolution of human situa-
tions and problems with which that research is concerned. The multi-dimensional
character of the human phenomenon has doubtless always existed; but it has not
always so imperatively compelled recognition by science. If the study of man is
taking on a new look, this is mainly because it forms an integral part of a world
in the throes of change, which it is endeavouring to provide with the elements of
an authentic learning, the means of arriving at an informed awareness and the
bases for well-considered choices. It is in its application to recently still unknown
or unnoticedaspectsof the existenceof man as an individual, of the life of human
communities, of the future development of cultures, that research discloses its
most vital and fruitful trends.
Science and technology have created entirely new condititions of life, opened
up unheard-of possibilities, given rise to unprecedented problems. The horizon
of human experience has thus been appreciably broadened. At the same time,
the development of media of expression and communication has brought
about a veritable change of scale in our apprehension of all that exists around
us. By bringing us close in time and space to events whenever and wherever they
occur, it gives individual, social and cultural life a new dimension which is
tending to equal that of the world as it now is, while at the same time threaten-
ing the quality of precious personal consciousness. More generally, the ad-
vances of knowledge transcend the powers of the individual mind, and for the
elaboration of knowledge as well as for the continuing task of its reunification
the human intellect needs to be supported by machines of its own invention;
science, which is causing an upheaval in the current conception of the universe

XVI Rent! Maheu
and affording us a new insight into man, is becoming more and more difficult to
fit into the general culture, save in debased forms.
The speed and magnitude of the changes that are currently affecting the life of
all mankind impart a new acuteness to our sense of the transitory nature of the
present, to the need for a dynamic interpretationof history in the making and for
a reasoned anticipation of the future, which constitute the necessary bases for
action properly adapted to the service of man and his values.
Lastly, the widespread assertion of the principle of democracy calls for new
forms of political organization and community life. The world's structure has
undergone a profound change following the accession of almost all nations to
political independence and the establishment, at all levels, of new relations be-
tween them. In consequence, mankind, brought face to face with the vast variety
of its components, is gradually taking the measure of its inner diversity and dis-
covering a new notion and a new requirement of universality, based on mutual
respect for and understanding of differences in a desire for dialogue and recip-
rocal enrichment. Having equipped himself with the means of attaining to power,
man knows that he would henceforth be the instrument of his own destruction if
he proved to be incapable of imagining and establishing on a world-wide scale a
viable order, conducive to progress and consistent with a common idea of justice.
This situation suggests to the social and human sciences - nay, lays upon
them-renewedand ambitious tasks, while making available to them more power-
ful means of investigation, more extensive information and a strengthened
conceptual apparatus. On the other hand, it increases the difficulty of their prob-
lems, aggravates some of their uncertainties, jeopardizes man's ability to make
use of his knowledge, and calls for a constant effort to reconquer the unity of the
life of the mind. It is by facing up to this global situation, by applying themselves
to subjects of research that reflect its major aspects, that the disciplines con-
cerned with knowledge of man can assume their role in mutual co-operation as
truly modern and productive forms of intellectual inquiry.
At the same time, there is a common duty that must be accepted by all with the
utmost urgency, namely, the eradication from theface of the earth of poverty, ex-
ploitation, ignorance, stagnation and humiliation, which are the lot of the human
masses that have been unfairly treated by history. Without a deliberate effort on
the part of the whole of man, in all men, these masses are liable to be confined
by the ever more rapid movement of that history, become fatality, in the hope-
less condition of a sub-humanity - a disgrace to the mind and the heart, doom
to any chance of real understanding between peoples and hence of peace, a ne-
gation of humanity itself.
To the task devolving upon the present generation, namely development, in the
widest and loftiest acceptation of the term - the economic and social develop-
ment of communities and the development of man himself - the contribution
that can and must be made by the social and human sciences is of capital impor-
tance, provided they fulfil their twofold role: on the one hand, to contribute care-
fully verified data and effective operational techniques adapted to economic,
social and cultural structures and duly analysed historical situations and, on the
other, to help men to make their choices in the light of facts and to ensure that

Preface xvu
understanding, respect and a feeling of solidarity between men are established
on a firmer foundation. This is a twofold function, for which no discipline taken
in isolation can suffice but which calls for the widest co-operation between them
all. It is a twofold ambition, by which they take it upon themselves io be the
diverse but interrelated forms and processes of the same striving for knowledge,
the same thinking and the same endeavour.
To my way of thinking, this does not mean that the social and human sciences
should renounce their primary mission: to pursue a truth - the truth of man-
without ever having to subordinate this quest for knowledge, this effort towards
understanding, to concern for immediate utiIity and still less to ideoIogical
considerations. It need hardly be recalled that the usefulness of a theoretical
proposition often becomes apparent only at a later stage, in face of problems
that were not previously forseeable, and that speculative truth can prove to be
an inexhaustible source of ethical inspirations which it is not incumbent upon
science to identify, to determine or to anticipate itself. The fact remains that the
sciences which contribute to a knowledge of man give rise to applications and al-
low in particular of a better adjustment of the techniques of action to existing
situations; also that they can provide lessons, that their findings and even more
their processes have a quality that might be called instructional. They recall man
to himself, they invite him to consider, in concrete terms and without compla-
cency, himself, his destiny, ways of achieving self-fulfilment in the conditions of
his actual life, equally removed from passive resignation in the face of inscrutable
fate and evasion in the dream of a freedom unrooted in reality.
These two natural functions of knowledge are complementary to each other
and counterbalance each other; their complementarity, even in the oppositions
that constitute the life of the social and human sciences, provides the firm basis
for solving the old and ever-recurrent conflict between their disinterested theo-
retical vocation and the constant calls of action. For action involves more than
a set of procedures or recipes; it also means broadening of the range of what is
possible and determination of the objectives behind choices and, hence, both ac-
ceptance of change and differences, and emancipation through the process
of setting the goals - in short, the affirmation and recognition of man in him-
szlf and in others which, together, postulate and promote universality. And
for science, action is the prerequisite for a fruitful dialogue between the mind
and human reality. Modern man, who has been made, in fact as well as in law,
master of his destiny by the instruments of an unprecedented power over nature,
and yet who, at the same time, is strangely bereft of the means of governing his
inner life according to truly human values in face of this new, teeming, unfore-
seeable, and all too often alienating world which is increasingly his work, needs
something more than a spurious humanism that is merely an empty and inef-
fectual verbal formula. He needs the effective means, grounded in true scientific
knowledge, of a genuine humanization of the relations between individuals within
societies, between peoples within a hiiman order.
Such is the humanism of which the social and human sciences are, at least poten-
tially, the guarantee and even the essential source. But they can only be so all
together, and interdependently, for once again, no single one of them could suf-

xvm Red Maheu
fice for the purpose alone. Indeed, I would even say that they can accomplish
this lofty mission only if they are supported by the natural sciences, linked with
them and co-operating with them in the unified edifice of a single science, whose
awareness of its own significance and scope should by no means result in check-
ing it or deflecting it from its quest for truth, but rather in enriching it and en-
suring its proper balance by endowing it with a conscience.
wsco’s two major responsibilities with regard to science are, on the one
hand, to work for the advancement of knowledge, to assist the progress of scien-
tific activities both in the advanced countries and in the developing countries, to
promote international scientific exchanges, and, on the other, to see to it that the
intensification and universalization of research help to improve the living con-
ditions of peoples, to increase mutual understanding between nations and to
deepen theconsciousness of humanity in man. I am sure that the series of studies
devoted to the main trends of research not only meets these two requirements,
but also furnishes the best illustration of their complementary nature and bears
witness to the deep need to combine them in action designed to promote the
advancement of mankind.
RE& MAHEU
Director-General of UNESCO
NOTES
I. Resolution 3.43.
2. Current Trends in Scientific Research, by Pierre Auger, Special Consultant, United
Nations and UNESCO, 1961.
3. Resolution 3.244.
4. The preparation of the chapter on the main trends of research in social and cultural
anthropology, which was begun in the first part of the Srudy, will be completed in
the second part. The chapter will be included in the volume setting forth the results
of that part.
5. See Annex I, page XIX.
6. The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, Mouton/umsco, The HagueiParis,
19689 507 PP.
7. International SociaZScience Journal, vol. XIX, 1967, no. I, (Linguistics and Commu-
nication,; vol. XX, 1968, no. 2, (Multidisciplinary Problem-Focused Research).
8. See Annex 11, page xx.
9. See Annex 111, page xxvn.

ANNEX I
Non-governmental organizations having
collaborated in the implementation
of the study
International Committee for Social Science Documentation
International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies
International Economic Association
International Political Science Association
International Sociological Association
International Social Science Council
International Union for the Scientific Study of Population
International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences
International Union of Psychological Science
Permanent International Committee of Linguists
World Association for Public Opinion Research
World Federation of Scientific Workers

ANNEX I1
Specialists consulted and authors
of auxiliary contributions
Alberoni, F.
Albou, P.
Allardt, E.
Angell, R.C.
Anohin, P.K.
Antilla, H.
Armengaud, A.
Armstrong, D.
Aron, R.
Austin, M.
Ayman, LA.
Azuma, H.
Baglioni, G.
Bhatt, V.M.
Barbut, M.
Barnett, K.M.A.
Bastide, R.
Bauman, Z.
Beijer, G.
Bell, H.T.
Bennike, B.J.
Bertalanffy, L. von
Betocchi, G.V.
Beyer, G.
Bolle, P.
Borrie, W.D.
Bouc, A.
Boulding, K.E.
Bourdieu, P.
Bourricaud, F.
Brayfield, A.H.
Bronfenbrenner, M.
Butland, G.J.
Buyssens, E.
Universitd Cattolica di Milano
Institut Technique de Prdvision Economique et Sociale,
Paris
Institute of Sociology, University of Helsinki
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Sechenov Institute of Physiology, Moscow
Finnish Psychological Association, Helsinki
Universitt de Dijon
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London
Centre de Sociologie Europtenne, l?cole Pratique des
Hautes Etudes, Paris
Australian Psychological Society, Sydney
National Institute of Psychology, Teheran
Japanese Psychological Association, Tokyo
Universitri Cattolica di Milano
Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East,
Bangkok
&cole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Department of Census and Statistics, Hong Kong
Universitd de Paris
University of Warsaw
Research Group for European Migration Problems,
The Hague
Economics Society of Australia and New Zealand, Sydney
Danske Okonomers Forening, Copenhagen
University of Alberta, Edmonton
Universita di Napoli
Netherlands Social Science Council, Amsterdam
Institut #Etudes Politiques, Universitd de Grenoble
Australian National University, Canberra
Institut de Science Economique Appliqute, Dakar
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
&cole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Universitd de Paris
American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C.
Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh
University of New England, Arinidale
Universitt Libre de Bruxelles

Canagaratnam, P.
Caruso, I.
Casimir, J.
Catt, A.J.L.
Chalmers, A.
Cherns, A.B.
Chiva, L.
Chombart de Lauwe, P.H.
Cohen, J.
Colombo, B.
Coster, W. de
Coughlan, J.A.
Dabin, J.
Dahrendorf, R.
Davis, K.
Delatte, L.
Desai, K.G.
Diegues Jr., M.
Dorsinfang-Smets, A.
Dumazedier, J.
Dury, G.H.
Egloff, W.
Eisenstadt, S.N.
Ellenberger, H.
Erke, H.
Fahmi, M.
Fassi, N. El
Federici, N.
Fedorenko, N.
Ferracuti, F.
Fic, V.M.
Fishman, J.A.
Flament, M.C.
Floud, J.
Fohalle, R.
Fourastie (Mlle), J.
Fourastie, J.
Fraisse, P.
Fraisse, R.
Fresson, M.
Fujinioto, T.
Galtung, J.
Gentile, R.
Georgiev, V.
Specialists consulted and authors of auxiliary contributions XXI
Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science,
Colombo
Wiener Arbeitskreis fiir Tiefenpsychologie
Centro Latinoamericano de Investigaciones en Ciencias
Sociales, Rio de Janeiro
New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (Inc.).
Wellington
University of Sussex, Brighton
University of Technology Loughborough
Laboratoire d'dnthropologie Sociale du Colldge de
France et de l'EcoZe Pratique des Haufes Etudes, Paris
&cole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
University of Manchester
Istituto di Statistica, Universitd degli Studi di Padovn
Laboratoire de Psychologie Expdrimentale Difle'rentielle,
Ge'ndtique et Anthropologique, Universite' de 1'Etat 2
Gand
Department of Social Studies, University of Dublin
Universite de Louvain
Fachbereich Soziologie, Konstanz Universitat
University of California, Berkeley
Universite' de Lidge
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay
Centro Latinoamericano de Investigaciones en Ciencias
Sociales, Rio de Janeiro
Institut de Sociologie, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles
Centre d'ktudes Sociologiques, Paris
University of Sydney
SociPte' Suisse des Traditions Populaires, St. Gallen
Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Universite' de MontrCal
Psychologisches Institut der Universitat des Saar-
landes
College of Education, Ain-Shams University, Cairo
Centre Universitaire de la Recherche Scientifique, Rabat
Istituto di Demografia, Universitd degli Studi di Roma
Mathematical Economics Institute, Academy of Sciences
of the USSR, Moscow
Universitd degli Studi di Roma
Institute of Southeast Asia, Nanyang University,
Singapore
Yeshiva University, New York
Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale, Universiie'
d' Aix-Marseille
University of Oxford
UniversitC de Lidge
Universitd de Paris
Conservatoire National des Arts et MCtiers, Paris
Institut de Psychologie, Universite' de Paris
Commissariat GCne'ral du Plan de I'Equipement et de la
Productivite', Paris
Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, Brussels
Japan Federatioir of Economic Associations, Tokyo
International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
Universitd di Napoli
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia

xw Preface
Gerbrands, A. A.
Gleizes, M.
Ginks, H.
Glknisson, J.
Godelier, M.
GoriEar, J.
Goldman, L.
Gorskij, D.P.
Gourou, P.
Govaerts, F.
Gratiot-Alphandkry, H.
Grebenik, E.
Greenslade. B.
Greimas, A.J.
Grosser, D.
Haekel, J.
Halle, M.
Harmsen, H.
Hartmann, H.
Helin, E.
Henry, L.
Herz, T.A.
Heusch, L. de
Hiatt, L.R.
Hill, A.A.
Hill, R.
Holas, B.
Hopenhayn, B.
HudeEek, J.
Hurtig, S.
Huxley, Sir J.
Iacono, G.
Ikola, 0.
Jacoby, E.G.
Jahoda, M.
Jain, S.P.
Jong, F.J. de
Joset, C.J.
Kannangara, I.
Kelle, V.
Keyfitz, N.
Khatibi, A.
Khubchandani, L.M.
Instituut voor Culturele Anthropologie en Sociologie der
niet- westerse Volken, Rijksuniversiteit, Leiden
Ofice de la Recherche Scientijque et Technique Outre-
Mer, Paris
Fundacidn La Salle de Ciencias Naturales, Caracas
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale du Colldge de
France et de I'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Institute of Sociology and Philosophy, University of
Ljubjana
&cole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. Paris
Institute of Linguistics, Academy of Sciences of the USSR,
Moscow
Colldge de France, Paris
Institut de Sociologie, Universitd Libre de Bruxelles
Laboratoire de Psycho-biologie de I'Enfant, Ecole
Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
University of Leeds
New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (Inc.),
Wellington
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Freie Universitat Berlin
Institut fCr Volkerkunde der Universitat Wien
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Bevolkerungswissenschaft,
Hamburg
Sozialforschungsstelle an der Universitat Munster,
Dortmund
Universitd de Lidge
Institut National #Etudes Ddmographiques, Paris
Zentralarchiv fir empirische Sorialforschung, Cologne
Universitd Libre de Bruxelles
University of Sydney
Linguistic Society of America, Austin
Minnesota Family Study Center, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis
Centre des Sciences Humaines, Abidjan
Instituto Latinoamericano de Planificacidn Econdmica y
Social, Santiago
Institute of Political Science, Prague
Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris
Eugenics Society, London
Universitd di Napoli
Institute of Finnish, University of Turku
Department of Education, Wellington
University of Sussex, Brighton
Demographic Training and Research Center, Bombay
Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen
Facultd des Sciences &onorniques et Sociales, Namur
Department of Census and Statistics, Colombo
Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the
USSR, Moscow
Population Research and Training Center, University of
Chicago
Centre Universitaire de la Recherche Scientijique, Rabat
Linguistic Society of India, Poona

Kirschen, E.S.
Klaff, H.
Koniis, A.
Kornai, J.
Kotter, H.
Kovalson, M.Y.
Kowalewski, Z.
Kula, W.
Kunstadter, P.
Lagos, G.
Lajugie, J.
Lancaster, J.B.
Landsheere, G. de
Lee, E.
Lefer, P.
Lektorski, V.A.
Leplae, C.
Lestapis, S. de
Levada, Y.A.
Livingstone, F.B.
Lowit, N.
Lucas, M. de
Luria, A.R.
McDonald, T.K.
MacKay, D.M.
Mackensen, R.
MacRae, D.
MacRae, D.G.
Maitre, J.
Maniet, A.
Marcus, S.
Martinet, A.
Martikainen, T.
Martin, A.
Matthiessen, P.C.
Mauro, T. de
Mayntz, R.
Meltchuk, LA.
Meyriat, J.
Mir6, C.A.
Mitchell, J.
Monteil, V.
Moore, F.W.
Specialists consulted and authors of auxiliary contributions xxm
Institut de Sociologie, Universitt Libre de Bruxelles
Israel Institute of Applied Social Research, Jerusalem
Institute of Scientific Economic Research, Academy of
Sciences of the USSR, Moscow
Computing Centre, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Budapest
Institut fur Agrarsoziologie der Justus Liebig- Universitat,
Giesseii
M. V. Lomonsov State University, Moscow
Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
University of Warsaw
Princeton University
Instituto para la Integracidn de Amdrica Latina,
Buenos Aires
Universitd de Bordeaux
University of California, Berkeley
Universite‘ de Li2ge
Korean Psychological Association, Seoul
Ddldgation GinnPrale d la Recherche Scientifique et
Technique, Paris
Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the
USSR, Moscow
Institut de Recherches l?conomiques, Sociales et Politi-
ques, Universitd de Louvain
Centre de Recherches et &Action Populaire, Vanves
Institute of Concrete Sociological Research, Academy oj
Sciences of the USSR, Moscow
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Centre &Etudes Sociologiques, Paris
Universitd di Napoli
University of Moscow
New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (Inc.),
Wellington
University of Keele
Sozialforschungsstelle an der Universitat Munster,
Dortmund
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
London School of Economics and Political Science
Groupe de Sociologie des Religions, Paris
Universitd de Louvain
Institute oJMathematics, Academy of the Romanian
People’s Republic, Bucarest
Imtitut de Linguistiqiie, LhiversitP de Paris
Finnish Political Science Association, Helsinki
Board of Economic Enquiry, Peshawar University
University of Copenhagen
Universitd di Roma
Freie Universitat Berlin
Institute of Linguistics, Academy of Sciences of the
USSR, Moscow
Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris
Centro Latinoamericano de Demografia, Santiago
Social Science Research Council, London
Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire, Universitd de
Dakar
Human Relations Area Files, New Haven

XXN Preface
Moore, G.H.
Mossk, R.
Moscovici, S.
Muhsam, H.V.
Niederer, A.
Noponen, M.
Nuttin, J.
Ogata, N.
Olsevich, Y.
Oroz, R.
Osgood, C.
Ossipov, G.
Ourlanis, B.C.
Paillat, P.
Pairault, C.
Pankhurst, R.
Pappi, F.U.
Parsons, T.
Partridge, P.
Perrin, F.
Philippart, A.
Piatier, A.
Piepponen, P.
Pohl, J.
Postal, P.
Potter, R.G.
Pouillon, J.
Pozo, J.Y. del
Quemada, B.
Rapoport, A.
R6my, J.
Reverdin, 0.
Reynaud, J.D.
Riviere, J.R.
Robinson, J.
Ros-Jimeno, J.
Roset, A.M.
Rosenmayr, L.
Ross, S.
Rowe, J.W.
Russell, R.W.
Ruwet, N.
Sadovski, V.N.
National Bureau of Economic Research, New York
Universite' de Grenoble
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Socie'te' Suisse des Traditions Populaires. Ziirich
National Research Council for Social Sciences, Helsinki
Institut de Psychologie, Universite' de Louvain
Japanese Political Science Association, Tokyo
State University of Lvov
Instituto de Filologia, Universidad de Chile, Santiago
Institute of Communications Research, University of
Illinois, Urbana
Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Sciences of the USSR,
Moscow
Institute of Economics, Academy of Sciences of the USSR,
Moscow
Institut National &Etudes De'mographiques, Paris
Institut Africain pour le De'veloppement &onomique et
Social, Abidjan
Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Haile Selassie I University,
Addis Ababa
Zentralarchiv frir empirische Sozialforschung, Cologne
Harvard University, Cambridge
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National
University, Canberra
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Lyons
Institut Belge de Science PoFtique, Brussels
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Population Research Institute, Helsinki
Universite' Libre de Bruxelles
Queens College, Flushing
Brown University, Providence
Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale du Coll2ge de France
et de l'&ole Pratique des Hautes Btudes, Paris
Instituto Ecuatoriano de Sociologia y Te'cnica, Quito
Centre &Archives du Franeais Contemporain, Besaneon
Mental Health Research Institute, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor
Centre de Recherches Socio-religieuses, Zlniversite' de
Louvain
Socie'te' Suisse des Sciences Humaines, Berne
Institut des Sciences Sociales du Travail, Universite'de
Paris
Servicio de Documentacidn de Organizaciones Cientificas,
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientifcas, Madrid
University of Cambridge
Escuela de Estadistica, Universidad de Madrid
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Institut fur Soriologie, Universitat Wien
American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C.
New Zealandlnstitute of Economic Research (Inc.),
Wellington
Indiana University, Bloomington
Universite' de Paris
Journal ' Voprosy Filosofl", Moscow

Schmitz, A.
Schnubnell, H.
Schnur, R.
Sebai, Y. El
Sebeok, T.
Sheps, M.C.
Slavik, V.
Smelser, N.
Solari, L.
Soleiman, F.H.
Somoza, J.L.
Spaey, J.
Spaltro, E.
Spate, O.H.K.
Spitaels, G.
Stammer, 0.
Stegemann, H.
Steiner, J.
Stoetzel, J.
Sussman, M.B.
Szabady, E.
Szabo, D.
Szalai, A.
Szaniawski, K.
Szczepanski, J.
Szczerba-Likiernikt, K.
Tabatoni, P.
Tanner, R.E.S.
Tardits, C.
Tentori, T.
Thompson, J.D.
Touchard, J.
Touraine, A.
Townsend, E'.
Trimborn, H.
Trivedi, R.N.
Trystram, J.P.
Tugby, E.
Turner, K.I.
Ukai, N.
Ungeheuer, G.
Specialists consulted and authors of auxiliary contributions xxv
Frobenius-Institut, Johann Wolfgang Goethe- Universitai,
Frankfurt alMain
Statistiches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden
Sozialwissenschajtliche Abteilung der Ruhr- Universitut,
Bochum
High Council of Arts, Literature and Social Sciences,
Cairo
Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore and
Linguistics, University of Indiana, Bloomington
College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University,
New York
Institute of Political Science, Prague
University of California, Berkely
Universitt de Gedve
University College for Women, Ain-Shams University,
Cairo
Centro Latinoamericano de Demografia, Santiago
Conseil National de la Politique Scientifique, Brussels
Universitri Cattolica di Milano
Research SchooI of Pacific Studies, Australian Notional
University, Canberra
Institut de Sociologie, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles
Institut fur politische Wissenschaft der Freien Universitat
Berlin
Zentralarchiv fiir empirische Sozialforschung, Cologne
Schweizerische Gesellschaft fur praktische Sozialforschung,
Thun
Universitt de Paris
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
Research Institute for Population Studies, Budapest
Universite' de Montrial
United Nations Institute for Training and Research,
New York
University of Warsaw
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy
of Sciences, Warsaw
International Social Science Council, Paris
Universitt de Paris
East African Institute of Social Research, Makerere
University College, Kampala
Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale du Cplldge de
France et de l'Ecok Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Universita di Roma
Indiana University, Bloomington
Centre #Etude de la Vie Politique FranGYise, Paris
Laboratoire de Sociologie Industrielle, Ecole Pratique des
Huutes Etudes, Paris
University of Essex, Colchester
Seminar fur Volkerkunde der Universitat Bonn
Indian Political Science Association, Ranchi
Universite' de Lille
University of Queensland, Brisbane
University of Sydney
Science Council of Japan, Tokyo
InstifutjCr Phonetik und Kommunikationforschung der
Universitat Bonn

XXVI Preface
Urzlia, H.G.
Verbois, L.
Viet, J.
Vitot, F.
VratuSa, A.
Walhin, C.
Ward, B.
Watanabe. N.
Winkler, W.
Witney, S.B.
Woitrin, M.
Wurm, S.A.
Yoo, c.
Zapf, W.
Zdravomyslov, A.G.
Ziolkowski, J.
Z6lkiewski. S.
Zvorykine, A.A.
Centro de Investigaciones Socioldgicas, Universidad
Catdlica de Chile, Santiago
Ecole Royale Militaire, Brussels
Maison des Sciences de I'Homme. Paris
Universitd Cattolica di Milano
Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade
Ecole Royale Militaire, Brussels
University of Calijbrnia, Berkeley
Anthropological Society of Japan, Tokyo
Universitat Wien
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor
Universitt de Louvain
Australian National University, Canberra
Korean Social Sciences Research Institute, Seoul
Johann Wolfgang Goethe- Universitat, Frankfurt alMain
and Universitat Konstanz
Leningrad State University
Unesco Research Centre on Social and Economic
Development in Southern Asia, New Delhi
Section of Social Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences,
Warsaw
Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the USSR,
Moscow

ANNEX III
Extended panel of consultants
Auger, P.
Barbachano, F.C.
BeltrBn, G.
Bie, P. de
Bouah, G.N.
Boudon, R.
Bourgeois-Pichat, J.
Brus, W.
Bustamente, R.
Fedoseev, P.N.
Filine, F.P.
Habachi, R.
Jakobson, R.
Janne, H.
Klineberg, 0.
Knapp, V.
Kowalik, T.
Langef, 0.
Lazarsfeld, P.F.
Lhi-Strauss, C.
Mackenzie, W.J.M.
Mahalanobis, P.C.
Marshall, T.H.
Mercier, P.
Onitiri, H.M.A.
Piaget, J.
Rokkan, S.
Sachs, I.
Semenov, V.S.
Svennilson, I.
Terao, T.
Trist, E.L.
Westphal-Hellbusch, S.
Universitd de Paris
Museo de Antropologia de Mdxico, Mexico, D.E.
Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Mexico, D.F.
Universitd de Louvain
Ministire de I'Educatioti Nationale, Abidjan
Universitd de Paris
Institut National d8tudes Dgmographiques, Paris
University of Warsaw
Universidad de la Plata and Universidad de Buenos
Aires
Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow
Institute of Linguistics, Academy of Sciences of the
USSR, Moscow
Regional Centre for the Advanced Training of Educatiotza1
Personnel in the Arab States, Beirut
University of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge
Collige Scientifique de I'lnstitut de Sociologie, UniversitP
Libre de Bruxelles
International Centre for Intergroup Relations, Paris
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague
Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
Columbia University, New York
CollPge de France, Paris
University of Manchester
Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi
University of Cambridge
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research,
University of Ibadan
Universitd de GenPve
University of Bergen
Center of Research on Underdeveloped Economies,
Warsaw
Institute of Philosophy, Academyof Sciencesof the USSR,
Moscow
University of Stockliolm
Keio University, Tokyo
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London and
University of California, Los Angeles
Institut fur Ethnologie, Freie Universitat Berlin

Foreword
SAMY FRIEDMAN
The operational and institutional background having been described in the
previous pages, we may turn to the design of the International Study on the
Main Trends of Research in the Social Sciences, which comprises three parts.
After this Foreword, intended to give an overall view of the Study, and the
Introduction, whose purpose is to show the position of the social sciences within
the system of sciences, Section I takes up the vertical study of the main research
trends in the disciplines covered : sociology, political science, psychology, eco-
nomics, demography and linguistics. Section 2 deals with the interdisciplinary
and multidisciplinary dimensions of research, i.e., the horizontal treatment of
some of the characteristics common to all the sciences considered. In Section 3
the social sciences are considered from still another standpoint, that of their
organization and financing, and conclusions are drawn concerning manifest or
latent science policy with regard to the development of research in the social
sciences.
There is no hiding the fact that this plan has shortcomings and may, in some
respects, be arbitrary. The selected disciplines -anthropology was originally to
appear in this volume, but unfortunately the manuscript was not completed in
time for publication and will consequently be included in the Second Part of the
Study - are important, to be sure, but so too are others. Criminology, human
geography, for example, could have been included equally well. Limits had to be
set and the plan outlined by the General Conference of UNESCO respected, though
it is hoped that this study may one day be pursued and broadened. Moreover,
the disciplines selected have been treated as though they were separate entities,
whereas disciplines generally tend more and more to ramify so that, to take soci-
ology as one example, there are as many sociologies as there are fields of investi-
gation: medical, electoral sociology, sociology of small groups, behavioural so-
ciology, military, religious sociology, sociology oflabour, etc. It was thought pref-
erable, however, to confine attention to the major trends running through the
social sciences and to show in some detail the contacts that are developing among
them and often blurring the traditional borderlines that seemed so clear-cut not
so long ago. Above all, this work is not a survey, i.e., it is not a systematic analysis

xxx Samy Friedman
of major trends established on the basis of a general investigation of the avenues
being explored by research throughout the world and the significant advances
made. In this respect, it differs sharply from the study conducted by Pierre Auger
on current trends in scientificresearch’. Asurvey of that kind was in fact attempt-
ed, and the extensive consultations referred to above were undertaken with this
aim in view. In the end, however, it simply had to be recognized that, with only a
few exceptions, the replies sent in to a questionnaire were too incomplete and too
few in number to provide a comprehensive picture. The survey was therefore
abandoned - though, we hope, only temporarily - with the approval of the
members of the panel of consultants. The various chapters are thus presented
as ‘essays’, drawing on the most extensive information available to their authors,
but making no claim to universal coverage.* As a consequence, and despite the
precautions taken, this joint work has the advantages, but also the drawbacks,
of its kind. The authors’ personalities, and the diversity of their scientific in-
terests, have left a definite mark on the conception of the different chapters. In
each of them individually the line taken is often entirely personal. Some, like
Paul Lazarsfeld, have paid particular attention to stressing the characteristic
stages of an evolution. Others, like Jean Piaget, have endeavoured to define the
main directions of scientific systems or, like W. J. M. Mackenzie, were attracted
by the history of an intellectual development perceived from without, or even,
like Jean Bourgeois-Pichat, grappled boldly with futurology.
The united efforts of all have produced a work whose limitations - of which
we are fully conscious - are due in part to the framework prescribed, and in part
to the often differing conceptions of the authors; but this very diversity, however,
should be considered as complementaryrather than as conflicting, for it illustrates
some of the major trends running through and giving life to the social sciences.
In describing the main trends of research, the authors have all shown, with
regard both to methods and to ideas, how much exchange is taking place, and
what efforts are being made at rapprochement and often at integration, pro-
foundly influencing the social sciences as a whole. In the succeeding chapters,
the reader wil find emerging a certain number of trends which are characteristic
of the present-day social sciences in general. First of all, at the conceptual
level, we find steady progress in interdisciplinary as compared with multidis-
ciplinary activity, the same phenomena being examined more by integrated
methods instead of being analysed separately by independent methods operating
side by side. This process has no doubt been encouraged in some cases by
the ‘splitting-up’ of older disciplines and in others by their increasing inter-
penetration, resulting in new combinations such as political sociology, polit-
ical anthropology, economic behaviour, etc., as well as by the increased use of
mathematical language. With regard to scientific organization, the sciences have
only seldom reached the level of ‘big science’ and have certainly not done so as
regards financing, but there is a trend in this direction. In this respect, we need
only draw attention to the development of team research, the increasing use of
scientific equipment which is often expensive, and the establishment of data
‘banks’, which are also all examples of the internationalization of the social
sciences. New groupings among the sciences are thus beginning to take shape, a

Foreword XXM
common language is becoming familiar to them, the same attitude of mind
inspires them - sound guarantees of progress in a field of prime importance for
the future of our societies, to which we hope this work wil contribute.
To Professor Jean Piaget, in his introduction to this volume, fell the task of
examining the place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences. The author
refuses from the outset to stand on the defensive and to refute the objections
of those who balk at accepting the social sciences as true sciences. On the contrary,
he propounds law-seeking sciences on the one hand, opposing them to
historical, legal and philosophic disciplines, on the other.
Al social sciences are law-seeking, whether these laws be relatively constant
quantitative relations which can be expressed in mathematical terms, or whether
they be general facts, ordinal or structural relations that find expression in
ordinary language or in the formalized language of logic. Whether they be marked,
as in psychology, by the use of strict experimental methods, with the production
and modification of phenomena for purposes of observation, or by methods
of extensive experimentation, with systematic observation and statistical verification
of the facts, as is the case in sociology and economics, they differ from the
historical sciences, which are concerned less with formulating laws than with
distinguishing the peculiar features of particular events. The term ‘laws of
history’ is either a metaphor or the acknowledgement of regular sociological,
economic, political or other recurrences, in which case these fall within the
realm of the law-seeking sciences. Differing also, as they do, from the legal sciences,
which are focused upon the study of norms, and from the philosophic
disciplines, which are concerned with the general co-ordination of human
values, or, in other words, with a view of the world, the social sciences thus
emerge as a specific category. This is enhanced by the fact that they lend themselves
to collaboration, exchanges and borrowings with the sciences of nature;
they alone are capable of such transaction owing to the causal nature of their
explanations. The author’s central thesis is the attainment of scientific objectivity
by the social sciences, through the decentration of the cognizant subject
in relation to the object under study, despite the apparent dependence of these
sciences on man ‘both as subject and object’. Jean Piaget comes to the conclusion
that it is impossible to make a linear classification of sciences after the
fashion of, say, Auguste Comte. In his view, the order of the sciences is arranged
in a circle. Without this being in any way ‘vicious’, the sciences are caught up in
an endless spiral. The social sciences, as the sciences of the subject building up
the other sciences, have a very special place in this spiral and cannot be separated
from the other sciences without taking simplification too far.
The analysis of the essential features of the social sciences, their methodology
and classification, is conducted at a high level of abstraction. It leads to stimulating
views on the notions of structure and structuring used by individuals
and societies as the basis for expressing the laws of their activities, but which
remain elusive unless their genesis is known; such views in turn call for
comparison with the work of modern ethnologists, and particularly with that of
Professor LCvi-Strauss. Likewise, when the author takes up the question of the

XXXII Sarny Friedman
‘schools’ within the disciplines themselves, and examines certain trends aspiring
to ‘greater integration than that achieved by spontaneous intra- or interdisciplinary
co-ordination’ (often to criticize them), he refers, at least by implication,
to well-known theoretical efforts, such, for instance, as that of T. Parsons,
echoes of which will be found in other chapters3.
Section I, in which the various social sciences are considered, opens with Paul
Lazarsfeld’s chapter on sociology. What, then, is sociology, placed as it is in the
forefront of the social sciences? One tradition, firmly rooted in history, by which
its pre-eminence has been proclaimed ever since Saint Simon and Quktelet,
claims it to be the queen of the social sciences. It is, however, rather poign-
ant to find the Quktelet Professor of Sociology at Columbia University writing
with a true scientist’s humility that sociology is a residual science, created
either to supplement other studies of man undertaken through the ages by
political philosophy and the philosophy of history, or to explain phenomena left
aside by certain other sciences, such as economics, as they developed. Sociology,
then as a somewhat feeble joke has it, is defined as the science practiced by
sociologists; its subject-matter is constantly changing and its r61e is to ‘fill
in the blank spots in an intellectual map’. It is worth bearing in mind, none-
theless, that there is a sociological mode of thought, characterized by a way
of raising problems and a methodology torn between the ‘synthetic’ concern
to embrace society as a whole, and the more strictly ‘scientific’ concern to de-
fine sociology’s own particular field. It is this theme of a particular mode of
thought, or more exactly the main avenues open to it, that the author pursues.
He stresses, first and foremost, the considerable contribution made by the
technique of survey analysis to sociology and to the systematization of the
concepts it employs. Developed originally to meet the need to contribute to the
understanding of urgent social problems, in which quantitative treatment was
not, however, excluded (as can be seen from Le Play’s study of budgets), survey
techniques were greatly in vogue in the United States around 1930, growing
meanwhile in refinement. After the war, the codification of the concepts in use
gave rise to the language of variables, or rather of variates having certain nu-
merical properties, to whose development the author himself made a promi-
nent contribution. The idiom is similar to ordinary language, for, ‘just as we
distinguish words and sentences, [in empirical social research] we have variates
and the propositions into which they are combined‘, accounting for both process
and context, that is to say, the structures which represent, for the author, ‘the
influence exerted by broad context variations on the patterns of individual
behaviour’. This variate language naturally leads on to qualitative analysis, as
also to cross-cultural research, the formation of typologies (dealt with in other
chapters of this work) and the macrosociology discussed by Paul Lazarsfeld.
The latter had already been occupying the attention of European sociologists
since the 19th century and the study of major problems (socialism in the USSR,
democracy in Germany, etc.), also came to the fore in the United States after
the war, but it is nowadays more closely circumscribed in time and space, and
makes broader use of factual data. Survey analysis has had an influence in this

Foreword XXXIII
case, but so too has the notion of process both in the selection and in the inter-
pretation of topics, leading to consideration of microsociological variates
within macrosociological propositions, which, in their turn, lead to linear
explanation diagrams in the work of Inkeles, strategic diagrams in that of
Moore, and the dialectic type in that of Smelser, depending on the way the
variables being compared appear.
The quest for theory is the third trend of sociological thought discussed. Ad-
mittedly, in the sense of this term as used in the exact sciences, i.e., a hypothesis
frequently expressed in mathematical terms and subject to verification by experi-
ment, there are, in general, no theories in the social sciences. In this field, the
processes of classification, the strict formulation of problems and attempts at
interpretation take their place. This absence of theory is reflected in R. K.
Merton’s notion of ‘theories of the middle range’, which calls for a use of ana-
lysis that goes beyond simple fact-gathering to systematic interpretation, though
avoiding undue speculation. Marxism, on the other hand, might be regarded
as a theory of global society. It has its basic concepts (class, modes of produc-
tion), its method (dialectic analysis) which is of general application. The author
shows how ‘concrete’ communist sociology, while leaving the Parties a monop-
oly in theoretical formulation, attempts to establish a correlation between
theory and the data furnished by observation. Empiricism is finding its way
into research in the USSR and in neighbouring countries, where studies are being
made of workers’ attitudes to work, personality, leisure, the aspirations of
youth, and small groups; in the last case, research is still in its early days but
attention is beginning to be given to the r6le of these groups as mediators be-
tween society as a whole and the individual, etc. It is by no means unlikely that
‘concrete sociology’ may be able to make a valuable contribution to social
planning, at the preparatory stages as well as at the implementation stage,
which would give it considerable importance. On such bases, we can see the
beginnings of a reconciliation between sociologists of Eastern and Western
countries, the former showing an increased interest in empirical research, the
latter developing increased awareness of the theoretical frames of research and
of the desirable systematization of research findings. This analysis should be
considered in conjunction with the author’s treatment of two other attempts to
embrace society in all its aspects : the critical theory of Adorno and the Frank-
furt group, and the sociological dialectics of Gurvitch, whose work unfailingly
brings to mind Parsons’ ‘pattern variables’.
The author, in dealing with another theory, functionalism, which was first
formulated by Durkheim, then taken up by the British anthropologists and by
many modern sociologists (Parsons, Davies, Bourricaud), bringing in Merton’s
classic distinction between latent and manifest functions, is rather harsh; he
finds its formulations so general that they do not really appear to provide an
explanation of the empirical findings. However, he adds facetiously, we cannot
live either with or without functionalism, and he draws attention to some recent
trends which might give new significance to the theory. The author also takes up
the problem of conflict which leads to the concepts of dysfunction and anomie
(so far removed from traditional functionalism revolving about equilibrium and

XXXIV Samy Friedman
conservatism) in order to examine the notion of systems they have engendered,
one excellent effect being to emphasize the nature of the processes themselves.
He continues by discussing the concepts of functional mechanisms (Goode) and
of reciprocity (Gouldner), which bring functionalism, by its extension and dyna-
mization, closer to general systems theory. On the other hand, in contrast to
the trend in anthropology and linguistics, structuralism has as yet made only
minor incursions into sociology.
In his introduction, Jean Piaget had already shown what influence the ideo-
logical or philosophical positions of the scientist might exert on research. He
stressed the limitations that the scientist’s subservience to a philosophy, whether
empiricist or dialectical, might entail. Paul Lazarsfeld also exposes parallel
considerations regarding the effects of national variations on sociology : vari-
ations in subject matter when social conditions prompt the study of national
problems of immediate topical concern (the caste system in India, internal
migrations in Italy), or, on the contrary, rule out certain subjects deemed to be
of little interest (discrimination, minorities in the Netherlands, revolution in the
United States); cultural variations, as for example when the Dutch aversion to
intellectual system-building leads to a preference for theories of the middle
range, or when the Indians turn back to their traditional philosophy ; but also
accidental variations occasioned by the r6le of an outstanding personality
(Znaniecki in Poland) or by the creation of a new institution destined to trans-
form the practice of sociology (the Latin American Social Science Faculty in
Chile, the Sociological Research Group in Budapest).
Professor Lazarsfeld closes his chapter by an examination of thelinks between
sociology and the other social sciences, with particular reference to the signifi-
cance of sociology’s newly-evolved mode of analysis for these sciences and their
use of sociological concepts and methods. Thus, for example, the technique of
survey analysis has been extended to anthropology (Stoetzel and the study of the
Japanese Giri); to economics, for the study of the propensity to save and the in-
tention to invest, people’s willingness to migrate to new job opportunities, etc. ;
to psychology, for determining the characteristics of life in society; to political
science, for evaluating the complexity of opinion structures. Finally, a special
place is given to an analysis of the complex relationship between sociology and
psychology.
Like sociology, with which it has obvious links, political science, examined by
W. J. M. Mackenzie in the following chapter, is also a residual science that has
gradually branched off from proto-history ; here, too, application of scientific
method and interpretation of data are difficult, and conclusions are frequently
dependent on the environment. Political science is as extensively sub-divided as
the world of politics, but it strives nevertheless to attain universality in its concepts
and its methods. As the central concept of his analysis, the author, with some
qualifications and reservations, takes the study of the State and political insti-
tions in a particular territory and in conjunction with a given cultural system.
Political science is first of all descriptive, but makes use of particular cases to
arrive at general theoretical conceptions, couched in the language of variates.
It is also normative, being concerned with norms and offering advice to rulers

Foreword xxxv
and citizens about political conduct. Lastly it is, to a certain extent, law-seeking
or nomothetic, identifying constants and making a certain mesure of predic-
tion possible. It might well be wondered whether this concept of the study of
the State as focal might not suggest a closed system which would leave out inter-
national relations and public administration, and which would, moreover, have
the drawback of considering politics from the point of view of the rulers.Without
wishing to reduce political science to sociology, despite obvious temptations to
do so, might not politics be regarded as a sub-system of global society (which
would prompt analysis of the relations and interactions between sub-systems),
and might not further light be thrown on the concepts of stratification and
political power? W. J. M. Mackenzie is certainly aware of these possibilities for,
while he keeps the central concept of the State and political institutions as the
guiding idea of his discussion, he shows that the study of politics is pursued
beyond this limit, at all levels, in all societies, organizations and groups. This
allows him to take in international relations and public administration in his
stride. He draws attention to the relations between political science and the
study of small groups, microsociology, social linguistics, anthropology and
macrosociology, giving rise to constant interchange between this science and
the other social sciences.
The central section of the chapter is devoted to a purely pragmatic systema-
tization of research in progress, centred upon the concepts of power, force,
influence and authority, i.e., the conditions necessary to the existence of all
States, whether they be democratic or authoritarian, developed or undeveloped,
and to the study of constitutional States or, in other words, the study of politi-
cal systems, institutions and political participation, stress being laid on the
study of electoral practices and legislative processes in relation to economic and
social institutions. Thus, despite difficulties and weaknesses, political science
is in close contact with the other social sciences, and no development in these
sciences is alien to it, a fact that prompts the author, looking back, to reflect on
the possible evolution of political science if it were studied from the point of view
of decision-making. This might be a better focus for studies than the concepts
of power, legitimate authority or political system, by making it possible to
establish new connections with the other social sciences, particularly economics
and psychology, not to mention sociology, and so perhaps, in terms of method,
opening the way to general theories.
As the author himself suggests, it would be interesting to compare this chap-
ter with the collective volume Contemporary Political Science published by
UNESCO in 1950. Viewed in relation to this convenient reference point, the pro-
gress achieved in many countries would be seen to be appreciable and such as to
augur well for the future.
Psychology, which is discussed by Jean Piaget, was for long associated with
philosophy, and has only relatively recently found a specific object of study.
These two disciplines are separated neither by their problems nor by their
fields of investigation, for psychologists and philosophers alike are, legitimately,
concerned with behaviour, development and structures. ‘The only difference is
due to the “decentring” of the ego: where the psychologist claims to advance

XXXVI Samy Friedman
only hypotheses that can be verified by everyone, by furnishing in his carefully
differentiated techniques the means of control, the philosopher works on the
notion that he knows himself by means of a series of supposedly primary intuitions
pre-existent to all psychological knowledge.’ But though psychology
has won its freedom and its independence is henceforth established, it may well
be wondered whether the psychologist himself has always succeeded in freeing
himself from philosophical presuppositions. The survival within the discipline
of diverging schools of thought, to which Jean Piaget calls attention in the Introduction
to the present volume, surely implies the survival of philosophical
ties, which may perhaps equally be imolicit in his own approach to this chapter.
Jean Piaget has discussed this elsewhere4 (philosophical thought, in his view,
serves to propound problems but is not sufficient to solve them on its own),
and it would perhaps have been pointless to revert to the matter in a study
situated wholly in the scientific field.
Be this as it may, the author presents a striking epitome of the major trends in
contemporary psychology in the light of the various interpretations proffered. He
shows the limitations of the organicist trend, which is concerned to relate mental
processes and behaviour with physiological processes, for it is impossible to
reduce mental life to organic life. Intelligence does not emerge ready-made, as
something contained in the organism. It is fashioned little by little, by successive
graduated reconstructions. The temptation to link mental and physical processes
(Fechner) is likewise rejected. Recent work on perception and intelligence
has shown that the forms of equilibrium involved are closer to a regulatory
system than to a balance of forces. The relations between mental and social
factors lead on to a discussion of the importance of social psychology, which is
also dealt with in a chapter mentioned earliers, and at the same time to rejection
of any tendency to reduce one to the other, the relations between them
being those of interdependence and kinship rather than of dependence. Lastly,
on the subject of behaviour, learning and memory, he shows how inseparable
these are, being governed by the individual’s development. The author’s approach
is that of psychological structuralism, giving him the opportunity to reformulate
his famous views on the theory of intelligence. Over and above the part
played by the maturation of the nervous system, by the social environment, and
by experience in the development of intelligence, there is also a factor of coordination,
of equilibration, which is reflected in the familiar structures of
groups, networks, rings, etc. These are natural and take form spontaneously in
the course of the operations themselves, bearing on objects, space, time, causality.
This analysis of modern trends in psychology, based on the interpretations
offered, is most forceful. It highlights the many links between psychology and
the other social sciences and also certain natural sciences, such as biology. The
remarkable developments in new sectors of scientific psychology are not neglected,
however, though lack of space has, unfortunately, prevented Jean Piaget
from giving modern research on motivation, neuro-psychology, psycho-linguistics
and perhaps also psycho-pharmacology the full coverage that he could
have done. What may be called the strategic position occupied by psychology
within the system of sciences is likewise implicitly recognized, in relation to the

Foreword XXXVII
natural and social sciences already discussed in the introductory chapter, and,
it might be added, in relation also to the development of the arts; this might
well provide a fresh link between the first and second parts of the Study on the
Main Trends of Research in the Social and Human Sciences.
The chapter on economics calls for indulgence and sympathy on the part of
the reader since it was prepared under very adverse conditions. It was originally
entrusted to Professor 0. Lange of Warsaw University, who died shortly after-
wards, though he had first planned the main outlines of the chapter with three of
his followers, Mr. W. Brus, Mr. T. Kowalik and Mr. I. Sachs. The work was
then taken over by this team, who prepared a draft of the chapter, which was
widely discussed in accordance with the procedure adopted throughout the
Study. For fortuitous reasons over which they had no control, Mr. Brus, Mr.
Kowalik and Mr. Sachs were unable to take advantage of their consultations
and to complete the undertaking. This was subsequently taken over by the
Secretariat, which attempted to prepare a final version based on the draft
chapter prepared by the Polish team and using all the information available.
Every effort was, of course, made throughout to respect the guiding ideas on
which the work had been based, but there are obvious dangers inherent in any
such underpinning operation. Any interest the reader may find in this work,
therefore, is to be credited to those who inspired it, leaving the Secretariat to
bear responsibility for any imperfections or errors which may have crept in in
spite of its best efforts.
The chapter opens with a brief recapitulation of the main trends -Historical,
Marxist and Marginalist - which have marked present-day economics. Hypo-
theses are advanced, with every effort at refinement, regarding the prospects
for reconciliation between the various schools, but it was not possible to over-
look the present conflicting attitudes resulting from ideological choices which
cannot yet be avoided. In this respect, attention has been drawn to the increas-
ingly wide use, in the East as well as in the West, of such tried methods as input-
output analysis, econometric market studies, operational research, etc. In the
same way, emphasis has been laid on the general use of precise concepts which
provide economics with uniform aids to research, e.g., national income, invest-
ment, savings, technical progress, and so on.
Efforts have been concentrated particularly on describing the development
of economic thinking in the concrete manifestations of economic activity, its
praxiological aspect, and showing modern economics as a social science which
also uses the language of variates, and makes choices in a changing social and his-
torical context in pursuit of such necessary compromises as the conditions of
allocation, utilization, and increase of available resources. In preference to
analysing the traditional divisions of economics, finance, currency and so on,
an attempt has been made to show how, within an analytical framework which
is coming into general use, there is a constant inter-related development of
modern theories concerning the operation of the economy, growth and social
and economic development. An effort has thus been made to identify the major
problems facing present-day economics. First of all, the problem which arises
naturally from the analysis of the ‘nature and causes of the wealth of nations’

XXXVIII Samy Friedman
is that of the factors in, and conditions for, economic growth - this being of
general importance both for the developed countries and for others which also
have to face the questions of growth rates and the increase of resources. The
problem is approached dynamically in the context of global society. Problems of
distribution, initially restricted to an analysis of the determinants fixing the
unit remuneration of production factors, are now being extended to include
political and institutional systems. Finally, the gradual acceptance of planning
is the direct consequence of the changes which have occurred in political and
social systems after what Myrdal has called ‘the laissez-faire interlude’.
After all the ups and downs it has been through, the chapter on economics
may well be partial in the sense of incomplete, if not partial in its initial inspira-
tion, but this is mainly because it has been deliberately directed to problems
which are regarded as essential for the future. Its most novel feature perhaps
lies in the emphasis laid on the place of economics within the system of the social
sciences and on its close and indispensable relations not only with cybernetics,
decision theory and mathematical methods, but with the whole field of soci-
ology, political science, psychology, demography and indeed social and cultural
anthropology.
Demography, which is discussed by Mr. Bourgeois-Pichat, is in the happy
position of dealing with a small number of easily-definable facts, such as birth,
life (and reproduction) and death, which are eminently quantifiable. The com-
plexity and richness of this branch of study derive from the fact that demogra-
phic phenomena relate to individuals living in groups; hence it has inter-rela-
tionships with all the social sciences, so that demographic research is naturally
inclined to the interdisciplinary approach.
From this standpoint, the author has endeavoured to describe problems, as
yet unsolved, which are of considerable importance for the future of the human
race. For, although each human being depends, so to speak, on the luck of the
draw amongst all the possible genetic combinations, there is nevertheless a
common genetic inheritance which the individual can influence by his behaviour.
His actual or potential control over his natural fertility raises problems which
the demographer can solve only with the aid of biology, especially as regards,
for example, effective contraceptive methods, the choice of sex, or the control of
senescence. There are many connections between demography and economics,
whether authoritarian or indicative planning be involved. The assessment of the
needs of a population, and the distribution of money, always depend on the
composition of the community, its age-structure, as well as the recorded fertility
and mortality rates. Moreover man lives in natural surroundings on which he
has an influence just as he is himself affected by them. In this respect, migration
and urbanization pose both demographic and ecological problems.
Many more illustrations of these links could easily be given, for which
the reader is advised to refer to the chapter itself. Here we shall simply emphasize,
on the one hand, the considerable contribution of sociology, which endeavours
to deal not only with how things happen but why they happen - in practical
terms, the variations in matrimonial habits, marriage as affected by social class,
religion, development, etc. - and, on the other, the remarkable improvement in

Foreword XXXM
the means of observation at present available to the demographer. Not only
have the techniques used for assembling and analysing data naturally benefited
from the advances made in other fields in sampling and survey methods, but
the use of computers already provides the possibility of what amounts to ex-
perimentation through the development of techniques for the simulation of
behaviour in situations where direct experimenting is still difficult.
At the present time, demographic research, properly speaking, is concentrat-
ing, on an international as well as an interdisciplinary basis, on the study of
many sectors which wil be of interest to the reader. First of all, there are
problems connected with health. Mortality has become a phenomenon with
which, owing to progress (or lack of progress), society is more and more directly
concerned. The idea that an individual’s state of health is explained by the
whole of his past life as well as by the scope of the health services available to
him, raises the formidable question of the social cost of health and human life,
which must be approached clear-sightedly. The problems connected with pro-
creation are also the subject of innumerable research projects, leading on to a
study of the motivations determining the size of families. Questions of economic
development are based on studies concerning the prospective development of the
active population and of households and families, etc.
After this review of the present, it must be noted with a certain degree of
melancholy that, as the author remarks, there is still much to be done and that,
in many sectors, progress seems to be held up because neighbouring sciences,
such as biology, medicine and especially sociology, have not yet made the head-
way expected by the demographer. Frequently these sciences do not even know
what is expected of them. The burden of this chapter must therefore be inter-
preted as an urgent appeal for better interdisciplinary information.
Linguistics may be regarded, with mathematics, as one of the oldest sciences,
since it can be dated back to the second millennium BC (Sumerian grammar).
Roman Jakobson has sought to bring out two basic points about this science:
that linguistics might be used as the point of departure for a tentative ordering
of the sciences of man, and that the main present-day developments in this
science are leading towards its unification.
This paper may be regarded, first, as an answer to Jean Piaget. As we have
seen, Piaget sets out to show that a linear classification of the sciences in the
style of Auguste Comte was impossible. Jakobson, on the contrary, considers
that the sciences of man can be ordered from the starting point of linguistics.
The point of contact is the science of communication, which uses a language or
signs and is involved in all the acts of social life. In this connection, Lkvi-Strauss
has, as we know, endeavoured to interpret society by reference to a theory of
communication which could be regarded as a science combining social anthro-
pology, economics and semiotics, society being marked by the exchange of
messages, the exchange of utilities and the exchange of women (or mates, as
Jakobson specifies). Talcott Parsons, for his part, has described economics as a
specialized language, economic transactions as a type of conversation, the cir-
culation of money as the sending of messages and the monetary system itself as
a code. Taking all these together, Jakobson, in Benveniste’s words, maintains

XL Samy Friedman
and endeavours to show that ‘the problem will be ... to discover the basis
common to language and society, and the principles governing these two struc-
tures, by first defining the units in each which are comparable and bringing out
their interdependence’. Linguistics also has close links with the natural sciences,
particularly biology. Jakobson lays stress on the child’s acquisition of language
which, although subject to strict biologial limitations, does not appear to presup-
pose specific genetic instructions. On the other hand, the recent deciphering of
the DNA code has shown that specific genetic information is conveyed by
means of an alphabet. The genetic code is based on the use of discrete com-
ponents which, by themselves, are meaningless but become senseful if grouped
in a particular way. Linguists and biologists are thus discovering the consistent-
ly hierarchical design of genetic and verbal messages and their integration into
what are termed syntactical units.
Whereas modern linguistic theory seems, on the one hand, to reveal a great
variety of sometimes conflicting doctrines, Roman Jakobson claims that closer
study reveals the existence of a linguistic ‘monolithic whole’, the contradictions
being only superficial whereas the basic tenets show a remarkable general
similarity. The present aim of research is to examine verbal structures, i.e.,
their coherence and the relational and hierarchistic character of their component
parts. Historically influenced by Husserl’s thought and Hegelianlphenomenol-
ogy, the development of structural linguistics is traced back from the efforts of
Baudoin de Courtenay and Kruszewski to Ferdinand de Saussure and his Cows
de linguistique gknkrale, which marks the beginning of a new era in the study
of language. The whole modern science is derived from this, as Jakobson seeks
to show, even when this science develops or corrects Saussure’s thinking. The
chapter concludes with a bibliography of the major linguistic problems studied
between 1958 and 1968, providing very useful references.
A chapter so full of matter may well cause the reader to wonder whether the
extensions that the author attributes to linguistics can in themselves contribute
to the progress of the social sciences or whether they are not to a certain extent
metaphorical. In particular while the linguistic theory of money is suggestive,
does it really advance our knowledge in this field? There is no doubt that Jakob-
son considers that these are much more than merely external correspondences.
At the very least, this should be regarded as the beginning of a rapprochement
between the different disciplines - which is not the least interesting aspect of
this chapter.
The next four chapters deal with the interdisciplinary dimensions of research.
The preceding examination of the main branches of the social sciences, one by
one, has already brought out the many links between them and, to a certain
extent, between them and the natural sciences. It is now necessary to analyse
these interconnections in themselves, and to investigate two special fields in
which the interdisciplinary approach is proving particularly encouraging.
Emphasis is incidentally laid on a characteristic feature of present-day social
sciences which prompts them to work together in examining problems approach-
ed simultaneously from various points of view and by convergent methods.

Foreword XLI
In a chapter of great epistemological interest, Jean Piaget takes up the general
problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms. The author’s
starting point is the observation that, in the natural sciences, interdisciplinary
research is, in a manner of speaking, imposed by the nature of things, since
there is a hierarchical order of the various branches of study and a filiation of
phenomena which continually give rise to problems of reduction. The situation
would appear to be quite different in the social sciences, where it not only seems
impossible to establish an hierarchical order among the various disciplines, but
where the ‘tragic’ compartmentalization of university teaching makes it difficult
to achieve desirable contacts. On a highly abstract plane, therefore, Jean
Piaget suggests that convergent fundamental notions should be found in the
social sciences, as in biology: e.g., structures or forms of organization, functions,
sources of qualitative or energy values, and meanings whose analysis
has a central place in this chapter. Interdisciplinary progress would then appear
to depend on the use of these notions by the various sciences, since interdisciplinary
problems can be grouped or regrouped around these ‘common realities’.
Social scientists who are less interested in questions of metamethodology
than in the problems arising from practical empirical research wil probably
not entirely share this point of view. They may not merely be hesitant about
the meaning to be attached to these notions when not related to any experimental
context, but may also maintain that their intellectual procedure leads in the
opposite direction to the one described. In their view, the interdisciplinary
approach begins at a much less abstract level or, more precisely, they would regard
abstraction as the consequence and result of practical empirical research.
In other words, it could equally well be argued that a single concrete phenomenon,
e.g., the family, may simultaneously be within the field of several
disciplines - sociology, psychology, economics, demography, etc. - the accumulated
knowledge of which must first of all be juxtaposed and combined before
there can be any abstraction and conceptualization which wil make subsequent
integration necessary and possible. But a distinction should perhaps be drawn,
in this respect, between the ‘multi-disciplinary’ approach which leads to practical
rapprochement, and ‘interdisciplinary’ research proper which calls for
Piaget’s level of abstraction, since what is then involved is the investigation of
common mechanisms and not simply collaboration.
This sets the scene for an extremely interesting discussion which, it is to be
hoped, wil be continued once this work has been published, since its progress
and results may have incalculable consequences for interdisciplinary research,
leading perhaps to a circular conception of interdisciplinary progress in the
social sciences in contrast to the vertical progress by reduction which seems to
be largely characteristic of the natural sciences.
This, it would seem, is the level of abstraction adopted by R. Boudon in his
study of the use of mathematical language and models by the social sciences.
Without attempting to give a general picture of the situation in each branch of
science - which would be liable to encroach on the ground already covered in
the ‘disciplinary’ chapters - R. Boudon has instead concentrated first on a gen-

XLII Samy Friedman
era1 description of the mathematics used in the early days of the social sciences
and then on defining the most striking present-day applications. The initial
investigation is of more than merely historical interest. It shows up trends that
are still to be found in science. Game theory, for example, may go back to
Buffon’s work on moral arithmetic; Condorcet’s studies on vote-counting
forshadow modem operational research; Verhulst anticipated the theories on the
spread of epidemics; and the ‘curve-fitting’ tradition is still used for forecasting
in demography as well as in economics or sociology. The author is,
however, particularly concerned with the more up-to-date aspects of mathematics
as applied to the social sciences when he draws attention to the amazing
flood of works (Luce and Bush in psychology, Lazarsfeld and Coleman in sociology,
Alker in political science, as well as those inspired by Kemeny and Snell,
etc.) which have appeared in the scientific field since 1960, and which emphasize
the growing diversification of the uses of mathematics in the social sciences. New
fields of research, in social psychology with measurement theories, in linguistics
with Chomsky’s mathematics, in economics with game theory, in anthropology
with the analysis of kinship structures, etc., bear witness to the vitality of
these new approaches. At the same time, new mathematics are developing:
higher, especially linear, algebra, with Leontieff matrices in &onomics; the stochastic
process theory with Markov chains; Koenig and Berge’s graph theory
which is frequently applied in the analysis of social structures ; simulation
methods successfully used in demography, economics and political sociology
for dealing with the problems of election forecasting, etc. ‘Two forms of naivetd’
are thus increasingly being put aside. The first consists in the belief that, for
some obscure reason, human phenomena cannot be treated mathematically,
which may be considered in conjunction with the similar cautious attitude
towards the application of experimental methods to human phenomena, which
has for a long time held up progress. The second consists in believing that a
language devised for the natural sciences can be directly applied to the social
sciences. In fact, the social sciences require a language of their own, which is
now coming into being through the development of models and the notion of
structure. For these sciences, ‘... it is more often a matter of inventing new
mathematical methods than applying existing ones . .’.
The chapter ends with a description of the models and methods used in the
social sciences; the classification - into theoretical, descriptive and inductive
models - may perhaps be arbitrary, but there are epistemological considerations
behind it. At any rate, it has the great advantage of providing many examples
of the practical uses to which these instruments are put.
The author concludes on a fairly optimistic note. There are many factors -
not least of which is the growing interest of mathematicians in the social
sciences - conducive to the development of mathematical methodology in those
sciences. In spite of limitations which may prove difficult to overcome, mathe-
matical treatment will become increasingly common in the social sciences. There
is no certainty, however, that this will, at least in the near future, result directly
in closer relations between them, not to say uniiication, since the differences are
still so great.

Foreword XLIII
Pierre de Bie takes up an intermediate position. Between theoretical reflexion
and informed action, problem-focused research combines, in varying propor-
tions, theoretical and utilitarian considerations. This field of research is at
present expanding considerably since, sharing some of the characteristics of
both basic and applied research, it relates research closely to social needs. It is
thus included in a system of values, with all the dangers of distortion that this
involves. On this point, the author puts forward a particularly interesting and
original idea which is bound to strike the reader: i.e., that the concept of prob-
lem-focused research may differ from one country to another and may be in-
fluenced by differences in political and social structures. In one sense, all research
in socialist countries could be regarded as problem-focused.
There are countless examples of problem-focused research. Precise descrip-
tions of such research wil be found in the most varied and critical fields; e.g.,
world food shortages, town-planning, criminality, ageing of populations, and
many others which have also led to the development of new branches of the
social sciences. This is a familiar process to which we have already referred in
connection with Paul Lazarsfeld's description of it as one of the peculiar func-
tions of sociology considered as a residual science, i.e., a science dealing with all
the social phenomena which have not yet been studied consistently and thorough-
ly enough to become the subject of a discipline with a clearly defined onomastic
label. This chapter was obviously not the appropriate place for studying the
process by which certain areas of knowledge at a given moment crystallize into
new ordered units of learning. But it might provide a starting-point for historical
thinking to show the part played by problem-focused (or field-induced) research
in the development of these new sciences. It could thus be shown how, in thelast
century, the existence of administrative statistics and the appearance of urgent
problems relating to prison organization, the treatment of criminals, and the
nature of criminality, led to the development of a science of criminology, in-
dependent of sociology. Similar considerations would probably apply to demog-
raphy and other sciences, such as politicaI science, gerontology, town-plan-
ning, etc.
The difficulties of problem-focused research (which, incidentally, is most
often multidisciplinary but may also be monodisciplinary, e.g., Quesnay and the
Physiocrats anxious to discover rules of conduct applicable to States and indivi-
duals alike, psychologists concerned with guidance problems and the installa-
tion and equipment of hospitals and schools, and sociologists dealing with the
problems of human relations in industry or race relations) are crucial to this
important work. They derive from the relations existing between research and
action. Here the author shows clearly the two types of problems to which these
relations give rise : a problem of communication and collaboration between
research-workers and policy-makers; and the nature of the gap existing between
knowledge and decision-making or action. The first problem is probably one of
organization and institutional relations. The second is an intellectual question
of correlation between the problems of action and the categories of research.
Problem-focused research has made a genuine contribution to basic research
and, in many sectors, has proved the usefulness of the social sciences.The author

XLW Samy Friedman
rightly considers that it will have a great future with regard to town and country
planning, education and demography, not to mention youth and the status of
women, where a great revolution is taking place, and where, paradoxically, there
has still been no consistent development of interdisciplinary problem-focused
research. This great future is to be discerned even in such unexpected, but very
appropriate, fields as oecumenism - to which the author draws special attention.
Oecumenism, considered sociologically in relation to the rapprochement between
the nations and their mutually interdependent development, entails a whole
series of investigations on the contacts between religious groups, the organiza-
tion of the church, the meaning of worship, the presentation and nature of the
religious message and its inclusion in a modern system of values whose impor-
tance cannot be disregarded - all these investigations being directed towards
an attempt to achieve a deliberate change in structures and behaviour.
It has already been remarked that any social science is in principle a compara-
tive science. But when comparative study is combined with internationaliza-
tion, and an attempt is made to coordinate the collection and analysis of data
beyond the bounds of individual cultures, societies and political entities, it
becomes possible to identify with a very high degree of refinement the variables
and constants that condition the operation and development of human societies.
This is an ideal experimental field in which Stein Rokkan, by his personal
research and activities, has made a major contribution. His chapter on cross-cul-
tural, cross-sociefal and cross-national research provides a perfect illustration of
this new dimension of research, which also marks a particularly fruitful trend in
the social sciences.
Stein Rokkan’s discussion of the development of cross-cultural studies and
the institutional and organizational efforts which have favoured their spread is
most interesting. Particularly striking is his very thorough analysis of the history
of comparative research and thevarious traditions which have grown up since the
last century. Rokkan emphasizes the considerable effort which has been made
to improve the basic data for use in this research and to define the various
scientific strategies used for dealing with the ever-increasing mass of information
available. In this field, progress has been due both to the development of tech-
nology and to the establishment of various research bodies - academic, com-
mercial and international - which have made it possible to establish efficient
contacts. The author clearly shows how much is owed, in this respect, to centres
of the Roper, Gallup or International Research Associates type, or again to
the work of the o.E.c.D., the International Bank, the United Nations and its
Specialized Agencies. Mention may also be made, in this context, of the re-
search sponsored by the Hamburg Institute of Education and the spectacular
success of the study undertaken by the European Co-ordination Centre for
Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (Vienna), which was set up as
the result of action by UNESCO, as well as of umsco’s efforts in conjunction with
the International Social Science Council to develop an infrastructure for com-
parative cross-cultural research by promoting better international facilities
with regard to methods and sources of information and access to data for
analysis.

Foreword XLV
What contribution does cross-cultural research make to the theoretical
development of the social sciences? Without reverting to matters covered in
the other ‘disciplinary’ chapters and the references made, from the point of
view of sociology, political science and cultural anthropology, to cross-national
comparisons, Stein Rokkan lays stress on typologies and their influence on
decisions concerning the cultural and geographical range of comparisons at the
level of communities, households and individuals. The chosen field is that of
nation-building. Modern comparative students either try to identify one type
of polity which is then used as a paradigm for the comparison of historical
cases (Eisenstadt), or to compare leading or innovating polities over a given
period (Deutsch), or again to compare all polities within one culturally and
historically homogeneous region (Almond-Pye). More recently, attention has
been turned to the investigation and explanation of the choice of Clite strategies,
either by large-nation comparisons across contrasting cultural areas (Bendix,
Moore)or by comparisons of all units within a relatively uniform cultural
context. This involves comparison between small nations, which is preferred by
Lipset and Rokkan himself when studying democratization processes and the
development of party systems in Western Europe. The purpose is to construct
a strictly defined model for identifying the variables which make it possible to
account for changes observed in the operation of a pluralistic political system
with universal suffrage. ‘Instead of proceeding as if the socio-cultural distinc-
tions determine political behaviour, . . . the new emphasis is on the parties as
agencies of mass mobilization and on the socio-cultural divisions within the
electorate as so many openings for or barriers against efforts of mobilization.’
The methodological implications of this approach are naturally examined in
detail and the reader is referred to the chapter itself. It should be noted, however,
how very promising this method is for examining, demonstrating and explaining
the internal incentives and mechanisms of societies.
What are the implications, as regards organization andfinancing, of the develop-
ment of scientific knowledge which the first two sections of the work have en-
deavoured to portray as thoroughly, extensively and faithfully as possible? E.
Trist’s chapter on this subject cannot be regarded as a complete answer, since
the question is at once so vast, so complex and so novel in formulation. It is
only in the last few years that there has been any serious thinking on science
policy in the social sciences. There are few really sound studies in the field and
the research worker has very few coherent data to go on. There is, however,
great interest in the subject, which is stimulated by the development of research
on the allocation of human and financial resources and the efficacy of the
choices which countries have to make for the present as well as for the future.
A limited survey was therefore undertaken by E. Trist and the UNESCO Secre-
tariat, based on a widely-distributed questionnaire and studies on a dozen
countries. Details are given in this last chapter of the Study, which shows that
the situation, of the greatest interest for the future of our societies, is developing
rapidly.
First of all, it should be noted that the social sciences, at least in the United

XLVI Samy Friedman
States of America- but this example is being followed elsewhere- have become
‘big science’ in that they attract substantial investments which, in many cases,
have increased more, relatively speaking, than investments in the natural
sciences. Everywhere, however, with very few exceptions, there is a more or less
marked separation between the university and teaching, on the one hand, and
research, on the other. Everywhere, the financing - if there is any - is haphazard
or badly co-ordinated, in spite of many sporadic efforts to set up central bodies
with more or less extensive functions in regard to science policy. Manpower
resources, which are relatively large in the developed countries, are scarce in
others and, even so, work is hampered, here and there, for various reasons, by
poor research organization and a marked ‘brain drain’.
The situation calls for remedies which are available to States, although this
does not mean that they are easy to apply. The first thing to do is to establish
modem social science institutions. The separation of these sciences from phi-
losophy has not generally been accompanied by any corresponding institutional
reorganization, as a result of which both teaching and research are greatly
dispersed - a situation described by Piaget as ‘tragic’ because it prevents the
necessary regrouping of different branches of science. The next thing is to re-
duce the cultural lag which is too often to be seen between the present state of
knowledge and the university scholar’s idea of his r61e in society - what E. Trist
calls the ‘dysfunctional persistence of academic individualism’. Historically
everything points to the idea that research was left free provided it remained
‘pure’, i.e., left to the isolated research worker, safe in his ivory tower after
going through a few compulsory rites of passage. This phase is no longer fitted
to the situation in consequence of the ever-greater inter-penetration of science
and technology, and the need for collective as well as individual research. As E.
Trist shows in striking terms, the persistence of this dysfunction is revealed in
Europe by the universities’ opposition to any but basic research, and by the
academic individualism which encourages the maintenance of small units,
dissipation of effort and an overloading of the educational system itself, made
worse by the increase in the numbers of students. Individualism can no longer
be the predominant philosophy. The university and society must work to-
gether. New institutional resources should be devised to promote large-scale,
long-term research, which implies new forms of co-operation between official
and professional sources, with due respect for individual freedom, and a new
type of ethics in the relations between research workers in a given group. This
could have important consequences as regards closer co-operation, if not uni-
fication, of the various branches of science and its overall progress.
All this, as E. Trist rightly points out, leads to the conclusion that a deter-
mined planning drive must be undertaken in every field, to secure a rational
distribution of activities among the universities, technical colleges and research
institutes, and the allocation of adequate manpower, having regard to the
present available resources. In the case of small and, more especially, of devel-
oping countries, very careful choices have to be made to achieve satisfactory
development in a few specified directions - since it is impossible to do every-
thing - in other words, to achieve specialization offset by rational development

Foreword XLVII
of regional or international co-operation. The work thus closes with an appeal
for reason and enlightened action - an appeal addressed not only to scientists,
but to individual States and to international organizations themselves.
NOTES
I. Current Trends in Scientific Research. Survey of the main trends of inquiry in the
field of the natural sciences, the dissemination of scientific knowledge and the applica-
tion of such knowledge for peaceful ends, by Pierre Auger, Special Consultant, New
York, United Nations; Paris, UNESCO, 1961.
2. No attempt was made, for example, to standardize terms stemming from different
intellectual traditions (e.g., social sciences, human sciences, sciences of man, behav-
ioural sciences), or even different linguistic usages employed by the authors as they
saw fit (e.g., variable, variate).
3. Cf., inter alia, the chapters ‘Sociology’ by P. F. Lazarsfeld, p. 61, and ‘Cross-
cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research’ by S. Rokkan, p. 645.
4. Cf. the Postface to the second edition of Sagesses et illusions de la philosophie.
5. Cf. Paul LazarsfeId’s discussion of social psychology on p. 135 of Chapter I.

INTRODUCTION
The place of the sciences of man
in the system of sciences
JEAN PIAGET
This introductory chapter deals with the epistemological characteristics of the
sciences of man in terms of their objectivity, of the means of observing or
experimenting in them, and of the relationships they establish between theory
and experience. We shall examine their links with the natural sciences, with the
philosophies and with the principal current ideological and cultural trends.
But in the very first place it behoves us to explain exactly what we understand
by the ‘sciences of man’ and therefore to begin with an attempted classification.
I. Classification of social disciplines and ‘human sciences’
The distribution of disciplines among university faculties varies greatly from
one country to another and cannot be used as a basis for classification. We shall
confine ourselves here to pointing out that no distinction can be drawn between
the disciplines frequently referred to as the ‘social sciences’ and those known as
the ‘human sciences’, since social phenomena clearly depend upon all human
characteristics, including psycho-physiological processes, while reciprocally the
human sciences are all social, viewed from one angle or another. Such a dis-
tinction could only make sense (and that is the assumption on which it was
based) if it were possible to dissociate in man what pertains to the particular
society in which he lives from what is common to the whole of humanity. Many
thinkers, of course, remain favourable to such a distinction, tending to oppose
inborn traits to those acquired in a given physical or social environment, so
that ‘human nature’ is seen to rest upon the sum of hereditary characteristics.
But the idea is fast gaining ground that the innate consists mainly in abilities to
function, irrespective of inherited, ready-prepared structures1 (unlike the in-
stincts, most of which are hereditarily ‘programmed’): speech, for instance, is
acquired socially but is related to a brain centre (Broca’s convolution); if this
centre is damaged before the faculty of speech has been acquired, other cortical
areas not intended for that use wil take over its functions. Nothing therefore
prevents us from concluding that, contrary to the ideas prevailing in Rousseau’s

2 Jean Piaget
day, the need to belong to a particular society is one of the essential parts of
‘human nature’, with the result that there is a growing trend towards doing away
with any distinction between the sciences known as ‘social’ and those known as
‘human’.
On the other hand, other sub-divisions must necessarily be made in the wide
range of disciplines which relate to man’s multitudinous activities; for as we
have seen in the Preface, the present volume wil only deal with a limited number
of them, and only with those that can be called ‘nomothetic’ or ‘law-seeking’. But
not every study bearing upon man or society sets itself such a task. We shall
therefore attempt to reduce these disciplines to four main groups, it being
understood from the outset that this classit%cation, as it is usual, includes some
typical examples but also a somewhat smaller number of border-line cases
which constitute bridges between the clear-cut categories.
I. We shall name ‘nomothetic’ sciences those disciplines which are concerned
with identifying ‘laws’, sometimes in the sense of quantitative relations which
are comparatively constant and can be expressed in the form of mathematical
functions, but also in the sense of plain factual information or ordinal relations,
structural analyses, etc., which can be described in everyday language or in more
or less formalized language (logic, etc.).
Scientific psychology, sociology, ethnology, linguistics, economics and
demography clearly fall into the category of ‘law-seeking’ disciplines in the wide
sense described above. A psychologist may, of course, study individual cases
and work on differential psychology, the linguist may study a particular language
or launch into typology, etc. But, however narrowly confined the field of
research may be, the work itself is still concerned with comparison and classification
aiming at generalization and at the identification of laws, even if the
laws in question are only related to questions of frequency, distribution or range
of variations (and even if, for reasons of prudence, the use of the term ‘laws’ is
avoided).
In addition, it goes without saying that under each of these disciplines, research
bears in part on phenomena disposed in a diachronic order, that is to
say, having a ‘history’. Thus in linguistics, a study among others may be undertaken
on the history of languages; or in so-called ‘genetic’ psychology the
development of behaviour may be investigated; and so on. It is on this historical
plane, which is of fundamental importance in many cases, that some sectors of
the nomothetic sciences meet some of those we shall below call the historical
sciences. Some differences are nevertheless to be found between these diachronic
researches, proper to the nomothetic disciplines, and similar research in historical
disciplines, although naturally intermediate positions can always be found. In
the case of individual development (language, intelligence, etc.) historical changes
are repeated in each generation and can therefore involve experimental controls
and even a variation of factors, in such a way that the main objective remains
the seeking of laws, in this case the ‘laws of development’. In research on collective
historical changes, such as the development of languages, economic structures,
etc., law-seeking is still to be found, whether the purpose is to explain a

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 3
given general structure by reference to its past (which brings us back to the laws
of development) or, on the contrary, to explain previous historical facts (such as
interest rates on an ancient market) by means of synchronistic laws currently
verifiable.
A second basic characteristic, as important as the identification or discovery
of laws which is proper to the nomothetic sciences, distinguishes these from the
three categories n, III and IV which we shall examine later: it is the use of experi-
mental research methods - whether of a rigorous nature such as those used, for
instance, in biology (and which are found to be essential today in most areas of
scientific psychological research) or of a broader nature as in systematic obser-
vation supported by statistical verification, the analysis of ‘variances’, the
control of implicit relations (analysis of counter-examples), etc. We shall dis-
cuss the methodological problems of the nomothetic sciences of man later (under
3 and 4) but the methods of verification, whether simple or complex, whereby
schematic theories are controlled by factual experience, constitute the most
general distinctive characteristic of these disciplines as compared with those
described below.
A third basic characteristic must be added to the two preceding ones, namely
the tendency to focus research on a limited number of variables at a time.
Naturally it is not always possible to isolate factors, as in physics (and this
comment holds good from biology onwards), although some statistical proces-
ses (analysis of variances) may in some cases allow for the respective influences
of several variables to be judged. But between the natural sciences, whose
experimental methods allow for a clear separation of variables, and the histori-
cal sciences, in which the variables are sometimes inextricably entangled, the
nomothetic sciences of man have at their disposal intermediary strategies with
aims closer to those of the first group.
11. We shall call historical sciences those disciplines the purpose of which is to
reconstitute and interpret the unfolding of all manifestations of social life across
time. Whether concerned with the life of individuals whose actions have left a
mark on the society they lived in, of their works, of ideas whichmay haveexerted
a lasting influence, of techniques and sciences, of literature and the arts, of phi-
losophy and religions, of institutions, of economic and other exchanges and of
civilization in general, history deals with everything that affects collective life,
whether it can be examined singly or as part of a complex.
The question which arises immediately is that of determining whether or not
the historical sciences form a separate unit with its own clear and distinct
characteristics, or whether they simply represent the diachronic side of each of
the nomothetic, legal or philosophical disciplines. This chapter is not concerned
with trends but with the current status of the questions dealt with. We therefore
do not need to consider whether the historical sciences are only of ephemeral
value, ultimately to be absorbed into the other categories, but simply to explain
why this paper, while constantly stressing the importance of the diachronic
dimension of phenomena, wil nevertheless draw a distinction between the
historical and the nomothetic sciences and finally deal only with the latter,

4 Jean Piaget
since history itself appears today to show certain specific and comparatively
stable characteristics.
Even though every kind of link is to be found between the nomothetic and the
historical analysis of unfolding phenomena or events in time, there does seem
to be a fairly marked difference between them due to a complementary relation-
ship in their approach to the temporal sequence of events. Four main factors
may be observed in this connexion: a) determinations due to developments
(development consisting of a regular or even sequential series of qualitative
transformations resulting in a progressive structuring) ; b) determinations aris-
ing from synchronic self-balancing due to built-in dynamics; c) interference or
haphazard events; and d) individual or collective ‘decisions’. Now when the
nomothetic disciplines examine a temporal series of events, whether styled
‘historical’ or not, their efforts are constantly directed towards the identifica-
tion of laws and consequently towards the necessary elimination of variables to
achieve that result. They will thus endeavour to find sequential laws (a); or
laws of equilibrium (b); in the case of haphazard phenomena (c) they will not
deal with isolated cases which defy classification but examine mass effects with
a view to arriving at conjectural laws; in the case of decisions (d) they will deal
less with their content than with their processing so far as it can be analysed on
a probabilist basis (theory of games or decision). The historian’s purpose, on
the contrary, although complementary (even if, as today, he uses all the nomo-
thetic data) is not that of abstracting variables with a view to the identification of
laws, but to grasp each historical process in its complexity and consequently in
its original and irreducible meaning. When a given development (a) or self-
balancing of events (b) occurs, the historian, even if interested in the under-
lying laws in so far as they help him to understand the meaning of the event, is
seeking the particular characteristics involved, precisely because they, rather
than the law, are particular to the event. As far as haphazard events (c) are
concerned, it goes without saying that the historian deals with their individual
content which, although impossible to calculate, can be reconstituted, such
reconstitution being in fact one of the historian’s tasks. In the same way, it is
the content of decisions (d) which are of principal interest to historians, repre-
senting as they do the continuing renewal of the history of humanity in the form
of response to specific situations (an inextricable mixture of determination and
chance (a) and (c).
In short, however close the link between the nomothetic and the historical
sciences may be, and however dependent one may be on the other, their aims
are complementary and therefore separate even when they are dealing with the
same subject: the need to abstract in the fist corresponds to the need to recon-
stitute reality in the second, the latter being quite as primordial a function in the
understanding of mankind, but distinct from that of identifying laws.
It is true that the term ‘the laws of history’ is often used; but when it is not
invoked as a metaphor to further political ends, it is used with reference to
standard cycles, as in sociology (the phases of revolutions, for example),
economics, etc. In the latter cases, the cycles observed enter ipso facto into the
field of particular nomothetic sciences, the methods of which can naturally be

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 5
applied by the historian himself, acting as a sociologist or economist, etc., these
methods being quite different from those of mere observation or reconstitution
already referred to and providing the only means of carrying out the necessary
verifications. In this connexion we should draw attention to a broad contem-
porary trend to consider history as a science based on quantification and struc-
tures (F. Braudel, J. Kruithof, J. Craebeckx, 0. Lebran, etc.)? an idea which
opens up many interesting possibilities, but which would today turn history
into the diachronic side of sociology and economics, although it might in the fu-
ture transform the historical disciplines in such a way as to make their main
purpose that of working out a synthesis of the diachronic dimensions of all the
human sciences.
In addition, many branches of history are of course closely concerned with
the study of more or less autonomous developments in the sense defined above.
The history of the sciences provides one example, and the history of mathemat-
ics holds an exceptional place within that framework by virtue of its inherent
characteristics of progressive structuring. It thus meets on a common ground the
central problems of the psychology of intelligence, of the socio-genesis of the
acquisition of knowledge and of scientific epistemology.
III. The legal sciences are set apart by the fact that the norms which, grouped
together, form the laws they are concerned with differ fundamentally from
the more or less general relationships forming the ‘laws’ dealt with by the nomo-
thetic sciences. A norm is not set by the identification of existing relationships.
It belongs to a quite separate category of what might be described as ‘duties”
(solZen). It thus lays down obligations and attributions which remain valid even
if violated or not observed, whereas a natural law is based on causal determinism
or conjectural reasoning and its validity depends exclusively on its agreement
with facts.
Although this is a very clear-cut distinction, a border-line area exists in
which the legal sciences as such and the other sciences meet. The history of
law, in so far as it deals with the history of legal institutions (not to mention
the history of theories) can no longer, of course, be considered as a normative
discipline, but as an analysis of realities which were - and sometimes still are -
recognized as norms by the societies involved, while at the same time consti-
tuting historical facts, for the legal historian among others. This dual point of
view, in which the central fact, whether past or present, is considered as a norm
by the subject and an event by the observer, is even more clearly seen in one
of the truly nomothetic disciplines, legal sociology, in which legal behaviour
is studied from the point of view of social phenomena. The purpose of legal
sociology, unlike legal science, is not to study normative values but, and this is
quite different, to analyse the socia1 phenomena invoIved in the establishment
and the working of such norms. The term ‘normative facts’ has been happily
introduced into the general vocabulary of this discipline by its specialists to
describe that which constitutes a norm for the subject, and at the same time an
object of analysis for the observer engaged in studying both the behaviour of
the subject and the norms he recognizes as objective facts. This concept has

6 Jean Piaget
general application, as in the study of ethics, where the sociologist is not con-
cerned with the validity of the norms accepted by the subjects but seeks to
discover the process which has led them to consider themselves bound to ob-
serve those norms. In the same way, ‘normative facts’ are studied in genetic
psychology when the question is to discover how subjects who were originally
insensitive to certain logical norms come to regard them as essentials through
a process depending partly on their life in the community and partly on the
internal structuration of the action envisaged. In short, although the legal field
may generally be considered as normative, it is found to give rise, as in the
other nomothetic fields, to factual studies and causal analyses of individual or
collective behaviour related to the given norms, and such studies are then
necessarily of a nomothetic nature.
In particular, when a legal school considers that the ‘sollen’ of a norm of
law does no more than express the will of the State and through it, that of the
social forces or classes governing the society, the law cannot be included in the
category of ‘must be’, but belongs to the field of purely material relations which
can be studied objectively. For those concerned with norms, however, this
would belong to legal sociology.
Chapter VII provides other examples of relations between the legal sciences
and research on various other categories, in particular logic.
IV. Finally we come to the group of philosophical disciplines, which are particu-
larly difficult to classify, if only on account of the lack of agreement among
its proponents as to the scope and extent, and even the unity, of the various
branches usually included under this heading.
The only statement that cannot be challenged, since it appears to be common
to all schools of thought, is that the purpose of philosophy is to attain a general
co-ordination of human values, that is to say a concept of the world which
takes into account not only acquired knowledge and a critical evaluation of
such knowledge, but also the sum of man’s multitudinous convictions and values
in every context. Philosophy therefore goes further than the objective sciences
and places them in relation to a group of evaluations and meanings ranging
from customs to metaphysics in the strict sense.
The divergences of opinion start from the point at which the nature of this
postulate is studied in relation to the totality of reality. For certain thinkers,
philosophy is essentially a form of wisdom, a ‘setting into motion’, as Jaspers
says, whereas all clearly-established knowledge clearly falls into the field of
specialized learning in the strictest sense of science. For others, including several
dialecticians, the study of philosophy calls above all for awareness of dialectical
processes arising from ‘science on the march’ and from a commitment to take
options. For others finally, like Husserl, philosophy attains real wisdom, higher
than scientific knowledge - although positivism and several non-positivist
writers contest that possibility from an epistemological point of view.
We need not enter into the debate at this point (it will in any case be referred
to later in connexion with the relationship between the nomothetic sciences and
philosophical trends (section 5 below)) but shall confine ourselves to deter-

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences
mining which disciplines may be classified as philosophical as opposed to
nomothetic among the sciences of man. This division of disciplines, however,
is precisely the problem we face, for the reasons already given and mainly
because of a historical process, initiated in the 19th century and gaining more
and more ground today: the splitting off of a number of branches, original-
ly philosophical, into autonomous and specialized disciplines. This was the
case of sociology and particularly of psychology, as we shall see shortly in
connexion with the history of the nomothetic sciences. But it was also the case
for logic; and today it largely holds good for scientific epistemology. For on the
one hand, modern logic has turned into a quasi-mathematical discipline, with
its own methods and a field of research independent of any metaphysical con-
siderations; and on the other hand, each of the natural and human sciences
tends to work out its own epistemology, which is more closely linked with that
of the other disciplines than it is concerned with metaphysical speculation.
But the most difficult problem raised in connexion with these two branches
of learning is that of determining their position in relation to the scientific
disciplines in general and to the nomothetic sciences of man in particular. On
the one hand, scientific learning is undoubtedly a human activity, and although
logic and scientific epistemology contribute essential and verifiable information
without necessarily involving philosophy in its traditional, academic sense, it
goes without saying that the nomothetic sciences of man are also closely con-
cerned with those two disciplines. In particular, a close relationship is to be
found between research on the psycho-genesis of intelligence and what has been
called genetic epistemology, i.e. the study of the process of learning as it de-
velops. But on the other hand logic, whose processes are essentially self-evident,
is closer to mathematics than to any other discipline, and scientific epistemology
has so far only won its laurels in the field of mathematics and physics. These
new disciplines should therefore be seen as one link among many others between
the sciences of man and the natural sciences or deductive disciplines, and this
together with other factors clearly shows how complex is the relationship
between the nomothetic sciences of man and the overall system of sciences.
Nevertheless and despite the many intermediate stages we have noted by way
of example, the division of the various sciences and disciplines into the four
categories mentioned above seems to correspond to the present state of knowl-
edge and gives the nomothetic sciences of man a natural and relatively independ-
ent status.
2. Major trends in the history of the nomothetic sciences
The purpose of this study is not to provide a historical background for the
nomothetic sciences of man, which can be found in many other works. However,
in order to bring out the main present trends in these sciences, some basic
facts are needed, and it may prove useful to recall their historical antecedents;
in otherwords, the past trends from which the present movements are descended,
either directly or by way of reaction.

8 Jean Piaget
The problem can be stated in the following terms: Ever since the first thinkers
and teaching systems, there have always been discussions on psychology,
linguistics, sociology and economics. The Germania of Tacitus, for instance,
touches on cultural anthropology, while geographers in every age have had to
consider demographic problems. In general there have always been speculation
and commentary on the activities of man, and every philosophical system has
in some respect outlined or adumbrated the specialized disciplines with which we
are here concerned. But systematic or episodic speculation is one thing, while
the formation of a science as such, with a list of specifically defined problems
and its own sophisticated methods, is another. To put it more precisely, there
is all the difference between a dissertation and a process of observation and -
more important - of verification. The problem is then to analyse the factors
which have brought the present disciplines from the pre-scientific stage to the
state, or at least the ideal, of the nomothetic sciences. Five such factors can be
distinguished:
I. The first is the tendency towards comparison, which is far from being as
generalized and natural as might be supposed. The two most ready tendencies
of spontaneous thought, and even of speculation at its initial stages, are to
assume that one stands at the center of the world, both spiritual and material,
and to elevate one’s own rules or even habits into universal standards. The
construction of a science can in no way be founded upon such an initial
centering with further knowledge simply piled on by addition; the additive
process must also be systematic, and the prerequisite for objective systematiza-
tion is decentering away from the personal point of view which was dominant
at the start. The comparative approach brings about this decentering, while at
the same time broadening the law-seeking process to the point where the knowl-
edge becomes amenable to a variety of reference systems.
This comparative approach emerges particularly clearly in the history of
linguistics, which dates back two or three thousand years and witnessed many
attempts at systematization before the present age (cf. for example, the semantic
efforts made in the Middle Ages). Speculation on the meaning of words begins
at the teaching stage, and it is therefore legitimate to ask why the creation of
scientific linguistics has not come about faster or more purposefully. The answer
is clearly that in the early stages, speculation on words as such remained subject
to two forms of subjectivism: psychological, until many other terms of compari-
son emerge, and legalistic, i.e. leading people to believe that the science of
language is no more than grammar, and that the grammar of a language is a
more or less direct reflection of universal logic.
Teaching of the humanities did, of course, bring about some degree of de-
centering together with the notion of the historical descents of languages
(cf. 1.n above). In addition to his Grammaire de Port-Royal, Lancelot also
produced a work entitled Jardin des racines grecques, but the title alone of his
joint study with Arnauld, Grammaire gtntrale et raisonnte, provides sufficient
proof of the law-seeking centering just referred to.3 F. Bopp’s strictly comparative
approach in his Grammaire comparte des langues indo-europe‘ennes is the first

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 9
real example of the decentering essential to a scientific approach, and we can
readily understand why it came so late.
A very similar phenomenon is evident in sociology, where the first speculations
on society were dominated both by an obsession with the social cell,
derived from a very long tradition, and by legalistic preoccupations which
failed to distinguish between sociology and politics - and this does not mean that
greater objectivity in sociology cannot have political implications. The comparative
and decentered approach is so difficult in this case that Rousseau, seeking
examples for his speculation on the social phenomenon in primitive rather than
civilized behaviour (which represents a considerable advance over the ideas of
his time), thought up the ‘noble savage’ - an individual existing before society,
but upon whom he conferred, without realizing it, all the characteristics of
morality, rationality and even legalistic deduction which sociology has since
taught us to be the products of community life. This noble savage is the product
of an imagination which is so barely decentered that it bears an astonishingly
close likeness to Rousseau himself composing the Social Contract. The same
phenomenon reappeared in the middle of the 19th century when one of the
founders of cultural anthropology, Tylor, in order to explain the animism
peculiar to ‘primitive’ civilization, invented a ‘philosophical savage’ who reasons
about dreams, sickness and death very much after the fashion of an Anglo-
Saxon empiricist placed in the state of ignorance of a non-civilized man but
speculating in the manner of Hume and his peers. Nevertheless, Tylor took
a great step forward when, through his efforts to collect not just ideas but facts,
he hit upon the comparative approach.
This was the direction, i.e. decentration in relation to immediate social
experience, which was followed by the founders of modern sociology in the
19th century. There is no need for us here to assess the success or inadequacy
of their efforts, which were followed by many others. Thus the purpose of
Comte’s Law of the Three States is to detach scientific thought from the level
of collective representation and to situate it in relation to other intellectual
attitudes.
The Marxist system consists in a vast effort to situate ideologies in relation
to social classes, Durkheim’s aim is to situate our collective representations
in relation to the elementary stages of socio-genesis, etc. In each of these
instances, the chief decentering action consists in ceasing to take individual
thought as the source of collective reality, and in considering the individual as
the product of a social process.
The decentering process which psychology had to undergo before it
could become a science was of a different kind, but also led to comparative
approaches. Under the influence of law-seeking tendencies, philosophical
psychology was centred on the ego as the immediate expression of the soul and
the method, which seemed adequate at that stage was that of introspection.
After a long process involving systematic comparisons between the normal and
the pathological, between adult and child, man and animal, etc., the genera1
position which eventually came to prevail in scientific psychology was that
conscience can only be understood when placed within the context of ‘conduct’,

IO Jean Piaget
which implies methods of observation and experiment that will be discussed
later.
If we compare the many developments of macro-economics (and of micro-
economics, to which we shall revert in connexion with the theory of games) in
the early days of economic science with Adam Smith‘s Inquiry into the Nature
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations or, in more general terms, Rousseau’s
Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inigalite‘, we cannot help being struck
by the decentration that has taken place since the time of that abstraction, homo
oeconomicus - an image of the individual in certain restricted and very specialized
social situations. Whether in the Marxist doctrine of alienation, the probabilistic
and statistical analyses of Keynes, or modem econometrics, we cannot fail to
notice this basic phenomenon of the comparative and centrifugal approach.
It should also be pointed out that this phenomenon, which makes for increas-
ed objectivity in sociology and economics, is often dependent on the evolution
of society itself. For instance, the problem of social classes (which was noticed
by Thierry, Mignet and Guizot as early as at the beginning of the 19th century)
only achieved its full expression in the light of the well-known economic trans-
formations that took place later.
II. Several of the examples just quoted show that a second trend must neces-
sarily be added to the first: the historical or genetic tendency. One of the main
differences between the pre-scientific stage of our disciplines and their establish-
ment as autonomous and methodical sciences lies in the gradual discovery that
directly-experienced individual or social states which appear to give rise to
intuitive or immediate knowledge are in fact the product of an historical process
or development which has to be known before its results can be understood.
This is again a form of decentration, in a sense, but in addition to providing
an opportunity for comparison, it also offers a means of explanation in so far
as the developments in question are related causally.
Linguistics was naturally the first of the sciences of man to benefit from this
historical approach, since enough of the text of the mother languages has been
preserved in written documents to make it possible to reconstruct the history of
the principal modern civilized languages. The links are sufficiently obvious to
have led very early, even in the absence in certain cases of proved methods, to
etymological research, which seemed to be the basis of linguistic science long
before de Saussure systematically distinguished between synchronic and dia-
chronic questions.
Being based on history, sociology has likewise had access to numerous docu-
ments concerning the past of our societies and civilizations. Nevertheless, in
this field where facts are relatively accessible, it is surprising to note that the
problem of evolution was not grasped until a late stage, owing to the fact that
all attention was initially focused on the supposedly unchanging nature of man
and the standards governing social life, also regarded as an equally constant
emanation of human nature. Following in the wake of certain predecessors, in-
cluding perhaps Comenius4 and Vico, Hegel was no doubt the first to perceive,
on a still essentially conceptual rather than factual basis, the sociological

Tle place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences I I
dimension of history, by applying dialectics to the process of social change.
It is hardly necessary to recall how Marx developed this trend, but by advanc-
ing from the concept to the facts and by generalizing the application of the
historical dialectic to economic structures and to the sociological analysis of
ideologies.
One of the decisive factors in the establishment of the human sciences along
genetic lines was the discovery, or rediscovery, by Darwin of the evolution of
organized species. For it follows logically that if man is no longer regarded as an
immutable creation with an absolute beginning, all the problems connected with
his activities must be reframed in completely new terms. No longer able to refer
back to an initial condition including, in planned or predetermined form, all
the compulsive factors which determine human nature, enquirers found them-
selves confronted with questions of causal explanation, which obliged them to
consider through what actual factors the human species, as distinct from the
animal, had come to construct languages, societies and a mental life, to create
techniques and an economic organization, in short to father those innumerable
structures of which only the existence and most obvious functions had hitherto
been known. From then on the problem was to understand how they had come
about. Even if the origins of this historical process are lost in the mists of
human paleontology, every question of transformation, both past and present,
takes on a new meaning in the evolutionary context, since it calls for an explan-
atory analysis. Comte’s positivist doctrine, which failed to take account of the
evolutionary teachings of Lamarck and was propounded before Darwin, could
reduce the scientific ideal to the mere function of forecasting on the basis of
laws. The problem now, in the light of evolutionary theory, is to reach a much
deeper understanding of the ‘mode of production’ of phenomena, condemned
by Comte but indefatigably pursued by the nomothetic sciences of man and the
natural sciences.
While Darwin’s evolutionary theory undoubtedly influenced sociology, and
in particular Spencer, its effect on scientific psychology was even more direct,
since mental activity and behaviour are more closeIy linked to organic states.
Darwin himself is one of the founders of comparative psychology through his
studies on the expression of the emotions. In human psychology, while we know
very little about the intellectual and emotional functions of prehistoric man, be-
ing familiar only with his techniques, the concept of evolution gave rise to that
kind of ‘mental embryology’ which is child psychology, not forgetting its close
relations with psychopathology, which is the study of the disintegrations
matching the integrations that accompany development. This is the reason why,
in the USA at the end of the 19th century, the study of the formation of mental
structures in children was known as ‘genetic psychology’.
UI. A third determining influence in the development of the sciences of man was
the model offered by the natural sciences, Two different types of factors must
here be distinguished. The first is the influence exerted by positivist philosophy
and the various forms of metaphysical scientism current in the 19th century,
when the climate might have seemed favourable to the general extension of the

12 Jean Piaget
scientiiic spirit to all branches of knowledge. It was against this background that
Taine, for instance, attempted to base literary criticism on naturalist considerations
and wrote a work on Intelligence, which he sought to reduce to a ‘polyptree
of images’. In fact, this philosophic factor has tended more towards a
general attitude or motivation of belittlement than to detailed objective research.
On the other hand, a second factor, more or less bound up kith the
lirst in some authors but quite distinct in others, consists in the inhence of the
‘models’ used in the natural sciences, the success of which led people to wonder
whether they might not be utilized with similar good results in the sciences of
man.
The early stages of experimental psychology in the field of perception provide
a clear example. The physiology of the nervous system offers a variety of processes
in which an external stimulant triggers off a reaction; the sequences can be
analysed both qualitatively and quantitively. In cases where the reaction is
accompanied by such states of consciousness as sensations or perceptions, it
was obviously necessary to attempt an objective evaluation and to determine
the exact relationship between the physical stimulus and the way in which it was
perceived. This led to ‘psycho-physics’, many of whose results are still valid
today: a trail was blazed in the middle of the 19th century by such men as
Weber, Fechner, Helmholtz, Hering and many others, which is still not exhausted
and whose basic problem remains the co-ordination of physiology and
psychological analysis.
In the same way, Galton’s anthropometrics raised general problems of measurement
involving methods of statistical analysis and correlation, and this
effort can be taken as one of the starting points of the techniques of testing.
We shall pursue this matter no further at the present stage since section 6
below deals with the general problem of the relationship between the sciences of
man and the natural sciences. It may be noted here, however, that while the first
effects of this convergence were characterized mainly by a tendency to reduce
the new problems, the later stages in the historical development of this research
showed, first, that the use of models taken from the natural sciences in no way
precluded consideration of the specificity of higher phenomena; and secondly,
that several of the techniques developed in the field of the sciences of man had a
reverse influence on the biological and even the psycho-chemical disciplines. As
early as the 19th century, Darwin’s ideas on selection were partly suggested by
economic and demographic concepts and not just by the artificial selection
methods of stockbreeders.
IV. The essential factor in the scientific development of subjects which, like
psychology and sociology, broke away from the original common trunk of
philosophy, was the tendency towards the delimitation of problems, with the
methodological demands that this implies. Positivism considers - and this is its
chief originality - that unchanging frontiers mark the boundaries of science,
thus making it possible to distinguish by their very natures between scient&
and philosophical or metaphysical problems. In fact, an examination of histori-
cal developments leads to two sets of conclusions. The first is that these fron-

Theplace of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 13
tiers are constantly shifting and that the sciences are always infinitely ‘open’.
For instance, introspection by the subject himself into his own consciousness
was considered inadmissible by Comte and classified under metaphysics (hence
the absence of psychology from Comte’s classification of the sciences). A little
over half a century later, the Wiirzburg school in Germany and A. Binet in
France made systematic use of induced introspection to demonstrate that
thought cannot be reduced to mental images but consists in acts in the truest sense.
This opened the way to a linking of intelligence and action and to a psychol-
ogy of conduct which, although it assigns a limited r6le to introspection, does
so after a long series of systematic experiments which furnish ‘objective’
grounds for these limitations instead of purely arbitrary decisions.
The second basic conclusion is that, while frontier shifts between philosophy
and the sciences do not depend on an a priori division of problems, precise
reasons can be given for these progressive delimitations, along the following
lines. Since philosophy attempts to encompass the whole of reality, it necessarily
bears two characteristics which constitute its true originality. The first consists
in not dissociating questions one from another, since its specific purpose is to
aim at the whole. The second is that, in the attempt to co-ordinate all human
activities, each philosophical position implies evaluation and commitment,
which excludes the possibility of any general meeting of minds to the extent
that the values involved are unshakable (e.g. spirituality or materialism, etc.).
It is from this point of view that the spiritualist introspection of Maine de
Biran and Victor Cousin was unacceptable to Comte, who was therefore right
to regard it as a metaphysical problem, since its avowed purpose was to justify
concepts such as liberty, i.e. beliefs on which agreement could not be, or had
not been, reached. Science, on the other hand, begins as soon as a problem can
be isolated in such a way as to relate its solution to investigations that are univer-
sally accessible and verifiable, dissociating them from questions of evaluation
or conviction. This does not mean that these definable problems are known in
advance, since only experience wil show whether the attempt can succeed.
However it does imply an effort to find a demarcation which may meet with
general agreement : by using introspection to determine the relations between
judgement and a mental image, and by setting to one side the problems of
liberty or the nature of the soul, the Wiirzburg school and Binet were using a
clearly-defined and hence scientific method. The records show that they were
in agreement, which is all the more striking when one considers that at the be-
ginning there was no contact between the German and French scholars.
In short, sciences such as psychology, sociology and logic became detached
from philosophy not because their problems were established once and for all as
scientific and of no concern to philosophy, or even less with a view to gaining
for themselves a sort of advance guarantee of greater accuracy; but simply be-
cause progress towards greater knowledge requires that problems should be
identified and that those on which no agreement is possible at a given moment
should be set aside and all attention focused on subjects in which joint in-
vestigation and verification are possible. Separation or differentiation from the
initial common trunk may be achieved peaceably, as in the case of logic which,

14 Jean Piaget
in its own deductive and algebraic field, immediately found its own methods
and autonomy - a process simplified by the fact that the uninitiated found it
somewhat difficult to follow. In other cases, declarations of independence have
been more explosive, e.g. in psychology, in which everyone believes himself
competent, with the result that specialized research work was not at first rec-
ognized as valid and] authoritative. Whatever the occasion, the process is set
in motion by similar principles of specialization arising from the need for
agreement based on the use of common and converging methods.
V. The fifth decisive factor in the formation of the nomothetic sciences of man
therefore relates to the choice of such methods. At a later stage (section 4) we
shall consider their specific characteristics, but what should be emphasized
now, in the context of these methods’ historical origins, is their general and
decisive r61e as instruments of verification. A science can only begin to function
when there is an adequate definition of the problems circumscribing a research
field in which a meeting of minds can be achieved, and we have just seen that
this was how the sciences which had to break away from metaphysics came
into being. But what is the nature of this meeting of minds, and by what criterion
did the champions of an emergent science conclude that they had succeeded in
establishing a consensus different in kind from those which unite the members
of a school of philosophy or of a political or artistic group? The criterion is by
no means static, since there can be much more discussion and disagreement
among experimenters concerned with the same question than among the disci-
ples of the founder of a speculative doctrine. The rallying point of the sciences
with which we are concerned, during their formative period, was a common
desire for verification, the accuracy of which increased in relation to the degree
of mutual checks and even criticisms.
Speculation and intuition are the only methods of approach in subjects in-
volving basic value judgements and commitments. The essence of any attempt
to isolate a problem in order to detach it from subjective or emotional con-
victions is the search for a common ground of verification - experimental
verification in the broad sense in cases of fact, or numerical and formal verifica-
tion in deductive disciplines such as logic. Naturally, all the great philosophical
systems, side by side with their speculative elements, abound in precise observa-
tions or factual data; more important still, the great philosophers of The Past
have almost all been innovators in the natural or human sciences. Nevertheless
the scientific phase of research begins when, after separating what is verifiable
from what is speculative or intuitive, the research worker fashions special
methods, adapted to his problem and at one and the same time methods of
approach and of verification.
This factor, together with its forerunners, seems to us to account for the his-
torical developments which have marked the birth and growth of the nomothetic
sciences of man.

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 15
3. Special epistemological features and foundations of the sciences of man
Generally speaking, the experimental sciences appeared on the scene much
later than the disciplines based on deduction. The Greeks developed their own
mathematics and logic, and sought to resolve astronomical problems ; but even
with the promising speculations of the pre-Socratic philosophers and the find-
ings of Archimedes himself, it was not possible until modern times to build up
physics in a fully experimental sense. There are at least three reasons why ex-
perimentation lagged behind deduction; and they are also of direct interest to
the epistemology of the sciences of man, though their nature is even more com-
plicated.
I. The first reason is that the natural tendency of the mind5 is to perceive reality
intuitively and to make deductions, but not experiments; for unlike deduction,
experimentation is not a free or even a direct, spontaneous product of intelli-
gence; it calls for acceptance of external authorities requiring a much more
extensive, and psychologically more exacting, process of adaptation.
The second reason, a logical extension of the first, is that in the field of deduc-
tion the earliest or most elementary mind-processes are also the simplest: asso-
ciating, dissociating, arranging asymmetrical relations in a given order, linking
up symmetries, establishing analogies, etc. The experimental field is quite dif-
ferent : its raw material is highly complex, and the preliminary problem is always
to isolate the components from the tangled mass. In the domain of physics it
took the genius of a Galileo to work out simple movements which could be
expressed in equations, remembering that the fall of a leaf or the drifting of a
cloud are extremely intricate in terms of measurement.
The third reason, basically even more important, is that the so-called ‘reading’
of an experiment is never merely a reading, but implies an active dealing with
reality, since it means the dissociation of elements, and thus calls for building a
logical or mathematical structure. In other words, it is impossible to arrive at
the experimental fact without a logico-mathematical framework. Thus it is a
natural - if frequently ignored - requirement that a certain number of deduc-
tive patterns must exist before one can attempt or succeed in making experi-
ments.
These three reasons are even more applicable to the sciences of man: indeed,
they take on additional force as a result of the greater complexity of the prob-
lems involved and above all of the seemingly much more immediate nature of
the insights into the subject - all of which retards the need for systematic experi-
mentation. The result was that the tendency to deduce and to speculate out-
weighed for a much longer time the need to experiment, that the separation of
the various factors was and remains much more difficult, and that the logico-
mathematical, qualitative and probabilist frames of reference were much less
easy to construct (and are still far from adequate). If experimental physics lagged
for centuries behind mathematics, practitioners of the sciences of man need not
be surprised at the time taken to get them established and must regard their

16 Jean Piaget
present situation as a very modest beginning in relation to the work that has still
to be performed, and to their legitimate expectations.
In addition to the difficulties shared by all experimental disciplines, the scien-
ces of man are faced with an epistemological situation and with methodological
problems which are largely peculiar to them and which must be closely examin-
ed. The difficulty is that the human sciences, whose object is manin his countless
manifestations and which are the product of man’s deliberate actions, are placed
in the special position of having man both as their subject and their object,
which naturally poses a series of specific and difficult problems.
It should, however, be pointed out at the outset that this situation is not
entirely novel and can be paralleled in the natural sciences, in which solutions
have been worked out that can sometimes be of assistance. Naturally, when
physics deal with things at our common level of observation, the object may be
regarded as relatively independent of the subject. It is true that this object can
only be known through perceptions, which have a subjective aspect, and through
calculations or metrical and logico-mathematical structurations, which are also
subjective activities. But a distinction must at once be drawn between the individ-
ual subject, centered on his sense organs or his own actions - and hence on the
ego or egocentric subject as a source of possible deformation or illusion of a
‘subjective’ type, in the basic meaning of the term - and the decentered subject
who co-ordinates his actions as between them and those of others; who meas-
ures, calculates and deduces in a way that can be generally verified and whose
epistemic activities are therefore common to all subjects, even if they are re-
placed by electronic or cybernetic machines with a built-in logical and mathemat-
ical capacity similar to that of the human brain. The whole history of physics
is about decentration, which reduced to a minimum the deformations introduced
by an egocentric subject and based this science to the maximum on the laws of an
epistemic subject - which comes back to saying that objectivity became possible
and that the object was made relatively independent of the subject.
However, on the larger scale, such as that adopted under the relativity theory,
the observer is influenced and modified by the phenomenon he observes, with
the result that what he perceives is in reality related to his particular situation,
without his being aware of it until he has undergone further decentration (for
instance, Newton regarded space-time measurements taken at our own scale as
universal). The solution then lies in decentration at higher levels, in other words
in co-ordinating the co-variations inherent in the data produced by different
hypothetical observers. On the microphysics scale, it is in fact well known that
the intervention of the experimenter modifies the observed phenomenon (a
situation reciprocal to the previous one), with the result that the ‘observable’ is
a combination including the modification introduced by the experimental activ-
ity. Here again, objectivity is possible because of co-ordinating decentrations,
which separate the invariables from the established functional variations.
The position in the sciences of man is far more complex, however, since a
subject who observes or experiments on himself or others may not only be modi-
fied by the phenomena he observes but may also generate modifications affect-
ing the progress and even the nature of those phenomena. It is because of such

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 17
situations that the fact of the observer being both object and subject creates
additional difficulties in the case of the sciences of man by comparison with the
natural sciences, in which the problem is generally that of dissociating subject
and object. In other words, the centrifugal movement required to ensure objec-
tivity is far harder to achieve where the object is composed of subjects. There are
two reasons for this, both fairly systematic. The first is that the dividing line
between the egocentric subject and the observed subject loses in definition as the
observer’s ego becomes involved in phenomena which he ought to be able to
examine from a detached standpoint. The second reason is that the more ‘in-
volved‘ the observer becomes and the more he attributes values to the facts he
is studying, the more he is inclined to believe that he knows them intuitively and
the less he feels a need for objective techniques.
Moreover, even though biology provides a series of transitional states between
the behaviour of elementary organisms and that of man, the latter exhibits
various specific characteristics distinguished by the formation of collective
cultures and the use of highly differentiated symptomatic or symbolic instru-
ments (the ‘language’ of bees being nothing more than a system of sensorimotor
indices). Consequently, the object of the human sciences, which thus become a
subject, differs fundamentally from the bodies and blind forces which constitute
the object of the physical sciences, and even from the object-subjects of biologi-
cal and ethological study. The difference, of course, is in the object’s degree of
consciousness, which is accentuated by the use of semiotic instruments. These,
however, pose a further epistemological difficulty peculiar to the sciences of
man : as means of communication, they often differ considerably fromone human
society to another; as a result, the psychologist or sociologist subject-observer
is constantly obliged to verify whether his understanding is in fact ‘deep’ enough
for him to grasp the details of the symbolic structure of cultures remote from
his own in space and time. He will even find himself asking whether man’s psy-
cho-physiological characteristics may not be modified by a process of feedback
from his semiotic instruments, and if so, to what extent. New disciplines such as
A. Luria’s neuro-linguistics raise problems of this kind. In short, the central
epistemological problem in the human sciences, namely the individual being
both subject and object, is aggravated by the fact that the object in turn is a con-
scious subject endowed with speech and multiple symbolisms ; this makes ob-
jectivity and its prerequisites of decentration all the harder to achieve and
often all the more limited.
11. To begin with psychology, the various aspects of the circular relationship
between the subject and the object and the difficulties of decentration find
their maxirnuni expression in the process of introspection - hence the variety of
methods which have been adopted to overcome the basic obstacles either by
going round them, at the risk of overlooking the essentials, or by treating
them as problems in which the distortions caused by centration are studied as
phenomenological indicators of the mechanisms of mental life itself.
In the pure form of introspection, a given individual is both an inquiringsub-
ject and the object of his inquiry. This being so, the subject is first of all modified

I 8 Jean Piaget
by the object, and from two points of view: firstly, by his presuppositions about
the value of introspection, in that his own mental life persuades him that he has
an accurate vision of himself, whereas this vision in fact fulfils utilitarian rather
than strictly cognitive or disinterested functions. From the cognitive point of
view, it is centered on the external results of his action, and does not provide
adequate information about either the mechanisms of that action nor about the
internal mechanisms of his mental life in general. From the affective point of
view, the main function of this self-vision is to establish and maintain certain
self-assigned values which help to maintain the subject’s internal equilibrium
rather than to enlighten us on the laws of that equilibrium. Secondly, the in-
trospecting subject is modified by the object of his inquiry in that his entire
activity, introspection included, is influenced to varying degrees by his past
history, which is unknown to him because his memory of the past is the work of
a very biased historian who forgets certain sources and distorts others, again as
a result of arbitraryvalues which continually undermine the objectivity attributed
by the subject both to his knowledge of the past and to his introspection in the
present.
Conversely, introspection continually modifies the observed phenomena, at
every level. We know, for example, that periods of time are perceived as far
longer if the subject tries to evaluate them while they are running their course.
The r61e of mental images in thought used to give rise to all sorts of introspec-
tive errors until subjects were compared with one another and the difficulties of
the problem realized. A fortiori, from the affective point of view, it is obvious
that the introspection of feelings modifies them, either by giving them a cog-
nitive dimension or by subordinating them to the values which, unknown to
the subject, govern introspection itself. The reason why novelists and phi-
losophers can use introspection successfully is precisely that their analysis is
part of a certain vision of the world in which evaluation plays a central r61e.
But where the problem is to investigate mechanisms as such, introspection is
inadequate, because it both modifies the observed phenomena and is distorted
by them from the outset.
The immediate remedies, (leaving aside for the time being all general methods
and their various techniques) have been of three kinds. The first, of course, has
been to decenter introspection itself by comparing the subjects with one another
and confining the investigation to well defined problems; the questions put to
the subject then canalize the ‘simulated introspection’ and allow systematic
comparison to take place. This method has produced certain positive results,
for example as regards the dual nature of the judgement as an act and of the
mental image. Chiefly, however, it has revealed the limits of introspection,
whence Binet’s disillusioned quip that ‘thought is an unconscious activity
of the mind’.
The second solution has been to eliminate introspection and study only be-
haviour - a valuable step since it paved the way for a far more fertile psychology
of conduct than it was reasonable to expect. Many authors have found it too
cramping, however, for two related reasons. The first is that unless we adopt
Skinner’s view that the organism is a ‘black box’ described purely in terms of

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 19
inputs and outputs, without any attempt at explanation, we are forced again
and again to resort implicitly to introspective data; the ‘expectancy’ which
Tolman rightly stresses as a factor in all learning would remain incomprehensi-
ble unless we experienced it introspectively. The second reason is that problems
are not solved merely by burying them; any psychology which ignores the
conscious rules out the investigation of many facts whose interest lies precisely
in their factuality. That these facts are ‘subjective’ does not prevent the beha-
viourists from making implicit and frequent use of them, even if they are reluc-
tant to recognize them among the objects of their investigations.
The third solution, on the other hand, is of great interest to the general
epistemology of the sciences of man: it consists in acknowledging that intro-
spection is deceptive, but then in asking why, and studying the cognitive distor-
tions of the conscious, which are just as worthy of attention as any other phenom-
ena in that they can be expected, under study, to reveal the laws which govern
them and the factors which account for them. This, of course, within due limits,
is a process of relativization similar to that of the physician, who instead of
rejecting a time measurement made on our kinematic scale when he finds it
cannot be applied to other cases, incorporates it in a system of co-variations
which gives it its limited significance (the error having merely consisted in
regarding it as universal). With introspection, the situation is naturally far
more complex, because the systematic and general errors due to the variable
degrees or the shortcomings of decentered co-ordination (for example, rec-
ognizing only the results of operations and not seeing! them as a constructive
process, which is what happened to the Greeks in their mathematical thinking)
are heightened by individual errors due to the multiplicity of egocentric ap-
proaches. Even these, however, obey laws, which it is not! only interesting but
also essential to elucidate.
Thus, from the affective point of view, the great merit of the psychoanalytical
movements (even though their doctrines are not universally accepted down to
the last detail) has been that instead of ignoring the conscious it has tried to
work it into a dynamic system of larger dimensions explaining both the distor-
tions to which the conscious is exposed and the limited but essential activities
which characterize it (catharsis, for example, is not only a remedy for deviations
caused by the unconscious but also an appeal to conscious adjustment).
From the cognitive point of view, the psychology of ‘conduct’, by contrast
with that of mere behaviour, restores the conscious to its functional aspect; this
explains both its adaptive r61e as well as its shortcomings and errors. ClaparBde,
for example, used the term ‘the law of prise de conscience’ to describe the pro-
cess whereby the conscious concentrates on zones of action in which inadapta-
tion is a fact or a possibility and ignores mechanisms which function of their
own accord without need of supervision. Hence the fact that the conscious
proceeds from the periphery towards the central processes (cf. consciousness
of the results of operations preceding recognition of their constructive signifi-
cance) instead of focusing on the inner life, as introspection naively imagines,
and thence acting centrifugally. The psychology of conduct also accounts for
time illusions - which remain unexplained as the mere intuition of the period

20 Jean Piaget
elapsed - by restoring the perception of time to a context of kinematic adjust-
ments of action, and so forth. In short, in many fields, the facts of consciousness,
the capacity for distortion and the efficiency of which are both so puzzling,
yield an interpretation immediately the distortion becomes a problem in itself
and the facts requiring explanation can be seen in a decentered context. As we
shall see in section v, it is this approach which enables the psychological subject
to dissociate himself from the human subject which he is investigating as an
object (it remains to be seen how he is able to do so).
HI. Sociology poses an even more acute epistemological problem than psychol-
ogy, because its object is not merely an individual subject which is external,
although analogous, to the psychological subject, but also a collective ‘we’
which is all the more difficult to identify objectively because the sociological
subject forms part of it, either directly or indirectly (in this case through other
similar or rival communities). In such a situation, the sociologist himself is
constantly modified by the object of his research; this is so from birth onwards,
since he is the product of a continuous educative and social process. Far from
being an intellectual conjecture, we can point to precise examples. For instance,
we know that the many political comments with which Pareto embellished his
famous Tratto di sociologia genevale, and which he somewhat ingenuously
regarded as evidence of his scientific objectivity, were due to an attitude acquired
from reacting against a father of progressive convictions. We have here an
example both of the difficulty of avoiding ideological influences when dealing
with sociology, and of a conflict between generations which is not only Freudian
but also related to certain social environments concerned with ideas as much as
with affective problems.
Conversely, the sociologist modifies the facts he observes. It is not that he
behaves like the psychologist, who experiments in ways which put the subject
in positions unfamiliar to him and thereby partly transform his behaviour -
one cannot experiment on society as a whole. But precisely in so far as sociology
aims at grasping that whole and goes beyond microsociological analyses of
particular relationships, such a problem - and this is true of microsociological
research itself - can only be solved by reference to theoretical or operational
concepts, either metasociological or concerned with the facts as such, which
involve a certain carving up of reality and in particular an active structuration
on the part of the investigator. This structuration naturally forces the facts
into moulds - moulds either made for the purpose or borrowed from other dis-
ciplines, but with a very variable capacity for objectivization, i.e. for faithfully
reflecting the structures of reality or, on the other hand, for distortion or
involuntary selection. Let us remember, however, and this will recall that the
epistemological problem of sociology is far from insoluble, that this active
structuration of reality is inherent in all experimental research, physical, biolog-
ical or sociological, since however accurately experience may be interpreted,
the process cannot take place outside a logico-mathematical framework; the
richer the’ framework, the more objective the interpretation. Thus a simple
act like reading a temperature on a thermometer involves not only the move-

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 21
ments of the mercury up and down the tube, which are independent of the
subject (despite the fact that he has selected this phenomenon as significant and
built the apparatus), but also a whole system of measurements calling for
logical categories, order, number, the division of spatial continuity, the grouping
of movements, the choice of a unit, etc. But the framework with which the
subject thus enriches the object, far from distorting it, forms a structure of
functional relations which enable him to identify the objective processes he is
seeking to discover. In the case of society as a whole, however, the problem is
far more complex, because the whole is not perceptible; the choice of the variables
or indicators used to portray and analyse it wil therefore depend on far
more complex intellectual activities on the part of the sociological subject than
with a physical measurement. These activities wil therefore be less quantifiable
as regards their capacity for objectivization or, alternatively, for distortion or
error.
In point of fact, there are only three major types of possible structurations of
the whole (see Chapter w.9, with many sub-varieties. That this is true in all
fields clearly demonstrates the existence of the factors of unconscious decision
and objectivizating, or conversely of distorting the assimilation of reality. This
leads us to assert that when a sociologist observes facts he always modifies
them, either by enriching, but not falsifying them, i.e. by using frameworks
which merely reproduce the objective links and make them conceptually acceptable,
or by forcing them into structures which ignore the essentials or more or
less systematically distort them. The three major types of structuration are:
additive or atomistic composition, in which society is conceived as a sum of
individuals already possessing the characteristics requiring explanation; emergence,
in which the whole as such generates new properties which are imposed
on the individuals; and relational totality, a system of interactions which modify
the individuals from the outset and also explain variations in the whole.6
Depending on the choice of model - a choice dictated, both involuntarily and
consciously, by general theoretical considerations and not only by the subject’s
education, which may be individualistic, authoritarian or other, according to
his social group - the facts observed are bound to be modified immediately
they are selected and throughout the structuration process, from identification
to interpretation. Consequently what Tarde takes as imitation is regarded by
Durkheim as a formative contraint, by Pareto as an expression of hereditary
instincts, and so on; what the idealist sees as the products of widely-held
group ‘doctrines’ are regarded by the Marxist as deep-seated conflicts, of which
the doctrines are merely a symbolic reflection and an ideological compensation ;
and so forth.
Nevertheless, just as introspective illusions obviously raise a problem of
fact, which as such concerns psychology, so the modifications induced in the
sociologist’s mind by the society which has shaped him, and the modifications
induced in the social material by the mind of the sociologist, whose task is to
structuralize that material, are social facts of interest to sociology in so far as it
is able to study them. Although the epistemological problem is therefore even
more complicated in sociology than in psychology, there is nothing insoluble

22 Jean Piaget
about it. Section v will deal with the various kinds of intellectual decentering
which can be used to solve it.
rv. Economics suffer from the same difficulties. As evidence of this, we need
only consider the extent to which Marxism regarded the classical economy as
reflecting an ideology based on class. Consequently, however accurately an
economic law reflects the observed facts, there are always grounds for question-
ing just how general it is, in view of its dependence on a relatively special
structure which the economist, if trained in it and conceiving it through in-
sufficiently decentered models, is inclined to regard as general. Fernand
Braudel, in maintaining that economics are a question of ‘all structures and all
conjunctures, and not only of material infrastructures and infraconjunctures’ -
of ‘social structures and conjunctures’ up to the level of ‘civilization’ - shows
that although metrical and statistical data are far easier to come by in economics
than in sociology, the principle underlying the epistemological problem of
deciphering experience objectively, and of interpreting it, is just as complex in
the former discipline as in the latter.
Ethnology, on the other hand, has the great advantage of dealing with
societies of which the observer is not an integral part. But the question remains
of determining what the observer, when faced with data external to himself, has
injected in the form of conceptual instruments in order to be able to structuralize
them. Even if we knew nothing of the philosophical moulding or intellectual
habits of such men as Frazer, Uvy-Bruhl and L6vi-Strauss, it would not be
altogether impossible to reconstruct them by studying what these writers had to
say on myth or on the mode of reasoning of the subjects of their inquiries. The
question then is whether Frazer’s laws of the association of ideas, the logical
relativism of Uvy-Bruhl and the structuralism of Lhi-Strauss are nearer the
subjects’ minds or those of the authors. Structuralism can immediately be seen
to fit the facts better than the other two approaches (and what is more, without
conflicting with a constructivist view which embodies the essence of Uvy-
Bruhl’s ‘pre-logic’ provided we put aside his radical heterogeneities, global
‘mentalities’ and so on, concepts which ignore the techniques). But this is not
because structuralism confines itself to copying the observed data; on the con-
trary, it integrates the facts into algebraico-logical systems which reproduce
their shape without distortion and render them acceptable to general modes of
explanation.
In linguistics, the modification of the observer by the facts he observes is
less marked, since a linguist, by profession, is a comparatist who does not
reduce everything to his own language and concerns himself with the differences
no less than with the similarities between the languages he is comparing. But
once again, this does not mean that the theory is merely a structure matching
the facts to be interpreted, because the further linguistic structuralism progress-
es, the more iirmly committed it becomes to the technique of abstract models,
which enrich the linguistic material with logico-mathematical structures.
Lastly, we have demography, which poses fewer of the specifically human
science problems of subject-object relationship than any of our other disciplines.

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 23
This is because it deals with more easily quantifiable data and thus involves
feweriof those circular or dialectical situations which, although a source of
difficulty, contribute to the particular richness of the sciences of man.7
The difficulties outlined above may seem insurmountable, but a comparison
between the beginnings of scientific psychology - a discipline in which those
difficulties are especially prominent - and the flourishing science it has now
become is nothing if not reassuring. One is left wondering at the hidden means
whereby these problems, even if not fully solved, have at least been divested of
their mystery.
v. These means, although fairly simple in principle, become increasingly
complex in practice as experimentation augments in difficulty. A situation in
which the subject of a mode of acquiring knowledge is modified by the object of
his study and in turn modifies it, constitutes the prototype of a dialectical in-
teraction. There are two principal methods of approaching such interactions,
and it is precisely these two kinds of method which are normally described in
dialectical terms as well. On the one hand, the task is to clarify such interac-
tions in terms of their development, in other words to set them in a historical or
genetic context; on the other, it is to analyse them in terms of disequilibria and
restored equilibria, in other words, of auto-adjustments and causal interac-
tional circuits.
In the field of psychology, for example, the most effective method of disso-
ciation in an interpretation, or even in a descriptive analysis of facts concerning
adult behaviour or consciousness, is to trace it to its source in infancy. There are
two reasons for this. The first is that the only way to obtain a causal explana-
tion of a system of reactions is to study the way in which it was formed, since a
structure is only comprehensible through an understanding of its composition.
Even in the case of adjustments whose driving power is synchronistic, we still
need to know how they have come about; here again, the study of the process
becomes explanatory. The second reason is that in so far as a structure attrib-
uted to an adult individual can be suspected of belonging more to the observer
than to the subject of his observation, a study of the various stages of its devel-
opment furnishes a body of objective references which it is difficult to mould
deliberately in order to fit subjective theories. In other words, if the suspect
structure exists only in the mind of the theorist, it is impossible to detect traces
of its formation in the subjects at previous stages, whereas if the formative pro-
cess can be followed step by step, there is no longer any reason for doubting
the objective existence of its final outcome.8
The other method of ascertaining that this function is, in fact, being perform-
ed by a structure in the mind of the subject, and that the structure itself if not
merely a product of the observer’s own process of conceptualization, consists in
studying its effect on the subject’s pattern of behaviour or of thought. For
example, children aged seven-eight are believed to be capable of building
mental structures of the type A < B < C . . ., which are put together by a process
of trial and error. Given that logic characterizes such sequences as inter-con-
nected and transitive series of asymmetrical relations, it suffices to examine

24 Jean Piaget
whether subjects capable of building them are also able to proceed further, and,
without seeing X and Z together, but knowing merely that X < Y and Y < Z,
to arrive at the completely new conclusion that X < Z. This is in fact what is
observed, although it was not at all apparent before.
In sociological fields, where experimentation is well-nigh impossible, the
historical or socio-genetic method is of fundamental importance in enabling the
observer to understand in what social currents he himself is being borne along.
When, on the other hand, he is involved both as judge and participant in con-
temporary crises or conflicts, a detailed analysis of the forms of social causality
nevertheless allows the observer to achieve a degree of decentering, limited as
it may be, by revealing that what he is inclined to consider as one-way causal
liaisons are always circular liaisons with reverse actions. In such a case, it is
impossible to pursue the analysis without coming to the conclusion that with
society, as with individuals, there are at least two levels of behaviour: actual
behaviour, and a state of awareness, not always matching that behaviour; in
other words, that there are substructures which are accessible to truly causal
research, and conceptual or ideological systems by which individuals in a socie-
ty justify and explain to themselves their social behaviour. All sociologists, in
fact, conduct such research and make such distinctions, and are able in conse-
quence to arrive at a state of decentered objectivity. But although the latter
makes it possible to dissociate the patterns conceived by the observer from the
facts which he observes, it will always be incomplete and subject to revision
since the patterns themselves remain subject to ideological influences. Some
sociologists conclude from this that scientific objectivity, as understood in the
natural sciences, is unattainable in sociology and that cognitive progress in this
field is only possible if research is associated with the commitment of the ob-
server to a specific praxis: but the very wish to take systematic account of this
constitutes in this respect a means of distinguishing between the subject and the
object of research, since even in physics, objectivity does not lie in alienation or
separation from a phenomenon, but rather in acting upon an object in such a way
as to provoke a phenomenon; what is ‘observable’ is never more than the product
of the impact of experiment upon reality. There is this difference, however: that
the phenomena observed in physics may be more easily measured and co-or-
dinated in logico-mathematical structures than social phenomena, which are far
more global. But if then a distinction is made in sociology between relations
which are measurable and what is sometimes called the ‘meta-sociological’
zone, because it can only be reached through theoretical speculation, there are
grounds forhoping that the shifting frontier between these areas may be gradually
pushed back.
Similar problems exist in economics, but here, since measurement is always
easier and mathematical or econometric theory far more advanced, the problem
is reduced to one of adjusting theoretical models to experimental patterns (in
the broadest sense of the term). This brings us to the next series of questions.

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 25
4. Experimental methods and the analysis of factual data
The epistemological difficulties encountered in the human sciences, of which we
have just given an outline, naturally center upon questions of method, since
the most outstanding result of interactions between subject and object in the
disciplines with which we are here concerned is to tender experimentation, in
the sense in which it is practised in the natural sciences, particularly difficult.
In psychology, which deals with the behaviour of individuals external to the
observer himself, experimentation is, in principle, neither more nor less complex
than in biology; the main difference lies in the fact that human beings cannot
be subjected to whatever experiment seems opportune, and that in contrast to
physiology, animals cannot in these particular cases be substituted for humans.
On the other hand, whenever collective phenomena are involved, as in sociology,
economics, linguistics or demography, experimentation in the strict sense (i.e.
the modification of phenomena through the free variation of factors) is ob-
viously impossible and can only be replaced by systematic observation based on
factual variations and the analysis of those variations in a functional - i.e.
logical and mathematical - fashion.
I. Before, however, going into these situations in detail, it would be appropriate
to recall that these particular difficulties with regard to experimentation are
not peculiar to the human sciences; nor are they all due to the fact that what is
under examination is a collectivity of which the observer is or may be a member.
The prime difficulty is of a far more general order, and derives from the impossi-
bility of acting at wil upon the objects of observation when the latter are on a
higher than individual scale: this difficulty in connexion with the scale of phenom-
ena is not, however, peculiar to the social sciences and may be found in such
natural sciences as astronomy and particularly cosmology and geology, which
are historical disciplines as well.
The case of astronomy is doubly interesting. In the first place, it shows that a
high degree of precision is possible without experimentation on the scale of the
object under study, through a convergence of theoretical patterns and actual
measurements provided the latter are sufficiently numerous and exact. Thus, for
example, Newton’s system of celestial mechanics produced a most remarkable
correspondence, of the order of a fraction of a second, between theory and the
metrical measurements, with a single minute divergence, concerning the perihe-
lion of Mercury. Such convergences make it possible to organize the equivalent
of experiments concerning a hitherto unexamined problem, in which measure-
ments are compared with novel theoretical conclusions : one such ‘experiment’
was that conducted by Michelson and Morley, when they measured the veloc-
ity of light in terms of a moving source and a moving observer. Their measure-
ments having shown that these mobilities were without effect, they were faced
with a choice between three conclusions: that the measurements were open to
doubt (they were, in fact, proved to be accurate); that the general principle of
relativity was erroneous (a conclusion that had been rationally unacceptable
from the time of Galileo); or that space and time were relative to velocity - a

26 Jean Piaget
conclusion adopted in relativist mechanics, which also permitted a satisfactory
approximation to the perihelion of Mercury.
Hence we see that the concordance between calculation and measurement
does in fact lead to the equivalent of experiment where the organization of the
measurements can be based upon reasonable forecasts, i.e. in situations where
observation makes it possible to choose between precise alternative paths. But
there is a further indirect manner in which experimentation can always take
place: from a general theory concerning phenomena the scale of which makes
the dissociation of factors impossible, one may sometimes draw conclusions
on a scale which lends itself to experimental action. In such cases control
experiments are possible: as, for example, when Newtonian mechanics were
applied in the laboratory (in the measurement of weight, etc.), or when the
Theory of Relativity gave rise to a number of equally verifiable conclusions
(experiments by Ch. E. Guye and Lavanchy concerning the relationship between
mass and energy, etc.).
We may note here and now that successes of this type in astronomy, despite
the impossibility of conducting large-scale experiments, give rise to hope in the
case of such disciplines as econometrics or even sociology, provided measure-
ments are precise enough to permit adequate comparison with theoretical
patterns. But a further major difficulty to be added to that of measurement
arises out of the fact that social phenomena all depend to a greater of less
extent on the unfolding of history, and that such diachronic processes do not
lend themselves either to experimentation or even to the elaboration of properly
deductive patterns. Here again, however, the situation is not peculiar to the
human sciences; geology, for example, lends itself neither to experimentation
nor to deduction in the strict sense.
In geology nevertheless, once the strata providing the necessary chronological
framework have been established (on the basis of stratigraphy supported by
mineralogical and paleontological data), it is possible to elaborate what are,
in fact, causal series, such as those embodied in the general tectonic theories of
Termier concerning overthrust, of Wegener concerning the movement of con-
tinents and of Argand concerning the formation of Alpine chains through
successive earth-movements. Such geological laws are based on certain histori-
cally regular processes; but they also conform to certain structural laws. For
example, the mathematician Wavre drew up equations concerning the effects of
the rotation of more or less fluid masses, in a structural analysis which, inlev
alia, provided support for Wegener’s formulations.
As regards the natural sciences in the context of historical processes which can
no longer be challenged, but on which some light can still be shed by modem
experimentation - as, for example, when the theory of the evolution of organiz-
ed beings is set against genetics - it goes without saying that they are, in prin-
ciple, better placed, because they draw at one and the same time on data provid-
ed by experiments, however limited, and on mathematical patterns (great
services have already been rendered in genetics by the elaboration of mathemat-
ical models of processes of selection and reassembly). Yet the complexity of
the problems involved and the impossibility of large-scale experimentation

n e place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 27
place these disciplines in a position somewhat similar to that occupied by the
social sciences, so that in the last analysis, the sciences of man cannot be
systematically and from the outset relegated to a position:of inferiority.
II. It remains nevertheless that the methodological problems encountered in
experimentation, measurement and the confrontation of data provided by
experiment with theoretical patterns are a source of particular difficulty as far
as the sciences of man are concerned. These problems are not, as we have just
seen, to any great extent due to the limited possibilities of experimentation, a
difficulty also encountered in certain of the natural sciences on grounds of scale
or of historical development; in principle, experimentation in the strict sense
of the term may, as we have seen, be replaced by adequate analysis of the data
provided by observation and measurement. The most serious problem - and
here the obstacles encountered by the sciences of man are comparable with
those met with in a number of biological disciplines - is that of measurement
itself, i.e. the degree of precision with which the facts determined by observa-
tion can be noted.
Measurement consists, in principle, in applying number to the discontinuous
or continuous data which are to be evaluated. And if recourse is had to number,
this is not because of the prestige of mathematics or because of some prejudice
in favour of quantity, for quantity is merely a relationship between qualities
and it is impossible to dissociate the qualitative and quantitative aspects of any
structure, even one which is purely logical.9. The instrumental value of number
derives from the fact that it constitutes a structure which is far richer than that
of its logical components: class - which is predominant in systems of classifica-
tion, and order - which is the chief characteristic of seriations. As a synthesis of
class and order, number thus offers an abundance and a mobility which make
its structures particularly useful in all matters related to comparison, i.e. cor-
respondences and isomorphisms : hence the necessity of measurement.
But the use of measurement and the application of number presuppose the
creation of ‘unities’, i.e. the casting aside of qualitative differences between a
number of elements in favour of what they have in common. Until a system of
unities has been organized, structural analysis may only be attempted along the
two complementary lines of interlocking or ordinal systems, which furnish
more or less complete substitutes, or more or less approximative measure-
ments, but fall short of exact measurement. Exact measurement only becomes
possible, in fact, in physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc., when systems of unities
have been constituted, whose intrinsic properties and whose relationships are
such that it is possible to pass from one unity to another.
The chief difficulty with the sciences of man, and indeed with all the life
sciences, as soon as group structures and not merely isolated and particular
processes are involved, lies in the absence of unities of measurement, either
because it has not yet proved possible to constitute such unities, or because the
structures in question, although quite possibly of a logico-mathematical nature
(algebraic, ordinal, topological, probabilistic, etc.), do not present specifically
numerical characteristics.

28 Jean Piaget
A. Of all the sciences of man, the only one which is not affected by this fundamental
difficulty is demography, in which the yardstick is the number of
individuals possessing a given characteristic. But it is precisely because, in such
cases, the statistical methods utilized may be kept relatively simple (despite the
complexity of certain problems of growth), that such methods cannot be applied
without further ado to other sectors of the human sciences. Consequently demographic
studies, although of basic importance to economic and sociological
research, remain relatively hermetic,Io although fruitful, the impossibility of
experimentation (in the strict sense of a dissociation of factors) being compensated
for by the relative precision of measurements and the success of the different
statistical methods applied to variations and to the different functional
relationships open to calculation.
B. Scientific psychology is, in some respects, diametrically opposed to
demography, in the double sense that whilst experimentation is relatively
simple, there is an almost total lack of unities in which formative or functional
processes themselves may be measured. Experimentation is, as we have stated,
of the same type in biology as in psychology, since it concerns behaviour, which
is one aspect of life in general. It is relatively feasible in certain cases to bring
about variation in a single factor or a single group of factors, the others being
more or less neutralized; the difficulty here is to maintain a situation of ‘all
other things being equal‘, since organisms, like behaviour, are functional entities
whose elements are more or less interdependent. In the case of human behaviour,
the impossibility, on occasion, of dissociating factors is due as much
to moral as to technical considerations; but pathological states frequently
provide the experimenter with what he cannot obtain through actual experimentation:
aphasia, for example, or deaf-mutism are, in fact, the expression of a
dissociation between language and thought. Moreover, if the human subject is
less amenable to manipulation than the animal, he does have the great advantage
of being able, as a general rule, to describe verbally a part of his own
reactions. As far as the historical or diachronic dimensions of psychology are
concerned, if the paleontology and prehistory of man provide virtually no information
with regard to mentality (unless we follow Leroi-Gourhan’s example
in seeking to reconstitute intelligence through the study of techniques), the
psychology of individual development can make use of experimentation at all
age-levels, and is thus an inexhaustible mine of knowledge concerning formative
mechanisms.
On the other hand the main difficulty in psychology lies in the lack of unities
of measurement. It is true that the ‘test’ method, together with countless ‘psycho-physical’
procedures, provide a wealth of data which are termed metric
because they are solely concerned with aspects of behaviour which can be
measured, i.e. with the resultants of reactions or, as some would say, with ‘performance’.
But, even if we confine ourselves to such resultants, we are still
unable to talk of unities of measurement: if, for example, a subject retains 8
words out of 15 in a memory test, or 4 out of 6 sectors of a spatial journey, we
have no means of knowing whether these words or sectors are equivalent as between
each other, nor do we know how to compare the memory of words with

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 29
that of a journey.” What is more - much more - the measurement of a resultant
tells us nothing yet about the inner mechanisms of the observed reaction, and
it is precisely those mechanisms which should be measured. It is, of course,
possible to arrive - through a system of correlation raised to the second power -
at a so-called factorial analysis, but we know neither the nature of the ‘factors’
thus disclosed nor their mode of action, so that they remain in fact entirely related
to the tests utilized, and thus to theresultants or performances, and bear no
direct relationship to the formative mechanisms. Briefly, then, the metrical
procedures of psychology do provide data which are useful in the step-by-step
comparison of details concerning the results of various mental operations, but
because of the absence of any system of units permitting the passage from
effects back to the causal mechanism, those operations remain inaccessible.
But the situation is by no means hopeless, or even disquieting, for there are
other logico-mathematical structures besides those which are numerical or
metric, and whilst number may be a particularly practical tool in processes of
comparison, there are many other forms of isomorphism besides numerical
correspondence. The difficulty in creating systems of units may thus spring
from the nature of the biological, mental or biological-mental structures themselves,
in which case such structures might lend themselves to topological or
qualitative algebraic treatment, rather than to processes involving numerical
‘groups’, ‘rings’, or ‘bodies’. Philosophers have often speculated on this resistance
to measurement in psychology. Psychologists, more prudently, in the
first place refuse to consider the matter as settled, and in the meantime make use
of broader and more flexible logico-mathematical instruments and structures,
ranging from one extreme (the many probabilistic models) to the other (the models
of algebraic logic) without, of course, neglecting cybernetic models. Thus,
in the sphere of intelligence, qualitative algebraic structures permit the description
of operations themselves and not merely of their products and resultants -
which are all that can be measured at the present time. Moreover, these operations
may be analysed as perfectly-balanced products of numerous genetically
anterior determinations which then derive from cybernetic models (including
those related to the theory of decisions or the theory of games). In all questions
of development, where measurement, properly speaking, is of no assistance, at
least at the present time, it is still possible to turn for assistance to scales of
hierarchic ordination (such as those of Guttman); and Suppes has described a
whole range of scales between nominal and metrical classification : mention
may be made in particular of ‘hyperordinal’ scales, where intervals between one
value and the next cannot be reduced to unitary factors (equivalent between
themselves), but may already be evaluated as greater or lesser than one another.
Thanks to these different models, psychology, even though it has not yet
overcome the problem of measurement in the sense of an absolute reduction to
number and to unit systems, is in possession of statistical data and of qualitative
logico-mathematical structures which are sufficient to permit, in many cases, a
certain degree of prediction of phenomena (for example in the fields of perception
and intelligence) and in particular the beginning of some form of explanation
(see below, under 7).

30 Jean Piaget
C. Economics are roughly half-way between the extremes of demography
and psychology: measurement is easier than it is in psychology, but experimen-
tation is less easy, the difficulties being comparable to those encountered in
demography. However, some of the many attempts of States or private enter-
prise to manipulate the economy can be regarded as experiments (conducted
with varying degrees of success).
Measurements are more feasible in economics than in psychology, for it is
in the nature of exchanges of values occurring in such a field to be quantified, as
opposed to the qualitative exchanges which generally characterize social
relations of a moral, political or affective type. For instance, if two students
enjoy seeing each other, or find it interesting, one to discuss mathematics, the
other linguistics, this cannot be called an economic exchange; but if they agree
to put this exchange on a regular footing and set one hour for mathematics in
exchange for one for linguistics, the arrangement becomes economic, even
though the contents of the exchange are the same as before, and measurement
is involved (at least a measure of time, failing one of information or ideas
supplied). Prices, currency, etc., thus constitute a set of quantifications, which
are not just ordinal or ‘intensive’,IZ but extensive or metric. In the various
branches of economics it is therefore easy to find occasion for much authentic
measurement using units peculiar to this or that sector (for example, output per
inhabitant in the comparison of socio-economic aggregates). But we are still a
long way from a complete system of units capable of being equated, as in
physics.
On the other hand, in economics, experimentation is not feasible in the
strict sense of assigning and systematically varying the factors. It can here be
broadly defined as ‘any direct or indirect action brought to bear on a given
situation for the purpose of producing or obtaining observable consequences’
(Solari). Actually, experimentation at this level consists mainly in observation
governed by a system of abstractions, in turn inspired by the theoretical models
adopted as hypotheses. It is therefore the combination of the theoretical model
and the experimental pattern, i.e. a pattern laying down what is to be observed
and what procedure is to be followed, which constitutes the basic methodologi-
cal approach in econometrics. In this interaction between the deductive and the
experimental process, as also in the r61e played by methodical abstraction, the
general character of all the sciences, natural and human, is immediately
recognizable.
The real difficulty with this discipline, given the lack of experimentation in
the strict sense and the fact that synchronic and diachronic factors are ever-
present and extraordinarily complex, is how to adjust the theoretical model to
the experimental patterns, for the latter are likely to be so global and insufficient-
ly differentiated as to rule out an analysis leading to decisions. As a theoretical
model does not lead to a practical interpretation which can actually be verified,
it is only a logical pattern. Conversely a set of observations which is not rather
fully structured is merely descriptive.
Now the theoretical models used in economics are becoming more and more
highly refined: mathematical logic, mechanical and stochastic models, the the-

llaeplace of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 31
ory of games and operational methods (with linear and non-linear programmes),
cybernetic models, etc., are used either singly or together, with historical
analyses and analyses of institutional parameters where necessary. Then again
the application of all these methods to experimental data is constantly impeded
by the difficulty of delimiting the fields of observation, hence of finding the
opportune level of abstraction, for alongside general laws and laws which are
not general but apply to more than one economic aggregate, there are laws pecul-
iar to a single aggregate and problems of typology are continually arising accord-
ing to the scale of values adopted.
D. Linguistics provides an excellent example of a science in which experi-
mentation is almost excluded (except in experimental phonetics and psycho-
linguistics) and in which systematic analysis of observable data has proved suf-
ficient to permit the establishment of methods, the exactness of which could serve
as an example in other human sciences. Yet in this field also, as in psychology,
attempts to work out systems of units of measurement have been unsuccessful,
except in particular or so to speak localized cases when the units are selected
arbitrarily in a restricted context.
The search for regularities (linguists refer less and less to ‘laws’, not wishing
to conjure up an illusory similarity with the laws of physics) is based essentially
on the model of the logical functions, particularly that of implication. We
know that the expression ‘x implies y’ means that we observe y whenever x is
given, that y can be observed without x, that neither x nor y may be observable,
but that we never have x without y. In phonology, for example, we note that p
and b are both explosive phonemes, but that only the latter requires the use
of the vocal cords, and that this situation allows us to expect certain regularities
in their common functioning and their contrasts.
But starting from such regularities of logical and qualitative form we can
naturally follow two opposite though complementary paths : that of statistical
regularities in the external resultants of the functioning of language, and that
of analysis of the internal structures whose functioning is their expression. As
an example of the first tendency we might quote Zipf’s ‘law’, stating a more or
less regular relationship between species and genera in verbal classifications.
The probabilist nature of such statements leads us to the problem of their ex-
planation in terms of the objects designated, the subject of the language, or
both. On the diachronic level (and in its connexions with synchronic balance)
Martinet has attempted to explain phonological changes as a compromise be-
tween the need to express oneself and the tendency towards economy, of psy-
chological or probabilist origin. The r6le of entropy in communication theory is
known : Whatnough has quite recently used it for linguistic purposes.
All the research in structural linguistics, such as that of Chomsky, can be
quoted to illustrate the second tendency, one of the aims of which is to discover
regularities in the very transformations of possible rules, while still leaving open
the question of explanatory models, sought by Saumjan, etc., in the direction of
cybernetic structures.
In short we can see here how a human science, though lacking almost all
means of experimentation and all recourse to units of measurement of a general

32 Jean Piaget
character, manages on the double plane of diachronic successions and of syn-
chronic regulations to build up a methodology exact enough to allow of con-
stant and often exemplary progress.
E. Sociology and ethnology doubtless occupy the most ‘difficult position
among all the human sciences, for three reasons: the impossibility of conducting
experiments, the lack of general units of measurement, and the complexity of the
phenomena, which depend upon all the factors affecting human life and be-
haviour (unlike a relatively well-defined field of research such as that of linguis-
tics). To revert to the comparison with the natural sciences referred to in I,
sociology resembles astronomy as regards the impossibility of experimentation,
but without the benefit of measurements converging with mathematical deduc-
tion; and it resembles geology as regards the predominance of non-deductible
diachronic and qualitative factors, but without the advantage of an adequate
stratigraphy or palaeontology.
Five methods can be followed, however, in order to meet this lacunary sit-
uation. The fist naturally consists in refining the mathematical analysis of
ftinctional relationships and subsummations. A series of advances have recently
been made in this connexion, particularly by the use of what is known as multi-
variate analysis, which allows of going beyond correlations and seeking causes.
The ‘Columbia School’ has produced in this way much research on public
opinion (see in particular P. F. Lazarsfeld’s work on two step flow, which brings
out the factors of interest, passivity or plasticity, the mechanisms at work in
opinion manipulation, etc.).
The second method consists in seeking, behind the observable data, the r61e
of the ‘structures’ as systems of transformation whose mobile equilibrium
lends itself to analysis by qualitative mathematics (general algebra). This is the
structuralist method used by Claude L6vi-Strauss, which tends to go beyond
causality as a functional relationship between observable data, and to seek
explanations, resting on both causes and implications, which account for the
same data in terms of the underlying overall systems.
The third method, chiefly evident in schools which have been subjected to
Marxist influences, consists in co-ordinating structuralist and historical analysis,
the explanation being then obtained by combining structure and genesis. Along
with ethnological research (and we must note here that for some years fresh
interest seems to be taken everywhere in the political and cultural aspects of
development), these historico-structuralist trends are of course likely to make
for the decentering of Western observers.
A fourth method (touched upon by analogy in our brief remarks about astron-
omy) consists in studying, on a lower level, the repercussions or parallels of
the major phenomena on the higher level. This is the task of microsociology
and it has yielded significant findings through experiments on the dynamics of
small groups and analyses of elementary social behaviour patterns. ButIthe
problems to which this method constantly gives rise are those of bridging the
gaps between the various levels, for the central problem of sociology is still that
of the relationship between sub-systems, or between them and the overall
system. Tentative theoretical answers have been of two kinds. Some have taken

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 33
the form of fairly systematic attempts at building up abstract models (in the
language of logico-mathematical symbolism, but sometimes also by methods of
simulation). Others amount to combining structuralism with functionalist
analysis within the detailed field of social relations or actions. Thus T. Parsons’
general sociology, which he himself calls ‘structural-functional’, is concerned not
only with types of overall balance of society, but also with reconciling levels
by means of an analysis of elementary ‘social action’ (values, etc.). Similarly
A. W. Gouldner’s or P. M. Blau’s ‘neo-functionalism’ seeks, through the study
of ‘reciprocities’ and exchanges, a tool for co-ordinating sub-systems which wil
lead from inter-individual relations to the stratifications themselves.
The fifth method has been little used, but remains open in the eyes of many
authors: since the training of the rising generation by its predecessors is a
necessary (although not sufficient) condition of all social life, any comparative
study of the development of human beings in various social environments
provides decisive information concerning collective contributions to human
nature. On every question that arises - social, mental or biological character,
logic, moral sentiments, semiotic or symbolic systems, etc. - this method of
analysing the formative processes is undoubtedly rewarding and has already
revealed the deep natural identity of the ‘operations’ of individual thought with
those which occur in any social ‘co-operation’.
5. The sciences of man and the great philosophical or ideological trends
After reviewing some aspects of the sciences of man and the main difficulties
they encounter in their definition and development, the moment would appear
to have come to fit them into the general system of sciences as suggested in the
heading to this chapter. But to all the previously-mentioned obstacles which have
to be surmounted if we are to reach an objective understanding of human reali-
ties there must be added yet another, perhaps one of the most important and in
any case the most specific in terms of the differences between the sciences of
man and those of nature. It is therefore necessary to deal with this now, before
we compare the two groups within the complete system of scientific disciplines.
This overriding difficulty, closely connected with those of intellectual de-
centering which have already been discussed under 2 and the hold of the ‘we’
over the cognitive matter which creates a science (see under 3), simply derives
from the fact that a scientist is never completely objective but is always at the
same time committed to some philosophical or ideological attitude. This point
is only of secondary importance in mathematical, physical or even biological
research (we already reach a frontier region in the latter case), but it may have a
great influence in some of the problems dealt with in the sciences of man. Lin-
guistics is approximately the same thing in every country. Psychology varies
somewhat more according to the cultural environment, but with no disturbing
contradictions, as the variations in question depend more on the variety of
schools than on ideologies. The oppositions become sharper in economics and
especially in sociology. Broadly speaking then, we are faced with a problem
which we should now consider.

34 Jean Piaget
More exactly, there are several kinds of problems, depending on whether the
ideological or philosophical currents support some one or other particular trend
in research, whether they are likely to conceal some aspect or other of the field
to be investigated, or whether they may eventually atrophy some discipline or
other by implicit or even explicit opposition to its development. The method to
be followed is therefore that of selecting some particular examples and drawing
conclusions limited to each of them individually.
I. An initial somewhat striking example is that of empirical philosophy, which
has a very lasting tradition in Anglo-Saxon ideologies, one of the present-day
sequels being the movement known as ‘logical empiricism’ or ‘positivism’. This
empirical philosophy has in fact played a not insignificant part in the formation
and development of certain aspects of the sciences of man, though imposing on
them at the same time certain orientations which other schools today find rather
restrictive.
One may certainly say in favour of empirical philosophy that it has been one
of the sources of psychology and scientific sociology, in the sense that it antici-
pated the future need for them and even contributed to their development.
Locke sought to resolve problems by basing himself on facts and not on mere
speculation, while Hume put as the sub-title of his famous treatise ‘An attempt
to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’. The
whole of Anglo-Saxon psychology was initially soaked in this kind of atmos-
phere, and the ‘English anthropological school’, with Tylor, Frazer and many
others, was also inspired by it. One cannot therefore deny that an ideological
current of this kind contributed positively to the advancement of the sciences of
man; nor ought we to neglect the contemporary contributions of logical empi-
ricism to the development of logic and of the theory of sciences.
But precisely as a philosophy or the crystallization of an ideology, empiricism
(obviously a very general term which by no means excludes countless individual
variants) in some cases has also played a directional or canalizing r61e which
psychologists, sociologists and non-empiriscist logicians could regard as restric-
tive. For empiricism does not stop at insisting on the need for experiment in all
disciplines bearing on questions of fact (psychology, etc.); everyone is agreed
on this point. It adds a particular interpretation of experience, whether that of
the scientist or that of the human subject in general (the object of the given
psychological and sociological studies), by reducing this experience to a mere
record of observable facts instead of finding there, as in other epistemologies, an
active structuration of objects, all of them related to the actions of the subject
or to his attempts at interpretation. One result of this is that, in the field of the
psychology of learning and intelligence, investigators of the empirical philo-
sophical school naturally tend to under-estimate what has been stressed by others
under the name of the subject’s actions; thus it comes about that several theories
of learning envisage the acquisition of knowledge as a kind of copy of reality
and give the major emphasis to external ‘reinforcements’ which strengthen
associations; while non-empirical theories stress the factors of internal organi-
zation and reinforcement.

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 35
In the field of logic, which, as wil be seen later (under 6), cannot be entirely
dissociated from psycho-sociological factors, logical empiricism has been led
to present logico-mathematical structures as the expression of mere language, as
general syntax and semantics, while authors not attached to this school see in
natural logic the unfolding of operations which thrust their roots as far as the
general co-ordination of actions at a level much deeper than that of language.
These conflicts between philosophical schools, due to ideological influences,
are yet sometimes fruitful, and more helpful than harmful to the development
of the sciences of man.'3 It is certain, for example, that American theories of
learning, inspired by empiricism, played a positive rale, firstly by pushing to
its extreme limits a type of interpretation which it was worthwhile to exploit
thoroughly, and then by encouraging a number of studies on neglected aspects
of this form of association. Similarly, logical empiricism, by dissociating syn-
thetic or experimental judgements too brutally from analytical or logico-mathe-
matical judgements, provoked reactions from the logicians (like W. V. Quine)
or psychologists, whose studies have enriched our knowledge even in terms of
the problems raised by the empiricists themselves when they sought to place
logico-mathematical contructivism in doubt.
In short, this first example sheds immediate light on the advantages and
dangers of philosophical or ideological influences. The drawbacks would
doubtless predominate if there were uniformity among the various trends or an
absence of discussion and co-operation among the schools. As long, however, as
we are dealing with problems formulated in terms of possible verification through
experiment or formalization, knowledge can only benefit from contrasts which,
as always in science, represent factors of progress.
11. This leads us to the dialectical philosophies, which play a fundamental part
in socialist ideologies, particularly in the fields of sociology and economics, and
in a general way in all disciplines involving the dimension of historical develop-
ment.
The case of dialectics, however, rather different from that of empiricism in
so far as, where the latter rightly stresses the importance of experience, it al-
ready gives it an interpretation unacceptable to non-empiricists ; whereas when
dialectics reveal the specific nature of historical developments, with their con-
tinual conflicts, oppositions and excesses, it often limits itself to revealing mech-
anisms which anyone could accept; for the dialectical spirit is doubtless
broader than attachment to any given school.
In contemporary dialectical movements it is in fact possible to distinguish
two currents, which we shall call immanent or methodological dialectics, and
more general or philosophical dialectics.
Spokesmen for the first of these currents see dialectics as an epistemological
attempt to elucidate common characteristics (or on the contrary characteristics
conflicting from one case to the other), all scientific efforts to assess develop-
ments taking pIace in time. Dialectics thus understood means therefore taking
stock of methods of interpretation actually used in certain biological, psycho-
genetic, economic and other studies. Being respectful of facts, dialectics may

36 Jean Piaget
then often converge, even closely at times, with the concepts of authors who
neither have nor wish to have any understanding of philosophical dialectics. For
example Pavlov, whose work was so significant in the arena of Soviet dialectics,
often repeated that he knew nothing whatever of that philosophy; which was of
no importance since his work involved a methodology of actions which others
undertook to comment upon speculatively. In the psychology of psycho-genetic
development, studies on the launching of intellectual operations on the basis of
pre-operative and sensory-motor regulations, on the r61e of imbalance or con-
tradictions and restoration of balance through new syntheses and extensions -
in short, all the constructivism which characterizes the progressive constitution
of cognitive structures - have often been related to dialectical interpretations
without there having normally been a direct influence. Obviously such parallels
may be used by followers of methodological dialectics which only attempt to
clarify the trend of the sciences of development without interfering with the
sciences themselves ; and this work of comparison and epistemological reflexion
can only be helpful to them.
It has, however, also been possible since the time of Kant and Hegel to con-
ceive a philosophical form of dialectics which, like many other philosophies,
sometimes seeks to found or even to direct the sciences. In such a case, it
ceases to be anything more than one system of interpretation among many.
Nevertheless it has been of very great importance, for in the case in point, it
can base itself on a tested methodology which coincides with the spontaneous
methodology of many disciplines, as has just been recalled. The only problem of
interest to us, then, is that of correspondence between ideas and facts.
The influence of philosophical dialectics has been translated into concrete
form in the fields of sociology and economics, and it is undeniable that Marxist
dialectics have exercised a very great influence in this respect. It is interesting
to note here, because this study bears essentially on the trends of the sciences of
man and is not designed to offer a doctrinal synthesis, that one can in the present
state of things distinguish three types of attitude towards a movement of this
kind. Some people see Marxist dialectics as an expression of the dominant
truths at present accessible in the sociological field. Others believe the contrary
and see in it just one of several interpretations with no presently demonstrable
superiority. Yet others consider it a ‘meta-sociology’ of obvious interest for
guidance (clearly the best available) in research work, but offering no possibility
of experimental verification, and lying in the field of mere interpretation.
III. A third example is of quite a different kind: that of phenomenology, that is,
a philosophy which does not claim to lead to scientific research or to elucidate
the methods of already-constituted sciences, but rather to parallel these sciences
themselves by offering a truer understanding of the realities under considera-
tion.
With reference to this group of tendencies (of which Bergsonism was an earlier
example) one should observe at the start that conflicts between the sciences and
some philosophies have existed only since the 19th century, at a time when
some philosophers dreamed of a speculative power which would permit them to

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 37
encompass Nature itself (cf. Hegel, in his Naturphilosophie) ; and when, conversely,
certain thinkers maintained that they could derive scientific metaphysics
from their positive knowledge (as in dogmatic materialism) and thus provoked
reactions in the shape of systems designed to protect moral values from such
encroachments, which they regarded as unwarranted. As a result the critique of
science (in the sense of epistemological reflaxion) frequently led various philosophies
to set frontiers to scientific knowledge (as intended, incidentally, by the
pubiiivibi doctrines) aiid io try to set up, beyond those frontiers, another type of
knowledge tantamount to a duplication of science itself in this or that scientific
sphere.
The point is of great importance because in the final analysis, it raises the
question whether science is ‘open-ended‘ or whether there are fixed and definitive
frontiers which by their very nature separate scientific from philosophical
problems. This second solution has thus been that chosen by positivism which,
in the time of Comte, made the establishment of laws a prerogative of science,
but removed from its orbit the search for causes believed inaccessible: and
which today claims to confine the sciences to a description of observable facts
and to the use of logico-mathematical terminology, surrendering to metaphysics
other questions regarded as ‘imponderable’. Further, and under quite a
different aspect, Husserl’s phenomenology seeks to reserve for science the study
of the ‘world’ of time and space, while nevertheless admitting, beyond this
fixed frontier, an ‘eidetic’ type of cognition, one of forms and essences, deriving
from metaphysical intuition.
As a result of successive revolutions in physics, which have modified some of
our most basic intuitions to the advantage, not of sceptical relativism, but of a
relational objectivity of increasing efficacy, the general tendency of the sciences
is to regard themselves as ‘open-ended‘ in the sense of an ever-present possibility
of revision of concepts or principles or even of problems themselves. No
basic scientific notion has remained unchanged throughout history and transformations
have even led to successive reformulations of logic as such. It would
obviously be somewhat pointless to attempt to draw up unchanging frontiers to
designate one class of notions as the only scientific one, while considering another
as purely philosophical. If so, it may be equally presumptuous (at least one notices
an increasing tendency to think so) to draw definitive frontiers or merely
stable ones, between scientific and philosophical problems. A problem remains a
philosophical one as long as it is considered solely on a speculative basis, and as
has been seen under 2, it becomes scientific as soon as it can be defined with
sufficient precision for methods of proof, whether experimental, statistical or
algorithmic, to permit a certain convergence of mind as to its solutions, not
merely as opinions or beliefs, but specifically as precise technical research,
This being the case, a para-scientific philosophy such as phenomenology
naturally incurs the risk of remaining dependent upon the given state of the
sciences which it seeks to criticize. Husserl (following Bergson) attacked the
empirical and associationist philosophy that was prevalent at the turn of the
century, and rightly revealed its inadequacies. But instead of working to correct
and perfect it, he accepted it as such and merely sought to mark out its fron-

38 Jean Piaget
tiers, so as to erect beyond them another form of knowledge dependent only on
‘intentions’, meanings and intuitions. Between the two, however, psychology
has evolved and has become greatly enriched, to the extent that today the problem
appears in quite another light. In consequence, such problems as that of
the liberation of the logical intelligence with respect to the ‘world’ of time and
space (phenomonological ‘reduction’) are today examined in the field of the
psychology of development by verifiable methods ; while phenomenological
intuition seems to logicians even more tainted with this ‘psychologism’~4 which
had to be opposed than does the work of the psychologists themselves. In
short, if philosophical psychology of a phenomenological type could momentarily
influence some individual writers (as in the case of the founders of Gestaltpsychologie,
which incidentally took a clearly naturalistic course), it in no way
modified the major trends of contemporary scientific psychology, which has
pursued its own course of development.
6. The sciences of man, the natural sciences and the system of sciences
The relationship between the sciences of man and the natural sciences is one of
the questions most affected by ideological and even national influences. In
areas where metaphysical speculation is least indulged in, such as the Anglo-
Saxon countries and the popular republics (with due regard to the differences
which oppose empirical and dialectical trends), this problem, if raised at all, is
very much less acute: it goes without saying that psychology, for example, is
seen in these countries as belonging both to the natural sciences and to the
social disciplines. But among peoples more responsive to the lure of metaphys-
ics, such as the Germanic (apart from the Viennese with their traditional posi-
tivism) or Latin peoples, many doctrines have stressed the difference between
‘Naturwissenschaften’ and ‘Geisteswissenschaften’, and psychology has usually
been linked with philosophy. It is interesting to note that during the social
sickness which overtook Germany until the end of the Nazi period, the con-
flict in question was worked up to a climax and that during the entire Fascist
period the teaching of psychology and scientific sociology was suspended in
German and Italian Universities (in the latter case, in spite of the very closely-
related political views held by V. Pareto) and only resumed afterwards.
I. Some support for making a distinction between the sciences of man and the
natural sciences can, of course, be found in the epistemological and methodolog-
ical difficulties stressed in 3 and 4 above. But as we have already seen, not all of
these difficulties are peculiar to the sciences of man, and the problem of ex-
perimental objectivity does not offer only two extreme solutions - depending on
whether scientific research deals with physical objects at our level or with man
in society - but opens up a whole range of successive approximations, according
as the physical phenomena are studied at different levels and in particular
according as we move from physio-chemistry to biophysics and biochemistry,
from there to the true biological disciplines, thence to psychology and finally,

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 39
only in the last resort, to the sciences dealing with human societies as complete
structures. On the other hand, and above all, the methods employed give rise
to more and more frequent exchanges between the natural sciences and the
sciences of man. We shall enlarge on this point shortly.
The main reason for opposition between these two groups of sciences lies in
the r61e and attributes of the ‘subject’, and this is why the degree of opposition
depends upon the extent to which the cultural circles in which the sciences of
man are studied are swayed by the attractions of metaphysics. For the unshakeable
champions of ‘Geisteswissenschaften’, seen sui generis, the ‘subject’ is not
a part but an observer and sometimes even a creator of nature, whereas for
supporters of continuity, the fact of man’s subjectivity is a natural phenomenon
among others and does not prevent the subject from dominating or from modifying
nature, nor from carrying out a11 the activities which traditional philosophy
assigns to ‘subjects’. This is the full range of the problem.
However, since the times when it was sought to oppose the subject and nature,
and to make of this conflict a field of study reserved to those sciences of the
mind which were closer to metaphysics than to those known as ‘natural’
sciences, many changes have taken place in the evolution of the sciences in
general, so that current trends, while stressing the specificity of problems at all
levels of reality, are far from favouring a mere dichotomy.
A first fact to be noted - and it is fundamental - is the evolution of biology,
the present contributions of which are of great importance in the interpretation
of the formation of the ‘subject’. The neo-Darwinism of the beginning of the
century saw in the evolution of the organized being the resultant of two fundamental
factors to which the animal as a subject was wholly foreign: firstly,
random variations or mutations (as opposed to re-combinations of the common
genetic pool of the population, on which increasing emphasis is being laid today),
and secondly a selection imposed by the environment but conceived as an
elementary weeding-out process leading to the survival of the fittest and the
elimination of the others. The behaviour of the animal was thus seen only as a
very secondary factor, which had some effect on survival but no essential causality.
We are led to believe today, on the contrary, that selection is basically
related to phenotypical variations, themselves interpreted as ‘responses’ of the
genome to environmental pressures (Dobzhansky, Waddington, etc.). Now the
phenotype already includes behaviour, since both are of an adaptive nature. In
addition, selection is understood today to include feedbacks and reverse actions:
the organism selects and modifies its environment as much as it is influenced
by it. But among other things, the selection and modification of the
environment depends on behaviour, which is seen as a factor of increasing
importance in the process of evolution. In addition, objective research has been
carried out (J. Huxley, Rentsch, etc.) on the concept of ‘progress’ - which was
rejected by formal neo-Darwinism after the excessive optimism of the early
days of the theory of evolution - and the criteria used naturally referred also to
behaviour. For all these reasons, zoopsychology or ethology plays an increasingly
vital part in zoological biology, while botanists insist more and more on
reactive processes. Zoopsychology already gives us a fairly impressive picture of

40 Jean Piaget
the stages of learning and intelligence from the level of insects and cephalopods
to the level of human life; in a very stimulating study, K. Lorenz has shown
how modern theories on the instincts could be extended in an aprioristic interpretation
(K. Lorenz is a Kantian!) of the principal categories of human thought.
Without necessarily adopting this solution, it is in any case impossible today to
consider the ‘subject’ as detached from nature, since the most general trends in
biology and ethology are to consider behaviour and organic life as closely linked,
and to study the animal as a subject.
11. A second area in which the natural sciences and the sciences of man meet is
through the exchange of methods. W e stress the word ‘exchange’, for it will be
seen that the service is reciprocal.
In the first place it goes without saying that the sciences of man are increasing-
ly led to use statistical and probabilistic methods, as well as abstract models
elaborated in the field of the natural sciences (Chapter vnr will develop this
point). One single example of these logico-mathematical structures, owed to the
natural sciences, which have been of service to the sciences of man, is the well-
known convergence between the concepts of entropy in physics and in the
theory of information. At a first glance there would seem to be nothing less
likely to create a link between disciplines so far removed from one another as
thermodynamics and linguistics. But in working out a mathematical theory of
information and in comparing the structures of the expressions used to define an
increase of information in relation to ‘rumours’ and disorder, it was discovered
that, from an essentially formal point of view and in relation to the symmetries
involved, a certain isomorphism between these functions and those used in
research on entropy did actually exist. In such a case the techniques acquired in
a natural science threw a clear light on those which had to be worked out to
solve a difficult problem of central interest to the sciences of man.
Supporters of the specificity of the ‘Geisteswissenschaften’ can naturally
argue that such examples, however numerous they may be, prove nothing, but
simply point to the ‘naturalistic’ attitude to be found more and more frequently,
and according to them mistakenly, in the sciences of man. But there is an answer
to this, and a very good one, for it is the sort of argument likely to reassure
those who fear that the concept of the originality of superior human behaviour
may be weakened by such parallels. It so happens, and increasingly, that the
sciences of man, merely borrowing the broad general model which combines
logico-mathematical deduction and experiment from the natural sciences, are
led to build up certain new logico-mathematical techniques to meet their own
ends: and that these techniques - intended for strictly ‘human’ purposes - have
in many cases been found to cast new light on the natural sciences and to throw
up unexpected solutions to points which ‘natural‘ scientiik techniques had so
far been unable to elucidate. In other words, if there is a trend to ‘naturalize’
the sciences of man, there is also a trend to ‘humanize’ certain ‘natural’ techniques.
A first example of this may be found in the theory of information which,
after drawing its formal inspiration from thermodynamics, had a reverse effect

me place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 41
on the interpretation of the discipline, to such an extent that L. de Broglie could
consider the bringing together of the problems of entropy and information as
one of the most fruitful and stimulating discoveries of the last decades. Moreover,
one cannot open any contemporary work on biology without continually en-
countering problems of information, from the codification of genetic infor-
mation in the spiral order of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid, the constituent of the
genome) to the problems of conserving acquired knowledge or ‘memory’ (this
term alone reveals the trend we have already mentioned towards humanizing
elementary processes), which memory probably presupposes the indivisibility
of RNA (ribonucleic acid, which has a fundamental part to play during the whole
epigenetic process including phenotypical adaptations).
Another very striking example is to be found in the ‘theory of games’ or
decision, which has been adapted to the needs of econometry by Von Neumann
and Morgenstern. This technique, which has proved increasingly useful in the
study of human behaviour (from perception with Tanner to moral behaviour
WithBraitswaithe), has also had its effect on the natural sciences, as the following
two examples wil show. The first is to be found in the well-known problem of
Maxwell’s demon in thermodynamics, of which Sczilard had already worked
out a very promising reformulation about 40 years ago and on which a rational
theory based on the notion of its ‘information cost’ can be put forward today.
The second belongs to biology, in which problems of economics are in fact
constantly arising: Ashby has shown recently that one of the simplest models for
biological or nervous regulation can be based on ‘strategics’ and on an implica-
tion chart based on the theory of games.
Cybernetics as a whole, dealing as it does with problems of communications,
as already mentioned, and of guidance, today constitutes an essential link
between physics and biology. It cannot perhaps be seen, from this point of
view, as emanating directly from the sciences of man, since man is sometimes
more interested in guiding his robots than himself. But he does sometimes give
thought to directing his own conduct, and it cannot be denied that human guid-
ance played its part in the construction of cybernetics. One has only to reflect
in this context on the evolution of the idea of finality. It is well known that
finalism in its rather crude Aristotelian form covers a system of notions inspired
by deliberate human action and therefore qualified as anthropomorphic in
accordance with Cartesian and classical reasoning. Rut if the idea of finality is
still obscure, the problems of adaptation, of functional utility, of anticipation,
etc., raised by finalism remain entire; and in discovering the ‘mechanical equiv-
alents of finality’, in elaborating a ‘teleonomy’ distinguished by its rationality
from teleology in its usual meaning, cybernetics has made an essential contri-
bution both to the sciences of man and, through reverse action, to the natural
sciences (in this particular case to biology as a whole).
III. Cybernetics is a first example of a discipline which it is difficult to place
accurately between the natural sciences and the sciences of man. There are
many other examples, and this is a third argument of growing importance in
favour of continuity.

42 Jean Piaget
It should first of all be noted that the sciences -usually contrasted with the
sciences of man and grouped together in faculties of sciences are generally
known as the ‘exact and natural sciences’. What does the term ‘exact’ mean?
It is often applied to physics, for there is a branch of physics called mathemat-
ical physics, but it is evident that no experimental science, even theoretical
physics, can be anything but approximative. The word ‘exact’ is therefore mainly
applicable to mathematics. But can these sciences then also be ‘natural’ ? If one
simply wishes to convey that they are concerned with nature, one must then
concede that they are also concerned with man - otherwise they would not be
natural in the sense that they would simply be drawn from physical experience,
whereas they go very much further and include an internal need which is quite
foreign to that experience. To say that mathematics are exact means therefore
that they are one with logic; but there would be no logic without man, even
though logic itself is rooted in the requirements of the biological structure.
The problem becomes more acute in respect of logic itself. In its present form,
logic is an axiomatic and algorithmic discipline closely connected with mathe-
matics and often taught as mathematical logic in faculties of science. As such it
therefore belongs to the exact and natural sciences, and, apart from its truly
mathematical applications, it is frequently used in physics and even biology
(Woodger). From this point of view it is no more than a working technique
comparable with the theory of groups or with algebra in general, and therefore
constitutes a ‘subjectless logic’ which seems to have no further bearing on the
sciences of man. But already in the field of scientific logic or of scientific theory
as such, logic cannot be entirely dissociated from the logical subject. First, the
logic of language or general syntax calls for a meta-language or system of
meanings and this necessarily concerns the human subject. In addition, the
considerable research carried out on the limits of formalization, resulting from
Goedel’s theorems (rg31), also raise the problem of the subject, for here it
becomes necessary to explain the impossibility of reducing all phenomena at one
stroke to a formal expression and the need for constant efforts to improve upon
original theories, moving from ‘weaker’ to ‘stronger’ theories, without once
remaining content with mere points of departure.
But above all, beyond the logician’s logic, we have to take into account the
logic of the subject in general. For if logic is axiomatic, it stands to reason that
it must be so in terms of a pre-existing reality of a given nature which it is
logic’s task to render axiomatic. Now this given nature cannot be reduced to
elements in the subject’s consciousness but must also stem from the operational
structures used by him, of which he is only partly conscious but which underly
his own actions and reasoning. In the same way as certain ‘natural numbers’
are present in prescientific enumeration and are later used as the arithmetical
basis for a theory which goes far beyond them, so certain natural logical struc-
tures (classifications, seriations, accordances, etc.) which the subject draws and
builds upon in his spontaneous activities and which the logician himself uses in
his work of formalization.
Now the logico-mathematical structures of the subject are also studied in the
psychology of development in cultural anthropology or in sociology itself in

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 43
that branch styled the sociology of knowledge. W e cannot therefore dissociate
logic from the sciences of man, since the logic of the logician constitutes a
formalized and highly enriched extension of the logic behind the subject’s
activities. This human aspect of the structural and operational sources of logic
is indeed so deep that it can now we traced back, beyond general and even
sensory-motor co-ordination which provokes action, to nervous co-ordination.
McCulloch and Pitts have pointed to the isomorphism that exists between
operative structures intervening in various forms of neuronic connexions and
the operative factors of propositional logic (Boolean system), and this important
discovery indicates that if logical complexes are the result of progressive struc-
turing, reorganized and reinforced from one level to another up to the stage of
formalization itself, these structures, although not predetermined but gradually
developed, can be traced back to nervous and sensory-motor acts of co-ordina-
tion.
In short, logic belongs to both the exact and natural sciences and to the
sciences of man, and provides links between them all which defy linear classifi-
cation. But if this is accepted, it must be admitted that the same applies to the
scientific forms of epistemology itself. Epistemology has classically been consi-
dered as a branch of philosophy, but two new kinds of facts today indicate
trends towards autonomy similar to those which marked the gradual achieve-
ment of autonomy by psychology, sociology and logic.
The first range of new facts is that the epistemology of each of the advanced
sciences is the fruit of research carried out by its own specialists. The problems
of the bases of mathematics, for instance, are increasingly dealt with by mathe-
maticians themselves, taking account of mainly logical, but also frequently of
historical and strictly psychological considerations (Poincark, Brouwer, Enri-
ques, Gonseth). The epistemological theory of physical experience, particularly
since the revolutionary onset of microphysics, is elaborated by practising physi-
cists. In biology an attempt at epistemological formulation by L. von Berta-
lanffy resulted in a movement known as the ‘general theory of systems’, which
endeavours to single out the epistemic mechanisms common to the various
disciplines involved; including psychology, etc.
The second series of facts is that certain methods of approach in epistem-
ological research are orientated towards the study of development. Theorists
of knowledge have long since realized that the historical analysis of the forma-
tion of ideas and methods, known as the ‘historico-critical method’, throws
light on the mechanisms of scientific knowledge. Studies such as those of A.
Koyrk or T. S. Kuhn, for instance, are extremely instructive from the point of
view of the epistemology of physics and chemistry, and a study of the history of
mathematics led L. Brunschvicg and P. Boutroux to carry out searching epistem-
ological analyses. But history does not give us all the answers, and beneath or
beyond the historical plane there are psycho-genesis and socio-genesis. T. S.
Kuhn himself, for instance, refers explicitly to my research on the child as if it
was what Brunschvicg had already done, thus showing that when the historian
acts as an epistemologist, or vice versa, he could benefit from a knowledge of
psychology.

44 Jean Piagei
Generally speaking, all scientific epistemology, whether connected with
perception, language (as related to thought) or operational structures, refers
implicity or explicitly to psychological interpretations. But in the place of psy-
chology, of a summary and sometimes speculative type, one might conceive of a
corpus of research aimed at the experimental control of the various psycholog-
ical hypotheses involved in the many epistemologies of number, space, time,
etc. This task, known as ‘genetic epistemology’ is in fact being carried out
systematically by an interdisciplinary team of research workers who call upon
the assistance of development psychologists, logicians and specialists of the
disciplines involved in respect of each epistemological question. It cannot
then be denied that this movement partakes in the sciences of man, although
the research may be undertaken on the epistological aspects of the exact and
natural sciences. Here again, epistemology emerges as a link between the two
groups of disciplines.
If, finally, we try to place the sciences of man within the scientific system as
a whole, the preceding comments show that it is impossible to confine ourselves
to a mere linear classification.
A model for these linear classifications was provided by A. Comte who arrang-
ed the sciences in the order of their increasing complexity and decreasing
generality. Such a series, applied to our present problem, would work out
roughly as follows : mathematics, physical sciences, biological sciences, psychol-
ogy and lastly the social sciences in their interdependence. But here the problem
of situating logic becomes immediately evident. Comte himself did not attempt
to solve this problem, no doubt because modern symbolic logic had not taken
shape in his day; but he often speaks of ‘natural logic’ either to dwell on its
r61e in the constitution of mathematics, or, more implicitly, by regarding it as a
product of collective life, which amounts in effect to placing it in the field of
social realities (and the later ‘logical positivism’ links it explicitly with linguis-
tics in their more general aspects). Now, if logic has some connexion with the
human subject, and we have seen above that there are sound reasons for accept-
ing this ideal today, it wil therefore belong to the fields lying at the end of the
series, while still playing a fundamental part in mathematics which is at the
head of the list - which leads one to the conclusion that the linear order is an
illusion and that we are in fact moving in a circle.
In reality none of the sciences can be displayed on a single plane, for each
involves hierarchical levels: a) its object or the material content of study; b)
its conceptual interpretation or theoretical technique; c) its epistemology or
analysis of its bases; and d) its derivative epistemology or analysis of relations
between the subject and the object in relation to the other sciences,
If we deal only with level (b), and possibly (c), that is, with theoretical tech-
niques of sciences and their internal epistemology, the linear order in question is
wholly acceptable and logic must be placed at the head of the list, for logicians
do not consult psychologists or even linguists to assist in working out their
axiomatization; mathematicians must submit to the demands of logic but not to
those of physics or biology, etc.
On the other hand, as soon as we come to consider the object of disciplines,

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 45
namely (a), and their derived epistemology (d), it becomes clear that the object
of logic cannot be entirely separated from the subject, in so far as logic formalizes
operational structures built up by the latter; and the order of the sciences
must become circular once again.
This circularity is indeed extremely interesting when we study the epistemology
of the sciences of man, for it reflects the fundamental circle which characterizes
the inter-action of the subject and the object: the subject is only aware
of the object through its own activities, but can only learn to know itself through
its action upon the object. Physics is thus a science of the object, but it only
reaches the object through the intermediary of logico-mathematical structures
resulting from the activities of the subject. Biology is another science of the
object, but the living being it studies, using instruments borrowed in part from
physico-chemistry, is at the same time the starting-point of the behaviour pattern
of a subject which leads to the human subject. In studying the latter, psychology
and the sciences of man use some of the techniques of the earlier sciences, but the
human subject also builds up logico-mathematical structures which provide a
starting-point for the formalizations of logic and mathematics. In sum, the
scientific system as a whole is caught up in an endless spiral, the circular motion
of which has no negative effects in itself but simply gives expression to the dialectic
between subject and object in its most general form.
One thus sees that the sciences of man, while remaining the most difficult and
complex, occupy a privileged position in the scientific circle: as sciences of the
subject which itself builds up the other sciences, they cannot be separated from
these others without being artificially simplified and distorted; but if the human
subject is put back in his proper place, which is at the same time that of a culmination
in the perspective of the physical and biological object, and of a
creative starting-point in the perspective of action and reflexion, the sciences of
man alone render the closing, or rather the internal coherence, of this circle of
sciences intelligible.
7. Major theoretical trends: forecast and explanation
I. In so far as the sciences of man cannot be isolated, but are part of the whole
complex of sciences, and in so far as this complex assumes a generally circular
or spiral form, the problem which dominates the main theoretical trends is
assuredly that of the specificity or, on the contrary, the reducible character, of
the phenomena studied in the different branches of science; for if the concepts of
interaction and interdependence are gradually taking the place of linear series
or simple genealogical structures, the question naturally arises whether the
trend is towards general assimilation, or towards relational or dialectical
modes of interpretation in which both oppositions and analogies are taken into
account.
This is no mere academic question, but a very real problem. In psychology
there is a tendency to reduce observable facts to physiology on the one hand
and to sociology on the other, while overlooking the specificity of the mental
factor. In sociology, there is a tendency to reduce behaviour to a scale close to

46 Jean Piagel
that of social psychology or to economics, linguistics, and so on, without paying
attention to the specific objects proper to sociology - the overall forms of so-
ciety. Broadly speaking, wherever we find differences of scale - for in the scien-
ces of man as well as in the natural sciences it is the scale that creates the phenom-
enon, as Ch. E. Guye so penetratingly observed - the problem is to determine
whether mechanisms on a higher scale can be reduced to serve on the lower ones,
or whether the former simply cannot be reduced, or again whether there is any
intelligible relation between the two.
This problem is commonly met with in the natural sciences. Laplacian
determinism was a dream of integral reducibility such that the whole universe,
in its innumerable manifestations, could be reduced to a basic equation from
which all others would be derived. A. Comte, however, despite the linear form
of his classification of the sciences, considered each stage to be marked by some
irreducible concept; for instance, he opposed the reduction of chemical affinity
to the laws of physics. In fact, however - except where there has been simple
reduction (that is, the discovery of identity beneath apparent dissimilarity) -
the problem of reduction in the physico-chemical sciences usually leads to cir-
cular causality through reciprocal assimilation. Einstein, for instance, was able
to do without the Newtonian force of attraction at a distance by reducing the
movements of the heavenly bodies to inert movements along the curves of
Riemannian space. This geometrical concept of gravitation was accompanied by
a physical concept of space, in that the curves were regarded as being determined
by masses. Similarly, after a period of attempts at reduction, the relations be-
tween mechanics and electro-magnetism led to interdependence and progres-
sions out of which came wave mechanics.
Obviously, in the sciences of man, while problems of this nature are constant-
ly arising, although in quite different terms, the range of possible solutions is in
general smaller, due to the lack of such highly-developed logico-mathematical
or even experimental techniques. Yet again we find the same triad - reduction,
the specificity of phenomena at the higher level, and causality with retrogressive
action.
An everyday example of this can be seen in the relations between language,
which is a group mechanism and in that respect superior, and intelligence or
thinking, which is restricted to the individual and in that respect lies at a lower
level. We shall deal with this question more fully in Chapter w (section 16).
For the time being, we need only point out that, while the reduction of grammar
to ‘reason’ seemed obvious in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the
view that thought is subordinate to language prevailed subsequently and has
continued to be held until very recently. Chomsky, however to some extent
returns to the classical position, but his discovery of transformation grammars
makes it possible to analyse psycho-linguistic interactions much more thorough-
ly than heretofore, in conjunction with the psycho-genetic study of the cognitive
functions; in the present state of knowledge, therefore, it appears that intelli-
gence comes before and conditions the mastery of language, although there are
reactions within the process, in which both innate and acquired knowledge is
overtaken by a more general mechanism of progressive equilibration. We are

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 47
therefore induced to move beyond the initial antithetic theses, and this presup-
poses a continual refining of the forms of causality employed.
11. This brings us to the central problem of the laws and causes, or of fore-
casting and explanation. As we know, positivism has constantly insisted that
science should be compelled to confine its attention to the discovery of laws or
to forecasting based on laws and to refrain from seeking for causes or ‘modes of
production’ of phenomena. It is strange that this restriction should have been
made by Comte, who, rightly or wrongly, was convinced of the utilitarian
nature of science - the more so since, although forecasting is useful to human
activity, the latter is concerned primarily with producing rather than with
reproducing, while for both these purposes the ‘mode of production’ is far
more important than is forecasting.
Specialists in the different branches of the natural sciences frequently call
themselves positivists, and make some statement to that effect in their prefaces,
as if science were merely a matter of establishing and generalizing about laws
and deducing from them certain predictions which can be verified by experi-
mentation. But as E. Meyerson has ceaselessly pointed out, when we move on
from the preface to the body of the work we find a very different state of affairs,
for no scientific thinker worthy of the name discusses laws and functions without
seeking the reason for them, without trying to isolate ‘factors’ and without
introducing explanatory hypotheses as constituting basic ideas in research
work. One of the best-known examples of the futility of prohibitions is to be
found in atomic research, the hypotheses underlying which was severely cen-
sured by certain positivists while it was no more than an explanatory postulate;
but we all know what atomic science has since achieved. It is true that if the
atomic phenomenon is a causal model for phenomena at a higher level than
itself, we find only laws, and not immediatecauses, when we study the atom. But
the laws in turn require an explanation, and so on.
The refusal to search for causes or for the mode of production of phenomena
has undoubtedly had less repercussions in the human sciences, firstly because
they are newer and more modest disciplines (and because the trends claiming
to be ‘positivist’ differ from each other still more than in other branches) but
also - indeed primarily - because the prime function of man is to act and to
produce, and not merely to contemplate and to forecast; so that while the need
to understand and to explain is no more marked in the psychological and social
sciences than in others (actually, it is constant in all sciences), it is possibly more
explicit and more conscious. It is true that, following upon Dilthey’s reflexions
and Jaspers’s psycho-pathology, some schools of thought are inclined to distinguish
between ‘explanation’, which, they say, is material and causal in nature,
and ‘understanding’, which, in their view, is concerned with conscious meanings
and intentions. This, however, merely complicates the problem (see below
under m). No one is thinking of questioning the need for explanation, and the
very concept of ‘causality’ is coming back into fashion in sociology as a result
of the studies of ‘multivariate analysis’,
But in what does explanation consist? In the sciences of man as in the natural

48 Jean Piaget
sciences, the search for causality has three stages, only the last two of which
throw light on explanation :
a) First comes the establishment of facts and laws, although these are not
two separate problems, for a fact is only a relation that can be repeated. The
establishment of a law is therefore nothing more than the recognition of the
generality of the fact, and of itself does not constitute an explanation. It is
true that people often refer - though incorrectly - to ‘causal laws’ in the sense
of regular successions in time; but this so-called causal law is nothing but a
law which, like any other, provides a basis for the search for causality; in itself it
provides no explanation. Moreover, any law makes forecasting possible simply
because it expresses statistical or completely determined regularity; but the
forecasting is merely an anticipation of a new fact in accordance with the
general applicability of the law in question, and it, too, provides no explanation;
it merely tells us that the fact is generally true. On the other hand, while the
criterion of causality is the presence of necessary and sufficient conditions,
there is an intermediate stage, within the sphere of laws, which leads to these
relationships of necessity - the stage of functional dependence y = f(x) or the
determination of the variants of y in terms of the variants of x. In the case of
multiple variants, therefore, we may legitimately acknowledge that there is a
certain degree of causality in the r61e ascribed to the determining factors.
b) The second stage begins with this establishment of relationships - that is,
with the deduction of laws. The difference between the necessity proper to
explanation and the generality that is characteristic of laws as such is that the
generality relates only to facts (no matter how complex are the inductive methods
or, in other words, the probabilist or statistical methods that enable it to be
established), whereas necessity is characteristic of logical or mathematical links ;
therefore, if we try to deduce laws instead of merely recognizing them, we are
introducing an element of necessity which brings us nearer to explanation.
There are, however, two kinds of deduction. One is merely inclusive or syl-
logistic, and is based solely on the relationship of ‘all’ and ‘some’; from this
sort of standpoint, a law A (for example, the law of perceptive or optico-geo-
metric illusion as in Muller-Lyer’s figure) may be deduced from a law B (the
law of all optico-geometric illusions belonging to the category of ‘field effects’
or what we have called relative centrations), simply because this law B is more
general. In this case we are not going beyond the field of laws, and the deduc-
tion is nothing but a generalization, which brings us nearer to the explanation, but
simply moves the problem further away. The other form of deduction, the only
one that is explanatory, may be called constructive. It consists in introducing
laws into a mathematical structure which has its own norms of composition, not
by a simple interlocking process, as in a syllogism, but as a result of more or less
complex transformations - for instance, a ‘network‘ structure, a ‘group’ struc-
ture, or a loop system (regulations or feedbacks) and so on. In this case, the
necessity for transformations joins the generality of laws and moves towards
explanation.
c) Even a constructive logico-mathematical deduction, however, is only
logical or mathematical, and does not deal with facts, except by means of a

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 49
third process, which is essential to the explanation. This is the construction of a
‘model’ adapted to fit the facts themselves - a model so constructed that
deductive transformations can be made to correspond to real transformations,
so that the model is the projection of the logico-mathematical pattern into
reality, and thus consists of a concrete representation based upon the real
modes of composition or of transformation that can be expressed in terms of
the pattern. A cybernetic circuit, for example, is not merely a matter of equa-
tions - it amounts to the identification of the details of the supposed feedbacks
in the facts. Of course, in that case, facts wil lead only to the recognition of
laws, but laws on different scales; and themodel consists in putting them together
to form a coherent system that corresponds, term for term, with deduced or
deducible mathematical transformations. In a word, the model is explanatory
in so far as it enables us to give the objective processes themselves a ‘structure’
which is itself isomorphous.
We are thus led back to the classical rationalist interpretations of causality,
not simpiy as mere regular successions as in Hume’s empiricism, but as the
reason for things (causa seu ratio, as Descartes said) or as an analogy between
deduction from experience (Kant) and dialectical construction. Such questions
as whether this causality relates to strict determinism or to probabilist models
and whether it reaches linear successions or always in fact moves towards loop
systems or circular interactions, are unimportant detaiIs, for in all cases the
characteristic property of causality -that it is a deductive construction which is
part and parcel of the real - remains, thanks to the inexhaustible wealth of
experience and the limitless fecundity of logico-mathematical structures.
III. At this point, however, a problem pecuIiar to the human sciences inevitabty
arises - the problem of the interpretation of the facts of consciousness as oppos-
ed to material facts - and this brings us to the general question of understanding
(Verstehen) as opposed to explanation (Erkliiren).
Psychologists are familiar with the problem, which is that of the relation be-
tween consciousness and the body. Two classical solutions to this problem have
been put forward - that of interaction and that of parallelism or isomorphism.
The first of these regards consciousness as being or possessing a kind of power
that can act on the body, just as the body can act on the consciousness. The
difficulty here is that properties peculiar to matter (work, strength, energy and
so on) are attributed to consciousness and, theoretically speaking, this makes it
difficult to uphold the principle of the conservation of energy15 in cases where
this intervention of consciousness occurs in physiological mechanisms; this
cannot be verified by experiment, for what we observe is the action of the physi-
ological concomitants and not the action of consciousness as such. It should be
noted that the numerous positive data collected by so-called psychosomatic or
(according to the ideology adopted) cortico-visceral medicine prove nothing
about this, for they merely show the effect of mental life (including both con-
sciousness and higher nervous activity) on organs regulated by hormones and
nerves; they do nothing to show how consciousness as such acts independently
of its nervous concomitants.

50 Jean Piaget
The second solution is that of psycho-physiological parallelism or iso-
morphism. According to this view, the consciousness and its organic concomi-
tants are the two aspects - inner and outer - of a single reality, but there is no
possible causal interaction between these aspects, which are the two possible
expressions of a single reality. We may express them in terms of idealism,
materialism or duality of nature, as we wish. This solution is logical, but the
objection to it is that we can no longer perceive the function of consciousness,
which merely accompanies certain material processes and produces nothing
itself.
We have therefore suggested a third solution. It is only an epistemological
generalization of the second, but it endows the consciousness with a cognitive
activity sui generis. If we analyse the relations between states of consciousness,
we perceive the essential fact that they are invariably due not to causality proper,
in the sense given above, but to another kind of relation, which might be called
implication in the broad sense of the term. Essentially, a state of consciousness
expresses a meaning, and one meaning is not the cause of another meaning,
but implies it (more or less logically). The concepts two and four, for instance,
are not the cause of the proposition 2+2 = 4, but they imply it of necessity,
which is not the same thing; and although we can obtain 4 from 2 and 2 on a
calculating machine, this causal product is not a state of consciousness unless
the user attributes meanings to it and expresses it in the form of conscious im-
plications. To put it briefly, consciousness, in our view, is a system of implica-
tions (between concepts, affective values and so on), and the nervous system is a
causal system, while psycho-physiologcal parallelism is a special case of iso-
morphism between the implicatory and causal systems. This restores a specific
function to consciousness16.
The duality between the facts of consciousness and those of material causality
is constantly evident in the social sciences proper, and while some sociological
systems, such as Weber’s, stress the phenomenological aspect of the former,
others, such as Marxism, do not accept explanations unless they also cover
material facts.
We have therefore reached a point, especially with Jaspers’s psycho-patho-
logical studies, at which we have two quite different broad types of interpreta-
tion - those based on the ‘understanding’ of conscious intentions and meanings,
and those based on ‘explanation’ by material causality. But although this dis-
tinction is valuable and even highly relevant, there is no fundamental opposi-
tion between the two types; we have already seen why, when discussing the
artificial conflicts that some authors have tried to create between the ‘Geistes-
wissenschaften’ and the natural sciences. In fact, if we are prepared to adopt
the hypothesis that there is a parallelism between implication and causality, in
the general sense just mentioned, we have here a case of complementarity
rather than a fundamental opposition, and this complementarity, in different
but comparable forms, recurs even in the natural sciences : whereas mathemat-
ics deal rather with implications, which must simply be ‘understood’, without
looking for any causal explanation, physics has to do with material facts, which
must be ‘explained’, and the parallelism between conceptual implication and

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 51
materialcausality is therefore so close that causal or explanatory models establish
an increasingly close relationship between implicative and material sequences.
Very broadly speaking, the sciences of man are moving in a similar direction;
in other words, they are all trying to understand and to explain, but not to
understand without explaining or to explain without understanding.
There are many other questions that could well be dealt with in this section
on the main trends in the theory of the sciences of man, but we can come back
to them in the chapter on their common mechanisms (Chapter VII).
8. Specialization and integration; basic research and applications
Progress in any field of study is obviously a matter of differentiating between
problems and theories and of establishing integrating relationships within the
field of study or between it and other closely related disciplines. But this spon-
taneous development, which seems almost biological and is the direct result of
the laws of structuration applicable to intelligence in its intra- and inter-indi-
vidual operations, becomes complicated owing to numerous sociological and
sometimes even ideological factors, not to speak of epistemological considera-
tions, which are usually bound up with the spontaneous trends of evolving
science but which may act as special factors, either accelerating or hindering
progress.
I. The general sociological factor which complicates the natural specialization
process in the sciences of man and often produces marked hindrances instead of
advantages, is the creation of ‘schools’ in the true meaning of the term, within
the disciplines themselves, with the inevitable isolation and danger of dogma-
tism.
This phenomenon is probably peculiar to the sciences of man, for what we
have also referred to as ‘schools’ in the natural sciences are rather trends of
thought connected with positions that are opposed so long as experimentation
or deduction has not ended the debate. For example, the conflict between
energeticists and atomists in physics at the end of the nineteenth century was an
epistemological dispute rather than a war of schools, and the new facts dis-
covered since then have united every shade of opinion. It is true that we speak of
the Copenhagen school and the Paris school in contemporary microphysics,
because of the great names of Niels Bohr and L. de Broglie, but the discussion
as to whether the accidental is primary or derivatory in nature, and whether
an underlying determinism is impossible or in fact exists, is one of those dis-
cussions that are the result of a variety of legitimate interpretations awaiting
ultimate agreement.
In the case of the sciences of man, the ideologies themselves imply the exist-
ence of opposing schools, which is perfectly natural, and often leads to fruitful
discussion. We need not go back over this, but it should be noted that the
phenomenon is sometimes much more widespread, and that specialization by
schools still occurs at a much lower level than that of the great ideological con-
flicts. It may be useful, therefore, to give one or two examples, which we shall

52 Jean Piaget
select in the realm of psychology as the most experimental of our branches of
study.
A typical example is that of the various schools of psychoanalysis. Freud
discovered a number of new facts and interpretations, but they were not imme-
diately accepted, on account of their startling nature and of the new modes of
thought implicit in Freudianism as distinct from current mechanistic schools of
thought. But instead of trying to convince the psychologists and psychiatrists
by moving into their usual field of discussion, which would have been possible
if he had accepted the support of a number of like-minded thinkers such as E.
Bleuler, Th. Flournoy and others, Freud chose to work at the head of a team of
ready-found disciples and to pursue his own path without making any systemat-
ic attempt to come to an understanding with others. Because of this scientific
attitude, and also because they wished to protect their newly-emerging tech-
niques professionally, the Freudians founded an international psychoanalytic
society whose members were all trained by itself. The advantage of creating an
esprit d’kcole of this kind is of course that it enables specialists holding the same
principles to progress without constantly going back to initial problems. But this
has two disadvantages. First, if agreement is reached too rapidly, verification is
neglected, and this is the aspect of psychoanalysis that mainly held back experi-
mental psychologists who in other ways were interested in Freudian functional-
ism. Second, differences of opinion lead to the rise of new schools, and this is
what happened with Jung and Adler. At present the situation is evolving, and
for two reasons. The first is that some psychoanalysts have become aware of the
need for an experimental basis and for the linking of their theories with psycho-
logical theories in general; an example of this is the movement born of the work
of D. Rapaport at Stockbridge. The second reason is that there is an increasing
tendency among experimental psychologists to take over the main ideas under-
lying psychoanalysis rather than the details of Freudianism. The psychoanalyti-
cal ‘schools’ persist nonetheless, but with a marked and significant tendency to
separate into individual ‘clans’.
Another example of a different kind is found in the tendency noticeable in
American behaviourism for some time, to belittle research work that is under
suspicion of ‘mentalism’ or which refers more or less directly to the consciousness
of the subject. Behaviourism was brought to light by Watson, but is parallelled
in similar trends in many other parts of the world besides the USA (cf. Soviet
psychology with Pavlov, or French psychology with Pikron). The basic method
advocated by behaviourists in studying a subject is to start from the subject’s
behaviour as a whole, and not simply from his introspection. Seen from this
standpoint, the internal mechanisms of thought appear to be essentially the
product of the interiorization of actions themselves - of speech, once it is inter-
iorized, or of sensory-motor actions, and so on. But the characteristic feature of
the behaviourist school in its early days was to deny the very existence of thought,
except as a complex of verbal meanings, and to proscribe any reference to con-
sciousness. Thus theoretical extrapolations from a methodology valid in itself
became the characteristics of the development of this type of school, and it is
easy to understand that it may have been very advantageous to emphasize the

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 53
differences rather than the similarities between research workers in order to get
the most out of a new methodology. Since then, however, positions have become
more flexible, and the very fact that the ‘behaviour theory’, as it is called today,
has the allegiance of the vast majority of research workers shows that it covers
a wide range of possible shades of opinion, so that it is no longer correct to
speak of it as a ‘school’ in the proper sense of the term. As we have seen above,
when Tolman, for instance, says that ‘expectation’ is one of the basic factors
of the learning process, it is difficult to see how this notion differs from mentalist
concepts. On the other hand, when Skinner declines to have recourse to intermediate
variables, and regards the human organism as an ‘empty box’ of which
nothing is known except its inputs and outputs, he is applying the behaviourist
rules strictly, but he is doing so from methodological prudence, and not necessarily
any longer from an esprit d’tfcole; for he knows well that the research work
of the future wil move in the direction of filling this ‘box’ with both physiological
and psychological elements.
An even simpler way in which a ‘school’ may be formed is by isolation (which
is sociologically comparable to the biological factor which produces new species
on islands lying at a distance from any continent). A mechanism of this kind can
be seen at work in contemporary research in social psychology. This branch of
psychology arose from the discovery of new and entirely legitimate problems -
the problem of the possible effect of group interaction on mental functions
which at first glance appear to be independent of it (perception, etc.); or the
problem of the dynamics of interactions in small social groups, for instance.
But while the best writers on social psychology are closely in touch with research
work in experimental psychology in general, and so produce some very valuable
syntheses (cf. a recent work by R. Brown entitled Social Psychology), many
‘social psychologists’ immure themselves totally within their own chosen ground.
In such cases, scientific specialization is likely to be accompanied by the formation
of a ‘school’, which is the product of an ordinary psycho-sociological artefact.
n. Whereas the emergence of schools in this way usually has the effect of in-
creasing specialization, although as a result of the impact of more or less extra-
scientific factors, the opposite may also happen - some schools may aspire to
greater integration than that achieved by spontaneous intra- or inter-discipli-
nary co-ordination. They may succeed to some extent, but once again, out of pure
esprit &&ole, they oppose other possible integrations, which might have been
more natural in some cases and more comprehensive in every case.
Once more we may take as an example the logical positivism that issued from
the ‘Vienna circle’ (in which the psycho-sociological factor is fairly clear, for the
Viennese have always had a special talent for organizing this sort of intellec-
tual society). In this case the goal of the school is explicitly ‘the unity of science’,
an ideal that recurs in the title of the Encyclopaedia for Unified Science and in
that of the Institute that Ph. Frank established at Harvard; and this unity is
sought by reducing scientific data either to observable facts ascertained per-
ceptively, or to the formulation of an accurate vocabulary, that of logic and

54 Jean Piaget
mathematics. But what the opponents of logical positivism have against it is
that on the contrary, it lacks this unity, for two reasons. The first is the pro-
found rift it creates between the facts of experience and the logico-mathematical
vocabulary, whereas in linking logico-mathematical structures with the actions
and operations of a subject we achieve greater unity in the relationship between
subject and object. The second reason is that in re-establishing the activities of
the subject, we attain a more constructive conception of the sciences, which
renders them more ‘open’ instead of enclosing them within the classical barriers
prevalent in all forms of positivism. Hence logical positivism, which is a source
of integration for some, appears to others as bound up with a ‘school‘ inhibiting
the desired integration.
Other movements that are not so obviously a school also strive to promote
the integration of scientific research. We have already referred to the interesting
movement begun by L. von Bertalanffy, called the ‘general theory of systems’,
which covers both the human and the natural sciences. Its object is to try to
discern the theoretical structures which are common to all attempts at synthesis,
whether in biological organicism or in the interpretations of overall data in
sociology and psychology. A movement of this kind is in fact allied to all the
trends towards the mathematization and especially the cybernetization of the
sciences that are concerned with mental or social organic life.
m. The twofold trend towards specialization and integration, which is the
result of movements of ideas and problems, but which, as we have seen, is
accompanied by various sociological stimuli, interferes in some ways with the
spontaneous division of work into basic research and tentative application. This
is a question of the greatest importance in relation to the present study, for the
reason why UNESCO undertook this survey of the main trends in the sciences of
man is obviously that they are useful to society and will be increasingly useful in
the future.
We thought it desirable, however, to deal with this problem in conjunction
with that of specialization and ‘schools’, not only because the dominant element
in the latter is often the desire to apply a theory but also because the frequent
isolation of practical workers from theoretical research may have the same dis-
advantages as those manifest in separation into schools - disadvantages which
are then all the more serious because they reduce the efficiency of practical work.
The relations between basic research and the many attempts at application
are profoundly different in those branches of study in which experimentation
in the strict sense is possible, and in those that deal with scales of phenom-
ena in which the statistical and probabilist analysis of observable factors rules
out- experimentation. In the latter case, application plays an important part
because it really acts as a substitute for experimentation. The classic example of
this second type is economics; when an economist is asked to organize a partic-
ular test, the specialist makes a number of forecasts based on theory; and the
ensuing events confirm or disprove them in the same way as experimentation
would, except that it is not always possible to isolate all the factors. Accordingly
this kind of application is bound up with basic research, and one could listza

m e
place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 55
number of outstanding writers, who, like Keynes, were both theoreticians of the
first rank and the instigators of numerous practical experiments. In such cases it
is obvious that application draws the maximum advantage from the progress of
basic research, since it stimulates the latter.
Branches of study such as psychology, in which basic research work can be
pursued using experimental methods without necessarily having recourse to
application, is quite different. Nevertheless, experimental psychology has given
rise to a large number of applications almost since its beginnings, and great
writers such as Binet have initiated both important basic research (on intelli-
gence, for instance), and widely used practical processes (such as his intelligence
tests). Obviously, the main reason for this is that any psychological theory
concerns human life, and that circumstances are such that psychologists are
constantly being calIed upon to solve some practical problem or other. But
another reason may be found in the example of medicine, with which psychol-
ogy has always been closely related, and which owes a good deal of its informa-
tion to the study of applications, although its bases lie in general physiology and
biology.
We must therefore draw a distinction between two problems with regard to
the relations between basic research and application in psychology: the problem
of the contribution made by the latter to the former, and that of the contribu-
tion made jn the contrary direction. These two problems, however, are relatively
linked, and in the last resort are such as to cast doubt upon the very idea of
‘applied psychology’ from the standpoint of both its theoretical interpretation
and the advantages of application for its own sake.
On the whole, these applications of psychology have contributed little to
psychological knowledge itself, except in the sphere of pathological psychology,
in which disease is a kind of natural experimentation (for instance, the dissocia-
tion of the speech factor in aphasia, and so on), and applied research assumes a
heuristic value, similar to that we saw in the case of economics. But in the other
spheres it would be impossible to cite a discovery that was due to application;
Binet, for instance, deduced nothing from his tests related to the interpretation
of intelligence. Yet, as we have seen, ‘applied psychology’ is almost as old as
psychology, and could have contributed to the development of the latter. But
for this very reason it did not always succeed in taking advantage of the basic
research work that would have been useful to it, because it evolved too early
and because it constantly sought to apply the knowledge gained in a particular
sector before the subject had been thoroughly investigated. Consequently,
attempts were made to evaluate achievements and results before the formative
mechanisms were known, and the result was often mutual impoverishment.
Tn addition there have been the effects of the formation of ‘schools’. Applied
psychology organizes its own congresses, and has a tendency to become a kind
of state within a state, with all the disadvantages of relative isolation in science.
To take the sphere of application alone, this means necessarily limiting the
scope of problems, and those which would ultimately be the most interesting to
resolve, for the sake of application itself, are sometimes neglected because, in
their initial form, they appear to relate only to basic research or theory.

56 Jean Piaget
We stress this example because it is most instructive, especially in comparison
with the way in which applications are made in the natural sciences. As weknow,
the applications in physics, chemistry and biology, which are altogether more
valid, have often occurred in the most unexpected way as a result of basic
research and sometimes even of purely theoretical research totally unrelated to
practical application. An example which has often been quoted is the r61e of
Maxwell’s equations in present-day applications of electromagnetics. But if we
confine ourselves solely to application and try, for instance, to measure a sub-
ject’s intelligence before we understand what intelligence is in general and how
it evolves, the applications we make will be much more limited than those that
we could expect to make once we had understood the formative mechanisms.
In short, there is no such thing as ‘applied psychology’ as an independent
branch of study; although any sound psychological study wil lead to valid
applications. Broadly speaking, the function of the sciences of man is to provide
increasingly valuable applications, in all spheres of knowledge, but on condition
that basic research is developed without prior limitation imposed for the sake of
utilitarian criteria; for what seems to be the least valuable at the beginning may
have the most unexpected consequences, whereas initial delimitation with a
view to practice makes it impossible to see all the questions at issue, and may
result in neglect of what is in fact the most important and fruitful line of investi-
gation.
NOTES
I. The return to the hypothesis of the innate by the linguist Chomsky should, how-
ever, be noted, although his theories would remain just as valid if this ‘innate
fixed nucleus’ were replaced by a self-regulating mechanism resulting from sen-
sory-motor development at the stage of incipient self-expression.
2. We should also mention G. Beaujouan’s study ‘Le temps historique’ in: L’histoire
et ses rndthodes, Paris, Gallimard (Encyclopbdie de la Plbiade), which studies
historical rhythms and cycles.
3. It should be noted that N. Chomsky considers himself a descendant of the Port-
Royal grammarians because (no doubt rightly) he is more inclined to see the
effect of logic on language than the converse. But the very fact that he adds to the
‘fixed kernel’ of grammar a series of transforming processes of which he has
discovered the existence and laws shows what progress had been made towards
decentration.
4. Whose quasi-evolutionist ideas were the product of his neoplatonism, as has
recently been demonstrated by workers in Prague.
5. By this is meant the spontaneous propensities observed in any objective study of
the growth of the mental faculties. With children (irrespective of what they may
have learned at school or from adults) it has been noted that deductive processes
develop long before experimental ones, and that the latter are manifestly subor-
dinated to the higher forms of deduction. Facts of this kind, which can be fully
and easily verified, show that socio-economic factors, which generally play a sig-
nificant rBIe, cannot adequately explain why experimentation develops later than
deduction.
6. An example will illustrate the difference between the second and third types.
Durkheim (emergence) sees the obligation imposed by the conscience as a product

Theplace of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 57
of the constraint exercised by society as a whole on individuals, including parents,
whose authority over their children is respected only in so far as it emanates from
the collective law (cf. respect in Kant). I. M. Baldwin, P. Bovet and Freud, on
the other hand, maintain that respect is explained by the affective relationship
between parents and children, which makes the parents’ examples or instructions
coercive, the moral constraints of the group as a whole being built up from such
interactions.
7. Except in areas such as migration and urbanization, where demography and
sociology are probably bound to interact.
8. For example, we have come to believe that the ‘natural logic’ of the adolescent
and the adult represents a ‘group’ structure of four transformations in which an
inverse transformation, a reciprocal, a correlative and an identical correspond to
each propositional operation (e.g. an implication). This leads us to ask whether
such a Klein group really exists in the subject’s intellectual behaviour (not in his
deliberate consciousness, of course, but in his modes of reasoning), or whether the
psychologist has simply translated the facts into this convenient language while
wrongly projecting such a structure into the minds of his subjects. However, since
it is easy to demonstrate the formation between seven and twelve years of age of
structures based on operations whose form of reversibility is inversion (such as the
ClassificationS-A-A = o) or reciprocity (A = B, so B = A), it is highly likely
that the two kinds of systems, when translated into terms of propositions, wil
finally combine to produce a synthesis including both forms of reversibility, whence
the group in question.
9. It is the qualitative aspects of purely mathematical structures which preoccupy
mathematicians; to identify mathematics with the study of quantity would be
grossly to ignore the significance of modern work in this field.
IO. ‘Relatively’, in comparison with the other sciences of man, although a number of
problems are obviously common to sociology and demography, and the subject
of essentially interdisciplinary research, migration and urbanization being particularly
striking examples.
11. Let us suppose that in an examination a candidate receives IZ marks out of 20
in mathematics and IO out of 20 in history: there is no means of determining
whether the difference between 11 and 12 is the same as that between g and IO, or
between z and 3; nor whether these wholly symbolic numbers are comparable in
the two branches in question.
12. If A is included in B in the form A+A’ = B, intensive quantity is involved as we
only know that A < B without knowing the relationship between A and A’.
Extensive quantity is involved when we do know these relationships (for example,
A < A’), and metric quantity appears with the introduction of units (for example
B = 2.4 because A = A’).
13. This does not exclude certain difficulties arising from the existence of ‘schools’
within the disciplines.
14. By ‘psychologism’ is meant the unwarranted deduction of a law from a fact.
15. Or the second principle of thermodynamics, since consciousness would in that
case lead to the choice of the least probable of the possible material developments
(but it is precisely this antientropic action that some defenders of interaction try
to bestow upon it).
16. It should be noted that this solution adds nothing to the ‘parallelist’ models as
regards particular psycho-physiological facts. But from an epistemological standpoint
it has the advantage, as we shall presently see, of placing the question within
the much wider problem of the concordance between implication (logicomathematical)
systems and physical (as well as physiological) realities.

1. Main trends ofresearch
in the different social sciences

CHAPTER I
Sociology
P. F. LAZARSFELD
INTRODUCTION
Contemporary trends in sociology can only be understood by reference to their
history. This is probably more true than with any of the other social sciences.
Economics and psychology have diversified their subject matter and refined
their methods but still, the core of their problems remains the same. But there
is little similarity between what sociology was fifty years ago and what it is
today; what it may be a few decades from now can only be dimly perceived.
Sociology as a formal discipline began not because a special subject matter
presented itself but rather because other social sciences developed certain areas
which required new types of intellectual activity. Hobhouse speaks of three
roots. Two of them, political philosophy and the philosophy of history, are of
ancient vintage. These fields slowly discovered the need for more concrete facts
and for facts organized in such a way that they could be compared over time
and between countries. The systematic search for - and the conceptualization
of - such information stimulated the creation of a new discipline. Its full growth
was due to a third root: the beginning of evohtionary ideas in biology.
While the Englishman Hobhouse argues that sociology had to be created to
compIement other studies of human affairs, the German, Schelsky, sees it all as
coming from the opposite direction. His point is that in their own intrinsic
development, economics and philosophy became ever more specialized. Econo-
mists concentrated on a few variables treated in mathematical terms. The
broader probIems dealt with by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations fell by
the way. Philosophers concentrated on formal aspects of reasoning, and here
too, their genera1 concern with human existence waned. The leftovers had to be
handled by someone, and thus the sociologist was created.
The American, Nesbit, takes a more pragmatic view. The Industrial Revolu-
tion broke up the old order of things; the rationalistic ideas of the Enlightenment,
especially in the form in which the French Revolution gave them currency, were
not helpful in the creation of a new order. A sense of community had to be
established, new forms of stratification had to be made understandable, the alien-

62 P. F. Lazarsfeld
ation of the industrial masses had to be coped with. The great figures of nine-
teenth century sociology aimed at providing answers to the problems created by
the disintegration of the pre-capitalistic pattern.
Whatever picture these authors paint, they all agree that sociology has not
developed around a positive subject matter but as a residual activity, filling in
the blank spots in an intellectual map. The metaphor is not an idle one because
it highlights a feature characteristic of contemporary sociology. Empty spaces
may either be filled or bridged, and indeed the task of the sociologist is often
viewed in two ways, both of which are properly applicable to his work. Some
sociologists look at society as a whole, and in doing so, look for the interrela-
tions between its major parts and institutions : the polity, the economy, spiritual
life, etc. Others are more interested in elements common to all these ‘subsystems’ :
‘choice behavior’, be it of the voter or the consumer, the role of the primary
group, whether in the formation of individual attitudes or in the stability of
large organizations, etc. Aron has remarked that sociology strives to encompass
the whole of society and yet have a specific subject matter parallel to the other
social sciences. The shifting balance of these two tendencies - he calls them
‘synthetic’ versus ‘scientific’ - characterizes the trends prevailing at a certain
time in various countries.
This being so, two procedures seemed inadvisable for the present chapter. A
review of empirical findings would result in an endless catalogue. For the remark
has been made that only hyphenated sociology exists : political, medical, legal,
familial, urban, etc. If concentrating on the major concepts rather than empiri-
cal findings, one would fare no better. Reference groups, roles, stratification,
socialization, etc. are important tools of analysis, but they certainly do not hang
together in a systematic way which would provide a ‘theory of society’.
Out of this unstable history and these diversified activities, one thing emerges:
there now exists a sociological mode of thought, a way of raising problems and
giving explanations that has coalesced into a discipline with new research
techniques and a promising quest for intellectual coherence. By its very nature,
this sociological orientation is not easily codified, though the direction in
which it moves at the moment may be caught. We can scrutinize the topics
which seem to occupy the profession at large, irrespective of specific pursuits.
Unavoidably the selection of these issues will depend upon the judgment of
the author. I have started with a section in which I try to allay a number of
misunderstandings between American sociologists and their colleagues in other
countries. Unfortunately, the multitude of empirical studies published in the
United States arouses little interest from scholars with more humanistic and
philosophical inclinations. This is unjustified if one looks at the methodological
ideas which grew out of a type of empirical social research which for the lack
of a better term I wil call survey research. In this section I shall trace the
history of these activities and the contributions they make to general sociological
thinking. Concrete examples were chosen not because of their particular con-
tent but as good illustrations for the basic conceptual points I am trying to
report.
In Section 11 I remain with empirical work but in a different phase of its

Sociology 63
development. The very wide diffusion of surveys has generated a countermove:
renewed attention to the large, complex social units with which sociology start-
ed. Whereas the refinement of empirical methods certainly directed the profes-
sion toward specific problems which could be approached with great precision,
in recent years, ‘macrosociology’ has again become a dominant concern for
sociologists. Why this is so and to what work this trend leads are discussed in
Section 11.
A clear difference exists between Section 11 and the preceding one. The
technique of survey analysis is well established; what is new is the awareness of
its broader implications. But macrosociologists are just forging their tools. They
take up old problems at a time when sensitivity to methodological competence
has grown and when factual information has multiplied and diversified. Section
II is an effort to describe and clarify this trend.
One might have expected our presentation to start conventionally, with the
state of social theory and the empirical work done to test it. But this would have
meant following the aspirations and not the realities of contemporary sociology.
Section III is purposefully entitled ‘Quest for Theory’. There is of course no
general agreement as to what a theory is. Philosophers of science have derived
their principles from a scrutiny of the activities of natural scientists; the very
notion of theory depends upon the particular part of the natural sciences they
know well. In any case, none of this applies to what goes under the name of
social theory. Should one talk of a first approximation to a future theory in a
classical sense? I am not willing to predict whether the notion of theory wil
take on a new meaning in the social sciences. In any case the trends I can observe
are best described as efforts rather than achievements. 1 am sure that my un-
easiness is shared by all those colleagues who have so eagerly accepted the
notion of a ‘theory of the middle range’. I begin Section n~ by exemplifying
this trend, and then move to the two systems which have come nearest to a
traditional notion of theory: Marxism and Functionalism. In both cases, I
aroid textbook exposition in favour of a description of those developments
which I consider worthy of special attention. In Marxist sociology, it is the
gradual reception of empirical social research. For functionalism, I have tried
from ongoing discussions, to extract a few major topics likely to become a per-
manent part of sociological analysis. Since Marxism and functionalism preoc-
cupy Soviets and Americans respectively, I tried to pinpoint a third theoretical
quest of general relevance rooted in another country. I chose theissue of ‘critical
sociology’ which so strongly agitates our German colleagues. It has some faint
echoes in France, but most of all, whether we recognize it or not, the revolu-
tionary students all over the world are influenced by it.
The discussion of social theory has brought up national differences. Section
IV follows them up in greater detail. This section is written in collaboration with
Thomas Shepard, a member of the UNESCO Secretariat.
Every country has expressed some misgivings about the expansion of empiri-
cal work based on what are considered American research techniques. As a
matter of fact, these techniques were developed in Europe, where they never at-
tained major academic respectability.’ They found fertile ground in the United

64 P. F. Lazarsfeld
States for several reasons. The lack of governmental institutions for social
bookkeeping relegated much of this activity to private enterprise; at the same
time, the rapid growth of cities,‘filling continuously with waves of immigrants,
made the need for sociological information especially urgent. As a result, sociolo-
gy became part of the university curriculum. Thus, America trained thousands
of sociologists at a time when European countries had only a few dozen.
The re-importation of empirical techniques into Western Europe and their
utilization in other parts of the world can be partially explained by imitation
and by the development of similar conditions everywhere. Yet, every country
hopes for an individual expression, and local variation should add color to the
present uniformity of the international sociological scene. The Indians cherish
their philosophical tradition dating back thousands of years ; the Soviets are
Marxists; the British seek to link sociology to the problems of the welfare state;
and the French would like sociology to pay more attention to the problem of
power. Obviously, the substantive topics are different. Only in India can one
study the role of the caste system, only in France or Italy the role of strong
Communist Parties. Does this enlarge the fund of concepts and research tech-
niques? We would like to think so, but there are as yet few signs of it. A ‘soci-
ology of sociology’ is needed, and the present study must raise this issue, even if
there cannot yet be any clear answer.
Finally I turn to the relation between sociology and the other social sciences.
After a general discussion of the trend I briefly review anthropology, political
science and economics as they relate to our main topic. Social psychology is
treated in considerable detail; it is often impossible to say where it ends and
sociology begins. The topic of this section is really a special case of the ‘uses of
sociology’. An increasing number of social groups, among them important poli-
cy makers, are influenced or make use of sociological analysis and research.
Such applications raise new problems and have an important feedback effect on
the core of sociological work.
I. CONCEPTUAL CONTRIBUTION OF SURVEY ANALYSIS TO GENERAL SOCIOLOGY
The background
In all periods of history, it has been important for administrators and intellec-
tuals to obtain information on social matters. The ‘intendants’ of the Ancien
Regime, as well as the consultants to the Convention, carried out ‘enqu@tes’
with the techniques available to them. In 18th century England, members of the
Royal Commissions were avid collectors of social facts, and, later, a dispute
between Charles Booth and several socialist friends led to his famous survey
of poverty. In the early 20th century in Germany, Max Weber supervised
studies of agriculture and factory labour. Along somewhat different lines, the
Italian, Nicefero, published extensively on the nature of measurement in the
social sciences, an interest which undoubtedly grew out of his investigations of
the underdeveloped southern parts of his country.
There are roughly three phases in this tradition of research. In the first, the

Sociology 65
survey was undertaken to contribute to discussions of immediate and pressing
social problems. But even then, one basic methodological question was not
overlooked, that is the problem of quantification in its broadest sense. Le Play
assessed the religious feelings of the families he studied by examining their
budgets and noting how much money they spent on candles for church masses.
It was objected that church attendance might be a better indicator of the religious
feelings Le Play sought to measure, and thus slowly the notion of time budgets
- in addition to money budgets - developed. It was then further argued, that
perhaps church attendance is indicative only of conformity to social customs; it
is the attitude toward religion which really matters. And so attitude measures
began their triumphant course.z
The second phase, which one might label the survey movement, began in the
United States around 1930. Because of political events in Europe during the
’30s and ’40s fewer and fewer studies came from European countries, and the
survey movement temporarily developed into a virtual American monopoly.
In principle, there is no limit to the variety of data relevant to thesociologist:
what people think, what they do, what they buy and own, with whom they
associate, all this and much more can be profitably studied in sociological
surveys. To deal with this broad range of problems, technical advances were
needed- and were forthcoming. The second phase of survey analysis was charac-
terized by significant developments in sampling techniques, attitude rneasure-
ment, and refined methods of questionnaire construction.
Largely as a result of such methodological progress, increasing numbers of
enthusiastic workers were attracted to the survey field. Because of the sheer bulk
of the work that was undertaken, and the exhilaration with which it was some-
times approached, the field gradually became rather chaotic. By the end of the
Second World War, the need for systematization was urgent indeed. Thus was
ushered in the thirdphase of survey analysis, which might be characterized as
that of codification. Among the most pressing questions that had to be faced
were first, the nature of the concepts with which the survey analyst is concerned,
and, second, given such concepts, determining how the relationships between
them can be rigorously analysed.
This phase of codification and its importance for general sociology is the
main topic of the present section. Before proceeding some terminological
clarification is needed.
The German sociologist Toennies once proposed dividing sociology into
three parts: social theory, applied sociology and sociography. He understood
social theory as essentially the creation of conceptual distinctions. His own
‘Gesellschaft zind Gemeinschaft’, or Parsons’ ‘pattern variables’, would be a
typical example. By application, he meant the use of such distinctions in the
analysis of social phenomena, as he himself discussed in the role of religion in
Cemeinsckaft and public opinion in Gesellschaft; Parsons’ analysis of the doctor-
patient relation in terms of the pattern variables would be another example. By
sociography he meant the detailed and systematic description of soma contem-
porary social situation.3
Two of these terms have undergone changes. Today, by applied sociology

66 P. F. Lazarsfeld
we mean work which is close to policy formation and practical decision. This
leaves the second type of thinking without label, although it covers much of the
work which the general public considers as characteristically sociological, e.g.,
the role conflict of the working mother, the anomie of the city dweller, the in-
fluence of reference groups on people’s opinions.
The term sociography has fallen out of use because it came to connote a
mechanical description instead of a systematic analysis of concrete data which
it originally meant. In an early draft of this chapter I suggested the term empiri-
cal social research, but the objection was made that the macrosociologist is
obviously dealing with empirical material. Finally I settled for ‘survey analysis’,
as it deals with a large number of units described uniformly by a number of
characteristics. It is merely necessary to keep in mind that the units of a survey
may be organizations or countries as well as people.
Actually still another term would be most appropriate. A survey interrelates
the various characteristics of its units, and often prior to such statistical work,
the analyst must create the characteristic relevant for his purpose. A brief
reminder of how he proceeds is necessary and this requires a second termino-
logical convention. Some characteristics are ‘natural), e.g., men and women,
languages which do and those which do not use a certain sound; thus we speak of
dichotomies. For others, easy quantification is provided, e.g., age of people or
proportion of voters in a series of countries; the term variable is then customary.
But there are also rank orders given, e.g., at the French agrigation, or carefully
constructed scales and lists used in certain Anglo-Saxon school systems. A
common term for all these classificatory devices is needed and variate is becom-
ing more generally accepted. Be it remembered that such variates may be of
different types, far more than those just mentioned, and they may characterize
collectives as well as individuals, and refer to different time periods; they may
deal with behaviour as well as reports of ‘inner’ experiences, and so on. When-
ever we classify a number of units we shall talk of measurement. This is a
rather broad use of the term, but it leads to no difficulty; if we classify a set of
units by a quantitative variate (variable) we have the special case of conventional
measurement.
The flow from concepts to variates
One of the main tasks of empirical social research is to translate conceptual
ideas into variates. Sometimes one is directly interested in particular variates
by virtue of the problem at hand. Thus, if one studies income distribution, the
local currency is an obvious variate. The matter becomes more complex if one
is concerned with ‘standard of living’. The literature on the various standard of
living indices will testify to the difficulties inherent in the translation of such
notion into a variate. The statement that white-collar and blue-collar workers
with the same income have different standards of living cannot be made without
carefully considering combinations from a variety of more elementary data.
The same situation exists when the physical anthropologist talks of body types
or the sociologist talks of cohesive or integrated collectives. The flow from
concepts to variates generally prodeeds in four steps.

Sociology 67
I. Imagery. The thought and analysis which culminate in a classificatory in-
strument begin with a rather vague image or construct. The investigator might
perceive disparate phenomena as having some underlying characteristic in
common, or he may have observed certain regularities and is trying to account
for them. In any case, the concept, when first created, is some vaguely conceived
entity that makes observed relations meaningful.
Suppose someone wishes to ‘measure’ the ‘integration’ of communities. He
might think of people who like each other, who cooperate in the improvement
of their city, who walk in peace and would hate to live elsewhere. Authors wil
vary according to the precision of their imagery. They wil also have different
problems in mind. What accounts for degrees of integration? What consequen-
ces has it for the life of the citizenry? Whatever the starting point, a second step
in variate formation will gradually appear necessary.
2. Concept specification. This step is to divide the imagery into components.
The concept is specified by ‘aspects’, ‘dimensions’, etc. They are sometimes
derived sociologically from the over-all concept, sometimes deduced from em-
pirically observed correlations. The concept is shown to consist of a complex
combination of phenomena, rather than a single direct observation.
In the case of integration of communities, for example, Landeckee has ex-
pressed the following idea. The elementary units of social groups are norms and
people. Integration then has to begin with two dimensions: a cultural one,
which requires that the prevailing norms may not be too contradictory, and a
personal one, referring to relations between people. The latter leads to a com-
nzunicative dimension, requiring the exchange of symbols, and a functional one,
referring to the exchange of goods and services. Finally, it is necessary that
people obey the prevailing norms, which brings out a normative dimension of
integration. The next problem then is to find concrete indicators for these di-
mensions.
3. Selection ofindicatous. How does one ‘think up’ indicators? The problem is
an old one. William James has written in The Meaning of Truth: ‘Suppose that
we say a man is prudent. Concretely, that means that he takes” out insurance,
hedges in betting, looks before he leaps ... As a constant habit in him, it is
convenient to call him prudent in abstraction from any one of his acts.’ James
proceeds from an image to a series of indicators suggested directly by common
experience. Actually one would not expect a ‘prudent’ man always to hedge in
betting, or to take out insurance on all possible risks; instead one would talk
about the probability that he wil perform a specific act as compared with a less
prudent individual. And one would know that the appropriate indicators might
vary considerably, depending on the social setting of the individual.
To find indicators for the integration idea, the dimensional analysis provides
good leads. What conflicts of norms - love thy neighbor but maximize profit -
occur in belles-lettres, in court decisions? How much communication is there
between people, how much prejudice between groups? To what extent does
everyone’s daily life depend upon others, how often or how easily is the circula-

68 P. F. Lazarsfeld
tion of these services interrupted? How high is the crime rate, how generously
do people contribute to public charity?s
4. Formation of variates. After indicators have been selected for each dimension,
they must be recombined, because one cannot operate with all those dimensions
and indicators separately.
For some situations the analyst forms one over-all index. If a professor has
six students and only one fellowship to give, he must make an over-all rating of
the six. At another time he may be more interested in how each of several achieve-
ment dimensions is related to an external variate.
Many indicesfor the goodness of citiesexist in literature, some unidimensional,
some multidimensional and still others only concerned with some specific
dimension. The final merits of such a variate often cannot be decided before
having been used for a long time; all depends upon the value of the propositions
to which it leads and how well they in turn combine into larger systems. Often
one hears that a certain variate does not ‘really’ reflect the intended concepts.
This frequently helps in considering more convincing dimensions or additional
indicators. But no absolute decision is possible.6
Our summary, of course, gives an oversimplified version of the operations
involved and leaves many problems undiscussed. But it is sufficient to highlight
the main points relevant to the present purpose. The following remarks are
pertinent : a) The operations involved apply to individuals as well as to collec-
tives and to inanimate objects; one has to devise classificatory systems into
which a concrete given object may be allocated. b) These classifications are
always intended or latent; combinations of indicators are used to decide where
an object is most likely to belong. c) The relation between the manifest observa-
tions and the intended classification is a probabilistic one,
The creation of variates is the first step in the kind of work I have described
as survey analysis. The variates form the material out of which substantive
findings are built. The importance of this kind of work for general sociology
lies in the fact that it forces an amount of clarity and precision which cannot be
attained otherwise. It looks, so to say, at the social world as consisting of objects
which have specifiable characteristics. Events consist of interrelations between
variates which come about over time. Such a representation is properly called
a variate language. Though somewhat awkward, this term is indispensable to
make the main point of this section.
Variate language
The findings of empirical social research have one strong point in common with
ordinary language. Just as we distinguish words and sentences, we have variates
and the propositions into which they are combined. The ‘propositions’ are
necessarily all cross-tabulations between variates. These cross-tabulations can
become quite complex if many variates are involved. Even if we deal with only
three variates, considerable diversity is provided by the use of contingent cross-
tabulations, as, for example, in the following sentence : in upper-class strata,
men and women are equally likely to vote; in lower strata, men have a higher

Sociology 69
voting turnout than women. Obviously this statement comes about by sorting
a sample of people first by status and then cross-tabulations for each subset and
voting turnout.
One might suspect that such ‘variate language’ becomes rather monotonous.
This however is not the case, because the variates themselves can be of very
different kinds. They might characterize collectives as well as individuals, be
taken at different time periods, refer to behaviour as well as to reports on ‘inner’
experiences, etc. By combining the formalism of cross-tabulations with an
appropriate classification of kinds of variates, one arrives at a typology of
propositions in variate language which has far-reaching intellectual implica-
tions.
I have selected three terms which play a considerable role in sociological
discussion: process, context and typology. I shall advance a concrete example
for each, to show that these three notions, usually introduced rather vaguely, can
have a precise representation in variate language. It is not claimed that all the
nuances which a series of writers essay with these terms are captured this way.
It would be more correct to say that variate language expresses a minimum
common content which is implied in the various applications. But such a trans-
lation has a double advantage. First, in each special case one can test whether
the term used satisfies a core criterion. Secondly, if there is surplus meaning
one wil be in a much better position to bring it to light.
The concrete examples drawn from a variety of research areas will, I hope,
make the discussion more vivid. No importance is attached to their specific
content. The reader wil easily think of similar cases in his own field of experience.
Social process
It is not necessary to engage in a complicated discussion of causality in order
to reach a point of general agreement: in the study of social processes, one
cannot talk easily about one factor causing another or apply a simple stimulus-
response model. Any institutional change has consequences for people’s
attitudes, and these, in turn, create the need for further institutional changes.
For example, a majority of the populace elects a government; the actions of
this government create public opinion which is quite different in its distribution,
than that which existed originally; the willingness of the populace to support
the government is then different than what it was initially. Some of these changes
come about rather quickly; others, over a considerable time, and often, through
long chains of mediating factors, bringing with them unanticipated consequen-
ces. In other words, the range of factors involved in such social processes, and
the immediacy of their occurrence, may vary greatly.
The image of such a process is best captured in a diagram which, in itself, has
an interesting history. It was originally used by the Dutch economist, Tinbergen,
to explain modern business cycle analysis; it was then applied to sociological
problems by the present author; still later, it was used by the psychologist,
Hovland, to discuss the differences between laboratory experiments and the
study of ‘natural’ changes.

70 P. F. Lazarsfeld
1-1 I 1+1 I +2 I +3
Charted on the horizontal axis of the diagram are the successive periods of time
at which observations are made. On the vertical axis are letters designating the
variables under observation. In political studies these variables might be vote
intentions, attitudes toward various issues in the campaign, the opinions of
family members, and so forth. The arrows in the scheme represent the relations
between these variables. Some of these arrows have ‘time lags’; we might want
to know, for example, whether an individual’s vote intention is affected by
what he has read at an earlier time. Other arrows relate different variables at
the same time period; we might want to find out, for example, whether an
individual shares his opinions with his friends. Still other arrows cross several
time periods and several variables; for example, exposure to a friend’s opinion
at time t may be followed by a new way of looking at the campaign at time
t + ~ and, finally, by a changed vote intention at time t+2.
However complex a research situation, its analysis can be reduced to an
elementary form expressed in variate language. To exemplify this, we have
chosen a finding from a study of college students.’ They were interviewed twice
over a period of two years; on each occasion, they were asked questions about
two central variates - their occupational choices and some of their main values.
‘People-oriented’ occupational values and occupational choice in I950 and I952
Choice
Values
1952
PO
PO
r PO
NPO
NPO
PO
NPO
NPO Total
1950 PO PO 163 A 30 18 (226)
PO NPO @ 29 8 21 (89)
NPO PO 39 8 73 @ (166)
NPO NPO 6 I4 A 168 (231)
Total (236) (66) (156) (256) (712)
SOURCE: M. Rosenberg, Occupational Values and Occupational Choice, New York,
Columbia University Dissertation, 1953.
To simplify the presentation, each of the variates has been reduced to a dicho-
tomy. In their occupational choices, students were classified as people-oriented
(ambitions to be a teacher, doctor, social worker, psychologist, etc.) or other-

Sociology 71
wise. Similarly, in their attitudes to the essential gratifications of a job, the
students were classifled as person-directed (wishing to help people, to derive
self-satisfaction, to express their own abilities, etc.) or again, not person-directed
(wishing to become rich, successful, economically secure, etc.). (The figures in
Rosenberg’s study have been modified slightly to make the argument as clear
as possible.)
We concentrate first on the marginal figures of the table given in the ‘total’ row
and column. We find the first result: the students ‘harmonize’ their choices
and their attitudes; the number of cases which show dissonance betweeen choice
and values is smaller at the end of the college period (1952) than it was in the
middle of it (1950).
We then concentrate on the inner figures in the second and third rows of the
table. These are the people whose pattern was originally dissonant. A number of
these respondents have moved into the first or the last column; their choices and
their values have become consonant. But where have they moved? W e encircle
the shifts which are relatively more frequent. It happens more often that occupa-
tional choices remain constant and that verbalized values adjust to them rather
than values leading to shifts in choices.
Obviously, such a structure does not depend on two variates only. A completed
model would add elements. The first and last row of the table give a hint as to
incompleteness of the scheme. These are the people for whom choices and values
are at first consonant. Yet some of them do not maintain this harmony - they are
indicated by the figures with triangles. Again we single out two figures, this time
by triangle, and we obtain additional information. Zf harmony is disrupted,
values are likely to be less stable than choices. The four specially marked figures
indicate the extent to which the two items, choice and values, fail to account
for the whole process. (Incidentally, some of these moves may be partially
attributed to unreliability of measurement.)
This is not the place to go into the abundant details contained in such rela-
tively simple tables. The main point to be made is that repeated surveys with
the same subjects permit a very precise analysis of the notion of process. Many
such studies already exist: the interaction between party affiliation and position
on specific political issues; the use of commercial products and the customer’s
exposure to advertising; the military attitude of soldiers and their chances of
being promoted, etc. It is not the substantive content of such studies which
matters at this point. It is the procedure itself which helps to clarify many a
murky discussion around the problem of causal relations. This is true not only
for the analysis of processes. It applies also to other topics that are controversial
in general sociology. One more example, taken from the core of general socio-
logical discussion, wil clarify this general trend.
Social corntexts
In spite of its ultimate contributions, the survey movement had, for a while,
deleterious effects on the development of general sociology. This is best exem-
plified by what happened to the once dominant tradition of community studies.
German sociologists like Von Wiese sent their students to rural villages so that

72 P. F. Lazarsfeld
they could observe social relations at first hand. Austrian and British sociol-
ogists observed the lives of unemployed workers in blighted industrial towns.
Polish investigators used letters and autobiographies to study peasants before
and after they had emigrated to the United States. In the early twentieth
century, the Chicago School dominated American sociology because of its skill
in analysing the problems of such groups as juvenile gangs and ethnic minori-
ties submerged in large cities.
The chief merit of this tradition was its sensitivity to cues permitting infer-
ences as to the social organization and normative structures of collectives. Efforts
to systematize such work have a considerable history. The Belgian astronomer,
QuBtelet, sought to uncover general statistical laws in the criminal records kept
by the French administration. The mining engineer, Le Play, mined for nuggets
which would enable him to construct a psychology of culture. In all instances,
the concern of such efforts was the collectivity rather than the individual.
For a time, however, enthusiasm with newly devised techniques of sampling
and of measuring attitudes and behaviour patterns eclipsed interest in the
further development of these older methods. For, by its very nature, the survey
technique threatened to atomize sociology ; instead of viewing the human col-
lective as a whole, the survey analyst tended to look at it as an aggregate of
separate individuals.
But soon, as we previously suggested, dissenting voices were heard. They re-
vealed some of the limitations inherent in the survey method as it first develop-
ed. This ‘holistic’ opposition was best expressed at the time when the great
classic of survey analysis - Stouffer’s The American Soldier - made its appear-
ance. A sociologist then remarked that if it had been a work of true sociology,
it would have been entitled The American Army.
Like all objections raised by thoughtful conservatives, these arguments had a
grain of truth; but like most conservative criticism, it did not seek an appropri-
ate remedy. What was needed was not dismissal of the survey method in its
entirety, but rather a broadening of the language of variates so that one could
talk about collectives as well as individuals. This is what has actually happened,
and it constitutes a major turning point in empirical social research.
The topic is most easily clarified by tracingrecent developments in the study
of social organizations. There is no reason why these cannot be described in
quantitative terms, once their nature is properly analysed. Organizations must
recruit personnel; the criteria of selection are clearly accessible to precise
description and often, to relatively precise measurement. Once men are at work,
their productivity must be maintained; this requires the study of inducements
and penalties. Workers must be guided and supervised; this calls for the study
of leadership, of hierarchical levels and channels of communication. Finally,
organizations require controls; feedback systems, which ensure that guide-
lines are executed on all levels, must be evaluated.
Such formulations permitted the measurement of characteristics which were
more complex than those pertaining to individuals but which, in their methodo-
logical structure, were not basically different. Once such measurements were
available, it was possible, in principle, to trace the effects of an organization on

Sociology 73
the conduct of its members. Clearly, in order to make generalizations, a reasonably
large number of similar organizations must be included in such studies.
This is expensive, but constitutes a practical, not a theoretical limitation.
In an article, a Russian sociologist, AndrCeva,8 has discussed the need to
include variates which go beyond individual characteristics in any empirical
analysis. She would probably not even be satisfied with the kind of organizational
measures we used in our example. According to Andreeva’s reasoning, a
benevolent employer might conceivably become ruthless if his business were
threatened by bankruptcy. Thus, a pressure exercised upon an organization and
other characteristics of the broader social environment wil sometimes have to
be considered simultaneously in a study. It is not clear from Andreeva’s discussion
whether she believes that the entire social system must be taken into
account in every study. If so, this would require analytical procedures quite
different from those we are discussing at the moment; we shall not pursue them
here.
A concrete example may help to clarify these recent developments in empirical
social research. In the United States, during the I~~OS, Senator Joseph
McCarthy made a number of attacks on college professors, accusing them of
subversive activities and unpatriotic ideas. It was possible to classify colleges
according to the number of such incidents occurring within each. Such an enumeration
of incidents is a typical organizational (or global) characteristic. In a
study of 77 colleges made during the McCarthy period,g a sample ofprofessors
was interviewed and classified according to two individual variates: a) how
apprehensive they felt about the situation and b) how intimidated they considered
their colleagues.1o The respondents were divided into those who were
and those who were not apprehensive for themselves, and those who assumed
that the majority of their colleagues were or were not intimidated. As expected,
there was a strong association between the two variates. Those who were
apprehensive for themselves were much more likely to perceive their colleagues
as apprehensive.
This relation can be explained in part by projection and in part by the fact
that the actual situation in the turbulent colleges would make anyone more
apprehensive. If the colleges are classified by the number of dangerous incidents
which occurred, the frequencies of experienced apprehension and imputed intimidation
are quite different.
The findings are summarized in the following table. In colleges with few inci-
Experienced apprehension and intimidution of social science teachers in 77 colleges
classified by the nuniber of incidents which occurred on each campus
Per cent Professors
~~
Number of incider,ts on campus
5 or less 6-10 11-15 16 or more
Personally Apprehensive 40 % 51 % 54 % 51 %
Per cent Professors Imputing
Intimidation to Colleagues 23% 42% 50% 52 7;

74 P. F. Lazarsfeld
dents, about 40 per cent of the professors report personal apprehension, but
only half of these impute intimidation to their colleagues. When colleges are not
locally under attack, not much discussion of the general issue is likely to occur.
The faculty read about incidents elsewhere and are aware of the generally un-
pleasant atmosphere, but believe their colleagues insensitive to the professional
values involved. As the two rows approach the turbulent colleges the pair of
figures in each column indicates that imputed intimidation occurs as frequently
as experienced apprehension. The former is even slightly more frequent than the
latter in the most turbulent colleges where much talk about threats to academic
freedom occurs, and each professor feels that he is calm relative to the ‘hysteria’
which surrounds him.
The essence of this example is that it is based simultaneously on a sample of
organizations and, within them, a sample of individuals. Tt‘has become customary
to talk of contextual propositions when collective and individual characteristics
are studied conjointly. In recent years, the number of publications reporting
such contextual propositions has multiplied rapidly. Scales have been devised
to measure the inferiority feelings of young people, and their scores on the
scales have been related to their religion. The religious composition of the
neighbourhood in which the respondent lived was also ascertained; in this way
it was possible to say whether the young people lived in a consonant environ-
ment, where persons of their own religious faith were dominant, or in a disso-
nant one, where their families belonged to a religious minority. It was consistent-
ly found that for every religious group, living in a social context of predominantly
shared religious affiliation had a reassuring effect on the individual’s self-esteem.
In another study, the problem was to discover factors affecting the award of
compensation by jurors in accident cases. The wealth of each juror was ascer-
tained (an individual variate), as well as the average wealth of the county in
which the case was tried (a variate pertaining to a collective, the county). The
wealthier the county, the larger were the compensations awarded in the cases.
However, within counties, wealthier jurors made smaller awards, presumably
because they were biased in favour of the insurance companies whose values
represented the preservation of wealth. This interpretation points up the inter-
play between social norms and individual frames of reference.
In sum, then, survey techniques and sociological concern with larger collec-
tives are not contradictory. There is nothing in the development of measure-
ment techniques or the logic of quantitative analysis which interferes with a
fruitful coexistence of the two. Their convergence is only limited by practical
considerations. When interest focuses on a very large unit or on very complex
problems, different methods may have to be used. (These methods, usually
subsumed under the label of ‘macrosociology’, have received increasing atten-
tion in recent years; our next section is devoted to them.)
Typologies
Much writing of sociologists includes the use of typologies. Personalities,
social systems, organizations occur in so many variations that some way of
ordering them is an indispensable preliminary for further analysis. By some

Sociology 75
writers like Max Weber the constructing of specific types has even been consid-
ered the core of sociological understanding. Here again it is useful to ask what
might be meant by a type if the idea is reduced to the parsimony of variate
language.
Logicians have created the notion of attribute space. It is obviously possible to
take a set of variates and to find all possible combinations. Each single combina-
tion might be called a type or some sub-sets of such combinations. Weber for
instance has given eight attributes of a perfect bureaucracy. Obviously one can
think of social structures which have only some of those characteristics and
describe them as types. Linguists have made typologies of languages by cornbin-
ing various phonetic characteristics. For the purpose of the present review the
reverse aspect is more relevant. Suppose that a writer has intuitively developed
a series of types. Would it be possible to propose a system of variates from which
such a typology might have derived? Because this idea wil become relevant in
subsequent sections one example of social substruction wil be given here.
Erich Fromm has proposed that the relation of young people to their parents
can be classified into four types: complete authority, simple authority, lack
of authority and rebellion. It so happened that questionnaires were available
for a sampling of young people, to provide information as to how they felt
toward their parents.
The authority relationship in a family is classified by the way in which the
parents exercise their authority and the way in which the children accept it.
Through questionnaires, the parental exercise of authority was rated as either
strong, moderate or weak; likewise, the children’s acceptance of authority was
rated as high, weak or low. Logically, this makes nine combinations possible.
A variate-space substructed for a typology of family relationships
Children’s acceptance
High Medium Low
Strong I 2 3
I I IV
Parents’ exercise Moderate 4 5 6
I1 I1 IV
Weak I 8 9
I11
This scheme can be related to Fromm’s four types, which were, of course,
originally conceived from very different qualitative considerations.
Fromm’s type Variate Exercise
combinations
Accept ance
I Complete authority I and 2 Strong High or medium
II Simple authority 4 and 5 Moderate High or medium
111 Lack of authority 8 Weak Medium
IV Rebellion 3 and 6 Strong or Moderate Low

76 P. F. Lazavsfeld
Combinations 7 and g in the table are not encompassed by Fromm’s typology.
Apparently it was assumed that neither very high nor very low acceptance was
possible for an authority which was scarcely exercised. The substruction, how-
ever, may be useful as a source of discovery. It points to the logical possibility
that there may be children who desire an authority which is not actually exer-
cised by their parents - combination 7. These discovered combinations suggest
further research.
The procedure just exemplifed consists in substructing a multivariate space
for an intuitively conceived typology. The advantage of such a substruction is
twofold: it allows for testing the logical consistency of the typology and it
suggests empirical procedures by which the intuitive classification may be
produced in a more objective manner. This process of ‘substructuring’ is often
but only implicitly used in general sociology, e.g. in Parsons’ famous pattern
variables. (It also forms the bridge to the typology of large social systems and
whatever sociology can make of structuralism - see Section HI.)
The main procedures described in this section are known to methodologists
who instruct research students. But they often are not aware of their general
implications. For sociologists less concerned with empirical research, both the
procedures and their intellectual lessons are rather remote. Still the problem
‘theory and empirical work’ is on everyone’s mind. It seemed appropriate to
start this review with a trend which makes it possible to hope for a better un-
derstanding.
11. MACROSOCIOLOGY
In the preceding section I tried to show that survey analysis developed roughly
in three phases. First, a diffuse activity guided by social needs and often under-
taken by laymen. Then a professionalization which was due to the develop-
ment of more refined and specialized techniques. Finally, a codification of the
field which brought out its contribution to general sociology.
In the present section I am dealing with another trend where clear phases can
be distinguished, but where the interplay between various factors is somewhat
more complicated. The origin of formal sociology is closely connected with the
industrialization of Western Europe. The development of an economically
powerful middle class, the destitution of the new masses of wage workers, and
the growth of democratic political institutions were the main topics of the
early 19th century European classics. The two World Wars slowed down the
development of the social sciences in Western Europe. No major work in the
classical tradition was published in Europe between 1920 and 1950.
In the United States, no corresponding transition had ever taken root.
When the country emerged from the colonial stage, industrialization had al-
ready set in. The problem of how to adjust to it was complicated by the ap-
pearance of recurring waves of immigrants. Daily concerns were too urgent to
allow time for historical perspective. The study of ethnic minorities, the improve-
ment of social services, the understanding of the huge new urban centers

Sociology 77
were the background against which sociology developed. Empirical research
techniques became an indispensable tool in America and were taught in hundreds
of colleges.
Slowly, however, uneasiness became noticeable. Even before the Second
World War, some American authors called for more ‘social theory’. Later, these
voices became much louder. Some sociologists regretted that broad social
issues were not dealt with in most studies. They feared that the investigation of
specialized topics might contribute to maintenance of the status quo. Translation
of the works by Weber, Durkheim and Simmel made the American pioneers
look rather provincial. The new international role of the United States directed
attention to underdeveloped countries. All these elements coalesced into a trend
which for lack of a better name we might call the macrosociological movement.
A new breed of studies now begins to appear, dealing with broad social units.
Topics are complex: what does it mean to live under socialism in the USSR?
Why has democracy no deep roots in Germany? Why was the Common Market
successful while it seems so difficult to unify the Arab world? Such questions
suggest a revival of the classical tradition, but there are two marked differences:
the issues while large are more circumscribed in time and space; concrete evi-
dence is much more plentiful and handled with more circumspection. We can
talk of a movement not only because so many studies became available, but
because we can see similarities with the survey movement. The first macro-
sociological phase is the rather general interest in social analysis represented by
19th century European sociology. The second phase wil be described here as a
movement in which sociologists of all countries try to develop their goals, sharp-
en their research techniques, and delineate the ways of reaching conclusions.
The third phase, the stage of codification, has not yet been reached. Actually,
the present section is intended to help begin it. The procedure will be an induc-
tive one. I shall not try to define macrosociology; instead I shall briefly describe
a number of studies in order to draw out the basic procedures they seem to have
in common. The examples will be taken from a list which is appended to this
section. The list of titles may serve as a temporary implicit definition of the
field. I I
The specific sociological aspect of the new macrosociology movement seems
to derive from two elements. Workers in this field are quite aware that they
usually concentrate on a rather small number of variables. Their selection is
clearly influenced by the traditions of general sociology. The very fact that a
kind of generalized variate language is used shows the strong influence of survey
analysis. The second feature characterizing the work of macrosociologists is not
as obvious, but a careful scrutiny of the writing shows that selected notions of
process influence the choice of topic and the interpretation of same.
These two observations dictated the outline of this section. I shall first use
four specific studies to carve out in some detail four types of macrosociological
variates. Additional studies treated more briefly, wil then strengthen the original
examples. Here a contrast to the treatment in Section I should be noted. In
Section I, Ididnot discuss the formation of survey variatesin detail because ample
literature on this matter is available. The logic of macrosociological ‘measure-

78 P. F. Lazarsfeld
ment’ is not yet well developed; as a matter of fact even our survey provides
food for thought rather than final clarification. The story then turns to macroso-
ciological explanations. The previous section was quite precise on the corre-
sponding points. It is possible to show that complex concepts like process and
structure can be reduced to combinations of variates as long as one deals with
survey data. In macrosociological work there does not yet seem to be a clear-
cut relation between individual variates and the explanation sketches into
which they enter. The best I could do was therefore to make an inventory of
the main paths along which the macrosociological trend seems to move.
Macrosociological variates
We begin with the relatively simple case of a single macrosociological variate.
Eckstein analyses why Norway is such a prime example of a stable democracy.
Among other factors, he stresses the country’s long profound sense of com-
munity. What are the cues he uses for this characterization? The basic concept
is divided into three elements: Norwegians a) avoid treating other people as
utilities, and wish their social relations to be exempt from economic considera-
tions; b) avoid competitive situations; c) are prone to cooperative activities
and favour organizations which serve this purpose. Here are some of the cues
Eckstein used to establish the preference for non-economic social relations :
medical doctors do not fight public medical care and like salaried jobs; having
spent some time in public service is almost a prerequisite for political success.
Eckstein draws on a cross-national public opinion survey where people were
asked whether their countrymen could be trusted; Norway leads the list with
77 % positive answers. Eckstein uses personal interviews to exemplify how
Norwegians avoid humiliating other people; he interprets their proverbial
desire for solitude as a way of suppressing their own hostilities.
The non-competitiveness is inferred from similar cues. Norwegians prefer
such sports as skiing where they are not pitted against each other. Many Nor-
wegian organizations follow the procedure of trial votes in order to end up with
a unanimous decision. In parliament, arrangements are made to play down
antagonism between parties.
The importance of organizations is attested to by their numbers and the broad
range of activities they cover. Even much commercial research and marketing
is done on a cooperative basis. Trade unions and employer organizations are
highly centralized; Eckstein believes that this facilitates negotiations. (Here is
an interesting parallel with Lipset who, as we shall note, uses the decentraliza-
tion of American unions as a cue for their essentially asocial militancy.)
To fill out this notion of ‘sense of community’ Eckstein draws on a number
of other cues among which material on suicide is the most interesting. Compared
to other Scandinavian countries, the Norwegian suicide rate is especially low ;
psychiatric case studies seem to show that it is guilt feelings rather than frustrated
success which account for suicidal tendencies. We now turn to a second example.
Runciman not only introduces macrosociological variates, but attempts to
show that their values change over time. In one chapter, he seeks to demonstrate
the thesis that the inequality of status between manual and non-manual workers

Sociology 79
in England has objectively decreased since World War II, while the sense of
relative deprivation among manual workers has increased. I do not discuss the
second part of the proposition - the increase in relative deprivation. Moreover,
Runciman does not make a serious effort to prove this. The change in objective
status, however, is well documented. From a large number of surveys he shows
that the number of students from labour class parents has increased. An in-
creasing number of labour children desire and acquire white collar jobs. In-
versely, from budget figures and employment data, Runciman shows that the
use of servants in middle class families has decreased. Intermarriage between
wage earners and white collar workers is on the increase. A cue to lack of change
comes from community studies which continue to show strong residential
segregation between manual and non-manual workers.
It is characteristic for the British tradition that many data are available on
behaviour related to stratification; direct opinion and attitude questions which
would play a major role in American surveys seem to be rare. Runciman also
uses cues from a loose kind of content analysis. Cartoons in Punch increasingly
lampoon the afBuent worker and the middle class family who must do their own
household work while the autobiographies of labour leaders show satisfaction in
the ascent to a middle class style of life.12
A comparison between the Eckstein and Runciman studies leads to one dis-
tinction. If changes in a macrosociological variate are to be observed, the cues
to these shifts must be intrinsically flexible: the content of mass media, the
social composition of a student body, etc. If, on the other hand, some more en-
during characteristic of a society is at stake, cues from organizational arrange-
ments and preferences which have found institutional expression will be more
appropriate.
In a third type of study, the macrosociological variates grow out of observing
differences not over time but between countries. Lipset, in his book The First
New Nation, defends a rather complex thesis. All through the history of the
United States, two values have been dominant: the right to equality and the
reward for achievement. These two macrosociological variates are first intro-
duced through references to the writings of historical observers. No cues are
proposed to establish the two variates directly, although stimulating specula-
tions are given on their interplay. For example, the point is made that such a
society leads to more conformism than one which accepts more stratification and
stresses style rather than success. Empirical data come into play only when
Lipset characterizes institutions and tries to explain them on the basis of these
two basic concepts. Consider the impressive variety of cues he offers for com-
paring American unions with the unions in other modern western countries:
strike statistics demonstrate that us unions are more militant; the number of
salaried officials in American unions surpasses that of other countries; lay com-
mittees do not have much control over American union officials; the wage dif-
ferential between skilled and unskilled workers is much greater in the US;
special provisions in us unions give skilled members more power in the organiza-
tion.
Most of the cues are of a quantitative nature derived from operational statis-

80 P. F. Luzarsfeld
tics ; occasionally institutional arrangements are drawn upon. Comparisons
with other countries stress the business character of American unions in con-
trast to the ideological elements in the European scene; Australian and Canadian
unions stand somewhere in the middle. Often the link between a concrete cue
and the macrosociological variate it represents, requires several steps. An equal-
itarian, achievement-minded society will not be overly-concerned with the
means by which success is achieved. On the one hand, this can lead to tolerance
of corruption in unions - one of Lipset’s cues - and on the other, to a feeling
that the absolute amount of personal income is more important than the source
from which it is derived. On the latter point, the crucial cue is an interesting
set of opinion surveys comparing European and American respondents. The
question at issue was whether people preferred a higher income as workers or
white-collar status with a lesser income. European workers prefer the latter,
Americans the former.
The most direct use of a system of macrosociological variates is by Dahren-
dorf when he raises the question of why democracy in Germany has always been
endangered. He starts with four major factors, one of which is the German
value system. While Eckstein restricted himself to Norway, Dahrendorf bases
his argument on a comparison between Germany and the Anglo-Saxon countries.
In this sense, his procedure is similar to Lipset’s. But while Lipset does not
convert the value system into a macrosociological variate, Dahrendorf does. He
distinguishes between public and private values. Public values include exhorta-
tions to keep smiling, to be fair in dealings with others, to respect the rights of
others; and so on. Among the chief private values are truthfulness to oneself,
devotion to one’s family, steadfastness under adversity. An especially good cue
was found in a comparison of the ways Germans and Anglo-Saxons think about
loneliness. For the German, to be lonely is a kind of heroic posture; for an
Anglo-Saxon, it is a sign of deficient socialization. Dahrendorf recognizes that
this is aphoristic and establishes as his mission the demonstration that private
values are predominant in German culture. He employs the general argument
that private values are likely to be transmitted by the family, and public values
through the schools. Thereafter, he must find evidence that in Germany, the
family has priority over the school by being able to compare the weights of
these two social structures.
Here is a brief summary of his cues. The Constitution of the Federal Republic
is the only one which mentions the right and the responsibility of the family to
educate its children; if conflicts between school and family come before the
courts, the decision is usually in favour of the family. Dahrendorf adds to this
certain features of school organization: instruction covers only half the day, so
that children can go home for lunch and remain there the afternoon; sports and
other social activities are not included in the school curriculum.
As in every country, controversies on education create a vast quantity of
documents. In scrutinizing their content, one finds a prevailing position : the
school, especially on the more advanced level, takes care of a general molding
of the mind, not related to any specific use or to any special responsibility. The
remaining socialization process is left to the family. Statements by teachers

Sociology 81
about students who have been dismissed from the Gymnasium mention lack of
substantive interest and insufficient motivation; the implication is always that it
is not the task of the school to develop such attitudes, which must be rather
imparted by the family. The author also mentions some public opinion polls on
the subject of what respondents consider their own most desirable qualities.
Almost half the respondents give priority to Familiensinn (deep attachment to
the family).’3
The use of linguistic cues in Dahrendorf‘s study deserves special comment.
Social linguistics has become a new field of interest. In its more elementary
form sociolinguists ask how social structures are reflected in language habits. At
a more sophisticated level, they examine the reverse flow. That is, whereas the
language which children learn affects the way in which they perceive their
social environment, what they perceive affects their mode of handling social
relations. Therefore, over the generations, language affects social structures.
Study of the interaction between language and social structure is a new topic of
sociological analysis. For the macrosociologist, linguistic cues deserve special
attention, even if they must be bolstered by other types of cues. The American
candidate ‘runs’ for election; the Britisher ‘stands’ for Parliament; the French-
man ‘presents himself’ to the electorate. Distinction among these terms is cer-
tainly more subtle than merely noting that Eskimos have as many words for
snow as the Arabs have for camels. However, it wil require a considerable
collection of examples before a systematic analysis wil be possible,’4
Finally a word on the role of sampling surveys in macrosociological work.
Section I stressed that the marginal distribution of answers to a single question
is only a starting point for survey analysis. To make a single survey significant,
elaborate cross-tabulation between answers to different questions and their
relation to background data is indispensable. In the context of the present
discussion, a few marginal distributions can provide an important cue. Eckstein
showed that Norwegians are more ready to trust their compatriots; Lipset’s
evidence that white collar jobs are not prestigeous in the United States, and
Dahrendorf’s reference to the importance of family sentiments in Germany are
good examples.
The preceding discussion of how macrosociological variates are formed in-
cluded examples of the kind of propositions into which they enter. It wil
round out the whole picture if I parallel each of the four cases just described with
supplementary examples.
Macrosociological propositions
Eckstein’s study was concerned with the stability of a social system. This time-
honoured sociological topic has in recent years been an object of controversy.
Authors like Coser request more attention to the study of conflict,’s and this
has penetrated macrosociological work through another set of variates, usually
called contradiction. A good example is Eisenstadt’s study of what he calls histor-
ical centralized bureaucratic empires, like medieval China and the Ottoman
Empire. He sees them as systems better organized than the feudal states but
less differentiated than modern industrial countries. Unless they can develop

82 P. F. Lazarsfeld
a modern form of economic organization, they will revert to their feudal past.
Their transitional character is due to a number of contradictions. One set of
contradictions arises from the ruler’s policies, directed against some strata of
the population while favouring others. Another set centers on the fact that the
bureaucratic organs developed special orientations and interests of their own
which often contradicted the interests of the rulers. Two areas in which contradictions
were most pronounced were those of legitimation and stratification in
which the new middle groups, unable to free themselves from traditional symbols,
simply aristocratized themselves. Further, within the economic and administrative
field, there was the opposition between long-range and short-range policies.
Together with the growing trends towards an autonomous bureaucracy
which played a central regulative function in these systems, these contradictions
laid the foundations for an ‘anti-system’ denoting the built-in tendency to
change.
Runciman’s study echoes the sociologists’ interest in the segmentation of
systems. The term really has two meanings. In one, it refers to the study of
special groups within a population; indeed, the comparison of manual and nonmanual
workers is a cornerstone in Runciman’s book. Recent work in studies
of the elite deal with segments in this sense.16
But sociologists are also concerned with a second meaning of the term segmentation;
they speak of the political, the economic, the spiritual subsystems. A
person can have much power and little money or wealth without power. It was
Max Weber who proposed distinguishing between income, prestige, and political
power. While often united, they may vary independently. The idea itself
appears in many forms. The most influential modern version is Thomas Marshall’s
study on the development of citizenship in England. According to this
author, civil rights emerge first in the frame of incipient capitalism. To preserve
these rights, courts are established with seats far away from the local communities.
The way in which the courts operate is a political problem, and so, the
fight for political rights comes next. Social rights develop partly as a result of
education, partly through the instrumentation of political and civil rights.
Marshall’s essay is probably one of the most often quoted items in macrosociological
literature.
The example taken from Lipset is a special case of a third sociological concern:
the role of values in the working of a social system. People feel that certain
goals and certain ways to act are right; these values then become determinants of
their choices and their relations to each other. It is certainly not quite clear
how the coercive role of values develops. There is agreement that it has its origin
in the socialization of the child. But it can be maintained in a variety of ways:
by fear of sanctions, by imitation of others, by a super-ego, etc.’7 Despite this
ideological uncertainty, values play a considerable role in many macrosociological
studies. As one further example I choose Lucian Pyz’s discussion of politics
in Burma, I cannot do justice to the breadth of his analysis, and quote only one
item because it refers to a linguistic use.
Pye discusses two values in detail. One connotes the notion of leadership
powerfully exercised. In Burma, all strata consider this highly desirable;

Sociology 83
leadership is romantic and dangerous - somewhat like love in Western society.
At the same time, one is supposed to be compassionate, considerate of one’s
neighbour, inoffensive, and not disruptive to others’s peace of mind. The other
connotes ‘an emotion that wells up inside the Burmese preventing him from
pushing himself for his own interest and compelling him to accede to the
demands of others’. The parallel to Lipset’s values of equality and success is ob-
vious. Pye’s study relates the ensuing value conflict to a special family structure
and in turn derives from it many of the difficulties Burma has in organizing its
political life.
A fourth macrosociological variate is the organization. Dahrendorf tries to
‘measure’ the importance of two institutions - the family and the school. This
is organizational research writ large. Increasingly, sociological literature charac-
terizes organizations in the same way as a psychologist characterizes personali-
ties. Many efforts are under way to describe how many levels of authority an
organization has, how its efficiency is related to the morale of its staff, and so
on.’*
In its application to whole countries this art is only beginning. One of the
most interesting examples is provided by Shils in his study of Indian intellectuals.
It is his notion of center and periphery. The center consists of those institutions
and roles which exercise authority of any kind or are role models for the rest
of the system. The periphery consists of those parts of society which are the recip-
ients of commands and of beliefs which they do not themselves create or
cause to be diffused. The two notions can have a spatial meaning as when we
talk of the ‘provinces’, they can have a social meaning implied in the notion
of ‘establishment’. Or they can have a more psychological connotation when we
impute inferiority feelings to Western-trained intellectuals who come from un-
developed countries. Shils discusses in detail the possible relations between
periphery and center. The distance between them can vary, the autonomy of the
periphery can be different, the flow of information between the two can be
more or less unilateral, and so on. This is a truly macrosociological variate
which wil certainly arouse increasing attention.19
Macrosociologica[ processes
The topic of the next few pages falls between two extremes. We may have a
precise definition of social process when dealing with specific variates observed
repeatedly; this matter was discussed in Section I. At the other end, we have
an extensive literature on the logic of explanation in history.20 Among modern
logicians Hempel has taken a position which, in its attenuated form, seems
most helpful for the present purpose. He starts with a rigorous definition
adapted from the natural sciences. The explanation of a simple event proceeds
in the following steps: there is a general law connecting a number of variables
and containing several free parameters; a specific event is characterized by specif-
ic values of these parameters; the combination of the ‘covering law’ and the
specific parameters provides the explanation.
Hempel is aware that, for a variety of reasons, this formula cannot be exactly
applied to complex historical phenomena. He therefore introduces the notion

84 P. F. Luzarsfeld
of ‘explanation sketches’. These are schemata in which the covering law is not
really known, the parameters of the concrete situation are vague, and in which
therefore any concrete explanation is more or less distant from a rigourous
analysis. As the name indicates, explanation sketches are above all incomplete
forms of explanation, they require further ‘filling-out’ by empirical research, for
which the sketch suggests the direction. As our examples will show, the incompleteness
and vagueness can be found in various dimensions. There are
hidden assumptions which are not brought out; there is segmentation of a process
with emphasis on one part, neglect of another; and there is great variation
in the empirical ‘filling-out’. The common element in our examples is a movement
or a process leading from one structural element at an earlier point in
time to a changed structural element at a later point in time. Connecting the
two, some causal agent is imputed, which either sets the process into motion,
determines its direction, relates several causal factors or maintains its flow in
some other way.
It is useful to apply this notion of explanation sketches to the work of the
macrosociologist. In thelight of the present review, one can go one step further.
Hempel concluded his discussion in the rather unspecific, permissive manner
just described. Scrutiny of concrete studies permits us to single out a few major
types of explanatory sketches. Such a classification reflects well the spirit of
much current sociological analysis. Just as the macrosociologist likes to work
with a rather small number of basic concepts, so he tends to apply relatively
few explanation sketches. I shall single out three types: the linear sketch, the
strategy mode and the dialectic type.
a. The most primitive and basic form of all explanation sketches arepatterns of
simple linearity. This supposes a process in which the first element is seen to be
the cause for the second, which in turn is the cause for the third, which in turn
is the cause for the fourth. Very often such a multi-stage causal change is devel-
oped with little attention to the links between cause and effect, which tend to
remain highly specific or historically bound. The incompleteness of this sketch
lies partly in its highly specific nature, which tends to resort to monocausal
explanations even if the independent variate is some vaguely described, sup-
posedly powerful ‘factor’, partly in its segmented nature, which assumes that all
other conditions are unchanged, insignificant or in other ways held constant.
It is precisely these hidden assumptions which have to be brought out if one
looks for generalizations.
Inkeles deals with a sequential change that was introduced in the Soviet
Union in the 1930s. At that time, the authority pattern in the industrial pro-
duction process was altered from collective to individual responsibility. This
in turn led to a reorganization of authority relations in the school system as the
major recruiting reservoir for the factory. The former quasi-egalitarian rela-
tions between teachers and students gave way to a more clear-cut hierarchical
structure, discipline returned to the classroom, and various forms of experimen-
tation with progressive ideas met an abrupt end. The final wave of change oc-
curred in thefamily, which responded mainly to the changed authority pattern of

Sociology 85
the school system. Parents were urged to exercise stricter control over their chil-
dren, and the former freedoms, expressed legally by the ease with which abortion
and divorce could be obtained, had to make way for strict state controls. The
inference is that these changes take place in a system with strict political control,
where a change in law or status is crucial. It also presupposes a relatively low
level of organizational complexity so that other institutions whose authority
patterns might contradict the general trend are either absent or ineffectual.
b. The second mode of explanation might be called the strategy type. The im-
agery is taken from the behaviour of a single individual who finds himself in a
specific situation and must decide how next to proceed.
Etzioni studies unification as a process which leads from units with separate
boundaries to some larger community. During this process, many strategic
decisions must be taken. Some emerge, with empirical hindsight, as steps in the
right direction, while others lead to failure. One such strategic decision in times
of a crisis, is whether to accelerate or decelerate unification efforts. Conse-
quences are defined as direct outcomes of the decision: acceleration is likely to
retard the prospect of final unification, and may even destroy previously taken
measures, while deceleration is much more favourable to unification in the long
run. While this decision is only one of many, Etzioni’s problem is not so much
to account for why a particular decision was taken, but to interrelate the various
consequences that resulted from previous bifurcations and to assess their rela-
tive weight in the overall final outcome.
While the decision-making organ could easily be identified in the previous
example, this is not true when the crucial determinant lies with a ruling elite or
some other stratum of society. Here, it is said that certain crucial attitudes have
developed which found expression in concrete actions. Moore compares the
reaction of the English and French landed aristocracy to the newly opened
possibilities of commercial farming. While the process of transition from an
agricultural society to a modern, industrialized one could proceed in various
ways, in cases where the landed aristocracy took up commercial farming, the
consequences were more favourable to the emergence of democracy than in
cases where they did not. Mere, the strategy sketch is linked with a linear scheme.
Moore attributes the English nobleman’s willingness to engage in these new
activities to his greater independence from the crown; the French counterpart
did not possess this autonomy.
c. The strategy sketch is more varied than the linear pattern because it considers
different strategies even if only one is actually carried out. A greater scope can
be introduced if the consequences of a choice can feed back on the first decision
and lead to a different choice. In the same way, the linear pattern may be en-
riched. A variate growing out of a preceding one may in turn affect its trend.
In these cases we shall talk of dialectic explanation sketches. They focus simul-
taneously on several lines of development. Processes unfoId and interact. Resist-
ances emerge and are either overcome, or deflect the original trend or force re-
traction. Because of its feedback element, the dialectic mode is likely to intro-

86 P. F. Luzarsfeld
duce additional sociological ideas: the boundaries of systems which separate
them from surroundings and the important notion of unanticipated conse-
quences.
Diamond‘s study of the tranformation of Virginia from an organization into
a society provides a first example. Here, the dissatisfaction or disturbances
created after the organization had been set up after the model of the East India
Company resulted from a frustration of various expectations : difficulties in
recruitment due to the scarcity of indigenous labour and lack of mineral re-
sources which forced the company to engage in agricultural activities rather than
in an exploitation of mineral resources as originally planned. Additional in-
centives had to be provided for the labour force imported from England, nota-
bly the granting of land after a specified period of time. This solution in turn led
to a fundamental change in the character of the organization by rendering its
monopoly character obsolete and by engendering a ‘multiplicity of statuses’
which laid the foundations for a societal network. From the point of view of
those who had initiated what was thought to be the only feasible remedy to a
pressing problem, the result was quite unanticipated. The impact of the environ-
ment had shaped new problems and by excluding the feasibility of various alter-
native solutions, the solutions led to the structural change.
Greater preciseness in identifying structural referents brings with it greater
preciseness in timing the process which is described. This is also a characteristic
of Smelser’s analysis of the process which led to the differentiation of the family
during the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. At the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution, the family was still in an undifferentiated stage with a
variety of functions and with traditionally deked relationships between adults
and children. Through various changes in the larger social context, particularly
the introduction of technological changes in the cotton industry, the traditional
structure of the family economy was threatened. Various disturbances erupted.
Solutions were sought in a new legislative regulation of working hours and
conditions in the factories. After two unsuccessful attempts, the legislation of
1847 completed the process of differentiation of the family by eliminating child
work altogether and by reducing working hours for women in order to free them
for socialization tasks of the children. Previous legislative attempts had been
unsuccessful and only led to further disturbance and agitation: the kst reduc-
tion of children’s working hours resulted in a relay system to maintain them un-
der the supervision of parents in the factory; the second accomplished the
abolition of child labour, but did not bring a reduction in adult working hours.
Both solutions were incomplete and unsuccessful, as they destroyed the tradi-
tional relationship between parents and children without providing a new level
of consolidation. The ha1 legislative act provided a new equilibrium point for
the family. The family was able to adjust to the industrial age, but only after a
new balance between family ideology and the demands of industrialization
had been achieved.
d. Closely related to the notion of explanation sketches is the tendency to pro-
pose sequences which are treated partly as ‘laws’ and partly as explanations of

Sociology 87
specific cases. Early sociologists tried to discern specific phases through which
societies moved. This effort has not been abandoned but modern macrosociol-
ogists give it a more specific term. Thus Smelser proposes seven steps for the
change of a ‘subsystem’ like the family. A malfunction starting from within or
without, sets in motion search, remedial efforts and further disturbances, until
a new ‘equilibrium’ is reached where a number of new or changed subsystems
take on the function which was originally performed by one. But Smelser stresses
that often some of his steps may be omitted. Bendix stresses that changes may be
quite different according to the time at which they occur. Industrialization in
England was bound to be a different process than in Germany where later some
of the social and technological elements were imported from England. While
the beginning of industrialization in Germany and Japan was nearly simul-
taneous, the preceding history of the two countries greatly affected the pattern
of change.
An ingenious example of the need for flexible thinking on patterns of change
has been provided by an Indian scholar.21 It is well known that after some time,
what once were innovations can come to have retarding effects. Thus, the first
city to introduce electric streetcars will have an outmoded system by the time
that another city, acting later, installs a more efficient one. Deva applies this
schema to newly developing countries in the following way. Countries which
became industrialized at an early date were required to stress the free market
system in order to overcome vestiges of the medieval economy. Now that their
economic systems have become highly complex, considerable central planning
is necessary. But this meets with ideological difficulties because of the earlier
emphasis on free competition. In contrast, the new countries which imported
complex industries had no traditional aversion to state intervention or central
planning. They may bypass a liberal market economy, not for political reasons,
but because they want to move directly to a more advanced mechanism.
e. One more type of reasoning deserves to be reported here: the transfer of
findings made in a more restricted context to a macrosociological level. We
have already mentioned how Runciman uses the notion of ‘relative depriva-
tion’, which was first developed to interpret specific survey results. Peter Hof-
statter argues that small groups, because they are more easily analysed, can
be ‘used as models for the study of more complex collectives, such as thestate:
they can be considered groups of groups’. Borrowing a finding from Bales that
small groups have two kinds of ‘heroes’, a popular one and an efficient one,
Hofstatter notes that the Germans as a nation are perceived as efficient leaders.
Since they cannot conceal their efficiency, they should ally themselves with the
French, representing the well-liked type in the group of nations.22
Etzioni has discussed this whole matter in a systematic way. He uses the term
‘theorem’ for ‘a statement about the relation between two or more variables
which is supported by some data’, His main contention is that a theorem can
be transferred from one subfield to another, using quite different data. This
requires considerable reinterpretation of indicators, but involves the same basic
variables.23 His illustrations come from the field of peace research. At one point

88 P. F. Lazarsfeld
he starts from a theorem that friends are often similar in their social charac-
teristics as well as in their attitudes and preferences. Inversely, groups formed
of people who share many characteristics are likely to be more cohesive, as
their friendship is more resistant to disintegration. Etzioni then moves this idea
from the intrasocietal to the intersocietal level. He reviews the various unifica-
tion efforts among European countries; why has the Common Market been
more successful than other similar schemes? One of the reasons should be the
greater homogeneity of the six participants. They have a similar political struc-
ture - no socialist, no authoritarian government; none is overwhelmingly
Protestant, none neutralist. Similar observations can be made about common
market efforts in Africa and Latin America. Finally, Etzioni applies the theorem
to world government. In the beginning one might have to be content with the
formation of regional communities. After a time, the members of this regional
combine will become more similar to each other - industrialization and world-
wide communication work in the direction of increasing world-wide homogenei-
ty. This will in the end make world government possible. Thus the extrapolation
of a simple sociological theorem becomes more than an explanation sketch for
past events - it leads to ideas for future action on a macrosociological scale.
A variation on the ‘transfer of theorems’ is introduced in cases where the
jump from the original statement to a higher level of aggregation is not as great
as in the preceding examples. Authors then often talk about the ‘application’ of a
theorem. Sociologists and social psychologists stress that in face to face groups
behaviour is strongly guided by a desire to gain or maintain the approval of
peers. Janowitz and Shils apply this idea to explain why German soldiers kept
on fighting when they knew the war was lost; they lived in small units where no
one wanted to be the first to call it quits. A Columbia study gave the same in-
terpretation of how faculties in American universities successfully resisted the
red hunt of the late Senator Joe McCarthy: the danger of his attack was great
but remote, the attitude of one’s colleagues who would have frowned on ‘collab-
oration with the enemy’ had the strength of immediacy and thus added up to
the stronger pressure. Seemingly the broader phenomenon is ‘derived’ from a
basic law, but the derivation is loose and omits so many steps that here, too, it
is better to think of a transfer.
The discussion of variates and explanation sketches as the building blocks of
marcosociology is now completed. A word on the strategy of this section should
be added. The mandate given to the authors of the various chapters com-
prising the present Study provided that each could stress those trends which
seemed to him most characteristic of the contemporary scene. Therefore, the
emphasis on macrosociology does not require special justification; it reflects
the author’s judgment. But why stress the methodological aspects of this move-
ment ?
In the introduction of this section we mentioned as one root of the macroso-
ciological movement a concern with ‘big’ issues and their political implications.
One cannot overlook the danger of a resulting obscurantism: better to guess
about important matters than to study ‘little’ issues, merely because we under-

sociology 89
stand the methods by which they can be approached. There is a way to meet
this danger. Let us accept the new trend as it is represented by authors who not
only argue for it, but who also have performed the hard labour of providing
concrete studies. Understandably, they were not inclined to discuss their procedures
at the time they created the new style. But the observer from the outside
should see it as a task to ‘explicate’ what is going on. In this way he’ can reconcile
the creative urge of a movement with the tradition of a social science that
wishes to overreach all actual trends by general systematics.
This argument is still open to one objection: why should this integration be
provided by a methodological rather than a ‘theoretical‘ approach? How do
macrosociologists select their problems ? What role do existing sociological
systems play in their interpretation? What do their studies contribute to the
storehouse of general sociology? Such questions lead to the recent work of
sociological theorists. This is the topic to which our next section is devoted.
Bibliography
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Princeton University Press, 1969.
ALMOND, G. and VERBA, S., The Civic Culture, Boston (Mass.); Toronto, Little,
Brown and Co., 1963.
APTER, D., The Politics of Modernization, Chicago (Ill.), University of Chicago Press,
1965.
ARON, R., 18 LeGons de la Socie‘te‘ Zndustrielle, Paris, Gallimard, 1966.
BAILYN, B., ‘The Origins of American Politics’ in: Perspectives in American History,
Vol. I, 1967.
BELLAH, R., Tokugawa Religion, New York, The Free Press, 1957.
BENEDICT, R., The Chysanthemum and the Sword, Cleveland; New York, The World
Publishing Company, 1967 (1st ed. 1946).
BENDIX, R., Nation-Building and Citizenship, New York, John Wiley & Sons (Inc.),
1964.
COULBORN, R. (ed.), Feudalism in History, Princeton (N.J.), Princeton University
Press, 1965.
DAHRENDORF, R., Gesellschaft und Demokratie in Deutschland, Munich, Piper & Co.,
1966.
DIAMOND, S., ‘From Organization to Society: Virginia in the 17th Century’, American
Journal of Sociology, 63, March 1958, p. 457.
ECKSTEIN, H., Division and Cohesion in Democracy. Princeton (N.J.), Princeton University
Press, 1966.
EISENSTADT, S. N., Political Systems of Empires, New York, The Free Press, 1963.
ETZIONI, A., Political Unification, New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965.
GEERTZ, C., Agricultural Involution, Berkeley (Calif.), University of California Press,
1966.
GOLDTHORPE, J., ‘Social Stratification in Industrial Society’ in: R. BENDIX AND s.
LIPSET, Class, Status and Power, New York, The Free Press, 1966, pp. 648-660.
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LEACH, E. R., Political Systems of Highland Burma, Boston (Mass.), Beacon Press,
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LEVY, M., Modernization and the Structure of Societies, Princeton (N.J.), Princeton
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1957.
III. QUEST FOR THEORY
A fairly clear-cut notion of theory has developed from the practices of the
natural sciences. First, a number of basic concepts are established. To some of
them measurements axe related; others are constructs, the validity of which is
left undecided at the beginning. Operations between these basic units are then
defined, permitting the derivation of new conclusions. Finally, these can be
tested against concrete observations. In their most highly developed form, such
theories are likely to have two further characteristics. One is that the operations
and derivations are usually given in mathematical form; the other is a ‘reduc-
tionist’ tendency: properties of gases can be explained by the movement of
molecules; properties of chemical substances are derived from atomic struc-
tures.
No one believes that this kind of theory exists at the moment in sociology or
that it is likely to develop in the near future. When writers speak of ‘social
theory’ they usually refer to one or anotheriof the following operations:
careful classifkatory schemata
complex concepts which direct the observer toward interesting facts
formulation of research problems of high social significance
broad ideas as to the way social change actually comes about or might be
brought about
expectations as to empirical findings not yet established (hypotheses)
relating empirical findings to others, either established or hypothetical ones
(interpretation)
These are all important intellectual activities and no scientific work can be done
without them. Perhaps it would be better to speak of analytical reflection rather
than of theory. In this way one would be better able to characterize where
systematic thinking in sociology stands. Even the best classification makes less
of a contribution than the type of law which explains why length of words in a

Sociology 91
written text, the size of cities in a country, and the income of its citizens show a
comparable distribution. Various types of analytical reflection should really
be looked upon as stages on the road to theory in the stricter sense. However,
it has become habitual among sociologists to use the word theory in a more
liberal sense, and there is no harm in accepting this habit as long as terminolog-
ical confusion is avoided.
The first trend I have selected to report reflects the whole situation very well.
Robert K. Merton has originated an idea which has found great international
approval, the theories of the middle As the name indicates, it is an
appeal to remain on a level of analysis which goes beyond fact finding, but also
avoids grandiose speculations which at no point are linked to observation of
reality.
My report then turns to a second development, a rather portentous confron-
tation. The history of the world has been changed by the indirect effects of a
theory: Marxism. Its power was so great that for some time the countries under
its sway refrained from any empirical social inquiries. For a number of reasons
this situation has changed and in all Communist countries sociology in the Wes-
tern sense in now accepted. But this has not happened without reservations. At
certain points Marxist formulation has been modified so that a place for em-
pirical work could be found, and Western sociology in turn is bound to profit
from this encounter. In my analysis I have tried to bring out the positive aspects
of this turn of affairs.25
The third topic to be taken up in this section might be the most characteristic
one for the contemporary scene. The theory most extensively and continuously
discussed in the sociological literature is functionalism. And yet, it is almost
impossible to establish what functionalism is. Its very popularity is best ex-
plained by the many forms it can take on, thus symbolizing the quest for, rather
than the nature of, social theory. The majority of modern sociologists think of
themselves as ‘functionalists, but...’. Again I shall try to extract the positive
consequences of this trend.
Finally, I shall place the idea of a critical sociology in its historical context.
The reason for this effort has been briefly explained in the general introduction.
Theories of the middle range
Empirical findings are usually given in terms of co-variations between a num-
ber of variates. Thus, €or instance, it was found during World War n that sol-
diers with college educations withstood the hardships of war better than less
educated men. This crude but surprising observation can be interpreted in a
variety of ways. A plausible one is as follows: people who are able to be more
flexible in coping with difficulties wil stand up better under stress; higher educa-
tion provides this ability. In this broader form, the result is usually called an
empirical generalization because it is likely to subsume additional low-level
findings in areas other than military life.
One can go a step further and reach the level of a theory of the middle range.
Such a theory might read as follows: in Western societies social stratification
maintains itself by a variety of social mechanisms: inheritance of wealth, per-

92 P. F. Lazarsfeld
vasion of social influence, etc. One of these mechanisms, providing children
with higher education, has at least two consequences: it leads to better jobs as
well as to a higher chance of survival in situations of stress. Now the original
observation is not only a specific case of behaviour under stress but a specific
case of a social mechanism which accounts for the perpetuation of elite positions
over more than one generation.
The proponent of a theory of the middle range will warn us to stop here in
order to prevent the discussion from evaporating in ever higher levels of specu-
lative construction. One might, for example, begin to speculate on whether
social systems of necessity require stable and long-lasting systems of stratifica-
tion; if so, the original result would be due to a ‘law’ which applies to any so-
ciety anywhere. This, says the middle range theorist, is going to far; nothing is
really explained, and we end up where we began.
Instead of stopping with an imaginary example, we shall analyse two concrete
cases. The first is taken from Merton himself. His notion of ‘role set’ begins
with the observation that each social status involves not one single associated
role but an array of them.The teacher,for instance, has to deal with his students,
the school principal and parents. Each has a different, often contradictory, set
of expectations. ‘The concept of role set raises the general but definite problem
of identifying the social mechanisms which articulate the expectations of those
in the role set suffciently to reduce conflict for the occupant of a status.’z6
Some of these mechanisms could be as follows:
I. The members of the role set might have different degrees of power; the
teacher has to be more wary of the principal than of the other two role
partners.
2. The intensity with which the members of the role set are involved is likely to
affect the status occupant; while the children are the least powerful, the
teacher must face them every day and their reactions might guide him even
in the face of some difficulties with the other two groups in the drama.
3. Conflicting expectations may be used to play off members of the role set
against each other; thus the teacher might mobilize progressively-oriented
parents against a principal who has conservative educational ideas.
4. Insulating role activities from observation by members of the role set; a
teacher who wants to teach modem biological ideas may avoid using a
textbook in order not to arouse the moral prejudices of conservative parents.
Merton discusses quite a number of such devices which help manage concrete
situations so ‘that an appreciable degree of social regularity obtains sufficiently
to enable most people most of the time to go about their business without
becoming paralyzed by extreme conflicts in their role sets’.”’
In Merton’s discussion we find several elements of our basic list. By its very
announcement, the notion of role set persuasively draws attention to a complex
and important social phenomenon. The list of coping mechanisms is a classi-
fication of considerable analytical force. Clearly the two together point to
interesting research problems: under what conditions will which mechanism
succeed or fail? The whole is not a theory in the classical sense but forms a
bridge between rational reflection and empirical observation.

Sociology 93
While the idea of role set deals essentially with relations between individuals,
our second example refers to a higher level of complexity. The focus is on the
relation between large organizations such as public or private bureaucracies
and primary groups, especially the family. Bureaucracies are characterized by
impersonality, established lines of communication, effective use of experts, etc.
Primary groups are based on improvisations and warmth of face-to-face
contacts; they preserve the intimate mood of life which bureaucracies cannot
take into consideration. Recently, however, the antithetical character of these
two patterns has been challenged and interest turned to their complementary
roles.
The starting point is the idea that experts - the main assets of a bureaucracy -
become useless in what Litwak and Meyer call non-uniform events. These are
situations of three kinds: those which are so simple that anyone is expert enough
to perform them well, for instance, pulling a child out of the path of an auto-
mobile ; at the opposite extreme experts themselves have very limited knowledge,
for instance, in the moral education of children; the third class of non-uniform
events are those which happen so seldom or so unexpectedly that it seems impos-
sible to deal with them through a stable organization of experts - earthquakes,
for instance, or outbreaks of mass hysteria.
Primary groups, especially the family, are best equipped to deal with non-
uni€orm events. ‘There appear to be actual disadvantages for bureaucracies
when faced with non-uniform events. Larger numbers of persons and long
chains of communication become impediments in contrast to immediate, face-
to-face communication among the smaller number of the primary group.’z8
Real life consists of both non-uniform and regular events in complex com-
binations. A flexible interaction between primary groups and large-scale or-
ganizations is needed. The main problem is to establish forms of communica-
tions between the two patterns in order to facilitate their collaboration. In a
number of papers Litwak and his associates have listed such mechanisms of
coordination. Confining ourselves again to the field of education, the school has
a variety of ways to establish lines with the families which it serves: through
detached experts such as social workers, or through formal representatives,
such as truant officers ; through voluntary groups such as parent-teacher associa-
tions, or through mass media, such as pamphlets explaining the school’s goals;
through utilization of its own facilities for civic activities; or through having the
children act as message-bearers.
Each of these modes of contact has its characteristic advantages and disadvan-
tages. The institutional problems of the school in turn vary considerably in their
content - convincing the community that a higher school tax is needed, helping
parents to understand the learning problems of their children, obtaining coopera-
tion in a public health measure. The main objective of balance theory is to as-
certain the type of communications most appropriate for particular groups of
problems. In the writings of Litwak and his associates, this is accomplished
partly by reflection on generally known cases and partly by suggestions for
additional empirical research. While only educational institutions have been
considered here, Litwak posits a more general applicability: ‘The proposed

94 P. F. Lazarsfeld
theory of balance should be able to take account of all types of bureaucratic
organizations in industrial societies.’zg
Despite the shift from the individual to the institutional level, balance theory
is basically similar to the theory of role sets. Attention is drawn to a set of facts
which are viewed in a new light. Careful classifications bring order into pre-
liminary observations. New research ideas emerge. In the spirit of the present
review, no further emphasis is being placed on the somewhat liberal use of the
term theory. In assessing this specific trend in the quest for theory, however, two
observations are in order. While theories of the middle range are universally
praised, few examples have been carefully presented and analysed. Furthermore,
it is not quite clear when an empirical generalization ascends from its low status
to the more distinguished middle range level. Contributions on both points
should be expected.
Theories of the middle range apply at best to middle range organizations. We
now turn to another effect which embraces the full range of society.
The reception of empirical social research by Marxist sociologists*
What has become known as Marxist sociology comes closer than any other
quest of its kind to the strict model for a theory. There are basic concepts, such
as class and mode of production; there are operations, such as dialectic analysis
and relating sub- and super-structures. While authors writing in this tradition
engage in controversies on the precise meanings of these elements, the general
structure of their intentions make them quite comparable.
Starting in 1956, the Communist world has increasingly accepted empirical
social research, or, as it is often called, concrete sociology. The change first
occurred in Eastern Europe but is accomplished now in USSR as well. It was
preceded by extensive discussion regarding the proper place of concrete sociol-
ogy within the system of historical materialism. Agreement was reached along
the following lines:
a. The prevailing mode of production determines human behaviour and atti-
tudes. However, the link by which this comes about deserves empirical study,
for theoretical as well as for practical reasons.
b. It is the task of the Communist Party, as the avant-garde of the working
class, to direct the economic and cultural life of the country. Its task can be
facilitated if concrete data on the state of the nation are provided. Increasing-
ly, evaluation of the actual effectiveness of Party directives has also been
accepted as a legitimate concern.
* This chapter had already gone to press when the author received an important
paper from Professor P. N. Fedoseev devoted to the principal trends of research in
Marxist sociology. He wishes to stress here that his purpose is to treat those trends
in contemporary sociology which appear significant to him, and that he has not made
a special attempt to cover the entire field of Marxist or Soviet sociology. The author
however noted with great interest the very full bibliography given by Professor Fedoseev
in connection with several topics dealt with in his essay; it is reproduced belowzga
in the hope that the reader will thus be encouraged to examine more thoroughly
the literature in a field which has only been but lightly touched upon here.

Sociology 95
c. Communist countries are a new historical phenomenon which deserve to be
studied in their own right.
d. There is no contradiction between Marxist tradition and concrete sociology.
This is partly supported by a series of quotations from Marxist classics;
partly it is argued that Man: always refused to predict in detail what a Com-
munist society would look like. He gave an astute analysis of the capitalist
system as it existed in his time; it is now permissible to analyse what happens
in the countries which are governed in the spirit of his general ideas,
It is the younger generation of Communist scholars which promotes and carries
out work in concrete sociology. The so-called de-Stalinization accounts for
much of this development, although increasing contact withwestern sociologists
plays a role. At the moment a number of Communist governments give relatively
more support to empirical social research than do some Western countries.
The task of the present trend report is to assess the effect on sociology of this
conjunction of Western empirical social research, historical materialism as a
system of thought, and Communist countries as a social reality.ao I shall organize
my observations along the following lines :
I. Attitude research
2. Analysis of work
3. Small group research
4. Problems of systematics
5. Trends toward interpenetrati~n~l
Because I do not speak or read a Slavic language, I shall be specific about the
sources I have used. A number of Communist publications were available in
French, especially the extensive set of statements on Soviet sociology distributed
at the Sixth World Congress of Sociology at Evian (September 1966).3~ Sociologists
in Eastern Germany provide extensive literature which I studied rather
carefully. The work of Polish and Rumanian sociologists is available in numerous
French and English journal articles. Especially important for my purpose is
J. Szczepanski’s article on ‘La Sociologie Marxiste Empirique’.33 A number of
Western reports are not polemical and can be used as sources, expecially the
monographs by Gabor Kiss34 and by Hellmuth G. Biitow.35 Inversely, Communist
surveys of Western sociology give leads, for instance, J. Klovac - V.
Tl~sty.3~ My Columbia colleague, George Fischer, has published numerous
summaries and analyses of Russian studies. Over the years I have had personal
contacts with sociologists from every Communist country.37
I. Attit~des.3~
Public opinion polls are now a commonplace in several Com-
munist countries, and they seem to vary little from the Western tradition in
their methodology. There are, of course, differences in the questions which are
asked or not asked, but these are due primarily to political considerations. Not
surprisingly, a larger number of detailed studies are devoted to workers’
attitudes.
The research interest of Soviet scientists in men’s spiritual life (vie spirituelle) and
especially the worker’s is closely related to the desire to find means for the solution of
urgent contemporary problems including the spiritual enrichment of personalities ...

96 P. F. Lazarsfeld
The goal of our investigations is to study the scientific, cultural andtechnical outlook, the
social and occupational activities, the ideals and tastes of various groups of workers
classified according to age, sex, education, occupational characteristics and residence?
It is regrettable that we have little detailed information on the type of questions
asked so that we could make direct comparisons with Western studies. Western
reporters are usually interested in specific findings rather than in methods;
Communist colleagues are not aware of studies carried out by Western so-
ciologists whose names are not prominent enough to catch the attention of for-
eigners.
Take, for example, the problem of alienation. This, of course, is of great
interest to Communist students. On one hand there is the expectation that the
alienation discussed by Marx would disappear in a Communist country; on the
other hand, there is the fear that new forms of alienation might appear, at least
during periods of transition.
In our society, contradictions still exist between the collectivity and the individual; this
is due to the fact that society cannot yet completely satisfy the material and spiritual
needs of all men, and also because in many cases the members of the collectivity, in-
cluding some of the workers, have not yet become aware (pis conscience) of how
their own fundamental interests and those of socialist society coincide. How to suppress
the alienation of man in a socialist regime can be scientifically studied through socio-
logical inquiries.40
Now this problem of alienation has also interested a number of empirical sociol-
ogists in the United States. The conceptual meaning of the term has been ana-
lysed to the point where quantitative scales for its measurement have been
developed.4'
It is hoped that some student, possessing both the necessary linguistic and
methodological skills, wil one day compare various techniques in detail. The
problem wil be to see whether concrete sociologists steeped in the Marxist
tradition have found new ways of putting such a complex notion as alienation
to empirical test.
2. Work. ACommunist society is bound to face a double task. On one hand,
it must be concerned with the efficiency of factory work; on the other it has a
programmatic objective, to make work as meaningful to the individual worker
as possible.
Increasingly machines perform the monotonous mechanical work which used to ravage
(abrutissait) the worker. Man liberates himself progressively to devote himself to
creative activities. But this process is not the same for various groups of workers, dif-
ferent according to age, sex, education and professional characteristics. Society there-
fore has to solve extremely complex problems such as the training and readaptation of
the supervising staff, the organization of young people's work, the organic fusion of
manual and intellectual work, the possibility to choose one's own occupation and to
move from one type of work to another. The research of concrete sociology should bring
out the social psychological factor in the raising of productivity, in the organization of
the work process, and in the development of social relations.42
Capitalist countries have a similar problem which is usually called that of work
morale. But the situation in these countries is different. Morale is studied for

Sociology 97
the sole purpose of increasing productivity or of reducing turnover. In Com-
munist countries it is a goal in itself, and something similar to a calculus is
attempted by which some combination of work satisfaction and productivity is
maximized, even if the latter is not as high as it could be, were it considered the
main target. Unfortunately there are no detailed reports available on how this
difficult problem is approached through empirical research. There are some
studies which show that only a restricted proportion of the working class expe-
riences work as apart of civic duty; these studies conclude that what is needed is
not only more exhortation, but also more worker participation and a closer tie
between education, standard of living, and the type of work assigned. Another
interesting study shows that manual workers with higher education (unless they
are over-qualified) seem better able to integrate their work into their personality
matrix - a result which might parallel the finding about the American soldiers
cited at the beginning of this section.
I single out the topic of work for several reasons: it is an especially severe
challenge for a good empirical research design; it is of considerable social
importance; and it is especially susceptible to bias. Because of the urgency of the
matter in a Communist country there is the danger that negative results might
not be clearly brought to light, while positive results - increases in work
satisfaction - are reported but not analysed in a broad context. In Western
profit-minded countries the problem is seen in a more detached way - some
wil say unfortunately. But as a result it might be possible, perhaps with foun-
dation support, to study empirically the integration of work, personality and
leisure time. Guided by the theoretical discussion in Communist countries,
Western countries might be able to develop an appropriate design.43
Communist sociologists have developed careful distinctions between sub-
groups of manual workers: those who have recently arrived from the country,
those who work on machines requiring special intellectual qualifications, those
who are more concerned with their private lives than their contributions. Of
special interest are what are called innovators, workers who make a techno-
logical or administrative contribution to the management of their factory. In
Rumania, there is a detailed statistical study of several thousand innovators,
describing in detail their characteristics. Data on the frequency with which indi-
vidual workers made suggestions showed that the majority of workers submitted
only one. This seems to have inspired new studies to determine whether the
findings signify that management did not properly reward the first idea or
whether the suggestion itself was more or less accidental and not indicative of
a special gift. I know of no similarly detailed study by a Western industrial
sociologist. The idea of work rotation mentioned above is also linked with the
activity of innovators.#
In a planned economy, it is an obvious problem to match the occupational
wishes of young people to the allocation of work specified in the plan. A widely-
quoted study done in Novosibirsk has looked into this matter. Information is
available on the career aspirations of I 4-year-olds and the occupations they
later took up. The discrepancies are great and suggest that the level of aspiration
is much higher than actual achievement. Such data are rare even in Western

98 P. F. Lazarsfeld
countries and they raise further questions. What are the individual and social
consequences of the discrepancies?45 Would a proper guidance system help ? -
a solution is now contemplated in France, the Western nation with the most
highly developed planning system. One of the leaders of the Novosibirsk study,
V. N. Shubkin, sees a problem in the fact that access to preferred jobs and higher
education are both still strongly determined by the social status of ~arents.4~
3. Small group research. Once political resistance was overcome, attitude and
behavior surveys were taken over quite rapidly without much questioning of
their utility or methodology. Regarding the study of small groups, the situation
is quite different. Such work still needs to be defended, and, in the few reported
cases, a shift of topic from Western tradition seems evident. In the West, goaldirected
problem-solving and task performance are the main schemes. A group
of social psychologists from Eastern Germany report small group experiments
with an emphasis on cooperation.47 One cannot cite concrete findings because
much of the report is devoted to a battle against Communist colleagues who do
not believe in the merits of this kind of work. From other Communist countries
we do not even have that much information, although there is an interesting
reference in a summary report by Ossipov on sociological research in the
USSR.48
He makes a distinction (well-known in Western literature) between formal
and informal organization (structure oficielle and non-oficielle). His example is
very interesting. The productivity of two work groups which perform technically
similar tasks is compared over a period of months. One team performs much
better than the other, and the difference increases from month to month. The
author gives the following explanation :
The fundamental reason for this divergence can be found in the social psychological
relations existing in the two teams. In the more productive one the formal and the
informal structures match each other well, while in the second they are quite different.
Improving the formal structure of work groups, matching the formal and informal struc-
tures, are factors of critical importance if one wants to make the worker more satisfied
with his work and improve his productivity.
But notice that this material is taken from the observation of natural situations
and not from laboratory experiments.
While no empirical data are available to us, I wish to point out some interest-
ing ideas which emerged from the confrontation of Marxist sociology and small
group research. My source is an East German sociologist, Erich Hahn, who is
quoted with respect on both sides of the border.49 In a monograph on Social
Reality and Sociological Knowledge,50 he discussed ‘The Group in the Light of
Historical Materialism’. His motivation is surprising:
Not without purpose we put the problem area of groups at the end of our analysis. In
our opinion it reflects in a concentrated form an essential aspect of all efforts to over-
come the dogmatism in the field of historical materialism.
After disapproving sufficiently of bourgeois sociology, he feels entitled to turn
to the enemy within, the Communist writers who still are not willing to accept
sociological research.

He puts his argument as follows:
Sociology 99
Why do we need the category of the group in the system of historical materialism? The
crucial problem consists in delimiting the influence of society upon the individual and
upon single events; we have to go beyond the question of how the social quality of
individual action is explained in terms of general theory, for this latter problem has
been basically solved.
At this point he proceeds to a two-page restatement of the basic idea that
people’s conduct is determined by their position in the economic system. But
then he reverts to his initial question, and offers an answer:
The group can become one of the most essential categories which mediate between basic
societal relations and the individual, which bring out the most direct societal effects on
any specific event.
One might expect that from there on the author would report some studies
which exemplify the use of small group research for this mediating function. But
luckily for our purposes he does something different. He makes eight concrete
suggestions as to how reflection and research can improve the notion of the group
as a tool of sociological analysis. The three most interesting merit brief summary.
He suggests various classifications of groups. Western sociologists do not
distinguish clearly enough between essential and non-essential reference groups.
Does it matter as much from where we take our ideas on how to dress as it does
from where we get our notions of the basic workings of the social system?
Another classification is at variance with one traditional in Western sociology.
Whereas we would make the family a chief example of a primary group, Hahn
restricts the notion of primary groups to unstructured situations, such as those
formed for the purpose of study and discussion or for temporary political
action. The family follows enough rules to become an example of a semi-
institutional group. Most provocative is Hahn’s third category - what one might
call a grouping, or dismissing the pejorative implications of the term, a clique.
As an analysis by Marx, he quotes how Napoleon III came to power (18th
Brurnaire). In the course of his narrative he distinguishes at least a dozen sub-
groups within the bourgeoisie: those who have financial rather than industrial
interests; those who by family tradition are allied to one rather than the other of
thetworoyal pretenders; a combine of intellectuals and public servants who have
opinions as to the right syle of government. It is true that Western sociologists
have studied such sub-sets : the military-industrial combine, the intellectuals,
and so on. I know few examples, however, where such analysis has been
properly linked, by similarity or difference, to concepts developed in small group
research in the West.51 As is to be expected, at another point, Hahn raises the
question: how do such groupings parallel or cut across the major class structure?
Hahn also urges a stronger concern with the relation between small group
research and broad social change. Through observations and experiments one
should be able to determine when small groups shield the individual from such
changes, when they help him acljust, and when the groups break down because
various members react differently to new societal challenges.
4. Systematics. Ideas of the kind just reviewed derive from a basic systematic
position, a fact which Marxist sociologists consider their main strength. We are

IOO P. F. Lazarsfeld
not concerned here with the question of whether there are two brands of empiri-
cal social research - the bourgeois and the Marxist; Szczepariski correctly says
that this is something which interests on17 ideologists. The main issue, and the
one which guides us throughout this report, is whether the Marxist tradition
can, by its very nature, lead to new research ideas. G. Andrkeva approaches the
problem by comparing positivism, functionalism and Marxi~m.5~
The three systems are considered in an ascending order of merit. It is claimed
that the so-called neo-positivist does little more than nose-counting and is proud
of it.
Functionalism is considered somewhat better because it introduces the notion
of reference groups. This, she writes, is at least an effort to interpret individual
conduct beyond describing it only. But this is not enough.
Concrete sociological analysis consists in examining all observed conduct, neither in
isolationnor in connection withthe groups to which a person belongs, but in explaining it
in terms of real social relations. It is not enough to put behaviour in a system of objective
categories [like Parsons’ pattern variables] and to establish their functional relations.
One has to find the deepest causes which have their roots in the totality of the social
fabric of a society. [Condensed translation from p. 60.1
I have emphasized some words in the paragraph. In all such discussions, one
finds words like ‘the true’, ‘the essential’, ‘the objective’ basic factors which
alone can account for any manifest data. For a moment these sound like
metaphysical statements which can neither be proved nor rejected and which
therefore should not be discussed. But if onepersists,looking carfully andsympa-
thetically into the context of such statements, a clearer picture emerges. There is,
indeed, a basic but undiscussed position involved: all that happens in society is
determined by its technology of work and the social relations connected with
it -markets, division of labour, ownership of means of production. This proposi-
tion has a century-old literature and the extent to which it may be right or wrong
need not be discussed here. What matters is that every empirical Marxist sociolo-
gist accepts it. Once this position is taken, one arrives quite naturally at a
specific definition of the sociologist’s task; he should relate all empirical
observations and all integrating concepts back to the mode of production as it
exists at a certain time in a given society.
Because it is important to clarify this crucial point, an analogy with a
Western problem may help. No reasonable social scientist doubts that human
conduct is determined partly by psychological forces and partly by what are
sometimes called ‘structural’ elements : a person’s position in an institutional
and cultural system. Some social scientists try to weigh the relative influence of
the various elements ; others prefer to concentrate on particular ones. Sociol-
ogists of the Durkheimian school, who try to establish sociology as an endeav-
our in its own right, are especially likely to bypass psychological factors, not
because they naively overlook them but because they concentrate their atten-
tion on societal factors. The Durkheimian school follows the directive of the
master to build up a sociological realm. In so doing, they do not pretend to offer
a full-fledged analysis of individual conduct.
I propose to interpret the position of Marxist concrete sociology in the same

Sociology IOI
way, as a directive to the kind of research considered urgent. According to them,
one should make empirical observations and try to interpret them in the light
of the inffuence of basic socio-economic factors. Let other students take up other
aspects of the complex web of society.
Concrete Marxist sociologists recognize that they are setting their sights high.
Mrs. AndrCeva stresses ‘the methodological difficulties which confront Marxist
sociologists’ (p. 60 f). She proposes a close collaboration between sociology,
other social sciences, and philosophy. Other authors stress the need for using
and combining all possible research techniques: surveys, observation, qualitative
analysis, use of historical materials, etc. They wil find many Western
sociologists in full agreement although not as optimistic. They have long worked
for such a synthesis and have not been too successful. We must simply have to
wait to see whether Marxist sociologists, guided and inspired by their basic
working hypothesis, wil have more luck.
Sometimes the optimism of our Communist colleagues seems to result from
their newness at their work. Thus, €or instance, Szczepariski regrets that as
yet, few theories of the middle range have been brought forward in the Communist
countries. He believes this to be due to the fact that until recently theory
formation was reserved for ‘party leaders and the resolutions of central committees.
The social scientists themselves did not endeavour to present new formulations
because they did not want to expose themselves to ideological conflicts’
(p. 53). As I mentioned above, the paucity of middle range theories in Western
countries is as great and may be due to intrinsic intellectual difficulties.
We know of only one case in which a Marxist has refrained from viewing the
tenets of historical materialism as absolutely established. While he does not
doubt their truth, the Polish sociologist, Andrzej Malewski, has made an effort
to formulate them in such a way that concrete research can add further evidence.
In an article entitled ‘The Empirical Content of the Theory of Historical
Materialism’, he divides classical Marxist ideas into three groups.53
A. Those which assert that the situation in which people live determines their
collective attitudes and behaviour.
B. Those which assert that society is a combination of groups with conflicting
interests.
C. Those which deal with changes in the social structures.
Under each of these, the author starts with the writings of classical Marxism,
but then translates this into a language which is amenable to social research.
To illustrate this, we select one proposition from each group, preserving Malewski’s
numbering system.
A-I If a group possesses certain privileges, the majority of the members of this
group will oppose ideologies which imply the abolition of these advantages.
B-3 A social group is the stronger the more property it owns, the more indispensible
it is in the process of production, the more numerous it is, the
better organized and the more it controls military power.
C-3 Of two conflicting groups, victory wil come lo the one whose interests are
parallel to the development of the means of production and to general
economic progress.

102 P. F. Lazarsfeld
Malewski provides many examples which make his argument more vivid than
can be seen in a brief summary.54 Still, it is dubious whether the majority of
Marxists will be satisfied with his rendition. But the effort is interesting because
it corresponds to a general trend among sociologists to link the rich but discursive
writings of an earlier period to modern styles of work.55
5. Mutualpenetration. A mutual penetration of Western and Eastern sociology
can be expected. For Communist countries, it will be necessary to understand
the political difficulties still to be overcome. Thus, for instance, a seemingly
technical idea, such as cybernetics, has only recently become acceptable. I have
before me an East German book of more than 500 pages, explaining cybernetic
ideas to the general public. I quote from the index of names the authors who are
mentioned more than five times.56 The highest quotation score goes properly to
mathematicians - 48 for W. R. Ashby and 38 for N. Wiener. But Communist
classics come close: 34 for Marx, 20 for Engels and 16 for Lenin. And even
Chairman Ulbricht scores 10.57
The reception of Eastern ideas by the West is likely to be somewhat simpler
because the quest for theory is currently quite intense. Again, a single book might
be used as an indicator. Two American sociologists (Bendix and Lipset) publish-
ed a reader on Class, Status and Power in 1953. It was a great success and in
1966 a new edition was needed. If one compares the two tables of contents, one
notices the following differences: omitted from the second edition are 16 papers
from the first which report detailed results of studies done in American commu-
nities, based on rather simple scales or survey questionnaires. The new edition
includes 15 macrosociological papers on social structure in foreign countries.
The section on theories of class structure is greatly extended, and four Commu-
nist authors are represented. Perhaps the most characteristic change can be
found in the dedications. The first edition was dedicated to Paul K. Hatt, an
able young survey technician who had just died. The new edition is dedicated
to Stanislaw Ossowski, ‘a true scholar and teacher’.
There remains one element of rather acrimonious debate. But it, too, upon
closer analysis, may finally be simply a point of misunderstanding. Even the
most convinced concrete Marxist sociologists reproach their Western counter-
parts, especially Americans, with being the servants of imperialist and capitalist
masters. This seems rather a paradoxical position in view of two facts. Marxists
do not hesitate to express the hope that their own work will be useful to the
Communist Party in fulfilling its task of planning and guiding the development
of their country. At the same time, Western sociologists have considerable
contempt for applied sociology, and in the United States, it is a well document-
ed fact that professional social scientists are left of the political center.58
This web of seeming contradiction can be disentangled if one distinguishes
between manifest and latent utilization. Communist writers are well aware
that only a small minority of Western sociologists work for industry or for a
governmental agency. What they mean is that by the selection of their topics
and the way they write textbooks, they are unconsciously working for preserva-
tion of the status quo. It is exactly this ambivalent position of the Western

Sociology 103
sociologists which the more profound Communist critics wish to bring to light.
Using the American sociologist as their main target, they stress his need to
split his roIe into a manifest and a latent function; he knows that his society is
bad, and must therefore claim the scientific purity of his work while rendering
latent service to the powers that be. The Communist concrete sociologist knows
that his society is good, and therefore he can openly acknowledge that he wants
his work to be useful and used.
Once one has properly analyzed the situation one can dismiss the mutual
accusations, and attend to what is obviously an important situation. Do Com-
munist sociologists really succeed in contributing to social planning through
their research? The claim that they do, is based on something like the following:
the sociologist analyses the situation; the Party bases a decision on his findings
and acts; the sociologist sees whether the action is successful and, if it is not,
studies the difficulties and suggests corrections on which the Party acts again.
Thus, by continuous, obviously dialectical interaction between research and
decision, political action would be more successful and sociology as a sphere
of knowledge would be enriched. I am sure that most Western sociologists look
with interest and perhaps with envy at the outcome. They know how difficult
it is to perform experiments with human beings and how this slows down the
progress of the social sciences. A planned society provides the opportunity of
watching experiments on a grand scale. It is quite possible that sociologists tied
into such a design might make great contributions to our science.
From its beginning, Marxism has taken pride in its combination of praxis
and theory. For the sociologist this meant that he had clear-cut directives,
provided by theory, as to what to look for. And these directives were always
substantive: trace whatever you observe back to the technical and social ele-
ments in the mode of production. But another, more formal theoretical impera-
tive is conceivable: relate whatever you observe to something else, but do not
stop at descriptive correlations ; instead, look for a mechanism which accounts
for the connections, and conceive this mechanism so broadly that it fits practi-
cally any social situation which you care to investigate. This kind of quest for
theory has led to functionalism.
Functionalism
It cannot be my intention to give a rounded picture of functionalism, as the
literature is far too vast.59 But it is probably the best example of the inventiveness
and: the uncertainties attached to the double effort SO characteristic of con-
temporary sociology : to systematize the increasing amount of factual informa-
tion available without falling back on empty speculation on the past and future
of all societies. I shall try to reveal the seductive character of the basic idea as
well as to its vagueness which, Proteus-like, escapes from or adapts itself to
critical examination. The best procedure is probably to start with a brief chron-
ological survey.
In 1893 Durkheim called the two initial sections of his monograph on the
division of labour ‘causes’ and ‘conditions’. Briefly thereafter he formulated the
methodological rule: ‘when the explanation of a social phenomenon is under-

104 P. F. Lazarsfeld
taken we must seek separately the efficient cause which precedes it and the func-
tion it fulfills’. French students of Durkheim followed up his ideas, but these
ideas really became best known internationally in the 1920s through the work
of British anthropologists. Their positions are well known. Malinowski stated
that social facts could be explained by their ‘function, by the part which they
play within the integral system of culture.’ And Radcliffe-Brown was sure that
‘a social system has a certain kind of unity which we may speak of as a functional
unity’. Social analysis of a particular ‘social usage’ consists in showing ‘the
contribution it makes to the total social life as a functioning of the total social
system’.
The entry into sociology came about through a collaboration of Talcott
Parsons, then a young teacher at Harvard, with his senior colleague, L. J.
Henderson, a biologist, who jointly studied and admired the books of Wilfred0
Pareto. From the Harvard group a galaxy of sociologists emerged, mainly
Americans now in their fifties (Davis, Merton, Moore, Whyte, etc.) but also
some Europeans, like Bourricaud. The ‘official’ publication for this period is
Parsons’ The Social System (1951 ; the introduction explains the relatively late
date of publication).
The position of the younger men was established in Robert Merton’s ‘Mani-
fest and Latent Functions’.60 It represents an historical turning point inasmuch
as it takes a functional position but at the same time tries to carve out yet
unsolved problems. Practically every subsequent publication quotes Merton’s
paper. It consists of two main parts. The first summarizes and criticizes what
one might call early radical functionalism. It may be reduced to three prevailing
postulates:
a. Specific social items are functional for the entire social system;
b. All social items fulal sociological functions;
c. The items are consequently indispensable.
A careful reading of Merton’s text shows that he does not at all claim that such
radical functionalism ever existed. He constructs a kind of ideal type by quoting
specific sentences mainly from anthropologists and often stated in their polemics
against historical ethnography and diffusion theory. Merton himself always
adds others of their statements which show that at best they considered such
postulates as tentative ideas which deserve exploration. His ten pages are often
cited as the main reference to what early functionalism was. Actually, it would
be more correct to say that Merton paints the picture of what early functionalism
was imputed to be by those who read the pioneers superficially.
The second part of the essay consists of a ‘paradigm for functional analysis in
sociology’. It consists of I I parts which codify functional procedures and simul-
taneously raise problems arising in their application. To give the general idea,
I quote one of the II elements which I shall be using in a subsequent context.61
No. 6. Concepts of the mechanisms through which functions are fulfilled.
Functional analysis in sociology, as in other disciplines like physiology and psychol-
ogy, calls for a ‘concrete and detailed‘ account of the mechanisms which operate to
perform a designated function. This refers, not to psychological but to social, mech-
anisms (e.g, role-segmentation, insulation of institutional demands, hierarchic order-

Sociology 105
ing of values, social division of labour, ritual and ceremonial enactments, etc.).
Basic Query: What is the presently available inventory of social mechanisms corre-
sponding, say, to the large inventory of psychological mechanisms? What methodolog-
ical problems are entailed in discerning the operation of these social mechanisms?
The paradigm also introduced the notion of ‘dysfunction’ - observed con-
sequences which lessen the adaption of the system (No. 3).62
At this point a digression may be helpful. Why do publications of function-
alism continue to appear with such frequency and what is the role of
functionalism for sociologists? Two reasons come to mind. First, it unifies their
subject matter. The family, the market, the political party, the nation, all be-
come systems. The second reason is more subtle and intimated by the title of
Merton’s essay. A manifest function is one which is intended and recognized by
all people concerned: the Sanitation Department exists to keep the streets clean.
A latent function is one of which the participants in the system are not aware
and which they have not engineered. Suggesting latent functions is the main
glory of functionalist literature. They come in all sizes. Religious ceremonies
have the function of providing the community with a feeling of integration;
inmates of prisons and concentration camps are assigned numbers to strip them
of their individuality.
The parallel with the psychoanalytical distinction between conscious and
unconscious wishes is obvious. In addition to the parallel, however, there is
here an interesting symmetry. The idea of unconscious wishes is of scientific
importance: it moves psychological thinking from the easily observed to a deep-
er level of abstraction and discovery .which goes beyond collecting facts and
computing their correlations. For sociology to reach a corresponding level of
theory two avenues stand open. One is reductionism: explaining social facts as a
complex of individual psychological experiences, a move from which the large
majority of contemporary sociologists have shied away. The second way to go
beyond the observable is to assume that much of what people do is controlled
by the social system in which they live and which exercises its imperatives by
childhood training, sanctions which society imposes on deviants and rewards
for conformity. One sometimes feels that the psychoanalytical and sociological
formula might be reduced to the following imagery: the task of true scientific
analysis is to show what animates people without their knowing it. They are
driven from within - the unconscious, and they are driven from without - the
social system.
If all this correctly explains the attraction of functionalism, one can derive an
expectation as to its more recent development. Its formulations are so general
that they do not really give guidance to specific inquiries or to the interpretation
of empirical findings. Therefore, the effort of functionalists must necessarily
strive toward specification. But these specifications are bound to refer only to
aspects of the general formula which happen to be relevant for an individual
author when he discusses a concrete case. He wil introduce his ideas by im-
proving what he is likely to call traditional functionalism, that is last year’s
publication. The criticized earlier author in turn will usually state that he himself
had this innovation in mind but did not make it quite explicit. Occasionally

106 P. F. Lazarsfeld
there will then be a general review which distinguishes different kinds of func-
tionalism and condemns the poliferation of unnecessary terminology, usually
proposing some additional terms. The inverse choice, as far as I can tell, was
made only once. Kingsley Davis, who in his presidential address to the Ameri-
can Sociological Association, took the position that functional analysis is
identical with all possible sociological the0ry.~3 It is not quite clear whether this
was an imperialistic claim or an abdication speech by one of the most prominent
functionalists. Incidentally, his address is still the best guide to the literature in
the decade after Merton’s essay.
It should by now be clear that I neither wish to criticize nor to extol func-
tionalism, but try to bring out how it symbolizes the present state of sociological
theory. If one wanted to be facetious one might say that sociologists can neither
live with nor without functionalism. It comes nearest to their hopes without
really fulfilling them. This will become ever more clear if we now turn to some
specific topics. 64
I. Social systems. Stripped to its essentials, functional analysis until about 1960
could be described as follows. Here is a complex social object (S) which is of
interest because some of its traits endure over a period of time under changing
outer and inner conditions (the most often repeated analogue is the human body
which maintains its temperature within a narrow range); within this system
(S) the object of investigation is a specific social item or subsystem (i) which
makes a contribution to the ‘equilibrium’ of (S) - its homeostasis; small (i) and
(S) are connected by some ‘self-regulatory mechanism.’65
While the notion of system thus plays a central role it has never been clearly
defined, which in the nature of the enterprise, was not really necessary. The
ingenuity of the functionalist concentrates on pointing out connections between
(i) and (S). Thus Goode notices that professional organizations and unions tend
to protect their more inept members once they are admitted. This is useful for
society at large because it guarantees a broad floor of talent by providing a
reserve of marginal cases which are needed from time to time.66
Kingsley Davis stresses that jealousy is not just an individual instinct; in
various ways society gives its legitimation to protect broad property arrange-
ments which include property in Harry Johnson attributes to the
incest taboo three sociological functions : it prevents conflict within the family;
it binds together society as a whole by a network of marriages; it facilitates the
function of parents to socialize their children.68
In these examples social systems may be a great variety of things. Inasmuch
as classifications have been attempted, especially by Parsons and his closest
followers, the distinctions were either substantive (political, economic, reli-
gious systems) or based on level of aggregation (family, organization, nations,
states, etc.). But in recent years this has begun to change under the impact of
what is now called ‘general systems theory’. For my present purpose only one
aspect of their work is relevant. In this approach, systems are distinguished by
the complexity of the interrelations existing between their elements. Systems
are ordered along the dimension of complexity. Some authors distinguish up to

Sociology 107
g le~els.~9 Others develop global principles of classification; a higher level is
always able to do ‘intentionally’ what the lower level performs more or less by
primitive and more reactive devices.70 On closer scrutiny all these levels boil
down to essentially three groups: those systems which consist only of mechanisms
like clocks or springs attached to a frame; organismic systems which are
able to maintain an equilibrium; and systems which show evolution either by
learning within their own lifetime or by selective change between ‘generations’.7I
The functionalist-sociologist always has in mind the second type of system. It
obtains information from the outside world and can adjust its own performance
to reduce the difference between the observed state and the one for which it is
programmed. This is the famous negative feedback of cybernetics guaranteeing
homeostasis.
The main hope of the writers in the third group is that the third type of
systems wil become the model for more advanced social science analysis.
Probably the most vivid description of this trend is given by an author who
speaks of the ‘second cybernetics revolution’ introducing systems which have
positive in addition to negative feedbacks. The negative feedback tries to counteract
deviations in order to maintain an equilibrium. The positive feedback
‘amplifies an insignificant or accidental initial kick and builds up deviation and
divergence from the initial conditi~n’.’~ It is morphogenic because in its own
system it develops new forms and new goals. The author gives as an example a
farmer who builds his house at random in a plain; other farmers join him, build
joint services and finally a town develops. The first step cannot be explained but
the rest are positive (mixed with negative) feedbacks.
It is important to understand why general systems theorists feel that they are
not repeating superficial statements like Spencer’s law of increasing differentiation.
It is actually possible to construct systems which have built-in evolutionary
elements. ‘By continuing to make things which fulfill the functions of
communications and organization we cannot help in the long run but gain
significant opportunities for a clear understanding of these functions themselves’.73
The ideas of general systems analysis might make two kinds of contributions
to sociological thinking. For one, they can ease the logical tensions which
persons feel who wish to study human affairs by methods which can be shared
and checked by other investigators. Notions such as goals and purposes force
themselves upon every observer, but often seem at variance with a ‘scientific’
tradition, however broadly interpreted. This gap is likely to be reduced, according
to this new trend. Every new technological term or biological discovery
broadens the range of respectable sociological notions.74
The second and more important question is whether all this wil direct attention
to new concrete observations and studies. As I mentioned before, the
main contribution which functionalism has made, has been to highlight the
idea of latent functions. By taking the new imagery from evolutionary or morphogenic
systems, it is probable that problems of social change, communications
and influence wil receive greater emphasis. Whether this wil lead to a basically
new insight cannot be foretold.

108 P. F. kzarsfeld
One author, W. Buckley, has specifically tried to assess the contribution of
general system theory to sociology.75 I disagree with him on one point. He views
the new ideas as opposed to functionalism, whereas it would seem more correct
to see in general systems theory another phase in the basic intellectual drive
which lies behind functionalist thinking in sociology. As I have described before,
there has always been a ‘new’ functionalism, and we are now presented with yet
another. I think that Buckley only shows that the more recent functionalist
writers, because they are more subtle, increasingly make observations which were
not caught by earlier functionalists. I shall revert to this point presently. In any
case, Buckley’s book is a good summary of the literature since the Davis paper
in 1959, just as the latter brought us up to date after Merton’s paper in 1949.
The whole development of functionalism, and its ability to maintain itself
under changing intellectual conditions, is probably best illustrated by a topic
which has aroused much controversy: the role of conflict in functional analysis.
2. The problem oj” conflict. In the hands of the British anthropologist, function-
alism was a revolutionary tool. He wished to prevent British colonial officers
from destroying aboriginal peoples by thoughtless tampering with parts of their
social system. The emphasis was on the positive contributions which each ele-
ment made. In application to modern societies, this turned out to have conser-
vative implications; after all, many things in our society are bad and should not
be left alone. This led functionalists to introduce the notion of dy~function.7~ A
society, for instance, may have as its main goal the idea of success but may not
provide all its members with an opportunity to achieve it. Then many will either
resort to criminal ways of attaining success or retreat to drugs in order to forget
the ‘social prescribed’ achievement (anomie). Something must be done about
such deviance to restore the equilibrium of the social system. Functional
analysis pointed the way to the necessary remedies: a better balance between
aspiration and opportunities.
Thinking in terms of dysfunction, anomie and similar concepts did not long
appease the critics of functionalism. After all, it still meant accepting society
as it is and simply repairing some marginal difficulties. The whole approach
actually seemed to make the sociologists even more conservative. Lewis Coser,
a leader in this trend, put it in the following way: ‘The self-image of many a
sociologist has changed from that of a self-conscious advocate of reform to
that of a troubleshooter and expert in human relations.’ But Coser did not
desert the functional position. ‘Conflict as well as cooperation has social functions.
Far from being necessarily dysfunctional a certain degree of conflict is an
essential element in group function and the persistence of group life.’ While
Coser still has as his main frame of reference the persistence of group life, the
shift in attention from deviance to conflict is significant. It introduces the political
aspect of the social structure. The issue is no longer to bring the deviants
back into the fold. What Coser wants is the institutionalization and tolerance of
coAict’.77 The basic imagery is no longer the social worker, but the labourmediator.
A perpetual cycle from conflict to conflict resolution has new become part
of the function of the social system.

Sociology I 09
But what if the distribution of power in the society is such that conflicts are
always resolved to the disadvantage of certain social groups? Here a new voice
is heard, that of the German sociologist, Dahrendorf. He feels that in order to
understand and appreciate social change, a ‘radical departure from the func-
tional system model of society’ is necessary. What sociologists should study is
not equilibrium but social change which results from the antagonism which
each society creates and which neither originates at random nor is susceptible to
elimination by a re-established equilibri~m.7~
Although he nowhere states it in explicit and quotable sentences, it is clear
that Dahrenforf’s objection against functionalism is that it is not directed toward
the future. In his book on German society, discussed in the previous section of
the present chapter, the underlying purpose of his analysis is to find means for
strengthening democracy in his country. When he criticises functionalism for not
taking into account the possibility of ‘radical change’ he is not thinking of revolu-
tion. His concern is a society which derives new goals from old conflicts. After
the social worker and the mediator, he now introduces the statesman who guides
his country by social planning based not on force but rather on some rational
system of trial and error.79
Dahrendorf might one day be the fmt sociologist to realize this image in his
own career. But like everyone else he has no success with his attack on func-
tionalism. Its new version, akin to general systems theory, is prepared to meet
the challenge. The creative role of conflict can easily be subsumed as a positive
feedback. The role of planning is well provided for in evolutionary and morpho-
genic social systems. As a matter of fact, even the ‘older’ functionalism is not
as vulnerable as Dahrendorf assumes. This wil become dearer when I now
turn to my third topic: recent trends in the study of functional mechanisms.
3. Functionalmechanisms. I quoted above the sixth point in Merton’s paradigm
in which he calls for greater attention to social mechanisms. In recent years this
call has been heeded by a number of writers whom we might label neo-functionalists.
They provide a bridge to the general systems theorist. While their imagery
of systems is not as radical, they are concrete indeed about the links which hold
their systems together.
It would be possible to describe this trend with considerable generality.
However, the main ideas are best set forth by considering individuals or small
groups which are connected by membership with larger units, for instance,
communities. The customary concern of the functionalist is the contribution
which the small unit (i) makes to the larger system (S). The neo-functionalist
also asks: why does (i) make this contribution, how does (S) repay him? In
principle, this matter can be discussed in two ways: from the point of view of the
individual or from the point of view of the larger social unit. It is perhaps significant
that two basic papers representing these two symmetric approaches appeared
almost simultaneously. W. J. Goodego starts out with the notion ofrole strain.
An individual is often subject to conflicting demands from various social groups,
and must somehow manage to reconcile them. Up to this point, the exposition
quite closely follows Merton’s paper on role set. But Goode notes that one

IIO P. F. Lazarsfeld
cannot yet predict what priority the individual will assign to such expectations
or what the total pattern of his performances will be. This he proposes to sub-
mit to special analysis. He views the pertinent decisions as a kind of transaction
or bargaining process to obtain a maximum of rewards at minimum cost. This
‘role market’ is described in terms taken from economics, which throws new
light on many common observations (the family, for instance, is seen as the
role budget center where credit can be obtained, allocations can be discussed,
etc.). Various computational ideas are suggested to reduce role strain : ‘First,
by selecting a set of roles which are singly less onerous, as mutually supportive
as he can manage, and minimally conflicting; and, second, by obtaining as
gratifying or value-productive a bargain as he can with each alter in his total
role pattern.’
Of course, the market is not quite free; there are always ‘third parties’. The
general norms of society, the existence of subsystems such as churches and
other organizations, and the role of specific reference groups limit the free role
bargain. In the end, a society is seen as a system which provides the orientation
according to which the individual makes his decisions. Goode ends with sug-
gestions of how such role transactions could be studied concretely :
Would youincrease the time and energy younow give to role relationship X? Or, grant-
ed that these are the ideal obligations of this relationship, how little can you get away
with performing? Or, by probing the decision, is it possible to ascertain why the indi-
vidual has moved from one role transaction to another, or from one role organization
to another?
Gouldner moves in the opposite direction, from the system (S) to the subunit
and the individual (i). He starts out with a critique of earlier functional analysis;
it ‘is incomplete insofar as the analyst has not explicitly traced the manner in
which groups or structures whose ends have been satisfied in turn reciprocate
and repay the sub-units under study for the gains it provides them’. This ex-
change of services is caught by Gouldner’s term of reciprocity. Logically and in
fact, it is a basic feature of any system.*‘ According to him, in all societies there
is a norm which requires that benefits received, be returned sooner or later.
The demonstration that (i) is functional for (S) helps to account for (S)’s own persist-
ence and stability only on two related assumptions: I) that (S) reciprocates (i)’s services
and 2) that (i)’s service to (S) is contingent upon (S)’s performance of positive function
for (i).
But the two ‘partners’ may not be fully dependent upon each other; they may
have alternative sources of supply. This weakens the connections between the
elements of a system. A subunit can have a varying degree of functional auton-
omy; this raises for it the problem of how to manage its contributions and
receipts. Thus, Gouldner arrives at the point from which Goode starts: role
management. In fact, at the end of one of his essays, Gouldner has a subtitle:
the strategies of parts and systems. Not unexpectedly the ‘third party’ appears.
Gouldner discusses cases in which, because of power differences, the weaker
partner cannot fully reciprocate. Here society or specilic institutions intervene.
The philanthropist is not rewarded directly by the poor; he obtains his reward in
terms of the prestige the community accords him.

Sociology I I I
In a way, Gouldner follows sociological tradition more closely than Goode,
inasmuch as the decision-making individual is not discussed in detail. At the
same time, he is a neofunctionalist in the sense that he pursues the sociological
function of reciprocity in all its details. Thus, for instance, it is obvious that not
all gifts can be returned immediately. But the time lapse between receiving and
returning has an important social function. As long as the feeling of obligation
on the part of the debtor and the expectation of return by the creditor persists,
the probability of peace is greater.82 The aspects of the reciprocity relation,
such as the ambiguity as to what is an equivalent, are given similar functional
interpretations.
The most extensive social analysis in terms of reciprocity and exchange is
found in a book by Peter Bla~.~3 He translates a large number of classical
sociological topics into neo-functional language, often with surprising results.
The emphasis on power in the title reflects the fact that, in his view, norms of
reciprocity greatly help to clarify the stratification systems of modern society.
Mechanisms such as reciprocity and exchange, permit discussion of one
final point. In Merton’s paper and in Nagel’s formalization, one question was
not raised: in what way is an item (i) ‘explained’ through the contribution it
makes to a larger system (S)? The term ‘explanation’ is ambiguous, so no
simple answer can be gi~en.~4 But it is discomforting to see something explained
by a subsequent consequence. As far as I can see, Hempel was the first to bring
up this question. Since then it has been approached in several ways. Attention
to functional mechanisms is one answer. If the total system rewards the subunit
for its contribution, we have a phenomenon of mutual interaction which
does not create any special logical problems.
A second approach has been suggested by two authors, the American Stinchcombe
and the Pole Malewski. While they use different terminology, their ideas
are the same. Stinchcombe talks of social selection processes and applies a
Darwinian model to social systems. Some survive better because they have subunits
which make more productive contributions. In this way, the time sequence
is straightened out. The consequences in a first generation account for the survival
of the subunit in subsequent generations. Malewski uses the reward
model of a generalized learning theory. Functions with positive consequences
are reinforced. As a general model, selection and reinforcement are certainly
logically acceptable. Whether the models wil be supported by concrete evidence
wil have to be seen. In any case, it is likely that the neo-functionalist and the
general systems approaches wil tend to converge. If so, this is a future trend
which wil deserve careful attention.
Critical theory and dialectics
Germany makes its contribution through what has come to be known as
critical theory. This has created a schism among German sociologists, with
repercussions abroad. One must distinguish a recent and a more remote history
of this trend.
In the mid-1920’s the University of Frankfurt created an Institute of Social
Research of which Max Horkheimer became director in 1931. Several years

112 P. F. Lazarsfeld
before Hitler came to power they undertook a number of studies the results
of which suggested that the German working class probably would not resist
the Hitler movement because the German family fostered submission to
auth~rity.~s In I932 the Institute began to publish a journal which brought to
public attention a number of younger men, all of whom were to make their
mark: Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse. The
introduction to the first issue emphasized that the journal would cover all
social sciences because the group was striving for an ‘understanding’ of the total
course of history. The titles of the papers in this; first issue were somewhat
more significant. An economist discussed with approval the Marxian theory of
prices, and two other papers dealt with the societal determinants of literature
and music respectively.
The ‘Gesellschaftliche Lage der Musik’ by Adorno is an article on music (44
pages long with a sequel of equal length in the next issue) which, in retrospect,
set the direction for the programme. A translation of the first three sentences
will be helpful :
Whenever music sounds today it reflects the contradiction and crevices which split
contemporary society; at the same time the deepest gap separates music from just that
society which creates it and its atomization, a society unable to absorb from its music
more than its rubble and wreckage. The role of music in its societal setting is exclu-
sively that of merchandise; its value is determined by the market. Music doesn’t serve
any more immediate needs and use but submits itself like any other merchandise to the
constraints of the market.86
When Hitler came to power the Institute left Germany for the United States.
Because of this interruption, it took several years before a programmatic
statement was available. It appeared in 1937 in an article by Horkheimer entitled
‘Traditional and Critical The0ry’.~7
The paper has three themes. First, the structure of modern science is described
as one element in the rise of the middle class out of the pre-capitalist world. This
is a summary of the well known Marxist position. The notion of a pure science
following its own course had a liberating effect in the 19th century; today it
implies the acceptance of monopoly capitalism.
The second theme concerns the nature of this new world. Here Marxist
theory is treated more selectively. Poverty, unemployment and even exploita-
tion are barely mentioned. The emphasis is on alienation, fetishism and false
consciousness. People today still believe that they act on the basis of individual
decisions, while actually, however, their behaviour is molded by social mecha-
nisms (p. 253). Their destiny is determined, not by the competition of independ-
ent individuals, but rather by national and international conflicts between ruling
cliques in government and the economic system (p. 259). No one has ideas of
his own any longer; so-called public opinion is a product of the ruling private
and public bureaucracies (p. 287). Human solidarity is more likely to be found
in criminal gangs than in established society (p. 291).
Sociological analysis practised against this background of necessity becomes
critical theory; this is the third and essential theme. As a matter of course,
social analysis should point to the elements just mentioned. But it should not

Sociology I I 3
look at them as isolated shortcomings, but as the consequences of the basic
social structure, a system based on production for profit. The relation between
research regarding what exists and social goals to be strived for is stated as
follows :
To see the course of history as a necessary product of an economic mechanism already
implies protest against the present order and the idea of an autonomy of the human
race; this means an order in which social events are no longer the result of a mechanism
but grow out of free collective decisions. The insight that what happened so far was
necessary already implies the fight for a change from a blind to a meaningful necessity.
(P. 280)
On one point this neo-Marxism is quite different from the earlier variety. Marx
was convinced that the proletariat was a social force which would provide the
leverage for basic social change. Observations of Hitler’s Germany, of American
labour unions and of the Soviet bureaucracy have shaken this convinction. In
subsequent publications, this ‘Marxism without proletariat’ became ever more
pronounced. But it is already clearly implied in the programmatic article by
Horkheimer. He assigns to the critical theorist the task of allying himself with
‘progressive’ elements and individuals (presumably from all social classes) who
are willing to ‘tell the truth’. This alliance wil lead to a dialectical process which
wil generate ‘liberating, propelling, disciplined and powerful forces’ (p. 269).
This is a different position from that taken by former Utopian socialists, because
technological changes have made a new organization of society possible.
‘Critical theory declares things do not have to be as they are now. Mankind can
change its existence. The possibilities are now available (p 279).
In this paper no concrete examples are given nor is the mode of analysis ex-
plicated. It was left to two of Horkheimer’s associates to fill in the details. Her-
bert Marcuse provided the historial background in a brilliant review, ‘The
Foundations of the Dialectical Theory of Society’;a* in a later edition of this
work he added an instructive preface on dialectics and suggested as slogan: ‘the
power of negative thinking’.89 For Marcuse, dialectics and critical theory are
the same. His 1960 preface succintly summarized the 1937 Horkheimer article
as follows :
Dialectic thought starts with the experience that the world is unfree; that is to say man
and nature exist in conditions of alienation, exist as other than they are.. . to compre-
hend reality means to comprehend what things really are and this in turn means reject-
ing their mere actuality. Rejection is the process of thought as well as of action.
Almost by definition an ‘outsider’ cannot really tell what this critical theory is
about, although Marcuse’s historical review certainly helps for grasping the
main inte11t.9~
One must supplement these cues by turning to Adorno, who became the
professional sociologist’s liaison with the world. Adorno faced two fronts, with
very different effects. On one hand, he discussed in principle the relation
between theory and empirical research. On the other hand he commented exten-
sively on concrete sociological topics. In this second endeavour, Adorno’s
analytical observations have generally been drawn from the sphere of culture,
and especially from music, on which he is an outstanding expert. His general

I 14 P. F. Lazarsfeld
approach here can be fairly easily located. In one sense it resembles Parsons who
applies a number of his basic concepts to a variety of topics such as the medical
system, child-rearing, relations between nations, etc. More specifically, Adorno
emphasizes latent functions, that is, connections which are not easily recognized
by the superficial observer. But as a characteristic ingredient, he adds emphasis
on those latent functions which, in his opinion, serve to deceive modern man and
mask from him the nature of a basically bad society. Thus one finds in his
writings many statements like the following: ‘theory wants to point out what
secretly keeps the whole machinery working’; ‘empirically observed facts do not
reflect the underlying true social relations; they are the veil by which these
relations are masked’. Adorno keeps reverting to the idea that social reality must
be observed and studied, but for purposes of demystification and unmasking.91
As one illustration one can take his contention that music in our times has become
a fetish. We live in a world of promotion, propaganda and advertising
which forces upon us the categories in which we perceive the world. We believe
in star performers, although few of us could distinguish one good violinist
from another. The same is true for fine instruments, and yet we flock to a concert
where the performer is scheduled to use a genuine Stradivarius. Of a major
symphony we can hear and remember only the main themes; as a matter of
fact in ‘music appreciation’ courses we use devices which reinforce this reificationp2
serious, popular, and other types of music are forced upon us by radio
schedules, etc. Only detailed study of this kind of analysis can convey its
creative element; there is no doubt that it enriches sociological thinking.
t But on another front Adorno and his followers have done much harm. The
matter is best explained by a brief retrospective account. When, after the war,
the majority of the Frankfurt group returned to Germany, they at first tried to
convey to their German colleagues the merits of empirical social research which
they had observed in the United States. In 1951 they convened a general meeting
on the role of empirical social research, chaired by the venerable Leopold von
Wiese.93 Adorno presented the main report. Obviously, the older generation of
sociologists feared that these new methods would endanger the humanistic
traditions of their work. Adorno provided many concrete examples to demonstrate
how all aspects of sociology can be enriched by empirical studies (pp.
30-33). Of course, quantitative findings have to be interpreted, but this is
known by all intelligent research workers. He was especially anxious to dispel
the idea ‘widely held in Germany that empirical social research merely consists
in counting the opinions of individuals and overlooks the many problems due
to the dynamics of group life ... In the majority of such studies, depth interviews
are combined. with quantitative findings and compared to the reaction of
people in isolation and in group situations’. (Condensed translation from p.
35.) Together with some insightful criticisms, this paper could stand today as a
most adequate discussion on the contribution of concrete empirical studies to
general sociology.
Within a period of five years, however, the situation changed completely.
Adorno embarked on an endless series of articles dealing with the theme of
theory and empirical research. These became more and more strident, and the

Sociology I I 5
invectives multiplied. Stupid, blind, insensitive, sterile became homeric attrib-
utes whenever the empiricist was mentioned. According to Adorno the research
worker was only interested in verbalized subjective opinions of individuals in
which he had naive confidence. If one examines the paper most frequently
quoted as the first major expression of this new line, one can hardly believe
that it was written by the same author as that previously quoted.94 Thereafter
one paper followed another, each reiterating the new theme. All have two
characteristics in common. First, the empiricist is a generalized other - no
examples of concrete studies are given. (The 1951 paper contained several
interesting examples.) Second, the futility of empirical research is not demon-
strated by its products, but derived from the conviction that specific studies
cannot make a contribution to the great aim of social theory to grasp society in
its totality. Empirical research had become another fetish concealing the true
nature of the contemporary social system.
Adorno’s position gained increasing attention, and in I 961 the German
Sociological Society found it necessary to call a special meeting to debate the
issue. The main topic was ‘logic of the social sciences’. The exponent of what
one might call the official theory of science was the Austro-English philosopher,
Karl R. Popper, and the co-reporter was T. W. Adorn0.95 Since this meeting
the so-called positivist-dialectic discussion has become the central theme of
German sociology.
Neither of the reports offered any surprises. Adorno stressed the continuity
of his position. ‘Critical sociology, for its concepts to be true, is necessarily at
the same time a critique of society, as Horkheimer in his paper on traditional
theory has demonstrated.’ Dahrendorf, in summarizing the discussion, pointed
out that both speakers were so polite that it was difficult to really perceive the
basic differences. According to him, the only clear distinction was that, for
Popper, theory is continually evolving by trial and error, while for Adorno, it
is, at least at its core, an eternal verity. Dahrendorf underscored his disappoint-
ment in the meeting because there was so little reference to specific sociological
problems and to the uses of sociology for concrete social decisions.
Indeed there is a striking contradiction between the continuing excitement
over the debate and the paucity of lessons to be learned from it. One almost
feels that partisanship depends more on how one feels about the Vietnam war
than how one wants to work as a sociologist. In a subsequent article on the
Tiibingen discussion, Habermas gave expression to this dificulty. He is the
first, and as far as I can tell, the only commentator who has tried to specify the
difference between an ‘analytical theory of knowledge and dialectics’. He dis-
cusses the disagreement under four points: I) how the object of sociological
analysis is constituted; 2) the relation between theory and factual evidence; 3) the
relation between theory and history; 4) the relation between science and praxkq6
Habermas’ efforts to break down the issue into specific components are cer-
tainly helpfu1,‘but again the sociologist attracted by the atmosphere of critical
theory could not learn how to proceed if he wanted to study a specific topic in
its spirit.
Each point is highlighted by a quotation from Adorno and additional com-

116 P. F. Lazarsfeld
ments are written in his style. The whole situation becomes aggravated by the
position of the ‘positivists’. One of the main German centers of empirical
social research is undoubtedly the University of Cologne. At the Fourth World
Congress of Sociology (1959), its senior sociologist, R. Konig, gave apt de-
scriptions of critical theory backed by well-chosen references.97 He comes
to a pessimistic conclusion: one should make a sharp distinction between a
‘theory of society’ and ‘sociological theory’ and beware of the former. The
critical theorist deals in speculation where he ‘uses material data in an uncritical
and uncontrolled way and rushes in too hasty a way to its conclusions. ...
Research has no meaning in itself, e.g., in order to corroborate or reject a
hypothesis, but is just used for sustaining a revolutionary action’. By thus
divorcing the two areas he in turn forecloses the possibility of utilizing per-
ceptive elements in critical theory for the enrichment of the total field. The
consequence can be exemplified by the important German text on empirical
social research which the Cologne group has published. The section on the
philosophic foundations of social research makes no mention whatsoever of
critical sociology. Neither does its author find a place for it in his reader on the
foundation of the social sciences.98
Onemust go to another country to find the only attempt I am aware of to
make dialectics something like a research operation which can be taught and
learned. I refer to the work of a French sociologist who has made a serious
effort along this line. Georges Gurvitch in a book on Dialectique et Sociologie99
gives an extensive review of dialectic ideas in the history of philosophy. He
then describes his own position which he calls operational dialectis and which
he considers important as a tool of sociological research. He warns against
making dialectics a cure-all. According to him, the fetishism of contradiction
is dangerous. Rather, one should distinguish five specific dialectical procedures
which in various combinations are a useful starting point for any sociological
work. It is not easy to condense Gurvitch’s ideas, but the following summary
should give a broad picture.
A dialectic operation consists in the selection of two elements in a social
situation and then seeing how they are related. They may complement and inter-
act with each other and may create ambiguities for the participants. It is this re-
lation and the outcome to which it leads which is at the core of the different
operations. The substantive content of the elements can vary greatly from one
case to another. I give the French titles and one brief example for each proce-
dure. A reader of Anglo-Saxon literature will at many points find ideas with
which he is familiar in a different terminology.
I. La complimentaritidialectique. Here the subject matter is the relation between
us and the others, between planned and spontaneous activities, and so on.
Some of the examples are close to the notion of role conflict (p. 196 f.).
2. L‘implication dialectique mutuelle. This covers mutual interaction between
social structure and technology, between broad cultural patterns and social
interaction on the more macroscopic level. In this second procedure of
dialectization Gurvitch also includes the way cultural importations to a
country are adapted to its own tradition.

Sociology I 17
3. L'ambiguite'dialectique. Many examples of mutual interaction are again taken
up here, but under a new aspect. An individual or a group which lives at the
intersection of two or more social systems often has considerable difficulty
in finding its own social identity. Literature on reference groups might be
relevant here (see especially p. 206).
4. La polarisation dialectique. As one would expect there is also always the
possibility of an antagonistic development. This is probably the procedure
which comes closest to the more conventional notion of dialectics. Obvious
examples come from the antagonism between classes, revolution and war.
5. La mise en re'ciprocite' de perspectives. This dialectic procedure consists in
bringing out the elements which are neither identification nor separation
but where the reciprocity has become so intense that it leads to an observable
parallelism. His examples are more easily understood than the concept it-
self. Bureaucratic organizations create as well as attract certain personalities.
Public opinion is an aggregate of individual opinions at one time but in turn
induces change in individual opinions. Inventions are due to individual
creation but are more likely to occur under certain historical conditions.
Gurvitch is explicit as to the rule which his dialectic procedures are to play in
sociological work. 'They do not give us an explanation, they lead to the thresh-
old. Dialectic prepares the frame for explanatory work' (p. 218 f.).
For two reasons, it seemed justified to draw attention to Gurvitch's ideas.
For one, any effort which tries to explicate concretely such vague terms like
dialectics should be applauded.IoO Second, there is a salient parallel here between
Gurvitch's dialectical operations and Parsons' pattern variables. In both cases
the point is being made that a number of basic orientations should be taken
into account in any sociological investigation. It is true that Parsons mainly
thinks of the orientation of an acting individual or a group, while Gurvitch
thinks more in terms of the analysing sociologists, but the two perspectives
can easily be translated into each other. Only a more detailed scrutiny could
decide whether there are additional parallels between the five dimensions which
each author develops.
Finally a comparative remark. There is hardly any other idea which leads such
a different life in various countries. In the 16 volumes of the new International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences there is no entry for the term 'dialectic'. On
the other hand, a simple introductory manual on Me'thodesdes Sciences Sociales
written for their students by two professors of law states as a matter of
course that the dialectical method 'is the fullest, the richest, and obviously the
most advanced method of explanation in sociology'1o1. The standard American
reader on the philosophy of social science contains no paper on dialectics.lOa
The corresponding German reader edited by Topitsch, which we have repeatedly
quoted, contains three papers on this topic.
This last discussion has already moved us from Germany to France. We
cannot leave this country without at least a brief reference to its most recent
interest.

118 P. F. Lazarsfeld
Structuralism
There can be no doubt that in linguistics, anthropology and literary criticism
structuralism is an important issue. One could also point to concrete work which
would permit an attempt at a reasonable definition, but neither the work of
Uvi-Strauss nor the movement around Roland Barth belongs to the domain of
the present essay, and in sociology1 find no real traces. Piaget haswritten amono-
graph in which he argues that structuralism pervades all modern thinking in-
cluding the social sciences. When it comes to sociology, however, he hardly gives
any concrete examples. If for the moment, we leave out the study of small groups,
the only sociological reference Piaget makes is to the way Parsons uses the term
‘structure’.103 One sometimes has the impression that Piaget thinks that wher-
ever mathematical models are used they are by definition part of the structural
movement. But that would hardly contribute to clarification of the issue.
In fact the only type of this sociology I could find comes from sources outside
of France. When linguists classify various languages they often set up general
attribute spaces in which to locate the various languages. In so doing they
implicitly use the kind of substruction which has been discussed at the end of our
Section I. One American linguist even specitically stresses the ~arallel.~04
Another problem might also belong in a discussion of structuralism: the typol-
ogy of broad social and economic systems which has recently been revived. The
interest probably originates with Mam, who was much interested in describing
the historical phases of society which precede the origin of full-fledged develop-
ment of capitalism.Io5
Recent social change in underdeveloped countries has brought the problem
very much to the attention of social scientists. Wil these countries on their
way to modem industrialization develop forms of societies different from any
known before? If so, how can they be described without introducing a bias
which can come from the experience of Western social scientists. Kula has
suggested that something like an anthropology of Western industrial society
would be needed, written from the point of view of, say, an African social
scientist.106 The most intense work on this kind of social typology has been
made by Wittfogel in his work on Asiatic despotic societies. In his principal
publication he also reviews the history of this typological idea; his information is
instructive but probably biased because of his strong stand as a converted anti-
communist.107 It is interesting to note that historians have become interested in
this problem as witnessed by a collective work on feudalism which raises the
question of whether the type abstracted from European history also applies to
history of other The book by Eisenstadt on centralized bureauc-
racies, discussed in Section II, would also deserve re-analysing from this typo-
logical point of view.l0g
This concludes our review of the main efforts to develop what has become
known as social theory. We have been continuously forced to point to national
differences. This raises the question of what other variations between sociolo-
gists in different countries are noticeable. To this topic the next section is
dedicated.

IV. NATIONAL VARIATIONS IN SOCIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES
Sociology I 19
Between the two World Wars interest in empirical research and often quanti-
fication increased in every country where sociology existed. During the Second
World War, this trend was interrupted except in the United States, where the
Government and private foundations supported social research as an aid in
mobilizing the human resources of the country. As soon as the war ended the
pent-up interest in empirical studies broke through, especially appealing to the
younger generation.IIOThe only source of literature and methodological experi-
ence was the USA. No wonder then that much of the material available to us
mentions the period around 1946 (in Eastern European countries 1956) as a
turning point in their sociological development.II1
As a result there is considerable uniformity in the activities as reported from
all countries. Every phase of modern life is either actuaIly subject to empirical
investigations or hope is expressed that such wil soon be the case. Especially in
the larger, more industrialized countries, the only question usually is whether
one field is stronger or weaker in terms of available funds and personnel.
Comparable statistical data on present sociological research by topic or
category in all countries would be most useful. The reporting of similar efforts
has the advantage of making available more and more comparative data on the
same subject. Some examples of such parallel research have been given in
Section II on macrosociology, and many others wil be found in Chapter x by
Mr. Rokkan. A serious question arises: is there a danger that this uniformity
might suppress national differences which could be productive for the develop-
ment of the entire field? Our information is not detailed enough to answer
this question, but we are able to point up some national differences which wil
be recorded here.
At least three advantages should accrue from such a review. First, it could form
a basis for a study on the sociology of knowledge. What are the social factors
which account for variations? Second, such an inventory could be used as a
source of information on data and ideas available in only one or a few countries.
Finally, such a comparison should make social scientists aware of problems and
procedures they might have overlooked because of being too close to the intel-
lectual trends of their own countries. We divide our report into two parts. The
first has to do with subject matter; the second covers a number of specific
methodological and administrative issues.
For easier orientation we divide the first part into three sub-sections. In
certain countries some topics are more, or even uniquely stressed because social
reality brings them to the attention of sociologists. In a second group of exam-
ples the differences are due more to the general cultural tradition of the country.
These are probably the most important. Contemporary empirical research
procedures, have, for better or for worse, been shaped by the American cultural
milieu, both academic and national. It is generally hoped that as these methods
are introduced into other countries, they will be reshaped and enlarged
by the national intellectual tradition. Nor has it always been easy to make
the distinction between these two categories (is it really cultural?). In some

120 P. F. Lazarsfeld
cases we recognize that the final decision might have been slightly arbitrary.
Sometimes subject matter finds preferential treatment because of the personal
interest of a prominent scholar, or because an institution happens to exist
which facilitates the flow of work in a specific direction. Such cases have been
classified in a third group and called accidental variations. A more refined
analysis might reveal that even these accidents could be explained by a cultural
tradition or social structure of a country. But we lack the necessary insight and
must leave such refinement to better informed scholars.
The second part of our report deals with selected examples of controversies,
difficulties and resistances surrounding the development of sociology in various
countries.
Variation in subject nzatter: emphases and objects of research
A. Topical variations
In a number of countries, particularly the developing ones, a national concern
with the modification of traditional social structures has turned the interest of
sociologists towards a common focal point. An example is India with her
problem of caste and of the village, where pertinent work is interesting for its
own sake. This also ties the sociologist in with the main political problem of the
country: how to organize a central administration in view of such heterogeneity
and fragmentation. Similarly, under the impact of industrialization, many
African countries, and even Japan, are concerning themselves with changes in
their traditional kinship systems. A concentration of sociology on the impact of
social change is also evident in Iran1I2.
One of the most succint statements on the aims of sociology in a developing
country has been made by an Indonesian sociologist:
In addition to the universities, increased interest in the application of sociology is also
being shown by the People’s Consultative Assembly and the Government. In particu-
lar, it is hoped that sociology can make a useful contribution towards the implementa-
tion of the plan for overall national development.. . Another factor which has stimulated
the development of sociology is the growing awareness that economic development
cannot be brought about through economic measures only, but that it likewise neces-
sitates a profound understanding of the structure and characteristics of the society as
well as of the forces operative within it. Hence, to date there has been a growing recog-
nition that sociology and sociological research are needed to implement successfully
the practical measures undertaken by the Government as part of its overall responsi-
bilities. These measures include, for example, the rehabilitation of convicts, the inte-
gration of cultural subgroups living in isolated forest and mountain areas into In-
donesian society as a whole, efforts towards integration and assimilation of minority
and majority groups, demobilisation of members of the armed forces, and village com-
munity development in the widest sense of the term.113
Another phenomenon, evidenced in Iran and North Africa, may or may not
be typical of the developing countries, but certainly has implications for the fu-
ture direction of sociology. This is the tendency for sociologists to constitute the
vanguard of a growing intelligentsia, and, by means of their professional attune-
ment to ‘social facts’, to provide a linkage between political decision-making on
the one hand and social needs and trends on the other.II4

Sociology I 2 I
In developed countries the direction of sociological work is often influenced
by the needs manifest at the national policy making level. One such example is
Ttaly where disequilibria between the North and the South were the cause of
many social, political and economic problems :
Research work, because of its accuracy, has provided helpful results even when it was
dealing with macrosocial themes such as those of economic development. The case of
Italy had - and still has - some special characteristics with respect to the typology of
cases which filled the huge quantity of economic and sociological literature of the
1950s. Underdevelopment in Italy was a problem of disequilibria, both territorial and
sectorial, within a social system which was characterized by differentiated cultural
aspects. The most visible syndrome of these disequilibria was represented not only by
differences in the cultural patterns and in the per capita income between North and
South, but mainly by the enormous migration movements from the south to the north
(as well as abroad) ... The industrialization of the South and the correction of regional
disequilibria became the declared aims of Government p0licy,~~5
whence a plethora of studies on internal and external migration, on the areas
in which the exodus took place and those which attracted the immigrant, the
problem of the social integration of the immigrant within the socio-cultural
system of the receiving area, industrialization of some small Southern areas and
the resulting depopulation of the countryside, the problem of socio-cuItural
barriers and its relation to economic development, etc.
The new economic experiment of self-management in Yuogslavia, itself a
question of policy-making, has encouraged a concentration of research in this
area:
It should be pointed out that self-management constitutes almost the only object of
interest of many institutes [of sociology], regardless of the fact that there are numerous
other problems in Yugoslav social life. This is a reflection of the important contradic-
tion, which is today part of Yugoslav society, between a bureaucracy with a tendency
to centralize and an opposing current of those who favour decentralization and auton-
omy and who are attempting to achieve the spread of self-management in every sector
of institutionalized social activity.I16
tn Scandinavia sociological research has often been an instrument of social
policy or at least stimulated by it. In Sweden, ‘the desire to have family and
population problems investigated more fully was one of the factors behind the
introduction of sociology as an academic di~cipline’.~17 And it has been pointed
out that ‘much of Danish sociology is characterized by its practical and nontheoretical
approach to social welfare and social problems’.118
The following comment on Finnish sociology also reveals a particular orientation
induced by the State’s social policy:
Partly because of the deliberate rational policy of the Finnish State Liquor Monopoly,
sociological studies on alcohol consumption and drinking behaviour have become an
important speciality in Finnish sociology. Several large sociological studies have been
published by the Research Institute [for Alcohol Studies].119
Belgian sociology too has apparently been quite sensitive to the research
possibilities posed by the existence of various social problems:
Exactly as in the 19th century under the stimulus of Quktelet and Ducpktiaux, the stud-
ies developed since the last World War have chosen their study themes in areas where

122 P. F. Lazarsfeld
social problems have been posed; assimilation of foreign workers, explanatory tables
and commentary on the results of political elections, religious practice, work and in-
dustrial relations, family budgets, birth rate and aged people can be taken as some
examples among many others.’ZO
The Dutch sociologist too ‘tends to restrict himself to the study of Dutch
society and its problems’.IZ1
In a number of countries, official recognition of sharp differences in the
social stratificational position of various ethnic groups has stimulated sociological
research on this topic. Examples would be the French in Canada, the
castes in India, the West Indians and Asiatics in the United Kingdom, and
Indians in South America. With respect to the latter, a number of South American
countries have national institutes for Indian affairs which foster research
of a sociological nature in an interdisciplinary framework which includes, in
particular, anthropology. Thus, for example, the Instituto Nacional Indigenista
has ‘made extremely important sociological studies on various native groups
and zones in Mexico’.’zz In addition the Instituto Indigenista Interamericano,
which also has its headquarters in Mexico, ‘organizes and coordinates anthropological
and sociological research concerning various native zones and groups
on the ~ontinent’.~~3 In the United Kingdom, the recent violent expression of
racial confiict has apparently been a major stimulus to the growth of sociology
in this area:
There is one other social problem which is both prominent in Britain to-day and novel
- more novel than poverty in affluence - namely race relations. Studies of immigrant
minorities began to be made some time ago by anthropologists who were, no doubt,
glad to find subjects suited to the exercise of their talents and methods on their door-
step. The shock administered by race riots and the accumulation of evidence of racial
discrimination, combined with the rising tide of immigration first from the West Indies
and then from Asia, gave a fresh spur to research. Only a small part of the results of
recent enquiries, for example of the programme sponsored during the past two years
by the Institute of Race Relations, has as yet been published.’%
In some countries the interest of sociologists is shaped by a peculiar political
development. English sociologists are still concerned with social stratificati~n~~s
because they have to reconcile a strong aristocratic tradition with a very far-
reaching contemporary democratization. Likewise, studies in the sociology of
education (which has been the sector of sociology most in vogue in Britian for
several year@) ‘have had as one of their major aims the examination of the
relationship between educational experience and opportunity and social class
position’.IZ’ In France, the leading younger group of sociologists is likely to
have a Marxist past. As a result their studies differentiate workers’ attitudes
much more than do other Western countries.1Z8
The recent history of a country sometimes influences the direction of socio-
logical research. In Austria, which until recently was ruled by a coalition of the
two main political parties, the consequence is a negative one in that there is
understandably no tradition of political so~iology.~~Q
On the other hand,
Finland has had a more turbulent and more conflict-ridden internal political history
[than many countries]. Industrialization started later.. ., and social change has been

Sociology 123
both rapid and uneven. Against this background it is understandable that much of
Finnish sociology has centered on research in social structure, political sociology,
cleavages and social change.I3O
Some national variations or ‘specialities’ arise for which there is no real ex-
planation :
There is an unmistakable quality of originality in Norwegian sociology. In spite of
great variety one approach in particular might be labeled typically Norwegian ... One
could perhaps say that the Norwegian sociologists are specialists in unveiling hidden
and latent role expectations, role strains, latent solidarities and group ties.”‘
Another category of variation occurs when a country is particularly well
equipped in one way or another to pursue a particular line of research. For
example, there is a
contribution that Dutch sociology might make to the discipline as a whole, [viz., in
analytical sociography which] involves the application of sociological theory to large-
scale unique historical phenomena with the aid of statistical data, handled by computer
techniques. Such data are more readily available in the Netherlands than anywhere
else. They would permit the study of such massive events as the import of moderniza-
tion on family structure, or the political consequences of urbanization. This type of
enquiry has already been undertaken to some extent, notably by Van Heek and by
Gr0enman.~3z
B. Cultural variations
Sometimes a pervasive cultural theme or tendency of national character
appears to influence the nature of sociological work. For example, den Hollan-
der, speaking of the Netherlands, suggest that there is a connection between the
latter and the absence of ‘grand theory’ in that country:
Neither is there any tendency to design and elaborate sociological systems in the grand
tradition. There is rather a distrust of all theories of an encompassing nature; theories
of the middle range and even more restricted than that, are definitely preferred. This
preference is in harmony with the Dutch dislike of the sweeping gesture, the overall
design, our predilection for prudent limitation, for careful restriction and going the
middle way. The Dutch aversion to intellectual system-building is striking when con-
trasted with German thought. Sociology in the Netherlands has had little or no ‘grand
theory’, whether of the state, the society or the culture ... A national imprint is unmis-
takeable, and in this respect sociology in the Netherlands does not differ from sociology
in any other country: it never operates in a vacuum, it wil always absorb and reflect the
national culture by which it has been conditioned. The sober, unphilosophical outlook
of the Dutch is probably responsible for their preference for the descriptive aspects and
for the short-range hypotheses over the systematization of philosophical axioms that
underlie any general system of sociology133
Moreover, he holds that Dutch ‘national character’ is responsible for the
interest devoted to the individual :
One also wonders whether another ‘trait’ of what is usually called the Dutch ‘national
character’, Dutch individualism, should be made responsible for the attention paid to
the individual, his attitudes, capacities, desires, opinions. This proclivity made some of
the founding fathers of sociology in the Netherlands noticeably susceptible to selec-
tionist views, even at a time when such theories had been definitely and convincingly
discarded elsewhere.
The pre-occupation with the individual also demonstrates itself, when after careful

124 P. F. Lazarsfeld
analysis of statistical data, interpretation of such research findings is required. One
then notices a - more or less amateurish - transgression into the field of social psy-
chology, leading to tentative conclusions that quite clearly will not stand for all times
to come.I34
Finally, the objects of study selected by Dutch sociologists are closely related
to the national culture.
The themes that attract and activate the sociological imagination in the Netherlands
show a close connection with the values, the norms, the ideologies, the problems of
Dutch culture. This holds also true in a negative sense: Dutch sociology has shown
little or no interest in such phenomena as revolution, violence, power, discrimination,
race conflict, immigration, minorities, sexual behaviour, drug addiction. Only in quite
recent years did military organization and the professional soldier become a topic of
some sociological interest. This long neglect of certain aspects of social like is not acci-
dental: these themes do not quite fit into our national experience, our self-image, they
seem to attract few and so they belong to the underdeveloped areas in Dutch sociolo-
gy.135
De Bie finds that, as in the Netherlands, Belgian sociology has been turned
away from grand social theory by, among other things, ‘a fashionable enough
critical attitude toward overall systems, an attitude, which, perhaps, is part of
the basic Belgian personality.. .’.IS6
The following observation regarding certain lacunae in American sociology
would reflect a philosophical bias of its own society:
While revolutions break out, Americans inquire into the requisites for social stability;
while the social bases of power are changed beyond recognition, Americans talk of
‘psychological determinants’ and ‘problems of personal identity’; and while the rich
nations draw further and further apart from the poor nations, the consequences of
international inequality are discussed in a whisper, if at all.Is7
In some of the developing countries sociology is at times called upon to furnish
an explanation or interpretation of a changing society. Thus, an Iranian sociol-
ogist points out that the task of sociology is to provide both an understanding
of the recent changes that have taken place in that country as well as new norms
for day-to-day practical existence. Sociology fulfils the need to see oneself in
perspective: ‘The sociological approach of Western societies introduces an ele-
ment of “distance” which favours self-evaluation, just as the ethnology of
primitive peoples has helped Western countries to understand themselves.”3*
This emphasis on sociology’s ‘explanatory’ function has tended to give a
more or less sociographic character both to the content and the method of
much sociological work in certain countries. In India a tradition of ‘indological’
sociology has emerged :
The adherents of this trend of thought have been attempting to provide an understand-
ing of Indian society on the basis of researches into the Indian scriptures and legal
historical documents. Within the framework advocated by them, the explanation of
modern Indian social institutions is sought in the facts culled from the ancient texts
- the older the text the more authoritative the explanation offered in it - and uncritical
Victorian anthropology is used to reconstruct Indian social hist0ry.~3~
A Pakistani writer appears to be similarly motivated as he outlines his sub-
stantive and methodological suggestions for sociology in his Country:

Sociology 125
So far as East Pakistan is concerned, we can hardly afford to ignore the richness and
variety of its culture and tradition which can form the basis of asocial theory of an
indigenous type; and thereby we can get ‘an idea of the whole’. In such a context the
‘anthropological techniques’ of direct participation and observation and knowledge
of the language (even of the variations in local dialects) of the people wil help under-
standing the social structure of East Pakistani society. Sociology, therefore, should be
social anthropology based on the background of our country at least for some years to
come. With facts, so gathered, we can try to formulate a social theoryof our c0untry.’4~
But leaving aside these so called sociographic or social anthropological con-
siderations, the argument in favour of a sociology which is responsive to local
needs and conditions has been put on a more theoretical basis :
What Comte, Saint Simon and Durkheim developed in France, or what Westermark
and Hobhouse evolved in England may not be exactly applicable here. The generaliza-
tions arrived at by W. I. Thomas are not and should not be applicable to conditions in
Pakistan, India and for that matter in certain parts of Europe. It is high time that we go
through the theoretical framework of sociology, test the efficacy of its methodology
and arrive at definite decisions as to what was valid for our society and what was most
efficient in our conditions ... It is a sort of acclimatization for a discipline developed in
foreign lands and in foreign CUI~LIT~S...~~~
However, it should be pointed out that not only in developing countries is it
recognized that Western, and in particular American social theory is not suited
to the explanation of local phenomena.
Thus, Petersen, an American, observes:
If one tries to analyse not the well-established, more or less discrete societies of the
modern West, but the social world of the past or of underdeveloped countries, then
Parsons is even less useful as a mentor. In such a case, to define one’s unit of study as
‘the social system’, which is made up of mutually interacting ‘subsystems’, begs the
most important questions. Was there a ‘France’ in AD 1000, or a ‘China’ in 1700; is
there a ‘Nigerian society’ or an ‘Indonesian society’ today? If one assumes that the
answer to such questions is unambiguously yes, then one is tempted to explain away
social phenomena that transgress these units (the ‘Chinese’ who were not part of ‘China’)
or that do not fit into them (tribal influences in Africa as ‘remnants’).142
Characteristics of a society’s culture can also affect the research methods employed
by sociologists. Habibullah has pointed to a number of cultural obstacles
encountered by survey researchers in East Pakistan.143 Rural Pakistanis lack
familiarity not merely with a certain vocabulary but with some of the basic
conceptual notions underlying survey research on economic development,
such as ‘man-day’, ‘gainful work‘, and ‘saving’. Another difficulty facing survey
research on this topic is the low degree of monetization of the economy and
absence of any kind of financial accounting. However, the greatest handicap to
conducting research in rural areas is the high rate of illiteracy which often
prevents respondents from giving correct expression to their ideas, and limits
their ability to think in abstract terms.
Closely related to this is the fact that people have difficulty in reacting to
hypothetical questions frequently used elsewhere in survey research. Thus :
In our study on capital formation in agriculture we wanted to measure the saving-
spending preferences of the rural community through a hypothetical situation, namely,

126 P. F. Lazarsfeld
how the respondent would spend a sum of Rs. 20,000 on different items like purchase of
land, livestock, gold, construction of residential houses, establishment or expansion of
business, depositing in post offices, etc., assuming that the money was obtained by
winning the first prize of the prize bonds introduced by Government of Pakistan. Great
difficulty had to be faced in getting an answer to the question and some of the respon-
dents refused to think in terms of a hypothetical situation like getting money in prize
bonds.IM
In the developing societies, unfamiliarity with survey research may pose
problems. In East Pakistan during the course of a study,
... the appearance of the investigators in the rural areas led to speculation, rumours and
interpretation by different people in different ways, with different intentions ... [for
example] interrogation by the investigators was looked down upon in fear of a new tax
measure and a lot of trouble had to be taken to convince them that the survey was
being conducted by the University and was not in any way connected with the Govern-
ment.I45
These obstacles, as well as the importance of sociography hoted above, may
explain the emphasis in certain developing countries on participant observation
methods. The distinction between anthropology and sociology in fact sometimes
becomes a bit blurred. Indeed there exists in India a trend in sociology which
is called 'social anthropologi~al',~46 and the pervasive influence of anthropology
is apparent in the content of present curricula in sociology offered in Indian
universities.147
It has also been noted that in Africa 'sociology is having difficulty in freeing
itself of ethnology .'.148 But, in addition, it
is forced to be most cautious should it turn to the methodology and concepts of a
strictly defined sociology. Institutions, structures and traditional behaviour, which are
not at the center of its approach, continue to influence the social reality which it is ex-
ploring. Their latent or obvious influence leads the sociologists to multiply their
variables, to express reserves as to their own results and to limit the scope of their
conclusions. The precariousness and the rapid obsolescence of statistical information
must make them proceed with caution.149
Thus, because its conceptual tools are not always appropriate and as it supposes
stable relations between groups and individuals, and between norms and respon-
ses to norms, sociology is not particularly well adapted to investigation of con-
temporary African society, and the authors go on to argue that for several
easons social p sychology is better fitted to this task than the parent disciplines
sociology, ethnology and psychology.
C. Accidental factors
Sometimes the character of sociology in a country is molded by an immediate
personality, like D. Gusti in Roumania,Iso R. S. Steinmetz in the Netherlands,'s
or F. Znaniecki in Poland.152 Probably nowhere else in the world has factor
analysis known such popularity among sociologists as in Finland, and this is
mainly due to the influence of Y. Ahma~aara.~53 The same is apparently also
true of the impact of Renato Treves on juridical sociology in Italy.Is4 The
emergence of special institutions, like the Escuela de Sociologia de la Facultad

Sociology 127
Latino-americana de Ciencias Sociales and the Centro Latino-americano de
Pesquisas em Cihcias Sociais, or the sociological research group of the former
Prime Minister, A. Hegediis, in Hungary,IsS have also inffuenced sociology in
these countries. Further examples of the impact in various countries of per-
sonalities or particular institutions could be cited, but these few suffice to give
an idea of the relative importance of such accidental factors. In addition, con-
temporary sociology is often marked by its intellectual origins in a country,
whether in law, philosophy, economics or theology.
Variation in the context of research and difficulties and resistances to development
A. Debates about the direction of sociology
Probably in every country, sociologists disagree among themselves as to the
type of sociological work that ought to be done and with respect to the corre-
spondence between actual sociological effort and these ideals. In Sweden, the
United Kingdom and Spain there is criticism of what is alleged to be undue em-
phasis on pragmatically oriented applied research, to the detriment of endeav-
ours which would enhance socioIogica1 the0ry.I5~* I579 Is8 Dutch sociology, as
indicated above, is also cited for its atheoretical tendencies.’59 The situation in
Brazil has been characterized by one critic as one of conceptual disorganization
or the absence of a systematic effort towards theory integration.I60 In the United
Kingdom and Spain, there is dissension as to the proper role of quantification,
with one critic claiming that sociologists in the latter country have been guilty of
trivial quantification.161s16z In Hungary there is persisting conflict between
quantitatively oriented sociologists on one hand, and sociographers and even
social novelists on the other, concerning the relative validity of their respective
methods of portraying social reality.163 A more unusual intellectual cleavage is
manifest in the Netherlands, where as an outgrowth of a recent reaction against
the atheoretical tendencies in Dutch sociology, the discipline of ‘philosophical
sociology’ has emerged. To quote one of the leading exponents of this new
school :
In the present state of the social sciences it always seems to be useful to show that the
analysis of a concrete sociological problem, if only driven far enough, necessarily
leads to certain basic philosophical questions which social scientists cannot dodge by
using unclarified terms such as ‘environment’, ‘adjustment’, ‘adaptation’, ‘cultural
pattern’, and so on.164
B. Dificculties and resistances encountered in the development of sociology
The problems facing sociology today are as many and as varied as the countries
in which it is to be found, and many difficulties are common to a number of countries.
It is not OUT purpose here to give an exhaustive list of these problems nor
to cite the most obvious ones (such as ‘lack of money’ for research or teachers),
but rather to provide documented examples from several countries of the different
factors presently hindering the development and expansion-of sociology.

128 P. F. Lazarsfeld
I. Rigidity of academic structures. Naturally, the first step in implanting sociol-
ogy as a discipline in a country is its acceptance in the academic milieu, but
this is not yet a universal phenomen. For example,
in all of Greece it is only at Pierce College where sociology is currently being taught,
[and] owing to its being an all-girl school, its small size and its English instruction,
[its] impact on Greek academic life has necessarily been limited. Suffice it to say,
sociology as an academic discipline is virtually non-existent in Greek universities. Not
only has sociology been unable to be accorded the legitimacy of the traditional univer-
sity disciplines (e.g., philology, philosophy, theology, law, history), but it has also not
enjoyed the acceptance given to other social sciences such as psychology, political
science and economics.16~
Even in Italy where sociology is well-developed, there remains a certain distrust
on the part of scholars of the traditional humanistic sciences. The problem of
reforming the structures of the university faculties of political and social
sciences came to the fore in September, 1966 when the Government submitted a
bill to this effect to Parliament. The ensuing controversy
has offered an occasion for ‘pronouncements’ against sociology which are rather
abusive and in which there are signs of a fear of a sociological ‘invasion’ ... On their
part, the university faculties are largely in favor of introducing sociology courses in
their statutes, as long as they continue to be facultative subjects; but they tend to
assume a critical attitude towards the envisaged faculty of political and social sciences,
not so much because it is intended for the training of social scientists, but because it
might, at the same time, contribute to the training of public administration officers,
and economists and historians. In such a case, in fact, the new faculty would be in a
competitive position with the faculties of law, economics and arts. This explains the
hostile attitude of the Association of University Professors.166
A final example is from Switzerland where a local commentator affirms that
the difficulties of Swiss sociologists stem in part from an undeclared mistrust on the
part of those human sciences which have already been accepted. Sociology is seen as a
competitor or it is misunderstood; it is not taken seriously or it is considered as a
pseudoscience.’67
There are also examples of where sociology has been completely accepted as a
discipline, but traditional academic boundaries confine it within certain limits.
In Sweden
there seems to be a tacit understanding that the study of organization qua organization
is the domain of political scientists who have recently added interviewing and similar
field techniques to their traditional methods. It is not alleged, of course, that sociolo-
gists have forgotten the principle of formal organization, something they encounter in
many areas, e.g., industrial sociology. Also, there are signs of stronger activity in this
particular field among younger members of the profession. It is nevertheless striking
that there is no major study of a political, religious, labour or cooperative organization
on the senior level of doctoral and post-doctoral work.16E
2. Teaching and training. In many countries sociology as an academic discipline
has been introduced only relatively recently. In Hungary, sociology formerly
played a relatively minor role at the university, and course offerings were in-
adequate for training sociologists; accordingly, Hungarian sociologists have
been trained mainly in economics and philosophy.x69 In Bulgaria, no special

Sociology I 29
training exists to prepare sociologists for research w0rk.I7~ Though sociology
is indeed taught in Australian universities, development of sociological research
is hindered by the few training opportunities available at the university itself.I7I
The cause of the present deficiency in training facilities for the increasing
number of sociologists is of course the late development of university teaching
in this discipline. A good example of this ‘vicious circle’ is New Zealand where
about fifty per cent of the teaching posts in sociology are unfilled, because train-
ing in this field is so recent that there are no sociology graduates in the com-
munity who can be drawn on for part-time teaching.172 Although the first chair
of sociology in Denmark was established at the University of Aarhus in 1967,
the first Danish graduate in sociology was not produced until rg37.173
A concrete example of the long interval required between the introduction of
sociology and the setting up of a completely new training facility is the Uni-
versity of Dacca. In 1952 the government of Pakistan established a department
of sociology at the University with the aid of UNESCO experts in sociology, and
by the time the last of these consultants departed in 1964 there were three or
four young professors in the department. It has been estimated that from IO to
15 years usually elapse between the time a country receives the first outside ex-
pert to teach sociology and the time when the department can be staffed with a
native faculty.I74
3. Research. Examples of the most common difficulties encountered in carrying
out research in developing areas were suggested above under Cultural Variations:
problems posed by illiteracy and of communicating conceptualizations, absence
of accounting, inappropriateness of sociological conceptual tools in rapidly
changing societies, etc. Others might be mentioned which are of a more material
nature. Thus, shortage of research personnel in East Pakistan results in part
from the fact that there are few or no institutions which conduct research con-
tinuously :
For every project investigators have to be trained de novo. The result is that the ex-
perience gathered is not accumulated. It is necessary to build up a panel of field workers
whose experience and services could be used without 10ss.l~~
In many countries, for example in Ecuador,IT6 no statistical data is available.
In fact this makes meaningful research impossible in several fields ; consequently,
the use of mathematics as a sociological tool is not known.‘77
One of the major impediments to the development of sociological research,
even in countries where the material conditions are ample, is rooted in the fail-
ure of a society to recognize the necessity of applying such research results to
problems of policy. This deprives sociology of financial support and other
encouragement from governmental as well as private sources. Mol suggests
that this is the case in Australia and New Zealand which, he claims ‘are . . still
far away from any large scale use of sociologists in the research branches of
government and industry such as exists in the United States and the Netherlands’.178
It has been noted in Finland too, that ‘lack of opportunities for
sociologists in government and in private enterprises may create obstacles for
the development of at least applied sociological research.I79

130 P. F. Lazarsfeld
4. Sociology and society: political vulnerability. Because of the subject matter
of its study and investigation, i.e., society, sociology and its practitioners
have often come into conflict with governments which are sensitive to certain
types of social criticism considered to be of a political nature. A good example
is that of Greece, where sociology was introduced early in the century ‘as a
scientific name for social reform’.180 One of the aims of the first sociological
society (1908) was in fact ‘the organization of working people into economic
associations and a self-contained political party’.181 It is therefore not surprising
that, in view of its social and political activism, the vicissitudes of sociology
(and of related disciplines) have often been connected with changes in political
rkgimes. Accordingly, one of the consequences of the events of 1967 was the
disappearance of the Social Sciences Centre, Athens, which had been founded
a few years earlier by the former Greek Government in collaboration with
UNESCO. The criticism directed at the Centre (whose research projects were
under the scienti6c direction of a sociologist appointed by UNESCO) was mainly
of a political nature, and the cessation of its activities was followed by the
creation in 1968 of a new National Centre of Social Research sponsored by the
Ministry of Social Affairs.
Another commentator has cited the example of political restraints on the
further development of sociology in Hungary.182 In Argentina, where sociology
faces hostility from both the establishment and the radicals of the left - as well
as the academic traditionalism mentioned above -, recent events have led to
the virtual destruction of the department and the institute of sociology at the Univer-
sity of Buenos Aires, the elimination of the department of the Catholic University, and
the resignation of several professors at other universities. The conflictual climate con-
fronted by the rising scientific sociology in Argentina was mainly produced by three
factors: I) the intellectual traditions of a considerable sector of the academic establish-
ment and the literary &lite; 2) the deep fear and mistrust on the part of some of the power
groups, especially the army and the high hierarchy of the Catholic church; 3) the
opposition of the students and intellectuals of the extreme left.183
V. SOCIOLOGY AND THE OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES
Some sociological ideas have acquired such wide currency as to become part of
modem language. Who is not aware of the fact that large organizations impinge
on the families of their employees, or that individual personalities are shaped by
family structure. The professional education of doctors and lawyers is steeped in
sociological elements. Some novels read like treatises on social stratification.
This section is devoted more specifically to tracing certain links between
sociology and other social sciences. Three matters of interest are: a) the signifi-
cance of the newly evolved sociological mode of analysis, b) the actual use
that other social sciences have made of sociological concepts and research
techniques, and primarily c) the area between sociology and psychology which
really belongs to both disciplines and which is usualy tagged as social psychol-
ogy.

Sociology I 3 I
The language of social research
It has been said that after the invention of analytical geometry and differential
calculus scientific language changed radically as everyone was forced to write
with greater clarity even if his topic was far-removed from mathematics. While
this is not always true - as can be seen in, say, existentialist writing - the trend
has certainly prevailed. Political scientists and social philosophers write differently
today then in the time of Rousseau or even Mills. As my example, I
shall take public opinion, which is of concern to a variety of disciplines.
Public opinion polls give detailed descriptions of the attitudes of various sections
of the population at various points in time. There is much disagreement as
to how polls should be used, how results are dependent upon the way questions
are asked, etc. I should like to insist on the increased clarity which has become
possible because polls provided a procedure of research around which issues
could be formulated and discussed on a rational level. Progress is exemplified
by a quotation from the famous German historian Herman Oncken who wrote
an essay on the relation between ‘the historian, the statesman and public
opinion’.x8+ (The numbers inserted wil be of aid in the subsequent discussion.)
The vague and fluctuating cannot be understood by being clamped into a formula;
certainly not when it is a very characteristic of the concept that it embodies a thousand
possibilities of variation. But when all is said and done, everyone knows, if put to it,
what public opinion means. If it must be set in words, then it can only appear hedged
around by many restricting clauses: public opinion is a complex of similar utterances of
larger or smaller segments of society concerning public affairs (I, 2); at times spon-
taneous, at times artfully manipulated (3); expressed in a multitude of ways, in clubs,
assemblies, above all in the press and in journals, or perhaps only in unspoken feelings
of each one of us (4) ; of the common man in the street or of a small circle of the cultured
(8); here a true power factor, which statesmen must take into account, or something of
no political significance (5); something again to be evaluated differently in every coun-
try (5 or 6); sometimes united, rising up like a tidal wave against the government and
the experts, sometimes divided, concealing conflicting tendencies (7) ; at one time bring-
ing out the simple and natural sentiments of the people, at another time being the
rowdy thoughtless manifestations of wild instincts (6); always leading and always being
led (5, 3); looked down upon by the sophisticated, yet forcing the hands of men (6, 5);
contagious like an epidemic (IO); capricious, treacherous (9); and power mad (resem-
bling man himself) (6); and then again only a word by which those in power are
bewitched (5).
Now, what is interesting about this bewildering formulation is that it can
be easily disentangled as soon as one matches it against what might be called a
complete attitude distribution. Oncken undoubtedly gives a definition of public
opinion. It is a statistical distribution of utterances (no. I and no. 7) expressed
by various segments of the population (no. 2), and these segments can and
should be classified by their degree of competence (no. 8). But intermingled
with this definition are a number of empirical problems which are encountered
in investigations more complicated than cross-sectional surveys. What factors
determine a given atttude distribution at any given time (no. 3)? What effect
does it have on statesmen and on the legislative process in general (no. 5) ? How
are opinions communicated and diffused (no. IO)?
Two other elements in this passage foreshadow topics which are now of great

132 P. F. Lazarsfeld
technical concern to us. How should one choose from among the various sources
and devices which can be used to ascertain an attitude distribution? Oncken
mentions opinions expressed at meetings and in the printed mass media. Today,
we would add questionnaires and other more systematic research procedures.
And we would now translate the phrase ‘capricious, treacherous’ (no. 9) into the
terminology of panel techniques, distinguishing people who upon repeated
interviews show constant attitudes from those whose attitudes fluctuate. Finally,
(no. 6), Oncken is obviously concerned with the normative problem of how
certain opinions should be evaluated.
It will be noticed how this translation into the language of social research
makes it possible to separate definitions from the formulation of substantive
problems, and brings out a number of promising conjectures which would
otherwise remain buried in the original amalgarn.I85
Substantive contribution of sociology
Clarity is not enough; we must also have concrete knowledge to which it can
finally be linked. Let us linger on surveys as they probably provide the richest
source of example. In a recently published compendium the contributors have
organized and summarized a large bibliography on Survey Research in the Social
Sciences.Is6
The anthropological review (John Bennett and Gustas Thaiss) suggests three
applications. Some anthropologists have directly transferred certain techniques ;
thus, the Cornel1 index of psychosomatic symptoms was found to be usable
among primitive tribes. In other cases, surveys helped to correct vaguer impressions
obtained by athropologists. Stoetzel187 used a questionnaire to follow up
Ruth Benedict’s ideas about Giri, the belief in etiquette which she put into the
center of the Japanese value system. According to Stoetzel, only a small proportion
of a cross-section of Japanese youth were even aware of Giri and it was
even more unknown among the traditional rural populations. In other cases,
authors themselves translate a general impression into a precise research instrument.
Florence Kl~ckhohn~~~ compared the value systems of five ethnic groups
in the American Southwest and found marked differences in their perceptions
of time, their identification of theniselves and other complex characteristics.
Economics (reviewed by James N. Morgan) is probably the oldest consumer of
survey research. Price indices are based on samples of actual purchases as
revealed by budget records. In welfare economics, the problem of the minimum
standard of living is important because it establishes the point at which subsidies
are given. This minimum is a sociological concept. (Today, the possession of a
radio is considered as indispensable as a certain amount of bread and milk.) Recent
economic theory has introduced notions which require direct information
from economic agents, such as the propensity to save and the intention to
invest. The notion of structural unemployment demands knowledge of people’s
willingness to migrate to new job opportunities. Often, new economic phenomena
evolve for which common-sense knowledge is insufficient: the growth of
credit buying, a continuously extending retirement period, etc.
The reviewer on psychological research (Daniel Katz) stresses two areas of

Sociology 133
application. For one, he finds that in addition to conventional demographic
variables, we need psychological characteristics of our society, such as how
people earn their living, how involved they are with the groups to which they
belong, what norms they accept as legitimate and what norms they follow in
practice. All these are subjects which would be helpful for psychological science.
A decennial census of happiness might be very important, and indeed some
preliminary work on its feasibility has already been done by the National
Opinion Research Center with the help of federal funds. Katz’s second point is
that ‘Some of the most significant psychological problems are not amenable to
laboratory studies’. He includes here the socialization process, the determinants
of mental disorders, and the influence of organizations on the behaviour of
individuals. The old distinction between ‘in vitro’ against ‘in natura’ reappears
here. Sampling surveys, especially if repeated over time, play a role similar to
the procedures which men like Lorentz and Tinbergen have introduced in animal
psychology.
The emergence of political sociology has led to a bifurcation of political
science. Its practitioners distinguish between a new behavioural branch as
opposed to the institutional and normative tradition. Sociology is closest to the
behavioural side. Survey studies, for example, have revealed the complexity of
opinion structures. Thus, people are in agreement with all points of the socialist
program when presented separately, but strongly oppose socialism if the general
term is used. The American upper class is conservative in economic matters and
open-minded on race relations; the lower class is quite the opposite. (A large
number of relevant studies were conducted jointly by social psychologists and
political scientists.) Until recently, political scientists depended upon aggregate
voting statistics for their analyses. In addition to the well-known ecological
fallacy, this made it impossible to compare the voting behaviour of different
sexes or age groups. The parallel to the work of the economists is obvious. Simi-
larly, both political scientists and economists once believed in a fundamental
rationality of choice; now, sociologists have shown that there is a lack of in-
formation about political facts (and about prices) in large strata of the popula-
tion. This has led to considerable changes in the theory of democracy.
But what of other procedures where the sociologist overlaps with colleagues
from other social sciences? At least three are of recurring importance. In many
of the topics mentioned so far the problem of measurement plays a considerable
role. There is here a difference between the psychological and the sociological
tradition. Psychologists use a small number of individual variables which appear
in many of their studies: aptitude, anxiety, need for achievement, etc. They
therefore endeavour to justify their scales, either by predictive or by construct
validity. Sociologists require a much broader range of classificatory instruments,
geared to the topic at issue. Allegiance to a labour union requires different
indicators than does devotion to the Catholic Church; a radical position on
economic matters has to be measured differently from a radical position on
race integration. The sociologist wil therefore accept scales with fewer items
and be guided by their manifest content. He knows that the variates that he
introduces are part of an extremely complex configuration and each wil only

134 P. F. Lazarsfeld
contribute a small correlational element. Even when he introduces mathemati-
cal models, they will be less rigid than what is customary among psychologists;
this could be well-exemplified by the difference between factor analysis and
latent structure analysis. The basic priciples of measurement are discussed in
another chapter of the present study.Is9 This paragraph is a sociological observa-
tion on the way psychologists and sociologists look at the same formal problem.
Sociological studies of voters and consumers have built a solid foundation for
the tracing of influences, applicable to many other fields. The economist is
interested in knowing what makes people invest in one way rather than in
another; the political scientist seeks to separate the role of issues from the
impact of the candidate’s personality; the demographer concerns himself with
how people choose the country to which they migrate. To obtain this informa-
tion, direct interviews are often the most suitable technique. The ‘art of asking
why’ consists in obtaining a detailed description of the act of deciding and then
weighing the causal roles of the various factors in the decision. The technique
consists of two major steps. First a formal ‘accounting scheme’ is developed,
separating the characteristics of the actor, the attracting features of the target,
the sources of information and advice, and so on. A technique of specifying
questions is then used, tracing through all possible influences into every episode
the respondent mentions. The often expressed belief that people cannot tell
why they do something is based on deficient analysis of the problem. While
basic motivation cannot be explored by a direct approach, the impact of in-
fluences can be uncovered.
The statistical result of such ‘reason analysis’ is sometimes more reliable than
experiments or correlational analysis. The studies of educational television
provide a good example. Laboratory experiments show that people learn a
great deal from such programs. But, in fact, those who learn most happen to be
those who do not listen to television out of the laboratory. Correlation studies
show that the lower-educated strata of the population shy away from such
programs, but still some of them are willing listeners. What influenced them?
Sociologists are often called in to evaluate advertising and other types of propa-
ganda. The techniques they have developed permit transfer to similar problems
faced by economists and political scientists. Incidentally, developing a basic
action schema which can be adapted to a variety of concrete choices might be
another bit of structural sociology. A detailed discussion of ‘Reason Analysis’,
written by Charles Kadushin, can be found in the new International Encyclope-
dia of the Social Sciences.
Finally, the notion of informal structures has found wide application. Formal
structures have been analysed in terms of the real interactions between the
participants. Crozier’s studies of French bureaucracy, the work of the Tavistock
Institute on business management and the studies of juries made at the Univer-
sity of Chicago are typical examples. Merton has concentrated on the politics
of science: cooperation and jealousy among scientists, how Nobel prizes are
obtained and the consequences they create for both winners and losers. Inno-
vations have been studied in terms of the innovator’s strategy. At the founding
of major educational institutions (CollBge de France, University of Berlin),

Sociology 135
‘marginal men’ were crucial, i.e., those who simultaneously belonged to intel-
lectual and power circles, without being completely integrated into either. The
number of such studies is steadily increasing, and the influence of the sociolog-
ical mode of thought is unmistakable. Generalizations are already emerging:
e.g., modifications of the Weberian theory of bureaucracy or studies in the so-
ciology of occupations, which give new understanding of the ambivalent elements
inherent in all contemporary professions.1Qo
Social psychology
Until recently, dicussions on the relations between sociology and social
psychology were of a rather undefined nature. Fortunately, the trend is now
toward more orderly analysis. Thus, in a widely-read compendium on Modern
Sociological Theory (1957),19’ Kimball Young merely lists a number of topics
which the two fields have in common. His main sub-titles reflect the random
character of his review: interaction, role theory, public opinion, apparatus of
persuasion, leadership, etc. By 1960, the Trait6 de Sociologie organized by Gurvitch
already approached the matter in a more systematic way, by showing how
the two disciplines could combine forces. Three of the papers focus upon social
units. In one, Stoetzel deals with the psychology of interpersonal relations within
a broad context.IQ2 He considers three approaches: I) general psychology including
philosophy; 2) sociology and ethnology; 3) social psychology. To the
sociologist he assigns the institutional and more or less formalized elements in
interpersonal relations. The objects of social psychological studies are for him
perception of people, choice of partners, the role of power in personal relations
and the psychology of small groups. It is the latter topic that is developed by
Bourrica~d.~Q3 He raises the question of whether the categories developed in
small group research are really relevant for broader sociological studies; it is
clear that basically he doubts this. As his main example he chooses the notion of
‘popularity’ which he extends to cover topics like leadership and consensus.
While appreciating the contributions of men like Bales, he points out that ‘there
exists a big gap between the sociometric model and social reality’. Social
stratification and political legitimation are among the problems with which
small group studies cannot deal, states Bourricaud. Lefebvre does not agree. In
his contribution on the‘Psychology of Social Classes’,IQ4 he argues that although
the Marxist notion of class (which he supports) is not a psychological but an
economical concept, once it is properly conceptualized, it is possible to describe
the psychology of various social groups as derived from their structural positions.
Lefebvre makes keen observations on the collective psychology of the bourgeoisie,
the working class and the peasant.
The French effort is thus organized around levels of social complexity. But
within such levels what the authors select for specific treatment remains rather
arbitrary. A higher degree of systematization - at least in principle - is achieved
by W. Moore in a recent paper on ‘Social Structure and Beha~ior’.~QS As the
title indicates, he gives a specific turn to the relation between sociology and
social psychology. The actions of people are determined partly their by motivation
and partly by the social constraints which society exercises. Using the

136 P. F. Lazarsfeld
terminology of our Section I, we may say that Moore wishes to study the
relative weight of collective and individual variates and their interplay over time.
As a way to organize this material, he suggests a number of categories in which
social structures can be described : their prevailing value system, their social
stratification, certain 'statistical' categories, such as age, sex and ethnicity, over
which the individual has little control, and finally, time sequences which charac-
terize every society - seasonal variations, ageing, career patterns as dictated by
the nature of jobs, etc. Having established the major dimensions along which he
proposes to characterize given social structures, he then raises the question of
how they affect human behaviour. (I omit a number of valuable observations -
p. 288 to p. 297 - in which he refutes extreme sociologism A la Durkheim or
extreme psychological reductionism, as probably best represented by the Pole
Malewski,Ig6 who derives some of his inspiration from the American Homans.)
In considering that a society has a prevailing system of norms, Moore puts
such questions as: by what mechanisms is compliance with these norms
achieved? What may be said of deviant behaviour outside these norms? H ow
consistent are these normative systems ? A considerable number of conventional
topics fall into place in this way, revealed by the intersection between the indi-
vidual and the social world. Thus, within the concept of social differentiation,
one can categorize the vast literature on social differences in child-rearing prac-
tices, effects of class position on perception of the outside world, role of social
differences in motivation or level of aspiration in the maintenance of a poverty
culture, etc.
The interrelation between social sequences and individual behaviour raises
especially interesting questions. The personal experience of a career corresponds
to the social phenomenon of succession. As new cohorts of individuals move
into roles which are only loosely described, they will produce considerable
social change. Technological progress, the sequence of which is partly deter-
mined by intrinsic intellectual rules, might far outrun the ability of any one indi-
vidual. (Think of the medial doctor 20 years after graduation.) Thus, again the
intertwining of the life cycle and social change locate another group of research
topics relating sociology and social psychology.
It cannot be the purpose of this short review to improve on the systematic
presentation of the problems on hand. My aim is rather to select what I con-
sider the most noticeable recent trends in the relation between both disciplines.
On various levels social psychologists have, over the past IO or 15 years, turned
their attention to certain processes which promise to provide underpinning for
some sociological problems without tending to displace them. A preliminary
evaluation of the general state of social psychological skills will be helpful
before attempting to identify such processes.
me state of the art
The most striking impression is the tremendous expansion of the field. In 1954
Gardner Lindzey, an American psychologist, published a Handbook of Social
Psychology in two volumes, which thoroughly covered all areas of the discipline.
The second edition (1968/1969) has just appeared in five equally compre-

Sociology 137
hensive volumes. New fields have been added and the older topics refined in
many directions. The contributors are not unaware of their achievement. One
author stresses how much more fortunate social psychologists are than their
sociological colleagues who cannot boast of a similar range and cumulative
direction in their collective work.
Most noticeable is the social psychologist’s advance in experimental skills.
Sociologists have often bemoaned the fact that they have little opportunity for
true experimentation. If, studying the effect of better housing for instance, one
might compare either the experience of people moving into a new housing pro-
ject with their previous living experience, or compare them with a control group
that has not moved. W e obviously do not know whether the movers are not
different people in any event. In the former case we do not know whether many
other factors have not changed simultaneously with residence. In principle, the
systematic experiment is far better because control and experimental groups are
selected at random.
But at least two difficulties remain. One is that we do not know how much
of the laboratory experiment can be transferred to real situations. Thus, in a
laboratory experiment we might find that people who are exposed to an educa-
tional radio programme learn a great deal from it. In the world at large,
however, it may be that precisely those who would benefit most actually do not
listen, for a variety of well known reasons (this difficulty can be partly overcome
by the panel technique discussed in Section I). A second problem with the
experimental method is the artificial creation of relevant variates. Here, the
experience of the social psychologist has been ably summarized by Aronson and
Carlsmith,I97 who give a detailed auto-criticism from which they derive construc-
tive advice for improvement. Their main discussion centers around the follow-
ing points :
a. The social psychologist tries to induce certain group characteristics like
cohesiveness or individual emotions such as a state of apprehension. In the latter
case, the psychologist might use electric shock or simply warn that the situation
wil be rough; he may even utilize confederates who act strained and uneasy. In
other words, a conceptual idea can be realized by a variety of indicators. But
how does one know that the subjects do not experience the simulated variate
differently or that various indicators do not have different effects? The authors’
advice is to use a variety of indicators and then see whether the substantive out-
come remains the same. (This is like an animal psychologist who seeks to gauge
hunger by a variety of indicators: duration since last feeding; stomach contrac-
tions; tolerance of the scent of food, etc.)
b. Another problem is to assure the credibility of an arrangement. If one
wants to study suggestibility, one might use confederates who make statements
at variance with what naive subjects perceive., But how can we be sure that the
subjects do not perceive the trick after a time?
c. A third problem is what is termed the choice between experimental and
mundane realism. If, for example, one wishes to know how subjects wil behave
when the requirements of a task conflict with an affective reaction, we may ask
subjects what they would do if they were rushing to be on time for an important

138 P. F. Luzarsfeld
appointment and saw a person lying helpless in the street. Here the issue is con-
cretely stated, but probably the story itself has little impact. Take, by contrast,
an experiment by Milgram.Ig8 Subjects were asked to help study the effect of
electric shocks. They believed that they were steadily increasing the application
of an electric current and watched people exhibiting more and more pain and
stress. The purpose was to determine at what point the experimental subjects
wouldstop administering the current. Actually, no current was used at all, and the
allegedly suffering people were actors. But how could the psychologist know how
much of the outcome depended upon how well theactorsexpressed their torment ?
This then is the trend: creating ‘attitudes’ in people by credible arrangements,
which permit commitment and therefore really affect some behaviour pattern.
Hopefully, similar effects would be found in the real world. The goals are sup-
ported by two technical developments: multivariate designs and most of all,
sequential experiments. In the beginnings of psychology, an experiment con-
sisted in testing the effect of one stimulus. In recent work an ever larger number
of variates have been introduced. Several stimuli are artfully combined, and the
subjects subdivided by relevant variates. Secondly, social psychologists have
been successful in building upon one experiment to design a new one. Sequen-
tial experiments have greatly strengthened the interpretation of findings. Schach-
ter demonstrated that people who had been placed in a state of anxiety felt an
increased desire to remain together. But why was this so? There are a number of
alternative explanations, for example the following two: is the presence of
others merely a general comfort, or are others used as standards with which to
compare one’s own level of anxiety? Schachter extended the experiment by
adding to the ‘together’ choices additional alternatives which excluded talking
about the experiment or talking at all. In this way, certain interpretations of the
general experiment could be ruled out and others made more plausible.’99 (The
analysis is too complex to be reported here.)
Schachter also introduced the use of drugs into the world of the social psy-
chologist. By injecting epinephrine into his subjects he created a general state of
arousal; under such conditions, if they saw a funny situation they perceived it as
being much funnier than subjects in a control group. His thesis is that emotions
are a convergence of a physiological state and the cognition of an appropriate
stimulus.ZOOThe pride of the social psychologist in his experimental expertness has
not gone unchallenged. Rosenthal wrote an entire book showing that the expec-
tations of the experimenter affect his findings.*0While not all his data areconvinc-
ing, the treatise itself is a study of the role of expectations in social interaction.
While experimentation has made such great progress, social psychologists
are not ahead of sociologists as far as measurement goes. As usual in the social
sciences three types of procedures are followed. One is direct scaling of the
type discussed in Section I of this chapter. The second approach consists in
creating a general concept and giving it strength by a variety of experiments
without attempting direct measurement. Consider the many studies around the
notion of ‘level of aspiration’; one author summarizes present thinking as fol-
lows.zoz ‘The tendency to achieve success in a concrete situation is assumed to be
a multiplicative function of a general need for achievement which the individual

Sociology 139
carries about with him from situation to situation, of the probability of success
in the concrete situation and of the “profit” which would derive from success in
this particular experience’ [my italics].
A third type of concept has remained on such a general level that measurement
even in the most general sense is only in its infancy. ‘Referencegroups’
provide a good example. We know that people evaluate whether a situation
is satisfactory, by comparing it with other situations or comparing themselves
with what other people receive. Much literature exists on the analytical
merits of this concept of reference groups, and Hyman has instructively traced
its hist0ry.~~3 But the concept has been adopted in a general, indiscriminate
fashion. Few attempts have been made to find out what reference groups are
relevant in specific situations and what determines an individual‘s particular
choice of reference group.
In developing detailed descriptions of social phenomena, Europeans seem to
be more patient than Americans. Thus, the Britons Argyle and Kendon have
experimented and then summarized the general literature on what they have
called social performance.zo4 The idea is fashioned after task analyses of
manual jobs. A person’s social competence increases in relation to the cues he
observes in the behaviour of others, as does his rapidity in translating them into
anticipations of what the other wil do next, and his ability to adapt his own
behaviour to the model, in pursuit of his own goal. As a by-product of such investigations,
much is learnt of the way encounters between people can be described.
The authors review studies along the following line (p. 62): there are
standing features of the performance, such as posture, distance and directional
orientation characterizing the physical position of the interlocutors; there are
on the other hand dynamic features - utterances, movements and patterns of
looking that each participant in any focused interaction is likely to engage in.
Moscovici has extended this work by showing that the positional elements
between two people engaged in conversation are also linked to linguistic characteristics
of their verbal inter~hange.~Os
Contemporary social psychology has also engendered a shift in the way
psychologists try to formalize human behaviour. Around the I930S, under the
influence of behaviourism, the S-R model prevailed: the environment provided
the stimuli to which human beings responded. Soon it became clear that different
people reacted differently to the same stimuli. S-0-R schema then became
popular: stimuli act on organisms which have varying dispositions and so
their reactions are determined by both S and 0. Though somewhat oversimplified,
one might say that the contribution which social psychology makes to sociology
can be caught up in an 0-S-R-model. The organism has its own tendencies
which make the person select what he perceives in the environment; he is also
self-propelled in the sense that he is looking for new stimuli to which he can
react. Actually, of course, any social science deals with long chains which intertwine
in mutual interaction. The organism selects the effective stimuli but
often responds to situations which cannot immediately be changed. In the long
run, the accumulation of individual responses changes the external situation.
These ‘emerging properties’ acquire the role of stimuli.

140 P. F. Lazarsfeld
Of this active process I should like to isolate a number of recent trends in
social psychology relevant to this report. My plan is to supplement the approach
by W. Moore, mentioned above. Moore systematized certain dimensions of the
social structure which helped to organize problems of human behaviour, but he
did not discuss the mechanisms which might link social structure and individual
behaviour, nor did he contemplate whether social psychologists have developed
new dimensions which could be relevant for sociological research. I begin by
reviewing one such variate, the notion of self-esteem. I shall then turn to a
specific process, the avoidance of dissonance, which now plays such a dominant
rolein theliterature. This being what one might call a micro process, I shall then
turn to a more long-range sequence, now known under the label ‘adult social-
ization’.
Self-esteem
The sociologist confined to such variates as sex, education and age, yearns for
more imaginative ways in which to characterize the subjects who enter his
studies. The social psychologist offers him a variate which he has molded in
many experiments and which seems more and more relevant to sociological
problems: the notion of self-esteem. Sherif in his contribution on ‘the self’ to the
new Encyclopedia locates this notion in the following way. The child fist
locates a ‘self‘ by learning to differentiate his own body and movements from
those of others. As he (or she) grows up attention is paid to the reactions of
others and his own behaviour is evaluated; the self plus this assessment develops
the ‘ego’. Finally, skills, opinions and more permanent goals are acquired which
create the ‘personality’. Self-esteem, positive or negative, is located on the
middle level of the ego, and codetermines a broad area of social conduct.
Ruth Wylie in her book on the self conceptzo6 critically reviews a large number
of ‘instruments for measuring self-regard’. People might be asked how they
feel in various situations, such as taking tests, meeting important people, facing
difficult personal situations. This is a very direct way to assess self-esteem.
Other authors follow more devious routes. They ask for a record of past failures
and successes on the assumption that the residue of such experiences creates and
indicates self-esteem. Other authors ask for judgments from a subject’s associates,
assuming that they are well informed and that in addition, their good or
bad opinion might well affect the subject’s self-esteem.
The direction of self-esteem (positive or negative) is closely related to significant
others, and I shall revert to this later. For the sociologist, the relation of
self-esteem to a person’s occupational role is of special interest and here are a few
examples.
A small selection of typical studies wil give an idea of how social psychologists
approach the issue. The preliminary question is always to what extent, at
least in contact with others, people think of themselves as individuals or as representing
a social type. The best known procedure along this line is the ‘twenty
statement test’ (TST) devised by Kuhn and M~Partland.~7 The subject is
given a single sheet of paper with 20 numbered blanks and instructions to
write in 20 answers to the question ‘Who am I? in the blanks, as if giving the

Sociology 141
answers to themselves. A content analysis of the answers divides them into consensual
(referring to groups and classes with conditions of membership that are
common knowledge), such as ‘student’, ‘girl’, ‘husband’ - and subconsensual
(referring to groups, classes, traits which require interpretation by the respondent),
such as ‘happy’, ‘too heavy’, ‘interesting’. People vary widely in the volume
and components of their answers, but tend to give consensual answers first,
which ‘place the individual in a social system’.
In order to obtain self-concepts for a general population, Mulford and Salisbury
administered a modified TST to a sample, representing the adult Iowa
population.z08 Of 13 categories of self-definition, four obtain highest mention:
marital status and role, all types of nuclear family status and role, religious
identity, and occupation. Moderate mention is given to sex, age, extended
family and non-family groups. Almost no one mentions education, race, class
or ethnic origin, These differences hold up when data are analysed by sex, age,
sex and age, marital status, and by occupation.
Simpson and Simpson hypothesized that people in low status occupations
may seize upon some aspect of their work which is highly valued,either in
society or in a work subculture and build a self-image around it.209 In the case
of service personnel in a psychiatric ward, the basis on which they maintain a
favourable occupational self-image is by focusing on ‘care of the patient’. A
random selection of 15 percent of the attendants in five hospitals in North
Carolina was interviewed to determine why they had chosen the job and why
they had stayed on the job. Answers were coded for intrinsic (pertaining to
work) and extrinsic (pertaining to externals of the job) reasons. The interviews
were repeated after a few months, and the authors found a general trend from
extrinsic to intrinsic reasons for those who stay. They suggest that the selfimage
which emphasizes patient care is acquired from the subculture of the
hospital, where care of the patient was the most important duty.
Self-conceptions of executives and supervisors are contrasted in a study by
Coates and Pellegrin, as the question of why certain individuals achieve more
vertical mobility and career success than others is considered.ZrO Standard interviews
with open-ended questions and a preconceived list of attributes were
given to 50 top line executives in 30 large businesses and 50 first line supervisors
in the same or similar large Southern cities. A content analysis of attributes
mentioned by at least 15 persons showed these claims for self by the executives :
more energy, alertness, initiative, aggression, understanding of and manipulation
of people. Subordinates were seen as having less of these. Supervisors
conceded to executives the qualities that executives allotted to themselves : the
majority said they would not, if they were starting over, like to become executives,
as there were too many worries in the job. The authors see superiors as
judging subordinates in terms of their own self image, and subordinates as
using the superior’s image in their views. Subordinates account for the difference
in terms of higher education and socio- and cultural advantages. Both are
seen to know the rewards and penalties of being an executive, but this influences
the two groups differentially in terms of their own achievement desires.
The methodological problems of developing scales of self-esteem have been

142 P. F. Luzarsfeld
described competently in the book by Ruth Wylie, mentioned above; she
provides one of the most concrete discussions on the problem of ‘construct
validity’ - how to decide whether a scale really represent the intent of a con-
cept. Sociologists have accepted these scales and raised the question of how
self-esteem is related to their more conventional variates. The most extensive
American study is Rosenberg’s survey of 5,000 high school students in New
York State.z11 He measured self-esteem by agreement or disagreement with
such items as ‘satisfied with self‘, ‘self no good‘, ‘do things well’. High self-
esteem, as reflected by this test, ‘expresses the feeling that one is “goodenough” ’.
He found that the lower the subject’s self-esteem level, the more likely were
reports of the physiological indicators of anxiety. Participation and leadership
were greater for those with high esteem, and there was much similarity between
the value systems for boys and girls. From an examination of the data, it appears
that the values of the higher classes and the values of the national educational
system are similar.
One of the most important uses of this variate emerges if one finds that
self-esteem affects the way people react to a variety of natural or experimental
situations. More on this point will appear as we now turn to our next trend.
Dissonance theories
If one drops from the philosophical heights of the discussion on society and the
individual, one can move into various levels of concreteness. How is law and
order maintained in a state? How do people collaborate in an organization?
How does a family stay together? Across all these levels of generality there is
the constant of how individuals adjust to the norms that they have to obey, the
pressures which propaganda and advertisements exercise upon them, or the
demands of their fellow men. In some cases they simply submit to brute or
subtle force. Probably more often, however, they merely comply; they change
attitudes, lower their own demands, shift to substitute gratifications, etc. It is
along this latter line that social psychologists have done much work in recent
years. Their studies and theories are usually summarized under the heading of
a need for congruence or a desire to avoid cognitive dissonance. Interest in this
topic has moved through several stages. It began with Heider who asked what
happens if a friend and I disagree on a certain matter? Wil one abandon his
opinion, will our friendship dissolve, orwill we find some other mode of balance?
Heider indeed believed that a tendency to balance existed. Some of his followers
have translated his ideas into the mathematics of graph theory. Later, a group
of psychologists around Osgood tested the matter in a more precise quantitative
form. Suppose a communicator whom I respect tells me something which con-
tradicts one of my personal convictions. Osgood convinces us, through his dis-
cussion and experiments, that the following will happen : I wil strike a compro-
mise; I like the communicator somewhat less but move somewhat closer to his
opinion. The outcome will not be an average of both opinions, because I will
move a somewhat longer way on less extreme points of my previous position.
Finally, Festinger came out with a general theory of dissonance, which, though
somewhat vaguer in its formulation, was so seductive in its generality that it has

Sociology 143
probably become the most discussed and researched topic among social psy-
chologists of the last decade. Actually, the literature has grown so vast that no
one complete summary exists. At least half a dozen of the contributions to the
new Handbook of Social Psychology devote space to it, often quoting the same
20 ‘classic experiments’ in different contexts. For readers somewhat acquainted
with the topic, a review by McGuire is helpful.z12 For newcomers, Chapter IV
(p. 72-1 14) of Malewski is probably the best introdu~tion.~~3
The sociologist has long been acquainted with the problem of dissonance.
His literature abounds in notions like role conflict, cross-pressure, normative
inconsistency, etc. The social psychologist analyses how the individual behaves
in a dissonant situation. But be it remembered the idea permeated macrosociol-
ogy literature a long time ago. Macrosociologists have interpreted the French
revolution in the light of the discrepancy felt by the bourgeoisie between econo-
mic and political power. German fascist movements after the First World War
were explained by the contrast between the former status and the post-war
experience of the aristocracy and army.
The most useful classification of recent work on dissonance comes from
Zajonczr4 who suggests four sources of cognitive dissonance, the first of which
is labelled post decisional eflects. Any choice increases dissonance. If it is a
choice between two objects, the rejection of one alternative leaves a residue of
regret. If an overriding consideration forces us to make an undesirable choice,
the dissonance is clear. What do we do to overcome this? In one experiment,
subjects rated products according to personal preferences. They were then per-
mitted to choose between two gifts. In some cases, the alternatives were very
close on the rating list; in others, there was a considerable distance between
them. Later, all the original products were again rated. The following results
provide typical corroborative evidence of an individual’s efforts to adjust this
attitude to the action he has taken:
a. the chosen alternative increased in attractiveness following the choice;
b. the rejected alternative decreased in attractiveness following the choice;
e. both these changes became more pronounced when subjects chose between
products close on the preference-rating scales, rather than between products
farther apart;
d. in a control group, where no choices for gifts had to be made, no changes in
attractiveness of the received products occurred upon repetition of the
ratings.
It has often been surmised that people read advertisements intensively after
they have made a purchase. Experiments have supplied concrete evidence for
this and have added interesting modifications on the theme of dissonance.
A second type of Zajonc might be called enforced compliance. Experimentally,
it is possible to induce people to act against their own convictions. This, too,
would induce dissonance; a systematic discussion leads to surprising predic-
tions, corroborated by another experiment. Subjects were first asked to perform
a tedious task and then paid to recruit new subjects for the job by telling them
that it was really quite interesting. Subsequently the ‘liars’ were interviewed to
see how they remembered the original experiment. Those who were paid a high

144 P. F. Luzarsfeld
sum for their recruits remembered the original experience as boring. Those who
were paid only a small amount upgraded their recollection of the original task.
The theory is as follows: the unpleasantness of lying far outweighed the small
reward; subjects had to change their memories to achieve a balanced cognitive
structure. The subjects who had received high payment for their recruiting
activities did not experience dissonance between the unpleasant task and the
reward. Similarly, students who had to endure a painful initiation rite to join
an objectively dull discussion, found it retrospectively more attractive than a
matched group, which for experimental purposes, entered without difficulty.
From a sociological point of view, experiments close to problems of propaganda
are especially interesting. What happens to those who are exposed to
information which is contrary to their own opinions? Experimental evidence here
is somewhat vague. Sometimes they seek information to strengthen their old
convictions; and sometimes they begin to explore the new lines of thought.
Especially interesting in this context are experiments in which dissonance is
increased experimentally. For example, subjects may be forced to present to
other people a position uncongenial to their own - this approaches the
case of enforced compliance. The implications of this material for the theory of
attitude change have been extensively discussed by a variety of a~thors.2~5 The
Public Opinion Quarterly has devoted a whole issue to the present state of psychological
theory in attitude change (Volume 23).
A final group of experiments raises the question of disconfirmed expectancy.
Famous is the study by Festinger and his colleagues who showed to what lengths
a small religious sect would go when their prediction that the world would end
did not materialize.2I6 Thestory has even been immortalized in a novel by Allison
Lurie. Recently, more precise experiments are available. Aronson and Carlsmith
assigned tasks to their subjects after it had been established how well the
subjects expected to perf0rm.~I7 The subjects were then given random information
as to how well they succeeded in an actual test. The authors discuss in great
detail how the students adjusted to the discrepancies which were bound to
occur. This setting was greatly refined by Malewski who introduced self-esteem
as an additional variate. His paper appeared in a Polish journal, but Malewski
gave a detailed summary in his book on behaviour and interaction (p. 88-101).
At the end of one experiment, subjects were asked their opinions of the judge
who rated their performance. The summary of the findings is a good example of
what above was called the multivariate experiment. At the same time, it shows the
important modifier role of self-esteem. Malewski's emphasis is on subjects who
had a low opinion of themselves, and low expectations, but whose performance
was highly rated by the judges. Rather than upgrade the low self-esteem which
was deeply rooted in their life histories, they decided that the judges did not
know what they were talking about.
The strongest defenders of the dissonance theory consider the quest for
cognitive consonance as something of a basic need, like hunger and sex. It is no
surprise therefore that considerable controversy has developed around counterexplanations,
in terms of other motivational theories. Malewski has launched
his attack on a most general level. He feels that the conventional theories of

Sociology I 45
learning by reinforcement could subsume most of the hdings. Other authors
have joined the discussion on a more specific level. Some experiments show that
people can live happily with an inconsistent plan, and other writers have pointed
out that dissonance might be a pleasant state of arousal because it drives one
on to new explorations. Still others have proposed translating the findings
through a theory of frustration. These counter-arguments are instructively
summarized in Berkowitz.z18 From a sociological point of view this discussion
does not seem too important. Important is that the social psychologist has
discovered a number of heretofore unsuspected interesting patterns.
Adult socialization
In the preceding pages, we have selected two more recent ideas that social psy-
chologists have contributed to sociological analysis. Both provided rather
short-range mechanisms: the desire to enhance one’s self-esteem and to avoid
dissonant experiences. But life does not consist only in disconnected episodes.
There is also a coherent trend, a life cycle during which society and individual
must mesh. Philosophers have tried to reconstruct the hypothetical genesis of
this relation. Psychoanalysts have assumed that there is a basic antagonism
between individual needs and society’s demands. Social psychologists have seen
here a process of interaction to which they assigned the label of socialization.
In its generality the problem is not new. The way in which children grow into
the adult culture has been a problem of empirical research for a long time. A
more recent idea is that this process does not stop with childhood, nor with
adolescence. Adults must constantly change as they face new tasks in their
private and professional lives. Especially in the United States, this adult social-
ization has been a focus of attention. Conferences have been held, and opinions
have been published. One of the leaders, Orville Brim, President of the Russell
SageFoundation, has formulated the program of what might even be termed a
movement along the following lines:219
If an individual is to meet adult role-expectations, he must acquire three
things: knowledge, skill, and dispositions in the two dominant areas of be-
haviour and values. These are shown in Brim’s paradigm:
Knowledge
Ability
Motivation
ml
Behaviour Values
In each case, the first column (A, C, E) refers to overt performance, the second
(B, D, F) to goals or ends. Thus, Cell C signifies that the individual can behave
in the required fashion whereas Cell D refers to the individual’s ability to possess
specific goals. Brim’s general premise is that childhood socialization is focused
upon the ‘Values’ column whereas adult socialization shifts to the ‘Behaviour’
column. Brim even goes further, exemplifying childhood socialization by Cell F
where the child learns how to change his basic bioIogicaI needs into cultural
motives produced by the expectations of significant others; Cell A represents the

146 P. F. Lazarsfeld
center of adult socialization activities where society teaches the approved ways
of pursuing the values that have been learnt in childhood. Only in exceptional
cases will adult socialization effort be geared to changes in motives or values.
Thus, some correctional institutions are set up to retrain individuals who have
demonstrated a severe lack of appropriate motivation toward social goals.
Cell F refers to those rebels, revolutionaries or dissenters who may end up in
prisons or hospitals.
The study of such deviants as alcoholics, drug-addicts, and criminals focuses
partially upon early experience - broken homes, adolescent gangs, etc. Partly,
however, it may be viewed as adult socialization gone awry and, characteristi-
cally, the notion of resocialization has been introduced. It is therefore not sur-
prising that the Brim Scheme can be utilized to bring new order into the problem
of deviance.
From the six types of socialization content, six types of deviance may be
derived. Cell C then becomes the individual who is unable to comply with the
prescribed behaviour whereas Cell D describes the individual who cannot hold
to the required value (although it is assumed that he wishes to do so - unlike
Cell F). These are pure types, for the sake of illustration, though it is probable
that most deviance involves both behaviour and values as well as combinations
of knowledge, ability and motivation. Consider the pacifist during wartime,
who knows how a soldier is expected to act but is neither willing to take up
arms nor to be successful at murdering the enemy.
Actual studies can be classified according to certain broad content areas.
One is organized around the problem of work. The Swiss Kurt Liischer has sum-
marized much of the pertinent literature in his monograph on the process of
occupational socialization.2zo Americans have been much interested in the way
that professions inculcate their candidates with the attitudes necessary for the
performance of their work - a problem quite different from that of learning the
skills of their trade. Thus Ren6e FoxZzl has noticed that medical students must
be prepared for the fact that they wil face many cases of illness where diagnosis
is uncertain or cure not yet available. Her paper on ‘Training for Uncertainty’
based on medical school observations and diaries shows the many ways in which
the schools cope with this problem.
Soviet social psychologists seem to be especially intrigued by a problem
characteristic of their society. A socialist state is interested in giving greatest
latitude to the growth of each individual personality. Nevertheless, work has to
be performed which is not in itself interesting or gratifying. In this vein, we
may consult a detailed report on a symposium held in Moscow in 1966 on ‘The
Personality and Labour’.z22 Half the contributors are Westerners (including the
USA) and half are from Communist countries. The latter emphasize the need
for creativity in work; creativity is defined as the ability to propose more effi-
cient methods of work or to invent new products or techniques, all geared toward
the collective good. It was found, for example, that when young workers were
trained to recognize the social importance of their work, their creative produc-
tion was increased.
Another area of concentration concerns turning points in the life cycle. Mar-

Sociology 147
riage is bound to be an important step of adult socialization. Spouses must learn
to adjust to their partners. Most of the evidence of change in life patterns is indirect.
Thus, VincentZ23 shows that young married couples change their scores on
tests of dominance and self-acceptance as a consequence of marriage. The shift
is greatest with those who marry at an early age. A control group of single individuals
did not exhibit such changes over a comparable time period.
Childbearing is another important stage in adult socialization, as new parents
must learn to act as teachers and models of behaviour. Little concrete literature
exists on this point. Perhaps this is the place to refer to an unusual book by
Tornanzz4 who developed a kind of family calculus, by classifyingpeople according
to birth position within their families. From this he attempted to predict
the success of their marriages: e.g., the man who grew up with a younger sister
did best with a younger wife who grew up with an older brother. Goode has
pointed out that divorce raises especially complex socialization problems for
women; few norms are established for their social and sexual conduct.ZZ5
The next life phase, which is well documented is the phase of retirement.
Because of the continuous lengthening of physical life beyond the age of accepted
occupational employment, this topic has received extensive attention. It is
impossible to review this vast literature and the controversies around the problem
of how to utilize older people and how to make retirement productive.
Fortunately, an Austrian scholar has provided a good review of the pertinent
studies.zz6 To add a somewhat macabre note, the last stage of adult socialization,
death, has also been the subject of at least one study done jointly by a
sociologist and a social psychologist.zz7
Some final comments refer to the efforts to provide a.theoretica1 foundation
for the activities of adult socialization. The oldest and purely psychological
approach stems from Charlotte Buhler, who in 1932, wrote a book on human
life as a psychological problem.zz8 She had studied the stages by which children
learnt to cope with their physical environment and the social beings surrounding
them. Her intention was to project these findings to their lives as adults. How
long was an individual solely concerned with expanding his sphere of activity?
When did he begin to review his life in terms of its meaning for him? When did
he reach the point of retrenchment and ha1 accounting? Her raw materials
were published biographies, but many of her students moved into such interesting
byways as interviews with inmates of old-age homes or the correspondence
of public figures at the peak of their careers.
An approach closely related to sociology views adult socialization as the
changes that take place in people as they move through various institutional
settings. In new situations we meet new people who have different expectations
about us; we are confronted with new requirements to which we must adjust.
The task of research is to study in detail how any social organization, of whatever
size or complexity, has effects on the selves of those who work in it.ZZQ
Examples especially enlightening for Western readers are likely to come from
countries with unusual social combinations or where rapid social change occurs.
In Japan, according to de Vos, the need for achievement is not related to a
striving for personal success but rather to a strong feeling of solidarity with the

148 P. F. Lazarsfeld
extended famil~.~3O In the USSR dramatic changes were reported when ‘backward‘
ethnic groups were caught up by the Government’s industrial policy, and
a number of spectacular studies on the change of the status of women in various
parts of the country were presented at the 1966 International Congress of Psychol0gy.~3~
A third group of critical situations has been called by Heinz Hartmann ‘horizontal
socialization’: movements of men back and forth between public service
and private jobs and of women between work and marriage, the experience of
migration, the coping with cycles of success and failure. All these are topics which
require the attention of both the sociologist and the social psychologist.
I have excluded from this report the discussion of childhood training. But one
aspect of it has relevance here: class differences. The lower class child lives in a
world with less external stimulation and a restricted vocabulary - factors which
make subsequent intellectual growth more difficult. The middle class child is
more likely to be punished by the withdrawal of love, which fosters the development
of ‘intrapunitive’ character traits. A careful classification of the literature
reveals many such training features which are likely to affect the socialization of
the ad~lt.~3~
Group dynamics
For many experiments in social psychology a small number of people are assembled
so that differences in reactions can be analyzed. When special attention
is given to interactions between members of such groups and to the way they
form at least temporary ‘organizations,’ then one usually speaks of the problem
of group dynamics. Work along this line is potentially important for sociologists.
After all, a small group may be viewed as a miniature society where one can
study sociological problems as under a microscope. But in reviewing the literature
of the last IO or 15 years one is bothered by the fragmentation of the whole
field. An experiment in group dynamics is ideal for a doctoral dissertation;
consequently we have a large number of scattered studies which seem to resist
systematic integration. Such synthesis is difficult, but indeed productive if it
succeeds. A brilliant example is Roger Brown’s 60-page discussion of a single
experimental result.233
His starting point was the following: people who must make choices between
more or less risky decisions take greater risks when they make their choices in a
group than when they are alone. He then proceeded to interpret this hypothesis
in the light of all other knowledge available in the literature on group dynamics.
When the various alternatives are discussed, the more prominent members of
the group are likely to be risk-taking personalities. It is evident from these considerations
that a reasonable amount of risk-taking is considered appropriate in
an American context; the ‘rhetoric’ of risk-taking is more likely to find a
response than the appeal to caution, etc. Not surprisingly, Brown concludes
that the experiments that wouId fully clarify the issue remain to be done. A few
more efforts similar to his might make a great difference in the entire field.
Still, in this somewhat sprawling stream of group dynamics there is one trend
which deserves respectful attention. More and more, social psychologists have

Sociology 149
tried to get away from the study of static correlations between the various di-
mensions of small group behaviour. They increasingly try to unravel the emer-
gence of relevant features, and the emphasis on the way things come about is
noticeable in all traditional areas of group dynamics. I shall briefly give examples
from the fields of a) problem-solving, b) leadership and c) social perception. The
important topic of attitude change has already been dealt with; there the essential
feature is the emphasis on cognitive dissonance and the attempts to resolve it.
a. The question whether groups are able to solve problems better than individuals
has an ideological bias, in addition to presenting a genuine scientific interest:
the value of cooperation would be enhanced if group efforts proved superior.
As this obviously is not so under all circumstances, attention has shifted to the
conditions under which a group would do better than an average of isolated individuals.
A seminal experiment by Bavelas inspired related research by others
for some time. By various technical devices he controlled the way in which group
members would communicate with each other; this affected the ability of the
group jointly to solve a problem.
More recent study has helped to clarify how this ‘topological effect’ comes
about. The main intervening variable seems to be how groups organize their
work. This has been shown in a variety of ways. If, for instance, isolated individuals
receive information irrelevant to their main task, performance does not
improve; but such improvement does occur in the case of groups. The interpretation
is that the absorption of irrelevant information permits the group to improve
its work together. Also the better performance attributable to certain communications
networks disappears with the lapse of time; again this seems to
show that the difference between various topological arrangements is due more
to the difficulty of organizing collaboration than to efficiency in solving the problem
itself.
Another development can be considered a part of this dynamic trend. An
early refinement in the study of problem-solving by groups after the Bavelas experiment
consisted in careful analysis of the task to be performed - whether it
permitted the aggregation of partial solutions performed by group members
separately, whether superior knowledge by a few members could be utilized, etc.
(e.g., the work of Moscov~c~).~~Q
In more recent studies the motivation of group
members has come to the foreground. The main experimental device is to create
a situation of ‘mixed emotion’. A reward is given to the whole group for its SUC-
cess; at the same time rewards are provided for the performance of individual
members. It is possible to arrange the experiment so that individual rewards are
in conflict with the performance of the whole group. By varying the mix, the
willingness to exchange information and the structure of mutual influence can
be altered and thereby observed. Kelley and Thibaut have skillfully summarized
the pertinent studies.=35
b. Questions of leadership provide an especially strategic area for looking at
‘emergences’ in small groups. In this case people who have never met before have
to provide for the division of labour de novo. Rudimentary forms of stratifica-

150 P. F. Lazarsfeld
tion and leadership are bound to evolve. One example should suffice to show how
this concept enriches a more static approach. It has long been known that persons
in power positions were attributed superior qualities in all sorts of matters.
But what does this mean? Would not more attractive persons be the ones to get
into leading positions ? Mulder created communications networks where he
could, arbitrarily and at random, place different people into positions which
provided them with superior kno~ledge.~3~ Consistently the other participants
considered each ‘power holder’ more attractive to work with in his new position.
The various experiments along this line have been integrated by the Australian
Gibb into what he calls an interactionist theory of leadership.237 He summarizes
tliese ideas and evidence in a number of points, of which we quote two:
2. A group is a system of interaction within which a structure emerges by the devel-
opment of relativelys table expectations for the behaviour of each member. Such
expectations are an expression of each member’s interactional relations with all
others and are, of course, determined by the other members’ perceptions of his
personal attributes and his performance on an earlier occasion.
5. Leadership is but one facet, though perhaps the most readily visible facet of this
larger process of other differentiation. Leadership is simply this concept applied to
the situation obtaining in a group when the differentiation of roles results in one or
some of the parties to the interaction influencing the actions of others in a shared
approach to common or compatible goals.
Some of Bales’ work should be mentioned here.238 He noted that in many
groups there are two kinds of leaders - the efficient person and the kindly, sup-
porting person, He found that, at the beginning of a task, the efficient leader is
preferred, but that later on the status of the supporting leader increases. Here
lie the elements of a psychological foundation for the ‘circulation of elites.’ In a
more speculative vein Bales has also reflected on a related problem of social
equilibrium: an increased division of labour makes the group more efficient
but the individual member more uneasy. What is the optimum balance? How
can it be discovered? How achieved?”39
The diffuseness, but also the richness, of the work on leadership and problem-
solving by groups leads to the expectation that anyone who has to organize
work teams or guide the activities of committees would do well to use this ma-
terial. But, as far as I know, no one has drawn together such contributions. It
would also be difficult to develop a style which would not be a cookbook, but
would combine utility with documentation of the evidence.240
c. Finally we have the area of social perception: how people see each other and
themselves. How the understanding of other people’s emotions and how ourselfesteem
are affected by other people’s behaviour toward us has been studied for a
long time. It is therefore no surprise that few really new ideas have developed in
the last two decades. But here, too, authors have turned from the description of
enduring properties of interaction to interest in ongoing processes ; they concentrate
upon the ‘sequential give-and-take properties of interaction,’ and their interest
is in ‘discovering the order and regularity that underlie this fluid proces~’~41
Thus Rosenthal gave fictitious information to teachers as to which of their
pupils had great potential learning abilitie~.~4~ A subsequent test showed that, on

Sociology I 5 I
the average, these pupils performed much better than before. The interpretation
is that the teachers saw these students in a new light and paid special attention
to them. In a similar way clinical work seems to indicate that it makes quite a
difference how persons with psychiatric difficulties are ‘labelled’ by others, be it
their personal associates or professional people such as counsellors or doc-
t0rs.~43
The interactivist element is also apparent as a trend in research techniques.
Moreno’s sociometric procedures provided the earliest methods for describing
social relations in a group. Individuals were asked which members of a group
they liked, with which they would prefer to work, etc. This technique has been
greatly extended. The new version is now to add such questions as: do you
think your choice knows your preference? Does he reciprocate it? The ensuing
statistical problems have been explored by, among others, Maucorps and his
colleagues.z44
A group of British psychologists have developed this idea into quite a complex
~ystem.~45 They acquire this ‘table-tennis’ kind of information from both
husband and wife, which permits a practically unlimited combination of data.
According to them, such material is also useful in marriage counselling. Very
discrepant social perceptions between husband and wife are correlated with
marital difficulties; information about these discrepancies can be helpful to
marriage counsellers.
Concluding remarks
Group dynamics has aroused much interest in other Western countries and
is apparently often embedded in a particular local context. The Frenchman
Maisonneuve is especially interested in applications for job training and therapy.z46
The German Hofstatter refutes Le Bon’s theory of the helpless mass at
the mercy of a leader - an obvious concern with the recent Hitler e~perience.~47
The Briton Sprott discusses ‘experimental groups’ parallel to ‘permanent small
groups’ suc has the family, the village and the neighbourhood - an interest clearly
related to the British concern with regional ~lanning.24~ The content itself,
however, is stereotyped : communication in small groups, cohesion, leadership,
collective problem-solving, etc. The pertinent monographs of the three authors
just cited tend to refer to exactly the same body of studies. Furthermore, the
examples are overhelmingIy from the United States. To take a specific case,
Anzieu and Martin reporting on the principal notions concerning ‘groupes
restreints’ offer 80 references, of which 60 are American; moreover several of
the French ones refer to summaries which in turn are based on the same foreign
material.*+Q Stoetzel devotes 23 pages of his Pyschologie Sociale to ‘comporte-
ments dans les petits groupes’, and all but seven of his 44 references concern
American publications.250 Even Sprott who warns that American findings might
not be completely applicable to British experience cannot elude this trend; of his
70 references, only 20 % come from outside the United States - though he stress-
es that he has studied the situation in the USSR and China.
This disproportion is true for many other sectors of literature in social psy-
chology. The obvious danger is that the specific culture of the United States af-

152 P. F. Lazarsfeld
fects the results of experiments and surveys. We need repetition of the same
studies in many countries as well as new work growing out of specific national
situations. Fortunately a good beginning is already being made as can be seen
by the review of Tajfel, a British contributor to the new Handbook of Social
Psychology.z~I As an American member of an International Committee I am
pleased that the Marshall Plan of sociologically-oriented social psychology has
made its contribution. Still, one does need not to be a Gaullist to hope that its
days are gone and that we can anticipate the rise of sovereign national groups,
each striving in its own way toward a common goal.
NOTES
I. Writers on the history of sociology scarcely mention the flowering of ‘enquetes’
before Americans began to engage in such work. Only recently has Raymond
Aron raised the question of why men like Quetelet and Le Play have been neglected
as compared to Montesquieu and Comte.
2. The literature on this first phase is rapidly growing. See H. RIGAUDIAS-WEISS,
Les Enqu2tes Ouvri2res en France entre 1830 et 1848, Paris, Librarie Felix Alcan,
1936; and A. OBERSHALL, Empirical Research in Germany 1870-1914, Amsterdam,
1966.
3. A similar threefold division of sociological work has been used by other authors.
Thus, Girod distinguishes general theory, concrete research studies and what he
calls typological analysis of social systems. The latter is a special case of Toennies’
application of theoretical ideas to broad social phenomena. LBvi-Strauss
distinguishes three phases of anthropological work: ethnography, ethnology and
social or cultural anthropology. The first is descriptive, the second, a first step
towards theory, the third, systematic synthesis. This is Toennies in reverse.
4. W. S. LANDECKER, ‘Types of Integration and Their Measurement’, American Journal
of Sociology 56 (4, 1951, p. 332.
5. In a more detailed discussion the problem of construct validity would have to be
raised here. It has however no bearing on the following themes.
6. What can be done is to clarify the procedures involved. A larger number of mathematical
models have been developed to this end, especially to clarify the fourth
step, the combination of indicators. They are discussed in Chapter VIII (‘Mathematical
Models and Methods’) of the present study.
7. M. ROSENBERG, Society and the Adolescent Selj-Image, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 1965.
8. G. ANDR~EVA, ‘L‘homme analyse par la sociologie’, in: Lu Sociologie en URSS
(Rapports des membres de la delegation soviktique au we Congrks international
de Sociologie), Moscow, Editions du ProgrBs, 1966, pp. 49-62.
9. The Academic Mind (with Wagner Thielens, Jr.), Glencoe (Ill.), The Free Press,
1958.
IO. In this discussion, it is irrelevant to describe the way in which these two scales
were constructed.
11. Here I do not include comparative studies based on large international data banks
which are covered in Chapter x (‘Cross-cultural, Cross-societal and Crossnational
Research’) of the present study. Macrosociological authors deal with a
small number of cases and their emphasis is on many qualitative details. Still it
is difficult to draw boundaries. Eisenstadt had sufficient historical bureaucratic
studies to present actual numerical tabulations; Etzioni deals only with four cases
but he presents propositions in quasi-quantitative language. Nevertheless, their
emphasis is so strongly on interpretation that they have been included in this
review.

Sociology 153
12. Runciman’s chapter could be considered part of the British discussion on the
embourgeoisement of the manual worker. The cues for such a concept are still rare,
especially as they would have to come from different time periods and be rather
sensitive to change. It is therefore not surprising that the matter is still controversial.
13. All these cues are not subject to quick change. In the United States, at this moment,
Negro activists request greater participation of family organizations in the
administration of local schools. The reason now is the protection of civil rights,
but as an unanticipated consequence the balance between family and school might
shift. If one were to watch for such changes in the coming years, Dahrendorf’s
type of data would not be too helpful, though very convincing in depicting an
existing basic structure.
14. I wish to draw special attention to a reflective and informative auxiliary paper by
J. A. FISHMAN on ‘Sociolinguistics and the Language Problems of Developing
Countries’, subsequently published in: International Social Science Journal 20 (2),
1968, p. 211.
15. L. COSER, The Study of Conflict, Glencoe (Ill.), Free Press, 1962.
16. S. KELLER, Beyond the Ruling Class, Toronto, Random House, 1968.
17. A very good discussion of the problems here involved can be found in S. NOWAK,
‘The Cultural Norms as Elements of Prognostic and Explanatory Models in
Sociological Theory’, The Polish Sociological Bulletin I4 (21, 1966.
18. A review of this literature may be found in A. BARTON, Organizational Measurement,
New York, College Entrance Examination Board, 1961.
19. E. SHILS, ‘The Macrosociological View’, in: T. PARSONS, et al. (eds.), American
Sociology, New York, Basic Books, 1968.
20. Fortunately it is now possible to obtain a quick overview of the present state of
this discussion. A number of readers on the philosophy of science include writings
on history. In addition, two readers on historical analysis have recently appeared,
each edited by a protagonist of very different points of view: W. DRAY (ed.),
Philosophical Analysis and History, New York, Harper & Row, 1966; P.
GARDWER (ed.), Theories of History, New York, The Free Press of Glencoe,
1959.
21. I. DEVA, ‘The Course of Social Change: A Hypothesis’, Diogenes, 1966, p. 74.
22. P. HOFSTATTER, Gruppendynamik, Hamburg, 1957.
23. A. ETZIONI, ‘Non-conventional Uses of Sociology as Illustrated by Peace Research‘,
in: P. F. LAZARSFELD, et al. (eds.), Uses of Sociology, New York, Basic
Books, 1967.
24. The French speak of ‘thkories de portbe rnoyenne’; the Germans use ‘Theorien der
mittleren Reichweite’. This latter term has many applications in the social
sciences and has sometimes been translated by ‘effective scope’.
25. This is a good point to mention another terminological difficulty. Marxist authors
in Eastern Europe refer to themselves as Communists and designate the work of
their Western colleagues as bourgeois sociology. But no Western social scientist
would designate himself as bourgeois. One has, therefore, to use the somewhat
illogical counterpoint of Communist-Western. An even more complicated dilemma
is created by sociologists who feel strongly that analytical reflections are
neglected by many of their colleagues whom they call positivists. But no modern
sociologist, however concentrated on empirical work, would use this term today.
He would never deny that all the analytical procedures listed above are indispensible
in good empirical work. (Samuel Stouffer is often quoted as an archpositivist;
the title of his collective papers is Social Theories to Test Ideas.) In the
spirit of this section the counterpoint theorist-positivist wil not be used.
26. R. K. MERTON, On Theoretical Sociology - Five Essays, Old and New (which includes
Part One of ‘Social Theory and Social Structure’), New York, Free Press,
1967, P. 42.
27. Ibid.

154 P. F. Lazarsfeld
28. E. LITWAK and H. J. MEYER, ‘The School and the Family: Linking Organizations
and External Primary Groups’, in: P. F. LAZARSFELD, et al. (eds.), op. cif., p. 252.
29. E. LITWAK and H. J. MEYER, ‘A Balance Theory of Coordination between
Bureaucratic Organizations and Community Primary Groups’, Administrative
Science Quarterly (I) June 1966, p. 47.
29a. Works of Marxist inspiration dealing with general sociological problems: G. E.
Glezerman, 0 akonah obfc‘estvennogo razvitija (On the laws of social development),
Moscow, Politizdat, 1960; P.N. Fedoseev, Kommunizm i filosofiia (Communism
and philosophy), Moscow, Academy of Sciences Publishing House, 1962;
V. P. Roiin, Vvedenie v marksistskuju sociologiju (Introduction to Marxist sociology),
Leningrad University Press, 1962 ; Zstorija i sociologija (History and sociology),
Moscow, ‘Nauka’, 1964; D. I. Cesnokov, Zstoriceskij materializm (Historial materialism),
Moscow, ‘Mysl”, 1964, 2nd ed; G. P. Frantsev, Puti razvitija social’noj
mysli (Paths of development of social thought), Moscow, ‘Mysl“, 1965 ; Sociologija
v SSSR (Sociology in the USSR) Vols. 1-2, Moscow, ‘Mysl’, 1965 ;MetodologiEesckie
voprosy obfc‘estvennyh nauk (Methodological questions in the social sciences),
Moscow, 1966; Osnovy nautnogo kommunizma (Foundations of scientific communism),
Moscow, Politizdat, 1967; Problemypoznanija social’nyh javleng (Problems
of the cognition of social phenomena), Moscow, ‘Mysl“, 1968; V. I. Vojtko,
Marksists’ka sociologija jak nauka (Scientific Marxist sociology), Kiev, ‘Naukova
dumka’, 1968 ; Sociologija i ideologija (Sociology and ideology), Moscow, ‘Nauka’,
1969.
Scientific planning and social administration: A. G. Aganbegjan, Modelirovanie
processovproizvodslva i upravlenija (Shaping the processes of production and management),
Novosibirsk, 1966; A. K. Belyh, Politic‘eskaja organizacija obfc‘estva i
socialisticeskoe upravlenie (Political organization of society and socialist administration),
Leningrad University Press, 1967; 2. T. ToSEenko, Social’noeplanirovanie
v sisteme nauc‘nogo upravlenija obfEestvom (Social planning in a system of scient&
social administration), Moscow, ‘Znanie’, 1967; Nauc‘noe upravlenie obic‘estvom
(Scientific management of society Moscow, ‘Mysl”, 1967; Upravlenie obfc‘estvennymi
processami pri socializme (Management of social processes under socialism),
Leningrad, 1967; V. G. Afanas’ev, Nauc‘noe upravlenie obiEestvom (Scientific
management of society Moscow, Politizdat, 1968.
Class and social changes: Zzmenenie v c‘islennosti i sostave raboc‘ego klassa (The
change in the size and composition of the working class), Moscow, Academy of
Sciences Publishing House, 1961 ; S. A. Kugel’, Zakonomernosti izmenenija social’
noj struktury obfcestvapriperehode k kommunizmu (Laws governing the changes in
the social structure during the transition to communism), Moscow, ‘Ekonomika’,
1963; 0 c‘ertah litnosti novogo rabotego (Personality traits of the new worker),
Moscow, Academy of Sciences Publishing House, 1963 ; Of socialistic‘eskih obitestvennyh
otnofenij k kommunisticeskim (From socialism to communism in social relationships),
Moscow, ‘Mysl”, 1966; Stroitel’ stvo kommunizma i razvitie obfc‘estvennyh
otnoienij (The building of communism and the development of social relationships),
Moscow, ‘Nauka’, 1966; G. E. Glezerman, ZstoricXeskij materializm i
razvitie socialistic‘eskogo obEestva (Historical materialism and the development of
socialist society), Moscow, Politizdat, 1967; V. S. Semenov, Velikij Oktjabr’ i razvitie
novyh obfc‘estvennyh otnofenij (The Great October and the development of new
social relationships), Moscow, ‘Znanie’, 1967; Klassy, social’ nye sloi i gruppy v
SSSR (Classes, social strata and groups in the USSR), Moscow, ‘Nauka’, 1967;
Problemy izmenenija social’noj struktury sovestskogo obfc‘estva (Problems of the
changes in the social structure of Soviet society), Moscow, ‘Nauka’, 1968.
Alienation and the individual : Litnost’, obitestvo i gosudarsrvo (The individual,
society and the State), Moscow, ‘Nauka’, 1966; L. V. Sohan’, Duhovnyjprogress
litnosti i kommunizm (The spiritual progress of the individual and communism),
Kiev, ‘Naukova dumka’, 1966; I. S. Kon, Sociologija Litnosti (Sociology of the individual),
Moscow, Politizdat, 1967; Otc‘u5denie i gumannost’ (Alienation and hu-

Sociology 155
manism), Moscow, ‘Progress’, 1967; Duhovnoe razvitie litnosti (Spiritual development
of the individual), Sverdlovsk, r967; Zklovek, tvorc‘estvo, nacika (Man, creation,
science), Moscow, ‘Nauka’, 1967; L. P. Bueva, Social’naja sreda i soznanie
litnosti (The social environment and the consciousness of theindividual), Moscow,
University, 1968; LiEnosr’ pri socializme (The individual under socialism), Moscow,
‘Nauka’, 1968.
Work in factories and in industrial undertakings in general: A. K. Kurylev,
Preodolenie suitestvennyh razlitij mezdu umstvennym i fiziteskim trudom -problems
stroitel’stva kommunizma (Overcoming the essential differences between intellectual
and physical labour: a problem in the building of communism), Moscow University
Press, 1963; V. P. Zeielenko, N. E. OvEinnikov and H. Saripov, Tehnika,
trud i Eelovek (Neko torye problemy stanovlenija kommunistiteskogo truda) (Technology,
labour and man: Some problems in the establishment of communist labour),
Moscow, 1963; D. A. Parfenov, Umstvennyj ifiziteskij trud v SSSR: ekonomiteskie
predposylkipreodolenija syiEestvennyh razlic‘ij (Intellectual and physical
labour in the USSR: economic prerequisites for the elimination of the essential
differences), Moscow, ‘Mysl“, 1964; D. P. Kajdalov, Zakonperemeny truda i vsestoronnee
razvitie c‘eloveka (The law of change of work and the balanced development
of the individual), Moscow, ‘Mysl“, 1968.
Working time and leisure: G. A. Prudenskij, Vremja i trud (Time and labour),
Moscow, ‘Mysl“, 1964; V. I. Bolgov, Venrabotee vremja i woven’ zizni trudjaztihsja
(Leisure time and the standard of living of the workers), Novosibirsk, ‘Nauka’,
1964; V. G.Bajkova, A. S. DuEal and A. A. Zemcev, Svobodnoe vremja i vsestoronnee
razvitie litnosti (Free time and the balanced development of the personality),
Moscow, ‘Mysl”, 1965; V. D. PatruSev, Vremja-ekonomiteskaja kategorija
(Time as an economic category), Moscow, ‘Mysl“, 1966; Metodika izutenija bjudietov
vrerneni trudjaicihsja Novosibirska (Method of studying the time budgets of
workers of Novosibirsk), ‘Nauka’, 1966; V. G. Krjaiev, YneraboEee vremja i sfera
obsluiivanija (Leisuretime and services), Moscow, ‘Ekonomika’, 1966; B. A. Grusin,
Svobodnoe vremja: aktual’ nye problemy (Free time: current problems), Moscow,
‘Mysl“, 1967.
30. Regional differences should always be kept in mind. Thus, for instance, Poland
had a great pre-war tradition of sociological research, which helps to explain why
concrete sociology there expanded so rapidly after 1956. Yugoslavia had developed
a more de-centralized form of national ownership which facilitated an earlier
acceptance of empirical studies.
31. I do not include problems of stratification. The extensive discussion on the notion
of class has had no effect on empirical work. Good Eastern and Western studies
are quite similar.
32. La Sociologie en URSS. op. cit.
33. L‘Homme et la Socie‘te‘ I (I), 1966.
34. Dortmunder Schriften zur Sozialforschung, #33, 1966.
35. Zentralstelle fur Gesamtdeutsche Hochschulfragen, #5, 1966.
36. Empirische Soziologie, 1964.
37. It is, of course, regrettable that crucial Soviet studies could not be examined in
the original. However, in certain cases it was possible to get a reasonably good
picture of a major study because it was commented upon by a number of authors.
Take as an example the study of Leningrad youth by Zdravomyslov and
Yadov: it is referred to at least three times by the contributors to the report by
the Soviet delegation to the Sixth World Congress of Sociology. G. OSSIPOV and
V. KELLE mention it in an auxiliary contribution prepared in connection with the
present study (‘MatBrialisme historique, thBorie sociologique et recherche sociale
en URSS’, in: The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, The Hague-Paris,
Mouton-Unesco, 1968, pp. 209-223). George Fischer, the Columbia University
expert on Soviet sociology, describes it in detail, including actual tables.

156 P. F. Lazarsfeld
38. For the sake of brevity we use the term attitude to cover the whole range of disposition
concepts like sentiments, intentions, values, beliefs, feelings, etc.
39. M. IOVTCHOUK and L. KOOAN, ‘Changement dans la vie spirituelle des ouvriers en
URSS’, in: La Sociologie en URSS, op. cit., p. 252.
40. Ibid., p. 268. George Fischer cites additional studies which touch on alienation, the
degree to which it has decreased and the extent to which it still persists. French
authors, more concerned with Marxism, have written extensively on the conscience
ouvri2re.
41. M. SEEMAN, ‘On the Meaning of Alienation’, American Sociological Review 24,
1959, p. 783; R. MIDDLETON, ‘Alienation, Race and Education’, American
Sociological Review 28, Dec. 1963, p. 973.
42. G. OSSIPOV, ‘But et bilan de recherches sociologiques en URSS’, in : La Sociologie en
URSS, op. cit., p. 246. Repeatedly the point is made that a periodic change in
the type of work performed is necessary to maintain the morale of the workers and
permits them to develop a full personality. From the sources available to me I cannot
tell how such a system works nor what social research does contribute to it.
43. A study of time budgets has been carried out in which both Eastern and Western
countries participated. From the preliminary reports it is not yet possible to say
whether it will contribute to this problem.
44. G. OSSIPOV, op. cit., p. 241.
45. Szczepadski has been interested in young people who after some education were
not admitted to higher university degrees. From a personal communication I
gather that he fears that related semi-fascist effects ensue.
46. C’ V. N. SHUBKIN, Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 17 (30), 18 Aug. 1965, p. 6.
Data from the USSR are strongly corroborated by the English translation of a study
by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office on social stratification in Hungary
(Budapest, 1967). This is one of the examples where Eastern and Western findings
are surprisingly alike. Data on occupation choice comparable over the last
40 years are available from Austria (ROSENMAYR, Jugendforschung in Osterreich).
Recently French sociologists have provided relevant information and discussion
(BOURDIEUX, Les Hdritiers.) One difference has to be kept in mind. In capitalist
countries inherited money can play a role while in Communist countries. the
position of parents is increasingly determined by substantive or political achievement.
47. H. HIEBSCH and M. VORWERG, ‘uber Gegenstand, Aufgaben und Methoden der
marxistischen Sozialpsychologie’, Deutsche Zeitschrift f. Philosophie I I (5).
48. Op. cit., p. 243.
49. The literature from and about Eastern Germany deserves special attention for
the following reason. In peripheral countries, at the time when they acquired
some independence from Russian academics, concrete sociology emerged immediately,
almost as a token of relative independence. In the USSR it was the decision
of top authorities which opened the door for empirical work; while this was
preceded by some discussion, the turn also came very quickly. In Eastern Germany
the party remains very distrustful of what they consider revisionist academic
moves. They did give in to the general Eastern current toward empirical
research, but only very slowly. Therefore the literature reflects the issues involved
more clearly, almost like a slow motion film.
50. Soziale Wirklichkeit und soziologische Erkenntnis, Berlin, 1965.
51. Exceptions might be found in American studies of pressure groups or in British
studies on managerial groups.
52. ’L‘homme analyse par la sociologie’, op. cit.
53. The article appeared in Studia Filosoficzne 12, 1957. I quote from a German
translation which appeared in the Kolner Zeitschrift f. Soziologie und SoziaL
psychologie, 1959, p. 281.
54. It should be noted that Malewski deals only with pairs of variates at one time. A
more sophisticated formalization would use larger systems of interconnection

Sociology 157
dealing simultaneously with more than two variates. An outstanding example is
provided by Herbert Simon’s translation into mathematical form of two-variate
propositions by some sociological authors (Models of Man, New York, Wiley,
1957); his work is treated further in Chapter VIII (‘Mathematical Models and
Methods’) by R. BOUDON.
55. P. F. LAZARSFELD, ‘Public Opinion Research and the Classical Tradition’, Public
Opinion Quarterly, 1952; and C. W. MILLS, Zniages of Man, New York, George
Braziller, 1960.
56. G. KLAUS, Kybernetik in philosophischer Sichr, Berlin, Dietz Verlag, 1965.
57. The counts were done in such a way that a page number followed by one f was
weighted twice; a page number followed by two ffs weighed three times as compared
to a single page entry.
58. The author has been the senior editor of a volume on The Uses of Sociology,
sponsored by the American Sociological Association. In the introduction to this
volume he describes how much resistance he had to overcome before it was
possible even to raise openly the question of whether social research could be
useful for any praxis. As a compromise a ‘theory of utilization’ was worked out.
59. The I930 edition of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences devoted three pages to
the entry on functionalism, written by a philosopher. The new edition devotes 22
pages to the entries on functional analysis and authorship is divided between
a sociologist and an anthropologist.
60. Reprinted in On TheoreticalSociology - Five Essays, OldandNew, New York, Free
Press, 1967.
61. LOC. cit. p. 106.
62. Loc. cit. p. 105.
63. ‘The Myth of Functional Analysis in Sociology and Anthropology’, American
Sociological Review 24, 1959, p. 757.
64. The 4000 sociologists who teach sociology in American colleges have approximately
40 textbooks available which are almost all strongly influenced by functional
ideas. For my foreign colleagues I try to convey the climate thus created.
I already used the metaphor of Proteus, the Greek mythological figure, who could
change himself into any form or object. I might as well have referred to the Hydra,
who grew new heads whenever one was cut off. A little popular poem might best
describe the situation: When I was walking up the stairs, I saw a man who was
not there; he was not there again today- I wish, the hell, he would go away.
65. This is a purposefully crude wording; Ernest Nagel has givenaprecise formulation
by translating Merton’s paradigm into mathematical language. See his Logic
without Methaphysics, Free Press, 1956, Chapter IO.
66. W. J. GOODE, ‘The Protection of the Inept’, American Sociological Review 32 (I),
Feb. 1967, p. 5.
67. K. DAVIS, ‘Jealousy and Sexual Property: An Illustration’, in: Human Society,
New York, Macmillan, 1959, Chapter 7, pp. 175-194.
68. Sociology, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1960, p. 67. Chapter 3 of this textbook
gives the best introductory exposition of functional analysis. But even there the
term ‘system’ is used as if everyone knew what it connotes.
69. K. E. BOULDING, ‘General Systems Theory’, in: W. BUCKLEY (ed.), Modern
Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist, Chicago (Ill.), Aldine Publishing
Company, 1968, p. 3. (Thereafter called ‘Buckley Reader’.)
70. K. W. DEUTSCH, ‘Toward a Cybernetic Model of Man and Society’, in: W. BUCK-
LEY (ed.), op cit., p. 387.
71. A. RAPOPORT, ‘Mathematical Aspects of General Systems Analysis’, in: The
Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit. The lowest level in the third
group would probably be a thermostat connected with a TV set. The latter would
‘report’ that set at 76” (F.) people feel uncomfortable and the thermostat would
reset itself at 72’ (F.).
72. M. MAGOROL, ‘The Second Cybernetics: Deviation-amplifying Mutual Causal

158 P. F. Lazarsfeld
Processes’, in: W. BUCKLEY (ed.), op. cit., p. 304. The author states that there is a
clear difference between these positive feedbacks and the undamped oscillation and
explosion processes which have been studied over a long time. This is, of course,
a crucial point which at the moment I am not in a position to check.
73. K. W. DEUTSCH, op. cit. p. 389.
74. The ‘Buckley Reader’ includes a group of papers in which prominent natural
scientists discuss this point from two opposing points of view. Part 5 A ‘Cybernetics
and Purpose’, pp. 221-304.
75. W. BUCKLEY, Sociology and Modern Systems Theory, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.),
Prentice Hall, 1967.
76. While the founding fathers were not unaware of the problem, most authors now
take it from No. 3 in Merton’s paradigm.
77. L. COSER, The Functions of Social Conflict, Glencoe (Ill.), Free Press, 1956,
passim.
78. R. DAHRENDORF, ‘Die Funktionen sozialer Konflikte’,passim, in Pfade aus Utopia,
Munich, 1967. The reader might notice in the title of this paper the ambivalence I
have stressed above. Dahrendorf explicitly rejects Coser’s argument. But the
titles of the two publications are the same, indicating that the study of conflict
is a neglected but legitimate part of functional analysis.
79. The trend described here stresses the intrinsic elements in functionalism which
supposedly strengthen the conservative position. One author has a more sociological
interpretation. Renate Mayntz thinks that there is nothing logically compelling
in functional analysis which would keep its proponent in a conservative
posture. But, in fact, the majority are likely to overlook the really important elements
of conflicts. The sociologist of a Western country lives in a society which
has eliminated its worst evils, but in doing so has established bureaucracies which
would at critical moments resist major change. The average citizen is therefore in a
position in which he is neither mistreated nor really shares effective power. The
professional sociologist himself is in this situation. ‘The middle class position of
most sociologists and the occupational role they play results in the fact that they
neither have a great amount of power nor do they live in oppressive dependence.
They neglect the phenomenon of power because they have seldom contact with its
strong emanations’. R. MAYNTZ, ‘Soziologie in der Eremitage: Kritische Bemerkungen
zum Vorwurf des Konservativismus der Soziologie’, in: E. TOPITSCH (ed.),
Logik der Sozialwissenschaften, Berlin, Kiepenheuer, 1965 (First edition, 1957),
p. 526.
80. ‘A Theory of Role Strain’, American Sociological Review, 1960, p. 493.
81. A. W. GOULDNER, ‘The Norms of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement’,
American Sociological Review, 1960, p. 161. The notion of reciprocity has long
played a role among anthropologists. George Homans revived it for American
sociologists, but not in a functional context. PIAGET in an early essay stressed the
importance of exchange for social theory. His interesting observations have, as
far as I can see, not found attention. ‘Essai sur la thkorie des valeurs qualitatives
en sociologie statistique (synchronique)’, in : Publications de la FacultP de Sciences
Economiques de I’ Universitt de GenBve, Georg, I941 (Etudes Sociologiques, No.
32,1941). We started with Goode’s paper because of its greater simplicity, although
it was published slightly after Gouldner’s.
82. Gouldner makes the point that the element of time is usually neglected in functional
analysis. This, according to him, is especially true because ‘rarely, if ever,
systematic treatments include the beginnings of a social system as such‘. Here he
comes very near to the ‘kick-off stressed by Magorol (see footnote no. 72).
83. Exchange and Power in Social Life, New York, Wiley, 1964.
84. R. BROWN, Explanation in Social Science, Chicago, Aldine, 1963, pp. 109 ff; C. G.
HEMPEL, ‘The Logic of Functional Analysis’, in: M. BRODBECK (ed.), Readings
in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan, 1968, pp. 179-
210; A. MALEWSKI, Verhalten und Znteraktion, Tubingen, J. C. B. Mohr (Paul

Sociology I 59
Siebeck), 1967; A. L. STINCHCOMBE, Constructing Social Theory, New York,
Harcourt, Brace, 1968, pp. 85 ff.
85. Studien iiber Autoritiit und Familie, Studien aus dem Institut fur Sozialforschung
(Paris, Librarie Felix Alcan, 1936).
86. It is impossible to translate the feeling of German in which this and all subsequent
papers by Adorno are written. The length of the sentences, the rhythm of the
words, and the piling up of nouns - often the same noun repeated with slightly
different meanings - has an hypotic effect on the reader which might well explain
some of the attraction his publications have today for many young German stu-
dents.
87. Zeitschrvt fur Sozialforscliung 6, 1937, p. 245.
88. H. MARCUSE, Reason and Revolution, Boston, Beacon Press, 1960, pp. 258-323.
89. For American readers this was an amusing allusion to a popular Protestant theologian
who preached the ‘power of positive thinking’.
90. In recent years Marcuse has ceased to be an historian of ideas and instead has
become a political prophet who has influenced German students directly, and
students in other countries indirectly. It is easily understandable that someone who
is against injustice, poverty and war would feel comforted and stimulated by the
undertow of critical sociology. While Marcuse’s recent pamphlet on One Dimensional
Man has gone through many editions in many languages, it can hardly be
included in a survey of sociological trends.
91. At one point he says that empirical social research accepts ‘was die Welt aus uns
gemacht hat falschlich fur die Sache selbst’. Such a sentence could not be understood
without Marcuse’s detailed discussion of what Hegel meant when he said
that the dialectic method brings out the true nature of the objects it analyzes.
92. ‘This is the symphony which Master Schubert never finished.’
93. Empirisclie Sozialforscfiung 1952, Institut zur Forderung offentlicher Angelegenheiten,
E.V., Frankfurt am Main.
94. T. W. ADORNO, ‘Soziologie und empirische Forschung’, in: E. TOPITSCH (ed.), op.
cif. It is difficult to interpret the changes in Adorno’s position. If one were to
apply his ‘distrustful’ technique one might say that in 1951 it was still profitable to
take an ‘American position’, while five years later the garb of the all-encompassing
philosophy was more likely to lead to the elite position he now holds. A friendlier
interpretation would be that the younger generation of German sociologists became
over-impressed by empirical methods and that Adorno felt he had to support
the embattled position of serious reflection. Very occasionally he still overcomes
the rigidity of his arguments by a truly dialectic move. The Kinsey report
according to him is on one hand a typical outgrowth of a statistical barbarism, but
at the same time deserves to be defended against old-fashioned humanists who
denounce it for ideological reasons.
95. ‘Interne Arbeitstagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Soziologie, Tubingen’,
Kolner Zeitschrifl f. Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 14 (z), 1962.
96. J. HABERMAS, ‘Analytische Wissenschafts-Theorie und Dialektik, in : E. TOPITSCH
(ed.), op. cif. Habermas plays an interesting role in German sociology. He is a
partisan of the Frankfurt persuasion without having belonged to the original
group. He did an excellent empirical study on students and politics but was not
successful in relating his findings to his general social analysis. He wrote an enlightening
book with much interesting material on historical changes in the notion
of public opinion. At the same time, he published a long monograph on the logic
of social sciences, which never refers to any historical or empirical investigation.
97. R. KONIG, ‘On Some Recent Developments in the Relation between Theory and
Research’, in: Transactions of the Fourth World Congress of Sociology, Vol. 11,
1959, PP. 275-290.
98. H. ALBERT (ed.), Theorie und Realitat, Tubingen, Mohr, 1964, and in: Handbuch
der empirischen Sozialforschung, Stuttgart, Euhe, 1967, pp. 38-64. The British
sociologist Bottomore in the new International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

160 P. F. Lazarsfeld
has a penetrating and informative entry on Marxist sociology. He too makes the
point that the Marxist heritage is split into a philosophical and empirical trend.
While he is not very explicit, I have the impression that he believes more in a mutual
interpenetration than either Frankfurt or Cologne does.
99. Dialectique et Sociologie, Paris, Flammarion, 1962.
100. I should here like to cite my article on ‘Administrative and Critical Communica-
tions Research: Studies in Philosophy and Social Sciences’, 1941, pp. 2-16, where
I tried to clarify the ideas of critical theory in a specific area. I undertook to spell
out ‘the operations into which critical communication research could be broken
down’. In retrospect, I do not think I was successful.
101. R.PINTO and M. GRAVITZ,
1964, P. 379.
Mithodes des Sciences Sociales, Paris, Librairie Dalloz,
102. M. BROADBECK (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, New York,
Macmillan, 1968.
103. J. PIAGET, Le Structuralisme. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1968, p. 86.
104. 3. GREENBERG, ‘Nature and Use of Linguistic Typologies’, International Journal
of American Linguistics 23 (2), April 1957.
105. See the introduction of E. J. HOBSBAWM to a new translation of MARX’S Pre-
Capitalist Economic Formation, New York, International Publishers, 1965.
106. W. KULA, ‘On the Typology of Economic Systems’, in: The Social Sciences:
Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp. 108-144.
107. K. A. WITTFOGEL, Oriental Depotism: a Comparative Study of Total Power, New
Haven-London, Yale University Press, 1957.
108. R. COULBORN (ed.)., Feudalism in History, Princeton (N.J.), Princeton University
Press, 1956.
109. The whole topic has been brought to my attention by the Polish Marxist, Professor
Sachs, rather late in the writing of this essay. The complex literature mentioned
here deserves much more detailed scrutiny than I can give it at this moment.
I IO. Parachuted Norwegian saboteurs, hidden in the mountains for many months.
requested a number of books; one of them was Lundberg‘s Social Research. As
mentioned in Section 111, empirical enquiries were frowned upon during the
Stalinist period in the socialist countries. Wherever the thaw set in, such studies
were started immediately, again mainly promoted by younger social scientists.
I I I. G. KISS, ‘History of the Development of Sociology in Hungary from I945’, The
American Sociologist 2 (3), Aug. 1967, p. 142; A. N. J. den HOLLANDER, ‘Sociology
in the Netherlands’, in: Contemporary Sociology in Western Europe and
America (Proceedings of the First International Congress of Social Sciences of
the Luigi Sturzo Institute, Rome, 5-10 September 1967), pp. 485-486; J. VIET,
‘Tendances rkcentes de la recherche sociologique en France’, in: ibid., p. 184;
E. ALLARDT, ‘Scandinavian Sociology’, Social Science Information 6 (4).
Aug. 1967, p. 225; Orientation Ginirale de la Recherche et Sociologie: RPponse de
I’dcadimie des Sciences de I’U.R.S.S. au Questionnaire d’Enqutte sur les Tendances
de la Recherche dans les Sciences de Z‘Homme, UNESCO document SS/3.24I.I/f/I3,
31 January 1967, p. 7.
I 12. See E. NARAGHI, ‘La sociologie et la sociktk en Iran’, Revue Francaise de Sociologie
8 (z), Apr./June 1967, p. 184.
I 13. S. SUMARDIAN, ‘Perkembangan Ilmu Sosiologi di Indonesia’ (the development of
sociology in Indonesia), in: M. MAKAGIANSAR and W. NITISASTRO (eds.), Research
di Indonesia, 1945-1965 (research in Indonesia, I 945-1965), Vol. IV, Economics,
Social and Cultural Sciences, Balai Pustaka, Ministry of National Research of
the Republic of Indonesia, 1965, pp. 349-350.
op. cit. ; Jean DUVIGNAUD, ‘La sociologie maghrkbine’, Cahiers Internationaux
de Sociologie 44, JanJJune 1968, p. 141.
‘Italian Sociology within the Framework of Contemporary Sociolo-
I 14. NARAGHI,
I 15. F. LEONARDI,
gy’, in: Contemporary Sociology ..., op. cit. pp, 52-53.
116. 0. MANDIE, ‘The Present State of Sociology and its Development in Yugoslavia’,

Sociology 161
in: Contemporary Sociology ..., op. cit., p. 443; as an example, the Institute of
Sociology and Philosophy of the University of Ljubljana submitted to UNESCO a
list of research projects which included no less than five dealing with self-management.
117. G. CARLSSON, ‘Sociology in Sweden’, in: Contemporary Sociology ..., op. cit.,
P. 565.
118. ALLARDT, op cit., p. 230.
119. Ibid., p. 235.
120. P. DE BIE, ‘La sociologie en Belgique’, in: Contemporary Sociology ..., op. cit.,
p. 115.
121. T. CAPLOW, ‘Sociology in the Netherlands: Problems and Opportunities’, Mens
en Maatschappij 40 (6), Nov./Dec. 1965, p. 429.
122. L. ZEA, ‘Sociology in Contemporary Mexico’, in: Contemporary Sociology ...,
op. cit., p. 919.
I 23. Ibid.
124. T. H. MARSHALL, ‘British Sociology Today’, in: Contemporary Sociology ...,
op. cit., p. 375.
125. Ibid., p. 367; see ranking of social stratification in table in M. D. CARTER, ‘Report
on a Survey of Sociological Research in Britain’, The Sociological Review 16 (I),
March 1968, p. 15.
126. Ibid.: the sociology ofeducation leads the list of different topics or fields of interest
to sociologists.
127. A. LITTLE, ‘Sociology in Britain Since 1945’. Social Science Information 2 (2).
July 1963, p. 80.
128. See, for example, A. TOURAINE, La Conscience OuvriBre, Paris, Editions du Seuil,
1966.
129. L. ROSENMAYER (ed.), Sociology in Austria, Graz/Cologne, Herman Bohlaus
Nachf., 1966. p. 9.
130. ALLARDT, op. cit., p. 231.
131. Ibid., p. 235.
132. CAPLOW, op. cit., p. 430.
133. DEN HOLLANDER, op. cit., p. 489. However, den Hollander has pointed to the
emergence of theoretical concern among young Dutch sociologists; in this regard
see also, A. C. ZIJDERVELD, ‘History and Development of Dutch Sociological
Thought’, Social Research 33 (I), Spring 1966, p. 124.
134. DEN HOLLANDER, op. cit., p. 490.
135, Ibid., p. 489.
136. DE BIE, op. cit., p. 130.
137. C. C. MOSKOS, Jr., ‘Research in the “Third World”’, Trans-Action 5 (7), June
1968, p. 2.
138. NARAGHI, op. cit., p. 187.
139. I. AHMAD, ‘Note on Sociology in India’, The American Sociologist I (5), Nov.
1966, p. 224.
140, M. AFSARUDDIN, ‘Report of the Chairman: Problems of Social Research in East
Pakistan’, in: M. AFSARUDDIN (ed.), Sociology and Social Research in Pakistan,
Dacca, The Pakistan Sociological Association (East Pakistan Unit), 1963,
p. 136.
141, M. S. JILLANI, ‘Presidential Address [to the First All-Pakistan Sociology Seminar]’,
in: Sociology and Social Research ..., op. cit., pp. 33-34.
142. W. PETERSEN, ‘Some Animadversions on the Americanization of World Sociology’,
Mens en Maatschappij 40 (6), Nov./Dec. 1965, p. 458.
143. M. HABIBULLAH, ‘Some Problems of Socio-Economic Research in Rural Setting’,
in: Sociology and Social Research ..., op. cit., pp. 41-49.
144, Ibid., p. 46.
145. Ibid., p. 47.
146. AHMAD, loc. cit.

162 P. F. Lazarsfeld
147. See, for example, ‘Sociology’, in: H. KABIR, et al., m e Teaching of the Social
Sciences in India 1947-67, Delhi, Universal, 1968, pp. 517-39.
148. A. ZEMPLENI and H. COLLOMB, ‘Sur la position mediatrice et le domaine propre
de la psychologie sociale dans 1’Afrique actuelle’, The Journal of Social Issues 24,
(2), April 1968, p. 58.
149. Ibid.
150. J. KOLAJA, ‘Sociology in Romania’, The American Sociologist 3 (3), Aug. 1968, p.
241.
151. DEN HOLLANDER, op cit., p. 483; CAPLOW, op. cit., p. 429.
152. Polish Academy of Sciences, Department of Social Sciences, Replies to the Unesco
Questionnaire concerning the Principal Trends of Research in the Sciences of Man
(as elaborated by Z. Kowalewski), typewritten, 1967, pp. 110-11. (Further references
to replies from other bodies to the same questionnaire will be referred to as
Replies to the Unesco Questionnaire.)
153. ALLARDT, op. cit., p. 234.
154. LEONARDI, op. cit., p. 59.
155. KISS, op. cit., p. 142.
156. CARLSSON, op. cit., pp. 568-569.
157. CARTER, op. cit., p. 35, p. 38.
158. A. P. RODRIGUEZ, ‘Sociology in Spain’, in: Contemporary Sociology ..., op. cif.,
PP. 549-556
159. DEN HOLLANDER, op cit., p. 489.
150. R. OZANAM DE ANDRADE, ‘Theory and Methodology in Contemporary Brazilian
Sociology’, in: Contemporary Sociology ..., op. cit., p. 834.
161. CARTER, op. cii., p. 39.
162. RODRIGUEZ, op. cit.. pp. 551-552.
163. KISS, op. cit., p. 143.
164. A. SCHUTZ, Collected Papers, Vol. U, The Hague, 1964, p, 115, quoted in:
ZIJDERVELD, op. cit., pp. 129-30.
165. G. A. KOURVETARIS and C. C. MOSKOS, Jr., ‘A Report on Sociology in Greece’,
The American Sociologist 3 (3), Aug. 1968, p. 234. Although a chair of sociology
exists at Panteios Supreme School it remains vacant at present.
166. LEONARDI, op. cit., p. 37.
167. M. BASSAND, ‘La sociologie en Suisse’, Social Science Information 4 (2), June
1965, p. 116.
168. CARLSSON, op. cit., p. 564.
169. Social Science Committee of the Hungarian National Commission for UNESCO,
Replies to the Unesco Questionnaire, typewritten, 1965.
170. Academie Bulgare des Sciences, Rdponses au Questionnaire d’Enqutte de I’ Unesco,
typewritten, 1966.
171. Australian National Advisory Committee for UNESCO, Replies to the Unesco
Questionnaire, typewritten, 1966.
172. Department of Social Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Replies to the
Unesco Questionnaire, typewritten, 1966.
173. H. FRIIS, ‘Sociology in Denmark‘, in: Contemporary Sociology ..., op. cit., p. 153.
174. M. A. DE FRANZ, ‘Implanting the Social Sciences -a Review of Unesco’s Endeavours’,
International Social Science Journal 21 (9, 1969, p. 410.
175. HABIBULLAH, op. cit., p. 48.
176. Instituto Equatoriano de Sociologia y Tkcnica ‘IESTIS’, Replies to the Unesco
Questionnaire, UNESCO document SS/3.244.1[f/4, I February 1966, p. 2.
177. Ibid., p. 5.
178. H. MOL, ‘Sociologyin Australia’, The American Sociologist 3 (z), May 1968, p. 147.
179. Institute of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Replies to the Unesco Questionnaire,
typewritten, 1967.
180. J. G. PERISTIANY, ‘Sociology in Greece’, in: Contemporary Sociology ..., op. cit.,
p. 264.

Sociology 163
I 81. A. PAPANASTASIOU, Meletai, Logoi, Arthra (studies, speeches, articles), quoted in
ibid., p. 273.
182. KISS, loc. cit.
183. G. GERMANI, ‘Sociology in Argentina’, in: Contemporary Sociology ..., p. 757.
184. Historisch-politische Aufsatze, Berlin 1914, Vol. I, pp. 203-204.
185. Other examples of reformulating classical literature into modern sociological
terms can be found in H. L. ZETTERBERG, On Theory and Verification in Sociology
(3rd enlarged edition), Totowa (N.J.), Bedminster Press, 1965.
186. C. Y. GLOCK (ed.), Survey Research in the Social Sciences, New York, Russell
Sage Foundation, 1967.
187. J. STOETZEL, Without the Chrysanthemum and the Sword, New York, Columbia
University Press, 1955.
I 88. F. R. KLUCKHOHN and F. STRODTBECK, Variations in Value Orientations, Evanston
(Il.), Row, Peterson, 1961.
189. Cf. Chapter VIII: ‘Mathematical Models and Methods’, by R. BOUDON.
190. Tracing the influence of sociology in other social sciences necessarily gives a onesided
picture. One should expect a reverse flow, and this indeed is very visible.
The whole trend toward macrosociology was certainly reinforced by the criticism
that sociologists had become a-historical. The models built by economists have
influenced the beginnings of a mathematical sociology. The sociologist’s somewhat
vague talk about systems is slowly being sifted through the greater rigour of
the literature on simultaneous equations and cybernetics. The migration of conceptual
ideas such as exchange has already been mentioned. Some basic ideas like
reference groups were started in social psychology and then promoted to a major
position by sociologists.
Literature on the more general relations between ‘Sociology and the Other
Social Sciences’ is vast; a systematic review by Smelser is included in a book on
The Uses of Sociology sponsored by the American Sociological Association: P.
F. Lazarsfeld, W. H. Sewell, H. L. Wilensky, eds., New York, BasicBooksInc.,
1967.
191. K. YOUNG and L. FREEMAN, ‘Social Psychology and Sociology’, in: H. BECKER
and A. BOSKOFF (eds.), Modern Sociological Theory in Continuity and Change,
New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1957, pp. 550-573.
192. J. STOETZEL, ‘La psychologie des relations interpersonnelles’, in : G. GURVITCH
(ed.), Traite‘de Sociologie, Vol. 11, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1960, pp.
339-352.
193. F. BOURRICAUD, ‘Psychologie des groupes’, in: G. GURVITCH (ed.), op. cit., pp.
353-363.
194. H. LEFEBVRE, ‘Psychologie des classes sociales’, in: G. GURVITCH (ed.), op. cit.,
PP. 364-386.
195. W. E. MOORE, ‘Social Structure and Behavior’, in: The Handbook of Social
Psychology, 2nd ed., Vol. IV, Reading, (Mass.), Addison-Wesley, 1969.
196. A. MALEWSKI, Verhalten undznteraktion. Translated from the Polish by W. Wehrstedt.
Tiibingen, J. C. B. Mohr, 1967.
197. E. ARONSON and J. M. CARLSMITH, ‘Experiments in Social Psychology’, in: The
Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 11, 1968, op. cit.
198. S. MILGRAM, ‘Behavioral Study of Obedience’, Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology 67, 1963, pp. 371-378.
199. S. SCHACHTER, Anxiety and the Need for Affiliation, New York, J. Wiley, 1958.
zoo. S. SCHACHTER, ‘The Interaction of Cognitive Physiological Determinants of Emotional
State’, in: L. BERKOWITZ (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology,
Vol. 11, New York, Academic Press, 1964.
201. R. ROSENTHAL, Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research, New York, Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1966.
202. M. DEUTSCH, ‘Field Theory’, in: The Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. I, 1968,
op. cit., p. 455.

164 P. F. Lazarsfeld
203. H. H. HYMAN and E. SINGER, ‘Introduction’, in: H. H. HYMAN and E. SINGER
(eds.), Reference Group Theory and Research, New York, The Free Press, 1968.
204. M. ARGYLE and A. KENDON, ‘The Experimental Analysis of Social Performance’,
in: L. BERKOWITZ (ed.), op. cit., Vol. III, 1967, pp. 55-98.
205. S. MOSCOVICI, ‘Communication Processes and the Properties of Language’, in :
L. BERKOWITZ (ed.), op. cit., Vol. 111, pp. 225-270.
206. R. C. WYLIE, The Self Concept, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1961.
207. M. H. KUHN and T. S. MCPARTLAND, ‘An Empirical Investigation of Self-
Attitudes’, in : J. MANIS and B. METZER (eds.), Symbolic Interaction, Boston,
Allyn and Bacon, 1967, pp. 120-133. As this report goes to press I become aware
of a group of British psychologists who are working on similar lines. The basic
statement is in: G. A. KELLY, The Psychology of Personal Constructs, New York,
Norton, 1955.
208. H. A. MULPORD and W. W. SALISBURY, ‘Self Conceptions in a General Population’,
in: J. MANIS and B. METZER (eds.), op. cit., pp. 268-278.
209. R. C. SIMPSON and I. H. SIMPSON, ‘The Psychiatric Attendant: Development of an
Occupational Self-Image in a Low-Status Occupation’, American Sociological
Review 22, April 1957, pp. 217-220.
210. C. H. COATES and R. J. PELLEGRIN, ‘Executives and Supervisors: Contrasting
Self-Conceptions of Each Other’, in: J. MANIS and B. METZER (eds.), op. cit., pp.
423-428.
21 I. M. ROSENBERG, Society and the Adolescent Self-image, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 1945.
212. W. J. MCGUIRE, ‘The Current Status of Cognitive Theories’, in: S. FELDMAN (ed.),
Cognitive Consistency, New York and London, Academic Press, 1966.
213. A. MALEWSKI, Verhalten und Interaktion, op. cit.
214. R. B. ZAJONC, ‘Cognitive Theories in Social Psychology’, in: The Handbook of
Social Psychology, Vol. I, op. cit.
215. A. R. COHEN, Attitude Change and Social Influence, New York, Basic Books,
1964.
216. L. FESTINGER, H. RIECKEN and S. SCHACHTER, When Prophecy Fails, University
of Minnesota Press, 1956.
217. Discussed in detail in their essay cited in note 197.
218. L. BERKOWITZ, ‘Social Motivation’, in: The Handbook of Social Psychology,
Vol. III, 1969, op. cit.
219. 0. G. BRIM, JR. and S. WHEELER, Socialization after Childhood: Two Essays, New
York, J. Wiley, 1966.
220. K. LUSCHER, Der Process der beruflichen Sozialisation, Stuttgart, Ferdinand Enke
Verlag, 1968.
221. R. Fox, ‘Training for Uncertainty’, in: The Student Physician, 2nd ed., Cambridge,
Harvard University Press, 1968.
222. The Personality and Labor, International Congress of Psychology, Symposium 38,
Moscow, 1966.
223. C. VINCENT, ‘Socialization Data in Research on Young Married, Acta Sociologicu
8, August 1964.
224. K. TOMAN, Familien KonsteIlation, Miinchen, Beck, 1965.
225. W. GOODE, After Divorce, Glencoe (Ill.), The Free Press of Glencoe, 1956.
226. L. ROSENMAYER, ‘Soziologie des Alters’, in: Handbuch der empirischen Sozialforschung,
Vol. 11, Stuttgart, Enke, 1969.
227. B. G. GLASER and A. L. STRAUSS, Time for Dying, Chicago (Ill.), AldinePublishing
Co., 1968.
228. C. BUHLER, Psychologie des rnenschlichen Lebenslaufs, Leipzig, Hirzel, 1932.
229. The quotations are taken from a paper by H. S. BECKER who has provided a very
succinct presentation of his position in ‘The Self and Adult Socialization’, in: E.
NORBECK, D. PRICE-WILLIAMS and W. M. MCCORD (eds.), The Study OfPersonality,
New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968, p. 194.

Sociology I 65
230. G. A. DE Vos, ‘Achievement and Innovation in Culture and Personality’, in: E.
NORBECK, et. al. (eds.), op. cit., p. 340
23 I. Eg., A. TAKHMASIB, The Change of the Azerbaidzleanese Womens’ Personality
under New Social Conditions.
232. A background paper for the present report has been prepared by CHARLES
TURNER; it is available by writing to Columbia University’s Bureau of Applied
Social Research, 605 W. 115th Street, New York, N.Y. 10027.
233. R. BROWN, Social Psychology, New York, Free Press, 1965 (Chap. XIII, ‘Group
Dynamics’, pp. 654 ff.)
234. A sophisticated example is C. FAUCHEUX and S. MOSCOVICI, ‘Etude sur la cr6ativitb
des groupes: tlche, structure des communications et rkussite’, in: P. F.
LAZARSFELD and R. BOUDON (eds.), Vocabulaire des Sciences Sociales (Vol. I.,
Collection ‘Mbhodes de la Sociologie’), Paris, Mouton & Co., 1965.
235. H. H. KELLEY and J. W. THIBAUT, ‘Group Problem Solving’, in: The Handbook of
Social Psychology, Vol. IV, op. cit. These authors also provide further details on
the emerging aspects of problem-solving which have been alluded to in the preceding
paragraphs without special reference.
236. M. MULDER, Group Structure Motivation and Group Performance, The Hague-
Paris, Mouton & Co., 1963.
237. C. A. GIBE, ‘An International View of the Emergence of Leadership’, Australian
Journal ofPsychoZogy IO, pp. 101-1 IO.
238. R. F. BALES, ‘The Equilibrium Problem in Small Groups’, in: T. PARSONS, R. F.
BALES and E. A. SHILS (eds.), Working Papers in the Theory of Action, Glencoe
(Il.). The Free Press of Glencoe, 1953, pp. 111-161.
239. While it belongs to an earlier period, one should always come back to the classical
work by F. MEREI. First he allowed play groups of children to develop their own
leadership structure and playing norms ; he then changed the natural leaders between
groups and observed how the ensuing combination of leadership and
group forms (Human Relations, 1949).
240. Something of this kind has been done in the field of training and counseling, but I
do not feel competent to judge its merit: L. P. BRADFORD, J. R. GIBB and K. D.
BENNE (eds.), T-Group Theory and Laboratory Method Innovation in Re-Education,
New York, John Wiley, 1964.
241. The quotations are taken from C. W. BACKMAN and P. E. SECOURD (eds.), Problems
in Social Psychology. In this carefully edited collection further examples related
to the present topic can be found.
242. A brief summary can be found in the book cited in note 201.
243. While they are not based on experiment, the numerous brilliant essays by Erving
Goffman provide many pertinent examples.
244. P. H. MAUCORPS and R. BASSOUL, ‘Le dialogue du moi et d’autrui’, and P. F.
LAZARSFELD and R. BOUDON, ‘Remarques sur la signification formelle de deux
indices’, in: P. F. LAZARSFELD and R. BOUDON (eds.), op. cit.
245. R. D. LAING, H. PHILLIPSON and A. R. LEE, Interpersonal Perception, London,
Tavistock Publications; New York, Springer, 1966.
246. J. MAISONNEUVE,
La Dynamique des Groupes, Paris, Presses universitaires de France,
1968.
247. P. R. HOFSTATTER, Gruppendynamik. Die Kritik der Massenpsychologie, Hamburg,
Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1957.
248. W. J. SPROTT, Human Groups, Baltimore, Pelican Books, 1962.
249. D. ANZIEU and J. Y. MARTIN, La Dynamique des Groupes Restreints, Paris, Presses
universitaires de France, 1968.
250. J. STOETZEL, La Psychologie Sociale, Paris, Flammarion, 1963.
251. H. TAJFEL,
Psychology, Vol. 11, op. cit.
‘Social and Cultural Factors in Perception’, in: The HandbookofSocial

CHAPTER II
Political science
W. J. M. MACKENZIE
I. INTRODUCTION
I. Origins
In Chapter I, Professor Lazarsfeld referred to sociology as being in a sense a
residuary legatee, the surviving part of a very general study, out of which spe-
cializations have successively been shaped.
The same might be said of political science. In the West the first deliberate
and reflective studies of political life were made in Greece at the end of the fifth
century BC, and in the succeeding century. The histories of Herodotus and
Thucydides, some of the pamphlets attributed to Xenophon, above all the nor-
mative and empirical studies of Plato and Aristotle were among the direct
ancestors of contemporary political science. Parallel examples are to be found
in the intellectual history of China, India and Islam. It seems that at certain
stages in the development of great societies questions of legitimacy, power and
leadership assume supreme importance; and intense intellectualeffort, using the
best analytical tools available, is devoted to the study of man as brought to a
focus in the study of politics.
It is in this sense that Aristotle correctly defined politics as ‘the master sci-
ence’, in his day and in his philosophical system. What he meant by ‘politics’ was
something wider than political science as now pursued; perhaps nothing less
than the comprehensive study of man in his moral and social relations. But
built into the assumptions of the Aristotelian study of man was the conviction
that man is primarily a ‘political animaYYz and that economic and social rela-
tions are conditioned by politics and are significant (once a subsistence level
has been attained) primarily in so far as they affect politics. It is this assumption
which distinguishes proto-politics (as one might call the work of the precursors
of modem political science) from proto-sociology or proto-economics, for which
man is primarily a social animal or primarily a producing and consuming ani-
mal. These views of man overlap and are interwoven in our own societies; and
the growth of political science has been concerned in part with defining and
disentangling the political threads in what we now recognize to be a complex
interdependent structure, continually in process of change.

Political science 167
2. Objectivity
Political science cannot develop except in certain limited intellectual and social
conditions; there must be an established practice of debate based on analysis
and observation, and it must be accepted that there exist political questions open
to settlement by argument rather than by tradition or by authority. In this
sense political science is conditioned by political society.
But in so far as it exists, it is committed to the maintenance of strict intellectual
standards, and there is no special problem about the objectivity of political
science, as distinct from that of other disciplines. All scientific disciplines develop
within society, and their findings feed back into society. Political science differs
not in respect of the conditions of objectivity but in respect of the nature of its
material. From ‘proto-politics’ were carved out areas in which it is relatively
easy to adopt strict criteria of definition and verification (such as demography,
linguistics, ‘praxeology’ [or micro-economics], and some areas of psychology).
This has left political science with problems recalcitrant to the rigorous use of
scientific method, and political scientists are in general well aware of the precariousness
of their own situation. Their data are hard to grasp and to interpret,
their conclusions are not independent of the setting in which inquiry is
conducted, and their findings wil (if they are politically important) ‘feed back‘
into politics with the force of recommendations. This recognition is not incompatible
with the scrupulous observance of strict rules of method; indeed, it is
essential to sound method that such risks be consciously perceived and provided
for. It is not surprising that much recent debate about the limits of human rationality
in politics should have been disguised as discussion of method: the
question ‘what proves what? is a political question if it is put in a political
context.
II. DELIMITATION OF SCOPE
Prima facie, there are three ways of delimiting the range and scope of political
science: by subject matter, by purpose, and by methods. These categories are
interdependent, and can best be regarded as dimensions. It is a historical observation
(and perhaps it is also true analytically) that political science is inseparable
from political life. We have at present a divided world, ruled by diverse
states, ideologies and interests. It is not therefore surprising that the discipline
lacks unity. Nevertheless a world ‘polity’ or political system (rather than a
world ‘state’) is foreshadowed or sketched out, and it may be possible for
political science to grow towards unity in the study of world politics, as in
previous phases it grew towards unity in the study of the ~61~5, or the empire,
or the State. One can now recognize (at a conference of the International Political
Science Association, for instance) that we have moved a long way towards
universality in concepts, methods and controversies: nevertheless there remain
marked differences in the structure of political science as between different
states and different academic traditions. To some extent, these differences can be

168 W. J. M. Mackenzie
stated (though not measured) in terms of these three dimensions; subject
matter, purpose, and the fundamentals of method.
The plan of this essay is to take each of these dimensions in turn, to analyse
its implications, and to point to controversies. It will then be possible to indi-
cate briefly the ways in which they are interdependent.
Finally, the main themes of research in progress will be indicated as compre-
hensively as possible. But the scope of political science is now so great that a
research review can be given here only in a very summary form. The object of
this essay is, as it were, to establish a map grid, not to fill in the details of the
map.
A. Subject matter
I. The place of definition
The definition of a science’s subject-matter comes normally at the end, not at
the beginning, of its inquiry. Nevertheless, in textbook exposition of the com-
pleted inquiry it would be proper to begin with a statement of its scope, framed
carefully after the event. In political science some authors do this, some do not;
among the former there are astonishing discrepancies in definition. For instance,
to take two extremely influential American authors, Parsons and Easton;’ the
former describes politics as the instrumental aspect of social organization (the
deliberate creation of purposive social structures), the latter defines politics as
‘the authoritative allocation of values’. A Marxist definition might accept
Parsons’s exposition so far as it goes; but it would adopt also the common
nineteenth-century view that political organization is ultimately concerned
with the application of compulsive force, and it would treat the political sector
or aspect of society as relatively subordinate. Professor Duverger (in his Intro-
duction ri lapolitique, Paris, Gallimard, 1964) offers a definition which is related
to Marxist thought yet goes beyond it: ‘in any society, organized power, the
institutions of command and control’. This in turn overlaps with what is perhaps
the most popular deiinition in England at present, that of Oakeshott, that
politics is the process of ‘attending to the general arrangements of a society’.
But Oakeshott’s definition also is part of a complex system of ideas, and it
would be impossible to discuss it adequately without explaining its intellectual
context as a subtle adaptation of the idealist tradition.
These examples are enough to show that if we attempted to define politics
here we should either accept a commitment at the outset of the argument or we
should be involved in the whole inquiry of political science, normative and de-
scriptive. It seems wiser to adopt MacIntyre’s dictum, formulated in relation to
ethics :
‘This is why it would be dangerous and not just pointless, to begin these
studies with a definition which would carefully delimit the field of inquiry.’4
It is safer to say that, so far as sociological, historical and linguistic inquiries
have gone, they have shown that in all but the very smallest societies there is
some concept of a function of politics or government, and generally also some

Political science 169
specialization of r61e. But social systems and the languages appropriate to
them vary greatly; and there are ambiguities even within a simple language. For
instance, in English the words ‘politics’ and ‘government’ have distinct usages
in ordinary speech, and probably it is necessary to use both words to convey to
a naive English-speaker the nature of the field studied by political scientists.
But it is quite likely that the position is a little different in other European
languages, each embodying a variant of a single European political tradition.
The differences clearly wil be greater if one goes outside Europe to other
political traditions, whether of great empires or of small tribal societies.
The science therefore starts not with a definition, but with a methodological
assumption, that all human societies have an aspect which can be recognized as
political in some sense. It seems intuitively certain that all societies possess
structures of kinship, language and technology: it is not so certain that all
societies have a political aspect. Hence it is possible to dream of a society without
politics. But a little reflection shows that that dream is itself the expression of a
political aspiration.
2. statecraft, and Politics without States
Abjuring definitions, we find nevertheless that there is a preliminary question
regarding scope which arises irrespective of definition. It can perhaps best be
explained as follows:
Statecraft. Until recently, political science as an academic subject was essen-
tially part of the Western tradition in education and in government. Its growth
can be traced through the study of Greek city-states (seen by the Greeks as con-
trasted with an alien world of empires and tribes); of the transition from Roman
Republic to Roman Empire; of the assertions of ‘universal’ empire and ‘uni-
versal‘ church in the Middle Ages; of the Resaissance cities which claimed the
inheritance of the ancient world; of the emergence of modern States and of the
modern State system in the period of the Reformation. The central topic of
Western political science has in this respect been ‘the State’: taking that much-
disputed word as referring to the institution which in each period claimed juri-
dical and political supremacy. This sort of political science can be described
most readily as Staatswissenschaft, for which an English equivalent might be
Statecraft. It is a historically limited study, in that it deals only with political
institutions which claim to be comprehensive and final within a given territory,
and to that extent it is ‘culture-bound’.
Nevertheless, it is a study of enormous scope. The European system of
States has developed into a world system of States, conceding parity of status to
Asian and African States, which now outnumber Western States; and the world
system comprises complex institutions as well as complex political relation-
ships. The study of States can, indeed it must, break loose from its Western
origins, and look at the world system without bias towards any single centre of
culture. There is enough here to engage all the energies of the profession, in
various different forms of study.
Politics without States. Nevertheless, this tradition of Statecraft is challenged
by the view that it is necessary to pursue the study of politics wherever politics

170 W. J. M. Mackenzie
is to be found, and that it is to be found everywhere, at all levels, in all socie-
ties, organizations and social groups.
There are at least four reasons for this challenge:
I. First, there is the task of understanding new States. At least half the mem-
bers of the United Nations represent societies where the forms of a Western
State have not grown from within, by mutations of a continuous tradition, but
have been imposed or chosen by a political act of will. The match between
political and social institutions is imperfect, and the newly-created State is not
intelligible except in relation to the politics of a pre-existing social structure;
the structure (for instance) of languages and castes in India, of tribes in Africa,
of Islam in all Muslim countries.
2. Secondly, there is the transformation of the relations between State and
society in the West. One need not discuss here the vexed question of the conver-
gence of socialist and capitalist States.5 It is sutlicient to note that it is now hard
to draw a practical (or even a juristic) line between State organs and other public
organizations, or between large public organizations and the growing number
of large private organizations which are ‘affected with a public interest’ because
of their size and their strategic positions in economy and society. The study of
public administration, of the public bureaucracy, is an essential part of the
study of the State: but boundaries have become blurred, and (for instance) it is
no longer possible, anywhere in the world, to distinguish ‘the politics of State
industry’ from ‘the politics of all industry’, ‘the politics of State education’
from ‘the politics of all education’, and so forth.
The politics of States cannot now avoid concern with the administrative
study of large organizations, and with the economics of large and small enter-
prises.
3. Thirdly, there is the challenge posed by the changing environment of the
social sciences. On the whole, the central point of the study of Statecraft in the
nineteenth century was juristic. This was not so before the development of
Roman law and the Roman Empire: Plato and Aristotle had no experience of
a specialized and sophisticated legal system, and their concerns were philo-
sophical and empirical, not juristic. The juristic element in political study has
waxed and waned in various periods, and its strength varies in different coun-
tries. But even in the United Kingdom and the United States of America, coun-
tries relatively free from the tradition of Roman law and of Napoleonic codi-
fication, much nineteenth century discussion of politics was conducted in terms
of legal sovereignty and of constitutional forms. Marx and Engels were not
perhaps the first to indicate that State forms are given substance only by their
economic and social infra-structure: but the argument was set on its feet only
by their theoretical power and massive historical documentation. There were
also nineteenth century beginnings of modern sociology, social psychology,
social anthropology, more or less independent of Marxism. By 1914, though
the juristic tradition was still powerful and fruitful (one might mention Gierke,
Maitland, Duguit, Pound), the Juristenmonopol was (in an intellectual sense)
broken, and the facts of the case broadened the discipline and involved virtually
all the social sciences in the study of States.

Political science 171
4. It should be added (fourthly) (though this is to some extent implied in the
preceding paragraphs) that the progress made in the study of small groups, in
different settings and different societies, has also proved relevant to political
science. It is natural first to approach the politics of great States through the
study of great movements and of great social forces; but there has of late been
a re-discovery of the obvious truth that at the top of any political system,
however great, the decisive interactions are those of participants in a small faceto-face
group: for instance, on many occasions the group consisting of Lenin
and his closest collaborators; and that at the bottom of the system, face-toface
personal communications among ‘little men’ play as big a part as the
transmission of political ‘messages’ as do massive State installations. Political
scientists are glad to adopt findings and methods from social psychology, microsociology,
socio-linguistics, and social anthropology, as they do from the macrosociology
of great societies.
3. The trend of interest
Thus strong forces are drawing political science away from Statecraft towards
the study of politics without States. Indeed, it is not difficult for a political
scientist to imagine a radical boundary revision among the social sciences. There
might for instance emerge a logical discipline (including praxeology or micro-
economics, as well as the study of efficiency in administration); a statistical
discipline (covering all that is involved by the use of ‘variate language’ in any
context); a linguistic and semantic discipline; a discipline concerned with
biological factors (demography handles some aspects of this) ; a discipline con-
cerned with physiology, in particular with the physiology of the brain in relation
to psychology and linguistics; a discipline concerned with ethology and with the
study of relationships in face-to-face groups. This continued process of ‘speciali-
zing out’ might serve to raise technical standards: at the same time, it would
force a rapprochement between politics, economics, sociology, and social
psychology at the ‘macro’ level, the level at which problems are very urgent
and very large, but indeterminate, so that the most difficult aspect of the matter
is to determine how to break problems down and to specialize with a view to
solution. Needless to say, this common residuum, this ‘science of great issues’,
would also include the problems of philosophy and ideology, which are expelled
from, or at least neutralized within, the sciences committed wholly to the ri-
gorous use of statistics and experiment.
Such a process of specialization would be consistent with past experience and
perhaps with scientific logic. The ‘hardest’ elements in each of the great disci-
plines would be linked together by their technical content; and the r61e of the
residual discipline or disciplines would be to handle in co-operation the uni-
versal questions of human society, each from its own point of view, in politics,
economics, sociology and psychology. We should then no longer need to ask
what lines divide political science, political economy, political sociology, and
the psychology of political behaviour. The question would no longer be meaning-
ful for political science if that discipline extended to the discussion of politics
wherever it is found.

172 W. J. M. Mackenzie
A reorganization on these lines is logical but would have at least one intel-
lectual disadvantage. The present limitation of political science to the study of
States and of matters which arise out of their organization is legalistic and in
some senses arbitrary and artificial. The defmition of ‘State’ is a puzzle which
perhaps appeals at kst sight to lawyers rather than to social scientists. Never-
theless, political scientists, concentrating on State politics, are forced to learn
(at least in a rudimentary way) a rather large range of techniques, and to link
together philosophical and empirical interests. The ‘specialization out’ of these
parts of politics offering answerable questions6 might well have a bad effect on
the residual discipline. Political theory at present borders on political philos-
ophy; but both alike are disciplined and held back from metaphysical specula-
tion by their links with empirical work on the practice of politics. At the same
time, the continuing link between empirical work and very large political
questions serves to winnow out descriptive research which is scientifically or
practically trivial.
Certainly the flavour of modern political science is determined by this peculiar
‘mix’, and there is no doubt that the main body of opinion among recognized
political scientists tells strongly in favour of its retention. I quote from Professor
Karl Deutsch, a very wide-ranging political scientist (in this quotation he uses
‘political theory’-in contrast with ‘political philosophy’- to mean the conceptual
side of political science as a nomothetic discipline):
‘Political theory is not only a field of inquiry conceived in abstract thought. It
is also an organized body of human activity ... It forms a social instrument of
inquiry, including a pool of common memories, a pool of more or less expert
referees and reviewers, and an explicit or implied set of standards of quality and
relevance for judging new work. In all these respects, political theory is an estab-
lished discipline, in contrast to a mere adhoc field of interdisciplinary collabora-
tion. ..’7 Most political scientists would accept these conclusions, though not
necessarily for Professor Deutsch’s reasons; and a number of strong arguments
tell in this direction, that of the maintenance of the independence of political
science as a discipline ranging widely from a specified base.
First, there is his argument, based on a reading of recent work on the socio-
logy of science, that political science exists as an ‘invisible college’ of scholars
in communication, and that such an entity persists in so far as it is successful.
As seen from the United States of America, this looks avery strong argument
indeed; members of the discipline are numerous there, and they have a marked
consciousness of unity of interest in spite of internal differences. The discipline
is not so strong elsewhere, and there are great differences between countries;
nevertheless, the existence of an extended network can be felt in one’s own
work and on occasions such as the biennial congress of the International Politi-
cal Science Association.s
Secondly, there are the existing faculty arrangements in many countries.
Historically, Western political science has been as closely allied with philo-
sophy, law and history as with sociology, psychology and economics. There is
no doubt that it is now being drawn towards the latter group, but not without
resistance. The argument can be put at two levels; first, that in fact philosophy,

Political science 173
law and history are strong in the universities and cannot be overthrown; sec-
ondly, that it would be disastrous for the social sciences if they lost contact with
these older disciplines, and that political science is well qualified by its history
and its interests to maintain a bridge, over which there is continual traffic in both
directions.
Thirdly, it can be argued that political science (like sociology and economics
in their present forms) is based strongly on a field of interest. Students are
drawn to political science in the first instance by a commitment to the study of
States and the world system of States. With this driving force in their minds,
they are ready to learn that progress can only be made by mastering tools and
by collaborating with other disciplines, and they gain a wider understanding
and concern for what is ‘political’ in various social settings. A discipline of
political science which has a strong core of practical interest but is not narrowly
parochial can be valuable in linking the structure of the social sciences.
Finally, the problem of States and their future (and here I include all States,
capitalist and socialist, old and new) is so huge and of such dominating import-
ance to humanity that it requires nothing less than the service of a fully-organiz-
ed discipline.
4. Political science as a teaching discipline
It must be remembered (though it is outside the scope of the present inquiry)
that in some countries, though not in all, political science is as much a teaching
discipline as a research discipline. In America and Britain, for instance, per-
haps one in twenty (at most) of those who study political science as students
wil continue to practice it as research workers: the rest wil return to society at
large to hold positions of considerable importance both in government and in
teaching. All education contributes to socialization into a political culture?
but political science has in this respect rather a special responsibility, within its
own society and also in relation to the development of the world polity. All
science serves an international function : political science does so consciously,
in awareness of its own political situation.
My personal conclusion from these complex arguments is not a dogmatic
one; it would be disastrous to the development of thought if a clear disciplinary
boundary were drawn between political science and the other social sciences,
and I should indeed welcome a radical attack on the present disciplinary struc-
ture of the social sciences.
But disciplines are themselves social entities, and I think it is realistic to regard
the discipline of political science now as primarily a ‘statecraft’, in terms of its
traditions, and of the special demands made on its members.
B. Objectives
Political science rightly has a place in this inquiry into nomothetic disciplines
in the social sciences. Its character as a social science is determined by the fact
that it searches for laws and is to some extent successful in establishing them.

174 W. J. M. Mackenzie
But few political scientists would claim that political science is concerned with
laws only. It is certainly in some sense idiographic and normative, as well as
nomothetic.
I. Idiographic
Political science as Statecraft is concerned with a single unique entity, the
world system of States; and with about 130 States, each of which (whether
great or small) has grown in one special situation, has been influenced by the
personalities of individual leaders, and has developed its own characteristic
set of institutions. This does not exclude the use of scientific methods: the
earth sciences study the physical world as a unique entity, and explore quite
limited sections of it, one by one, for various practical purposes. A science such
as geology spans a wide range, with (at one extreme) the application of general
principles of physics and chemistry, (at the other extreme) detailed study of a
particular case in the attempt to define its character geologically.
Much line work has been done by political science in the study of special
cases, and the tradition continues. It involves close collaboration with history
and geography as well as with the other social sciences reported on in this
volume.
A political scientist studying a single country and framing an argument about
it will certainly be concerned to establish its historical and geographical unique-
ness, and this is perhaps a matter of art rather than of science. But he will also
look for the general in the particular, and this in two ways :
a) Each nation or country is unique, but it can be described (as can an indivi-
dual personality) only in terms of generalization about its behaviour. A nation
or individual is from this point of view a pattern of behaviour persisting through
time; knowledge of the pattern is usually acquired informally, and without
rigorous method, but it is nevertheless the basis of predictions which may be
confirmed or falsified. There are scientific problems of similar types about the
personalities of individuals and about the individuality of political cultures.
b) In the process of analysis, a political scientist draws upon a common
stock of concepts which are not specially the property of political science. These
conceptual tools may be formalized, as for instance in games theory, and in the
theory of information. More often they are relatively loose in texture - Festin-
ger on Cognitive Dissonance,1o Homans on The Human Group,I1 Cherry on
Human CommunicationIz - and they are used to give structure to an argument
rather than to frame hypotheses.
There is no special methodological problem about idiographic research in
the first sense, that of defining the special character of any one political system.
There are, as in all sciences, problems of research tactics, but it is not disputed
that one legitimate way to proceed is by using the variate language referred to
by Professor Lazarsfeld.
But dispute arises about the use of individual cases as laboratories for the
development of general theory. In principle general and partial theories of
political society should yield hypotheses testable by reference to individual
States, and the results of testing should 'feed back' into the structure of theory.

Political science 1-75
This certainly happens to some extent; for instance, in the development of
research into the authoritarian personality in politics.I3 But States do not make
good laboratories; first, because there are relatively few of them and each of
them is of undefined complexity; secondly, because great care and precision are
needed to frame hypotheses and tests effectively, whereas the ‘market’ for political
science demands usable generalizations in plain language, produced quickly.
As will be seen later, there have been serious attempts to overcome these difficulties,
and the comparative study of politics has made great advances in
scientific sophistication in the last fifteen years. But on the whole the object of
the comparative study of individual cases has hitherto been to obtain insight,
rather than to establish laws.
2. Normative
Here one must establish two distinct senses in which political science can be
regarded as a normative science.
a) The first sense is that political science is especially concerned with the
study of norms of various kinds. Every political system has an ecological and
economic setting; but the system itself, the set of political institutions, exists
primarily as a system of norms. Some of these norms are legal in form, others
are not; some are peculiar to politics (for instance, the norm of obedience to
‘constitutional’ authority), others are common to the social sciences; some are
restricted in scope (for instance, some special norms about the conduct’ of
elections), others (such as those affecting human rights) involve general ques-
tions about the nature of man. There is a difficult problem of how to identify
these norms, and how to explain their origin, stability and decline: but this
involves no challenge to objectivity.
b) But (secondly) political science may also be normative in the sense that it
offers advice to rulers and citizens about their conduct. This is not to say that
all individual political scientists offer advice; but many of them do, and even
investigations which are on the face of it descriptive and factual may be pursued
primarily because a question of public policy is involved. In such cases it may
be extremely difficult to identify the normative element and to define its effects;
often the author himself is not fully aware of the recommendations latent in his
research.
There is a large measure of agreement within the discipline about the scholar’s
obligation to identify his own bias and to follow strict rules about the collec-
tion and marshalling of evidence. In these respects political science does not
differ at all from other branches of science and scholarship : nevertheless, there
are sharp differences of opinion about the social r6le of the political scientist.
Some are drawn to the discipline by the hope that increase of political know-
ledge wil give men greater control over their political destinies ; political science
is to be justified by practical benefits, at all levels from that of world politics to
that of efficiency and humanity in public offices. At the other extreme, there
are those who object vigorously to this confusion of rbles, and regard it as a
breach of the scholar’s obligation to seek understanding and to publish it, leav-
ing others to choose from his work what they need for their own purposes.

176 W. J. M. Mackenzie
There is in fact a spectrum of differing views between these extremes: but it is
in general accepted that the discipline is itself involved in the politics of States
and that each political scientist must take his own moral and intellectual stand
on these matters, within the scope allowed by the political environment in
which he works.
3. Nomothetic
There is also some controversy within the discipline about the nomothetic
scope of political science. In this case also there are extreme views. On the one
hand (e.g., in the work of Michael Oakeshott) there is the view that politics is
essentially a practical art, and that generalizations about it are necessarily
abstract in character and useless as a guide to action; at the other extreme are
those (one might cite George Catlin, Harold Lasswell and Karl Deutsch) who
have maintained for many years that the present political situation of mankind
requires the development of political science as a rigorous scientific study, a
view which has in its turn been strenuously attacked by Professor Leo Strauss
and others. It is difficult to estimate the balance of opinion within the discipline,
especially as those who expound the two extreme views are particularly able and
eloquent. But certainly a majority seek some way of conciliation, recognizing
the constructive case for each of the two extreme views, but deprecating their
mutual hostility.
On the one hand, it would not be denied that political science is a human
science of a precarious kind. In Max Weber’s terms, its object is Verstehen, to
gain insight, not merely to dissect. There is much talk of a ‘behavioural persua-
sion’ in political science: but the word ‘behaviour’ thus used does not imply
that those who favour it accept the rules of method of behavioural psychology.
In Professor Piaget’s terminology, even political behaviourists study conduite,
not comportement. To do otherwise would be absurd.
Conversely, it would be hard to find anyone to deny seriously what is urged on
the other side; that politics is of such importance to mankind that it requires
the application of the best intellectual methods available; that practical politics
and the academic study of politics have both suffered greatly from carelessness
in language and in method ; that any academic committed professionally!&o
political study must bring to it the standards or rigour and completeness which
is usual in other disciplines. To which might be added, with rather less unanimi-
ty and enthusiasm, that all successful sciences have made some use of mathema-
tical formulation and have developed some techniques of measurement.
Each political scientist has to find his own place in this spectrum, within the
conditions defined for the discipline in his own country. But certainly there is
emerging (as Professor Deutsch says in the quotation used on p. 172 above) a
profession which recognizes itself even in its perplexities. There has of late been
so much talk of methodology that most scholars now prefer to discuss work in
progress rather than work that might perhaps be done at some time in the future.
Nevertheless, discussion of method implies discussion of the scope and limits
of free and rational action in politics, and many of the traditional themes of
political thought have been re-examined incidentally.

Political science I 77
Can one claim that laws of a scientific character have been established by
political science? Political scientists are perhaps readier to talk about tenden-
cies and syndromes than about laws. It is not now usual to accept laws of poli-
tics as ‘iron laws’, like Michels’ ‘iron law of oligarchy’ or some of the more
rigid interpretations of Marx’s political thought. But the whole trend of work for
the last fifty years (following clues left by Thucydides, Aristotle, Machiavelli,
Harington, and Montesquieu, as well as by Marx) has been to treat each politi-
cal system as an interdependent whole, within which there is an interplay of
economic, social and political factors, and also to note its ‘boundary main-
tenance’ problems. It is by no means easy to move scientifically from ‘correla-
tion’ to ‘cause’ and ‘explanation’, but a great deal has been done to establish
correlations within what is called (not very happily) the process of moderniza-
tion, and some of this work is quantitative.
It is also possible to trace mutually supporting factors within a single political
system. In the United Kindon, for instance, the predominance of two major
parties is connected with the practice of single member plurality elections, and
one can with a measure of confidence predict that the mutual dependence of
these two sets of institutions wil not be broken unless some very unusual cir-
cumstance intervenes. Similarly, it was not difficult to predict, on the basis of
existing statistics, that a number of military coups d‘dtut would take place in
1968, and that certain States were particularly at risk. The art of political pre-
diction1+ is a matter of narrowing down the possibilities and of giving a rank
ordering of some sort, however weak, to the possiblities which are kept in play.
The art can be, and is being, made more ‘scientific’ by improving our strictness
and clarity in specifying possibilities and our resources in measuring degrees of
probability. These methods can be much further improved: but the scope of
political prediction is necessarily limited. The discipline deals with a single
world system, and a limited number of component State systems, each almost
as mobile as an Atlantic weather system; and political prediction tends to feed
back into politics in an unpredictable way,’s as self-fulfilling or self-defeating
prophecy.
C. Fundamentals of method
In the work of the founding fathers of the discipline, from Thucydides to the
Federalists, one can identify three major themes, which settle methodological
assumptions and define the tactics of analysis; a doctrine of stages, a doctrine
of ecology, and a method of comparison.
I. Stages
It may seem arbitrary to treat a doctrine of stages as a method of analysis rather
than as a law, and it has in fact frequently been stated as a law. But the doctrine
of stages has always, wherever used, been loaded with ideology, and one now
handles it with caution.
In the ancient world, the doctrine was generally cyclical : the world ran down-
hill from the age of gold, and political virtue declined with it until the time of

178 W. J. M. Mackenzie
cataclysm and rebirth. Since the eighteenth century, the doctrine has been one
of progress: each stage has been built on its predecessors, we are better off than
our fathers, our children wil surpass us. In its most sophisticated form, this
has become the framework of Parson’s pattern variables: within one epoch
societies may differ along all or some of four scales: neutral/affective, univer-
salistic/particularistic, diffuse/specific, performance/quality; the doctrine of
stages has become a doctrine of dimensions. But even thus formalized the
doctrine is apt to slip back into an analysis of ‘modernization’ or ‘political
development’, which reasserts a succession of stages, of which the latest is by
definition the best.
The Greeks postulated a succession of regimes, good and bad: monarchy -
tyranny - aristocracy - oligarchy - democracy - ochlocracy. The object of
their political science on the whole was to find ways of halting the wheel at a
lucky number: our object is to make it spin faster towards a climax about which
we are still optimistic. It seems correct to call these ‘assumptions’, not ‘hypo-
theses’. How could they be refuted, except after the elapse of infinite time?
2. Ecology
Secondly, there is the postulate that politics is interdependent with society,
society with environment. Once again, this is a statement of such breadth that
it can scarcely be called a scientific law: yet if one grasps it and acts on it, it
greatly influences research tactics. It is true that anticipations of recent work
are to be found in the older authors, but none of them (not even Aristotle) had
organized research facilities at their disposal, and at best their generalizations
thus’derived are hunches rather than hypotheses. In modern political science, this
doctrine of interdependence is the greatest single source of hypotheses about the
conditions of political life, and research skill consists quite largely in establishing
correlations which fit this vast kaleidoscopic picture of structure and change in
political society.
3. Comparison
For the Greeks and Romans, as for us, all political science was in a sense com-
parative politics. Political science has its beginning when an observer notes that
another people is not governed as we are. Why? Which is better? The Histories
of Herodotus are largely an attempt (poetical rather than scientific in character)
to compare and contrast the political regimes in different Greek cities, and to
set all Greek cities as example of a single type over against tribal government
and imperial government. Similar comparisons and reflections can be found in
Hebrew and Islamic literature: but it would perhaps be unreasonable to call
procedure of this kind ‘scientific’ before the work of Montesquieu. L’espirit
des lois still has a certain poetic character; nevertheless, its argument is shaped
by a process of model-building and of search for crucial examples.
For long, the use of this sort of model - called by J. G. March16 ‘a sensible
literary model’ - has been characteristic of political science. Carelessly used, the
technique can produce very misleading results, since it depends both on clear
statement and on conscientious search for examples hostile to ‘first guess’ hy-
potheses.

Political science 179
4. Recent changes
These traditional methods were sharply attacked in the years after 1945, par-
ticularly in America and particularly by scholars who came to political science
from other social sciences or from the natural sciences.’7 Hence the controversy
over the ‘behavioral movement’ which divided American political scientists in
the 1950s. To those of us who were personally remote from the controversy the
the issues raised on both sides seemed to be both profound and insoluble,
except by trial and error, and there was general relief when Professor Dah1
declared a truce in his well-known article, ‘an epitaph for a monument to a
successful protest’.Is
Even now, twenty years later, political science still seems to move mainly
within this framework, relating hypotheses to the great postulates of ordered
change and social interdependence, and using literary models as a basis for
comparison.
But there have been three major changes which are irreversible.
a. The language of variables. The kst of these is that political scientists (to
some extent taught by Professor Lazarsfeld himself) have learnt to talk the
language of variables. This has enforced attention to the proper formulation
and testing of hypotheses; has taught political scientists to argue from the
ground up, as well as from the sky down; and has drawn political science closer
to the main body of the social sciences.
b. Rigour in the use of models. The second is a growing conviction that mod-
els - if they are used - should be used scrupulously. There was at first a certain
repugnance to the use of models set out symbolically, but it has now been rec-
ognized by almost everyone that the magic resides in rigour, not in symbolism.
Symbolism may or may not be useful, depending on the situation. But in any
case symbols, if badly defined and ill-used, can be as vague as words. The prob-
lem in practice is not that of words versus symbols, but that of deciding con-
sciously the degree of rigour appropriate to the subject, the data, and the re-
sources available.
c. Data. The most difficult problems now concern the availability and relia-
bility of data. There has since 1945 been a ‘data revolution’, in the sense that
very large quantitites of data can be stored and analysed electronically. It is
not technically difficult to store all the available political data for the whole
world in a data bank and a computer, linked to other computers and to other
data banks; and inquiries made on the basis of data banks may be quite
traditional in character, as they have been in general so far. But there are
serious problems about the reliability and completeness of data.
Professor Karl Deutsch’g lists seven main categories of statistical data; data
about political elites, public opinion data, statistics for popular voting, statis-
tics for voting in assemblies, content analysis data, aggregative data produced by
governments as part of the administrative process, historical data; to which he
adds two other categories - statistics taken from other social sciences and second-
ary statistics arising from computer analysis of the primary data. He estimates
(conceding wide margins of error) that the stocks of data available in 1965 were
equivalent to 16 m. IBM cards, increasing to 29 m. by 1975, when they would be

180 W. J. M. Mackenzie
increasing at the rate of 5 m. a year. The cost of storing and processing would be
$1 m. a year now, increasing to $5 m. in 1975.
These dollar costs seem much too low: but even if they were doubled or
trebled the sums involved would be trivial by the standards of natural science,
and not large in relation to the amounts already spent by governments on
aggregative data and by various agencies on survey data. The cost envisaged
by Professor Deutsch is not the total cost of data; but the cost of storage and
processing, designed to squeeze all that can be squeezed from data which already
exist.
Most political scientists would agree that this is worth doing, so long as the
cost is not borne by the discipline itself from its existing resources: subject,
perhaps, to two other provisos.
i) Emphasis on statistics may have a ‘skew’ effect on research interests. It is
an obvious corollary of the doctrine of stages that the fewest and least reliable
data are those from the poorest countries: and that even with rich countries
the data are least good for areas (family life, for instance) which have not yet
been fully drawn into ‘modernized’ society. Both these sectors are of tremendous
political importance, and statistics do not take us very far in analyzing them. It
is important nevertheless to get research going by such techniques as we can
apply at once: this will in due course demand the provision of numerical data.
ii) As a matter of historical accident, we have begun to talk first of world data
banks of political indicators. These data are of course to be correlated with
economic and social data: but there are apparently no similar plans for econo-
mic and social data banks. It would be scientifically correct that the whole
problem of world data should be treated as a single problem, giving no special
priority to political science.
But supposing the cost were to be borne from funds already allocated for
political research, there would undoubtedly be a dispute about the allocation of
priorities. As will be seen in the second main section of this article, there are
areas of research for which the support of data banks is not important;
serious research can be pursued (and is being pursued) without recourse to ‘the
language of variables’.
JII. ECOLOGY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
It was suggested earlier in this chapter (p. 167) that differences of approach to
political science could to some extent be measured on these three dimensions;
that of attitude to the scope of the discipline, that of the objectives of study, and
that of basic assumptions and methods. These are to some extent matters of
individual choice, to some extent they are settled by the tendencies of schools
and research groups. But there are also national differences, and (at first sight
at least) these differences reflect forms of academic organization rather than
ideologies.
One may distinguish three cases.

Political science 181
I. The United States pattern
In numbers, American political science now leads; at least three-quarters of
all political scientists work in the United States. This flows partly from the sheer
scale of higher education in America, partly from the fact that a large propor-
tion of each age group enter higher education. But it is related also to the pre-
dominance in American Universities of the four-year general course for the
Bachelor’s degree; within this framework of general education, political science
is an important and attractive subject, and it is indeed made a compulsory
subject in some American State universities, as part of the process of making
good citizens, capable of democratic participation. The American profession
of political science is thus a pyramid based on a very wide range of preliminary
teaching. American academic leaders debate anxiously the character and or-
ganization of the ‘Introductory Course in Political Science’; textbooks compete;
and the system is in some ways unsatisfying intellectually. Nevertheless, it has
established the place of political science in American political life, and from
these broad preliminary courses there emerges a stream of selected students for
training in graduate schools, which offer a broad intellectual approach to
political science, combined with intense specialization. Competition between
these graduate schools is one of the driving forces in political research in the
United States.
It follows from the character of the system and the self-perpetuating inter-
dependence of the graduate schools that there is a strong sense of the unity of
the discipline as a force in democratic politics and also an essential component
in the spectrum of social sciences. There are tendencies pulling the other way;
in some American arts colleges and graduate schools the attraction of the
older humanistic disciplines (in particular, history, philosophy and law) is
strongly felt, and the ‘behavioural’ view of political science is rejected. But in-
fluence is not in one direction only: to some extent the humanities are drawn in
to serve social science, as for instance by the use of historical data in the study
of political parties or of international crises.
It should be added that there is now an established tradition of ‘area studies’,
in which a particular region is studied by various social sciences, in combination
with the study of languages, literatures, law, history and geography. These are
referred to again on p. 191 below.
2. The English pattern
The modem social sciences were founded in the Scottish Universities in the
eighteenth century by the combination of French and English models, and at
the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a very fruitful combination
of the Scottish tradition with the analytical utilitarianism of private scholars in
England, men such as Bentham, Malthus and Ricardo. The first dawn of reform
in the English Universities was the founding of University College, London,
under Benthamite auspices, in 1828, and in the middle of the nineteenth century
the nascent University of London provided the model of university organiza-
tion in what are now India and Pakistan.
In England itself there was in mid-century a strong reaction against philo-

182 W. J. M. Mackenzie
sophic radicalism; the reaction was in some respects elitist and parochial, but it
made great contributions to scholarship in the humanities. The Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge contrived to find the way back to the origins of their
own history, in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and devised an education
very well designed to bring together the sons of powerful men and the aspiring
sons of the middle classes, who had no assets but ability shown in educational
competition. The pattern was of necessity a compromise; and its form was not
the same in Cambridge as in Oxford. But one might risk the generalization that
in various ways it combined those disciplines which were part of traditional cul-
ture (law, history, philosophy, literature) with a decent show of interest in the
methods and discoveries of the social sciences as they then existed. This mixture
created intellectual stresses, which had some relation to social stresses: but the
English interest in competitive achievement (in the same period they launched
most of the present forms of athletic competition, in that case also by a mixture of
aristocratic and plebeian interests) meant that the top intellectual standard was
good. The best work of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in England
is still influential in political science; and even at the worst, the nineteenth
century Oxford and Cambridge system served to keep communication open
between the aristocratic Lumpenproletariat like the rising middle class, between
hunting men and intellectuals.
Politically, this was a great service. It has however left England (and English
influence is now many times more important than Scottish influence) awkward-
ly poised between two strategies of teaching and research in political science.
One cannot at present concede victory either to the English humanistic tradition
that political education involves apprenticeship in a political culture, or to the
English radical tradition, that politics - like any other subject - is amenable to
rational scientific analysis.
This underlying controversy raises the level of debate and is intellectually
fruitful. But it has meant that English universities are eclectic in teaching and
are in research inclined to favour individual initiative rather than major collec-
tive enterprises.
The colonial countries of the British Empire, whether colonies of settlement
or colonies of conquest, inherited something of the English tradition. But in
Canada, Australia and New Zealand the Scottish Universities were at first more
influential, as they were in the United States of America; and these countries
have therefore been readily open to American influences in political science. In
India and the rest of South Asia the universities owe most to the nineteenth
century traditions of the University of London, which were not well adapted to
their circumstances; the process of reform is likely to lead them towards Ameri-
can rather than towards British models. In Africa (hally) there is the paradox
that the British, so far as it was possible, attempted to introduce the humanistic
pattern of socialization for leadership rather than the radical rationalist
pattern (which they introduced in India) or the American pattern of basic civic
training combined with practical skills. Here (as in South Asia) later American
influence has complicated further the originally complex English pattern.

Political science I 83
3. The Europeanpatfern
A third pattern, equally complex, is that of the universities of the continent of
Europe. There are certain similarities in tradition from the Straits of Gibraltar
to the Urals, and this tradition has had strong influence in Latin America, in
the Middle East, and in the universities of the former French and Belgian Empires.
European universities had diverse origins, but in the late eighteenth century
and the Napoleonic period there was a general tendency to ‘nationalise’ and
unify universities as agents of the policy of State and nation; dignified and in
some respects independent, but concerned primarily to serve the State by winning
the prestige of intellectual distinction and by training citizens for the
highest levels of intellectual activity.
The Faculties of Law played a special part, in that general administrators in
the State service, central and local, were trained primarily in law, and the same
basic training was given also to judges and court officials, to private practitioners
in law, and to many who later served as managers in state industry and
private business. ‘Law’ (Droit or Recht) was more widely construed than is usu-
al in the British or American university systems, and it included much history,
economics and philosophy, as well as a serious consideration of the struc-
ture and interrelation of State organs, and their relation to citizens. Neverthe-
less, the training was juristic in spirit, and did not leave much room for the
adoption of empirical methods in the social sciences.
Hence a variety of developments, which affected all the social sciences and
which depended on the circumstances of academic politics. Sweden possessed a
professorial chair of Statskunskap from the seventeenth century : for centuries,
the teaching given was in effect juristic, but the old tradition offered a base for
new developments, and some Swedes (notably Herbert Tingsten on voting
statistics, Gunnar Heckscher on organized interests) played a notable part in
the conceptual development of political science before World War 11.20 In
France much was done outside the universities, but the famous Ecole Libre was
a school of ‘the political sciences’ not of ‘political science’; work done there, by
historians, jurists and geographers, was of extreme importance to political
science, but political science did not win effective recognition as a single dis-
cipline until the end of World War 11.~‘
In the Central European countries the position is equally various and com-
plex. One might however venture the generalization that in so far as juristic
training did not expand to deal with political subjects, the gap was filled by
teaching of economics and sociology on a very wide basis, so that the work of
Central European (here I include Italy) economists and sociologists has now
become part of the established course for ‘Anglo-Saxon’ political scientists.
The three greatest names perhaps are Max Weber, Pareto and Schumpeter, but
there are many others.
Germany before Hitler played a very great part in this development, yet
(though there was an old tradition of Kameralwissenschaft) Staatswissenschaft
was not in these days regarded as a unified academic discipline, with its own
professorial chairs. In the years after 1945, a first attempt was made to fill this

184 W. J. M. Mackenzie
gap, but the interest of the Americans in this development perhaps strengthened
the hands of conservatives in the Law Faculties, and there was at first more
progress in research institutes than in the Universities. In the 1960s the pendulum
has swung towards a deliberate development of the social sciences,
including political science, and many new chairs have been instituted. It is
however too early to guess what wil come of this development.
It is still difficult to understand fully the position in the USSR and Eastern
Europe. The long-established Law Faculties have apparently accepted a narrower
role; economics (especially mathematical economics) has flourished as a
tool of planning, and occasionally (as in Hungaryzz) as an instrument of criticism
of forms of public management; sociology (including political sociology)
has prospered in Poland, where it has always been strong; the managerial aspect
of administrative studies (praxeology, cybernetics, time budgeting) has also
been fruitfully developed.
But political science, in so far as concerned with political training, was primarily
a matter for the highest schools of the Party. Political science in the
universities (for instance in Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia) has in
recent years shown a capacity for distinguished work, but it has perhaps been
slightly suspect, in so far as it is not under the direction of the Party. But what
the Party teaches, how it interprets the Marxist tradition at a high intellectual
level, is still ‘esoteric’, in the sense of Aristotle’s ~UTEPLX~L Myoc, and it has
not so far made its voice heard effectively in the world-wide debate about the
Marxist view of man, and in particular of political man.
A ha1 word about the ‘export’ of the American, the English and the European
models of political teaching to the universities of developing countries.
In each case, there has been an unlucky tendency to export the academic
form and to lose the social and intellectual substance. The juristic tradition is at
its strongest and narrowest in developing countries which adopted a West-
European model during the nineteenth century; Greece and Turkey for instance,
and some Latin American countries. One is apt to iind there highly
political universities, in which the discipline of political science is not yet strong.
Similarly, there have proved to be serious infelicities about the adoption of the
American model in the Philippines, the English elitist model in parts of Africa,
the British utilitarian model in India and Pakistan.
4. Summary
This section has not been easy to write, dealing as it does with what might be
called ‘the political science of political science’. Much is known, a little vaguely,
through personal contacts with colleagues and students, and this account has
drawn on the advice of a number of consultants. But there is little published
documentation, and the discipline has perhaps not hitherto been sufficiently
mature and unified to seek to take stock of itself as a political and social phenom-
enon throughout the wold.
There would probably not be much disagreement about what has been said
of the American and English traditions: a popular tradition of political sociali-
zation, seeking now to become more professional ; a tradition of elite political

Political science I 85
culture, now seeking to broaden itself socially and intellectually. Nor would
there be much dispute about the traditional position of law in European Univer-
sities, the majestic inheritance of the Roman imperium. But events have not yet
settled the academic role of political science in the European Universities, East
and West; nor its position in the Universities of the developing countries.
This situation is of intense interest to political scientists who live with it as
participant observers: but the complexities of the environment add to the
difficulty of reviewing the state of a discipline which is itself intellectually com-
plex.
IV. RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
A. The categorization of research
The first sections of the chapter have given some indication of the conceptual
and ecological elements which dehe the many shapes of contemporary political
science. A final section will raise further general questions about the strategy
and tactics of research; for this section, which is concerned mainly with descrip-
tion, it seems best to use a pragmatical classification, such as might be used (for
instance) in establishing sectional meetings of the International Political
Science Association.
First, it would be customary to set on one side two fields of study which might
be regarded as separate disciplines, since their lines of inquiry lead them beyond
the study of politics as statecraft, though they set out from that field as their
base. These are the study of international relations and that of public adminis-
stration. Secondly, it is also possible to mark off as a separate field of discussion
the problem of ‘area studies’, referred to on p. 181 above.
I. Categorization by types of State
This enables us next to approach directly the politics of States, and one begins
with the problem of the categorization of States. ‘All politics is comparative
politics’, but (as we shall see) geographical or cultural areas do not necessarily
offer the best basis for comparative analysis. At least three bases are possible;
institutional, ideological, economic and social.
Institutional. In its simplest form institutional comparison was concerned
primarily with constitutional forms: the comparison of the position of monarchs
in different kingdoms, of President and Prime Minister under alternative forms
of electoral democracy, of elected assemblies, of constitutional rights and their
protection. Institutional analysis of this kind continues, and its practical impor-
tance is such that it is not likely to die out. But it has long been under attack
from two flanks, Marxist and ‘behaviourist’, on the ground that it tends to sub-
stitute ‘form’ for ‘reality’. The fairness of the criticism is now generally admitted,
subject to the caveat that without ‘political form’ no ‘political reality’can exist;
there is in fact now a problem of refounding the study of political forms on a
more fruitful basis.

186 W. J. M. Mackenzie
Ideological. For many years (and particularly after the crises of 1918, 1933
and 1945) it was customary to base everything on ideological contrasts: totali-
tarian versus democratic, Fascist versus Liberal, communist versus capitalist
States. The assumption on both sides was that the Revolution left a gap with no
bridge, that there were two incompatible (and not comparable) sorts of political
institution.
This view is by no means dead: indeed, it suggests a topic of primary in-
portance - how does ideology (in the short run or in the long run) influence the
politics of a State? The question indicates a complex nest of questions, and it
is technically hard to make it ‘researchable’. There is perhaps a consensus that
it is an important question and an open question. But work of significant
scientific value has so far been done only at a ‘micro’ leveL23
Ecological. We are left therefore with the‘ecological’ analysis of States. Accept-
ing the validity of State form as defining political entities for the purpose of
our study, can one establish any non-political classification of 130 or so States
or quasi-States, such as to create a taxonomy which groups States for purposes
of comparison on dimensions indicated by non-political variables ? Can one
then measure, however crudely, the contribution of each variable to political
stability and political change?“
There are serious technical difficulties; first, because of the unreliability
and incompleteness of statistical data, secondly, because of the problems of
assessing and summing various factors statistically - it is hard to design a table
which does not show Kuwait (rich only in oil revenues) to be more fluent
than the United States of America, and this is merely an extreme case.
It is illuminating to be forced to face these technical difficulties: but others
remain. Perhaps the chief are these:
I. In spite of their efforts and denials, Russett and his associates have in
effect established a ‘league table’ or ‘ladder’ of success, implying that where
other conditions are better government is better. This is not a conclusion that
should be drawn, and mature scholars do not draw it; it gives weight quite
improperly to factors for which statistics exist against those not measured in
this way. But casual readers (and this includes practising politicians) cannot
make the necessary adjustments for themselves.
2. The figures available measure economic and social prosperity, but they do
not measure ‘culture’; and no-one has yet ventured to suggest statistical means
of placing ‘cultures’ in order of merit. In spite of protests, a league table of econo-
mic and social indicators tends to be regarded as a league table not only of
consumption but of culture also, and thus to favour views about culture which
few scholars would accept, in a cool hour.25
Nevertheless, these indicators offer the best instrument of classification which
we have, and they can be helpful if judiciously used. It is important to bear in
mind that no single categorization will serve for all purposes. On some indica-
tors the USA and the USSR are close together, a unique pair of super-powers, but
on others they are contrasted. Similarly China and India can be linked for
some purposes, contrasted for others. For some purposes, the Pacific States of
Australia and New Zealand can fairly be brought into comparison with the

Political science 187
regognizable group of ‘smaller European democracies’; but if one looks towards
problems of regional unification they are part of a totally different pattern.
The importance of these ecological indicators is precisely that they enable
different categories to be chosen, with some precision of definition, for different
enquiries.
2. Categorization by institutions and their functions
Against this classification may be set another set of categories: what are the
essential institutions of any State which has achieved the minimum required for
persistence and recognition?
The present working classification of institutions is in effect a congeries of
relics of comprehensive theories which failed, and one of the problems of con-
temporary empirical theory is to find a new theoretical unity. Various effortsZ6
have been made to link institutional classification to general theory, and none
of them has been very satisfactory. The presentation used under headings D
and E, below, claims only to be a workable compromise.
3. Levels of integration
Finally, one must add yet another dimension, that of unity, decentralization
and dissolution.27 The recognition of a State is a formal act within the system of
international law, and there is a sharp ‘cut-off’ between ‘State’ and ‘not State’.
But in political analysis, one is forced also to recognize a gradient, from the
very loose institutions of the United Nations, through various regional institutions,
to functional unions such as EEC and EFTA, to federations, and then to
various forms of political and administrative decentralization within a recognized
State. A spectrum of institutional devices is available at each level: but
underlying them are questions of social and economic unity, and also the
formidable problem of nation and State, a problem which is at once descriptive,
ideological and normative.
B. International relations
International relations, as a subject distinct from international law and from
diplomatic history, was first taught in universities in the 1920s, and it then em-
braced primarily the study of international institutions, of the origins of World
War I, and of the problems of frontiers, colonies, disarmament and peace. The
importance of these topics, then and now, is unchallenged, public concern
remains intense, and it is perhaps a trivial question to ask whether these studies
do or do not constitute a discipline distinct from political science.
The view taken here is that in international relations one finds not different
problems, but an extreme case of the same problems as face all political scien-
tists, and (further) that it is still necessary to understand the international system
first as a system of States, giving at the same time adequate treatment to the
forces which cut across the juridical boundaries of States. But the problems of
scope and method are not much affected by this question of terminology.

188 W. J. M. Mackenzie
I. Research tactics
Idiographic. On the one hand, such a study deals with a single system, the world
polity, as a unique configuration and sequence, and to that extent it is idiogra-
phic rather than nomothetic. In particular, no progress can be made in the study
except on the basis of international history and international law, including the
general framework of the law of nations and also the law-making scope of trea-
ties. We live (as it were) inside the system studied; and there is no scope for
comparison except through the study of its history.
On the other hand, the system is undoubtedly a ‘polity’, an interdependent
system of human lives, in collaboration and conflict, for which political deci-
sions are of great importance. We can to some extent find analogues in the
development of other loosely constructed polities, such as that of ‘Christen-
dom’ in the Middle Ages, or the European balance of power from the time of
the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and we can draw on knowledge of systematic
interaction in other polities with very weak formal institutions. In one respect,
the international system is a polity of polities; a system of sub-systems, in which
States are not intelligible except in relation to the international system, the
latter only in relation to States. But in some respects the international sys-
tem is a system not of States, but of men, participating in various scientific,
ideological, economic and social activities which cut across the boundaries of
States.
Normative. Since 1945, indeed since 1918, academic analysis of international
affairs has been strongly normative, in both the senses specified on p. 175 above.
It has been concerned with the study of norms; the rules of international
law, the duties of men and States, and their adaptation to the realities of ‘The
Missile Age’.28 It has also been concerned with advice to decision-makers;
and this advice seems to have had at least some practical significance for policy-
making in the two international ‘camps’ and in the ‘third world‘.
Nomothetic. The notion of ‘science in the study of international affairs’
could be approached in various ways. But certainly, in recent years, it has come
to be particularly associated with attempts to apply the skills and talents of
natural scientists to the study of political problems which arise from the destruc-
tive and constructivesuccesses of natural science. The Rand Corporation was a
pioneer in this endeavour; it has been widely criticized and widely imitated, and
its name now serves primarily as the symbol of an intellectual movement which
has been concerned with the problems of peace as well as with those of war;
with ‘conflict resolution’ as well as with ‘strategic studies’.
The example of natural science requires scrupulous use of general theory,
particular theories, measurement, and experiment. Each has a very large litera-
ture which can only be reported briefly.
a. General theories. Much of the discussion has been conducted within the
framework of general systems theory.29 This is, however, very wide in scope,
and it is made relevant to international relations only if it is brought down to the
level of ‘specific’ models (bi-polar, multi-polar, and so on), and if an attempt is
made to think out the conditions of operation of each model, and its conditions
of change, working towards conceptual experiments of various kinds.

Political science I 89
b. Partial theories. Among partial theories, most public notice has been
given to games theory, as a rational analysis of strategic conflict and com-
promise; games theory has been studied rigorously in the hope of extending its
mathematical power, and it has also been used more loosely,3’J to stimulate
thought about the character of international policy.
But it is perhaps of wider significance that ‘operational research‘ has been
extended from the level of tactics to the level of strategy, bringing with it a very
extensive kit of mathematical tools. It is now commonplace that all the resour-
ces of praxeology or micro-economics31 should be applied to policy-making for
the design, equipment, and use of armed forces; and their use involves the whole
of civil policy, and not only the work of soldiers.
c. Measurement. The possibility of measurement was first indicated by the
Scottish biologist, L. F. Richardson, in his two seminal books, published post-
humously, on The Statistics of Deadly Quarrels and Arms and Insecurity3z. He
used measurement based on ‘aggregative data’ (p. 179 above) collected by govern-
ments for other purposes, and on historical data. It is however by no means
impossible to use the five other types of primary data specified by Deutsch: data
about elites are useful for the study of international organizations and of the
movements of highly qualified manpower between States; public opinion sur-
veys may be designed internationally to measure attitudes to and degree of
involvement in international issues ; data of voting in international assemblies
can be used in the same way as for State assemblies; content analysis of mass
communications (now frequently computer based) measures changes in tone
and emphasis.
Each form of measurement presents technical difficulties of its own, but
certainly there are enough data to encourage active research into the world poli-
ty based on ‘the language of variables’.
d. Experiment. Finally, there is the problem of experiment, at first sight in-
soluble. Nevertheless, it can be attempted in two ways.
One of them is to attempt historical reconstruction, or the analysis of events
actually in progress, within a’ tolerably strict conceptual framework, paying
attention not only to the validity of evidence as establishing a narrative but also
to analysis of the narrative in relation of specified hypotheses. To some extent,
arms races and international crises can be studied on this basis back to the end
of the nineteenth century. Difficulties of strict comparison are greater for ear-
lier periods.
There is also the problem of simulation, at present much used in international
studies. Present practice has two ancestors: on the one hand, war games as
played for many years in war staff colleges, on the other hand computerized
mathematical simulation as used in the design of engineering structures. Hence
various devices : computer simulation, man-machine simulation, r6le-playing by
human participants without mechanical aids; hence also a lively dispute about
the scope of experiment by simulation. There is no doubt that simulation is a
valuable training instrument, and it would probably also be agreed that it is
valuable heuristically in checking over possible outcomes and generating new
possibilities. But it is not argued, as yet, that any important aspect of interna-

190 W. J. M. Mackenzie
tional affairs can be so rigorously formalized that computer simulation can
be used in a strictly experimental sense to refute or confirm hypotheses.
In general, experience has taught skill and caution, and work based on imita-
tion of natural science certainly represents a coherent and resolute effort to
introduce nomothetic elements into the study of a unique political system. It
would be ridiculous to say at this stage that there exists a nomothetic science of
international politics; nevertheless, the irruption of scientific method into that
sphere (coming along with expensive and sophisticated instruments of destruc-
tion) has had an appreciable effect on the process of policy-making in techno-
logically advanced States.
Traditional. At the same time, there has been a fruitful continuation of study
by more traditional methods, which might perhaps be called idiographic, in
that they approach the problem of establishing ‘laws’ with great diffidence. There
is however a large range of differences within this field and it is difficult to sys-
tematize : indeed, authors in the idiographic manner tend to abjure systematiza-
tion deliberately.
One can perhaps observe three main trends: first, description of the inter-
national system in the context of its historical development; secondly, foreign
policy analysis, based primarily on historical studies of decision-making within
each power and between powers; thirdly, the study of international institutions
as organs of policy-making and administration.
To these one must add at least three other forms of study, which cut across
them and link them: the logical analysis of the choices open in foreign policy
and strategic policy (one must include here not only strategic analysts such as
Hermann Kahn and T. C. Schelling, but also conflict research and peace
research - Anatol Rapoport, Boulding, Galtung) ; the survey of philosophical
and ideological movements and of their capacity to cross State boundaries;
the connexion between international economic studies and international politi-
cal studies in many different contexts.
Work in this idiographic style is generally marked strongly by the personality
and views of its author, and each book is a special case.
For instance, the work of Raymond Aron,33 essentially one of exposition and
synthesis, conveys a sense of great intellectual distinction and can perhaps be
judged best by the canons of humane scholarship, in particular those of first-
rate historical analysis. Such a combination of perspective and precision may
in fact prove to be a greater contribution to the making of foreign policy than
the cautious use of scientilic method. It is not in dispute now that we can attain
to greater understanding of the forces which have shaped and are shaping the
international system: but this is slow work, to be harvested later, whereas states-
men and the public need such insight as will help them in decisions about ac-
tion now.
It may be convenient here to refer briefly to two branches of study which
link international to national politics: area studies and the study of political
unification.

Political science 191
2. Area studies
In most advanced countries there now exist centres of area studies, created to
encourage teaching and research about particular regions of the world. The
study of Islam and the study of the British Commonwealth (which might be
described informally as area studies) cut across the boundaries of geographical
regions : but most ‘area study centres’ are geographically based, being con-
cerned with areas such as Latin America, Africa south of the Sahara, the Medi-
terranean, South East Asia, the USSR and Eastern Europe, China and Japan, the
Pacific.
These centres in most cases grew out of demand; a particular area became
important to foreign policy and to public opinion in a given country; it was
observed that the country was poorly equipped with experts and with training
resources; and centres were established to train experts who could in due course
conduct research and train a wider circle of students. Such centres generally
provide facilities for language training: and they include historians, geographers,
economists, sociologists and social anthropologists, political scientists, and
sometimes also theoretical linguists, social psychologists and students of art and
literature.
It must be confessed that this way of proceeding does not commend itself
strongly to socia1 scientists. The objects of such institutions are generally politi-
caP rather than scientific. In teaching they are apt to give students an acquain-
tance with many disciplines and mastery of none; British experience is that
such area study centres work best if they are established alongside strong
centres of original work in at least some of the disciplines concerned. Given
such support, a centre can then serve as a testing ground for experiments in
interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research, with facilities adequate to the
experiment. Such centres can also contribute greatly to the development of
scholarly resources for the study of various regions, so that step by step a
‘world library’ of the social sciences and their data is built up in each of the
wealthier States.
The work produced by Area Study Centres is in fact essential for the student
of international relations and comparative politics. Social scientists take note,
in jest, that each author in each centre believes ‘his’ country or ‘his’ region to
be unique: but the scholarly level is in general high, and the resulting mono-
graphs must be read and thoroughly considered by anyone who seeks to achieve
‘nomothetic’ standing in comparative politics. A specialist service of this kind
is necessary for the advance of comparative politics, and this is sometimes not
emphasized enough by model builders and general theorists.
3. Political unification
These words indicate a topic which links the world system to regional systems,
to State systems, and to sub-systems within the State. Diversity and cleavages
are in part due to divergencies of class, caste and sectional interest which are
more or less independent of a territorial basis, and the importance of these
factors is not on any account to be underrated.
Nevertheless, States are territorially defined units; their creation, absorption

192 W. J. M. Mackenzie
or disintegration is formally a matter of the determination of State boundaries
by international law. Within the State, the framework of government is still
primarily territorial, though everywhere criss-crossed by functional fields of
authority. The territorial dimension is at any moment of time of great political
importance somewhere in the world: it is also of great scientific interest as a
frame for the correlation of a large range of variables provided by aggregative
data.
These two approaches, functional and territorial, are not mutually exclusive,
but it is possible to distinguish two forms of study different in emphasis. One
of them is the formal study of institutions, political and administrative. The
study of federalism, from The Federalist papers in 1787188 to the work of Pro-
fessor Watts on federations created in the British Commonwealth since 1945,35
has served as a focal point in the study of the political unification in a formal
sense. There is a sort of spectrum extending from the inchoate institutions of
world government to the constitutional safeguard of the rights of local com-
munities, even down to the level of communes within a unitary state. In a formal
sense, federalism occupies a key point, as it purports to provide a point of com-
promise between the sovereignty of a union and.the sovereignty of its members.
This appears at first sight to be the most hopeful solution for the question of
creating States competent to survive and attain economic progress. But in fact
federations have been rather unsuccessful since 1945 (was this perhaps merely
because the British had not sufficient power to sustain them?), whereas there
has been a strong growth of looser associations, regional and functional, and
various ways have been found to make life possible for small States unwilling
to lose their identity. These complex arrangements lack the precision and author-
ity of State sovereignty: but the spontaneous growth of regional arrangements,
commodity arrangements, functional arrangements perhaps marks an easier
line of progress, leading to world co-operation and not to the exercise of sover-
eignty by a federation of mankind.
There has always, since 1789, been speculation about the economic and social
conditions within which federations are viable; and in the same vein there have
been many recent studies indicating how the older federations have adapted their
constitutions, in practice though not in law, so as to take account of fundamen-
tal social and economic changes. The older federations were perhaps lucky, in
that they became established in times of economic and social decentralization,
and acquired an identity as States and nations before they had to take the strain
of twentieth century pressures for stronger defence, better social welfare, and
higher taxes. In any event, the constitutional principles of unification are now
studied with proper regard to economics and social context. As a result of the
teaching of C. J. Friedrich and others, federal government would now generally
be regarded as a continuing process of adaptation, not as a legal bargain sealed
once and for all time.
Similarly, as regards decentralization and local government in a unitary
State, and the latent conflict between the self-determination of communities
and the field services of the central government. There is a great deal to learn
in a formal sense about the structure of central and local government and their

Political science 193
financial and administrative connexions: much research is directed to the con-
duct of daily practical business, which is the source of administrative friction
and of demands for reform. This research is short-range and ‘field-induced‘;
nevertheless, it serves as basis for serious thought about the continuing clash
between local ‘community interests’ and national ‘functional interests’, and the
conceptual difficulties involved in measuring their relative strength except by
the process of struggle.
Independently, there has grown, partly from the sociology of communities,
partly from cybernetic theories about systems unified by internal interchange of
information, a wide-ranging study of local communities and functional rela-
tions within modern States: and so, one stage further on, of the conditions of
nation-building and the conservation of nation-States. For those who choose
this appr0ach3~ formal institutions are secondary; they cannot succeed unless
conditions are favourable, and these conditions relate primarily to economic
integration and to social communication. The model is not difficult to establish:
general systems theory and information theory dTer a very wide range of bio-
logical and electronic analogies, and there are real possibilities of measurement.
But of necessity there is a zone of uncertainty: the marginal situation in which
the State, or those who wield its legal powers, might contrive to make the nation,
with some luck and some skill - but equally they might fail.
Thus the nomothetic is coloured by the idiographic here too: laws merely
define a band or zone of possibility, with obscure boundaries. Nevertheless, the
area has been well-explored, and a great deal can be said about the institutional
tools of integration, and about measurement of the growth or decrease of in-
tegration. It wil be noted that this links the international to the State, the State
to the territorial or functional interests of the individual; similarly it integrates
an institutional approach and a ‘behavioural’ approach in a way which encour-
ages hopes about the unity of the discipline. Furthermore, in this twilight zone,
where the making and unmaking of States is in doubt, there is little embarrass-
ment about the distinction between Statecraft and Politics without States. The
distinction is not meaningless: what is in issue is the birth and survival of a State.
But the fact that the very existence of States is in dispute gives the discipline a
freedom of manoeuvre which it has not gained in dealing with politics between
States or politics within States.
C. Public administration
As we have seen, the special focus and special importance of the study of inter-
national relations suggest that this might be regarded as a separate discipline.
Yet there is no point at which one can draw a clear line between the study of
international politics and the study of State politics. Indeed, the question of
the possibility and character of such a boundary is itself a central subject of ar-
gument in political science.
The position regarding the study of public administration is somewhat simi-
lar. As is explained below, there has been convergence in the study of public

194 W. J. M. Mackenzie
administration and other forms of administration, and it can seriously be
maintained that there exists a separate discipline, that of ‘administrative sci-
ence’. Yet one of the main themes of politics now, East and West, is that of the
management and control of large organizations and of their position in relation
to plans made in the public interest. Indeed, it might be possible to frame the
study of highly developed industrial societies in terms of decision-making in
large organizations37 rather than in terms of traditional theories of politics.
That question is at present unresolved, and it has seemed best to base the
organization of this chapter primarily on categories based on old political tra-
ditions. But it is appropriate to treat separately, and emphatically, the problems
of administrative organization.
I. Diverse traditions
Public administration could once have been discussed in relatively simple terms
as the discharge of the executive functions of the state; excluding the actual
conduct of war and foreign policy, and other functions of decision reserved to
‘majesty’, but including the preparation of material for policy decisions, the
maintenance of armed forces fit to fight, and in general good husbandry of the
State’s resources. In the eighteenth century Kameralwissenschafi, the training
of the king’s councillors, broadened the customary legal curriculum to include
the rudiments of what would now be called political economy and political
science. Indeed, this was one seed-bed of the modern social sciences.
To this were added in the nineteenth century great national schools of science
and technology, and the development of the French, German and Austrian sys-
tems of administrative law. The structure was dignified and imposing, some-
times intellectually distinguished, and it was firmly rooted in social structure.
It is not surprising that in the administration of the European State Max Weber38
perceived the structure of bureaucracy as a specific form of society.
But his framework could not then be stretched to cover the cases of the
United States of America and the British dominions of settlement, in which
administration was fragmented, pluralistic, and subject to the vagaries of
electoral politics. England was in an intermediate state: it possessed a great
imperial bureaucracy in India, but at home administrative rationalization
never quite had the upper hand over pluralism and politics.
Movements for administrative reform began in the United States of America
in the 1880s, proclaiming a debt to English experience; and similar efforts
were made in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But these reforms were
concerned with financial honesty and with office management, not with the
rBle of the administrator as ‘grand commis’ or proconsul.
The result was that if one looked at the academic literature of public adrninis-
tration in the 1930s one found that it assumed quite a different character in
the ‘continental’ and the ‘oceanic’ countries. In both, it naturally included a
great deal of tedious but necessary description of institutions and procedures.
In continental countries the subject was given an intellectual structure by the
developed ‘normative science’ of administrative law, which indicated with
precision and subtlety how points of administrative law could be brought into

Political science 195
relation with the framework of public law, and how that was in turn related to
criminal law and private law. Students were initiated into the ancient tradition
of the European State and law; but about administration, its technology, its
social structures they learnt nothing, except by experience and hearsay.
In the ‘oceanic’ States, the intellectual structure of the subject was greatly
inferior: nevertheless, it contained seeds of growth, in that the public services
were continually subject to pressures from outside. Some of these democratic
pressures tended to increase corruption : but others tended to promote a search
for efficiency and economy - what we should now call costlbenefit analysis - in
the public service. The service’s prestige was low: where should guidance be
found ? Inevitably reformers looked to the management of great commercial
and industrial enterprises; and public administration was instructed to Iook
towards the findings of research and experience in profit-making organizations.
2. Research on orgunizativns
The first development of research in that field did not work out well, either
conceptually or in practice, and by 1930 it was already in process of change in
face of criticism. At least until World War n, administrative doctrine in the
oceanic States consisted only of scraps of practical wisdom drawn from the
early efforts of the business schools.
In thirty years the situation has been radically changed, in two respects.
Firstly, academic research workers have taken in hand the study of organiza-
tions of various types, and can now propound general principles with a good
deal of scientific confidence. Secondly, public administration itself has changed,
in that all Western States are now involved in the management and supervision
of enterprises of an industrial character : these enterprises are ‘politicized’, in
the sense that they are deemed to be a matter of public concern, but nevertheless
they retain their industrial character as systems of cash flows and material
flows. This means that the barriers are down between the organization of public
administration in the old regulatory sense and the organization of industrial
production for profit. In terms of work method and of social research the
sectors are now inseparable, and all the findings of the sociology of organiza-
tions, the social psychology of work situations, the various disciplines involved
in operational research, are now brought to bear on the public sector of adminis-
tration.
It is to be noted that important contributions to this field are now coming
from countries steeped in the tradition of administrative law, notably France
and Germany, and from the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugo-
slavia. The study of organizations is world-wide.
3. Public and private organizations
One point about which there can be no dispute is that the modern State is an
organization State, and that research into organizations is profoundly impor-
tant for the study of the State. Such research covers many intellectual levels,
from the pure theory of organizations as systems39 to the compilation of case-
studies of particular incidents and the critical analysis of limited sectors of

196 W. J. M. Mackenzie
administration. In sheer volume of publication the study of private organizations
has a long lead; quite a substantial amount of work has been done on the
lower levels of public organizations in the United States of America, France
and the United Kingdom, but administrative theorists have been reluctant to
make a frontal attack on the problem of defining the special character of
public administration, if indeed it has a special character. Organization theory,
and the direct observation of organizations at work, tend towards a pluralistic
doctrine of human organizations. It seems that a hierarchy of command never
secures complete conformity; there is deference to it, and some conformity, but
lower echelons fight for and maintain such liberty of action as they can achieve.
To the hierarchical model one has to add a model of organizations and suborganizations
as systems surviving in an environment.
Control. It is not therefore possible to be confident that one can distinguish
public from private organizations in terms of control. For instance, the mechanism
of public control over a nationalized industry is of the same kind as the
control of a holding company over operating companies; in both cases, the
control can in the last resort be exerted, but it cannot be made continuously
effective in detail. Indeed, it is notable that, in both cases, both for great public
and for great private organizations, it is now usual to decentralize by means of
‘self-acting’ controls, intended so far as possible to simulate a market situation :
and communist countries are finding it necessary to use administrative expedients
formally similar to those used by the biggest capitalist organizations.
Setting. It is more plausible to distinguish public from private organizations in
terms of ‘ecology’ or ‘setting’. A big capitalist organization lives closely with the
banks, the money market, the Stock Exchange, and may change course to conciliate
them; whereas a large public enterprise, even though it is given a great
measure of autonomy, lives in a setting of politicians, parties, civil servants,
budgetary control and national planning. But perhaps this is a difference of
degree rather than of kind. Large private enterprises (for instance, in the United
Kingdom, the manufacture of cars, ships and aircraft) are of great importance,
and need State assistance in order to survive and prosper. They establish their
own connexions with ‘Westminster’ and ‘Whitehall’ ; conversely, the performance
of public enterprises is increasingly measured by market standards.
Generality. An attempt is made40 to draw a distinction in terms of the generality
and integration of the public field as distinct from the private field. Clearly
it is expected, in the present era of planning, that public enterprises, above all,
should be integrated into the plan and operated in the general interest rather
than for limited interests. But here we seem to be in the realm of normative
theory; the amount of research carried out has been very inadequate, but it is
not at first sight clear that public enterprises do in fact perform as they are
supposed to perform.
It will be noted that here empirical research impinges on normative problems.
There has been increased agreement that in the field of organizations practice
has tended to diverge so far from norms that norms become unrealistic; they
are paper doctrine, replaced in practice by a different set of operative norms.
The communist norm of detailed directive planning, the capitalist norm of

Political science 197
competition in a free market, are both out of line with present reality; but not
enough is known about the behaviour of large organizations for it to be possible
to draw norms and reality together more closely. Much has been done to study
work norms at the level of the factory floor and of routine office operations: and
the sociology and social psychology of these face-to-face situations are quite
well understood. But research in the factory has been easier to organize than
research in the Director’s office; not surprisingly, since research into the rela-
tion between behaviour and norms, however objective it is, wil be taken to
imply criticism; Directors are as sensitive to criticism as Trade Union leaders,
and have greater power to suppress it.
There is here, therefore, a research frontier which is common to a number of
social sciences; political science is certainly one of these, in that research into
administration now comes close to research into the character of the State it-
self.
4. Comparative administration
Two other fields of administrative study should be mentioned briefly: biblio-
graphical material is most easily available from the Comparative Administra-
tion Group of the American Society for Public Administration, but interest in
these topics is world-wide.
One of these is the comparative study of systems of public administration.
This has been a relatively neglected field; there are a number of important books
relating to it, but in the ‘oceanic’ countries students have found the study of
parties and policy-making more attractive, and in continental Europe the study
of administrative law has till recently almost excluded the study of administra-
tive practice. Yet the subject is one of practical importance; for instance,
recent official inquiries into the reform of the civil service and the reform of local
government in England have collected for their own purposes a great deal of
material about practice in other countries. There is a growing habit of using
political scientists to conduct such comparative inquiries and to summarize
findings, and (in the United Kingdom at least) this branch of the discipline is
now far stronger than it was ten years ago. Nevertheless, the published litera-
ture is still very patchy, and here also we meet an almost universal demand for
an improved and agreed theoretical structure.
Almost all political scientists now treat the administrative system of a
country as an integral part of its political, economic and social system, and they
advise against the imitation of single institutions without careful regard to con-
text. But this is somewhat negative advice; meantime, the imitation of institu-
tions goes on in practice, and its successes and failures are not much studied.
Administrators have gradually become aware of the need of sophisticated fol-
low-up studies in other spheres of policy; but they rarely look for ‘feed-back’
about the effect of changes in administrative structure.
5. Development administration
The second field may be conveniently referred to as the field of development
administration; this is an ambiguous term, but no other is equally convenient.
This is the ‘Development Decade’; it is commonplace that the gap between

198 W. J. M. Mackenzie
rich and poor countries is growing wider rather than narrower, and that much
aid is wasted because of ‘bad administration’. Hence donor countries are com-
mitted to giving ‘administrative aid‘ as well as money; most of the poorer
countries now have administrative training schools assisted by international
funds; and there are a number of regional centres supported by the United
Nations. But there is little agreement about what should be taught, except at the
level of routine office skills.
It is not even certain that it is judicious to mark off a special field as that of
‘development administration’. If these words mean ‘administration for the
promotion of change’, then all modem administration of any merit has that
character. If it means ‘administration in poor countries’, it offers only a generali-
zation with which we are already familiar, that no administrative system can be
understood outside its context. Yet it is necessary that administration in poor
countries should be improved even ahead of its context, and that this should
be done without the imposition of a fresh ‘colonialism’.
It may be answered that this is impossible; in Nkrumah’s words, ‘seek ye
first the political kingdom’. Yet Nkrumah’s own experience indicates that it is
possible for a governing party to collapse because of administrative errors and
the weakness of its administrative structure. It remains to be seen whether Fidel
Castro has been more successful: but success in accelerating the development of
Cuba would not refute the main argument - that even a revolutionary party
must find an administrative structure which is capable of sustaining purposive
action. Such a structure might not much resemble Weberian bureaucracy: but
the situation demands that any solution that works should be copied, however
unconventional it may be - even though previous examples of administrative
imitation have been discouraging.
Much information is now being fed back to academic research from field
experience of administrative aid, and the subject is a very active one. One can
perhaps distinguish two sorts of approach, general and pragmatic. The work of
Professor Fred Riggs, now of the University of Hawaii, is a good example of the
former; it consists largely of a revision of sociological theories of administration
to take account of conditions actually encountered in the course of American
aid in East and South East Asia. Such work undoubtedly leads to greater under-
standing of the difficulties created by the context, and it may therefore give some
reassurance to frustrated advisers. But it does not lead directly to specific and
demonstrable improvement.
At the opposite extreme is the attempt to build theory piecemeal by detailed
observation of special cases and of separate administrative sectors : for instance,
the series in planning administration, country by country, edited by Bertram
G~oss,~’ A. H. Hanson on public corporation~,4~ Henry Maddick on local
government,43 James Fesler”4 on field services, Arthur GaitskelI,& Conrad
Rei11ing,4~ and others on settlement schemes. This work cannot be done without
good theory, but it has directly practical aims: to increase the individual administrator’s
range of experience through case-studies, and to create and improve a
‘kit’ of administrative tools by studying particular devices tested in particular
contexts.

Political science 199
This is undoubtedly one of the most important areas of ‘field-induced‘ research
at present. To participants progress seems desperately slow; this is
partly due to lack of research resources, but it is also relevant that administrative
experiments have a fairly long time span, which must be respected. One wellknown
political impediment to good administration is the tendency to swing
impatiently from one expedient to another at the first hint of delay or failure.
D. Power, force, influence, authority
We now come to certain central difficulties in the structure of political science as
an empirical discipline. In practice, much research has been stimulated by a
demand for short-term answers to specific problems localized in one State;
and such work has been within its limits interesting and successful. But the
regularities established are at a fairly low level of generalization; and one of
the keys to partial success of this kind is to define a problem narrowly, recognizing
but hedging off the avenues which lead to wider problems not at present
soluble.
I. A provisionaI schema
This is a defensible scientific procedure, but it makes it difficult to plan a general
exposition. The soundness of work at lower levels is not in dispute: but there is
no general agreement about the conceptual framework within which it should
be presented. The framework used here has a long history, and perhaps corre-
sponds to some fundamental distinctions in the structure of States. But it is
presented with diffidence, as an instrument of exposition and not as the conclu-
sion of research nor as a philosophical system. Its rhetorical function is to
make it possible to pass quickly to specific research topics, each of which could
be illustrated by a very large bibliography.
The basic distinction is one drawn by Aristotle:47 in certain ecological con-
ditions there could be no human life without the State; the State once created
serves ends higher than those of existence.
There are certain conditions necessary to all States, dictatorial or democratic,
primitive or advanced. There must be a minimum standard (which is hard to
measure except by reference to historical events) of command and obedience;
a standard described by such words as power, authority, influence, and summed
up in the very difficult word ‘sovereignty’.
The way downwards from that cloudy peak is much easier. There would be
a measure of agreement that authority depends on a shifting combination of
force in battle (external and internal), executive efficiency, and prevailing myth
and ideology; and it would be agreed also that there are degrees of specializa-
tion of function as between military, bureaucracy, and ‘myth-makers’.
These conditions are to be defined as those which must be realized under
any state whatever, if it is to persist. The case has been stated here in ‘traditional’
language; it could be restated in Marxist language or in ‘general systems’
language.

zoo W. J. M. Mackenzie
There are greater difficulties in securing consensus when we move (as does
Aristotle) from the State which ‘lives’ to that which ‘lives well’: a sub-set of the
set of all States. The notion of ‘well’ involves appraisal, and there may be no
agreement about criteria of appraisal. Indeed, Marxist doctrine in its strictest
form (and various anarchist doctrines also) would insist that the State never
can be more than an instrument of coercion; at best, it is a necessary evil, and
under communism it will wither away: the only State which is good (except in-
strumentally) is a dead State. As will be seen later, the Western doctrine of the
‘approved‘ or ‘good‘ State involves many paradoxes : however, these paradoxes
demonstrably have roots in the economic and social structure of Western socie-
ty, and they are represented by living forms of political life.
To anticipate the argument of the next section, the ‘approved’ Western State
may be described as ‘democratic’, or as ‘advanced’, or as ‘constitutional’. The
third of these terms is chosen as the basis of exposition.
2. Empirical studies of power
Before considering the instruments of authority it is necessary to allude briefly
to the theoretical problems involved. It has been said for many years by those
who wish to study politics empirically that a key concept is necessary, and that
the appropriate concept is that of power. This view, expressed in these terms,
finds a motley assembly of defenders : Machiavelli, Hobbes, perhaps Marx,
Engels and Lenin, Pareto, Mosca, perhaps Michels, Catlin, Merriam, Bertrand
Russell, de Jouvenel, Burnham, perhaps Wright Mills. No two of their defini-
tions are the same: but this approach purports to be seeking a basis for empiri-
cal study, and at least an operational definition is necessary, so that there can
be an inter-personal standard for the recognition of power and at least some
weak ordering of different cases. This is easy enough in broad terms: it proves
to be very difficult when one is faced with precise test cases in practice.
The work of the late C. Wright Mills on The Power Elite (1956) illustrated in
detail the careers and r6les of men (and a few women) who held the top positions
in the structure of politics, business and defence in the United States of America.
From it, there followed the conclusion that these men ruled America, and that
they did it in concert. Floyd Huntefl* had drawn similar conclusions in 1953
about the government of Atlanta, a southern city of about half a million people.
These were displeasing conclusions, in that they contradicted the established
myth that America is individualist in business, pluralistic in political and social
structure; and it was right that they should be challenged. The debate which
followed was fruitful in the elucidation of concepts, inconclusive in substance.
The facts were not in dispute so far as they went; but the critics offered new
facts and challenged methods of demonstration. Mills and Hunter had used two
methods of establishing who holds power: who hold the highest positions, who
have the strongest reputations as powerful men. The critics added a third meth-
od: the observation of men in operation politically - how are decisions in fact
taken? The best known studies are those of Professor Dahl of Yale and Pro-
fessor Banfield, then of Chicago, now of Harvard. Both scholars contributed
extremely vivid and careful studies of American political life, and both (but in

Political science 201
different terms conceptually) reached the conclusion that American politics was
pluralistic in structure, not oligarchic. In two senses, there was no power elite;
first, that all power was in chains, secondly, that those who held limited power
were not allied to form an oligarchy.
In answer, critics of the critics have suggested that (in this case) a legitimate
method, faithfully pursued, nevertheless reaches conclusions which were built
into the method; and empirical study has now gone one stage further, to attempt
to build an extensive knowledge of American communities in depth, over sub-
stantial periods, using reasonably stable definitions.
This is an enterprise worth pursuing for its own sake, as a record of human
experience; but it is by no means certain that it can pin down the sources and
operation of political power. It should benoted (in particular) that such research
is a study of imperfectly integrated sub-systems within a greater system which
constitutes their environment; and that study of local communities developed
partly because it was extremely hard to obtain access to the decision-making
process in the greater system. This is not an accident but part of the problem;
a political scientist who lives within a system cannot hope to step outside its
rules and to break through the systems’s rules of power, which include rules
of access and of publication.
As a frontal attack on the problem of power in American government, the
movement has failed; and one is inclined to think that such problems are too
big even for ‘big’ political science. But it is a definite gain that ‘power’ can no
longer be treated as a simple and self-evident concept such as might form the
basis of a discipline, standing alone. It is in fact a very complex matter, and
different scholars use different word in different senses in an effort to unravel
these complexities. Hence the multiple title of this section - power, force,
authority, influence; ‘sovereignty’ supervenes : and to these one should perhaps
add ‘dominance’ (or ‘charisma’) and ‘manipulation’. It is not possible to go into
these questions here; but one wonders if the time is not ripe for an attempt at
definition of terms by a small group of scholars, on a multilingual basis?
3. Functional specialization
The next level of argument presents fewer conceptual difficulties, and there
might be a considerable measure of agreement about the institutionalization of
power in advanced societies. This is not a question of the origins of power, but
of its instruments; and there are three obvious claimants.
I. The military, regarded as controllers of organized force, concerned with
excluding other authorities from the State territory and with repressing resistance
within it.
2. The bureaucracy, regarded as a source of information, purposive planning,
and action under command.
3. The custodians and propagators of ideology and myth; in some circumstan-
ces a priesthood, in others a ‘clerisy’ of intellectuals, in yet others the appropri-
ate organs of a ruling party.
Some would add political police: but this is perhaps a specialized sort of
military combined with a specialized sort of bureaucracy. Others would main-

202 W. J. M. Mackenzie
tain that law, lawyers and adjudication have an independent place even in dicta-
torial regimes, in that civil order is essential to economic continuity, and that no
modern industrial State, however tyrannical, can flourish without regularity of
expectations, duly specified and promulgated.
This last point is an open question of fundamental importance which has not
been treated methodically. There is however a rich stock of monograph material
on the other topics : military, bureaucracy, ideology and police.
It is usual in such studies to find that an organization does not stay within the
functions allocated to it by meamlends analysis. In recent years attention has been
given particularly49 to the tendency for the military to intervene in politics, and
Finer and others have identified the types of situation in which this is likely to
occur, and the types of difficulty which an officer-corps will face if it seizes
formal positions of authority. Analysis of bureaucracy involves on the one hand
the study of public administration, on the other hand a reference (on the lines
indicated by Max Weber) from administrative institutions to the structure of
society. Indeed, under each of these headings there is required a study of ‘ecology’
on the lines suggested on p. 178 above: and we do in fact know a great deal of
the interaction between the fundamental elements of State organization and their
economic and social environment. One hesitates to claim that this knowledge
can be set out in the form of ‘laws’. Each case is strongly individual, and tradi-
tion, the social habit of acting in certain ways, is very strong once it has been
established. Who (for instance) would claim to have discovered by empirical
research laws exactly applicable to the case of China? W e have tools of analysis
with which to frame quite precise and relevant questions about conditions
governing the political development of China. But we do not know the answers
a priori; at best, we claim to have some skill in patching together coherent
hypotheses from scanty clues.
E. Constitutional States
It should be repeated that the categorization set out in Section D is meant to
apply to all States. Within this universe, there is a general desire to demarcate a
sub-set of States which are in some sense ‘approved’ in that they have achieved
more, politically, than the bare conditions of political existence.
I. The approved political system
It seems inescapable now that this approved condition should be tagged with
the name ‘democracy’; it would be an interesting piece of research (comparable
to the late Professor Koebner’sSO work on ‘empire’) to piece together how the
Greek word 6qpoxpudu, a word with a rather specialized political meaning in
classical Greek, came gradually to mean no more than an approved political
condition.
Various attempts have been made to appropriate the use of the word for
specific ends, by attaching evocative adjectives, for instance ‘free enterprise
democracy’, ‘people’s democracy’, ‘national democracy’, ‘African democracy’,

Political science 203
‘guided democracy’ (something similar happened to the word ‘socialism’, but
the latter is a ‘two-party’ word, in that some people call what they approve
‘socialist’, others call what they disapprove ‘socialist’). This political word-play
has drawn the attention of serious political theorists, and important work has
been done in the last twenty years to elucidate and extend the work of political
philosophers of the great traditions, a phrase which certainly includes Marx and
Lenin. The necessary inclusion of Marx points to a fundamental question. One
tradition (of which Marx is now the symbol) requires that political philosophy
be related to political action: if this is to be done, philosophy must gain some
purchase or leverage in the material world, its terms must (in contemporary
jargon) be, to some extent, at least, ‘cashed‘ or ‘operationalized‘. There is
therefore, at this general level, a close relationship between political philosophy
and empirical political science; the latter is not only concerned with questions
of cause and correlation but also with the questions which arise when one asks
‘Have these words of approval any operational sense’?
2. Its specification
There are perhaps three lines of approach to the problem of the ‘approved
political system’.
Institutional. One of these is instit~tional.5~ It specifies the institutions of
electoral democracy, central and local, and notes that these institutions can be
reduced to merely formal status by various devices. It adds therefore that these
institutions are incomplete except in so far as they conduce to the purposes for
which they were first created. These purposes in turn are disputable, but two
main possibilities emerge:
a. Participation: electoral democracy is real in so far as it is accompanied by a
sense of participation. Participation would be contrasted with depoliticization,
with apathy, and with alienation : words which also need operational definition.
b. Pluralism: electoral democracy is real in so far as it is accompanied by a
diffusion of power throughout the community. We have already seen (p. 200)
that sophisticated analysis is necessary before one can operationalize the concept
of ‘power’. But presumably if one contrives to measure ‘relative power’
one can then also measure ‘diffusion of power’.
Economic and social. A second line of attack seeks to by-pass the political
problem by expressing it in economic and social terms. This is a fundamental
tenet of Marxist doctrine, which finds both explanation and purpose in the
techniques of production and the material basis of life. Unless one understands
these one cannot understand politics; and the objective to be sought in politics
is the predominance of the most effective forms of productive organization. At
the next level come the institutions and ideologies of class and party; and then
as super-structure, and also as policeman, the State, its forms, its juridical action.
On this basis, the measure of excellence is that political forms should be well
adapted to the relations of production, and that they should contribute to an
advance in productive technique and capacity. American research eschews
Marxist language; indeed (in spite of the influence of Parsons, Easton, and

204 W. J. M. Mackenzie
Marion Levy) it seems more at home in variate language than in any sort of
general theory. But it wil be obvious that these two themes - the relations of
political variables to economic and social variables, and the improvement (or
‘modernization’) of political institutions so as to serve economic development -
have been very prominent in recent American research.
These themes are in various different forms prominent elsewhere. In England,
such analysis has been stronger hitherto among historians than among political
scientists, and Marxist and other concepts have been systematically explored
and debated in relation to the constitutional struggle in the seventeenth century
(Toynbee, Christopher Hill, Trevor-Roper). In Canada C. B. Macpherson has
studied both the social and economic base of prairie radicalism in the twen-
tieth century and the structure of ideological argument in the seventeenth cen-
tury. In Poland much has been done to explore changing patterns of political,
economic and social life (Ehrlich, Wiatr) and Stein Rokkan in Norway has
been a leader in a form of research now widespread which relates changes in
in voting behaviour and party structure to economic and social variables over
long periods.
Not all these scholars would accept the view that the ‘best’ form of govern-
ment is that best adapted to the productive process : but all are concerned with
the relation between these two factors.
Reference was made under the heading Public Administration (p. 197) to
the recent interest in administration for economic development. There has of
course been equal interest in the theme of ‘political development’, and it has
become obvious that in this field not much can be done by studying public
administration apart from its political, social and economic context. Here at
least, the concept of ‘administrative science’ as a separate discipline has suffered
a setback.
The work on political development has in volume greatly exceeded even that
concerned with development administration, and one views the results with
mixed feelings. The work done has been primarily American and English, with
some valuable French and Israeli contributions; but there has been an impor-
tant debate over neo-Marxism and neo-colonialism, some of it at a serious
academic level, and academic contributions are beginning to come increasingly
from scholars in the developing countries. Experience of the past phase, of
fifteen years or so, suggests that work in this field wil not go well till it is con-
ceived and sponsored primarily within the Third World itself. There have in
fact been great gains in knowledge in this period, and the whole subject has been
transformed: but it is a conspicuous weakness that so much of the work has been
inspired from outside the countries concerned. Perhaps objectivity is in some
sense easier where there is not continuous personal involvement: but a mixed
bag of motives may take its place. The Cold War aspect of the matter is not
perhaps as serious as is sometimes thought. In spite of the turmoil over Opera-
tion Camelot52 direct American military spending in this field was not (by
American standards) very large; indeed, it might have been better for all of us
if the American military had been better taught, on the basis of better research.
One could complain more justly that the choice of topics owed more to fashion

Political science 205
than to researchability, and that much was written primarily to satisfy academic
requirements in a distant country. Hence what seems to scholars in the countries
concerned a very low level of relevance to their problems, and an excessive
burden of theoretical verbiage. The Comparative Politics Committee of the
American Social Science Research Council worked very hard in the cause of
clarity and coherence, and the intellectual history of this episode ought to be
written some day. But if one looks back on the period for books to be referred
to and remembered, one would think perhaps first of solid and irreplaceable
descriptive studies, such as the work of Tordoff, Kimble and Austin on the history
of Ghana, and some similar French and American work; secondly, of remoter
studies of development with a greater sweep (Andreski on the influence of the
technology of weapons, Wit tfogel on Oriental Despotism, Eisenstadt on the
Political Systems of Empires) ; thirdly, of works by social anthropologists (and
some sociologists) using the techniques of ‘microanalysis’ in full awareness of the
transition from tribal political systems to State systems. These works will be
referred to in other chapters, and it is unnecessary to cite them here;53 it is
however my personal feeling that political science as a discipline has still much
to learn from them about how to handle intellectually, how to make ‘researchable’,
the entanglement of ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ levels of politics in non-Western
societies. One essential step would be to learn more about the character of this
entanglement inallsocieties, and to get over the parochial notion that developing
countries are in some special way transitional - unlike us. ‘A society is an unending
creati~n’.~~“ we all know that this is true of our own societies, but we are
often misled into attitudes of superiority by rather obtuse feelings of benevolence
towards the ‘under-developed‘. The Victorian bourgeoisie used to be just as
obtuse and benevolent (and perhaps hypocritical?) about the poor in their
midst.
Constitutional. A third possibility is to define the approved political system
as ‘constitutional government’. That is to say, all governments worthy of the
name possess authority, but not all governments are constitutional.54
At first sight, this is merely to substitute one difficult concept for another.
But there is a long Western tradition of constitutionalism, under that name and
others, and its strength and weakness has been very carefully analysed. The
central paradox may be expressed by saying that even the king is subject to
law; free men are subject to a government of laws, not of men.
The point is perhaps implicit in the account given by Homer of the early
Greek kingdoms; it is first made quite explicit by Herodotus in the fifth century
BC, when he contrasted the government of Greek city-states with that of oriental
despotisms, and it never vanished completely from Western political thought
even in the late Roman Empire and in the Dark Ages. It is not easy to find parallels
in the greater Eastern empires: but the concept is familiar enough in tribal
societies, where institutions generally limit the powers of leaders in various
precise and subtle ways.
It is proper to object that this is ‘an approved form of government’ for certain
people only, in conditions which must be specified. This is not disputed; all
that is claimed is that the concept of ‘constitutionalism’ can be analysed so as

206 W. J. M. Mackenzie
to generate a usable taxonomy of research in progress. I find that this gives
more coherence than any other schema, and I think that there are historical
reasons for this, embodied in the ‘ecology of political science’ (Section nr). It is
probable that the notion of ‘constitutionalism’ could be investigated empirically
as well as philosophically, indeed, efforts have been made to identify the ‘constitutional
instincts’ of factory workers in relation to factory government.55 But
one cannot proceed further without tackling directly the normative, philosophical,
indeed metaphysical, side of political science.
A very simple formulation may be sufficient for the present purpose:56
I. Government is necessary.
2. But a citizen in a constitutional State has rights against his government as
well as duties towards it.
3. These rights can be set out in three categories; but these interact, and there
are differences of opinion about nomenclature.
a. Active rights; the right (perhaps the duty) to participate in some way in
decision-making about laws and policies.
b. Personal rights, sub-divided into:
i) These necessary for the operation of active rights; e.g., freedom of speech
and of the press.
ii) These necessary to personal dignity and mutual respect; e.g., freedom
from encroachment on family rights and property except ‘by due process
of law’.
From this formulation can be generated the main heads of research referred
to in Section IV A.
I. Government is necessary.
a. Regimes and elites.
b. Governments.
2. But citizens have rights.
a. Active rights.
i) Voters and voting.
ii) Elected assemblies.
iii) Their political operation, and their economic and social setting.
b. Personal rights.
i) Political
(a) Organization and interest articulation; interest groups and their
operation.
(b) Communications and persuasion; both mass communications
through large organizations and personal networks.
ii) Private: important here not in detail but because the habit of respect
for law spills over from private to public business.
3. These rights are protected by law, and law depends on law-courts.
a. Constitutional cases.
b. Regular procedure in all cases. Both of these to be studied in their econornic
and social settings.

Political science 207
Summary. As foreshadowed in Section D.1, the argument of this Section is
open to dispute at each step, and it may be helpful to summarize briefly, so that
the steps of the argument are clear. There is in fact much less dispute about the
content of research than about its taxonomy, so that disagreement over taxonomy
need not invalidate the summary of research. But the disagreements are
important, in that they are built into the traditions of the discipline.
Section D dealt with the discipline in so far as it seeks to be a ‘natural science’
of the social phenomenon referred to by the ‘family’ of words which includes
such terms as power, force, influence, authority, dominance, leadership.
Some political scientists hold that in the interests of scientific objectivity the
discipline should limit itself to such studies. But it is observable in practice that
political scientists rarely follow that precept; and it can be maintained that the
tradition and special character of the discipline is that it seeks to deal both with
analysis and with evaluation. The latter is indeed a threat to objectivity; but it
is wiser to face the threat than to wish it away.
Assessment involves criteria. It is argued here that there are three sorts of
criteria in common use, and that these can be used as a framework for posing
questions about what happens in politics and about how the conduct of politics
might be improved.
These dimensions have here been called ‘institutional’, ‘economic and social’,
‘constitutional’, words which have no virtue in themselves.
The first is concerned with the expression of consent through institutions
specifying procedure for public decision. Elections are by no means the only
such procedure, but research and criticism have been dominated by concern
with elections. In recent years, however, discussion has been broadened by
concern with other institutions concerned with public decisions; in particular,
on the one hand citizen participation, on the other hand the institutions
of pluralism or countervailing power.
The second is concerned with relations between the political system or State
and its environment. This can be put with great force in Marxist terms, but the
importance of technological and ecological considerations is not under-rated in
the West. The relationship is reciprocal. On the one hand how well is the system
related to the demands of its environment? Assuming that when the fit between
polity and environment is bad the polity must change or perish; how does one
rate various existing systems? On the other hand, how far is a given system
effective in working on the environment so as to maximize benefits for its citizens?
Is it successful in discharging economic and social tasks? If it is not successful
how is change to come? From within or from without, gradually or by
violent revolution?
Thirdly, there is the dimension of freedom as expressed in terms of rights.
The tradition of constitutionalism is specifically Western, though it is not hard
to find analogies for it in tribal societies which existed before the emergence of
the State.
These characteristic standards have been treated here as dimensions; probably
no-one would be so dogmatic as to insist on assessment on the basis of one
dimension only, though there would be dispute about the relative weight to be

208 W. J. M. Mackenzie
given to each of them. It is impossible to use a three-dimensional matrix as a
basis for exposition in continuous prose, and ‘constitutionalism’ has been chosen
here as ‘master’ dimension.
This reveals a ‘Western’ bias, in that this plan is chosen partly because it
brings to notice the philosophical and juristic aspects of the discipline, partly
because it seems to be the most convenient framework for the exposition of
present priorities in research. But research is at present dominated by Western
political scientists; priorities will not appear the same to scholars working in
other environments.
(Note: The following sections have been kept short and general; they may
seem jejune, but if one begins to mention individual studies one must in fairness
try to be complete. This is quite impossible here, for reasons of space and time.)
3. Regime and government
There is some variation in terminology, but the distinction between regime and
government is universally accepted in some form. ‘The Government’ is the
American President, the British Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of the
USSR and the First Secretary of the Party, together with those of their associates
who hold public office. ‘A stable regime’ is one in which there are rules of
succession to office which are on the whole obeyed without violent resistance;
when kings governed, there were rules of succession to the throne, now there
are general rules of election or nomination. Governments come and go, the
regime remains.
The regime is not a matter of formal office-holding, and is therefore more
difficult to handle. Abstractly it can be considered as the combination of rules,
habits and beliefs most important to political life; concretely, it consists of the
political group or groups most influential in government - the political elite.
Regimes may be transformed slowly, as in the United States of America and
the United Kingdom; or abruptly by revolution, as in Russia and China. But
not all violent actions in politics deserve the name of revolution, even if they claim
it. There may be ‘unstable regimes’ in which rules of peaceful succession are not
obeyed, and violence accompanies succession crises. These would be, in the
language of Max Gluckman,57 ‘rebellions’, not ‘revolutions’; factions within
the regime fight for the succession, but the body of norms and persons constitut-
ing ‘the regime’ continues unchanged.
Regimesandelites. Reference has already been made (pp. 200-201) to the con-
troversyover the definition of ‘power’ and the attempt to use local communities
as laboratories for the study of power.
There is nothing new about the notion, variously named, of ‘aristocracy’,
‘oligarchy’ or ‘elite’. Clearly it bears some relation to the facts of life in all
political communities, in every age and in all parts of the world. Clearly also
the notion is used ideologically as well as descriptively: and the ideology varies
according to the speaker’s point of view, in relation to those ‘at the top’. These
undefined, partly philosophical ideas constituted a challenge to empirical
political scientists, and the recent round of inquiry and controversy was by no

Political science 209
means limited to the United States of America; the theme is common in the
study of British58 and French59 politics.
A first problem is to establish an operational definition of elite membership
which is acceptable to common sense and is also precise enough for analysis
and comparison. Common sense can agree quickly on some people who are of
the political elite: but it is not easy under any system (except the ancient
Spartan system of citizens and helots, or the corresponding South African sys-
tem of legally enacted apartheid) to define a ‘cut-off point’. Three methods
have been tried in the United States of America: by reputation, by position,
and by known participation in particular decisions: and none of them has
proved wholly satisfactory. In BritaidO and France it would be natural to in-
clude also some analysis of kinship and of education; and this already indicates
the difficulties of international cornparison.
Some of the most fruitful work has been done on the change of elites through
time, for instance in seventeenth and eighteenth century England. This is
mainly the work of historians, but historians are beginning to use the statistical
tools of the social sciences, and there is no clear frontier between this sort of
history and (for instance) the analysis of the changing pattern of politics in
Norway in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, made familiar by the work of
Stein Rokkan and Henry Valen.61
On the other hand, there has been little success in dealing with the challenge
posed by Wright Mills’ title, the power elite. American sociologists and political
scientists have taken quite opposite views of the American regime: that the elite is
relatively closed and compact, and is capable of united action; or that it is
relatively open and pluralistic, and is virtually incapable of combined action.
One problem is that of obtaining access for research purposes to centres of
decision-making ; but procedural difficulties arise even when access is allowed.
What is a ‘decision’? what is ‘influence on a decision’? how can one establish
interpersonal standards of measurement in these respects ? Enough has been
done in the laboratory of ‘community power-studies’ to indicate where the
difficulties lie.
Much less has been done in studying the character of regime or elite in the ab-
stract, as a set of norms. There have been various American studies (not partic-
ularly successful) of the ‘operating code’ of Communist elites, and there is
much loose talk about the ‘norms’ of the old British social elite. But studies of
political culture62 have not so far been successfully linked to the study of
political elites.
Governments. The study of governments is in one sense more straightfor-
ward than the study of regimes. The government is within the constitution;
that is to say, the system itself, in so far as it is a constitutional system, contains
rules regarding the legitimacy of governments. But these rules consist of a com-
bination of law, custom, and the interpretation of precedents, and they are by
no means free from ambiguity. The struggle for office often illustrates and
broadens the meaning of the constitution.
Nevertheless, types of government can be distinguished in institutional terms,
and profitable comparisons and generalizations can be made, at least so long as

210 W. J. M. Mackenzie
circumstances are reasonably similar. In particular, institutions of this kind are
exportable, and it is illuminating to observe (for instance) the differences which
have arisen when that characteristic British institution, the executive ‘responsi-
ble’ to an elected parliament which it ‘leads’, has been exported to States tend-
ing towards independence. The process began in Canada about 130 years
ago, and (by the standards of political science) the cases are now very numerous
- perhaps not far short of a hundred, if provinces within federations are in-
cluded. One can therefore risk at least tentative generalizations about institu-
tional change in the process of institutional transfer.
Notionally, it is possible to distinguish the administrative functions of the
executive from its political r61e. The abstraction involved may be misleading,
since (as was noted on p. 197) administration cannot be understood outside its
political setting. But the government is in fact the head of the administration,
except in so far as it fails to use its constitutional powers (in which case adminis-
trative pluralism prevails) : and to a limited extent its r61e as board of manage-
ment can be blocked off for separate discussion, under the rubric ‘public ad-
ministration’. Its political r61e can be examined in at least two ways.
First, who rises to high office and how? Rules of succession designate a field
and a procedure, but these are general and flexible; who in fact becomes Presi-
dent or Prime Minister? The whole of a system may be summed up in dramatic
cases, such as the succession to office of John Kennedy or of Nikita Khrushchev.
Secondly, how much autonomy belongs to the man or group of men who
hold the highest offices? How powerful is the President? Is the British Prime
Minister now boss of his Cabinet? Is the power of the First Secretary in the
USSR now balanced by the power of the Central Committee? Such questions
involve difficulties of definition, as indicated on pp. 200 and 209; even if the
question is exactly defined there may not be enough evidence for an answer.
This is an example of questions which political scientists are challenged to an-
swer by political circumstances; there is great public interest and curiosity, and
the public look to political scientists for an answer which may be balanced and
judicious but must not be vacuous. It can be done: Professor Neustadt’s book
on Presidential Power63 is a good example. But this is a matter of expert diag-
nosis of individual cases, not of nomothetic activity, however modest.
It will be obvious that, through the problem of succession, individuals in
office are linked to the elites which constitute the regime; and that the degree of
their autonomy depends on the way in which they are geared into the other
institutions which are considered next.
4. Representative institutions
The question of active participation as a right or duty has for some three cen-
turies been linked to the question of elections and elected assemblies. It can be
argued that this interest is disproportionate; that citizens can and do participate
in self-government in many ways and at many levels other than that of voting,
and that a numerous assembly is helpless except in so far as it is organized.
There is a fairly general feeling among political scientists that from the point of
view of balanced understanding of the political process rather too much research

Political science 21 I
effort has been spent on elections and assemblies. But research is attracted
partly because events concerning elections and assemblies are of personal and
dramatic interest to politicians and the public; partly because these are eminent-
ly ‘researchable’ topics, producing ample data which are suitable for statistical
analysis and raise no problems about access. It is quite likely that the resources
available for such research could not have been secured for the study of less
exciting but more fruitful topics.
The regulation ofprocedure. It is obvious that voting (including public voting
on issues, as well as in elections) and assemblies are both subject to detailed regu-
lation; and that these regulations, often tedious in detail, may be of great im-
portance in the political battle. The power to regulate elections, the power to
control the procedure of an assembly, may decide the issue; therefore, the sub-
stantive issue hangs on a procedural issue, and that in turn on a constitutional
issue, about the procedure for changing procedure. Not much can be said of
this paradox, which might lead to an infinite regress, except that in fact in con-
stitutional regimes - this is one mark of such regimes - the argument is at some
point halted by consensus. Factional struggles for office should stop short of
the point at which they endanger the regime. Many constitutional regimes have
collapsed through breach of this basic norm.
Within the limit thus set, electoral practice and legislative procedure have
been and remain central topics in political science. To some extent these are
lawyers’ questions, but the intricacy of the political ‘engineering’ involved is
more a matter of cause and effect in politics than of skill in legal interpretation.64
One would expect any well-trained empirical political scientist under a constitu-
tional regime to know a good deal about elections and a good deal about assem-
blies, to be able to make useful comparisons with comparable practice else-
where, and to have some advice to offer about the practical consequences of
choosing one device rather than another. As in the study of executives, the
generalizations offered are short-range ones and the skill involved is diagnostic
rather than nomothetic. But much is known, and the knowledge can be drawn
into the practical service of politics.
Voting andparties. But these procedural matters, important though they are,
are not felt to touch the substance of electoral politics. How are electors organ-
ized? how are issues shaped for presentation to electors ? how do electors choose
between the possibilities offered? A first answer is that in all existing consitu-
tional regimes the choice of the electorate is mediated through political parties.
But this in turn throws up questions about the rise and fall of political parties,
about their organization and iinance, about their relation to the economic,
social and cultural conditions of society.
Serious academic work on parties and elections began in the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, at the time when many countries had reached or were
approaching universal suffrage, and the hopeful or gloomy prophecies of earlier
scholars were being put to the test. The field lies open both to techniques of
history and observation and to statistical analysis based on the language of
variables; the literature is enormous and continues to grow rapidly.
A large literature is needed merely to keep pace with events; but there is also

212 W. J. M. Mackenzie
a vigorous search for new lines of study. In the opinion of experts, the following
are the key points at present.
a) The diachronic study of electoral voting in relation to changing economic
and social factors, district by district. The construction of adequate archives is
easier in some countries than in others: but when the material is available
computers now make national and cross-national analysis possible (see Chapter x
by Stein Rokkan). Here electoral study extends far beyond its original scope;
indeed, voting statistics become a tool to be used for the study of the relationship
between many different variables in the process of social and economic
change.
b) Public opinion polls now have an important place in practical politics;
some academic collaboration is possible, but the data which they gather for
parties and the press are not designed for serious research into the formation
of political opinion. If funds are available, there are two much better tools:
the panel study, involving questions to quite a large sample of electors, repeated
at intervals over a period; and the depth interview, in which a single observer
(or a small group of observers) conducts lengthy open-ended interviews with a
small sample of electors, with the object of tracing in some detail the relation
of their voting behaviour to their political ideology, and of their ideology to
their life experience.
c) A great deal has been done to study parties ‘at the grass-roots’ in the United
States of America, and there has been some comparable work elsewhere. Parties
have been considered in the first instance as offering programmes and ideologies,
as organizing elections and assemblies; and party finance has been analysed
as fully as the data permit. In the United States of America parties have been
considered not only as ‘machines’ but also as ‘men’, and for some American
cities quite detailed knowledge is available about the people who do daily work
for a party at the lowest level, about what motivates them and about how they
live. But these are complex and diverse phenomena, not easily handled by library
work or by using statistics already available; a good study can be made by an
individual using personal observation carefully controlled, but individual studies
are no more than suggestive, and large studies are complex and expensive.
Yet without them we are left to hints, guesswork and personal experience for a
knowledge of the motivations which sustain parties as working organizations.
d) A large but diffuse effort has been spent on the study of parties in developing
countries, particularly in Southern Asia and in tropical Africa. Much of
this has been at a very high level of generality, based largely on printed and
radio propaganda and on experience in cities; and it has not been easy to follow
party organization down to local level, and to study the very interesting problems
of contested elections, one-party elections, electoral or pre-electoral competition
within the single party. But enough pioneering work has been done to indicate
that this is potentially a fruitful field.
The organization of assemblies. The word ‘Namierization’ was coined from the
name of the late Sir Lewis Namier to describe the detailed study of members of
assemblies, their careers, their motivations, their relations to leaders and to
voters in daily business. Namier’s field was a period of about 20 years in

Political science 213
eighteenth century England, and the historian has advantages in that written
sources are more easily available to him. But the same question can be asked
about contemporary assemblies, and it is a natural first step in political science
in Western democracies to study the elected as well as the electors. Up to a
point their lives lie open to inspection, since they cannot refuse to tell the voters
who they are; and (up to a point) their actions are noted in assembly votes which
are ‘on the record‘ for public criticism or commendation.
The United States of America has over IOO legislative assemblies; two for the
federation, and two for each of all but one of the 50 States. Thus every univer-
sity has at hand good material for students, and much excellent work is done at
a low level of generality. Similarly, on a much smaller scale, in all other coun-
tries where there are assemblies claiming some freedom of speech. There are
still very large gaps; but political science has done pretty well in making availa-
ble lively and carefully documented descriptions of the life of individual assem-
blies. Certain ‘syndromes’ can be specified for American assemblies65 : but
little has been done to extend this work by following it up elsewhere.
There are good practical resasons for this gap; there are also the theoretical
reasons that it is not possible to create an artificial assembly (comparable to an
artificial small group) and that real assemblies even in times of revolution are
tangled in historical idiosyncracies which cannot be peeled off neatly so as to
leave a comparable model. Certainly politicians acquire by experience some
skill in judgement about assemblies; and some political scientists might do
more to use and analyse this knowledge.
Ecology and attitude. But at present the trends of research are towards deeper
study of the fields in which it is easy to get comparable data: the position of
legislators in social structure, and the pattern of their careers in structure/
function terms; the attitudes of legislators as expressed in their own political
language and also in answer to questionnaires and depth interviews; factorial
analysis of voting records as a means of plotting the latent structure of an as-
sembly. This is (in general) mature and scholarly work, and enables one to put
sharply the case about the character of political science. Some of the work is
based on non-statistical data, but much can be expressed in the language of
variables. It is to that extent scientific as well as historical, and its results are
refutable generalizations about the behaviour of a single complex of people.
These are observed regularities about a single case; not deterministically bind-
ing but subject only to rather rare exceptions. Beyond the single case, generali-
zations are weaker; the less comparable the cases, the less easy is it to move from
the singular to the general. It would be rash to compare the House of Commons
with an elected assembly in Africa, even though the latter has adopted the
Standing Orders of the British House. It would not be rash to compare one
African assembly with another; for instance, Tanzania with Kenya. But the
result of doing so is to bring out singularities; the ways in which comparable
assemblies differ seem more interesting than what they have in common. The
sense of ‘interest’ is partly a matter of ‘idiographic’ curiosity: but it also reflects
a feeling for deeper generalizations about the varieties of political behaviour
which we are not at present competent to express in nomothetic terms.

214 W. J. M. Mackenzie
5. Personal rights
It wouldat this point be appropriate to introduce the philosopher and the lawyer
to analyse the different senses given to the word ‘rights’ and to indicate the
contexts in which each usage is appropriate. It is an advantage of the ‘constitu-
tional’ approach that it makes it necessary to note the junction of disciplines at
this point: but it is impossible here to pursue the issue, and the presentation
chosen is deliberately naive.66
There is an old distinction, made in various forms, between political (or ac-
ritive) ghts and private (including procedural) rights. The distinction blurs if
carefully analysed: but it serves to structure the present exposition.
a. Political rights. These are the direct conditions for effective political par-
ticipation: old Declarations of Rights spell them out at length, but perhaps they
can now (given the technological structure of advanced industrial societies) be
compressed under two heads.
Organizations. A number of philosophers, very different in other respects,
have pronounced that the State can admit no organization except its own:
Rousseau, protecting the general will from particular wills; the early political
economists, insisting that agreements in restraint of trade constitute a conspira-
cy against the increase of wealth; Lenin, insisting that the Party is the ‘leading
core’ of all admissible organizations. But the proliferation of organizations has
proved to be characteristic of technological societies in the West; each trade,
each specialization, constitutes an interest group, organized to maximize the
benefits received by its members, and the spokesmen of interest groups may
prove to be as influential in formulating decisions as are the spokesmen of politi-
cal parties.
So far, this is a statement of fact: beyond this, it would be contended (first)
that technological development in its nature creates special interests, and that
these interests cannot be reduced to servitude without delaying the advance of
technology; and (secondly) that this condition of pluralism is an ‘approved‘ one,
or at least is one to which the process of ‘modernization’ tends - it is perhaps
good, or at least all viable alternatives are worse.
The extreme view, that of A. F. Bentley, stands historically at the beginning
of the sequence: his book, The Process of Government, postulated, as long ago
as 1908, that the State has in fact withered away, or, to put it more strictly, that
it had always been an illusion; that nothing exists politically except interests,
their arguments, their pressures, including (of course) the interests of various
public bodies, which are supposed to be hierarchically subordinate to command
but in fact fight (by a law of their nature) each for its own bureaucratic interest.
Some 30 years later Chester Barnard and H. A. Simon added the ecological and
biological formulation, that any group or organization can be regarded as
a system surviving in an environment, and that if its inputs do not suffice to
balance its outputs it must switch to a lower level of activity, or perish.
These important insights have led to an enormous amount of work about
organizations, in all countries where political sociology is studied; and this
work continues. As was said earlier (p. 211) in relation to elections and assem-
blies, much work is needed simply to keep pace with a changing situation: and

Political science 21 5
the work done is admirably successful in mapping the behaviour of each system
separately. Indeed, generalization can be carried further; interest groups respond
more sensitively to shifts in technological organization than do parliamentarians
and public officials. Undoubtedly, in each country the environment of the in-
terests is different; nevertheless, it is certainly possible to identify cross-national
‘syndromes’ about the political organization of farmers, or teachers, or physici-
ans (functional groups), as can be done in regard to the military or the officials,
groups whose rGIe is to some extent determined by the organization of the State.
This limited comparative study of organizations is at present the most fruit-
ful part of the topic. Scholars seem reluctant to be pushed further towards
wider generalization by provocative utterances which cannot easily be made
operational. At one extreme is the view of Bentley, that the State is no more
than a ghost, a transparent screen for ‘real’ interests. In 1951 D.B. Truman in
his book, The Governmental Process, attempted to rescue the ‘public’, at least, if
not the State, as a latent interest capable of being mobilized in answer to a
threat. But this formulation did not win much support; and no other scholar
has tackled the problem of ‘general interest’ and ‘particular interests’ head on
as a matter of observation and ~erification.~’
Similarly, it has become a sort of commonplace of political science that the
other extremeview is untenable; that in a technological society it is not so much
improper as impossible to prevent interests from finding some way in which to
express themselves. The doctrine, as old as Rousseau, that such groups must be
either abolished or controlled by State or party, has been embodied in the
practice of various States in the last 40 years. In Hitlers’s Germany and Musso-
lini’s Italy one can see (after the event) that the doctrine was not enforced, that
interests invaded the party, that what was meant to be monolithic was as plura-
listic as was government by interests in the United States of America, and much
more barbarous.
But no real attempt has been made to bring this debate under control by
observation: and perhaps it is not within the power of political science to do so.
Communications. ‘Freedom of speech and freedom of the press’ have as
long a history as has ‘freedom to organize’: and these freedoms also are caught
up in technological change.
There has been much straight descriptive study of the institutions and finance
of mass communications in the electronic age : techniques of content analysis
make it possible to assess changes in trend and to react quickly; up to a point,
there has been technical success in developing the art of persuasion: or (perhaps
more important) the art of creating ‘a favourable climate of opinion’.
Much of fhis belongs to sociology and social psychology rather than to
political science. Modern politics depends on the art and science of mass com-
munications: but it is also interested in the problem of opinion leaders. It is now
realized that ‘small group’ discussion exists as a powerful medium alongside
television, radio and the press; and that the question of leadership in the small
group is not a separate question, because the leader in conversation leads also
in selecting and emphasizing and repeating some aspects of the contents of mass
communications and not others. In politics, ‘a mass’ is not a blank and passive

216 W. J. M. Mackenzie
unity: the audience is structured. In a rough general way, from the rest of our
knowledge about politics, we can guess how the audience is structured: but the
general knowledge has not been related closely to operational devices for measur-
ing the range and impact of political communication, and of political language
in general.
This is technically a very difficult field, but it is a particularly important one,
in that the range and intensity of political communication help to delimit
the boundaries of viable systems and sub-systems (Section 1vB.3 aboveb. 191)
on the process of political unification).
b. Private andprocedural rights. The heading of this section implies a theory
which has never been adequately tested. The theory is that the legal protection
of public rights arises out of and depends upon the habitual use of legal proce-
dure in defending private rights. It is claimed:
i) That the habit of using courts of law, reinforced by successful use, extends
from cases between citizens to cases between citizens and public authorities.
ii) That litigation depends on lawyers, and that a strong legal profession, in
protecting its own interests politically, helps to propagate the idea of judicial
protection of rights.
iii) That procedure evolved in litigation between citizens is carried over into
litigation between citizens and the State; and that these common procedural
assumptions are as important as (perhaps more important than) the way in
which the substantive rights of citizens are specified.
In constitutional States, there is a fair measure of agreement about the private
rights which the law-courts should defend against interference either by indivi-
duals or by public authorities except in so far as the interference is sanctioned
by ‘due process of law’: rights of private property except in so far as it is
used contrary to law, freedom from arrest except under judicial warrant or in
face of immediate danger, freedom of speech not libellous or slanderous, and
so on.
There is also a fair measure of agreement on three ‘principles of natural jus-
tice’; that no man should be compelled to incriminate himself, that all parties to
a case should be heard (audi alteram partem), that the judge must be free from
any suspicion of partiality. Perhaps there is less agreement on a fourth point
of critical importance, the cases of emergency in which public authorities are
entitled to override the law temporarily, under the old Roman maxims - ‘dent
operam consules ne quid res publica detrimenti capiat’68 and ‘salus populi
suprema lex esto’.69
In all States which claim to be constitutional there is debate about the proper
limits of State interference with individual rights under these three headings,
‘due process of law’, ‘natural justice’ and ‘emergency powers’, and there is a
very large literature, mainly descriptive and analytical, dealing with matters on
the borderlines between political science, jurisprudence and philosophy. A
personal opinion is that (though it has done something) political science has
not yet doneenough toexplore the political implications of different legal systems,
in different social situations, by its characteristic methods of library study, direct
observation and statistical analysis.

Political science 217
6. Constitutional courts
We reach (finally) the point of logical weakness in the defence of constitutionalism
as an ‘approved‘ form of government. The constitution specifies the scope
of government, the scope of representation, the nature of political and personal
rights and the procedure by which they are to be sustained. In some cases there
is dispute about the meaning of these rights: what then? An alternative is
posed :
Either this is a political matter, and the highest political organ, government or
parliament or some combination of them, must judge. But what then of protection
of the citizen against political action?
Or it is a judicial matter, to be settled by a Supreme Court independent of
politics. But can such a court remain independent, if it is called upon to judge
matters of the highest political importance?
There is a subordinate difficulty: that many modern constitutions specify
rights of a humanitarian kind: the right to education according to one’s capacity,
the right to work for which one is fitted, the right to suitable maintenance in
old age, and so on. Undoubtedly it is not easy to make such rights ‘justiciable’;
but doubtless it could be done if the major problems of constitutional interpretation
were satisfactorily solved.
It wil be obvious that there is here a large field for empirical inquiry designed
to relate the dilemma posed logically to the actual experience of politics. One
must report that much work has been done on the composition and political
action of the United States Supreme Court, and on the work of American
judges at lower levels; very little, on the rBle of courts in other States claiming
to be constitutional, except in relation to criminological studies.
These problems arise also concerning the functions of law and adjudication
in the international community, and they are closely related to such problems
as the scope and application of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Here one crosses a borderline into the territory of ethical norms; there is
nevertheless an indissoluble relationship between ethics and practice, and political
science has not yet done enough to establish what is in fact the practice of
civil liberties in constitutional States.
V. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Tt wil be obvious to the reader that political science is deficient in taxonomy,
and to a considerable extent culture bound. These weaknesses have made it
hard to present an analysis of work in progress within a framework which can
command universal assent. They also make it difficult to strike a fair balance
between the contributions of different schools and scholars, and to indicate
confidently where the research frontiers now lie. A further difficulty is that
political science (though few would now claim that it is a master science) lives
by contact with the other social sciences. No development in them is alien to it,
and much more might have been done to illustrate connections between thepres-

218 W. J. M. Mackenzie
ent chapter and other chapters in the book. This network of reciprocal in-
fluences serves to raise the level of scientific literacy among political scientists,
but it adds to the difficulties of synoptic presentation.
What has been written so far is a drastically abbreviated summary: rather
than end with a summary of a summary I add here notes on three matters of
importance which have not yet been stressed.
I. Decision-making
It has seemed to some of us in recent years that we could make more progress if
we took ‘decision-making’ as the focus of our studies, rather than ‘power’,
‘legitimate authority’ or ‘political system’.
There are various reasons for this:
I. The driving force which brings people to political studies is often that of
curiosity about decisions, allied to a desire to improve the quality of decisions.
How did ‘they’ reach such a foolish or wicked (or far-sighted and altruistic)
decision? What can we ‘learn’, for the improvement of our own future decisions?
2. We meet at the outset one problem of central importance. Does a ‘political’
decision differ significantly from any other sort of decision? If so,
No single answer is satisfactory, but it is helpful if we can ‘map’ the possible
lines of reply.
3. Whatever answer we choose, the word ‘decision’ builds a bridge between
.politics and other social sciences. On the whole, economics talks freely about
decisions’ made by individuals or by lk-ms; sociology is rather reluctant to use
the word. Within psychology, there are perhaps varying attitudes; individual
psychology uses concepts of ‘choice’ and ‘preference’ even in relation to laboratory
animals, whereas social psychology is shy of them. What is to be learnt
from these diversities within the study of man?
4. There is an interesting relationship with the study of law, which is much
too ready to exclude itself from the company of the social sciences. There is in
law a useful distinction between a man’s ‘intention’ (on the one hand) and (on
the other hand) his legally binding decision. As economists have recently become
aware,“ bargaining may be bargaining about procedures : the procedure by
which a binding decision can be taken with legal effect is very important in
shaping the decision process and probably (therefore) in relation to the content
of the decision.
5. It will be obvious that if we seek to say what a human ‘decision’ is (as
distinct from a ‘decision’ by a rat in a maze) we become entangled with philosophical
rather than scientific questions about the nature of man. Can we draw a
clear line to set social science apart from metaphysics and theology? My own
answer would be ‘Yes: provided that we do not attempt to do too much’, and I
think that analogies from the natural sciences (which have been successful
through the cumulative effect of precise and modest inquiries) favour this
view. But, whatever answer one chooses, one is by this approach compelled to
think out problems of postulates and methodology early in the investigation.
6. One seeks, in a scientific sense, to break through these obstacles because
the territory they defend is promising scientifically. If we make ‘the State’

Political science 219
our unit of inquiry, the number of cases is too small to suggest conclusions of a
general kind: but ‘collective decisions’ are as the sands of the seashore for mul-
titude, and there will still be an inexhaustible store of cases for investigation and
conceptual experiment, even if we define ‘political’ so as to exclude many deci-
sions. But it should be possible to proceed empirically to establish whether it
is or not convenient to mark off political decisions from others.
If one presses on through these conceptual difficulties (all of them worth
analysis), one meets new difficulties and new opportunities in empirical study.
These difficulties are of two kinds:
I. The history of any collective human decision is extremely complex, even in
the simplest real-life situation. How is one to bridge the gap between decisions
made by a group under laboratory conditions and decisions taken ‘live’ in a real
political situation ? It would seem appropriate to take laboratory concepts and
to use them (very tentatively) as tools of analysis in ordering the mass of ‘in-
formation’ which is relevant to any real-life decision. But little has been done
yet on these lines.
2. If one views the study of collective decisions as a whole, considerations of
strategy indicate that we should avoid the study of big decisions until we begin
to understand small decisions; and indeed ‘access’ to small decisions (provided
that we do not insist on getting a truly random sample) is easy - whereas access
to top level decision-making is (almost by definition) extremely hard, in that
top policy-makers are bound to defend their privacy against invasion, or at
least to impose censorship. He who investigates top level political decisions is
entangled in politics; there are rules of objectivity which safeguard his standards
in research, but publication may be impossible unless he has great skill in
writing in Aesopian language between the lines.72
For these reasons one cannot expect a quick breakthrough in the empirical
study of collective decisions; nevertheless, there is much to be said for an
approach which cuts across the puzzles of classification indicated in earlier sec-
tions of this chapter, and across the present structure of the social sciences.
2. Orientation
There is another division which runs through all categories of research: the
distinction between work which is discipline-oriented and work which is prob-
lem-oriented.
On the one hand, there are those scholars who work primarily for a scholarly
audience and treat the discipline of political science primarily as analogous to a
natural science. There is, they would claim (or there ought to be), a body of
propositions linked conceptually and subject to empirical proof or refutation,
and these propositions should constitute a scientific edifice which is continually
altered and extended, very occasionally rebuilt.
On the other hand, there are those who think primarily in terms of practical
problems demanding attention. Particular problems - for instance, nuclear
strategy, the politics of developing countries, the administration of metropolitan
areas - press upon those actually engaged in politics and upon the public in
general. These problems are certainly within the scope of political science (and of

220 W. J. M. Mackenzie
other disciplines as well), and political scientists are under an obligation to give
such help as they can. Naturally, this help should be given by argument and
investigation of a disciplined kind, and its premises and assumptions should be
made as clear as possible. But the obligation is not to be evaded on the ground
that the problems proposed are too complex for scientific treatment: the politi-
cal scientist may not have a complete answer, but (like a doctor faced with a
disease which he cannot cure) he is under an obligation to give such help as he
can. He may not know enough, but at least he knows more than others.
The issue between these orientations can be expressed in a quotation from Sir
Peter Medawar’s book, The Art of the Sobble:73
‘No scientist is admired for failing in the attempt to solve problems that lie
beyond his competence. The most he can hope for is the kindly contempt
earned by the Utopian politician. If politics is the art of the possible, research
is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.’
Those who favour discipline-oriented research can reproach the others as un-
scientific. But the latter can retort that purity in science is not possible; that
society sustains the scientist and has a right to call on him - indeed that it does
inexorably call on him, since he cannot live outside society.
But political science, it seems, cannot escape involvement in this dilemma,
and undoubtedly the main body of political scientists would seek some central
position by which to justify their working assumption that the two orientations
are not only conflicting but also complementary: on the one hand, that political
science is strongly conditioned by its political and social environment and
risks self-deception if it forgets this; on the other hand, that political science
has no special contribution to make to the solution of problems except in so far
as it can offer a great range of knowledge organized in an orderly way and
subject to scholarly canons of accuracy and objectivity.
3. Theoretical styles
There are also differences of style in political theory, not corresponding exactly
to these orientations.
These can perhaps be subsumed under three headings, which indicate different
ways of handling political theory, radically different in style, though they over-
lap in content.
a. Grand theory. One meets here names such as Marx, Herbert Spencer,
Weber, Parsons. These are men who do not neglect empirical study, but believe
that it is not fruitful unless organized by a self-consistent structure of unifying
concepts. They seek to establish a system, a hierarchy of concepts comparable
to that of physics, which links the design of experiments and their results
through middle-level generalizations to a relatively small number of key con-
cepts, rigorously defined and related.
It may be said that such a style is bound to lead in the end to metaphysics, and
indeed that it is not the method used in natural sciences less fundamental than
physics. To which it would be retorted that all natural sciences rest on physics
and that physics cannot shirk the problems of what is as yet unobservable -
the cosmos, for instance, and the ultimate structure of the atomic nucleus.

Political science 22 I
b. Partial theories. Others would stress the importance of theory at a much
lower level of generality. This may take two forms. On the one hand, there are
areas in which mathematical models are helpful, even though our political data
are too limited for their strict application. Favourite examples are games theory
and information theory; theories which are stated by mathematicians strictly,
and are used by political scientists in a loose way to illustrate particular processes
and their limiting conditions. On the other hand, generalizations can be built
up from observation, by a process of trial and error, in which comparison plays
a large part. Such a method does not despise theory, provided the theory
arises out of empirical study and is deeply involved in it. That is to say, its
concepts should not be so precise, its range so wide, that it loses contact with
ordinary experience and ordinary language.74
The former style might be illustrated from the work of Schelling74 and Riker,75
the latter from that of S. E. Fir1er.7~
c. Historical. Political theory is often taught through the history of political
thought, with emphasis both on the logical structure of each theory and on the
historical context in which it emerged. Such schemes can be extremely valuable
in teaching care in statement and respect for the mutual influence of theories
and their environment. It also teaches indirectly that no theory is final and that
our own contemporaries wil in the end take a place in the history books, if
their work has been influential enough to justify it. Its unexpressed doctrine is
that eclecticism is prudent and indeed correct. No theory which made an impact
can be wholly false, but none can be wholly true, either. Theories are as it were
keys adapted to particular locks; now one is the right theory, now another. They
do not add up either to a science or to a philosophy of a comprehensive kind:
their precarious and transient character is itself a characteristic of human politics.
It would be tempting to say that the taste for grand theory is strongest in the
super-powers, the United States of America and the USSR: that the historical or
eclectic style is strongest in EngIand: that partial theory is necessary, in all
political science, but has no separate tradition of its own. But one cannot push
this sort of speculation very far; the conflict of styles exists everywhere, and it
strengthens and enriches the discipline.
NOTES
I. ARISTOTLE, Politics, 1282 b, 1. 16, and Nie Eth., 1094 a, 11. 26-29.
2. ARISTOTLE, Politics, 1253 a, 1. 3. ‘Political’ is by no means an adequate translation
of Aristotle’s TCO~LTLX~V. But I think that if one explored theproblem oftranslation it
would extend and deepen the present point, without changing it radically.
3. Parsons needs no citation, but it would be appropriate to refer here to Easton’s
most influential work, The Political System, New York, Knopf, 1953. Much has
happened since 1953. and Easton is now by no means the only source of ‘systems
language’ in political science. But it was he who first opened these perspectives.
4. A. MACINTYRE, A Short History of Ethics, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1967, P. 4.

222 W. J. M. Mackenzie
5. See for instance, J. K. GALBRAITH, The New Industrial State, London, Hamilton,
1967, and Y. MODRZHINSKAYA, ‘Quiet Anti-Communism’, International Affairs,
Moscow, Aug. 1967.
6. A reference to P. B. Medawar’s view that a truly professional scientist must be
skilled in The Art of the Soluble, London, Methuen, 1967, p. 55.
7. K. W. DEUTSCH and L. N. RIESELBACH, Recent Trends in Political Theory and Political
Philosophy, supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, 360, 1965, p. 141.
8. The volume on Contemporary Political Science, published by UNESCO in 1950.
serves as benchmark to indicate the advance made in less then twenty years.
9. This is at present a most fruitful area of collaboration between political science and
social psychology.
IO. Evanston (Ill.), Row, Peterson, 1957.
11. New York, Harcourt Brace, 1950.
12. New York, Wiley & M.I.T., 1957.
13. T. W. ADORNO et al., The Authoritarian Personality, New York, Harper, 1950.
14. See in particular, B. DE JOWENEL, L’art de la conjecture, Paris, Rocher, 1964, and
various papers in the series Futuribles.
15. But see H. A. Simon’s essay on ‘Bandwagon and Underdog Effects of Election
Predictions’, in Models of Man, New York, Wiley, 1957, p. 79.
16. ‘The Theory of Organizational Decision-Making’ in: A. RANNEY (ed.), Essays on
the Behavioral Study of Politics, Evanston, Illinois University Press, 1962, p. 193.
17. There is an interesting personal narrative by Heinz Eulau, who attributes the
initiative to individuals who had worked closely together in applied social research
during the war years. ‘The Behavioral Movement in Political Science: A Personal
Document’, Social Research, 1968, pp. 1-29.
18. American Political Science Review 55, 1961, p. 763.
19. ‘Recent Trends in Research Methods in Political Science’, in A Design for Political
Science, Monograph No. 6 of The American Academy of Political and Social
Science, Philadelphia, December 1966. He seems to have forgotten judicial data,
which are very rich and important.
20. The Swedish professional journal, Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift was first published
in 1898, the American Political Science Review not till 1906.
PI. The Revue francaise de science politique was first published in 1951. There are
important statements about the character and scope of the discipline in M. DWER-
GER: M6thodes de la science politique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1959,
and M . PRBLOT: La science politique, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1961.
22. J. KORNAI, Overcentralization in Economic Administration, Translated by J.
Knapp, London, Oxford U.P., 1959.
23. R. E. LANE, Political Ideology. Why the American Common Man Believes What He
Does, New York, Free Press, 1967.
R. E. AGGER, D. GOLDRICH and B. E. SWAINSON, The Rulers and the Ruled: Political
Power and Impotence in American Communities, New York, Wiley, 1964.
24. This has been one object of the Yale University data programme; B. M . RUSSETT,
et al., World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, New Haven, Yale U.P.,
1964. See also A. S. BANKS and R. B. TEXTOR, A Cross-Polity Survey, Cambridge
(Mass.), M.I.T., 1963.
25. For a further reference to the explicit study of political culture see p. 209 below.
26. E.g., Almond‘s well-known introduction to G. ALMOND and J. S. COLEMAN, The
Politics of Developing Areas, Princeton (N.J.), Princeton University Press, 1960;
more recently, G. ALMOND and G. B. POWELL, Comparative Politics: A Developmental
Approach, Boston, Little Brown, 1966.
27. See further, pp. 191-193.
28. B. BRODIE, Strategy in the Missile Age, Princeton (N.J.), Princeton U.P., 1959.
29. M. A. KAPLAN, System and Process in International Politics, New York, 1957; J. W.
BURTON, International Relations. A General Theory, Cambridge U.P., 1965; H. J.

Political science 223
SPIRO, World Politics: The Global System, Homewood (Il.), Dorsey Press, 1966.
But see also The General Systems Yearbook, Vols. 1-12 (1956-1967) for an interdisciplinary
approach of a more rigorous kind.
30. T. C. SCHELLING, The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge (Mass.). Harvard U.P.,
1960; Arms and Influence, New Haven, Yale U.P., 1966.
31. E. S. QUADE (ed.), Analysis for Military Decisions, Chicago, Rand McNally, 1964;
C. J. HITCH, Decision-Making for Defense, California U.P., 1965.
32. Both Pittsburg, Boxwood Press, 1960.
33. In particular, Paix et guerre entre les nations, Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1962. Cf. the
work of P. WNOUVIN and J.-B. DUROSELLE, Introduction 2 l’histoire des relations
internationales, Paris, Armand Colin, I 964.
34. In the USA this close connection with intelligence services is not denied: see for
instance McG. BUNDY at p. 3 of E. A. J. JOHNSON (ed.), The Dimensions of Diplomacy,
Baltimore (Md.), Johns Hopkins U.P., 1964.
35. New Federations: Experiments in the Commonwealth, Oxford, Clarendon, 1967: of
eight clear cases, one (East Africa) was a non-starter, four have collapsed (Central
Africa, Nigeria, West Indies, S. Arabia), one is precarious (Malaysia), two (India
and Pakistan) have attained relative stability, but can they still be defined as ‘federations’
in the old sense?
36. See the literature of political, international and General Systems Theory already
quoted; and also A. ETZIONI, Political Unification, New York, Holt, Rinehart, 1965 ;
K. W. DEUTSCH, The Nerves of Government, New York, Free Press, 1963; K. W.
DEUTSCH and W. FOLTZ (eds.), Nation-Building, New York, Atherton, 1963.
37. See further, Section v. I, p. 218.
38. The eight ‘fundamental categories of rational legal authority’ are to be found (e.g.)
in R. K. MERTON, et al., Reader in Bureaucracy, Glencoe (Ill.), Free Press, 1962.
39. For instance, H. A. SIMON, Models of Man, New York, Wiley, 1957; R. M. CYERT
and J. G. MARCH, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.),
Prentice-Hall, I 963.
40. R. G. PARKER and V. SUBRAMANIAM, ‘Public and Private Administration’, International
Review of Administration Sciences 30, 1964.
4J. National Planning Series, Syracuse U.P.
42. Public Enterprise and Economic Development, 2nd ed., London, 1965.
43. Democracy, Decentralization and Development, London, Asia Publishing House,
1963.
44. Area and Administration, University of Alabama Press, 1964.
45. Gizira: a Story of Development in the Sudan, London, Faber, 1959.
46. The Zande Scheme, Northwestern U.P., 1966.
47. Aristotle,PoZitics, Book I, at 1253 a. Could this be put in H. A. Simon’s terms? ‘To
live’ (sjjv) is to satisfice, ‘to live well’ (EA @jv) is to maximize: in this case to maximize
(subject to external and internal constraints) a number of independent variables,
which may or may not be reducible to a single standard.
48. Community Power Structure, North Carolina U.P., 1953.
49. E.g. by S. E. FINER, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics,
London, Pall Mall, 1962.
50. Cambridge U.P., 1961.
51. There is an important discussion by Professor Giovanni Sartori of the University
of Florence: Democrazia e deJinizioni, published in English as Democratic Theory
(Detroit, Wayne State U.P., 1962). See also A. P. d’ENTRkVES, The Notion of the
State, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1967 (First published in Italian in 1962).
52. I. L. HOROWITZ (ed.), The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot, Cambridge (Mass.),
M.I.T. Press, 1967.
53. Nctable names (among others) in this field are Max Gluckman, M. G. Smith, F. G.
Bailey, Lucy Mair, I. Schapera, P. C. Lloyd, Georges Balandier, Fredrik Barth,
J. C. Mitchell.

224 W. J. M. Mackenzie
53a. A. DETOEUF, quoted in A. KAUFMANN, The Science ofDecision-Making, Translated
by R. Audley, London, Weidenfeld, 1968, p. 25
54. Three names notably associated with this tradition are C. H. McIlwain, C. J. Friedrich,
Benjamin Akzin.
55. E. JAQUES, The Changing Culture of a Factory, London, Tavistock, 1951, and other
works.
56. Clearly items I and 2 here are postulates about ‘political man’ in relation to this
‘measure’ of what is approved. They could be explicated at great length, and their
‘ecology’ could be studied. But they are postulates nevertheless, not hypotheses.
57. Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa, Glencoe (Ill.), Free Press, 1963.
58. W. L. GUTTSMAN, The British Political Elite, London, MacGibbon and Kee, 1963.
59. See, for instance, M. ANDERSON, ‘The Myth of the Two Hundred Families’, Political
Studies 13, 1965, p. 163; and note the special issues of the Revue franGaise de
science politique, April, June, August, 1964 and February 1965 : ‘Catkgories dirigeantes
ou classe dirigeante?’, and R. Aron’s article in the last of these.
60. C. S. WILSON and T. LUPTON, ‘The Social Background and Connexions of “Top
Decision-Makers”’, Manchester School 27, 1959. p. 30.
61. In particular, H. VALEN and D. KATz, PoliticalParties in Norway, Oslo, Universities
Press, 1964.
62. Notably, G. ALMOND and S. VERBA, The Civic Culture, Princeton (N.J.), Princeton
U.P., 1963.
63. New York, Science Editions, 1960.
64. In recent years a number of economists have concerned themselves in voting as a
method of summing individual preferences. See various important and interesting
books by K. J. Arrow, I. M. D. Little, D. Black, A. Downs, J. M. Buchanan, G.
Tullock, C. E. Lindblom.
65. J. C. WAHLKE, et al., The Legislative System: Explorations in Legislative Behavior,
New York, 1962.
66. M. GLUCKMAN (ed.), Closed Systems and Open Minds: The Limits of Naivety in
Social Anthropology, Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, 1964.
67. This is not to depreciate good theoretical work; in particular, the volume on The
Public Interest, edited by C. J. FRIEDRICH in the NOMOS series (Harvard U.P., 1962).
68. There is a good example early in Caesar’s Commentaries on the Civil War: Book
1.5.3.
69. CICERO, De Legibus, Book m, 8.
70. See the able discussion by the late B. LEONI, ‘The Meaning of “Political” in Political
Decisions’, Political Studies 5, 1957.
71. See note 64 and in particular, J. M. BUCHANAN and G. TULLOCK, The Calculus of
Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy, Michigan U.P., 1962.
72. Only in the USA has it been possible to build satisfactory collections of ‘public
administration cases’, analogous to the ‘business cases’ used in teaching at Harvard
and in other Business Schools. An experiment by the British RIPA was apparently
not pursued - F. M. WILLSON and G. RHODES, Administrators in Action,
London, Allen and Unwin, 2 volumes, 1961 and 1965.
73. London, Methuen, 1967, p. 7.
74. See note 30.
75. W. H. RIKER, The Theory of Political Coalitions, New Haven, Yale U.P., 1962.
76. See note 49.

CHAPTER III
Psychology
JEAN PIAGET
Though the science of psychology is amenable to methods of experimentation
proper, which are hardly (or much less) applicable to such disciplines as lin-
guistics or economics, it has taken longer than they have to determine what its
specific aim in research should be. For this there are two reasons, which are
really complementary. Firstly, being concerned primarily with human beings,
psychology was for a long time subordinated to philosophy, which was why the
realization of the limits of introspection and the need to assign a place to
consciousness in the general scheme of ‘behaviour’ was a fairly slow and labo-
rious process. Secondly, once it had ceased to centre exclusively on introspec-
tion, the science of psychology first found in man only a mixture of biological
and social elements, before the contemporary structuralist movement re-
discovered a wider and deeper mental specificity than consciousness, though at
the same time it took in the latter, preserving its links with the organism and
with collective life.
The task of describing the trends in contemporary psychological science wil
therefore first of all involve analysing the reasons for its dissociation from
philosophy (with an exception being made as regards its constantly renewed
contacts with epistemology). Then it wil be a question of reviewing its early
empiricism, which comes out again even now whenever authors are distrustful
of explanatory theories and confine themselves to the description of observables
or laws. The next stage will be to show how the search for an explanation often
leads to attempts at reduction in the direction of organic life, or even, beyond
this, of general physical mechanisms or of social life. The final stage wil be to
identify the various types of research that aim at defining specific characteristics
of mental life or of behaviour either in the direction of internal qualitative facts
(psychoanalysis), overall and quantifiable observables (behaviour), genetic
structuralism, or abstract models. Such a survey will naturally give in addition
information on inter-disciplinary trends in psychology and on the many appli-
cations of this branch of the human sciences.

226 Jean Piaget
I. Scientific psychology andphilosophy
From an objective review of the facts and trends, two points emerge. Firstly,
the International Union of Psychological Science, to which belong national
psychological associations with a total membership of approximately 40,000,
has never wanted to join the International Council for Philosophy and Human-
istic Studies. Not, of course, out of any lack of interest, but because it wishes to
maintain an attitude of reserve as far as philosophical speculation is concerned,
while the latter does not threaten linguistics or demography in any way. Second-
ly, there are people who think that psychological science alone cannot attain a
knowledge of man and needs backing up by a ‘philosophical psychology’
(also called ‘philosophical anthropology’). If we are to understand the trends
in contemporary psychological science, we must therefore first pick out the
differences between these two tendencies and identify the requirements peculiar
to psychology as a science.
I. For many writers, particularly those with positivist leanings, the difference
between psychological science and philosophical psychology (and then they
generally dispute that the latter has any meaning) lies in the nature of the
problems they are concerned with, for psychological science, like any other
science, is supposed to be concerned only with ‘observables’, whereas philos-
ophy supposedly seeks to arrive at the nature of things and ‘essence’.
This is indeed how things would appear to stand at fist glance. Everyone is
agreed, for example, that the problem of the freedom or absence of freedom of
the human will is a problem for philosophy and not for psychological science
(even when psychologists acknowledge through method a methodological deter-
minism as far as phenomena are concerned), while everyone concedes that the
laws relating to memory or perception are a matter for scientific research. How-
ever, the very history of psychology shows at once that the boundary between
what are regarded as philosophical problems and scientific problems has con-
stantly shifted in unforeseen directions. For instance, at the end of the last centu-
ry psychologists were little concerned with the working of judgement in connex-
ion with the intelligence, or dismissed it as relating to the association of ideas,
leaving it for logicians to enlarge on the subject. When Marbe proceeded to
study this, he merely considered that in addition to the association factor there
was an ‘extra-psychological factor’ or logical factor, which was of no concern
to psychologists. Today, on the other hand, there are numerous theories of the
intelligence, and no one contemplates excluding judgement from the purview of
psychology. It would therefore be extremely hazardous at the present time to
divide up psychological problems into scientific and philosophical ones, and the
most common tendency is to regard science as mitely open and deciding it-
self at every moment which problems it is concerned with.’
Why then, at a given moment in history, are certain problems considered to
be within the realm of psychological science and others not, it being possible to
leave these to philosophy to deal with? Quite simply because there are questions
that can be sufficiently defined for a solution to be reached through experiment
and calculation and because the solutions thus arrived at are capable of winning

Psychology 227
the general acceptance of research workers (or, in the event of momentary
disagreement, capable of being checked or verified with the hope of subsequent
agreement). If science is not concerned (or not at present) with the problem
of freedom, it is then not because of the nature of it (phenomenon of
‘essence’, etc.), but because there is no visible means - or not yet - of formulating
it in terms of experimental or algorithmic verification and because - as things
stand at present at any rate - the solutions offered are based on value judgements,
beliefs and so on, that are all respectable but mutually irreducible, which
is an acceptable de facto stituation in philosophy.
Approximating again, we shall say then that the boundary between scientific
psychology and philosophical psychology Is a question of method, with objective
methods on the one hand, and simply reflexive, intuitive or speculative
methods on the other. But in such a subject as the study of the facts of the mind,
which is of concern to everyone, where does the boundary lie between objectivity
and subjective intuition? We frequently tend to think that the line of demarcation
is connected with introspection. There certainly has been a school of
psychological thought (behaviourism, now very much modified2) that banned
any reference to consciousness, coniining itself solely to behaviour. But, there
have also been philosophies that defended dogmatic materialism, and it would
therefore be utterly wrong to maintain that scientific psychology overlooks consciousness,
while philosophical psychology makes it its subject of analysis. An
entire German school of psychology (Denkpsychologie in Wiirzburg) even
attempted at the beginning of this century, while A. Binet was studying the same
problems in Paris, to make introspection yield a maximum of information by
using a method of induced introspection and by focusing introspection on
clear-cut and decidable questions, such as the role of the image in thought and
the differences between a judgement and an association of ideas. While these
studies clearly revealed the limits to introspection, as we shall see presently,
they by no means established that it was without any significance.
It would be just as incorrect to assume that philosophical psychology was
alone incons idering the human being as a subject (e.g., as a subject of knowledge
from the epistemological point of view), while scientific psychology made
it an object. This would be just an unconscious (if not deliberate) play on words
designed to confuse the objective study of the subject with ignorance or neglect
of the subject. Even in animal psychology or ethology the present general trend
is to treat the living being as a subject, and K. Lorenz, one of the founders of
‘objectivism’ in ethology (i.e., the method of objective study of the animal in its
actual environment and not just in the laboratory) has just written a very stimulating
study on the analogies between his ideas concerning instinctive or acquired
knowledge and the Kantian view in epistemology. In the psychology of the
intelligence, all the work of the Geneva school on the development of mental
concepts and operations in children also succeeds in showing the part played by
the activities of the subject in the elaboration of knowledge, in contrast to the
exclusive r6le of passive experience in the empirical sense.
Tf the difference between scientific psychology and philosophical psychology
has to do neither with introspection nor with consideration of the subject, it

228 Jean Piaget
must be sought then on a more specific point, which is still a point of method,
but which concerns solely the rBle of the ego of the researcher himself. Objectiv-
ity, as meant by the current movement of psychological science, is not at all
neglect or abstraction of consciousness or of the subject, but ‘decentring’ in
relation to the ego of the observer. Whence the three main lines of research or
the three main viewpoints characteristic of the most general trends in contem-
porary psychology. First there is conduct, i.e., behaviour, includingconsciousness
or realization. Introspection alone is not enough, because it is both incomplete
(it grasps the results of mental processes and not their intimate mechanism) and
distorting (because the subject who introspects is both judge and party, which
plays a considerable part in affective states, and even in the cognitive sphere
where one’s own philosophy is projected into the introspection). However, con-
sciousness remains a basic phenomenon if placed in the overall context of con-
duct, and from this point of view we shall examine the process of cognition.
Claparkde has shown that children, at an age when they over-generalize, find it
harder to distinguish the similarities between two objects (a fly and a bee for
instance) than their differences, with cognition thus reversing the actual order
of procedure, going from the periphery (disadaptation of the action) to the
centre (intimate mechanism) instead of the reverse. Secondly, there is the genet-
ic point of view, in the sense of ontogenetic development: taking first the adult,
only already constituted mechanisms are observable, whereas if we follow their
development, we arrive at their formation, which alone is explicative. Thirdly,
there is the structuralist point of view, which is not yet accepted by everyone
but which we shall see is an increasingly profound and compelling approach.
It is the search for structures of behaviour or structures of thought resulting
from the gradual interiorization of actions, but structures whose effects can be
established experimentally, while the subject himself, though having constructed
them by his very activity, is not conscious of their existence as structures.
Gestalt psychology paved the way for this kind of research, which is going on
today in the most varied subjects : psycho-linguistic and psycho-social struc-
tures, structures relating to the operations of the intelligence, etc.
This being so, we then appreciate better the frontiers between scientific and
philosophical psychology. It is neither the problems nor the subjects of study
that separate them, and any question tackled by philosophical psychology can
or could come within the scope of scientific psychology, just as we see philos-
ophers studying behaviour, development or structures. The only difference is
due to the ‘decentring’ of the ego: where the psychologist claims to advance only
hypotheses that can be verified by everyone, by furnishing in his carfully differ-
entiated techniques the means of control, the philosopher works on the notion
that he knows himself by means of a series of supposedly primary intuitions
pre-existent to all psychological knowledge, and the introspection he uses is
therefore an introspection centred on his ego. It was from such a view-point
that Maine de Biran thought he had grasped a cause and a force in the sense
of effort, whereas P. Janet and others have since shown that the ‘guiding’iof
effort (and not the consciousness of it) is a regulator of the activations of the
action, which distributes but does not generate the available energies. It was

Psychology 229
from the same view-point that Bergson contrasted pure memory, which he
thought could reach through immediate intuition, with motor mechanism or
habit, while contemporary studies reveal at least ten levels of transition between
the recognition of signs (form of memory linked to innate forms conduct and
habits and, while distinct from them, based on them) and conduct involving
reconstitution and then evocation. It is from the same viewpoint that Merleau-
Ponty sees in any form of behaviour an ‘incarnate consciousness’ and seeks to
reconcile the search for a primordial consciousness and for a continual activity
of ‘transcendence’, without being able to decide whether the individual is deter-
mined by all the different forms of behaviour, the whole of his past and the whole
complex of structures merely in so far as he is aware of them, or whether coa-
sciousness is but a completion that only full study of development can place in its
real context.
But if the differences between psychological science and philosophy thus
seem clear, it is self-evident that they are mainly a matter of orientation. In
practice, every psychologist remains to some extent tied to his own epistemol-
ogy, and it is to this that E. Nagel attributes the persistence of different ‘schools’
in psychology.3 Furthere, no writer on the subject dispenses with observations
made on his own ego, even if it differs somewhat from others. Pure positivists
such as R. Carnap and R. von Mises now go so far as to say that internal ob-
servation is ‘in principle’ no different from external observation,4 though it may
at the same time concern observables distinct from those of physics and even of
physiology. 5 However, there is the remaining difference that while psychological
science remains open to all problems and to all concrete facts, it is always with a
view to arriving at objective explanations while conforming to the general rules
relating to experimental verification and even, to formalization in so far as is
possible at the present time. Whereas the probability of assumptions and coher-
ence of ideas are sufficient for philosophical reasoning, the not inconsiderable
heritage that psychology has derived from this has become valid only subject to
such controls. Since the behaviourist revolution, in particular, introspection,
instead of providing an ‘in se’ conveyed by the speech of the subject, has become
one form of behaviour among others, subject to the laws of cognition and reinte-
grated into the overall behavioural context - so much so that with Stevens
psycho-physics itself has been able to use subjective scales and we now see a
great many methods of estimating qualitative data, attitudes and opinions being
developed.
2. Empiricism without structrrralism and the need for explanation
in psychology
When a young science is taking shape and is further obliged to break away from
philosophy not without some struggle, it generally takes time to discover its
main trends, because these are far from being conscious from the start (a further
example of the dificulties inherent in cognition) and are discovered only by
trial and error and often even by exaggerations of initial theories.

230 Jean Piaget
I. In this connexion, the associationism that marked the beginnings of psychol-
ogy in the nineteenth century and sought to explain everything in terms of
mechanical associations between prior atomistic elements constituted by sensa-
tions and images perhaps rendered greater services through its exaggerations
and initial imperialism than it would have had it been presented in a moderate
form as one hypothesis among others. As a reaction it led to American func-
tionalism, the source of behavioural psychology, to German Denkpsychologie
and especially to the Gestalt theory, which are at least partial sources of con-
temporary structuralism, not to speak of psychoanalysis, the work of Binet
(who began with associationism to turn right away from it in I903), of P. Janet
and many others who showed the way leading to genetic psychology.
However, amid this dialectics of conquering but hazardous theories and of
more profound doctrines supplying the omissions of the former, there is a
periodic trend that is worth mentioning at the beginning of this chapter because
it is continually springing up again and has both contemporary and historic
representatives. This is the positivist trend, which is solely interested in observ-
ables and in establishing between them repeatable relations, without bothering
to go beyond general facts or laws by searching for explanations or elaborating
interpretative theories.
As we are not concerned with history but with the main trends in contempo-
rary psychology, as far as the past is concerned it will be sufficient to note the
somewhat striking contrast of which one is aware on thumbing through the
proceedings of the first international congresses on psychology and comparing
them with present day congresses, or to compare the present state of American
psychology with what it was some forty years ago. Whereascontemporaryresearch
is very largely conducted with a view to solving a problem and its results are
then often expressed in terms of more or less general or abstract models, the
procedure that was for a long time adopted was to compile facts, as though the
problems or the solutions to them would emerge subsequently. It was possible,
for example, to find in a laboratory (even in 1929) admirable documents com-
piled year after year on the same school children and presenting] a very full
longitudinal table of their performance as assessed by all theknown tests, though
their painstaking and scholarly authors had no idea what they were going to
get from them. Today a longitudinal study is carried out only to check the
necessary order of succession of stages or variations in the rate of development,
etc., and only if the problem is precisely stated can the facts selected for the
purpose be used.
Such artlessness is no longr to be found in contemporary positivism, and one
of its best known and most qualified representatives, F. Skinner, has posed a
number of precise problems relating, for example, to the process of learning in
animal and human psychology. However, wishing to offer only definite facts,
Skinner deliberately and methodically confined himself to two kinds of observ-
ables in his analyses: the inputs or stimuli presented to the subject, and the
outputs or the resulting observable and measurable reactions. Between the two
there is, of course, the organism with all its psychological or mental interme-
diate variables, but Skinner systematically ignores them and compares the

Psychology 23 I
organism to a ‘black box’ between the inputs and outputs of which a connexion
can be established without knowing what goes on inside. Despite these limita-
tions, this research has been productive, and in this connexion there are two
points that might be noted.
The first is the utilization of ‘instrumental learning’, discovered by Konorski.
It was previously thought that learning was the result of ‘external reinforce-
ment’, provided by the experiment or by the experimenter, whereby the actions of
the subject are requited by successes, failures and punishment. Konorski has
shown that there are, on the contrary, forms of learning linked to the spon-
taneous utilization of devices built into the experimental set-up. Skinner thus
placed in his experimental boxes kinds of levers, which if pressed accidentally
and later deliberately by the animal, made the food appear. From his observa-
tions of pigeons, rats and so on, he saw that the animal’s explorations eventually
enabled it to operate the lever, which then became a kind of food dispenser. In
this connexion, let me say at once how indicative it is to see an author who,
systematically ignoring what is inside the ‘black box’, systematically uses a
functional activity of the subject and an almost instrumental activity (though
not excluding various kinds of reinforcement). Skinner then made the all-im-
portant observation that his pigeons learned more quickly what was expected of
them in the many variations of the experiment when the whole device was
mechanically adjusted as regards the distribution of the results of each action
than when the experimenter attended to the details. Being himself a teacher,
Skinner had the bold idea of trying out on his students a programmed distribu-
tion of psychological food by means of distributors offering several answers to
choose from for each question. By pressing the appropriate buttons, the stu-
dent sees whether the answer he has chosen is right or wrong; if correct, the
operation continues; if not, the question is asked again. It is common enough
knowledge that the result of this psycho-educational experiment led Skinner
and his successors to apply this method of programmed teaching generally to
the learning of languages, arithmetic and so on, and that this process is very
popular at the present time in some circles, though debated in others. Its oppo-
nents include, of course, the great linguist N. Chomsky, in whose view the spon-
taneous learning of language is absolutely irreducible to Skinner’s models.6
The strict positivism of which we have just given an example is therefore very
far from being non-productive from the experimental or even theoretical point
of view. As the aim of this survey is not to conduct a critical analysis of different
people’s views, but a study of trends, it is not for me to express an opinion con-
cerning this first trend, but to show why it is not followed by the majority of
research workers and how it is supplemented or replaced by others.
11. The first thing to point out in this connexion is that generally (though not in
the case of Skinner, as we shall see) pure empiricism leads to an atomistic split-
ting up of forms of behaviour to the exclusion of any kind of structuralism, not
by reasoned induction or deduction, but implicitly and through the very dividing
up of the problems. The mind naturally tends to explain the complex by means
of the simple and merely to regard as simple what appears to be so by direct

232 Jean Piaget
dissociation from the complex. Now (and this amounts to the same thing) the
most elementary mental operation is that of addition, which inclines one to
believe that any complex system is but the product of an addition of simple
elements. Unelaborated empiricism is therefore always liable to misrepresent the
mental reality by reducing it to artificial ‘atoms’, instead of arriving at overall
structures. This was what happened with the classical form of associationism:
after simply breaking up perception into sensations (without seeing any problem
or the need for any justiiication) and by postulating the conservation of prior
sensations in the form of images, it remained only to reduce the activity of the
subject to a system of associations intended to link the sensations to the images
or the latter to each other in order to arrive at the concrete and effective total
entities of perception, concept, judgement and so on.
The current stimulus-response (or S+. R) model, which for many writers
has replaced the artificial ‘association’ of the past, may or may not lead, as the
case may be, to the same atomistic drawbacks. This alone at once goes to show
that in planning his experiment the research worker projects into it a whole set
of problems whose very existence points to the difficulty of adhering strictly to a
positivist ascesis. If the experiment is broken up into small discontinuous and
independent stimuli, the S +. R schema brings us back to strict associationism
(but of course between perceptions and movements, without any further reference
to problematic images). If, on the other hand, we have the talent of Skinner
and we choose as a stimulus a complex situation introducing an entire causali-
ty - in short a universe where the pigeon’s activity can develop more freely -
then the S --f R schema reveals instrumental forms of behaviour that no longer
have anything to do with simple associations.
The general tendency today therefore is to regard the S+ R schema as
essentially complex and, by itself, ambiguous. To begin with, one essential fact
revealed by animal psychology and electro-encephalographic examination is
the existence of spontaneous activities of the nervous system (waves) and of the
organism (research carried out by Adrian and others) that are not reactions to
a stimulus. Increasing emphasis is placed on the fact that if the organism
responds, when there is an S 4 R reaction, it is because it is sensitized to the
stimulus. This prior condition of sensitization to the stimulus comes out very
clearly in instinctive reactions (where stimulus works only if there is ‘appetence’)
and equally so in learning, if we follow the subject step by step during his
development and observe the first signs of sensitivity of a stimulus to which he
was previously indifferent. This sensitization indicates the presence of a new
inclination, which in fact leads to the response. This therefore inclines us more
and more to think that the S -+ R schema is not linear (+) but circular (S s R),
which makes it impossible to ignore the living organism (Or). Hence the complex
relation S (Or) R and the theoretical impossibility of ignoring the intermediate
variables.
Moreover, even sticking to the strictest positivist schema, it must be recognized
that experimentation intended merely to describe inputs and outputs (by
means of repeatable relations or laws, but without causal explanation) is
the product of a partly arbitrary dividing up. We have already noted that the

PSyChdOgJ’ 233
choice of inputs supposes a dividing up of the universe by the observer. How-
ever, as we have just seen, the production or presence of outputs is still relative
to the particular moment in the life of the organism or the subject being studied,
which implies a dividing up in time. The total experiment, even from the positi-
vist viewpoint, would be to try out one by one every possible input and to study
them continuously from birth (or from the foetus) till death. The great advance
of instrumental learning over the traditional approach (see below under 7) is
that it has extended the input range, thereby attaining in the outputs a cross-
section of the subjects’ life. However, we must pursue both lines of research
which inevitably means, even from the positivist viewpoint, adopting a genetic or
relative approach to development as a whole.
III. If we then examine the many studies that have been carried out on the
development of the mind (I shall return to this under S), we observe that they
are either lists of facts - but facts recorded for interpretation purposes - or more
general doctrines based on facts but all attempting to explain and not just to
describe them, in other words, all going beyond the positivist schema. For none
of these doctrines escapes the almost unavoidable necessity of dealing, at one
time or another, with development ‘factors’ (the process of attaining organic
maturity, experience, social life, etc.), which involves seeking for a causal ex-
planation and a general tendency to fill - if only with assumptions - the inside
of the black or empty ‘box’ of strict empiricism.
As regards learning, the general trend is also clearly in the direction of ex-
planatory theories. We can, for instance, stick to simple description so long as
the process of learning is gradual and the laws observed receive confirmation;
but if a new acquisition, which is too similar to a previous one, partially obliterates
it and what is called ‘retroactive inhibition’ occurs, everyone is bound to want
to know why. Of course, whatever is discovered wil again constitute laws, but
any such partial laws wil have to be reconciled with more general laws and their
co-ordination is no longer ’a matter of mere description, for here deductive
elaboration becomes necessary, which is precisely one of the aspects of causal
explanation.
We constantly find this in laboratory work on perception, memory, mental
processes, and so on. It is impossible, for instance, to examine with a tachisto-
scope, using an exposure, say, of 1110th or 5/1ooths of a second, a known per-
ceptive effect (such as an optico-geometric illusion) and discover a new regular
modification7 without wondering what this change is due to, which again means
searching for the causal explanation.
Under the most varied names (and the vocabulary used here may not suit
everyone, though this is perhaps only a question of wordss), the general ten-
dency is therefore to go beyond description to interpretation, which involves
three stages of research.9
I, First there is the description of general facts or repeatable relations, i.e.,
the formulation of laws.
2. Then comes the deduction or co-ordination of the laws. The best example
is provided by Hull who, after discovering a series of laws concerning the pro-

234 Jean Piaget
cess of learning, the part played by reinforcement, goal gradients, the hierarchy
of habits in ‘families’, etc. (see below under 7), undertook with the aid of the
logician, Fitsch, a formalized elaboration of these laws starting from a number
of postulates that could be considered as their reasons, since they were sufficient
and necessary for their deduction. Other authors are not concerned with making
deductions set out in logical form - but, whether their deductions are intuitive
or more or less formalized, whether explicit or even implicit, it is impossible,
once a number of laws are involved and especially when they involve different
scales (overall or increasingly local and particularized), not to include them in
a system in which some are dependent on others or are derived from them.
3. However, the deduction of laws is still only a logical operation and does
not explain enough by itself.IOThe deduction of such laws, if fully carried through,
certainly manages to show the necessity and sufficiency of the initial postulates,
which, in explicating ‘reasons’, help us on the way towards an explanation.
Adhering to the formal process of deduction, several deductive systems are
possible, some of which consider as a postulate that which is a consequence in
others, and vice versa. In order to arrive at an explanation, it is essential then to
concretize the deduction of laws in the form of ‘models’ that are supposed both
to represent the real processes and to express them in the form of deductive
operations, the aim being achieved when the deductive operations are matched
by the actual changes that have taken place (see below under 9, etc.).
The explanation is thus obtained when the laws (I) are matched by a possible
deduction (2) being concretized in a model (3). However, it is well known that
psychology more than any other subject, abounds in explanatory hypotheses.
Also, while present trends are incontestably towards unification, of which we
shall see some examples, the fact remains that such unification is more a pro-
gramme for the future than a present reality and that the study of psychology
still covers a fairly wide range of interpretative approaches. The cause does not
lie in the laws, on which it is more or less easy to agree in the more experimental
sectors and the verification of which gives rise to much endeavour in the more
clinical or psycho-social areas of research. Nor does the cause lie in the co-ordina-
tion or inference of laws, for if some stress more logicization and others do with
a more intuitive approach, the results are basically the same. The real cause is
to be sought in the diversity of possible models, since mental life has its origin
in organic life, develops in social life and manifests itself by means of a great
many structures (logical, psycho-linguistic, etc.). Hence a great diversity of
models, which vary according to the predominant approach: reductionist at-
tempts of an organicist (see under 3), physicalist (4) or sociological (5) nature,
attempts to attain psychological specificity in the transformations or the instinct
in a state of dialectics with the ego (a, in behavioural manifestations (7), or in
development in general (S), all this taking more or less concrete forms or turned
towards abstract models (9). It is the examination of these manifold forms of
interpretation that will best help to determine both current trends in psychology,
other than of the positivist kind, and the increasing connexions between this
discipline and the other sciences.

3. The organicist trend and the relations ofpsychology and biology
Psychology 235
There is no mental life without organic life, while the opposite is not necessarily
true; and there is no behaviour without functioning of the nervous system
(starting from the Coelenterata), the former going further than the nervous sys-
tem. Above all, everything that is organic is subject to definite verification and
presents more observable and measurable manifestations than conduct and con-
sciousness. These are all reasons for directing psychological explanations to-
wards the relating of mental processes and behaviour to physiological processes.
I. This is definitely a permanent trend in psychology, and in addition to what has
already been achieved, it increasingly shows promise of a great future. But it
should be made clear from the start that it assumes two distinct forms and that
current trends are not always in line with certain schools of thought in the past.
There is the reductionist trend, the aim of which is pure and simple identification
of the mental process, conceived as a simple phenomenological expression, with
its organic concomitant, conceived as constituting its true nature or at any rate
its direct explanation. There is also a trend that can be called relational or
dialectic and which involves distinguishing between many scales of phenomena,
both in the organism or nervous system and in behaviour or conduct, and dis-
cerning the interaction or feedback between processes of different scales, so
that there is no longer any reduction from the higher to the lower but closer
and closer solidarity.
Lest there should be any misunderstanding, let us at once note that this prob-
lem of the relations between psychology and physiology or biology goes far
beyond the particular question of the relations between consciousness as such
(therefore not reaction as a whole or conduct) and its nervous concomitant,
which was referred to in the ‘Introduction’ (section 7, heading m). The current
general tendency is to recognize an isomorphism and not an interaction between
the forms of this consciousness and those of its concomitant (the isomorphism
that we presented as existing between ‘implications’ peculiar to consciousness
and the causality peculiar to the nervous process), which certainly does not
mean that the nervous processes accompanied by consciousness are different
from the others, as could be shown by electro-encephalographic recordings of
states of ‘alertness.’ But to deny any interaction between consciousness as such
and its nervous concomitants is in no way to dispute the interaction between
conduct (which includes consciousness but goes beyond it) and physiological
processes. The whole of psychosomatic (or cortico-visceral) medicine shows
such interaction, which proves nothing either for or against the influence of
consciousness as such on higher nervous activities, but definitely demonstrates
the influence of such psycho-physiological activities on regulations of a lower
order. From this point of view psychosomatic research is, of course, of great
theoretical importance, as are also all types of biologically-oriented psychologi-
cal therapeutics. In this connexion, special mention should be made of the
rapid development of pharmaco-psychological research.
Let us now turn to the reductionist or interactionist trends which are con-

236 Jean Piaget
cerned with the relations between mental life or behaviour and physiological
or biological life. There have always been in psychological science certain essentially
reductionist trends, and there was a time when psychic processes were explained
by association and it was sought to show that the latter were the direct
reflection of nervous associations (the name of which has remained in the ‘association
fibres’ of the cortex) or of facilitations, and so on. When Pavlov discovered
conditioned reflexes, he did not hesitate to consider them as ‘completely
identical’ with the ‘psychologists’ “associations” ’, and people naturally began
to regard the conditioned reflex as an all-purpose explanation whereby all
mental life was reducible to nervous conditioning. Only a few years ago a Swiss
doctor, who was also a psychologist, attempted to show that the conditioned
reflex was the sole cause not only of habit, language, pictorial design, etc., but
of the intelligence as a whole and of the will. Though not reaching this degree of
reductionism, there are still some schools of thought, however, which postulate
without discussion a possible reduction of higher behaviour to the behaviour of
rats or pigeons. Though it should naturally be assumed that there are a number
of common mechanisms, it cannot be decided in advance how far they go and
especially what they become once integrated into more complex and evolved
behaviour, without running the risk of a kind of ‘animalization’ of man.
U. In order to understand how interactionist or relational trends are now tend-
ing to replace this reductionism, there can be nothing more instructive than to
go over the general history of the conditioned reflex in physiology and psycho-
logy, which are both parallel and, ultimately, interdependent.
In physiology Pavlov’s great discoveries led to the definition of scales of
phenomena and to the recognition of the influence of higher level actions on
lower ones and not just the reverse. The assimilation of the ‘psychologists’
“association”’ to conditioning was a reduction from the higher to the lower,
but immediately afterwards Pavlov demonstrated the effects of higher nervous
activity (i.e., of conditioned reflexes) on the visceral mechanisms, which is a
higher-scale influence on lower-scale phenomena. Then he discovered the two
systems of signalling, one purely sensori-motor and the other linked to language,
and Soviet psychologists found more and more examples of the influence of
verbal signalling on lower-scale conditioning and even on physiological reac-
tion of a peripheral level.
Thirdly, electro-physiological techniques have shown that the conditioned
reflex is not purely cortical, but also concerns reticular formation and therefore
involves diencephalic integration, which supposes that there is interaction
between the cortical associative system and the lower-level systems. Further,
Soviet physiologists and psychologists have ceased to regard conditioning as a
mere sequence of associations and now provide cybernetic feedback models of it.
The great advantage of this is that a lower-level mechanical pattern is replaced
by patterns comparable to trial-and-error behaviour or cognitive perception in
general, which does not in any way prevent these regulation patterns from being
common on the various physiological planes and from thus showing relational
analogies between the many scales that resist reductionism.

Psychology 237
Lastly, with Fessard we have the search for abstract models, both probabilist
and algebraic, for the actual conditioning process. Fessard notes first of all
that learning (at least with adults) is not dependent on the growth of new nerve
terminals or of new synapses and therefore represents only a new functioning of
already formed junctions. He then builds up a lattice pattern, all the elements of
which have identical properties (hence the part played by historical determination
in the choice of preferential paths), with the possibility of introducing a
certain homeostatic stability despite the substitution of paths. This substitution
is due to the stochastic nature of the system, in which the lattice is presented
as a ‘subordinate stochastic lattice’. We say ‘stochastic’ because for each element
of the system there is a certain probabilty of discharge, and ‘subordinate’
because it is connected with other similar neuronic fields that influence it.
We thus see that, physiologically, conditioning has long ceased to be linked
to a single scale of phenomena, which made possible reductions that were assumed
to be processes higher than this scale, which was considered lower. Firstly,
it controls all kinds of mechanisms of a lower order, while depending on subcortical
systems. Secondly, the increasingly refined theoretical elaboration that
it gives rise to makes it comparable to many regulatory systems of a higher order
and to algebraic and probabilist structures that are to be found at every intelligence
level.
From the point of view of psychological behaviour, conditioning has given
rise to a similar dialectic. The first thing that was noticed was that the conditioned
reflex was not stable by itself and became stable only within wider forms of
conduct capable of counterbalancing it: Pavlov’s dog stops slavering if the
ringing that represents the acquired stimulus is no longer followed by food.
Consequently, the association as such is not a natural and constant unity and
operates only within a broader framework embracing the initial need and its
final satisfaction. The association is therefore an assimilation, with the sound
heard having a meaning only in so far as it is assimilated to the food pattern.
Even then it is an anticipatory assimilation, since the signal announces its coming
but not its presence. Similarly, the conditioning that occurs in the learning of
speech acquires meaning and stability only in a context of imitation, of significant
exchange, and so on.
In short, the history of ideas as far as the conditioned reflex is concerned,
which is a very typical example, shows from every point of view why and how
reductionist views are gradually giving way to a trend that involves a dialectic
of levels and a relational assimilation of the higher to the lower and vice versa.
HI. Turning now from this particular example to more general considerations,
we should, in order to understand the latest trends in psychology as seen in its
relationship to biology,” say something about research into the relations be-
tween behaviour, or more especially cognitive functions, and organic regulations.
The genome was long regarded by biologists as an atomistic unit made up
of independent genes entirely separated from the soma and each bearing hered-
itary or genotypic characteristics that were merely transmitted, subject to
generally disturbing mutations and genetic combinations due to amphimixis.

238 Jean Piaget
According to his view, only the germen seemed important from the point of
view of variation and evolution, while the phenotype constituted only a kind of
perishable individual excrescence with no evolutive influence, and evolution
was to be accounted for by mutations and by their selection conceived as a
process of sorting out. Behaviour appeared all the more negligible, with in-
stinct, learning and the intelligence itself being of only slightly additional use
to the survival of organisms in their struggle for life in the selection process.
We now know, however, that the genome is a controlling system made up
of interdependent elements, that genetic combinations play a more important
part than mutations and are themselves subject to laws of equilibration within
the genetic pool of the population. Above all, weknow that the phenotype should
be regarded as a response by the genome to environmental tensions and that
selection does not directly involve the genes, but the phenotypes as more or
less adapted responses. Behaviour, for its part, then no longer has anything
secondary or negligible about it, since it represents the essential activity of the
phenotype. Further, because of behaviour, the relations between the organism
and the environment become circular: the organism chooses its environment and
modifies it just as much as it is dependent on it, and behaviour thus becomes an
important factor in evolution itself.
We should therefore not be surprised to see one of the great founders of
contemporary ethology, K. Lorenz, who is a zoologist and not a psychologist,
write recently: ‘As naturalists knowing the real facts of evolution, we are bound
to consider the achievements of man’s intellectual apparatus just like any other
organic functions - as something formed phylogenetically that owes its specific
characteristics to the confrontation between the organism and the environ-
ment... And even if we are not interested in the actual processes of knowledge,
but solely in its ‘objective’ and extra-subjective bearings, we are bound to study
the theory of cognition, as a particular instance of the science of biological
systems’.’z Lorenz himself interprets human knowledge as being essentially due
to a priori forms, in the sense that they exist prior to experience, though they
are not necessary and are considered as hereditary hypotheses on the mode of
instincts.
These possible links between biological structure and the structure of knowl-
edge, especially between organic control mechanisms and cognitive control
systems with their gradual equlibrations, provide no justification whatsoever
for a reductionist approach, and for an obvious reason from the point of view
of the psychology of development. This is that the intelligence is not created
fully equipped, as if already contained in the organism, nor does it develop in
a straight line starting from elementary mechanisms already formed in the ner-
vous and genetic systems, but is gradually built up, stage by stage, each one
beginning with the reconstruction of what had already been acquired at the
previous level. We cannot, for instance, consider logic as innate and already there
in the brain due merely to the fact that W. McCulloch and W . Pitts discovered
that the various changes occurring in the synaptic junctions corresponded in
structure to the functors of the logic of propositions. Such nervous structures
must &st of all be expressed in sensori-motor structures, and these are not simply

Psychology 239
derived from hereditary forms, but suppose real construction in the course of
which stimuli are certainly received from the functioning of the brain, but within
the functional framework and not from any innate ideas. What has been built at
the sensori-motor level must then be reconstructed and taken further at the
conceptual or thought level (for knowing how to perform an action and being
able to retrace it in one’s mind are quite different things) and, in the actual
matter of thought, what begins in the form of concrete operations directly
concerning objects is transposed only later onto the plane of abstract thought,
and so on.
In short, if there are close connexions between the nervous or physiological
structure in general and the cognitive structure, these represent multiple interac-
t ions between processes involving superimposed scales and not at all simple
reduction. Just as much should be said about the central mechanisms of motiva-
tion, impulses, emotions, etc., but as their study is developing very fast, it is not
possible in this chapter to give a clear overall picture.13
4. The physicalist trend and the various levels of perception
A second form of explanation that may lead to attempts at reduction charac-
terizes a fairly permanent trend in psychology, which, too, has led to a some-
what spectacular and very significant reversal of meaning of contemporary
trends in psychology as compared with past trends. While affectivity, habit
formation and certain aspects of the intelligence itself are obviously dependent
on the organism, other things, more especially perception and objective (and
so to speak depersonalized) forms of cognition may seem directly bound up with
the physical world, hence repeated attempts to link these mental processes to
physical processes. This trend has naturally been all the more marked since it
has sometimes been represented by authors who have been trained as physicists
before turning to psychology, such as Fechner in the last century and W . Kohler
today.
I. If I refer to Fechner, although he is now history, it is to underline once again
that the various trends in psychology begin as developments of an atomistic
nature before turning to structuralist interpretations. We have already noted
the profoundly atomistic nature of the first associationist views, while present
thinking on the subject of conditioning is marked, as we have seen, by cybernet-
icier even algebraic, probabilist structuralism. As far as the physicalist trend is
concerned, Fechner, after Weber and the Frenchman Bouguer, also wanted to
express simply the constant relation between sensations, considered in isolation,
and the physical quantities that they express subjectively, hence the famous
logarithmic law relating the stimulus to the sensation and which, though
approximate (Stevens even replaces it by a power function), has been rediscov-
ered in many biological contexts; it even governs the relations between light
intensity and the prints on a photographic plate (which shows its purely proba-
bilist-nature, this physical example being explained by the probability of the
photons and the silver salt particles of the plate meeting).

240 Jean Piaget
With Gestalt psychology, on the other hand, we are dealing with a definitely
structuralist physicalism, which accounts for the great influence that this school
of thought has had and still has indirectly, if only because it is one of the sources
of contemporary structuralism. The key theoretical concept of Gestalt psychol-
ogy is that of the field, in the sense of an electromagnetic field. Completely
reversing the associationist standpoint, according to which there are iirst iso-
lated elements or sensations and then relations between them in the form of
associations, the Gestalt theory starts from perception considered as a unified
whole (a melody, a face, a geometrical figure). Even when the figure seems to
consist of one element, such as a black dot on a white sheet of paper, there is
still a totality that comes in, for the dot is a ‘figure’ that stands out against a
‘background‘. The Gestalt psychologists then worked out laws for these totali-
ties, such as the laws of segregation between figures, and their background
boundary laws, the laws of ‘good forms’ or of ‘pregnance’ (good forms are
pregnant because they are simple, regular, symmetrical, etc.), laws of consecutive
effects (totalities in time), and so on.
The proposed explanation is a beautifully simple one: perceptive forms are
the expression of immediate nervous patterns formed on contact with objects,
and as polysynaptic fields and electro-encephalographic analysis suggest the
concept of nervous fields, these patterns may be regarded as the result of
physical field laws of a very general nature (principles of equilibrium, of
least action, and so on). As a Gestalt (according to the definition of this school)
is a non-additive totality, i.e., the whole is not equivalent to the sum ofits parts,
Kohler tried to show that there were ‘physical gestalts’, precisely in the sphere
of field effects (whereas the parallelogram of the forces is not a Gestalt, since
it is the result of an additive composition).
As Gestalt lawsI4 are thus very general, psychologists of this school have also
tried to use them as a means of interpreting motor reactions and the intelligence
itself, while they considered that logical laws in particular reflected the overall
systems that they had discovered. Even quite recently A. Michotte tried in this
way to explain the perception of causality and the very concept of cause.
II. However, while the tremendous advance made by Gestaltist physicalism was
undoubtedly that it paved the way for determinedly structuralist interpre-
tations, subsequent research has shown that a more advanced form of structura-
lism does not necessarily remain physicalist. On the contrary, starting from
more specifically biological or psychological structures, we eventually improve
our physical knowledge itself on certain points.
Initially, discussion centred on the actual nature of perception. It is in the
logic of physicalism, for it claims to arrive at laws common to the physical
universe, to the nervous system and to mental reactions, and to resort only to
interpretations that do not take into account the activities of the subject - since
the latter is only the scene or the actor of a play written beforehand and of which
he is not the author - and rule out any profound transformation related to
development, since the laws of equilibrium referred to are those of an already
made universe and not of a biological and gradual equilibration. This is why in

Psychology 241
the matter of perception the Gestalt psychologists have been concerned above
all to try to prove that the main structures do not evolve with age, especially
the famous ‘constancies’ of magnitude (evaluation of actual magnitude from a
distance) or of form, and so on.
On these fundamental issues current research has not borne out the Gestaltist
interpretation and has shown that the forms of equilibrium involved are much
closer to a biological homeostasis (control systems with gradual or even anticipation
adjustment) than to a physical balance of forces. In animal psychology,
von Holst has built a cybernetic model of the constancy of magnitudes with
automatic control for cases where such constancy is regarded as innate. As to
its progress from infancy to adulthood, a number of studies have revealed two
things: firstly, a gradual development, starting from a very definite initial
sub-constancy to reach correct constancy around the age of 7 and then continuing
until it attains over-constancy ; secondly, frequent over-constancy in the
adult, to whom, from a distance of, say, four metres, a vertical rod eight or nine
centimetres in length appears to be ten Centimetres in length. This over-constancy,
which cannot be accounted for if our assumption is a physicalist one,
obviously springs from an unconscious precaution against error, therefore
from a ‘decision’ in the sense of the games theory and then according to the
minimex criterion (maximum minimization of the risk), which no longer has
any of the qualities of a physical equilibrium but, on the contrary, has its equivalent
in certain biological forms of homeostasis with overcompensation in the
event of accident and not exact compensation.
Generally speaking, the present trend of research into perception is by no
means oriented along the narrow physicalist lines of the theory of fields, but
towards a broader physicalism, so to speak, via biological inspiration. Studies
carried out in America by the school that jokingly refers to itself as advocating a
‘new look‘ in perception stress above all the functionalist approach (the r6le of
affectivity and even of social factors), while Soviet studies treat these same problems
in the context of Pavlovian reflexology together with the new cybernetic
interpretations of conditioning. In this connexion, it should be noted that Pavlov,
who had clearly seen the part played by conditioning in perception, concluded
from this that ‘what the brilliant Helmholtz had described by the famous terni
unconscious inference’ was true, i.e., that perceptive inferences or pre-inferences
really existed. But it is in the direction of probabilism that the theory of perception
may be regarded as amounting to an extended form of physicalism.15
As to the intelligence, there is an increasing tendency not to try to reduce it
to models of ‘Gestalts’, since these are wholes whose composition is nonadditive
because probabilist, whereas the operational structures of the intelIigence
(seriation, classification, the sequence of whole numbers, etc.) are strictly
additive, though they involve laws of clearly defined wholes (group structures,
lattice structures, etc.). In other words, the operations of the intelligence are
reversible both logically (inversion, reciprocities and correlative or dual transformations,
which are involutive) and physically (return to the point of departure
via the same states in reverse order), while the perceptive processes are
irreversible because they are probabilist and do not have any intrinsic or logical

242 Jean Piaget
‘necessity’, It is then a matter of some interest to inquire whether this great
bipolarity of the cognitive functions (with all kinds of ontogenetic intermediaries
between the two extreme poles) might not correspond to what constitutes perhaps
the most important dichotomy of physical phenomena, which are divided up
into reversible processes (mechanical and kinematic) and irreversible processes
(e.g., thermodynamics).
This therefore leads us to think that as far as psychology is concerned, the
most interesting aspect of the references to physics is perhaps not the hypo-
thetical reduction of a mental structure - even perception - to a physical (field,
etc.) structure, but the analogy between the mode of composition that occurs in
the former and the mode of composition used by the physicist in knowing the
latter. In thisconnexion, the break between irreversibleand reversible phenomena
may also be a division between the sphere of largely probabilist explanation and
that of simple deduction, just as in mechanics, which can be presented equally
as a rational and mathematical discipline or as an experimental science.
From this standpoint, which is that of the latest trends in psychology, a kind
of rather impressive reversal in relation to traditional physicalism has taken
place: the theory of information, which springs from essentially human consid-
erations, has found itself partly conversing - but in a way remarkable for its
formal and mathematical apparatus - with the fundamental equations of thermo-
dynamics relating to entropy (it being possible to define information as a nega-
tive entropy); and the theory of decision or of games, the specific field of which
is economics, has found physical applications (such as Maxwell’s demons inter-
acting with entropy). Of course, in several areas of psychology attempts are being
in the ‘Introduction’, section 6, heading II, originated in the human sciences
and were diverted to physics), especially communications theory. From this
point of view, W. P. Tanner has produced a precise theory of the thresholds of
perception. Berlyne has applied the same principle to the problem of interest,
J. Bruner and myself to the strategies of thinking, etc.
5. Psycho-sociological trends and the interactions
between the general and the social
Mental life may be regarded as socialized organic life, with the mental merging,
on analysis, with its organic sources and its social projection, which can even
lead in some cases to two kinds of reductionism: organicist and sociological.
Alternatively, we can take a dialectic or relational point of view, replacing the
idealof reduction by that of a series of interactions taking the form of a hierar-
chy. Now in our discussion of the organicist and physicalist trends, we saw the
former clearly take second place to the latter, though stressing the structuralist
aspects in its explanation. In the matter of the relations between the individual
and the social group we note a similar trend: the first doctrines that stressed the
social dimension of mental mechanisms and behaviour were inclined to reduce
every thing in the higher psychism of the individual to this sociological aspect;
however, as greater progress was made in dissociating what is general and

Psychology 243
common to all individuals - the ‘structures’ in fact - from what each individual
can invent or differentiate as his personal specializations operate, the terms of
the problem were profoundly modified. With current trends, what is involved is
not so much establishing how far the individual is a socialized entity (he is from
the time of his birth until he dies, but according to very different modes) but
rather seeing whether, between organic structures and social structures, there
are structures that are ‘general’ or common to all individual members of society,
but not exclusively or specifically social, and what interactions there are between
the three kinds of reality.
I. There is really no point in harking back to the old arguments as to whether
it is society that forms the individual, which is obvious in the case of speech and
which is what Durkheim maintained in the case of natural logic, moral feelings,
and so on, or whether it is the individual who fashions society through his
‘natural’ or organic tendencies, as Rousseau and common sense would have it
before the discovery of sociology, and as psychoanalysts, who do not subscribe
to the so-called culturalist sub-school of thought, believe along with other au-
thors interested in behavioural tendencies that are little modified by particular
societies. Considering the problem in terms of adult psychology alone, it looks
rather too much like the equally classical question as to which came first, the
chicken or the egg.
But, just as biology gets over this problem by studying the chick and by reduc-
ing simultaneously the chicken and the egg to dynamic structures of a genetic,
ontogenetic and instinctive character, which assumes a co-ordinated study of
hereditary, development and behaviour, and not of behaviour alone, similarly
the study of the relation between individual psychology and social life cannot be
boiled down to the study of mature or adult behaviour. The most specifically
human social phenomenon, as Durkheim realized, is the bringing-up of new
generations by the ones that have gone before - a process that involves external
or educational transmission within a broad definition (ranging from speech to
economic and political factors), and not heredity as in the case of a great many
family or social instincts in animals. Nonetheless, the rising generations already
come into the world with hereditary characteristics, including a nervous system
that is not transmitted by society, and the process of socialization certainly
does not boil down to inscribing impressions on a blank surface. In order to
understand what society gives to the individual it is not enough, then, to note
that nearly everything in the adult is socialized, apart from some reflexes (and
even they are partly trained), a number of perceptive structures (and even then
speech, suggestion, and so on, may influence them), some dreams (and even
then.. .), and so on. On the contraly, it is important to have an exact knowledge
of:
I. The psychological heritage of our species. This is not so simple, since
psychoanalysts are not in agreement - even among themselves - as to whether
‘Oedipean’ tendencies, and so on, are a matter of ‘instinct’ or are to be attrib-
uted to cultural factors, since they still argue about the part that innateness
plays in criminal tendencies, etc., and especially since we still know very little

244 Jean Piaget
about the factors of nervous maturation, which no doubt partly come into the
development of mental processes.
2. The development of the child and of the adolescent, especially detailed
information on the processes of socialization that modify most of their psychological
characteristics. In this connexion, it has been shown in particular that
socialization does not just consist of the mental or material pressures exerted by
the adult in the family or at school, and that ‘co-operation’ between contemporaries
may also play a vital part, especially in the development of moral feelings.
As to factors concerning transmission proper, there are a great many quite
distinct processes, and the child certainly does not submit in the same way to
the rules of spelling, for example, or to community beliefs forming part of current
ideologies, as to the rules of logic or mathematics, the sense of which he
understands only by reinventing in part (and by forgetting what has not been
actively reconstructed).
3. The social behaviour of the adult, in group dynamics or community life in
general, including the countless forms of social conduct that are interiorized
and applied to oneself in accordance with a well-known process (e.g., internal
speech).
We therefore see that point (2) above is in fact the most important one, firstly
because it concerns the training of the individual and only training is explanatory
and the source of verifiable information, and secondly because it includes
and throws light on the other two, since hereditary factors are discernible
only through their action in the course of development and adult behaviour
patterns are determined by previous behaviour patterns.
Strangely enough, it was a long time before it was realized that the psychology
of development was a key factor in this connexion, and performed a
function that was as essential to the sociologist as to the psychologist. J. M.
Baldwin was probably the first to grasp this clearly, but unfortunately without
verifying it systematically by experiment. He has left us, however, thevery stimulating
idea, often confirmed since, that the feeling of the ‘ego’ itself is certainly
not an innate or spontaneous product of consciousness as such, which begins
with a phase of radical ‘adualism’, and that it is due to inter-individualexchanges
beginning with imitation. Next, Pierre Janet, a doctor and a psychologist, whom
someone wittily used to call ‘France’s leading sociologist’, repeatedly stressed
in his picture of the development and hierarchy of conduct (inspired by pathology)
the social formation of a series of apparently entirely internal functions:
reflexion as a product of deliberation, recollection linked to the ‘unfolding of
the narrative’, belief as a promise or undertaking, and so on. But it is, of course,
child psychologists who have provided the most information on the detailed
operation of socialization; this material is experimentarily checked, since for
every age it is possible to verify hypotheses by means of facts that can be repeated
at will. In this connexion, we could cite a large number of studies carried out in
the USSR, in English-speaking countries, in Paris, in Geneva, and so on, which
do not entirely concord, moreover, with all the proposed interpretations.

Psychology 245
11. Before giving an objective outline of the two main theoretical trends issuing
from this research, I would further refer to the research trends in what may
strictly speaking be called social psychology and in the sphere of comparative
studies, which in point of fact also have a direct bearing on the psycho-socio-
logical problem.
Social psychology comes into all the general problems to do with psychology
(differential psychology, personality, and so on), since man is essentially a
socialized being. This accounts for the considerable amount of research into
the nature and extent of social influences, communication, conflicts, and so on.
To this we should add two specific complementary objectives, whose comple-
mentary nature alone points more to an interaction between psychology and
sociology than to a one-way reduction.
One of these aims is the study of inter-individual relations and of group
dynamics. First I should mention the research carried out by Lewin and his
fellow workers into perceptive and affective ‘fields’ (using the word in an extend-
ed Gestaltist sense covering the subject and his reactions), and especially into
the overall dynamics of these fields. Lewin tried to show that desirability charac-
teristics, conflicts or inhibitions and ‘psychic barriers’ depended as much on the
overall structure of the field as on the more permanent needs of the individuals.
Other models were worked out by authors such as Heider and Festinger and
aroused similar interest. After Moreno devised a technique, called ‘sociometry’,
for assessing the value judgements of individual members of groups concerning
each other, an effort was made to treat small groups as kinds of dynamic Gestalts
by determining laws of polarization, leadership factors, etc., for them.
Another constant aim of some social psychologists is to show by means of
the most varied examples studied closely under experimental conditions that the
apparently most independent mental functions of the social group are in fact
influenced by the collective environment and present certain variations from
one type of society to another or from one stratum of society to another. This
goes without saying in the case of conceptual and affective categorizations, but
analysis has been taken as far as the level of perception, and so on.
It can thus be seen that these two kinds of research in actual fact come closer
to patterns of interdependence to patterns of simple reduction. While the inspi-
ration behind the second aim is often the desire to reduce the psychologist to
the sociologist, the study of group dynamics on the other hand highlights
inter-individual relations, which psychologists, with the exception of G. Tarde,
have generally tried to distinguish clearly from the pressures of the social
context and to subordinate to this context, which is regarded as psychologically
inexplicable. Inasmuch as social psychology is concerned with the study of
small groups, it treats them as dynamic Gestalts that gradually come to form
groups of two, three and n individuals, with the social boundary no longer run-
ning between the social and the inter-individual, but between the inter-indi-
vidual, considered as already forming a whole, and the pure individual or even
the organic. By thus linking up with present-day micro-sociology, social psy-
chology is moving in the direction of relations of interdependence and no longer
of simple reduction.

246 Jean Piaget
This is not all. Comparative studies of various social environments, which I
have just referred to, are only one expression among others of what is now a
general trend to add the comparative dimension to all psychological research
bearing not only on the adult, but also on the actual development of the child
and the adolescent. This trend is so important that the Committee of the International
Union of Psychological Science recently decided to promote such
research systematically and to found a special international journal for comparative
studies. We saw (under heading I) that the ideal method of analyzing how
society acts on the individual was to study development as a process of socializaion.
It then goes without saying that if in a society SI it is already possible to
discern what is intrinsic in the individual organism and what it receives from the
social group SI, this can be cross-checked by carrying out the same research in
societies S,, S3 and so on. It will then be possible to consider the constant elements
in these various environments with some degree of certainty as dependent
(I) on the organic and psychological factors that are not dependent on the group
and (2) on a general process of socialization as a form of interaction or co-operation
between individuals, and not on the cultural traditions and forms of education
peculiar to each of the societies SI, S,, and so on. The variable elements
on the other hand will be attributable to these latter factors.16
III. The hypothesis suggested by the 6rst of these two interpretations is that
mental operations and logico-mathematical structures in the widest sense of the
term are linked to the general co-ordination of action (fitting together, order,
correspondence, and so on) and not to speech and socially acquired features.
Such co-ordination is itself based on nervous and organic co-ordination which
is not determined by society. However, as human actions are nearly always both
collective and individual, the laws governing their general co-ordination apply
equally to inter-individual relations and to private, especially interiorized, ac-
tions. As a result, there is thus an inevitable convergence of the most ‘general’
forms of social interaction and of co-ordination of individual actions. A better
way of putting it would be to say that these are two indissociable aspects of one
and the same reality: operations and co-operation (in the etymological sense of
the word), It therefore seems rather pointless to seek to set social logic and indi-
vidual logic against one another. We are dealing with the same general structures
that characterize all human actions, with no hierarchy to distinguish between
their collective aspects and their individualized aspects, as both equally reflect
common norms and variable deviations that may be slight or near-pathological.
If such is the case, such convergencies should be found even in language.
Social psychology in its broad definition (as expounded, in particular, inlR.
Brown’s recent fine book) comprises psycho-linguistics and the study of the
development of cognitive operations. The laws of linguistic structuralism,
especially Chomsky’s contructivist grammar laws, are apparent in children in
the form of all kinds of partly spontaneous productions, which have been
studied by Brown himself, among others. It may therefore be wondered what the
relations are between the development of logical operations in children and
their speech development. In a recently published work, the psycho-linguist

Psychology 247
H. Sinclair was able to show that there was a close relationship. There is, in
particular, between the stages that accompany seriation or the stages in the
constitution of retention concepts and in speech analysed from the ‘vector’ and
‘scalar’ point of view (in the sense that Bull gives it), a striking correlation that
shows the interdependence of these two systems, respectively operative and
linguistic. But verbal learning has only a slight effect on operative progress,
except when the words used make it necessary to set up new conceptual rela-
tions, whereas the sequence of operative patterns derives from a spontaneous
equilibration due to the actions of the subject.
Similar considerations arise in respect of inter-individual affective values :
their content is continually modified by exchange and group dynamics, which
starts with two individuals. However, the very form of the exchanges and espe-
cially the structuration of the values governed by isomorphic scales with seria-
tions and trees or graphs of logical character testify once more to general
co-ordinations, which are the outcome of inter-individual affective regulative
processes, using the term in the sense given by P. Janet (see Chapter VII, section
12).
This interdependence, succeeding direct psycho-sociological reductionism
which was once the dream of some people, is to be found even in the study of
wil - a special instance of the ‘decisions’ of which the games theory has afforded
a detailed psychological and economic-sociological study. As everyone is well
aware, the wil was long regarded as a typical example of individual actions that
were irreducible to social factors, since the individual wishes for himself and
individual wills often conflict and also frequently come up against group pres-
sures. However, more than fifty years ago now, W. James showed that the wil
was not the same as mere intention or mere effort and that it came in only in the
event of conflicting tendencies. When a tendency of a lower order, but one which
is temporariIy strong, clashes with a tendency of a higher order, which is
temporarily weak, an act of the wil consists in reinforcing the latter until it
prevails over the former, while lack of wil is characterized by the victory of the
former. Here there is an implicit reference to social factors, for the tendency
which is initially weak but subsequently reinforced is often indistinguishable from
duty. Further, the fault of the explanation is that it refers to an ‘additional force’
which has no visible origin, A French psycho-sociologist, Charles Blondel,
therefore thought he had solved the problem by considering this additional
force as merely the force of collective imperatives; a reductionist solution which
is not sufficient, for if these imperatives are the strongest, there is no longer any
need for will, while if they are not, then the problem remains. The hypothesis
can then be formulated that the strength and weakness of the two conflicting
tendencies before the act of wil are not absolute but relative to the perceptive
situation at any given moment (all purely cognitive perception that is social and
linked to affective evaluations is characterized by momentary over-estimation
and under-estimation). It is then sufficient to conceive the wil on the model of
the reversible operations that correct perception by subjecting it to rules of
transformation, in which case the wil is the affective operation (last term of the
energy regulatory processes that Janet contrasts with the structural regulatory

248 Jean Piaget
processes) that corrects the evaluation by reducing the momentary values to the
more or less permanent scale of values, hence the apparent change from the
weakest to the strongest.I7
In conclusion, in every branch of psycho-sociology that began with attempts
at simple reduction of the mental to the social, we now find three and not just
two kinds of levels: the organic, the mental and the social. This trichotomy,
however, leads to two corresponding dichotomies. On the one hand, the organic
and the mental give rise to differential specializations that distinguish individuals
from each other (according to the combinations of heredity, aptitude and
history), while, on the other hand individuals share certain common general
structures (mental operations, etc.), which are formed and developed in a fairly
uniform way. As to the relations of the mental and of the social, we must also
distinguish, on the one hand, the social diversities which set societies against
each other according to their ideologies, history, and the like, and, on the other
hand, the general structures of social co-ordination. The great lesson of relational
analysis, in contrast to the various forms of reductionism that were cultivated
when research first began, is that general mental structures and general social
structures are identical in form and therefore show that there is a natural affinity
between them, the origins of which are no doubt partly biological (within the
broadest meaning of the interactions referred to in sections 3 and 4). When
Gvi-Strauss wished to characterize the structures of affinity, etc., and to give
an adequate expression of his anthropological structuralism, he resorts to the
larger structures of general algebra (groups, lattices, etc.) so that the sociological
explanation thus coincides with a qualitative mathematization similar to that
which occurs in the setting up of logical structures, the progress of which can
be followed in the spontaneous thinking of children and adolescents, though
not in their school learning. Thus the discovery of the interactions between the
general and the social leads to much deeper explanatory tendencies than the
ideal of simple reduction, which is paralleled by what we saw in the context of
organicism and physicalism.
6. Psychoanalytic research into mental specificity
Although mental processes are not reducible either to mere organic life or to
social life, yet a number of tendencies of contemporary psychology aim at read-
ing them by specific methods: psychoanalysis via direct study of the content of
representations and affects, behavioural psychology by establishing laws govern-
ing behaviour or its interiorization, and genetic psychology via general analysis
of the successive structures of development. W e shall deal with them in this
order, even though the various forms of psychoanalysis claim to be genetic, and
shall do so in order to show the progress of structural tendencies (developments
in which we have already touched on under previous headings), and especially
in order to show how such progress is bound up with that made in what may be
called constructivism as opposed to reductionism.

Psychology 249
I. In order to understand present trends it is advisable to recall briefly the
various historic stages that psychoanalysis has passed through. In its original
Freudian form psychoanalysis presented the remarkable example of a doctrine
that explained an individual’s present by his past, therefore the adult by the
child, and which in this sense had a definite genetic intention behind it, but which
conceived genesis not as a continuous process of building up but merely as the
development of certain initial tendencies, so that the present was reduced to the
past and the different phases of development reduced merely to the shifting of
the points of application of the initial pulsive energy. In short, the character,
exceptional and unique of its kind, of Freud’s first doctrines lies in the fact that
he proceeded according to the reductionist ideal, though by reduction not from
the mental to the organic or to the social, but in fact from higher psychic forms
to elementary forms that live on throughout life underneath the former and in the
‘unconscious’. Here then is a fine example of explanation by identification:
the oral, anal, primary narcissistic, object-directed, Oedipean and other stages
are only successive manifestations of the same libido, which shifts its energetic
‘charges’ from one object to another, starting from the body and leading to
persons outside it and, ultimately, to various sublimations; images themselves
were also subjected to this overall process by hallucinating the attainment of
desires or by retaining in the unconscious a recollection of desires that were
satisfied or of failures and conflicts.
However, for there to be identification of different things with a single prin-
ciple, as distinct from mere identity from the start, there must be resistance;
hence an initial dualism that stands in the way of mere identity and which is the
dualism of the individual bearer of the libido and of society that stands in the
way of his desires. This leads to repression, the suppression of desires, censor-
ship, symbolism used as a form of disguise, and so on. Pursuing the dualist line
of approach Freud then introduced two new elements: the interiorization of
social taboos in the form of the ‘superego’ (the notion was introduced before
Freud by J. M. Baldwin and P. Bovet), which was thus incorporated with the
psychic apparatus, but without the ‘ego’ itself gaining its independence in
relation to the libido; and the promotion, under the influence of Jung, of
symbolic thought to a kind of primal thought or language, partly independent
of censorship.
11. The important stage that followed and which put an end to this integral re-
ductionism was the affirmation, due to Hartmann, of the autonomy of the ego,
conceived as a set of free adaptations of sexual conflicts. Thought thus becomes,
D. Rapaport argues, a system of mechanisms making it possible to keep clear
of spheres of conflict and to attend only to cognitive conquests: the working of
the mind is no longer sublimation or a defence mechanism, so there is therefore
ruom for real genesis involving the ego.‘8 However, as we are concerned with
trends and not just with the present state of things, the important question is
whether this window opened onto genetic constructivism and structuralism is
going to be oriented towards affectivity itself (towards the stages of the libido),
or whether there remains in contemporary psychoanalysis a duality of inspira-

250 Jean Piaget
tion, one trend being concerned with sexual life and remaining faithful to the
identifying reductionism of Freud, and the other with the ego and conscious
thought and leading to constructivism and structuralism.
It is in fact possible to distinguish six different trends in contemporary analytical
thinking, and it is worth going over them as there are some divergences of
doctrine that cast quite an interesting light on the complexity of psychological
interpretation and on the difficulties that constructivist structuralism has in
gaining general acceptance, even though’ it may be in accordance with the most
general present-day trends.
III. I) The fist of these trends is in some respects regressive and in effect lays
even greater emphasis on the reductionist character of the Freudian doctrine.
This approach is that of the MBlanie Klein school, which takes the image as the
almost hallucinatory realization of desires, memory in the form of memory ima-
ges and the various Freudian complexes even further back than before. But
writers who do not belong to this Kleinian sub-school of thought find that the
infant thus becomes curiously assimilable to the ‘miniature adult’ which has
constantly been denounced by non-psychoanalytic child psychology as a prod-
uct similar to those of preformism in embryology.
2) The second tendency, like some of the following trends, is adopted by
authors who are not content to reconstruct the stages of development on the
basis of a few clinical observations (or, like Freud himself, childhood memories
revived by adults undergoing treatment), but who carry out experimentation prop-
erly so-called, which is something new in psychoanalysis. They include E. Kris,
Spitz and K. Wolf, Th. Benedek and Th. Gouin-Dkarie. Their basic idea is
that development consists of constructions as such affecting the ego and that
there is a correlation between the stages in the manifestations of the libido and
the stages in the development of the ego. In the development of the infant, for
instance, a first stage will be distinguished at which he is centred on himself but
still without any differentiation of the ego in relation to other persons and ob-
jects, the environment being known only through the activities of the subject.
A second stage is reached when expectation responses and certain privileged
perceptions (smiles) introduce the beginning of a boundary, though shifting,
between activity proper and ‘intermediate objects’ like the ‘smiling human face’
(Spitz). Lastly, a third stage is reached when there is a firm differentiation be-
tween the subject and the object and a consequent consciousness of the ego and a
‘cathexis investing truly libidinal objects’, or an object-directed fixation of affec-
tivity on the mother, and so on. As a result of experiments carried out on go
babies, when she adopted our findings concerning the cognitive formation of
the permanent object (looking for the object after it has disappeared from sight
behind a screen, which is by no means innate), Th. Gouin-DBcarie was able to
show a fairly good correlation between our stages and those of pre-objectaliand
then objectal affectivity (though only relatively, because although it was con-
firmed that the cognitive stages followed a constant order, those of the ‘libido’
are not so sequential and reversals occur). We are therefore on the way to con-
structivism.

Psychology 251
It soon becomes evident, however, that the stages presenting real novelties
are those involving the ego, while cathexis is conceived simply as shifting from
object to object. In other words, a new feeling is not new because of any reelaboration
of values, and so on. It is new only by virtue of its new object, and
there is simply a ‘blossoming forth of all the elements of which the seed existed
in previous stages’ (Gouin).
3) Real constructivism appears, on the other hand, with a third trend, which
is that of ‘culturalist psychoanalysis’, but it is psycho-social constructions that
are involved and not mental development conceived in a general way, i.e., as
common to all individuals in all societies. The great novelty is that the ‘libido’,
as a general instinct in the sense just defined, is no longer the sole principle of
any explanation, not just of the ego and of the cognitive functions because they
have become autonomous since Hartmann, but even of affectivity in its various
stages. Psychoanalysts, such as E. From, K. Horney, Kardiner and Glover
and anthropologists, such as R. Benedict and M. Mead, have shown in this
connexion that Freudian complexes, especially the Oedipus complex, and consequently
the stages in the manifestation of the libido, are not to be found in
every form of society and that, consequently, it is as much a matter of cultural
as of psychological products. This discovery represents a major contribution to
the study of psycho-social interactions, mentioned in the previous section.
4) Although the culturalist approach brings in sociological anthropology
to account for facts hitherto considered to be governed solely by the sexual
instinct, Bowlby on the other hand is inclined towards ethology and its theories
of innate releasing mechanisms (IRM). This is a reasonable comparison if we
think of face indices, and the like. But above all a very useful stimulus is given
to experimental verification, and it wil be recalled that C. G. Jung built up a
whole theory of ‘archetypes’considered as hereditary, whereas the problem that
had first to be solved, assuming this hypothesis, was to distinguish between the
‘general’ (in the sense of the same constant formation ensuring convergence)
and the hereditary.
5) Erikson’s position is a special one, lying between the two mentioned
above, but he introduced into Freudian psychoanalysis an important notion
which was developed moreover in Adler’s work (to whom we owe the famous
notions of ‘inferiority complexes’) and of overcompensation guiding some
careers). This is the hypothesis that we continually assimilate the past to the
present with a view to adaptations in the present, just as much as our present
existence depends on the past in the continuity of behaviour and representations.
In this connexion, Erikson has carried out interesting observations on children’s
games, where we see symbolism reshaping the past as much as extending it.
This tine we are therefore moving towards a real kind of psychological constructivism,
with gradual and retroactive integrations as in mental development.
6) Lastly, we would mention the work done by the Stockbridge school under
the inspiration of the late D. Rapaport and the aim of which was clearly to
bring together affective development and cognitive development. D. Rapaport
published a study on these lines in 1960, entitled Attention Cathexis. Drawing on
his knowledge of physics and mathematics, he criticizes the Freudian energet-

252 Jean Piaget
ics, in which cathexis does nothing but switch and invest its ‘charge’, changing
from one object to another, and he makes interesting comparisons between his
conception of Freudianism and our own views on the ‘feeding’ of sensori-motor
patterns. His pupil Wolff has continued to work on these comparisons between
the sensori-motor development of the child and that of the ‘Iibido’.I9
To sum up, we can thus see the trends that have developed from an initially
entirely reductionist school, and that the gradual realization of the interactions
between the cognitive and the affective, the individual and the social and the
partly mental and the biological leads to constructivism, which is essential to
the understanding of development as a whole.
7. The specificity of behaviour and the structures of memory
In its search for a specific standpoint between the organic and the social, psychol-
ogy turned towards the study of behaviour in particular, which satisfied posi-
tive-minded persons who were suspicious of introspection and even more of an
unconsciousness that was reconstructed only indirectly. We have already spoken
about behaviour in section I in connexion with positivist trends that rejected
any kind of ‘explanation’. Behaviour, however, can be analysed from various
standpoints. There are in particular great American theories of learning, the
best known of which are those of Hull and Tolman, which, in contrast with
Skinner’s viewpoint, are intended to be explanatory, while at the same time they
reject organicist reductions, which are judged to be either premature or to go
beyond the scope of psychology, as is the case of Pavlovian reflexology.
It is interesting to show that once the reductionist approach has been dis-
carded in order to determine in behaviour as such the specificity of the psycholog-
ical phenomenon, a constructivist approach is being taken. This is to say that
in seeking to explain how new behaviour patterns are formed, one ends up by
referring to partly endogenous constructions inasmuch as the behaviour patterns
are not contained or preformed in the former, and that once this constructivist
course has been taken, sooner or later one is obliged to resort to a structuralism,
i.e., to the hypothesis of overall forms comprising their self-regulation or their
operators, in contrast to interpretations of an atomistic type.
I. The transition from the theories of Hull to those of Tolman is already very
significant in this respect. The presuppositions of Hull are clearly empiricist, not
in the sense of Skinner’s postivism (since Hull is not afraid of the intermediate
variables between the stimulus S and the reaction R, though he recognizes that
they are inferred), but in the sense that in his view the innovation of acquired
behaviour patterns is solely due to the facts of experience, and therefore to the
connexions provided in the environment and of which the SR associations con-
stitute a kind of ‘functional copy’. However, these SR associations do not simply
accumulate by addition, since structured wholes are formed that Hull calls the
‘hierarchical families of habits’. This is to say that a habit already formed for
itself can become a segment of a wider habit, and therefore a means in the serv-

Psychology 253
ice of a new goal, or a segment arranged in relation to the following one in a
sequence that eventually constitutes a new whole. Further, the activity of the
subject is not entirely disregarded, for not only the latter repeats what he has
learnt and generalizes according to generalizations of the response R or of the
stimulus S (and Hull foresaw, without using them, combined stimulus-response
generalizations), but he also breaks up and re-arranges his responses or speeds
them up as the goal approaches (goal gradients). However, in principle everything
learnt by the subject is already contained in the objects, so that constructivism
is thus minimal since it involves only the construction of ‘copies’.
With Tolman, on the other hand, there are two notable innovations. Firstly,
the environment is no longer presented as a set of independent sequences that
the subject learns to ‘copy’ one by one: it is immediately organized by the
subject into significant totalities that Tolman calls ‘sign-Gestalts’. The term
alone is instructive. There is a ‘Gestalt’ in the sense that there is a structured
whole, for example from the point of view of spatial organization and of the
itineraries to be covered (the subject of these theories of learning was for a long
time the domesticated white rat, although it is a fairly degenerate animal that
has lost the main characteristics of a rodent). There are also the meanings, and
this takes us beyond associationism and shows that the characteristics perceived
are assimilated and not only associated with the possible actions of the subject.
Tolman further refers to an essential activity of the subject in learning, namely
continual expectation, resulting of course from former assimilations, but testifying
to active and constant generalizations and not confined to applying the
same response to similar stimuli or closely related responses to the same stimulus.
From the explanatory point of view, these theories of elementary learning
have given rise to three kinds of studies, apart from the logical formalization
that Hull and Fitsch have carried out (see section 2, heading III), which deserve
mention due to their general current interest. Firstly, Bush and Mosteller
have produced a probabilist schema of learning, in which in a given situation
characterized by given parameters it can be deduced, knowing certain given
laws, that a given reaction wil take place in accordance with a given calculable
probability. This is merely expressing, in terms of calculation, de facto states and
observed laws, and the reason for the probabilities still has to be explained. H.
Harlow has made an important point here by distinguishing between the learning
of a given reaction and general behaviour, which he calls ‘learning-to learn’.
It is here that the real crux of the matter lies, for without an internal 1ogic‘:urging
subjects to assimilate external facts to his schematism while adjusting it to
their diversity, one cannot see where the innovations come from, and any
reference to the satisfaction or reduction of needs is only a finalist interpretation
as long as we do not understand how adaptations to new situations take place.
Thirdly, L. Apostel has workeqout in a general study of the theories of learning,
and specifically taking into account Harlow’s.notion of ‘learning sets’, an algebra
of learning, the essential operators of which raise the question of the structuralizing
activities of the subject.

254 Jean Piaget
II. In fact, a preliminary question arises here, which we are only just beginning
to realize is something of a fundamental one, because the implications of
working on the degenerate white rat instead of on growing children were not
realized. Is it learning that constitutes the primary phenomenon and explains
mental development itself, or does development obey its own laws and does
learning, in a certain and clearly defined situation, form only a more or less artificially
separated part of it (and that at all ages of life, for in the occupational
area, at any rate, development lasts until senility)? The postulate implicit in
most theories of learning is certainly consistent with the first of these two
solutions and in defiance of the spirit of all contemporary biology (which sees in
phenotypical reactions a result of the ‘reaction norm’ of the genotype or of the
genetic pool, with constant interaction between the organizing action of the
genotype or genetic pool and the influence of the environment). The second
solution on the other hand, is receiving more and more attention and profoundly
modifies the facts of the problem.
If, indeed, development precedes and governs learning, this certainly does
not mean that there is such a thing as innate or even acquired knowledge
without learning, but means that learning in any form involves, in addition to
the external facts Sand the observable reactions R, a set of active co-ordinations,
the gradual equilibration of which constitutes a fundamental factor that in fact
represents a logic or an algebra.
The International Centre of Genetic Epistemology in Geneva accordingly
asked itself two questions: What is the mode, traditional or specific, of the
learning of logical structures and does every form of learning, even of contingent
or arbitrary data, suppose a logic or not? On these two points the findings
of an experiment carried out on children at different known stages as regards
their operational structures are fairly clear. Firstly, the learning of a logical
structure (inclusion of classes, etc.) does not proceed by external reinforcement
(success or failure, as determined by the results), which is the only factor constantly
referred to by Hull, but is based on the generalization and differentiation
of prior logical or prelogical structures. For example, discovering that, if
all A’s are B’s but not all B’s are A’S, there are more B’s than A’s (quantification
of the inclusion) is not a process of merely counting the B’s and the A’s after a
given response. On the contrary, understanding is assisted if we start from the
intersection of two non-disjoint classes C and D, while the fact that there are
objects that are ‘at the same time’ C and D leads us to accept that A < B stems
rom AB < B.
This hypothesis of a subordination of learning to development forms the
basis of a series of researches on the acquisition of the notions of conservation,
and so on, being carried out by B. Inhelder, H. Sinclair and M. Bovet, and by M.
Laurendeau and A. Pinard in Montreal. Their method involves studying as
factors of learning those that the analysis of development seems to point to as
being decisive, especially during the passage from one operative structure to
another (or to the same one but with a lag due to different contents). Such a
hypothesis should, no doubt, be checked separately at every level of behaviour
(sensori-motor, semiotic or representative, etc.), but it may quite well be general-

Psychology 255
ly valid; thus in sensori-motor learning the r61e of certain ‘forms’ of organization
is often observed, the pregnancy of which depends on the stages of development
(e.g., a child of three learning to ride a tricycle can make a semi-rotational
pendulum-like movement with his legs before he can manage the full circle).
As to the logic of learning, with which wasconcerned the afore-mentioned work
by Apostel Matalon has been ableto show that even in stochastic learning choice
was dependent not just on the observed results, but also on the organization
of the successive actions of the subjects, with the strategies therefore implying
a logic dependent in each case on the operational level of the subject.
Of course, such interpretations are thus taking a constructivist direction, since
there is a constant elaboration of new and structuralist co-ordinations, and since
the co-ordinations take the form of an operative logic. It is interesting to find
out at what cost a traditional theory of learning can be reconciled with these
new trends. A disciple of Hull, D. Berlyne, has shown this in an interesting
essay, after proving himself that the learning of an ordered sequence presupposes
a ‘recording device’, in other words a prior ordering structure, which is entirely
in accordance with previous interpretations. His argument is that in order to
account for operative structures in the sense just mentioned it is necessary to
introduce the following three factors, of which the last two considerably modify
Hull’s conceptualization: I) stimulus-response generalizations foreseen but
not used by Hull; z) transforming responses as well as response patterns, which
are equivalent to our ‘operations’; and 3) internal reinforcement taking the form
of coherence, non-contradiction or surprise factors, etc., which amounts to notions
of logical equilibration.
III. The problems of learning are common ground both to biology and psychology,
and there is nothing in the intervention of a logic of learning that is contrary
to the spirit of biology if this logic is conceived in terms of the general coordination
of actions, therefore of self-regulation and self-correction, before
giving rise to the mental and reflexive interiorization constituting what is
commonly called natural logic.
However, learning touches on another question of common interest to biologists
and psychologists, which is memory or the retention of what has been
‘learnt’. Biologists speak of ‘memory’ in a very wide sense, which can go back,
for example, to the facts of immunity. When a bacterium attacked by an anti-
gen produces an antibody that immunizes: it, either it involves a genetic varia-
tion with selection, etc., and we do not speak of memory, or else it involves ac-
quired reactions (by a kind of moulding in the structure of the antigen), in
which case their retention would be called ‘memory’.
At the present stage of research, we have to distinguish between three types
of memory or, more precisely, three different meanings attributed to the term
memory, one of the essential problems then being the question of how they are
related. I) Firstly, there is what we shall call ‘memory as meant by the biologist’,
i.e., the retention during an individuai’s lifetime of everything that is acquired at
the behavioural level (conditioning, habits, intelligence, etc.). 2) Secondly, there
is memory linked solely to behaviour, but which affects as much the retention

2 5 6 Jean Piaget
of sensori-motor patterns, such as a habit pattern (therefore the habit itself as
a motor repetition), and even the retention of ‘operative’ patterns (identity,
seriation, etc.), as recollections proper marked by recognition, and so on: we
shall speak in this sense of the ‘psychological memory in the broad sense’. 3)
Lastly, it is possible to use the term ‘psychological memory in the strict sense’
to refer to behaviour involving an explicit reference to the past, the observables
of which are more especially: (a) the recognition or perception of an object that
is present but which has already been perceived, and (b) the recalling by means
of a memory image of an object or an event that is not present, but represented
(by a mental image, a verbal account, etc.), inasmuch as it was known in the
past.
That being said, the (non-hereditary) retention of the past, which is comprised
in varying degrees in the three foregoing meanings, raises in actual fact two very
distinct questions, only the first of which concerns the biologist whereas both
concern the psychologist, the second being closely dependent, however, on the
former. The first question is what may be called pattern retention, Le., thereten-
tion of any organized set of reactions capable of repetition or of applicationto
situations that recur, or even of generalizations in the presence of situations that
are new but similar in some respects to foregoing ones. The second question
concerns only the ‘psychological memory in the strict sense’ and is the reten-
tion of memory images, the fixing and recalling or evocation of which can be
observed, but about which not much is known in between, so that writers like
P. Janet have accepted that recollection is in reality a reconstruction, rather in
the manner in which the historian works (‘the recall’), whereas others like Freud
assume that all memories are stored in the ‘inconscious’ during the period of
retention.
The first of these two questions is independent of the second, while the latter
is in many cases and probably always linked to the former. Concerning the
first of these two points, we would recall that a pattern is the expression of an
activity that is repeated by virtue of a generalization (even if the situations are
identical), whereas a memory involves finding once again, in reality or in
thought, a striking object or event. The retention of the memory thus poses a
special problem, while the retention of patterns is inseparable from their very
existence, and thedurationof such retention dependsentirely on their functioning,
which lasts by self-retention or self-regulation and does not need to be recog-
nized or recalled in the form of particular memories in order to last. It is thus
that the movements inherent in a motor habit, like going downstairs, are re-
tained due to their very organization and that a common intellectual pattern, a
syllogism or an implication, do not have to be evoked by particular memories to
be applied again every time deduction is called for.
This is not to say, of course, that the existence of the patterns does not raise
any problems: but such problems have to do with formation and organization,
and in so far as these can be solved, there is no separate question as regards
their retention except to refer again to the feedbacks or regulations that presided
over such formation, since each operation of the pattern revives its organiza-
tion. There is therefore no memory of patterns, for the memory of a pattern is

PSYChOlOgy 257
nothing more than the pattern itself. When biologists use the term ‘memory’
in the first of the three senses that we have defined, they are in fact raising the
great problem of how what is acquired is organized, and, when speaking of the
retention of non-hereditary information, they give us hope of discovering or-
ganizations similar - but in the phenotypic context - to those of codings of
hereditary information (hence the interest of the hypothesis that the RNA must
be complete for the information acquired to be retained).
From the psychological point of view, the problem of the retention of habit
patterns or of the patterns of the intelligence is therefore identical with that
of their formation, and we have just spoken about it in connexion with learn-
ing. The problem of ‘psychological memory in the strict sense’, on the other
hand, presents a number of difficulties and is currently fast evolving. It should
first be noted that there is a big difference of level between memory involving
recognition (as defined above) and memory involving recall: the former is
observable in invertebrates and even in lower organisms (since conditioning
assumes recognition of the stimulus), whereas recall seems to be linked to the
semiotic function (mental images as representative symbols and language) and
is therefore only possible in the human being from one and a half to two years of
age and probably in anthropoids. But between these two extremes, which are
generally the only ones to be considered, the investigations carried out in
Geneva revealed an intermediate form in children, which is the memory of
reconstruction : reconstructing a configuration with the same material, which
involves a certain recognition of indices, but which also constitutes a kind of
recall, only in action and not in memory images. The simplest expression of
reconstructive memory is imitation itself, and such memory can therefore be
regarded as appearing in this form at the very least in birds (and probablyin
bees).
As to how memories are retained, there is probably always a certain amount
of reconstruction (at least as far as the sequence of events is concerned), which
is borne out, for example, by inaccurate memories that are considered to be true
by the subject until they are checked, and by the well-known inaccuracy of
evidence, which generally inclines towards the most probable. However, Pen-
field was able to demonstrate, in the course of spectacularexperiments, thepossi-
bility of reviving memories by electrically stimulating the temporal lobes, which
proves that there is some retention, which is not imcompatible, moreover, with
the part supposedly played by reconstruction.
In fact, the lesser forms of memory (in the strict sense) are always linked to a
certain retention of patterns : sensori-motor habits and sensori-motor intelli-
gence continually involve recognition of significant indices, and recognition
memory is then plainly linked to the patterns of which it constitutes in this
case the figurative or discernible aspect. Reconstructive memory, for its part, is
linked to action, which again means to certain patterns. As to the recall memory
which is therefore at the higher level characterized by representation or thought,
it is largely free of the patterns of action, but one may ask to what extent is it
linked to those of the intelligen~e.~~
In short, the position is the same as regards memory and learning alike, which

258 Jean Piaget
makes it possible to discern some of the coming developments in this branch of
research. On the one hand, it is not possible to separate the study of the memory
from that of development, since there is nothing innate about recall memory
which is ‘built up’ in relation to the semiotic function that conditions representa-
tion. True many psychoanalysts take this form of memory back to a much ear-
lier stage, but this view is not shared by most child psychologists. Some main-
tain that if we have no recollection of our birth and of our first year of life it is
not so much because it has been suppressed, but rather because there was not
yet any representative means of fixing memory images. On the other hand, the
problem of memory in the strict sense cannot be separated from that of the
retention of patterns.
8. Psychogenetic structuralismZ1 with reference to animals and children
and theories of the intelligence
The future of psychology will no doubt be determined chiefly by the develop-
ment of comparative and psychogenetic methods, for it is only by observing
the formation of behaviour and how it operates in animals and children (before
studying pre-perceptions and movements in plants) that its nature and the
way it operates in adults may be understood. However, it was some time before
what is now a common trend was understood, because for a long time it was
thought that children learned only what was inscribed in advance in an already
organized external world and especially what they were taught by adults. Yet the
two main lessons we have learnt from children are I) that the universe is organized
only inasmuch as its organization is reinvented step by step, with objects, space,
time and causality being structuralized in accordance with a logical form, and
2) that nothing is ever learnt from teachers unless their thought processes are
also followed through, failing which nothing remains, either in the mind or in
the memory (which as we have just seen, touch closely on each other). In short,
child psychology teaches us that development is a real constructive process,
over and above innatism and empiricism, and that it is a construction of struc-
tures and not an additive accumulation of isolated acquisitions.
I. It is first of all striking to note how the evolution of ethology, or animal
psychology, has passed through stages parallel to the evolution of child psy-
chology, and without any other direct influence either one way or the other, for
ethology is primarily the work of zoologists. After a phase of isolated observa-
tion, animal psychology was studied in the laboratory according to strictly asso-
ciationist principles (theories of learning). Then came the so-called ‘objectivist’
school, the objectiveness of which consisted in a return to study in nature itself,
i.e. in the indissociable complex of the organism plus the environment, with
analysis being conducted systematically. This led to the rediscovery of instinct
and to the uncovering of a wealth of new data showing the complexity of it.
Finally, the generation of those who founded this ethology in nature was follow-

Psychology 259
ed by a second generation suspicious of pure innateness and seeking for an
explanation in a combination of innateness and exercise, with emphasis more
on the building of structures than on the idea of simple preformation.
Child psychology has gone through fairly similar phases. After a stage of
isolated and, so to speak, primarily biographical observations, children were
made to take all kinds of standardized tests giving quantitative insights rather
than ideas concerning the actual mechanisms of development. After this came
largely clinical studies, placing the child back into its context of life and activity,
and here too the main emphasis was first on factors to do with the internal
maturation of the nervous system (Gesell and Wallon), plus, of course, the
general social factor, which is unknown to animals, in the form of prolonged
processes of educational transmission. Lastly, the emphasis was placed on the
very building of structures, which went beyond both organic factors and the
activities of the adult.
Returning to ethology, but without going back to the initial stages, we should
draw attention to one of the central ideas introduced by the objectivism of
Lorenz and Tinbergen. This is the notion of the spontaneous activity of the
organism, as distinct from any ‘response’ to external stimuli. Adrian had already
proved its existence, moreover, and we find a distinct equivalent to it even in a
new-born baby. Moreover reflexes have long been regarded (Coghill, Graham,
Brown) as a product of differentiations from general rhythmic movements, but
objectivism showed the spontaneousness of some of them at any rate.
As regards the instinct, objectivism gave an analysis of it that is very instruc-
tive for human psychology itself, because it makes it possible better to judge the
relations between the intelligence and organic life. The pioneers, Tinbergen,
Lorenz and, in France, GrassC, emphasized the essentially innate character
of the instinct, without, however, ignoring the necessary part played by the
environment. Instinctive behaviour is distinguished first of all by appetitive
tendencies (looking for a mate, a place to build a nest, and so on) linked to
hormone changes in the organism. Then begins the consummatory phase
marked by innate releasing mechanisms (IRM). Thus, the red belly of the male
stickleback attracts the female, but releases in other males an aggressiveness
linked to the defence of its own territory or of the nest. Another releasing mech-
anism, for example, is the sight of objects that can be used to make the nest. It
should be noted that these mechanisms do not always release actions in an un-
changing order, but we already observe at this level a certain adaptive mobility
linked to the external situation. GrassC, for example, describes in termites
‘stigmergies’ or mechanisms; a pellet of some substance, for example, once
a certain size has been reached, provokes its transformation into pillars, ceilings,
and so on, but the order of construction of the termitary remains variable and
the result of each stage can set off several others and not just one. Further, once
the innate releasing mechanisms have made the instinct start to work, the con-
summatory acts that follow are rapidly differentiated into different forms of
behaviour, where there then appears a margin for temporary adaptation, with
improvisation or acquisition and no longer the fixed unfolding of the hereditary
programme.

z6o Jean Piaget
Given this mixture, after a certain stage of further partial adaptation andinnate
guidance, and given the revised ideas of contemporary biology concerning
the relations of the phenotype and the genotype, the up-and-coming generation
of ethologists now speaks of innateness only with caution and likes to use the
expression ‘what used to be called innate’. Lehrmann and others have pointed
to the possibility of exercices right from the initial phase of instinctive behaviour,
so that the reciprocal action of maturation x experience seems to be even closer
than was assumed by past research. Viaud has said that Lorenz’s concept of the
instinct was an extreme one never embodied in reality.
The instinct would thus seem to have three components: an organizing and
regulating mechanism which conditions heredity, a more or less detailed hered-
itary programming and adaptations or modifications acquired by each individ-
ual. On the splitting-up of the instinct in the higher primates and in man, it is
therefore the intermediate part that fades or disappears, but there remain the
organizing mechanism and adaptive modifications, the two basic requirements of
the intelligence, which is directed towards both the domination of external
objects and towards the realization and reconstruction of the conditions inher-
ent in the organization or general co-ordination of actions.
11. It is this building of the structures of the intelligence that enables us above
all to analyse the study of psychogenesis in the child. It is at present the subject
of intensive study in a number of countries. There are various trends, of which
we shall now point out the main ones.
First, Gesell and Wallon have stressed the part played by nervous matura-
tion, an indisputable factor whose effects are discernible at the initial sensori-
motor levels (e.g., in the myelinization of the pyramidal tract, which makes it
possible to co-ordinate sight and prehension). But the further development
proceeds, themorenervous maturation (which lasts till the age of 15 or 16 at
least) is confined to the opening up of possibilities, without any programming,
and the possibilities give rise to multiple realizations only in so far as other
factors intervene. Wallon has placed special emphasis on the part played by the
maturation of the postural or tonic system, which, while being closely bound
up with the working of the emotions (regarded by him as a positive factor),
foreshadows the figurative aspects of thought (images, etc.. .).
A second basic factor, on which often the same authors take their stand with
the explicit or implicit idea that the life of the mind is reduced to a combination
of organic and social factors, is the part played by the society around us. Wallon,
the old Viennese school (Ch. Biihler) and especially, at the present time, Soviet
psychologists following in the tradition of Vigotsky, have helped to uncover a
large number of important facts in this connexion. However, two equally signif-
icant points have been emphasized. The first is that the child is responsive to
adult influences only in so far as he assimilates them. Though J. Bruner has
maintained that in principle a child can be taught anything at any age, someone
who opposes this view asked, during a discussion on the subject, how much
time it would take to teach the theory of relativity to a neighbour who was neither
a physicist nor a mathematician. When the reply came ‘three to four years’, he

Psychology 261
said ‘All right, but if we begin with an infant, it may take a year or two more,
and even excluding this, three or four years already takes us back to the question
of stages’ (the sequence of which can be speeded up but not eliminated).
Secondly, we would point out that besides the socializing process as between
adults and children, there are the social relations between children, and these
develop only gradually. While past studies on the egocentrism of children’s
speech have not found unanimous acceptance, there remains the idea of a necessary
decentring of thought that can be verified both as regards social relations
(combined activities, team games, and the like) and thought structures.
The third factor that is commonly adduced is the part played by experience
in the development of the intelligence. It is universally recognized that it plays
an essential part, though a distinction must be made. On the one hand, there is
what may be called in the widest meaning of the term physical experience, i.e.,
experience that involves contact with objects and the gaining of knowledge by
abstraction from the object itself (colours, weights, and so on). It is the kind we
commonly think of and which alone is taken into account by empiricism. On
the other hand, however, there is what may be called logico-mathematical
experience, which plays an important part before the appearance of deductive
processes. It too involves contact with objects, but by obtaining knowledge of
these actions themselves and not from the objects as such. Such is the case, for
example, when children check commutativeness by changing the order of objects
and counting them again, the order and counting then being due to the action
itself. This distinction has been disputed on the grounds, for example, that the
order and number definitely reside in the objects. However, there still remains
the question of who put them there - the action of the subject or their physical
nature itself?
Both this distinction and the direct study of the sensori-motor intelligence
forming before speech, and therefore independently of it, then lead to the assumption
that mental and especially logico-mathematical processes spring from the
action (e.g., the action of bringing together) and consist of interiorized actions
(addition) that have become reversible (corresponding to addition is its reverse
subtraction) because they express the most general types of co-ordination (the
connexion established by bringing together does not just apply to the objects,
but to any form of co-ordination of actions). However, the study of the processes
chiefly shows that they never appear in isolation and are directly bound up
with one another within overall systems, operating, for example, in the form
of classification, seriation, the sequence of numbers, of correspondence going
in pairs or more, of matrices, and so on. Logically, these aggregates are governed
by such well-known structures as ‘groups’, ‘lattices’, ‘bodies’, ‘rings’, and psychological
analysis shows that these structures are in fact ‘natural’, i.e. that they
are spontaneously formed with the processes themselves, from, moreover, more
elementary structures - various ‘groupoids’ or ‘groups’.
In addition to maturation factors, social life or experience, which are those
commonly put forward to explain development, we therefore have to take into
account a factor of non-innate co-ordination of acts, which operates during
their actual functional unfolding and which may be called the equilibration fac-

262 Jean Piagel
tor. This does not mean a balance of forces in the Gestaltist sense, but self-
regulation in the biological and cybernetic sense, i.e., a factor that shows the
essential link between the intelligence and what we now know about the many
forms of homeostasis peculiar to organic life. Further, equilibration as it is
thus conceived is based on the active compensatory adjustments made by the sub-
ject in reaction to external changes, thus leading to a causal explanation of
reversibility, which otherwise would merely be a strictly logical feature of the
processes.
This equilibration factor further accounts for the sequential nature of the
stages observed in the building of structures and at the same time often a pro-
babilist interpretation of their sequence: a given stage S is not the most likely
at the beginning of the development but it becomes the mostlikely once equilib-
rium is attained at stage S- I, first of all because the acquisitions in 5’- I are
necessary to the constructions in S and, secondly, equilibrium that has been
attained affects only a limited area, is therefore incomplete and gives occasion
for new forms of disequilibrium which will account for the transition from S- I
to s.
III. As to the theory of the intelligence, all these observations seem to lead to a
number of conclusions that it is difficult to ignore. The first is that the intelli-
gence is much richer than the aspects of which the subject becomes aware, for
he is conscious only of the external findings of his intelligence, except when,
through a systematic and retroactive reflexive process, logic and mathematics
formalize, but generally without concerning themselves with their sources,
structures whose natural roots are already in the intelligence in action. As to the
average subject, he is aware of this intelligence only from its performance, for
the operative structures elude him, as moreover nearly all the mechanisms
affecting his behaviour and even more so his organism. It is therefore for the
observer to find out whether the structures do exist and to analyse them, but
the subject is unaware of them as structures and discerns only the operations
used by him (and even then not all of them, for he constantly resorts to ‘asso-
ciativity’ and ‘distributivity’ without realizing it, and the same is often the case
with commutativity).
It is therefore not surprising that structuralism should have taken so long to
establish itself, and even then as a trend whose possibilities are far from having
been fully explored. The associationist theories of the intelligence remain ato-
mistic. The trial-and-error theory seeks to explain everything as being more or
less fortuitous attempts, which are selected subsequently according to the
results, as biology did at the beginning of this century before the discovery of
the regulatory systems. German Denkpsychologie made direct use of certain
logical laws, but without perceiving the problem of overall structures from the
logico-mathematical and psychologic viewpoints. Spearman’s ‘noegenesis’
brought to light certain operations (eduction of relations and of ‘correlates’
or double relations), but without seeing the structures. Gestalt psychology
discovered structures, but wanted to reduce them to a single type characterizing
perception and the lower cognitive functions and not applying to the intelli-

Psychology 263
cence. We had to wait for psychogenetics and the discovery of the various pre-
operative and operative stages through which the child and the adolescent go
before the specificity of intellectual structures could be established.
However, this structuralism is only one of the two services rendered by psy-
chogenetics. The other relates to constructivism and is no less essential. The
operative structures of the intelligence are not innate, but slowly develop la-
boriously during the first fifteen years of life in the most favoured societies. If
they are not already formed in the nervous system, neither are they in the physi-
cal world, where they would only have to be discovered. They therefore testify
to a real construction, proceeding by stages, at each of which the results obtain-
ed at the preceding stage must first be reconstructed before the process can be
broadened and construction resumed. The nerve structures serve as a medium
for the sensori-motor intelligence, but the latter builds a series of new structures
(permanent object, group of transfers, patterns of the practical intelligence, and
so on); the thought processes are based on sensori-motor action, from which
they are derived, but they reconstruct into representations and concepts what
was acquired in practice, before broadening considerably the range of initial
structures; reflexive and abstract thought restructures initial mental operations
by placing the concrete into the sphere of hypothesis and propositional or for-
mal deduction. In the creative adult, this movement of constant construction
continues indefinitely, as shown, among other things, by the forms of techno-
IogicaI and scientific thought.
9. Abstract models
Having examined the main trends in contemporary psychology, which we
distinguished between according to the kind of explanation they offer (or that
they refuse to adopt, as in the case of positivism, viz. section 2) it is now the
moment to make a fairly fundamental observation, which illuminates all that
has gone before. But let us begin by taking stock of what we have seen so far.
Without wishing to extrapolate excessively, I think it can be said that, under
their various names, ail the trends we have mentioned are bound sooner or
later to take into account the ideas of construction and structure. We have often
met in the past interpretations that accepted genesis without structure (e.g.,
associationism) or structures without genesis (Denkpsychologie). But sooner or
later every trend comes up against these two requirements. Skinner himself,
who is against theory, managed in his game of inputs and outputs to maxima-
lize the activity of his pigeons and to see them build instrumental structures.
Perhaps weak structures, but already it is no longer a case of simple association.
Organicists, physicalists, social psychologists, psychoanalysts, specialists in
the ‘theory of behaviour’ and psychogeneticians are all looking more or less
explicitly and in various forms for both constructions and structures.
The new development we should now stress is that for a number of years the
various ~oncrete~niodels that have been adduced by nearly all the schools of
thought previously mentioned are sooner or later expressed in the form of
abstract models, of, say, a mathematical, cybernetic or logical nature, which

264 Jean Piaget
generally tends to reinforce the trend towards structuralism. We saw our first
example of this in connexion with organicism (section 3), where an essential-
ly associationist concrete model at the beginning, like the conditioned reflex,
was expressed as a ‘subordinate stochastic lattice’ involving both the algebraic
structure of the lattice, probabilist sequences and links with neighbouring sys-
tems. The physicalism peculiar to Gestalt theory is naturally expressed as field
equations, but has also been continued by Lewin and his successors as a kind
of topology, which incidentally is more subjective than mathematical, and in
models of vectors. Social psychology expresses the structure of small groups
in all kinds of algebraico-probabilist models or in ‘graphs’, and so on. Psycho-
analysis itself found an abstract theorist in D. Rapaport, who would certainly
have continued his researches (had it not been for his untimely death) in the
direction of a still more elaborate form of energetics (and he was already refer-
ring to d’Alembert’s theorem for constant cathexis).zz The theories of learning
have given rise to probabilist and algebraic elaborations, and the psychogenetic
study of the intelligence naturally makes use of general algebra and logic.
Needless to say, the structures used in these various branches of psychology
are not all identical. This diversity also holds out great promise, for sooner or
later the problem of their co-ordination will arise, and the differences as well as
the possible transitions from certain structures to others will have to be taken
into account. It is perhaps from such a system of transformations and inter-
change that psychology will develop a fundamental unity, though it is still only
a remote dream to-day.
I. Abstract models are thus coming into more or less current use in every branch
of psychology, and the specifically psychological study of them provides material
for specialized journals and frequent seminars. It is therefore essential to ask
what lies behind this trend and especially where it is leading to as regards the
general interpretative methods that form the basis of our science in its reactions
to the facts it discovers.
Originally, the abstract model is simply the result of an effort to give an exact
definition of laws, thus making accurate qualitative and quantitative forecast-
ing possible. Fechner’s logarithmic law or Hull’s first laws of learning are still
at this first stage of abstraction. As soon as there are a number of laws to co-
ordinate there further occurs an overall process of deduction, and it was this
level that Hull next reached with his formalized system. If the word model is
often improperly used, even to the point of embracing any deductive process
used in psychology, the term assumes its full meaning only once there is a more
general framework than the laws contemplated in the experimental area under
study, and a framework capable of providing not only a formulation and the
possibility of forecasting, but also a source of explanation in so far as the opera-
tive transformations of the model match the real transformations of the phenom-
enon that has to be explained. For instance, a probabilist model of the Weber-
Fechner law will be explanatory if the additive series of evaluations of the
subject are matched by a recording mechanism (encounters, and so on), the suc-
cessive probabilities of which can grow only multiplicatively.

Psychology 265
This being the case, why do we speak of an abstract model when its essential
purpose is to integrate with the concrete mechanisms that have to be interpreted
and when in every possible direction that the explanation may take in psychol-
ogy (organicism, social interactions, sequences of behaviour, and so on), we
are faced solely with very concrete factors merely to be expressed - it seems - in
the form of equations in order to arrive at the causality sought? The reason is
that in reality we constantly come up against the need to choose between inter-
mediate multiple variables, which in fact it is a question of inferring, and that
the lack of data, at a point when a fairly precise hypothetical interpretation
would be needed in order to guide subsequent research, makes such a choice
difficult or impossible. Then, the great advantage of the abstract model is that
it defines both the necessary and sufficient conditions in the light of the adopt-
ed assumption and formulates them in a form sufficiently general - because
abstract - for it to be possible to apply them to a number of different concrete
purposes. In other words, the abstract model is by no means extraneous to
the concrete models psychology needs and which it continues to build up as
research progresses. It simply covers a number of possible concrete models,
thus forming a necessary intermediate stage between hypotheses that are too
general, because they are badly formalized or even badly formulated, and partic-
ular hypotheses that subsequent analysis wil make it possible to put forward
and to subject to experimental verification.
11. That being so, the great problem, as regards both the practical utilization of
abstract models and the intepretation that now has to be given of them with
respect to the general trends in psychology, is determining their degree of
objective and so to speak ontological equivalence to the reality that is being
studied. Of course, as far as positivism is concerned, which confines itself to
observables, the abstract model does not attain reality, since the latter is
meaningless without observables. The abstract model therefore merely repre-
sents a convenient idiom, like any logico-mathematical structure, and its con-
venience is marked by its simplicity as regards the subject and by the fact that
it lends itself to forecasting. But then the success of forecasts is bound up with
the experimental laws treated by the model and not with the latter’s capacity to
express the properties of an otherwise inaccessible underlying reality. For those,
on the other hand, who believe in a reality that goes beyond the observables and
in the possibility of causal explanations, the abstract model is only of interest if
it offers glimpses of real but still hidden processes accounting for observables
and if it thus facilitates explanation. Nevertheless, besides explanatory models
of this kind, it is possible to conceive from this second viewpoint models that
simply favour easy and conventional representation, until something better is
found, and because in this case provisional representation has a heuristic value
and leads to more adequate models.
A good example, which shows that this problem of the reality coefficient of
models is a real factor and not just a theoretical epistemological question, is
provided by the very simple instance of the ‘normal’ or Gaussian distribution
curve. It is still not so long ago that psychologists started from the assumption

266 Jean Piaget
that among any homogeneous population there was a ‘normal’ distribution of
intelligence and aptitude, rather like sizes. This was a realistic and not a nom-
inalist point of view; but conventionalism comes into its own again, without
it always being realized, in the sense that, for lack of objective unity of measure
(see the ‘Introduction’, section 4, n B), one is obviously (psychological ex-
perience offering only relations of order) bound to choose an arbitrary metrics
and it is then always possible to find somehow the presupposed and desired
‘normal’ distribution. The best proof that the ‘convenient idiom’ for describing
‘observables’ is not enough is that now the question is being asked what takes
place under ordinal observables and partly arbitrary measurements, so as to
establish whether in ‘reality’ the distribution is normal or not. A number of
studies on measurement as such have been carried out, but in 1963 Burtz3 col-
lected specifically psychological indices that tended to show that in the distri-
bution of levels of intelligence the lower end of the curve was probably more
stretched out than the other end.
As regards models that can be explained (a ‘normal’ curve also involves
searching for its own explanation, and the same applies even more so to more or
less systematic exceptions to it), the general tendency, is, of course, not to keep
to patterns that are regarded as merely convenient, if not for reasons of diplo-
matic presentation, and for the reasons given in section z there is a very
rapid tendency to pass on to causal interpretations.
~n.
If we then examine from this point of view the partblayed by abstract models,
we are bound to see that it has always involved furthering the advancement
of structuralism, and exactly to the extent to which it was attempted to make the
model coincide with the real processes of the mental life of behaviour of the
subject. And yet there are models which in theory could have been atomistic in
character, such as factorial models and certain stochastic models.
Factorial analysis originated from simple methods of calculation -correlations
of correlations or tetrad-differences - and initially its aim was merely to bring
out ‘factors’ that elude direct qualitative analysis. But in the first place everyone
knows that it was not always immediately understood what a given ‘factor’ that
had thus been found corresponded to or meant, like the well-known G factor or
‘general intelligence’ factor which was in turn taken to express intelligence itself
or to be a calculated artefact. Further, it is fairly clear that the meaning of
factors partly depends on the tests that are chosen and that if, for example,
spatial factors are linked to perceptive and not numerical factors, this may be
due to the choice of figurative rather than operative tests, which does not make
the facts uninteresting, but shows that they are dependent on prior classifica-
tions. It was then attempted to construct ‘hierarchies of factors’ or systems that
involved overall classifications and bore out the findings that were made. This
marked a tendency towards a certain form of structuralism.
There can be all kinds of stochastic models, some of which may at first seem
rather atomistic. But once we want to determine what they mean from the be-
haviour angle, we are bound to turn to an epistemology of probability - a
priori probabilities, frequencies and subjective probability, and especially the

Psychology 267
relations between probabilities and historical sequence (sequence checks,
Markoff chains, and so on).Z4 It is therefore clear that once a probabilist model
is placed in its general theoretical context, it comprises a series of positions that
represent something more than the splitting up of facts and imply a certain
kind of structuralism (perceptions, conditioning and so on).
In this connexion, there is an imperceptible transition from general probabilist
models to more specific models governed by the theories of decision or
information, which add to their probabilist basis increasingly structured stages as
regards the notions used and the systematization of subjects’ reactions. When,
for example, an information model is applied to perception, it has to be specified
how ‘redundancy’ in the case of ‘good forms’ wil be regarded where the
repetition of the same elements or the same relations of equivalence leads to
significant symmetries and not to simple tautologies, such as those of a speaker
who repeats the same thing several times. Or again, applying the theory of games
to perceptive constancies presupposes that we define in the case of ‘super-constancies’
(see section 4, heading 11) how in fact ‘decisions’ are made that involve
positive reversal of the error to avoid the negative error, which leads to a
conception of equilibration via active and especially anticipatory compensation
of the subject, and no longer to a balance of forces, which implies a full structuralist
formulation.
’Graph’ models can be used as a simple and convenient means of linking in
the mind of the observer himself the successive reactions of the subject. However,
it is obvious that the model becomes interesting in quite another way once the
relations symbolized by the nodes and arrows match those established by the
subject himself. The graph then describes an overall structure, of which it is
possible to study, for instance, the openings, closures, internal equilibrium,
vector laws, etc.
Spatial or geometrical models lead to two kinds of results. In some cases, it
is the actual space of the subject that is thus described, which naturally implies
a high degree of structuralism. Luneburg thus sought to show in his study of
the perception of parallel ‘paths’ that the immediate impression of parallelism
was not accompanied by corresponding estimations of the equidistances, which
led him to conclude that primary perceptive space was of a Riemannian and
not of a Euclidean character (the correctness of the actual facts was verified by
Jonkheere). From other research (heterogeneous space of the field of centration,
and so on) it seems likely that initial perceptive space is, if anything, undifferentiated,
being neither Euclidean nor Riemannian,’and that it is these subsequent
perceptive activities that guide it in the direction of the most economical metrics,
which is Euclidean because of the greater number of equivalences that it
comprises (precisely as in the case of parallelism, for example).
In other cases, the geometrical model is less intended to describe the subject’s
space than the space of the total field in which the subject moves and which is
supposed partly to determine his reactions. One famous example is K. Lewin’s
‘topology’, but which unfortunately constitutes a rather inextricable mixture of
mathematical topology and ‘lived’ space, with the properties of the latter
constantly inflecting those of the former, so that there is little that is mathemat-

268 Jean Piaget
ical about the explanation. It none the less leads to a remarkable form of
psychological structuralism, of which Lewin has brought out the causal aspect
as much as the spatial aspect.
The most common current trend, however, is of course towards cybernetic
or ‘simulation’ models of all kinds of mental activities implying regulation, especially
as regards activities of a higher order. From Grey Walter’s ‘tortoise’ Nora,
which brings in conditioning, and from the ‘perceptron’ of Rosenblatt (whose
theory, moreover, is still the subject of debate) to Ashby’s homeostat and to S.
Papert’s ‘genetron’ projects (model advancing by successive stages towards
equilibration, like the development of the child), a great deal of extremely
instructive experimental work is being carried out at present in connexion with
the structures of learning and the intelligence.
A cybernetic model always involves a combination of probabilist sectors and
algebraic logical factors. It is therefore natural to use as a model the logical
processes themselves, as is done systematically by the Geneva school, not in the
sense of an already constructed, and therefore static, ideal externally imposed
on thought (which was the tendency of German Denkpsychologie), but as a
hierarchy of structures capable of guiding the psychological search for constructions
and relationships. The great advantage with such a model is that it
makes it possible to analyse constituent processes and not just the results or
performance, as is often the case with other models. It is often objected by psychologists
that this method relates to logicism and no longer to pure psychology.
However, just as an experimentalist cannot be charged with ‘dabbling in
mathematics’ if he resorts to the calculus of probability or algebraic functions
of some kind, so he cannot be said to be ‘dabbling in logic’ if he resorts to
Boolean algebra or other general structures (structures of order, and so on),
which come into the study of logic. The main objection of logicians is that the
‘logic of the subject’ has nothing to do with logic itself or the logic of logicians.
While this goes without saying, there is nonetheless a problem here, as we shall
see shortly.
However staunchly optimistic the tone of this part of our paper may be, in
which we take our stand partly on hopes and not just on victories already won, it
is necessary to realize the probable limits of structuralism, which are connected
with those of psychology in general in relation to differential psychology. This
latter branch of psychology raises theoretical problems, which are as important
as those that it has to account for in applied psychology, and problems which
neither factorial analysis nor the many tests of typology (the success of which
is as yet fairly relative) have yet been able to circumscribe. One of these problems,
for example, is the problem of genius, for while it is still an unsolved
question of general psychology how scientific or artistic creation operates, it
is an even greater mystery to understand what constitutes the secret uniqueness
of an individual creator. It is when we find ourselves in close touch with such
questions that we best realize the probable limits of structuralism: whereas
Newton, Bach and Rembrandt, when they were children, probably went through
stages of development, the possible structures of which we can form an idea,
and whereas it is or will be possible perhaps to explain their creative work by

Psychology 269
means of new combinations of structures that they assimilated and then far
surpassed, the actual process of such reorganization and then of surpassing
them wil probably long elude structural analysis, because occurring in excep-
tional if not essentially individual cases.
IO. Rekthships between psychology and other sciences
I have already spoken - and could not have done otherwise - of the relation-
ships between psychology and those sciences to which it is closely linked :
biology and sociology. Now, however, we still have to inquire into the connexion
between psychology and those sciences which are more remote from it, such
as logic, mathematics, etc., or the epistemology of science itself. The links be-
tween psychological research and human sciences other than sociology wil be
dealt with in Chapter VII.
I. At first glance there does not appear to be any relationship between logic,
which is a formal, deductive and normative science, and psychology, which is
concrete, experimental and in no way normative. However, two kinds of con-
siderations make it necessary to establish some relationship between them: to
begin with, neither side wanted this, but as we shall see, recent trends oblige us
to examine these considerations attentively. The first may seem to be of second-
ary importance: although symbolic logic has been called ‘logic without a sub-
ject’, there cannot be any subjects without logic and, just as these subjects
succeed in constructing ‘natural numbers’ (or positive integers, the negatives
being implicit in many spontaneous acts), so they may be led to elaborate
further and to use transitivity and many other inferences, syllogisms, classifi-
cations and seriations, correspondences and matrices, etc., and to submit (more
or less effectively) to such norms as identity, noncontradiction, etc. This ‘natu-
ral‘ logic poses a problem for psychologists who are then obliged to compare it
to the formal logic of logicians. That the latter are not in the least interested in
making such comparisons, since formal truths do not rest on statements of
facts (even though IOO per cent of the subjects accept this or that inference), is
another question, but one which, as we shall see, is now being re-examined.
The other considerations which necessitate a comparison derive not from
the technique of logic but from its epistemology. When epistemological logi-
cians claim that logic is only a language (syntax and stripped down and gener-
alized semantics), they are drawing nearer to psychology. Even when they are
Platonists, as Bertrand Russell was at the beginning of his career, they are
still bordering on psychology, for it remains to be discovered how man, in his
mortal life, can comprehend eternal Ideas: and for this purpose Russell invented
a special mental function, called ‘conception’, which applied to Ideas as ‘per-
ception’ does to objects. The epistemology of logic therefore implies a compari-
son with psychology.
This being said, two new developments have caused the matter to be reopen-
ed, and have led certain logicians to examine these possible relationships

270 Jean Piaget
more systematically. The first is the multiplication of separate systems of logic,
all coherent but without any direct aiations between them. A fact which emer-
ges out of this multiplicity of logics is that no single one of them is comprehen-
sive enough to provide the substructure for the whole, while their diversity as
such is so great that it prevents them from achieving this aim. The logician is
then reduced to wondering how he builds up his logic, which means studying
the psychology of the logicians themselves and the history of their constructions.
But in this case, as always, history presupposes a more general psychology,
examining, for instance, by what methods of abstraction and construction the
logician’s logic is worked out, starting with the most intuitive method and going
on to the most formalized one, etc. Consequently, sooner or later, it is impossible
not to come up against the essential problem of the:psychology of the intelligence,
that is to say, the problem of the operative structures which are constituted by
a subject in the course of his activities, but are not at the conscious level and are
not to be confused with the deceptive intuitions based on appearances etc.,
which characterize the conscious level.
The second development is fraught with even more important consequen-
ces: it is the discovery of the boundaries of formalization. Goedel’s theorems
have shown that a theory cannot demonstrate its own non-contradiction by its
own means alone or by the weaker means of the other theories which it presup-
poses: in order to establish such a demonstration, we must resort to ‘stronger’
means, in other words, build up a richer theory which would encompass and
go beyond the preceding one, and so on. It follows from this that, for a human
intellect, by which is meant one that creates science and not one that projects it -
once created- into the realm of Platonic Ideas, the system of deductive theories
no longer assumes the shape of a pyramid resting on an unshakable, or at least
completed base, with a number of storeys, each one in final form, superimposed,
but rather a gradual construction, where the gaps on each landing are filled in on
the one above it, always providing that the process is continued ad infinitum.
Hence, two consequences of considerable importance.
The kt is that logic can no longer form a closed circuit. It is the science of
formalization, but formalization now has its limits : reality which looms beyond
this boundary thus appears to be simply intuitive, which leads us to think that
there is also a domain ‘within’ these boundaries which logic would have to
formalize and axiomatize and which would consist not of the subject’s con-
scious though, but of his operative structures. This does not of course mean
that logic stops at that point, but only that it starts from it (as Aristotle did with
syllogistics) and then extends its axiomatics as it sees fit. Hence, the second con-
sequence which emerges from what has gone before is that logical structuralism
is not static but constructivist; this progressive construction, which consists in
endlessly filling gaps which are constantly appearing at higher levels, is strangely
similar to the psychological development of intelligence itself, with its building
up of structures balancing themselves one after the other, but always relying
on those that follow to fill their gaps and rebalance them on broader ground.
For this reason, several young logicians have recently begun to concern
themselves with the psychology of development, in order not to discover formal

Psychology 2 7 I
or logical truth in it, but to understand more fully the epistemology of their
own science.
11. The relations between mathematics and psychology are of a similar nature,
though with an additional and somewhat closer connexion resulting from
mathematicians’ concern with the teaching of modern mathematics in the elementary
grades, and therefore with the necessity of taking the laws of development
into account.
In fact the teaching of mathematics depends to a large extent on the idea that
one has of the subject and consequently of its epistemology. Although a mathematician
will naturally never consult a psychologist in order to know how to
prove a theorem, in other words to intervene in the technical aspect of his particular
branch of study, the question of the ‘foundations’ of mathematics is quite
different; in this epistemological field - but one which now forms part of
mathematical problems themselves - mathematicians have always been divided
into three schools of thought, though in actual fact they can be reduced to two:
those who regard logic as the basis of mathematics (to whom we can add the
Platonists, as their eternal universals include logic as an elementary component),
and those who resort to operative or subject focused activities like PoincarB,
Enriques, Brouwer and many others (including E. Borers physicalism, for to
consider functions as if they were inferred from physical entities is meaningful
only if the real reference is to the actions whereby the physicist makes the phenomenon
vary until it can be invested with a mathematicizable structure).
Now, from this epistemological point of view, the present trends in mathematics
are towards a definitely constructivist structuralism. The principal ideas
of the Bourbaki school are well known; at the base of the mathematical edifice,
there are three major ‘parent structures’ (algebraic, order and topological
structures), and by means of differentiations and combinations, countless particular
structures (or sets) are derived from them. Now, psychological research
done in Geneva has revealed that these three parent structures correspond, in
concrete and limited forms, to the three elementary operative structures found
in the child with the formation, around the age of 7 or 8, of the first logicomathematical
mental processes. The notion ‘structures’ as it is understood by the
Bourbaki school is gradually being complemented or even superseded by that
of ‘category’ (a set of objects and all their functions), but S. Papert has pointed
out that there is a tendency to replace the operations ‘of mathematics’ by those
‘of mathematicians’, and, here again, we find that the notion of category has
fairly deep psychological or ‘natural’ roots. Lichnerowitz has shown that mathematical
‘entities’, in the ordinary or even metaphysical sense of the word ‘entity’,
do not exist, but that these so-called entities are isomorphisms and later become
isomorphisms among isomorphisms, etc., according to a scheme of construction
in which some psychologists rediscover that ‘reflecting abstraction’ which
rebuilds unremittingly at higher levels what it has taken from actions or
operations at lower levels, this being the common natural method of forming
logico-mathematical structures. For their part, psychologists, studying this
formation, which may be spontaneous or guided by teaching methods, are,

272 Jean Piaget
either unconsciously or deliberately, constantly touching upon these questions
of epistemology and of the foundations of mathematics.
A recent paper by P. Suppes read at a Symposium on ‘Models and Formalizazation
of Behaviour’ is entitled ‘The Psychological Foundations of Mathematics’.
In a recent publication on Mathematical L~arning,~5 in which psychologists
like Cronbach, Kessen, Suppes and Bruner have collaborated with the mathe
matician, Stone, there are constant references to processes of spontaneous
formation which concern the epistemology of mathematics as much as the psychology
of development. The Geneva research has been focused on both these
aspects at once, a point to which I shall return under IV.
m. With regard to physics, its contacts with psychology seem at first sight to be
virtually non-existent, except for the exchanges of methods which were noted in
section 4 in connexion with physical Gestalts (in the direction physics +
psychology) and information theory (in the opposite direction or in both direc-
tions). In fact, the epistemology of physics poses psychological problems for at
least two reasons. First, it raises the question of understanding how intuitions
seemingly fundamental and permanent such as absolute time, simultaneity at a
distance, conservation of the object as a corpuscle, etc., can have been so easily
modified by the theory of relativity and microphysics. Incomprehensible as they
would be if it were a case of innate intuitions or a priori forms in the Kantian
sense, these transformations of cognitive instruments are quite natural from the
standpoint of psychogenetic constructivism, and even the strophe and anti-
strophe of wave and corpuscle in microphysics are reminiscent of the difficul-
ties involved in constituting the schema of the permanent object between 4-5
and 12-18 months, and of the obvious psychological fact that this permanence
is very closely linked from its inception to the possibilities of localization in
space (and to the ‘group of displacements’).
The second reason for linking the two disciplines, is that physicists have
discovered interdependences between the effects produced by the manipula-
tions of the experimentor and the effects due to connexions between the phenom-
ena themselves. This fundamental fact naturally raises the problem of the
nature of objectivity, and conduces to supplementing Bridgman’s operation-
alism by a psychological theory of the development of mental processes
showing that decentering leading to objectivity is but a decentering in relation
to the ego of the observer, and is correlative with a logico-mathematical struc-
turalization due to the activities of the epistemic subject and proceeding from the
coordinations of actions (whence ‘groups’, etc.) and no longer from isolated ac-
tions which are sources of possible illusions. Thus the paradox is removed on
which Planck often dwells in replying to Mach: that although physical knowl-
edge begins with sensation (linked to isolated actions), objectivity consists in
turning one’s back on it and not shutting oneself up in it.
These patent or virtual links between physics and psychology have in fact
brought about certain modest beginnings of collaboration. Two examples come
to mind. The fist is that of the works of Kuhn, a very well-known physics
historian, who created the epistemology of the revolutions in the succession

Psychology 273
of physics theories and changes of ‘paradigms’ (or general conceptions linked
to certain fundamental intuitions such as Newtonian gravitation); now, Kuhn
repeatedly stresses the usefulness of conducting these historico-critical analyses
in conjunction with psychological research on perception and mental develop-
ment.
The other example is more personal, but no less significant. In classical
mechanics, it is known that speed is conceived as the relationship between
space travelled and time, while space and duration are two absolutes. In the
theory of relativity, time becomes relative to speed, the latter acquiring a sort of
absoluteness. On the other hand, there exists a known circular relationship
between time and speed, the latter having time as its referent and durations
being measured only by speeds. Einstein therefore suggested, long ago, that
the formation of these two concepts be studied from the psychological angle (on
perceptive and notional grounds) in order to find out whether there was an
intuition of speed independent of duration. Not only have we found this in-
tuition in children, in the form of ordinal intuition of overtaking (which presup-
poses temporal order and spatial order, but no measure of time or distance
covered), but again have been able to observe that the construction of temporal
notions and perceptions sooner or later has speed as a referent. Furthermore, a
French physicist and a mathematician, Abelk and Malvaux, have given an
account of the theories of relativity wherein they seek to overcome the circular
relationship of time and speed. Resorting to the psychogenesis of these notions,
they take up anew our results on speed-overtaking and, by introducing a counter,
a logarithmic law and an Abelian group, they return to the theorem of the
composition of speeds without recourse to circularity. Of course, this is no con-
tribution of psychology to the physicist’s technique, but to his epistemology;
nevertheless, it is significant.
IV. Each of the relationships mentioned under headings I-m
between psychology
and the exact sciences (logic and mathematics) and the natural sciences (physics)
is of an epistemological nature, whereas relationships between psychology and
biology, sociology and the other sciences of man consists, in addition, of
technical exchanges. This is no mere chance, and by referring to the hypothesis
of a circular or spiral system of sciences (cf. the ‘Introduction’, section 6), it wil
be understood that the subject constitutes at one and the same time an object of
studies presupposing the collaboration of the whole range of sciences, and the
source of the knowledge required for the development of those sciences. From
this viewpoint, collaboration between psychology and bordering disciplines
may therefore consist of technical exchanges, whereas its relationships with the
basic formal or concrete disciplines can only be epistemological or relative to
the formation and foundation of knowledge.
But is not epistemology strictly speaking of a philosophic nature, which, for
certain authors, means suprascientific? Without going into this problem, it
will suffice to note I) that all advanced sciences nowadays deal with their own
epistemology without going through schools of philosophy, and 2) that every
epistemology, whatever it may be, always has psychology as a referent in certain

274 Jean Piaget
respects, including cases where it is sought to demonstrate that it is possible or
essential to dispense with it. However, it very often happens, especially in
those latter cases, that an epistemologist advances arguments of introspection
or of common sense in judging psychology (for, even without being a specialist
in this branch, everyone believes that he is a psychologist; yet a great deal of
technical knowledge is required, for instance, to understand the difficulties of
any psychogenetic interpretation).
A group of psychologists, logicians, mathematicians, biologists, etc., has
established an International Centre of Genetic Epistemology in Geneva for the
purpose of studying systematically the relations between epistemological problems
pertaining to the various branches of learning and the mental and cognitive
development data which are capable of clarifying them. Some twenty
volumes have already been issued by this Centre, dealingwith theepistemological
problems of logic, mathematics (numbers, algebraic structures and their filiations,
functions and categories, space, etc.), physics, and so on, and particularly
those dealt with under headings I-m in this section.
I I. The applications of psychology:
basic research and ‘appZied’psychoZogy
Psychology concerns all human activities and situations : education, patholog-
ical conditions and psychotherapy, mental health, work and leisure in nearly
all sectors of employment (particularly industrial work), school and vocational
selection and guidance, etc. From the outset, scientific psychology has thus been
involved, voluntarily or involuntarily, in application problems, and it was even
some of these problems that helped to determine its original experimental
orientation (the question of reaction times was raised by the astronomer Bessel
in connexion with individual variations he had noted among the measurements
of his collaborators and after Maskelyne had dismissed from Greenwich an
observer whose calculations were systematically 1110th of a second late on an
average, as compared with his own). In fact psychology has always been in a
position rather similar to that of medicine, i.e. obliged to work at the practical
level before having the experimental and above all theoretical knowledge on
which its applications could be based with any certainty. Is that a good or a bad
thing from the point of view of science and from that of the value of the appli-
cations themselves ?
I. From the first point of view, the need for applications obviously raises new
problems which would probably not have been considered otherwise. Had
Binet not called for the creation of special classes for backward pupils and had
the educational authorities not asked him how such pupils could be distinguished
from retarded or mentally deficient pupils, he would not have elaborated with
Simon or published in 1905 his ‘Metric Scale of Intelligence’, the first version
of the intelligence tests which have since become so fashionable. Whole chapters

Psychology 275
of psychology would never have been written if psychopathology had not so
frequently called for psychological analyses, because here practical application
and theory are so closely connected that works such as those of Ribot, P. Janet
and Freud belong to psychology in the strict sense and not to what is often called
‘applied psychology’. Of course many examples of the applications of psychology
at the clinical level, where the psychologist has a specific part to play alongside
the psychiatrist, exist and are becoming increasingly frequent. Such clinical
work in its turn opens up a series of further avenues and wil probably help to
build up the theoretical structuration whose lack is so sorely felt (as in all our
disciplines), and which would be an integrative theory of the personality.
But there is no doubt either that when a problem is raised with a view to
finding a practical application, the problem itself is often somewhat distorted
or even only partially treated, simply because, in seeking an immediate solution
to particular practical questions, there is a danger of neglecting many other
aspects which deserve consideration on account of their theoretical importance
and which might even require to be studied in order to understand the problem
in its specificity. And the consideration of utility may lead all the more to
limitations and restrictions in that it is determined both by the scope of the
application envisaged and by the need to find a solution quickly and to choose
the most convenient methods. In working out his intelligence tests, Binet had
the excellent idea of applying them to the most diverse functions, convinced
that intelligence is everywhere and constitutes a sort of summation of all cognitive
activities. But when afterwards he was asked what intelligence was, he
replied with ready wit: ‘It is what my tests measure’, a very wise reaction but
a little disturbing when one thinks of the theoretical knowledge acquired by the
instrument of measurement thus constructed. A physicist, on the contrary, does
not measure a form of energy until a far more thorough theoretical study has
been made of what is to be measured and of the instrument of measurement
itself.
In fact, nearly all intelligence tests are based on a postulate which is certainly
limitative and consists in measuring only the resultants or ‘performances’ and
not the actual processes which have produced them. In physics, of course, processes
can be judged by their results, but this is because they are homogeneous
and the results of a given process constant. In mental activity on the contrary,
the same resultant can be obtained by different paths and, above all, an operative
structure is the source of a great many possible resultants which cannot be
deduced from the performance observed but presupposes a knowledge of the
underlying operative mechanism: the latter is therefore the objective to be
reached in judging an individual’s intelligence, particularly since it is important
to diagnose not so much what the subject can do when undergoing the test, as
what he would be capable of doing in many other situation. Intelligence was
therefore ‘measured’ long before it was known what it consists of, and we are
only just beginning to have some inkling of the complexity of its nature and
functioning. But the progress made is not due to the ‘tests’and other discoveries
of ‘applied psychology’; it is due to the sum of disinterested research carried
out, particularly research on theoretical and epistemological aspects which

276 Jean Piaget
would probably have been totally neglected if consideration had been given to
practical requirements alone.
This short-circuiting presents as many disadvantages from the point of view
of applied psychology itself as it does from that of basic research. It is well
known that the most unexpected applications are sometimes the outcome of
purely theoretical research in physico-chemistry. The example of the countless
uses of our knowledge of electro-magnetics based on Maxwell’s equations is
often quoted: these equations were discovered in the course of purely theoretical
and mainly formal research work (the need for symmetry etc.). Psychology has
not, of course, reached that stage, but there is nothing to prove that the com-
bined research of psychologists and logicians on the liliation of operative struc-
tures will not one day be of greater importance in diagnosis and pedagogics
than many tests, which although easier to handle (since the study of the mental
processes as such presupposes years of study) are much less meaningful.
In short, it may be said - as has already been said in respect of physiology,
etc. - that applied psychology does not exist as an independent discipline, but
that all branches of psychology can always be considered as possible sources of
expected or unexpected applications.
11. The most important applications of psychology are perhaps those related
to education, and it seems appropriate to begin by recalling how many innova-
tors in modern pedagogics were professional psychologists or engaged in re-
search based directly on psychology:, Dewey with his notion of interest, Decroly,
Clapar&.de, Montessori (who first pretended to know nothing of child psychology
and hinted that she could offer an improved version of it, but later changed her
mind), Ferrikre, Vigotsky’s followers, etc. It should next be noted that experimental
pedagogics, a young discipline in full process of development, whose
purpose is to verify by experiment all sorts of pedagogical hypotheses and the
yield of educational methods, remains independent of psychology as long as it
deals only with factual data and laws but leans on it heavily (in the same way as
medicine does) when it comes to understanding and explaining such data and
laws.
i The applications of psychology to pedagogy best known to the general public
are those in the domain of differential psychology, in other words, those concerned
with the characteristics and aptitudes which distinguish individuals from
one another. Firstly there are all the problems of readjustment to school life
in cases of backwardness or temporary crises, in which a distinction has to be
drawn between affective and intellectual factors, and among the latter between
general factors and strictly educational inhibitions (mathematics, spelling, etc.).
Owing-to lack of time or training, the teacher cannot often solve such problems
himself and the educational authorities of many countries have created new
posts for educational psychologists. This has proved to be a very successful
innovation, particularly when these specialists have received a twofold training
as psychologists and teachers. Still greater specialization is required to deal with
cases of dyslexia or of speech disorders, and ‘logopedic’ techniques have been
introduced;’and psychologists, of course, assist in the education of handicapped,

Psychology 277
deaf and dumb, and blind children. Other essential pedagogical applications of
differential psychology are those required for school guidance, and the r61e
of educational psychologists becomes even more important in the many systems
of school management which now provide for special classes or even for whole
courses of school guidance; in these, pupils and parents have some freedom of
choice, but in order to be satisfactory, this choice must naturally be based on a
thorough diagnosis and prognosis of each case - more thorough than the
teacher alone can usually make.
However, this is only one aspect of the applications of psychology to educa-
tion, and the most essential aspect, which is far less emphasized but will become
increasingly important in the future, concerns the adaptation of didactic methods
to the laws of the development of thought. Dewey, Claparbde and Decroly have
already strongly emphasized the importance of the interests and motivations
needed to make education active, and generally speaking, they have more or
less convinced us of the principle - although its applications are still rather
elementary - that the child acquires his essential knowledge only through
guided activities enabling him to rediscover or partly to reconstruct truths for
himself, instead of receiving them ready-made and pre-digested. As regards
the development and actual building up of thinking processes, however, modern
education still adheres to an empiricism and opportunism bearing a closer resem-
blance to seventeenth-century medicine than to that of our day, although scien-
tific psychopedagogics might already be recognized as a discipline and wil cer-
tainly mark future stages in the development of educational sciences and tech-
niques. There are some signs, however, that the idea is catching on.Institutes of
psychopedagogical research for the experimental study of the acquisition of
knowledge, the r61e of action in such acquisition, etc., have been established in
the USSR. Mathematicians nearly everywhere are trying to reorganize their
teaching in order to bring it into line with modern mathematics, and if it so
happens that this subject is taught by the old methods, certain countries are
making great efforts to reconcile the exigencies of this situation with those of
the psychology of development. In the United States, a number of physicists
have left their laboratories in order to devote some time to initiating pupils in
experimental methods; and several of these physicists make use of current
psychogenetic data (those of Geneva, for instance).
III. Another extensive field for the application of psychology is mental patholo-
gy, a medical discipline, but one in which psychology constantly intervenes,
either when psychiatrists turn themselves into psychologists, or when they call
for the collaboration of psychologists proper. Psychopathology is even of
such importance to psychology itself that the great authorities on psychopathol-
ogy, such as Freud and Janet, at the same time rank among the great psycholo-
gists. But it was difficult, in discussing the general trends of contemporary
psychology (sections 2 to g), to identify psychopathology with any particular
trend, or even to find an example (like those in section IO) of interdisciplinary
collaboration. There are two reasons for this. In the first place, disease may be
likened to an experiment made by nature, in which a certain factor is modified

278 Jean Piaget
or eliminated (for instance, speech in aphasia): the results of this natural ex-
periment are then examined by means of clinical observations or tests, and
classified among the contributions to general psychology, depending on the
trend. In the second place, pathological disintegrations generally take place
in the opposite order to psychogenetical integrations, so that the great psycho-
pathologists have nearly all ended by adding developmental considerations to
their doctrines which is precicely what Freud and Janet did. These investigations
thus again come within the framework of the trends examined earlier.
On the other hand, psychotherapeutic medical practice increasingly needs the
collaboration of psychologists, to such a point that in some countries, such as
the USA, there is not a single psychiatric clinic, whatever its special branch, that
has not recruited specialized, or ‘clinical psychologists’. The psychologists, of
course, practise neither psychotherapy, which is the doctor’s task, nor even, as
a rule, psychoanalysis; their r61e is to supply psychological data for the pur-
poses of diagnosis. In this connexion, many studies have been conducted,
bearing either on tests or other methods devised for examining the cognitive
functions in mental diseases, or else, and above all, on affective reactions and
personality. For the use of so-called projective tests, such as the Rorschach test,
the TAT (Thematic Apperception Test), etc., presuppose advanced specializa-
tion and considerable personal experience, as do also the psychodrama tech-
nique and many others that have been developed in this connexion both by pure
psychologists, like Murray, and by medical psychologists, like Rorschach him-
self. Such research will sooner or later contribute to the construction of a
theory of the personality, though that is still in its very early stages. Apart from
the fact that this research will have to be supplemented by a body of experimental
work which will often be difficult to reconcile with the exacting duties of ‘clinical
psychologists’, it wil also have to be based on a substratum of neurology which
still appears to be singularly lacking today.
w. In addition to its applications in the fields of education and pathology, psychology
is increasingly used in the organization of work generally. The point is,
lirstly, to guide individuals according to their edurational level and aptitudes,
this being the duty of vocational guidance as an extension of school guidance.
But, secondly, the point also is, once the qualified people have been selected
and given employment, to work out, in the organization of individual or group
labour, the most economical techniques, in the broad sense of saving superfluous
or ill-directed and unco-ordinated efforts, and the most human techniques,
in the sense of optimal motivation: hence ‘ergology’, a recent but increasingly
favoured branch of study. Moreover, it is obvious that, with technological
progress, new problems related to the psychology of work are arising all the
time and that in contemporary ‘machine-men’ situations, this branch will be
called upon to play a part of no little importance; not only as means of reducing
the dangers of the system, but also as an indispensable cog in the mechanism of
the new human powers of adaptation required.
It is only natural and understandable that psychologists who are enthusiastic
about applied psychology should tend somewhat to overrate the real possibili-

Psychology 279
ties of a discipline which is still very new. But what is most interesting in the
present situation is, hstly, that industrialists, tradespeople and the army, who
are not generally given to nafve idealism, continually demand and encourage
such services; and, secondly, that material and financial assistance is constantly
being granted in order to further research in these fields. The calls for research
are all the more remarkable in that they are very often inspired by considera-
tions similar to those mentioned at the beginning of this present section; that
is to say, requests for research in applied psychology for industry, the army,
etc., are at times left to the initiative of theoretically-minded research workers
without any thought as to its immediate utility on the part of the people who
provide the funds, and as if they understood better than others that any general
progress in psychology may lead to unexpected applications. Thus, many studies
on the theories of information or communication, on the mathematical struc-
ture and conditions of balance of regulating processes, etc., have been conducted
in these circumstances.
It is readily understandable that vocational guidance meets real needs, both
from the point of view of young people who are looking for a job without prop-
erly knowing either their own capacities or those that are required for this or
that profession, and from that of employers who prefer directed choice to mere
empiricism. It is even more surprising and instructive to see how many services
psychology can render to industry or in human relations, where simple common
sense seems at first sight capable of solving all problems. A few concrete exam-
ples may be given, such as those of a printing press and a chocolate factory in
Switzerland which improved their output considerably simply by organizing
the work, even down to the movements to be made by employees in the course
of their daily labours; where an experienced professional had not recognized
possible simplifications and co-ordinations, an objective study of individual
and inter-individual behaviour made it possible to propose the most elementary
modifications, which shows that acquired group habits may depend so much on
their past history that they fail to make the readjustments and adaptations most
obviously needed today.
v. In short, there are at present countless applications of psychology, and
while some of these concern certain social activities of general and fundamental
importance for the future of the nations as well as for their present development
- such as education or the study of mental diseases, for instance - others arise
constantly, often in the most unexpected way. Now, since applied psychology
is all the sounder if based upon more firmly established theoretical and experi-
mental psychology, the problems involved in the training of psychologists and
in:the legal protection of the status of certified psychologist arise in many coun-
tries; they are still difficult to solve, however, owing both to university traditions
and to government apathy26 and, in some cases also to fears of competition on
the part of the medical profession. The ties that often exist betweenprofessor-
ships or institutes of psychology and the department of philosophy in arts
faculties have usually had a retarding effect, and the most favourable situation
for psychology may be sought in science or social science faculties (although

280 Jean Piaget
the link with biology remains all-important). A solution sometimes advocated
is that of inter-faculty institutes, whereby ties are maintained with science, social
science, medicine and arts, but this would be a satisfactory solution only if such
institutes were able to award degrees and doctorates in addition to special di-
plomas, and if they could enjoy the same autonomy as the faculties.
NOTES
I. No one could say, for instance, that science itself is ‘never’ concerned with the
problem of freedom. All that can be said is that it is not concerned with it at
present, though there are some indications that the position might change. We know, for example, that in logic and mathematics a theory of a given richness (as
in elementary arithmetic) is not sufficient to show its own non-contradiction:
employing only its own resources or lesser resources (logic), it cannot avoid meeting
unresolvable propositions that only richer resources (transfinite arithmetic) can
elucidate, but without being able to do so on their own account. This famous
theorem, which we owe to Goedel, has recently been applied to machines simulating
the processes of thought, and it was shown that a machine of which all the elements
were clearly determined, could not in a given state at time T entirely foresee
its state at time T+ I (do do this, it must be subordinated to a machine of a higher
order, in turn not entirely determined itself). The analogy of such problems with
those of contingency and the degree of determinism is immediately discernible.
2. G. Miller humourously wrote that he regarded himself as a ‘subjective behaviourst’.
3. E. NAGEL, in B. B. WOLFMAN and E. NAGEL (eds.), Scientific Psychology, New
York, Basic Books, 1965, pp. 26-27.
4. R. CARNAP, in Minnesota Studies on the Philosophy of Sciences, 1956.
5. R. VON MISES, Positivism, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1951, p. 236.
6. N. CHOMSKY. in Language 35, 1959, pp. 26-58.
7. We have found, for instance, a law of maximum for certain illusions, which are
strongest when the time of exposure is approximately from I to z/Ioths of a second.
8. It should be noted in particular that some writers (Burt, Cohen, etc.) doubt whether
a causal explanation can be given for all cognitive processes. But the important
boundary is that between seeking for an explanation and refusal to explain. Such
refusal may be based either on positivist reasons, or on the distinction between
‘explaining’ and ‘understanding). but such a distinction is to some extent artificial,
since the two are no doubt inseparable). In this sense, it can be considered that any
explanation implies causality in some form or another, with the two terms of explanation
and causality thus in principle overlapping.
9. See the ‘Introduction’, section 7, heading 11.
IO. And, of course, there remains the problem of not exclusively cognitive matters
(as, for example, explaining how a poem takes shape). It is contemporary structuralism
that seeks to find in the most affective regions (even in psychoanalysis) ‘structures’
in the linguistic sense, etc., which then themselves imply a certain degree of
possible logicization (and we know that ‘logios’ can be differentiated in an infinite
number of ways).
11. These relations, be it noted, do not just involve exploration in the sphere of neurophysiology,
but today even touch on human genetics.
12. K. LORENZ, ‘Uber die Entstehung von Mannigfaltigkeit’, Die Naturwissenschuften
52, 19659 PP. 319-329.
13. For an excellent summing of current knowledge, see the chapter by Joseph Nuttin
on motivation and the one by Paul Fraisse on the emotions in FRAISE and PIAGET,
Trait6 de psychologie expirimentale, 2nd ed., Paris, PUF, 1963, Vol. V. pp. 1-82.
14. The term ‘law’, which has been elaborated on several times recently, is used by

Psychology 28 I
Gestalt psychologists in the current sense of representable relations, though they
also distinguish various degrees of ‘pregnance’.
15. Studies carried out in Geneva explain primary perceptive effects (i.e. the field
effects of the Gestalt psychologists) by means of aprobabilistpattern of ‘encounters’
between the parts of the object perceived and those of the recording organs, and of
pairings or correspondences between the ‘encounters’ affecting the distinct objects
to be compared. In this way, it is possible to account for the various optico-geo-
metric illusions and especially the law of the maximum that they attain during brief
exposure. As to the gradual development of perception, in addition to these primary
effects we must recognize the existence of various kinds of perceptive activities that
modify the pairings through exploration, comparison from a distance, sightings
(for orientation), and so on, and which are governed in varying degrees by the
intelligence itself.
16. Various studies have already been carried out to check the general validity of some
of the stages described concerning number formation, retention concepts, seria-
tion, and so on. Churchill, for instance, found in Aden the essential stages of num-
ber construction. Goodenough compared Chinese and European children in
Shanghai and found at the same ages and in the same sequence the stages charac-
terizing retention concepts, and so on. Mohseni has studied the same problems in
Iran and found the same stages, with a certain lag among illiterate mountain
people and at the same ages in Teheran. M. Bovet made comparisons in Algeria.
The Canadian psychologists, Pinard, Laurendeau et Boisclair ascertained the same
sequences among schoolchildren in Martinique but with a startling lag of three to
four years, though their curriculum was exactly the same as the French one.
Peluffo noted a similar lag in Genoa among illiterate children from the south of
Italy and demonstrated the children’s recovery curves in their new environment,
and so on.
In cases such as these, comparative research therefore leads us to the conclusion
that there are constant characteristics (qualitative characteristics and a stage se-
quence) which may develop more quickly or more slowly according to the environ-
ment, though there is no reversal of the sequence. It is therefore likely that these
are ‘general ’characteristics, both in the sense of a psycho-organic make-up common
to all normal individuals and of an equally ‘general’ socialization that is not pecu-
liar to any given society. However, this interpretation, which would bear out the
existence of a ‘mental’ stage halfway between the organic stage and the social (in
the sense of a differential specificity varying according to the society involved), is
not accepted by everyone, for a number of Soviet psychologists still support the
more simple dualism of organic factors and sociological factors. Though they
attribute an important rBle to the actions of the subject in acquiring knowledge,
they still consider (like, for example, Kostyuk in Kiev) that intellectual develop-
ment is basically dependent on the transmission of adult knowledge through the
family and the school. It is for the future to decide which of these two views is
the correct one.
17. See also Chapter VII, section 12.
I 8. A point to be noted, moreover, is that despite theoretical recognition of the ‘auton-
omy of the ego’ a great many psychoanalysts still have a tendency to remain
reductionists, either because they are inclined to explain various forms of backward-
ness or disturbance involving an obvious cognitive element (even sometimes to the
point of mental deficiency) by means of affective conflicts, or by exaggerating, as
a great American psychiatrist has recently done, the effect an infant’s education
may have on neuroses, psychoses, marital trouble, crimes and offences and even
on wars!
19. P. Wolff, ‘The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget and Psychoanalysis’, Psy-
chological Issues, 1960.
20. Recent investigations seem to have made some headway in answering this. Children
of different levels of intelligence (determined by a hierarchy of operative structures)

282 Jean Piaget
were made to take complex memory tests, and the results were found to fall into the
following three categories. Firstly, what is retained of the model is essentially that
part of it which has been assimilated to the corresponding pattern, whereas the figurative
memory might have been expected merely to record what has beenperceived.
For example, ten small rulers ten to sixteen centimeters long arranged in increasing
order of size are remembered after a week as consisting of two sets of sticks (small
ones and big ones) or three sets (with ‘middle-sized’ ones in addition, etc.). However,
secondly and more important, it often happens, without there being any new
presentation of the model, that recollection is better after six months than after a
week. (Similar improvements, called ‘reminiscences’, are known in the phenomena
of Ballard and Ward-Hovland, but which occur respectively after one to two days
or after a fraction of a minute). A five-year-old subject who remembered ‘small ones
and big ones’ adds ‘middle-sized ones’ after six months (and the subject always gives
a drawing in support of his description). Another subject who recalled a three sets (a
small one, a set of middle-sized sticks that were all the same, and a large one)
remembered the correct sequence after six months, and so on. In such cases,
memory is therefore improved, due to the fact that it is linked to a pattern that
progresses in accordance with its own organization. Thirdly, ‘mnesic inferences’,
similar to the unconscious inferences in perception pointed out by Helmholz, are
observable. For example, a straight line and a broken line of four match-
sticks each are remembered after a week by five- to six-year-old subjects as if their
ends coincided, which assumes at least six match-sticks in the broken line, but
respects equality according to the criteria of ordinal evaluation (order of points of
arrival) implied by patterns at this age. For the facts relating to all this see PIAGET
and INHELDER, Mdmoire et intelligence, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France,
1968.
21. This term we use to refer to trends that seek to reconcile structuralist analysis (in
the technical sense relating to transformation systems that are capable of self-
adjustment; see Chapter w) with ontogenetic analysis in the strict sense or com-
bined (as in ethology) with phylogenetic considerations.
22. Credit must go to J. Lacan for having raised the vital problem of the relations
between unconscious symbolism and speech, and for thus paving the way for both
a linguistic and a mathematical structuralism. While it is hardly possible for the
non-‘initiated’ to assimilate the solutions he offers, they nonetheless present a fine
problem for the future.
23. C. BURT, ‘Is Intelligence Distributed Normally ?’, British Journal of Statistical
Psychology 16, 1963, pp. 175-190.
24. These three forms of probability are not unconnected moreover (see Chapter vm).
25. Monograph of the Society for Research in Child Development, 1965.
26. In Switzerland, for instance, anyone may call himself a ‘psychologist’ and may
give private consultations and take fees. Finally the Soci6t6 Suisse de Psychologie
had to institute an inter-cantonal diploma, with specializations in various subjects,
which is well considered by industrialists, clinics, etc., but is not officially recog-
nized.

CHAPTER IV
Economics
INTRODUCTION
To determine the directions in which science is developing at a particular time,
or to define its trends and methodological problems, is always difficult. It is
necessary to simplify : the treatment that complex inter-relationships require
must often be sacrificed to the exigencies of classification. And even from the
point of view of separating what is positively known from what is only unverified
hypothesis or even unexplored territory, the human sciences - including econom-
ics - still lag behind the natural sciences.
Provided one realizes that the value of doing so is relative and limited, it is
none the less useful, from time to time, to cast an eye backwards and forwards.
An attempt to make a hierarchy of the basic problems that face Contemporary
economics helps in making methodological evaluations and showing up various
border-line problems. The present study is, naturally, subjective as regards the
subjects dealt with and the examples and authors selected to illustrate specific
points.
Three groups of problems are dealt with, after a short synoptic account of the
ways in which economics has developed during the last few decades - decades so
rich in economically important and even dramatic events; and, against this back-
ground, the possibilities of integrating contemporary economic science - hither-
to fragmented among a number of rival schools - are discussed.
Part I discusses the nature of economics and its place among the sciences of
men - necessary since economists themselves do not agree as to what comes
within their terms of reference, not to mention the fact that more than one at-
tempt has been made to annex economics or subordinate it to other disciplines,
and particularly praxiology, i.e. a general theory of efficient action.'
Part II deals with the modern economist at work: the main lines of thought
and methods used in various branches of economic research, and such special
problems as, for example, the measurability of economic phenomena. The ob-
ject is to provide comparative material for use in connexion with other disci-
plines covered in the whole report. Emphasis is laid on the importance of inter-

284 Economics
disciplinary research, and the eventual integration of the sciences of man is
discussed.
Part III examines developments from the point of view of the major basic
problems in economics. As already indicated, this involved a certain number of
arbitrary choices or attitudes on controversial questions that are often diversely
regarded by the different schools; the only alternative to such commitment
would have been to report monotonously on the various views, without helping
any clear picture to emerge. However, in the many discussions (initially presid-
ed over by the late Professor Oskar Lange) that preceded the actual writing of
this study, the views of other schools were always taken into account, and the
weak points of all of them (including the school to which the authors belong)
weighed against their strong points as impartially as possible. The reader will
judge how far impartiality has in fact been achieved.
While assuming full responsibility for the shortcomings, the authors would
like to express their gratitude to many scholars in Poland and other countries
for their criticism and comments and, in particular, to Professor Fritz J. de Jong
for his painstaking and extremely useful review of the first draft.
I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ECONOMICS AND ITS PLACE AMONG THE SCIENCES OF MAN
A. Schools and trends in economics. Overcoming the crisis in economics
I. Social developments during the first decades of the twentieth century revealed
the divorce between academic economic theory and reality. Faced with grave
and urgent economic and social problems, economic theory had nothing realistic
to offer, could suggest no effective ways for improving the lot of millions of
people.
Three categories of these urgent problems will be considered here. In 1929-
1933, the worst economic crisis for centuries eloquently showed how far West
European economic theory was out of date and inadequate. General unemployment
although various forms of production capacity remained unused, and a
failure to satisfy the most elementary human needs shattered confidence in
economists, who continued to maintain that a world crisis was theoretically impossible,
or recommended ridiculously inadequate measures which sometimes
(e.g. new reductions in real wages) could even have aggravated the situation.
A further weakness of economic theory was underlined by the appearance of
a centralized economy in the Soviet Union, prepared to create and tackle new
and difficult tasks. Elsewhere, those practically involved called in vain for help
from the theoreticians, who either did not believe a rational socialist economy
possible (Brutzkus, Weber, von Mises, Hayek), or else considered that the
extraordinary simplicity of a rational socialist economy would render economic
theory of any kind superfluous (N. Bukharin).
Finally, after the second world war, a new, urgent question arose. By:then,
economic thinking had somewhat regained confidence, thanks to the full employment
theory and policy, and because managing a centralized economy had

Economics 285
proved to be so intricate. The new problem was to-provide a short-cut towards
development for the newly-independent countries that had formerly provided
the colonial hinterland of the great powers. Traditional economics proved in-
capable of helping to accelerate their economic growth. Later; in the second
half of the fifties, the foundations of a specific economic development theory
adapted to the needs of these countries were laid down which, it was hoped,
would give a considerable economic fillip to their development.
Thus, under the influence of the great economic crisis, the emergence of a
socialist economy, and the new independence of ex-colonial countries, the old
map of schools and economic research trends fundamentally changed. Views
and methodological positions had to prove themselves in the everyday world.
Others were radically altered. New, more realistic theories appeared. A rapid
glance at these transformations can serve as an introduction to contemporary
political economy, its merits and shortcomings.
For about a half century before the world depression in 1929, there were three
main schools of economic thought in Europe and America, called respectively,
historic, Marxist, and marginalist or subjectivist (the third being the most wide-
spread). They were so different in their views of the objects and purposes of
economics as almost to constitute different disciplines. As we shall see, they
changed considerably, but not as a result of reciprocal influences. They were
separate worlds. The few attempts at discussion between them only helped to
extend the divergences, and the deadlock continued for half a century. And this
does not refer only to Marxists and non-Marxists. The famous dispute on meth-
ods between Menger and Schmoller was no more fruitful than the later dispute
between Rudolf Hilferding and Eugen von Btihm-Bawerk. Agreement seemed
impossible, although all three trends originally sprang from the same source and
referred directly back - even if critically - to the classic economics of Adam
Smith and Ricardo. Let us examine each in turn.
11. The historical school is a closed chapter in economic thought today (institu-
tionalism can be regarded as a variety of historicism). It rates a mention here
only for some results which still seem worth while. It originated (and was most
widespread) in Germany as a critical reaction against classical economics and
abstract laws and concepts allegedly governing the production and distribution
of social wealth. The generalizations of the English classical economists, with
their liberal background, did not fit the German situation, then at an earlier
stage of development. Even the usefulness of seeking economic constants was
questioned. Many representatives of the historical school repudiated the theoret-
ical pretensions of economics, but without everJtrying to determine historical
limits for the English classical generalizations, or determine laws of growth for a
relatively backward country. The refutation of the principle of recurrence in the
development of human society resulted in economics being transformed into
descriptive economic history. In the'words of Hayek (cf. Science and the Study
of Society), the extreme proponents ended by taking up a position which no
longer depended on either theory or history; repudiating any theory that organ-
izes the facts into particular structures and tendencies, they produced innumer-

286 Economics
able monographs which have rarely been used, even by historians ... if generalization
is entirely ruled out history, too, ultimately ceases to be a science.
If the historical school did not succeed in rebutting classical economics, no
false modesty prevented it from showing up its own weaknesses; but the heavy
volumes published by its followers can hardly be called interesting.
This, however, does not apply to the works of Werner Sombart or Max Weber,
of the younger generation in the historical school, who set out to counteract its
theoretical nihilism. Both relied on the scientific contribution of Marx to provide
different replies to the problems he had raised. Sombart was quite candid:
‘By the ingenious way in which he posed the problems, Marx opened the way to
fertile research for a whole century. Any economist who failed to understand
the questions he had put were doomed to sterility. ..’ (Das Wirtschaftsleben im
Zeitalter des Hochkapitalismus, Munich-Lepizig, 1929, p. xix). Weber’s approach
to Marx was similar.
This is not the place to go into the details of this discussion, which still surprises
even today by its deep understanding of the Marxist revolt and its significance
for the development of the social sciences; or to analyze the idea of the
spirit of capitalism derived from the philosophy of Hegel, which played so important
a r61e in the explanation which Sombart and Weber gave of the origin
and triumphant progress of the capitalist entrepreneur. It wil suffice to mention,
only, their ambitious idea of a comprehensive economic science concentrating
(as Marx had already done) on the crucial theoretical problem of the origin and
development of the capitalist social and economic structure. Their search for
general economic principles carried them beyond the restricted research of their
predecessors (limited mostly to distribution problems), to the problems of production
techniques and the social organization of labour in the broadest sense,
economic activity being always considered in conjunction with the analysis of
the class structure of society.
The Sombart and Weber critique of the historical school mined it from within.
It rehabilitated economics as a theoretical science, but really constituted an
epilogue to historicism as a school. As a practical model for the elaboration of
an integrated social science, the works of Sombart and Weber might have had a
considerable influence on at least three disciplines : sociology, economics and
history (economic history in particular). However, this did not occur. Sociologists
and other writers acknowledged their value and interest, but their influence
on the development of the social sciences has been marginal, except in America,
where C. Wright Mills has done much to popularize them.
There are doubtless many reasons for the lack of success of a social research
programme which seemed so promising. Sombart and Weber published in German,
and Nazism and the second world war interrupted all normal exchanges
about social methods and ideas between Germany and the rest of the world.
However, certain intrinsic weaknesses in the comprehensive economics approach
prevented it, especially then, from developing on the ambitious lines that
Sombart and Weber suggested. What were the particular features of the time?
During the three decades between the beginning of the first world war and the
end of the second, there was an urgent social need for a pragmatic type of econom-

Economics 287
ic analysis. The depression continued what the first world war had begun: the
destruction of the bases of a social order founded on capitalist rules, and the
sapping of its social resistance. Western economics was invited to produce sug-
gestions and an economic theory to ensure full employment, andutilize the often
largely idle productive capacity of factories. It was asked to indicate how all
resources could best be mobilized for military purposes. Finally, there was a
need for an economic technology. This was a less transitory need, deriving from
the very nature of contemporary capitalism, in which large-scale firms are the
dominant factor; even less than the nineteenth century economy could such an
economy develop automatically.
For these purposes, the approach of the historical school was much too ab-
stract. Life had left it and its theories behind.z
It was only after the solution of the problems raised by the crisis and by the
phenomenon of the very large firms had been solved (i.e. the post-war period),
that some interest began to be taken in the works of Sombart and especially in
those of Weber.3
ID. From the outset, the Marxist approach to economics was both historical and
theoretical. The writings of Marx, and later those of Hilferding, Rosa Luxem-
burg and Lenin, were concerned with the theoretical analysis of constants in the
birth, development and decline of the capitalist mode of production. Respond-
ing to the call of the social movement they, as its ideological leaders, purposely
concentrated on the critical analysis of the social order, and the changes of struc-
ture that seemed most likely to produce the new polity they desired.
Refused the possibility of developing in academic centres, and considered as
the theoretical arm of social forces which would radically alter the world, Marx-
ist economics tackled the problems which seemed of more long-term impor-
tance for most of society, and concentrated on analysing the phenomena and
processes that underly growth and dynamics. Regarding the economic develop-
ment of a society as something coherent in itself, it thereby introduced into eco-
nomic analysis certain lasting values that had long been neglected by academic
economics.
However, certain methodological weaknesses, similar in some ways to those
of the historical school, appeared in the twenties and thirties. The one-sided
emphasis on the allegedly ephemeral character of existing production relations
was often simply wishful thinking, and excess of historicism.
This weakness in Marxist economics led to an open crisis when it had to be
applied to a socialist economy. Armed with the Marxist theory of socio-econom-
ic relations, the socialists were fairly well informed about the economic basis
of the capitalist class structure. They knew what had to be done to destroy this
structure and lay the foundations of a new, and they knew how the State could
be employed for this purpose. But, until recently, they never tackled within the
context of a socialist economy such questions as a rational allocation of resour-
ces or a positive theory of prices.
Karl Marx was much too absorbed in investigating particular characteristics
of the capitalist system to grasp the significance of general economic laws and

288 Economics
quantitative relations valid for more than one socio-economic system. The log-
ical outcome of this excess of historicism was seen later in the well-known thesis
of Rosa Luxemburg and (especially) Bukharin that, with the fall of capitalism,
political economy would disappear. It was believed that the socialization of the
means of production would so simplify the national economy that theoretical
economic generalizations would be neither necessary nor possible. Marxism
thus paradoxically adopted towards socialism certain of the methodological
attitudes of the historical school which it had so resolutely opposed for their
anti-theory bias.
The alleged pointlessness of a political economy of socialism (a view which
lasted for decades), and the institutional conditions extremely unfavourable to
the development of sciences (social sciences in particular), explain the modesty
of the theoretical contributions of economists from the socialist countries until
the late fifties. The discussions of the early Soviet economists were brutally in-
terrupted by the Stalin apparatus during the period of the first five-year plan
and the collectivization of agriculture. These discussions usually started with
some practical economic difficulty, but often continued into generalizations that
sometimes contained theoretical insights.4 In view of the way in which these
discussions werecut short, it is difficult to say how far the thesis of the pointless-
ness of trying to build up a systematic theory of socialist economics prevented
the accumulation of elements that might have built up into a theory.
The first more general discussion of the nature of the political economy of
socialism did not begin until the early fifties. Its starting point was a popular
handbook produced by the USSR Academy of Sciences. From Stalin’s report,
the only one available, two opposing concepts were known to exist. The author
of Economic ProbIems of Socialism in the USSR did admittedly call for the crea-
tion of a new branch of political economy to study development constants in
socialist production, but he wanted at the same time to make an ideological use
of it in a way familiar since the publication of Frederic Bastiat’s Harmonies
dconomiques. The opposite concept was held by Yaroshenko. Forced to be con-
formist, he proposed ignoring the socio-economic problems, constructing a
theory of the rational organization of productive forces in a socialist society.
Each of the concepts, in its own way, was refusing to accord the status of a social
science to the political economy of socialism; Stalin’s prevented real scientific
research, Yaroshenko suggested excluding it from the family of the social sci-
ences. Thus neither concept allowed it past the pie-scientific stage.
Only in the second half of the fifties did real scientific discussion of socialist
economics begin. The results have been exceptionally fruitful, and especially so
in certain branches as, from the methodological point of view, the following
examples will suffice to show.
a. The wide and varied application of mathematics to practical econometric
and statistical investigation and to deductive theoretical studies enhanced pre-
cision in economic thinking. Economic research was freed of many myths and
dogmas. The reciprocal translation of categories in use by different schools of
economics was made possible.
b. The rejection, as being over-simplifications or even false, of such dichoto-

Economics 289
mies as socialism or market economy, central plan or market, and so on. Today
it is generally agreed that, in a sense, market and plan are complementary; as the
market operates on principles similar to those of a computer, both computer
and market can and should be made use of by the central planner.
c. Improved knowledge of the practical aspects of a socialist economy. This
occurred thanks to research and debate on problems underlying the basic de-
cisions regarding development objectives taken by the central authority, and a
growing interest in economic knowledge as the basis for the rational operation
of the lower economic units, including the enterprise. The structure and effec-
tiveness of investments, pricing and cost accounting principles, operational in-
dices of the enterprise, the interest rate, the impact of foreign trade, were among
other subjects considered. The hierarchical organizational structure of a socialist
economy and its correspondingly hierarchical structure of goals creates a de-
mand for economic knowledge of different scopes and at different levels of
generalization. Hence, the view that both macro- and micro-economic analyses
and theories - and all intermediary levels - are potentially useful is gaining sup-
port, and the former macro-micro dispute has lost its point. At lower levels of
analysis, it has become possible to use many research instruments devised in
Western academic economics.
d. Economic competition between different social systems focused the interest
of those theoretically or practicaIly concerned on a series of problems affecting
a theory of economic growth. One result is that the barriers hindering scientific
comparative analysis of competing socio-economic systems are becoming easier
to surmount. A similar comparative analysis of the experience of different
socialist countries is now also considered urgent.
These typical features of recent economic literature in socialist countries de-
rive from the actual needs of contemporary socialist economies, although they
also represent in part a reaction against the superficiality and dogmatism of the
previous literature. This reaction presumably accounts for the new practicalness,
the concentration on narrow contributions rather than wider ranging topics and
general socio-economic problems. The accent on research is praxiologico-eco-
nomic.
Marxist research on capitalist economics and on the mixed economy of the
developing countries is more synthetic and social in nature. But, even here, an
entirely new element has emerged: Marxists have recently been showing interest
in the more specific and pragmatic problems of capitalist economic functioning
and development. Economists from the socialist countries are anxious to take
advantage of the operational experience of the great private corporations, while
Marxists in the West are interested in research that might lay the foundations
for"structura1 reforms in line with the ultimate socialist objectives. Apart from
their general concern with alternative patterns of development, Marxist studies
on the subject of the developing countries concentrate mainly on the practical
problems of adapting planning techniques to the specific conditions of a mixed
economy.

290 Economics
IV. Next, the marginalist, or subjectivist school.5
Marginalist refers to the marginal calculus, the fundamental analytical in-
strument employed by the school ; subjectivist refers to the subjective character
of the school’s central category: utility.
This theory was so widespread (it had almost a monopoly in the English-
speaking countries) that some economists identify it with contemporary eco-
nomic thought in general. It is still true that the overwhelming majority of con-
temporary economic thinkers in the West grew up under its influence. It cannot
be set aside as a closed chapter in history, although it has undergone fundamen-
tal changes in recent decades, particularly in the changing interpretation of the
idea of utility.
Extremely wide in scope, the school lacked uniformity from the beginning.
The most coherent system of subjective economics was that created by the
Austrian psychological school (Carl Menger, Friedrich von Wieser and Eugen
von Bohen-Bawerk), and by the psychometric and neo-classic William S. Jevons
in Britain. For Jevons, economic science, which he paradoxically calls political
economy, is concerned with the study of the economic activity of individuals in
their endeavour to obtain maximum pleasure, as provided by the possession of
goods, in relation to the efforts expended to gain them.
The extreme emphasis on psychology and the individual kept the marginalists
from the really practical economic problems. Economic theory was reduced to
an aspect of psychology, dealing with the economic individual, primarily a con-
sumer; he provided the fundamental source of economic knowledge, and any
objective testing of the resulting generalizations was out of the question. The
hedonistic principle of the maximization of utility (as a surplus of pleasure over
pain) was made to refer not only to household activities but also to those of the
capitalist entrepreneur. Applied to the capitalist enterprise, whose principal
aim is to maximize profit, this intricate construction proved to be futile. The
theory of marginal utility was therefore dependent on the assumption of subjec-
tivist economics that household activities are of a rational nature, i.e. that they
aim at maximizing utility (preferences).
The great effort made in the post-war years to verify this assumption statis-
tically gave no positive results. J. R. Hicks, who worked on the problem, con-
cluded that ‘there is no direct possibility to verify the hypothesis of the existence
of preferences in practice’ (A Revision of Demand Theory, p. 58). The frequently-
stated opposite view that the multiplicity of aims in the household does not con-
stitute an integrated system withone chief aim would thus seemequally plausible.
Moreover, in the customary and traditional conditions of household activity (on
which capitalist advertising has a derationalizing effect), the rational economy
principle which governs the operation of the capitalist enterprise does not apply.6
Hence the increasing number of theorists brought up on subjectivist economics
who reject the hypothesis of maximization of utility (preferences) in the house-
hold as false and unverifiable. The marginal utility theory of value has accord-
ingly been relegated to the less important chapters of academic textbooks.
Walras and Marshall also advanced hedonistic definitions of utility but at the
same time sought objective foundations (in production costs) for their theory of

Economics 29 I
value. They also restricted the operation of marginal utility calculus to the house-
hold only, but did not restrict ‘pure’ economic theory to the theory of value.
Walras also considered problems of production and accumulation relations,
which brought him closer to classical economics, whereas Marshall studied
distribution problems, which brought him nearer to the later epigons of classical
economics.
Eventually, the hedonistic interpretation of utility (understood as ‘pleasure’,
‘satisfaction’, ‘welfare’) was rejected in favour of a praxiological one. It is not
the quality of the goal that is of importance; what matters is that a given aim of
economic activity can be achieved in different degrees. The place of psycholog-
ical considerations is then taken by a ‘logic of rational choice’, which aims at
the maximization of preference.
The first step in the praxiological interpretation of utility was made at the be-
ginning of the century by Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto (and by Benedetto
Croce, in his polemical exchanges with Pareto). A full and consistent praxiolog-
ical interpretation had, however, to await contemporary authors (cf. especially
R. D. G. Allen and J. R. Hicks : ‘A Reconsideration of the Theory Qf Value’ in
Economica, London, 1954; and J. R. Hicks: A Revision of Demand Theory,
Oxford, 1956). A very elaborate theoretical construction was devised which still
seems rather hypothetical; and, as it is practically impossible to verify, econom-
ists tend increasingly to ignore it.
The somewhat sterile (and apparently obsolescent) central problem of mar-
ginalist economics has been considered at length not so much for its substantial
marginal utility theory content as for its multiple methodological consequences.
The main proposition - the striving for the maximization of preferences (profit
in the capitalist enterprise, utility in the household) - has been generalized, and
provided the foundation for an artificial theoretical construction, built up by
deduction. Economics was finally identified with a general theory of efficient
execution (i.e. praxiology) in the works of two eminent contemporary represen-
tatives of the subjectivist school.
In his book, still considered to be the ‘locus classicus from which all discus-
sions begin’,7 Lionel Robbins defines economics as ‘the science which studies
human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have
alternative uses’.* He goes on to explain: ‘The conception we have adopted
may be described as analytical. It does not attempt to pick out certain kinds of
behaviour, but focus attention on a particular aspect of behaviour, the form
imposed by the influence of scarcity. It follows from this, therefore, that in so
far as it presents this aspect, any kind of human behaviour falls within the scope
of economic generalizations. We do not say that the production of potatoes is
economic activity and the production of philosophy is not. We say rather that,
in so far as either kind of activity involves the relinquishment of other desired
alternatives, it has its economic aspect. There are no limitations on the subject-
matter of economic science save this’.g An equally radical conception of eco-
nomic theory as a system of deductive propositions which cannot be verified
empirically is to be found in the work of Ludwig von Mises, who defines eco-
nomics as the most developed branch of praxiology.

292 Economics
In both cases, economics is the ‘formal logic of rational choice’ of economic
agents. The implicit assumption is that the general market equilibrium occurs
spontaneously out of the unrestricted endeavours of individuals to maximize
their preferences.
There was no empirical verification of this pattern of economic thinking,
current among academic economists before the great depression, but it was
nevertheless confronted with reality. The masses of the unemployed and the idle
productive facilities during the depression made many economists realize that
major economic problems had been excluded from orthodox theory, and that
their micro-instruments of the “logic of choice” were completely inadequate to
tackle the problems society then faced.
The Keynes revolution emerged out of the violent opposition of some aca-
demic economists to this proposition, which seemed at first sight entirely con-
tradictory to neo-classical orthodoxy. The same reasons, however, that made or-
thodox theory an instrument of defence for the existing social system prevented
Keynesian economics from explaining the actual functioning principles of the
system as a whole. Here is Keynes’ epitaph, full of subtle irony and, as it seemed
then, a swansong for orthodox theory: ‘That if (the official doctrine) reached
conclusions quite different from what the ordinary uninstructed person would
expect, added, I suppose, to its intellectual prestige. That its teaching, translated
into practice, was austere and often unpalatable, lent it virtue. That it was adapt-
ed to carry a vast and consistent logical superstructure, gave it beauty. That it
could explain much social injustice and apparent cruelty as an inevitable incident
in the scheme of progress, and the attempt to change such things as likely on
the whole to do more harm than good, commended it to authority. That it
afforded a measure of justification to the free activities of theindividual capital-
ist, attracted to it the support of the dominant social force behind authority’
(General Theory ..., pp. 32-33).
It is not necessary to linger on Keynes’ ideas, which are generally known to
economists and others in the social sciences, but it is worth while considering
certain methodological consequences of this new doctrine.
His argumentation is macro-economic, employing such aggregates as national
income, demand (social), supply (social), investment, savings. This radical break
with the traditions of marginalist economics paved the way towards a more
dynamic economic theory.
Born of practical economic needs, the Keynes’ theory was of necessity essen-
tially praxiological; but it attempted to provide a praxiologico-economic basis
for economic decisions by analysing real social and economic problems. It also
attempted to complement the rational theory of choice of the economic indivi-
dual by a veritable macro-praxiology. This is common to much contemporary
economic writing which will be discussed briefly below.
B. Towards the integration of economic science?
The preceding section outlined the main developmental trends in economic
science during this century, setting developments in the main schools and trends

Economics 293
in economics against the real needs in economic practice. The results can be
summed up in a few sentences.
Thereundoubtedly seems to be a progressive decrease in the number of schools
and trends in contemporary economics1o - although this may often mean eclec-
ticism rather than synthesis. Even before the second world war, historicism and
institutionalism had ceased to exist in the United States, although a bias to-
wards eclecticism remains as a hangover from their original literature (Ameri-
can and German). The Austrian psychological school also belongs to the past.
The growth of mathematical economics rendered the separate mathematical
school (of Lausanne) practically superfluous ; the theory of market equilibrium,
its main theoretical conception, was put in the shade by the importance given to
dynamic problems (mainly the theory of economic growth), especially when it
was found that the market equilibrium theory was founded on false assumptions
and led, at best, to trivial results.”
The rational elements in Keynes and the political implications have been
absorbed into contemporary Western economics and also, partly, into Marxian.
The Keynesian doctrine constituted of course the major obstacle for the neo-
classical school, centred in Cambridge; once it had been absorbed into Western
economics and Pigou, last great representative of the Cambridge school founded
by Marshall, had died, the term neo-classical lost its former significance. Even if
still used (cf. A Neo-Classical Theory of Economic Growth, the well-known book
by J. E. Meade published in 1960), its main purpose is to bridge the gap between
classical economic analysis and modern theories of economic growth (the ‘grand
neo-classical synthesis’ which wil be dealt with later).
There were vital changes in Marxism also. The more praxiological approach,
especially in socialist economics, was referred to above. In addition, the former
separation into schools (Austro-Marxist, Russian, and so on) disappeared.
The appearance of Keynes’ doctrine coincided with Kalecki’s theory of the
business cycle. Starting from the Marx schemes of reproduction, and referring
back to Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of under-consumption, Kalecki reasoned
from insufficient aggregate demand as an obstruction to the dynamics of capi-
talist production.12
The Keynesian revolution itself indirectly helped to strengthen the position
of Marxism in the Western literature. Marxist theory aroused vivid interest even
in Anglo-Saxon literature, hitherto the most hermetic to outside influences. The
interest grew especially when Keynesians realized that Marx and his followers
had long been using certain analytical tools and categories for which they thern-
selves were still only groping.
On the other hand, Marxists, despite their not unfounded disdain for tradi-
tional academic economics, discovered they had to take the Keynes’ doctrine
into account in devising a modern programme of reform.
But this rapprochement between the heirs of the subjective (and especially neo-
classic) school and Marxists did not mean a decline of the schools themselves,
or the disappearance of the two different trends in contemporary economics.
The similarity of certain common preoccupations and tools of analysis only serves
to underline how different Marxism is in its objectives and social conceptions.

294 Economics
The persistence of these two trends in contemporary economics stems not
only from the classical capital-labour contradictions but also from their specific
geographical institutionalization in the capitalist and communist worlds; so
much so that the political outcome of confronting the two sometimes gives the
impression that the principle of cuius regio eius religio applies. Although often
unconsciously, economists participate actively in this confrontation.13 Looking
realistically at contemporary development trends therefore, it is evident that the
existence of these two trends in economics wil impose limitations on the process
of integration which, during the next few decades, will most likely proceed pri-
marily within each of them. Under these circumstances, integration in economic
science (on the same lines as in the natural sciences) can hardly be expected. For
the present, we must content ourselves with classifying the factors and phe-
nomena that contribute to integration or are reflections of it, and those that are
contrary.
a. The rapid development of widely-accepted research techniques (e.g. input-
output analysis, econometric methods of market research) is one positive factor.
During the last three decades, there has been a remarkable expansion of quanti-
tative methods of economic analysis that has produced several new disciplines
(either created or adapted by economists) such as econometrics, programming
theory, operations research; and a new approach to theoretical problems. Theo-
retical hypotheses are now formulated in such a way that they can be tested by
statistical methods. Theorists employ mathematics to give greater precision to
their reasoning - undoubtedly a great advance. Thirty years ago, measurement
was systematically employed only in statistical research on price fluctuations,
the basic task of many business cycle research institutes; now, there is no aspect
of economic life in which some attempt at least is not made to approach eco-
nomic phenomena quantitatively.
b. Another integrating factor is the increase in the stock of concepts and
categories (e.g. national income, investment, savings, types of technical progress)
which are used with at least approximately the same meaning by contemporary
economists, statisticians and econometricians. The clear definition of terms -
including those which may be used with differences of scope or several meanings
-has become the general practice; this also makes it easier to pass from one con-
cept to another.
c. Again, most economists now have a pragmatic approach to the distinction
between micro-economic and macro-economic methods; previously considered
absolutely contradictory, they are now increasingly regarded as complementary
- aview already put forward in 1950 by Kenneth Boulding (A Reconstruction of
Economics, New York 1950). This view was vehemently opposed by Friedrich
von Hayek, who argued that macro-economics prepared the way for total irra-
tionalism and should be rejected,Iq but Boulding’s opinion is regarded as mark-
ing an important step forward in economics in recent decades.15
These are the positive factors;16 the following are the most important among
those which are contrary or unfavourable.
a. Recent decades have been marked by an absence of broad discussions and
important writings on the general foundations and methodology of economics.

Economics 295
There is a great contrast between the paucity of post-war publications and the
famous polemics of older times and the abundant literature even between the
wars. Studies on methodology are being increasingly replaced by more or less
complete inventories of the research techniques available to contemporary
economists, e.g. T.C. Koopmans’ Three Essays GIZ the State of Economic Science
(New York - Toronto - London, 1960) whose purpose was to inform ‘general
economists’ about developments in mathematical economics and the research
instruments employed; W. Fellner’s Emergence and Content of Modern Economic
Analysis (New York - Toronto - London, 1960); and particularly the book by
R. Ferber and P. J. Verdoorn: Research Methods in Economics and Business
(New York, 1962).
What is more, economists do not seem to regret the lack of methodological
discussions which, on the contrary, are considered boring and futile, and regularly
accorded a poor reception. Koopmans starts his famous essay on The
Construction of Economic Knowledge with a fragment entitled ‘The Bad Repute
of Methodology’, whose opening words are: ‘If methods of scaling are ever
applied to measure the relative prestige of various topics in economic research,
methodological discussion wil undoubtedly be found to rank near the low end
of the scale’.I7
Eloquent testimony to the poor reputation of methodology is afTorded by the
monumental Surveys of Economic Theory in three volumes, published by the
American Economic Association and the Royal Economic Society. Of the fourteen
studies devoted to the major branches of economic theory, not one deals
with general methodological problems or attempts a synthetic picture of contemporary
economic theory.’*
b. Another characteristic feature has been the progressive elimination of
social and meta-sociological questions. To the past belong not only the great
tradition of analysing economic and social problems in their organic unity, with
which such names as Karl Marx, Werner Sombart, Max Weber and Rosa Luxemburg
are associated, but also the far less ambitious approach of studying
economic problems at least in a limited socio-historical context (Alfred Marshall).
The very questions which made economic science a social discipline are
now increasingly left to newspaper pundits and mass media experts.
The great depression did admittedly decide many economists to take up urgent
social problems and the comparative analysis of alternative social systemsI9, but
the pragmatic approach of attempting short-term amendments in a given situation,
put forward as a programme in Keynes’ General Theory, seems to be prevailing
again.
Questions demanding radical social reform were in fact taken as the starting
point of the new economic theory. But, following the Marshall tradition or
perhaps taking even a narrower view than Marshall, Keynes takes the social
institutions as a premise in his theoretical economic reasoning rather than as a
subject for systematic analysis.
Because of certain similarities with Marx (macro-economics, refutation of
Say’s law), Keynes is sometimes credited with a return to the older tradition of
economico-sociological analysis. This does not seem to be correct. Talcott

296 Economics
Parsons and N. Smelser rightly pointed out that the ‘Keynesian revolution was
particularly welcome in many circles because the short-run focus of empirical
and practical interest made it possible to relegate to the background some of the
problems of long-run change prominent in the work of the classicists, of Mar-
shall and Schumpeter’.zo
If Keynes’ theory nevertheless remains an important link which could facili-
tate the reintegration of economics and sociology, it is because of some of the
methods he employs. He and his followers conspicuously use aggregate magni-
tudes, through which they can look at society and the national economy as a
whole. For, behind the basic economic magnitudes (e.g. gross wages bill, gross
savings, investment) social classes and social relations are hidden, although
some of Keynes’ concepts, e.g. the propensity to save, obscure these relations.
In so far, then, as the return to macro-economic analysis is a necessary condition
for the efficient analysis of great socio-economic systems, Keynes’ theory is
necessarily of importance for the renewal of political economy in the full mean-
ing of the term and for the integration of the social sciences.
Before going further, it is worth considering whether less or more attention
has been devoted to social or sociological problems in economic studies during
the last ten to fifteen years. Two trends must be mentioned.
In undertaking the economic analysis of the developing countries, economists
made a considerable effort to integrate research on economics, institutions and
structures; both the conservatively-minded and the radically-minded showed a
willingness to go beyond the narrow limits of neo-classical economic analysis.
However, in economic analyses that concern the advanced industrialized
countries, the opposite tendency predorninates.2’ The contrast is perhaps too
blatantly stated by comparing two publications cited above, i.e. the Survey of
Contemporary Economics (1949-1952) and the later Surveys of Economic Theory
(1965-1966). The first was written under the influence, still fairly strong, of the
great depression, and of the social consequences of the second world war, both
of which caused a shift to the left in public opinion, and thereby stimulated in-
terest in structural and political changes. This was bound to influence academic
economics. The first publication contained studies of such subjects as monop-
olies and the concentration of economic power, the political economy of
socialism, capitalist perspectives, labour economics; others analysed specific
topics against the broad background of production relations and the distribution
of national income, class contradictions, and so on.
Nothing of this kind appears in the later publication, which gives the impres-
sion that a stabilized and self-complacent affluent society can once again afford
to remain aloof in its ivory tower of ‘pure science’. It has no time for the great
social problems that were generated by anxiety about the future prospects of the
capitalist system and, where it treats them at all, the publication treats the theo-
retical problems of a socialist economy as marginal and unimportant.
c. Finally, there is one other characteristic feature of contemporary economics.
Economists become increasingly professional and specialized, with a growing
aversion to the creation of theoretical systems or the construction of a general
economic theory. The social sciences disintegrate (cf. particularly the separation

Economics 297
of economics from sociology and history), and economics itself is also subdivid-
ing. More and more disciplines are splitting into narrow specializations.
Norman S. Buchanan’s memorandum on the Purpose of Surveys of Economic
Theory states that ‘the social scientists are increasingly becoming narrow spe-
cialists in some small segment of a particular subdivision of anthropology,
economics, political science or sociology’ (op. cif., Vol. I, p. ix). Although realiz-
ing that this is one of the most serious consequences of the rapidly increasing
specialization, those responsible for the Surveys failed to provide either a study
of the r61e of economics in relation to the social sciences, or even an attempt to
give a synthetic account of the tasks, subject-matter and methods of contem-
porary economics.
The counterpart to the enthusiasm for empirical econometric research was
often a refusal of all theory. Economists did not notice that the systematic as-
sembly and treatment of statistical materials could reveal no essential relation-
ships or trends unless the theoretical hypotheses these materials could serve to
verify had been thought out beforehand. The sharp criticism of ‘measurement
without theory’zz by Koopmans and others may have brought about some im-
provement, but a relapse is to be feared with the generalization of computer
techniques. However, it has become fairly common to regard the formulation
of a working hypothesis - particularly as far as the postulates are concerned -
as one of the preliminary phases in econometric research; but the narrowness
of the hypotheses formulated and the lack of synthesization afterwards may
mean that they really represent a purely formal answer only to Koopmans’ objec-
tions.
The same danger threatens also in the current economic literature of the so-
cialist countries (although their shirking of theory is different from that of the
historical school). Its merits, dealt with in the preceding section, do not exclude
some negative aspects, viz., the loss of interest in socio-economic problems, the
disappearance of methodological reflection, the common tendency to study
short-term and medium-term problems only (except for some attempts to estab-
lish the methodological foundations of long-term planning), the habit of subord-
inating economic research directly to the immediate requirements of economic
practice (it is of course in this latter respect that the political economy of the
socialist countries may claim its main accomplishments).
Thus, schools and trends in contemporary economics are vanishing, not so
much because fundamental methodological principles are accepted that deter-
mine the subject-matter and scope of economic science; they are vanishing
rather because no attempts are being made to determine such principles. And
this is happening not because of any agreement as to which problems are com-
mon to related disciplines, but because the range of interest of economists is
narrowing, and they are deserting areas that should be the meeting place for
representatives of the different social sciences. And this is accompanied by
fragmentation within the social sciences, by fragmentation, in economics, into
narrow specializations.
So, economics can be credited with many achievements; a more balanced
view is taken of different methodological attitudes; a synthesis of macro-eco-

298 Economics
nomics and micro-economics is now feasible; and it has become easier to pass
from one term or concept to a parallel or rival term or concept. But despite all
this, it still seems we must wait several decades for that ‘generalized political
economy’ postulated by Merleau-Ponty (Les aventures de la dialectique) and
Perroux, and of which capitalism and socialism were to be but two special aspects.
C. Economic history andpraxiology
I. It would not be practicable to consider in detail here the controversial ques-
tion of the subject-matter and scope of political economy and its relationship
with the other social disciplines. Instead, two completely opposite views will be
presented in broad outline and an attempt will then be made to determine which
(if indeed either) seems best confirmed by the development of the social sciences
and best in line with economic realities during the last few decades.
The following are these two views, which seem mutually exclusive.
‘Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship
between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses’.z3 This definition
by Lionel Robbins, already quoted, can be complemented as follows from von
Mises: ‘Out of the political economy of the classical school emerges the general
theory of human action. .. no treatment of economic problems proper can avoid
starting from acts of choice. Economics becomes a part, although hitherto the
best elaborated part, of a more universal science - praxiol0gy’.~4 The purpose of
economic science, so conceived, is to formulate rules of behaviour which, deriv-
ed by deduction from the principle of economic rationality, are entirely a-social
and a-historical. They refer with equal validity to Robinson Crusoe, ship-
wrecked and struggling for survival on an uninhabited island, and to the capi-
talist entrepreneur. A theory of economic activity as formal as this belongs like
logic or mathematics to the realm of a priori knowledge and is therefore not
subject to empirical verification, either statistical or historical. A science SO
conceived is of course no longer a social science whose purpose is to study ob-
jective reality. This approach to the subject-matter of economics found its ad-
herents among the extreme individualists, who rejected any idea of handling
economic phenomena in aggregate categories. They not only carried to extremes
the a-historicism of the English classical economists but also refuted their theo-
ry, since the classical economists endeavoured to study the national economy
as a whole.
Now for the opposite view. Pointing out that it is most difficult to separate the
subject-matter and tasks of economic history from those of political economy,
Witold Kula writes: ‘In our opinion, the respective subjects of economic history
and of economics are identical. Because the nature of the subject determines
the research methods, the fundamental stock of methods employed by economic
history must be provided by the methods of economics, the methods of studying
economic phenomena, the economic aspect of human actions and their economic
effects’.Zs Kula is inclined to reduce the difference between economic history and
theoretical economics simply to the practical differences in the professional

Economics 299
education which the specialists in each have received. This would explain why
economic historians usually stop at the lower levels of generalization.z6
It is hardly necessary to add that Kula’s view formally resembles that of the
historical school but is in reality quite the opposite. An amplified interpretation
is given to Sornbart’s ‘no theory, no history’. In Kula’s opinion, an economic
historian must not restrict himself to borrowing economic theses and theories
from the neighbouring discipline, but should be ambitious enough to formulate
them himself.
Kula takes as equally obvious the historicity of political economy and the
theoreticity of economic history. This is not just the credo of a representative of
the Marx and Weber school; it is a trend confirmed by the evolution of world
economic thought, non-Marxist included. He considers that the importance
taken on by the historical dimension derives from three fundamental causes.
The passage from the free competition economy of the industrialized capitalist
countries to the economy of great corporations, increasingly directed (at least in
Europe) by the State, led economists to construct new theoretical models which
better fit the new situation. By the very nature of State intervention, these had
to be macro-economic models. Then it became clear that, even within a given
socio-economic polity, the range of economic theories is limited to the conditions
of a particular epoch. New branches of economic theory were necessary to cover
new situations: the rapid development of the socialist countries, and the recent
discovery of the problems o€ the developing countries. This gave special interest
to the problems of comparability as between different socio-economic and political
systems in time and space. Hitherto abstract, the question of the sequence
of different social systems suddenly proved to be of very practical importance.
Backward countries wishing to industrialize rapidly must decide whether they
can and must follow the path of development of the advanced countries, decide
which elements are indispensable components of industrialization and
which may be omitted as a result of a purposeful social policy - a clear case
of the theoretical and practical intermingling of historical and contemporary
problems.
In the highly industrialized countries, economic analysis has also acquired a
historical dimension by bringing to the fore the problems of economic growth
and development.
n. The two examples chosen and set out above do not date from the same time.
The ‘praxiological’ dates from the thirties, the ‘historical’ refers to one of the
most recent methodological studies. They are separated by over twenty-five
years. A knowledgeable sociologist could, at least to some extent, regard them
as ideological reflections of two different historical times. The a-historical view,
which identified economics with praxiology was taken by those economists who
might then have regarded the capitalist mode of production as the only rational
economic system possible. In their view, it, only, could therefore become the
subject of scientific economic research. Needless to add, this view is at present
generally considered to be completely anachronistic.
But the discovery that certain views and theories are related to particular

300 Economics
historical conditions does not provide any excuse for not examining their
validity.
Man almost invariably hds that the means available are inadequate in rela-
tion to the objectives he has set himself. The optimum use of scarce means is
theoretically stated in the so-called principle of economic rationality, which has
two variants: the attempt to secure maximum effect with the means available, or
the attempt to minimize the means which must be expended to attain a given end.
It is a principle which applies in the most varied aspects of social life, in tech-
nology, military activities, medicine (e.g. during a surgical operation), sport,
scientific research, and so on. The Robbins view of economics, therefore, would
mean treating economics as if it were some universal science of human action,
and economists would be quite unable to do what would accordingly be expect-
ed of them. Robbins, it will be remembered, maintained that the production of
potatoes and philosophical creation were equally the subject-matter of econom-
ics. He was later frequently involved in potato production problems but never
had any occasion to give advice on production methods as applied to philosophy.
His definition of economics does not take account of reality. He does not gener-
alize from the way in which economics in fact develops while, on the other hand,
imposing on economists functions they are in no position to fulfil. Moreover, to
extend the r61e of economics in this way would preclude any ‘reasonable clas-
sification of sciences’, as another science, other than economics, is developing
which is endeavouring to create ‘a general theory of efficient action’.=’
Praxiology is of course still very recent, but it is solidly based, with its own
aims and concepts, definite enough to oblige the economist-methodologist to
take account of its existence.
But, according to the specialists, praxiology cannot even incorporate in their
original form the norms of economic rationality since they are formulated on a
considerably lower level of abstraction than those of the general theory of effi-
cient action. ‘As praxiological ones are more general and economic ones more
particular, it is obvious that praxiological theses are drawn from economical ones
by induction but economic theses spring from praxiological ones by deduction.
A praxiologist makes use of the partial generalizations provided by economists,
and integrates them with partial generalizations provided by specialists in other
areas of activity; he formulates generalizations of a wider application, hypothet-
ical theses to be proved in the whole area of various fields of conscious human
actions.. . Economics provides praxiology with a great richness of semiproducts
so to speak, to which praxiology gives a finish’.z8
Thus, the very feature which, in the opinion of von Mises, makes economics
the best developed branch of praxiology, is regarded by the praxiologist as a
hindrance which prevents the simple treatment of economic theses as part of a
more general science i.e., praxiology,
In the light of this opinion, it is clear that economics can be regarded neither
as a branch of praxiology nor as a general theory of rational economic activ-
ity.
However, although the ‘praxiological conception of economics’ seems to be
untenable, the usefulness of applying praxiological modes of thinking to eco-

Economics 301
nomics, or to any other science, is unquestionable; here it wil suffice to recall its
value in helping to deal with the problem that had been the subject of violent
controversy for nearly two centuries, viz., the law of diminishing returns. From
an analysis of economic activity, the statistician may easily conclude that each
successive outlay is less effective that its predecessor. But economists (entre-
preneurs) themselves range the outlays required in such a way that those that
secure the greatest increment in production come first, and follow with those
which are increasingly less efficient, and they obviously start by implementing
thekost efficient proposals. The praxiological principle of efficient doing is thus
applied by entrepreneurs and afterwards given a technological interpretation. 29
A number of similar problems could be mentioned, which are of more im-
portance to the economist and to political economy than to the economic his-
torian. The latter wil be less interested, for example, in the analysis of types of
technical progress which is crucial to studies of economic growth, or in relations
resulting from the technical characteristics of the production process. It may,
obviously, be useful to him to know these technical coefficients - in the same way
as praxiology is useful to the economist in the example given above.
Rational action implies endeavouring to minimize the outlay necessary in
order to attain a given result, or to maximize the effect of what has to be expend-
ed. But this takes place in specific material and social conditions which are not
always propitious to rational solutions by society as a whole, although the action
of each individual may be subjectively rational in accordance with the above
principle.
The distinction proposed by Polanyi, for example, between two economies,
one logical, the other substantive, is valid only if it is remembered that political
economy analyses the behaviour, in the process of producing material goods, of
people who are historically and socially conditioned; and that it is thus studying
the operation of the general principle of rational action in specific and global
socio-historical contexts. Its subject-matter is not the general principle of ra-
tional action as such nor the norms of human conduct which result from it, but
its specific and varying applications during the course of economic activities;
hence the relative and historical character of patterns of economic behaviour,
and even of the types and instruments of economic calculation in the strict sense.
Apart from the examples already mentioned, praxiology serves political
economy in many ways. The rules of efficient action and in particular the prin-
ciple of economic rationality may one day provide an instrument for estimating
the economic efficiency of a given social polity. In the history of economic
thought, it was Max Weber and Werner Sombart who for the first time, and with
full awareness, used the principle of rationality as a criterion to show the su-
periority of the capitalist mode of production over previous social systems.
Weber argued that, in earlier systems, economic activity was predominantly
traditional. It was tradition and not rational analysis that determined the choice
of ends and means. Tradition was defended by the social groups whose interests
it served, particularly through magico-religious sanctions ; the principle of eco-
nomic rationality had no application in this kind of s0ciety.3~ The aims and
means are too diverse to allow measurement or comparison by means of a com-

302 Economics
mon denominator. The division of economic activity into gainful activities and
household activities which resulted from the extension of a marketing andmoney
economy alone produced a general objective for economic activity which dom-
inates all the others: profit, supreme object in the capital enterprise, deciding
how all the resources shall be utilized. Ends and means can be expressed in
monetary terms and thus become fully comparable. Only then can rules of eco-
nomic calculation be strictly applied.
Competition makes strict economic calculation indispensable, protecting
against bankruptcy as well as permitting themaximization ofprofit. The triumph
of this principle of rationality in the capitalist enterprise was responsible for a
vigorous development of productive forces.
The principle in turn became a point of criticism in capitalism, the advocates
of planned economy arguing that, under the conditions of capitalist production,
economic rationality is limited to the enterprise. Because of private ownership
of the means of production, maximum production efficiency at enterprise level
is accompanied by waste at national level (unemployment, economic crises,
dilapidation of natural resources). The waste is still greater when enormous
corporations limit production in order to secure monopolistic profits.
In short, economics can be reduced neither to economic history nor to prax-
iology. But in studying the human relations which arise in the course of produc-
tion of material goods (i.e. as society harnesses the forces of nature), economics
undoubtedly retains the character of a historical science, since these relations
change in time; moreover, these changes can be scientifically codified provided
that men always act rationally in their effort to secure a satisfactory material
existence i.e., that they try to maximize the returns from the expenditure of given
means, or minimize the outlay necessary to attain specific aims. It is clear that
praxiology must frequently enter into economic considerations - increasingly
so as the preoccupations of economists become increasingly practical. In the
view of the present authors, economics (political economy) should be considered
as the study of the historically varying social conditions of the allocation, utili-
zation and development of resources.
II. ECONOMIC THINKING, MODELS AND METHODS
Introductory
It is not the purpose of this study to stocktake, to describe the methods now
being applied in the various sectors of economics, or to deal with problems that
await solution. Nor is its aim to make a systematic comparative analysis of the
different theories and schools of thought. As stated in ;the introduction, atten-
tion is concentrated on the economist’s workshop and his ways of thinking, so
that the reader of the report on the main trends of research in the human sciences
can see where economics stands in this regard, and what features it holds in
common with the others. Selectivity of course enters in. It is hardly possible to
talk as if one general method applied to political economy, and disregard the

Economics 303
fact that the scope and range of research techniques and methods have been
changing and are now extremely extensive.
The changes were necessary because the problems were different at different
times and depended on a varying social demand. The personal attitude of the
economist towards the reality he is dealing with has been and is of the utmost
importance; according as that attitude is critical or favourable, different analytical
methods may be chosen and lead to quite different final conclusions. As
pointed out in the first part of this study, ideological considerations are always
present in political economy, and value judgements are made on ethical grounds.
This, naturally, not only influences the end system but also the choice of the
basic economic categories.
Let us go back, for example, to macro-economic and micro-economic
research. The links, communications and exchanges between them have been
noted, but there are also divergences resulting from the different optics, aims,
rules and behaviour possibilities of economic agents. An example wil help to
illustrate. The famous Kalecki formula (cf. his Theory of Economic Dynamics)
that the profits of capitalists determine the volume of the national income and
not vice versa, could be formulated only on the basis of a macro-economic theory
of the dynamics of a capitalist economy, taking capitalists as a social class,
and analysing the distribution of the national income into wages and profits,
and into consumption and investment. The Kalecki formula does not endorse
the ‘commonsense’ view of the individual capitalist who considers profits as the
difference between the output produced and the cost involved, not as a point of
departure for the process of generating national income equal to the sum total
of profits and wages, the latter being linked to profits by a given relation reflecting
the bargaining power of the opposing social classes. The thinking of the individual
capitalist corresponds with ex post reality, and does not explain the
dynamics of capitalism and the mechanism of investment decision.
Macro-economic~3~ thus frequently borrows methods and concepts from
micro-economics, enriching them with new and different connotations. Macroeconomic
methods of market analysis were perfected at a time when satisfactory
methods of analysing non-market phenomena were still lacking. This, apart
from historic reasons, explains why macro-economics has hitherto concentrated
almost exclusively on market economics. It also explains why macro-economics
has been used for something other than market economics only for certain
theoretical studies of socialist economy problems and in some recent studies of
primitive economies (usually sponsored by historians or anthropologists). On
the other hand, many problems which explicitly belong to micro-economics can
be explained only by macro-economic analysis, i.e. micro-economic decisions
must take account of macro-economic aims and preferences. This impact of
macro-economic aims is reflected in the concept of ‘external economics’, which
is meaningful only in a micro-economic context.
The inter-relations between macro-economics and micro-economics; the
possibility of using analytical toois at various levels of aggregation and generalization
; and the choice of instruments of decentralized economic calculus capable
of ensuring compatibility in decisions that involve macro-economic prefer-
’

304 Economics
ences (i.e. ‘social welfare function’)32 now constitute one of the most important
factors of methodological research. This results from the failure of attempts to
reduce macro-economics to micro-economics on the basis of the fallacious as-
sumption that the whole (i.e. the macrostructure) is the arithmetical sum of the
parts i.e. of the economic entities analysed by micro-economics.
As already mentioned, the first period of socialist planning showed in practice
that the general identity of aims as between the State and the economic agents
does not exclude a wide range of micro-economic problems. Substantive prob-
lems should not be given priority absolutely or unilaterally over problems of
methodology. To some extent, the methods derive from the problems. On the
other hand, however, some new methods may in turn suggest new problems for
theoretical investigation which otherwise would not have been known or tackled.
Cumulative development in science is far more sharply evident in methodo-
logy than in theory. Even at the time when macro-economic problems were
wrongly considered as belonging to micro-economics, the methodological re-
sources available to the contemporary economist were considerably enriched. As
yet, these resources provide, not a theory but rather an analytical framework,33
indispensable in making a detailed description or introductory analysis of
economic phenomena prior to the stage of actually elaborating and verifying
theories. A detailed analysis will now be made of these resources which, dif-
ferences in emphasis and preferences notwithstanding, are becoming more and
more the common property of economists of the various schools.
A. Analytical framework
Until recently, the economist’s tool-box reflected a marked preference for meth-
ods and notions for studying micro-economic phenomena in general and market
analysis in particular. Such economic categories as price, cost, supply, demand,
and so on, are the point of departure for numerous studies. Mention should here
be made of the development of marginal calculus, since it introduces the con-
cepts of marginal costs, marginal productivity as distinct from average cost,
average productivity, and so on, and this makes the application of the differen-
tial calculus possible. There has been a vast amount of research also on the
elasticity of demand and supply in relation to prices and income, and on price
flexibility in relation to variations in demand and supply. Elasticity and flexi-
bility can be subjected to quantitative empirical studies but they are also typical
subjects of econometrics. Such micro-economic research finds application in
macro-economics, producing results which are helpful in projecting the pattern
of future consumption - an important stage in planning.
Production functions represent another sophisticated tool. However, in their
application, the choice of explanatory variables and the choice of such mathe-
matical functions as will best reflect reality both give rise to problems.34 They
are of undoubted importance for methodological progress in economics, espe-
cially as the transplanting of production functions and preference curves over
into macro-economics involves giving them a new interpretation.

Economics 305
The situation in macro-economics is less encouraging. It reflects the main
trend of research in economics during the long interval which separated the
writings of the classical school from the thirties when, under the influence of the
great depression and the first Soviet experiments in planning, there was a revival
of interest in macro-economics. There are also certain objective difficulties.
For the purposes of macro-economic analysis, national income is the central
category. Its creation and distribution can be viewed from different angles, e.g.
physical composition of inputs and of the output; distribution of the income as
between the State and various social classes; division into consumption, in-
vestment, and stocks. These three optics are found simultaneously in Quesnay’s
Tableau dconomique, and in the well-known Marxian schemes of reproduction,
but their use is feasible only at a high level of aggregation. Marx used three
dichotomies : a) from the physical structure point of view, he distinguished
between consumer goods and producer goods; b) in the distribution of income,
between investment and consumption; and c) two social classes, the workers
who create the whole added value but whose share in it is represented by wages
only, and the capitalists who, being owners of the means of production, receive
profits, i.e. the difference between the value added and the wages. Marxian
schemes were meant not so much as tools for describing the economy as to per-
mit the elaboration of a theory of dynamics, and he succeeded by coupling
together the three optics mentioned above. But this no longer provides an
adequate framework for a more detailed description of the economy. Closest to
the Quesnay-Marx concept is theinput-output table. The chessboardrecordmeth-
odpermits two approaches simultaneously: a detailed analysis is made I) of the
physical composition of the inputs and outputs in physical or value terms, and
2) of the final destination of the products. However, the stakeof the socialclass-
es in the creation and distribution of the national income is overlooked. In many
systems of social accounting (an interesting example of borrowing from the mi-
cromethod of book-keeping and adopting it to the requirements of macro-eco-
nomics) each of the three approaches is the subject of individual accounting, the
input-output table in value terms being an integral part of a modern system of
social accounting.
Let us consider input-output tables. They provide a convenient analytical
framework for describing the branch structure of the economy (static approach),
for comparing the state of the economy at different periods (metastatics), or for
comparisons between countries. The chessboard record allows matrix algebra
to be used to a certain extent, and hence allows a relatively far-reaching use of
mathematics. The input-output method thus represents a considerable achieve-
ment, with broad prospects of application. However, there are certain difficul-
ties in rendering the input-output table dynamic, as all changes in technological
coefficients must be treated as exogenous data.
Furthermore, in input-output tables, and in social accounting generally, two
problems appear which are of significance for the whole body of economics:
the problem of aggregation (or rather of disaggregation, the point of departure
being the national economy as a whole), and the closely connected problem of
the measurement of economic magnitudes. For certain purposes, the national

306 Economics
product may be taken to be the sum total of goods, measured in physical units
(without attempting to provide a common denominator for the goods them-
selves). Material balances prepared for the purposes of central planning are
made up on this basis, which is also used in some important applications of the
input-output method (the latter can also serve in determining technological in-
put coefficients in physical terms). The variety of goods produced in a national
economy is so great, however, that they must be added together in aggregate
categories - all the more so for the purposes of macro-economic considerations
that involve such highly aggregated concepts as investment, social consumption,
and so on.
Economics is inconceivable without a common denominator such as exchange
value. However, price systems - not to mention non-market situations - do
not always adequately express this value; this is why the improvement of scalar
calculus in economics undoubtedly constitutes one of the major methodological
problems. It is not possible here to enter into the complex controversy on the
theory of value and prices which occupies so important a place in the history
of economic thought. It need only be pointed out that the total value of the
national product depends not only on the price system adopted (which deter-
mines the relative values of products), but also its commodity structure in value
terms. At this point, price mechanisms can be considered from a number of
standpoints :
a. Let us assume that an objective measure of exchange value exists, as was
done e.g. by Marx in stating that the exchange value of a given commodity was
equal to the quantity of socially indispensable labour embodied in it, adjusted
according to the quality of this labour.35 This, however, ignores the qualitative
aspect or ‘use value’, the condition sine qua non of the existence of an exchange
value. As for the concept of marginal utility, it is based on a petitio principi, as
we do not know how to measure marginal utility, and the theory of prices found-
ed on it is nothing more than a modification of a market equilibrium theory of
prices.
b. Let us assume that there is a social mechanism which automatically de-
termines prices. This is the essence of the market equilibrium of prices which
depends, however, on very rigid and unrealistic assumptions regarding the au-
tomatic operation of convergent adaptive processes. The category of costs can-
not help us much either unless we revert to our fist assumption, and agree in
addition that the equilibrium of the market economy system depends on goods
being sold at prices corresponding to their relative values.
c. Let us assume that the price system can be chosen in such a way as to reflect
preferences, i.e. it does not depend on the theory of value, or on the spontaneous
operation of market forces, but is consciously planned to attain certain growth
targets under conditions of market equilibrium. It is essentially operational, and
can be accommodated with any theory of value. We thus obtain a conventional
system of accounting prices which reflect, in physical terms, the constraints met
with in trying to achieve the objectives. Consequently, the accounting prices
reflect the planner’s preferences, and permit centralized and decentralized de-
cisions that conform to these macro-economic preferences.

Economics 307
But how are the accounting prices to be determined? There is a danger of
arbitrariness, and consequently of deformation which, instead of improving
management and investment decisions, would complicate the whole problem
still more. It is theoretically possible to work out a system of accounting prices
(which would then be equilibrium prices) by taking into account the resources
available, foreign trade possibilities, and the planned growth rate (after checking
that it is in fact feasible). In practice, this would not be easy because of the
technical difficulty of having to calculate a new price system whenever the parameters
change. That is why, in some countries that go in for comprehensive
planning, the only realistic and practical solution is to use a few accounting
prices for those parameters only which are crucial for certain economic calculations.
The use of accounting prices in planning and in the management of the
economy in any case leaves other problems connected with the management of
economic quantities.
So far, prices have been considered from the point of view of the measurability
of economic aggregates and of certain planning instruments, i.e. more or
less from the point of view of the functioning and management of the economy.
The examples taken relate to the measurability of exchange value. It was tacitly
assumed that there was no need for the direct measuring and comparing of utilities;
but that assumption, legitimate as an approximation in dealing with
many everyday practical problems, should not be allowed jto obscure another
very important issue. In spite of the progress made in the measurement of economic
q~antities,3~ the paradox that economics is the science of wealth which
we do not yet know how to measure remains to a large extent true; not to speak
of the technical and statistical difficulties involved, we have not yet succeeded in
finding an adequate common denominator for various forms of utility, and
hence, in quantifying such basic concepts as welfare, standard of living, and so
Standard of living, for example, depends largely on the purchasing power of
received income. But it also depends on the possibility of making use of the
stock of durable goods previously acquired, on public utilities that are available,
and last but not least, on the duration and conditions of work, and all the com-
ponents of the ‘genre de vie’ as distinct from the ‘niveau de vie’ (cf. Jean Fouras-
tie’s terminology).
Doubts arise even in the case of purchasing power, the first component men-
tioned above. Do two people with the same income but different patterns of
expenditure have the same standard of living? Perhaps, if this pattern results
from their individual choice. But in all cases where differences in these patterns
are brought about by conditions beyond their control, significant conclusions
cannot be drawn from the mere fact of equality of income, even after introduc-
ing adjustments to make the estimates more realistic. This is especially true in
comparisons between citizens of different countries, or between citizens of the
same country but considered at different times (i.e. under different systems of
price relations and different supply conditions).
Again, how can ways be found of ensuring that certain decisions are taken on
an objective basis? One of the Soviet dailies asked readers whether, under the

308 Economics
next five-year plan, they would prefer to see more people employed in non-pro-
ductive services (so that those services could thereby be improved), or shorter
working hours for all the employed. From the planner’s point of view, the choice
is indifferent, but it is difficult to see what ‘objective’ criterion can be employed.
Is there then any alternative to applying subjective preferences?
Welfare economics theory begs the question. The only practical approach is
to make an empirical analysis of the preferences of individuals and social groups
by sampling surveys, questionnaires, public opinion polls, and so on. This, how-
ever, will not give a clear-cut and non-controversial scale of utilities, especially
when moving from present to future choices.38 The problem becomes acute when
we go beyond market economies, i.e. either in considering a pre-market, prim-
itive economy or the theoretical model of a non-market socialist economy. In both
these cases, it is necessary to assume the existence of a scale of preferences and
also assume that optimization - the general purposein all human activities - can
be sought in the Pareto optima, i.e. by moving towards the individual goals so
long as the attainment of the other goals is not thereby prejudiced. This can
happen intuitively in the case of a very simple scale of preferences in a primitive
economy, 39 but, even with modern computer techniques, it is still difficult in an
industrial economy.
The fact that problems of measurement and aggregation remain shows clearly
the direction further studies aimed at perfecting the economist’s tool-box must
take. Progress here will largely decide how far reality can be expressed in terms
of a model and how far it will be possible to move from the model back to reality
and hence, permit the constructionof theoriesthat can provide a deeper and full-
er interpretation of reality.
B. Methods followed in diflerent provinces of economic theory
To continue the analysis, three provinces, and the methods connected with
them, must be singled out:
I. The theory of the functioning of the economy;
2. The theory of growth;4O
3. The theory of socio-economic development.
The theory of socio-economic development considers dynamic processes from
the point of view of changes in the structure of basic social relations. The theory
of functioning and the theory of growth assume that these relations are stable;4’
the first concentrates on quantitative changes and changes in the commodity
pattern of the output, the second on management mechanisms taken in the
broadest meaning.
In a sense, the theory of socio-economic development logically takes prece
dence over the theory of growth and the theory of the functioning of the econo-
my. However, socio-economic development takes place within the framework
of the economy, functioning in accordance with definite principles, and it results
from growth. The functioning of the economy obviously affects the process of
growth and vice versa. Thus, there are numerous inter-relationships between

Economics 309
the three, as the classics of political economy were aware. Nevertheless, eco-
nomics, as it developed, tended to accord far-reaching autonomy to all three,
and their practical unification - as desired by the classical economists - calls for
a more thorough study of the inter-relationships, and wil probably depend on
further progress in the general mathematical theory of systems which, in econom-
ics as in other branches of science, attempts to explain functioning and devel-
opment through a single system of equati0ns.4~
The prospects, unfortunately, seem remote, economics in this respect being
more complex than biology or psychology. In biology and psychology, the
process of growth and the development cycle are determined and, so to speak,
built-in in the phenomena studied, whereas in economic history, all schemes of
unilinear development (which is what all schematic theories of socio-economic
development finally amount to) seem inadmissible simplifications. No studies
appear to have been made, and metastatics (comparative statics) often continue
to be used instead of a truly dynamic approach. It should also be borne in mind
that in Rapoport’s own view, the general systems theory represents an important
addition to the conceptual repertoire of the scientist rather than a method.
I. The theory of the functioning of the economy
As long as free competition capitalism was considered to be the ‘normal’ econ-
omy, the theory of the functioning of the economy was concerned mainly with
two problems:
a. In micro-economics, it concentrated on the analysis of market mechanisms,
taking for granted certain assumptions regarding the behaviour of ‘economic
man’ ;
b. In macro-economics, merging with the theory of dynamics, it was concerned
with describing the state of equilibrium, and deviations from the ‘normal’. Busi-
ness fluctuations were treated as pathological phenomena. More often implicitly
than explicitly, resort was often had to comparisons with living organisms;
hence the common expression ‘healthy economy’.
The confrontation under (a) of the general laws of the market formation of
prices with actual conditions led to a more precise formulation of these laws as
the conditions under which they apply were analysed, and then adapted to other
sets of conditions, i.e. imperfect and monopolistic markets. This provides a clas-
sic example of the application of the deductive method and the mathematization
of the argument. The refinement of the initial assumptions, however, not only
helped to make the market model more explicit, but also oriented research to-
wards the motivation of the economic agents taking part in market exchanges.
This research led to a blind alley - the psychological theory of value, based on
the hedonistic interpretation of utility - but it encouraged a more rigorous for-
mulation of the general praxiological principle of economic behaviour, which
is a corner-stone of contemporary theories regarding decision-making and of
operations research.
The introduction of stochastic relations into economics (apparently under
the influence of a similar development in the natural sciences, and particularly
in physics) marks another important stage in the evolution of market theory.

3 IO Economics
The theory of games, which represents an application of the theory of decision-
making under uncertainty conditions, allows a new interpretation of market
mechanisms. It enriched economics with the concept of strategy, which is being
more and more used, although in a way that has little to do with the theory of
games proper. The real importance for economics of the theory of games is less
its actual applications than the fact that it trains the economist in a particular
type of reasoning.43 The probabilistic method can give a quantitative form to
relations that do not yield to the classical deterministic approach. In economics
in general, and in the theory of the functioning of the economy in particular,
mathematization depends on progress in mathematical theories which could
serve to describe structures whose characteristics are too ill-defined to be meas-
ured; hence the hopes pinned on the theory of trees, and the importance of the
stochastic approach.
No branch of economics had such strong links with ideology as the theory of
business cycles. This may account for the extreme vulnerability of business cycle
theories, their practical failures in the past, and their mulitiplicity ; they ranged
from sun-spots to the purely psychological considerations of cycles of optimism
and pessimism.
What was common to all these theories?
First, the mechanism of free competition of the capitalist market was consid-
ered as ‘normal’, independently of any historical context.
Secondly, the free-market system was considered to be valuable in itself (this
value judgement was of course ideological in nature).44
Thirdly, accepting Say’s law, they were confident of the excellence of the free-
market system. Thus, the theory of business cycles was expected to analyse the
causes of undesirable deviations from the ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’, and to warn of
forthcoming disturbances, so that countervailing measures could be taken. As a
result of this pragmatic ad hoc purpose assigned to the theory of business cycles,
taken in conjunction with the premises discussed above, most explanations were
based on pseudo-relations derived from correlations observed between elements
included in over-simplified models.45 The emphasis has of course changed since
the Keynesian revolution, and business cycle research nowadays concentrates
on factors which impede growth, and on ways and means through which the
State can effectively intervene in the economy.
These preKeynes business cycle theories show how dangerous it is for eco-
nomics to yield to the temptation of transforming observed correlations into
chains of cause and effect. This temptation increases as statistical and calculating
techniques devel0p.4~ The economist becomes the prisoner of pseudo-relations,
while the essential part of the mechanism he is analysing remains obscure, and
the model is incomplete as it fails to take account of certain significant variables
which very often affect both of the phenomena that are correlated.
The example of these business cycle theories also shows how poor an instru-
ment the verification of forecasts based on them was for the evaluation of eco-
nomic theory. As between the explanatory value of a theory and its forecasting
value, several relations are possible. A false theory from which a correct fore
cast has been improperly derived may by pure chance stand the test of confron-

Economics 3 I I
tation with reality. Conversely, a theory which in principle gives the correct
explanation but is wrongly employed in actual practice (e.g. no account is taken
of some modification of the explanatory variables or in the value of parameters)
may produce an erroneous forecast (especially if the forecast seems to be borne
out by past experience)? This happened, for example, in the post-war years,
when Marxist economists expected a repetition of the great depression of the
thirties. Leibenstein is on the whole correct in saying that an accurate forecast is
no guarantee of the accuracy of a theory unless the theory is satisfactory in its
explanatory part. On the other hand, the fact that a forecast fails to materialize
points to inadequacy in the theory, or at least to faulty application.
The depression dispelled many illusions that were still held about the merits
of free-market mechanisms, and brought to the fore the macro-economic prob-
lems of directing a national economy and of its functioning under various
regimes and according to different models. The importance of these problems
was accentuated by the founding of the Soviet Union and the appearance of the
socialist countries, and later, when the developing countries, with their mainly
mixed econ0mies4~, achieved independence. Different socio-political systems
must accordingly be considered and compared, and a choice made of a particu-
lar model within a given system, since the mechanisms by which an economy
functions are by no means determined only by the political system under which
it operates; this multiplicity of possible models as regards both functioning and
management is most distinctly evident in socialist economies.
A discussion of great practical importance for the socialist countries which
has been going on for many years shows that, between the extremes of complete
centralization and complete decentralization, many patterns of functioning are
theoretically possible in a socialist economy. They include various combinations
of self-regulating and consciously regulated sub-systems, with different types of
transmission links between them. Once again, the question of macro-micro rela-
tions arises, and the scope of self-regulating systems. In a decentralized system,
the r6le of the central authority might be confined to setting the servo mecha-
nisms, and feeding in certain parameters (accounting prices to be used in the
calculations).
Once we move from the market economy to planned and socialist economies,
the scope of the theory of the functioning of the economy becomes much broad-
er, the market being then only one of many mechanisms to be taken into consid-
eration. The emphasis shifts to all sorts of incentives,49 their problems, and
responses to them. The wide range of methods that can be used to examine these
incentives can be grouped in three categories:
a. Historical and descriptive. These throw light on specific forms of economic
behaviour in different socio-historical contexts (e.g. the response of producers
to an increase in selling prices in a market economy, and in a predominantly
subsistence economy).
b. Observation andfield research. This can be carried out in co-operation (or
on similar lines with research on other behavioural disciplines in making em-
pirical studies of human society. The theory of the functioning of the economy
is the branch of economics in which the essential subject - matter of political

3 I 2 Economics
economy - the study of relations between men - presents itself in the most direct
way, without reification.
c. Cybernetic meth0ds.5~ Except for restating, in cybernetic terms, the func-
tioning of the economy, not much has been done until recently. However, this
transcription is of considerable importance from two points of view: on the
basis of observed isomorphisms, it leads to a convergence between the natural
sciences and the human sciences; it also leads to a more precise formulation of
the analytical problems economists have to deal with in connexion with the
theory of the functioning of the economy.
It should be remembered, in conclusion, that the theory of the functioning of
the economy has many points of contact with politics, law, organization and
management, sociology, psychology, and social anthropology. Its further devel-
opment would be impossible without drawing on all of them, and without the
interdisciplinary device of introducing into the economic models parameters
which, for each of these disciplines, represent a variable. The theory of the
functioning of the economy aims at praxis: rational decision-making in a given
socio-economic system, with due regard to all the rules of praxiology.
2. The theory of growth
As indicated in the survey by Hahn and Matthews already referred to, there has
been an extraordinary proliferation of growth models in recent years; authors
of nearly all schools - neo-classical, neo-Keynesian, Marxist -have been build-
ing them.
This undoubtedly reflects a real preoccupation with one of the key problems
of modern economic life, one which will be considered in the final part of this
study. On the other hand, the theory of growth lends itself to a wide (and, at
times, wild) utilization of mathematical tools and formal exposition; this helps
to satisfy many economists who wish to be more scientific, even if it only means
dressing up old truths in new, complicated clothing. Once the principles of mod-
el building have been mastered, it is easy to produce new models by changing
some of the initial assumptions, or imparting a different mathematical presen-
tation to an old subject - the most spectacular short-cut to a doctorate in eco-
nomics in many universities. This has engendered some violent criticism of the
theory of growth as such. It has been pointed out that growth models are based
on over-simplified assumptions, that they lose touch with the complex realities
of economic life, that they cannot be directly applied in practice because they
postulate ‘Golden Age’ conditions, and so on. Such criticism can hardly be
regarded as generally valid, although it no doubt applies in many instances where
the growth model building is bad or superfluous.
At first sight, growth theories look very innocent. As it is investment which
gives the main impulse to economic growth, they explore what happens to the
national income when a given share of it is allocated to investment. If this share
is i, and the incremental capital-output ratio is m, it can be said, as a first
approximation, that the rate of growth of the national income r will be equal to
i/m. Behind the apparent simplicity of this result, however, many complicated
problems are concealed.

Economics 3 I 3
Account must be taken not only of new investment but also of depreciation of
productive capacity through obsolescence and wear and tear (shown as -a,
coefficient of contraction of the national income). On the other hand, national
income wil grow if the existing equipment is better utilized (represented by
coefficient U). The formula for the rate of growth r of the national income becomes:S1
i
r=--a+u
m
In a socialist economy, where it is assumed that productive forces are fully
employed and that, accordingly, the rate of growth is supply-determined (i.e.
is determined by the expansion of productive capacities) this formula can be
considered as offering a good starting point for discussion. It would not do,
however, for a capitalist economy where the problem of effective demand arises.
Variations in effective demand could, it is true, be taken care of in a purely for-
mal way by variations in the coefficient zi (making it positive or negative accord-
ing to the case). This however, would shirk the essential question for a capitalist
economy: the r61e of investment in stimulating additional effective demand, and
itsmultiplier effects in so far as idle capacities exist. To study the dynamics of a
capitalist economy, accordingly, a completely different model must be built,
starting from the observed fact that, contrary to what might be believed, it is the
investments made by capitalists that determine the level of their global profits as
a class, and not the other way round. It follows that the volume of the national
income wil also be determined by the investment and consumption decisions of
the capitalists. Unlike workers, who can spend to the extent to which they can
earn, capitalists taken as a class earn to the extent that they spend.52
Moreover, the rate of growth r may be approximately defined as the com-
bined effect of increasing the labour force and increasing labour productivity.
This brings complex problems to the fore: different types of technological pro-
gress and the extent to which they lead to changes in the capital-output ratio. In
theory, a clear distinction should be made between the mere substitution of
labour by capital (or, depending on the proportions, the substitution of capital
by labour) and technological progress as such; in practice, labour and capital are
superimposed and embodied in new investment.53 Different classifications of
technological progress are proposed by different authors (J. Robinson, Kaldor,
Bombach, Kalecki) but all depend, by and large, on the distinction between
progress which absorbs capital, saves capital or has no effect on capital - three
cases which obviously warrant separate treatment in any full-scale theory of
growth.
A distinction must also be made between economies according as their sup-
plies of labour are limited or unlimited. Once labour reserves are exhausted,
growth can be accelerated only by increasing the capital-output ratios.
We may then add the constraints imposed by difficulties in foreign trade.
All these factors are likely to induce changes in the capital-output ratios. How
will the economy be affected when part of the productive capacity is retooled,
involving a higher capital intensity; and how many years wil be necessary to

3 14 Economics
complete the change-over? What will the position be at different points during
the transition period? These and many other questions arise as we go on com-
plicating the ini+:al exercise.
The ultimate aim of these exercises, which are meant to trace the path of growth
as it develops from the initial assumptions, is to permit more enlightened choices
in economic policy; the aim is therefore normative, economists pursuing their
dream of optimising the operation of the economy. For a socialist economy, the
basic option - more jam today or more jam tomorrow54 - is essentially political
and, as such, the concern of the policy-makers. Various ways have been sug-
gested for incorporating it into the theory of growth. Several authors use a dis-
count rate in order to weight future in terms of present consumption. Kalecki,
in his model, explicitly introduces a ‘decision curve’, and uses a parameter in his
argument which, although it cannot be quantified, is crucial, namely, the reluc-
tance of a government to reduce the level of consumption of the population in
order to speed up growth. Many models have been devised to determine ‘golden
rules’ of behaviour. But, given its initial state, how is any economy to reach its
golden age? A new set of problems looms: how choose the best of alternative
paths for passing from one state to another?
The above catalogue of questions discussed by theorists of growth is far from
complete,55 but will surely suffice to show that the theory of growth is anything
but simple.
As for its practical applications, the criticisms which have been referred to
above seem to derive from a misunderstanding of the r81e of the theory.
The purpose of growth theories is not to trace the course of an economy in the
past (this can be done by ordinary statistical methods), or to forecast its future
path (bound to fail, so great are the level of aggregation and the simplifications
introduced). In a socialist economy, moreover, the emphasis shifts from fore-
casting to the making of rational planning decisions, and it is this purpose that
the theory of growth aims to serve in two ways. It deals with problems which are
not in the least obvious, which are not superficially evident from the phenomena
considered and which, in addition to requiring the planner’s decision, accustom
‘variant thinking’ - to taking account of several alternative solutions. In no case
does growth theory provide ready-made pre~criptions.5~ At best, it sets out the
rules of ideal behaviour, providing a clearer analysis of the initial premises, the
evaluation criteria, and the consequences of adopting alternative solutions. Its
purposes are not narrowly pragmatic, although praxis is the ultimate purpose.
Contrary to what the layman may think, the choices the planner must make are
complex and intricate, and his freedom of action is limited by the initial conditions
and by political preferences. He is not free to raise the growth rate of the
economy at will, not only because, during the initial period, this would require
an excessive increase in the share of the national income devoted to investment
at the expense of consumption, but also because, above a certain growth rate
(different for each economy and for each period), the efficiency of additional
investment rapidly diminishes.
Moreover, planning aims cannot be unequivocally determined because of the
contradiction, already mentioned, between maximizing consumption in the short

Economics 3 15
and in the long run, and because identical or nearly identical standards of living
can be attained with different patterns of consumption or by the use of different
production techniques. Production techniques may be chosen with a view to
ensuring full employment which constitutes, with the possibilities of increased
consumption afforded, one of the social objectives of a socialist State, and one
of the purposes of State intervention in a capitalist economy.
The rate of growth of the economy can, as we have seen, also be approxi-
mately expressed as the arithmetic sum of the rates of growth of employment
and productivity.57
Consequently, the aim, as far as labour productivity in new enterprises is
concerned, should be optimization, and not maximization of average labour
productivity in the economy (which is what the economist should have in mind
in determining the optimum capital output ratio in new plants). A clear-cut
distinction should be made between technological progress (which means less
labour outlays and/or less capital per unit of product), and the question of choos-
ing one among many ‘efficient’ techniques which differ one from the other by
different rates of substitution of capital and lab0ur.5~ Shifting on the ‘production
curve’ from less to more capital-intensive techniques is not tantamount to ‘pro-
gress’ and, in given circumstances, may cause harm by aggravating the under-
utilization of labour resources.
In short, growth theory should help the planner in selecting the rateof growth,
its trends, the pattern of consumption and the production techniques; for we
are concerned not only with the final result at the end of a particular period59
but with consumption and accumulation and their trends through the years.
These various choices are obviously closely inter-related.
The exposition of growth theories made here is largely inspired by Kalecki’s
work, chosen from many possible examples because of the close connexions be-
tween his theoretical work and his experience in actual macro-economic plan-
ning.60 The purpose is not to review what has been achieved by growth theory
research, but to give examples of the methods used and show the nature of the
economist’s ‘workshop’. Certain features of growth theories may now be noted:
a. The use of deductive methods is combined with the introduction of ern-
pirical data into the models as parameters, The use of models implies a full a-
wareness of the successive stages of abstraction from reality to theory and from
theory to the model, and the linking back of results and conclusions to the par-
ticular circumstances and factors included in the model. If the reality is complex,
special precautions must be taken and results carefully modified by successively
discarding simplified initial assumptions.
b. Growth theories have moved away from the stationary economy (in which
the only dynamics considered are the oscillations round a state of equilibrium)
towards the concept of balanced growth,61 understood as a rule as growth with-
out social waste, i.e. growth consistent with the principle of economic ration-
ality.
c. The emphasis on optimization, i.e. the search for solutions that satisfy the
principle of economic rationality. The fact that these solutions areZelative and
partial, and socio-historically conditioned, is fully recognized. An attempt is also

3 I 6 Economics
made to bridge the gap between micro and macro approaches, and to equip
those responsible for micro-economic decisions with such tools of economic
calculus as will ensure consistency in the decisions taken in the macro-economic
context.
d. A wide application of what Kalecki calls ‘variant thinking’. After eliminating
the inefficient solutions, the economist, as a rule, still has several alternatives
which cannot be unequivocally rated according to their ‘value’, since not one,
but two or more evaluation criteria are applied. Only in exceptional situations is
one variant absolutely better than the others, i.e. it yields maximum advantages
according to a certain criterion and is at least equal to the others on all the other
criteria applied. In such a case, there is only one solution i.e. one absolutely efficient
variant, all the others being inefficient.
‘Variant thinking’ decides the economist’s r61e in society. Unless he is also a
statesman, basic political decisions are not his concern. He is however required
to indicate the decisions to be taken, to describe the choices, and to point out the
possible consequences of alternative solutions.6~
The above analysis of the methodological aspects of growth theory calls for
four additional comments.
I. Growth theory is still only in its initial stages. Further development calls
for much more detailed models that can take account of a greater number of
inter-relations between economic factors and ‘non-economic factors’ in the currently
accepted sense of the term (which, incidentally, is open to question, since
‘non-economic’ factors are ‘economic’ to the extent to which they influence the
economy).
Methods for optimizing the consumption pattern are also needed, together
with further research in the zone of demarcation between growth theory and the
theory of the functioning of the economy.
Another problem of the utmost importance still pending is that of the relation
between growth theory and multiple-goal planning. Hitherto, economics has
usually taken a uniform objective, consisting of the maximum (or minimum)
magnitudes that can be attained for such items as national income, consumption,
and so on, with due regard to the existing constraints; Tinbergen and
other outstanding economists have even been using weights to harmonize heterogeneous
aims into one uniform planning objective. The actual weights to be
used are a matter for the policy-makers, and mathematicians are right in stating
that rigorous multiple-goal planning is not feasible unless a hierarchy of aims is
supplied from outside.63
But is this not to ask too much from policy-makers? How can they work out
such weights (which they would present as ‘scientific’) without taking arbitrary
decisions ? Perhaps it is better to acknowledge openly that some decisions are
‘political’ and, at the present level of development of political science, quite pedestrian.
This does not imply any scepticism regarding the possibility of improved
decision-making through the use of some of the ingenious methods of
ranking aims and projects that have been worked out in recent years by specialists
in operational research; it is simply to realize that such methods are still
far from entering current planning practice. Furthermore, it would be dangerous

Economics 3 I 7
to imagine that it wil ever be possible to eliminate value judgements from the
choices and compromises that ultimately add up into a plan.
Econometric verification of growth theories is also needed. The purpose is not
to confirm their validity, as an econometric test, in that case, could, at best, serve
to reject a theory. Normally, econometric verification is employed to improve
our knowledge of the variability of parameters and suggest the modifications in
this respect that should be made to the m0del.~4
2. Many models, based on the same theory, can be elaborated. In particular,
various comprehensive models of the national economy can be elaborated on the
same theoretical premises. Reminiscent of mathematical theories of economic
equilibrium, these models consist of a system of equations, and seek to provide
an optimum general solution. Attempts to construct them, however, can hardly
be described as satisfactory because of the difficulty, already mentioned, of
establishing a uniform function, which can be maximized (or minimized), for all
the objectives of the economy. Here, once again, we comeup against the familiar
difficulties of aggregation and measurement, but in a slightly different form,
deriving from the multiplicity of the objectives inherent in economic activity.
Yet, linear programming and other algorithms whose purpose is to achieve partial
optimization may be succesfully used whenever it is possible to determine the
goal function. Moreover, the whole burden of the problems which growth theo-
ries are intended to deal with is transferred to the determination of constraints
recorded as equations. In this respect, comprehensive models do not add to our
knowledge. They may even lose their respectability if they fail to resist the
temptation to use the existing algorithms to solve the sets of equations on the
computer, without first taking sufficient care in the elaboration of the parameters.
3. Quite obviously, models which refer explicitly to a market economy wil
differ in several characteristics from models which refer to a socialist economy,
e.g. in the emphasis they place on effective demand, or State intervention. How-
ever, the methods used will not differ significantly from those indicated above.
A planned capitalist economy comes somewhere between a market economy and
a socialist economy, and demands appropriate modifications in the assumptions.
But models which do not indicate the type of economy for which they are in-
tended tend to be suspended in the void, exercises in logic and mathematics that
are inadequately related to reality. To prove this, it is not even necessary to
resort to empirical verification; it need only be recalled, on formally logical
grounds, that such models are incomplete because they neglect the socio-econom-
ic dimension that is an essential feature of political economy.
4. Many of the assumptions used in growth theory are based on results ob-
tained through the theory of development and the theory of the functioning of
the economy, and through them, on results of research in history, anthropol-
ogy, sociology, psychology, the theory of organization, and so on. This situa-
tion is typical of the human sciences: the parameters used for the purposes of
growth theory and taken as given for the purpose of argument are really the
subject of research by other theories, or even disciplines. This provides a useful
indication of the purpose of the interdisciplinary approach in the human scien-
ces, and the way in which it must be utilized. Round-table meetings of represen-

3 I 8 Economics
tatives of various disciplines often prove fruitless; they constitute no more than
a series of monologues unless each of the experts is so familiar with the disci-
plines of his colleagues that he can translate what he has to say into scientific
language that is accessible to them, and unless all the experts present fully realize
the dual nature - both parameter and variable - of the magnitudes that are
discu~sed.~s
3. The theory of socio-economic development
As stated above, the theory of socio-economic development logically precedes the
theory of growth and the theory of the functioning of the economy, since both
the latter must be studied against a specific socio-economic structure whereas,
by definition, the theory of socio-economic development deals with changes in
such structures.
In these circumstances, is there any point in having a theory of socio-economic
development? If there is, history, or at least socio-economic history, must be
recognized as nomothetic, since it permits the construction of models of a certain
number of social systems that have existed during the history of mankind,
under specific conditions, and endowed with particular features. If not, the only
alternative is economic agnosticism, since economics cannot be completely
isolated from its historical context. As this context lacks regularity, an element
of uncertainty will always enter into any economic theory.66
Among the nomothetical approaches to history, the Marxist theory of socioeconomic
formations has an important place. Its purpose was to make a bridge
between history and economics. For two reasons, it was long ignored by non-
Marxist economists : first, market equilibrium questions became the main preoccupation
of economists (replacing studies of growth and development which
had taken up so much of the attention of the classical economist); and secondly,
the Marxist theory of socio-economic formations was too rigidly and formalistically
interpreted by Marxist economists, being presented by them as a unilinear
scheme of formations, inevitably succeeding one another in a strictly determined
order.
There has been a notable revival of interest in the Marxist theory of formations
in recent years, however, because of the renewed interest in problems of
development since the developing countries won independence, and as a result
of the world-wide competition between two social systems : capitalism and
socialism; moreover, discussion among Marxists themselves has led to a more
flexible interpretation of Marxist thought, freeing it from unilinearism and from
a Europe-centred view of universal hist01-y.~’
The ‘discovery’ of the developing countries has had far-reaching methodological
consequences for economics. The quite different reality in these countries
showed up the inadequacy of economic theories that were supposed to be universally
valid but were in fact based on capitalist industrial economies, and this
led to a growing awareness of the differences between the respective problems of
the advanced and of the developing countries.
This is the background to theories of economic and social dualism and pluralism,
but if these are to go beyond a simple recognition of the existence of ‘tra-

Economics 3 19
ditional’ and ‘modern’ sectors, they must tackle various problems pertaining to
the theory of socio-economic formations ; moreover, much of the theoretical
background to economic development in the developing countries harks back,
sometimes unconsciously, to problems dealt with by classical economics at the
time of the industrial revolution.
The vitality of the Marxist theory of socio-economic formations, and the ur-
gent need for a general theory of development are both made evident by recent
attempts to construct rival theories that are situated somewhere between eco-
nomic history and theoretical economics. Let us start with Rostow’s theory of
the stages of economic growth.
Apart from the political intentions of the author, two serious simplifications,
as compared with the theory of Marx, may be objected to. First, it reduces
development almost entirely to quantitative changes in the forces of production,
without paying sufficient attention to the interplay of these forces with the
relations of production as between the base and the superstructure. Secondly,
it implicitly assumes that development is unilinear and hence, that stages of
development can be evaluated by such quantitative indexes as the level of the
national income or the part of it which is devoted to investmentj8 Nevertheless,
like Marxism, Rostow’s theory is nomothetical and materialistic in character.6g
Gershenkron does not seem entirely free, either, from the unilinear approach
to history, although he considers State intervention a very important strategic
variable.
As this is not the place for a detailed discussion of these theories, we shall con-
fine ourselves to the following conclusions:
Q. There is a well-defined need in economics for a general theory of develop-
ment, without which the whole structure of political economy is incomplete.
b. This general theory must be historical in character, i.e. is not feasible unless
the view is accepted that socio-economic history is a nomothetical science.
c. There are two-way links between economics and history. On the one hand,
the adequacy of economic theory must be fully tested in the light of historical
evidence (in this sense - in the apt definition of Dudley Seers - economics is the
study of economies); on the other hand, the historian’s equipment has recently
been enhanced by the achievements of economic theory. It is by asking questions
suggested by economic theory, and applying models similar to those used by
economists, that historians have been enabled to provide a new, and it might be
said, modern interpretation of the past. They put the results of their research in
a form that is more accessible to the economist and allows him, after taking all
the necessary precautions, to embark on a journey in time. With the help of
anthropologists and economic geographers, he can travel in space. This provides
the basis of the modern comparative method, the primary instrument of devel-
opment theory research.
There are also theories which remain at a lower level of generalization than
the general theory of socio-economic development but are closely connected
with it. A vast amount of research is carried out in a historical perspective on
institutions, for example. The approach in the theory of socio-economic devel-
opment is thus slightly different from the approach in the theory of the function-

320 Economics
ing of the economy, where the main emphasis is on synchrony and not on
diachrony, although the line of separation is somewhat vague; the problems of
concern are e.g. the rale of the State or, more generally, the individual phases of
a given socio-economic system (which sometimes differ significantly from one
another). The oligopoly capitalism of the twentieth century obviously differs in
many important aspects from the early capitalism studied by Marx.
C. Mathematization of economics: directions and perspectives
Mathematization70, in a broad sense, obviously represents a promising development
in economics. It corresponds to a general trend in scientific thought and
results from certain features proper to economics and its own history. Economics
always had a bias for quantification and, earlier than the other social
sciences, for theories which it developed in mathematical form, although the
initial assumptions might be unrealistic.71
Three distinct aspects must be considered:
a. Quantification methods proper
b. Use of methods of statistical inference in economics72
c. Mathematization of economic theory proper, by the adoption of certain
categories and/or by the use of quantifications and algorithms adapted or spe-
cially elaborated for the purpose.
Computers allow rapid processing of vast quantities of quantitative date and
offer great possibilities in economics. Variant thinking (see above) can be applied
on a much broader scale, and the laboratory experiment of other disciplines
can to some extent be replaced by simulation. On the other hand, computers
represent a temptation : a hasty and over-extensive use of algorithms, harmful
to theoretical thinking. Computer results are too often accepted as absolutely
accurate, which is certainly not the case when the processed data or even the
concepts employed are dubious or insufficiently elaborated.
This danger obviously does not detract from their great practical value; it is at
most a warning against adopting the illusion that computers can, in themselves,
solve problems in economic theory.
Economics has already a long tradition of using statistical inference methods.
They can be successfully used so long as the economist does not indulge in for-
malism, e.g. identifying statistical trends with laws of development. Econometric
methods can be very widely used in micro-economic and in macro-economic
partial analysis when statistical verification is needed to test the interdependence
of two or more variables. It becomes much more difficult, however, to determine
all the relations that enter into a comprehensive model of the national economy,
although attempts at verification have been made, usually after the model was
constructed.
The mathematization of economic theory takes place primarily through the
assimilation into economics of certain categories, concepts and methods of
reasoning.73 Economics is made more rational and less metaphysical by the in-
troduction of differential, difference and probability calculus, the theory of

Economics 3 2 I
games, the theory of decisions, cybernetics, and so on. It is difficult to overesti-
mate the importance of this change, and of the new habit of making an explicit
statement of the variables and parameters which go to make up a model;74 eco-
nomic thought is thereby rendered more precise and purposeful, even when the
application of mathematics does not yield a direct result in the form of algo-
rithms which can be used in the solution of practical problems. Such results can-
not be expected too quickly. It must be remembered that the difficulties of
measuring and aggregating economic magnitudes have not yet been overcome,
and that mathematicians have so far devoted little attention to the development
of mathematical theories specially designed for the needs of economics. As G.
Morgenstern has pointed out, our economic knowledge is less precise than the
information that was available about physical phenomena in the seventeenth
century, when physics was first mathematized. As a result of the example af-
forded by the natural sciences, however, the mathematization of economics is
being attempted even in areas where this is by no means necessary. This could
lead to a faulty formulation of problems, to the clothing of vague thoughts in
mathematical language, and to the abuse of sophisticated mathematical tools.
Unfortunately, no calculus is available to economics and the other social sciences
which they could use as effectively as differential calculus is used in mechanics.
We are not, of course, starting from scratch. Considerable progress has been
made in recent years in the practical application of optimization procedures.
Linear and dynamic programming is being widely used (usually in connexion
with partial problems) whenever the goal function can be unequivocally deter-
mined.
There has been no shortage of attempts to construct comprehensive models
which would ensure the optimization of a national economy over a period of
several years and hence, to devise the optimum plan. In the earlier discussion
above on growth theory, doubts were expressed about the feasibility of using
comprehensive models for optimization purposes, on the grounds that, under
present circumstances, greater scope seems to be offered, from the point of view
of praxis, by breaking down the general optimum into partial optimums by a
correct choice of techniques, of foreign trade patterns and of the pattern of con-
sump ti or^.^^ The problem of the uniform goal function still represents the main
obstacle to building a comprehensive optimization model. Theoretically, a
discount rate can be used to reduce future consumption to its value in the initial
period; this however begs the question, since no objective criteria are available
to determine what this discount rate should be.
But to suggest that there are no applications for comprehensive models would
be doubly wrong.
First, it is impossible to say what possibilities may be revealed - especially in
countries which go in for comprehensive planning - by a method which has been
elaborated only recently and which is now subject to widescale research.
Secondly, these models are to some extent already in actual use in planning,
supplementing traditional planning methods. With due regard to the need of
guarding against over-optimism, the following possible applications of com-
prehensive models would seem to exist.76

322 Economics
a. They serve to test the sensitivity of the economy to changes in individual
variables and parameters.
6. They provide a means of rapidly illustrating the general consequences that
would result from adopting various alternative assumptions made during the
preliminary discussions about the major options; and several efficient initial
alternatives can be submitted for the policy-maker’s choice.
c. They force the teams of planners to rationalize and to make explicit (sub-
sequently if necessary) all the assumptions and the hypotheses they have incor-
porated by more conventional methods into the plan. This has considerable
educational value, all the more so as, from the practical point of view, we are
more concerned with planning as a continuous process than with successive
plans.
d. They provide a basis for simulation games (whose rble as a substitute for
laboratory experiment was mentioned above).
e. They provide additional equipment for the co-ordination of sectoral plans,
and for the general control of the whole planning process.
This is a spectacular aspect of the mathematization of economics. Its further
development calls for close co-operation between the model-builders and the
planners, and for a prolonged dialogue between economists and mathematicians
that has only just begun but undoubtedly represents a most significant develop-
ment for the future of economics.
III. SOME OF THE MAJOR ISSUES FACING ECONOMICS TODAY
Part I dealt with the internal development of economics or rather, certain trends
in that development. Part II described the ‘workshop’ of economics, i.e. showed
how research methods and techniques developed. Progress in economics will be
bound up with their further development, with the amplification of some cur-
rent theories and the rejection of others, with the use and improvement of exist-
ing methods and techniques and the development of others, new, more efficient
and sophisticated. Progress in the case of political economy (which is devoted
to praxis and has close links with social engineering, a science which has grown
immensely in scope, responsibilities and status in this age characterized by the
unprecedented technological progress that has enabled man to expand his con-
trol over the forces and riches of nature) depends, finally, on the solution of cer-
tain problems implied by praxis in the widest sense.
The section which follows attempts to outline some of the cardinal problems
facing economics today.
A. The factors and conditions of economic growth
Asked to name the main problem in economics today, the economist would
undoubtedly answer: the factors and conditions of economic growth. It might
be pointed out that growth has always been the fundamental issue in economics;

Economics 323
the investigation of the ‘nature and causes of the wealth of nations’ was bound
to develop into an investigation of the nature and causes of the growth of social
wealth. There is much truth in this; in the past, every economist really could
have contended that his ultimate purpose was to determine the conditions of
economic growth. In any case, the study of economic dynamics is now undoubt-
edly a major concern in present-day economics, because of the continued accel-
eration of everything that enters into the productive factors: technological
progress, demographic potential, and so on, and because of socio-political fac-
tors which also influence the approach to the problems of growth. Economic
growth used be analysed after it had taken place; it is becoming so important an
index of the extent to which national (or even supra-national) aims have been
attained that there is now a growing need both to determine the factors of
growth and to formulate a development strategy beforehand.
For obvious reasons, problems of economic growth have a special significance
for the developing countries, particularly if they are post-colonial States. The
backwardness of countries inhabited by a substantial part of the world‘s popu-
lation and the fact that their development depends on the economic, social and
political state of the world at large would alone justify contemporary economics
in concentrating on questionsFof growth. But in advanced and highly advanced
countries, long-term dynamics:are a dominant problem also, as the examples of
the United States and WesternlEurope clearly show. It would be over-simpli-
fying to explain this by factors imposed from outside only (emulation of the
socialist countries, where a high rate of growth has long been a major object of
economic policy) ; internal factors are also extremely important. Joan Robinson
writes (cf. Economic Philosophy): ‘After the war, when the problem of deficient
effective demand seemed to have faded into the background a fresh question
came to the fore - long-run development’. But she believes this to have been,
partially, at least, the logical outcome of the development of theory: ‘The change
arose partly from the internal evolution of economics as an academic subject.
The solution of one problem opens up the next: once Keynes’ short-period
theory has been established, in which investment plays the key rale, it is evident-
ly necessary to discuss the consequences of the accumulation of capital that in-
vestment brings about.’
There is much to be said for this view, but the point at issue is not only that
the solution of one problem opens up the next: perhaps even more important,
the solution of one problem is not feasible, especially in the long run, without
the solution of the one which follows. For Western economics, the Keynesian
revolution meant the final subordination of the micro-economic and static to a
macro-economic approach and, although Keynes’ theory was in fact conceived
in relation to short-term processes, it laid the foundations for a dynamic ap-
proach. It shattered belief in the automatism of economic processes, and ad-
vocated their control. Its dynamic aspects were limited, at least initially, to
business cycle problems, but this is not the only aspect. Capitalism has to deal
not only with fluctuations, but frequently with long-term under-utilization
of productive factors as well. This means that, to avert (or reduce) both the
fluctuations and the under-utilization, there must be a growth rate that simul-

324 Economics
taneously ensures the full employment of a growing labour force and allows for
technological progress. Once this aspect of the problem has been satisfactorily
dealt with, Joan Robinson’s conclusion becomes fully valid: ‘In this situation,
both static neo-classical analysis of the allocation of given resources between
various uses, and Keynesian short-period analysis of how given resources are
employed, appear quite inadequate. A dynamic long-run analysis of how re-
sources can be increased is now what we require’ (EconomicPhilosophy, p. 94).
However, the question of increasing resources becomes really significant only
if productive capacity is fully utilized already, i.e. when the availability or other-
wise of the factors of production is the determining item, and not fluctuations
in aggregate effective demand. The ability to create effective demand on a scale
that ensures the full utilization of productive capacity is usually considered to
be typical of a centrally planned socialist economy; the same assumption cannot
be made without qualification in respect of a capitalist economy. Hence, it is
quite natural to consider growth under socialism as synonymous with augment-
ing the available productive resources but, speaking objectively, an analogous
approach to growth under capitalism may have laudatory overtones.
To say that questions of growth are not an obsession of the backward coun-
tries but also dominate in the highly advanced Western countries does not imply
that the problem is the same in both. It has been pointed out quite rightly (cf.
Galbraith) that, in contemporary affluent societies, not only the level of needs,
but their structure have special features deriving e.g. from the specific way in
which these needs have developed, and the sources and forms of accumulation;
in other words, although the general problem persists, the conditions and struc-
ture of growth, and hence the limitations, are different from those in the devel-
oping countries.
Problems of long-term dynamics have a growing r61e in economic policy, a
r61e reflected in the new status of growth theory as a separate branch of econ-
omics.77 There is no precedent for this in the economics textbooks published
just before the Second World War, but growth theory today is universally recog-
nized as a separate branch of economics, and given ever-increasing attention in
publications and teaching.
An interesting comparison can be made in this respect between two surveys of
growth theory published at an interval of twelve years : Abramovits’ ‘Economics
of Growth’ (the 1952 Survey of Contemporary Economics), and ‘Theories of
Growth’ published by Hahn and Matthews in the Economic Journal in 1964.
The progress is notable, especially in the presentation of the argument and in
the refinement of methods which now permit the construction of complicated
multi-factor models. But the comparison also reveals the danger, already men-
tioned, inherent in the trend which the theory of growth is following today: the
danger of excessive formalization through taking the production functions, not
only in isolation from socio-economic processes in the widest sense, but also
from what has been designated in economic literature by the much less general
and more technical term of ‘institutional conditions’.
Particularly to be avoided are the frequent cases of direct transposition of the
argument from socialist to capitalist conditions and vice versa or - what finally

Economics 325
amounts to the same thing - analyses made at so high a level of generalization
that they ignore the crucial differences between the two socio-economic systems.
How is economics reacting to the growing demand for a dynamic approach?
Reviewing development trends - with special reference to the theory of growth -
it would appear that, over the past two decades, economics has moved away
from the classical economists, from Marx, Schumpeter and all the others whose
work justified including economics among the basic social sciences. The pre-
dominance of the praxiological approach described above (the investigation of
the functional inter-dependence of various factors involved in the material
processes of production without regard to historically-changing social condi-
tions) is not confined to Western economics. It also exists in the socialist coun-
tries, despite the official Marxist methodology. Since the removal of basic in-
stitutional constraints to growth that exist under capitalism, many economists
in the socialist countries have devoted themselves almost exclusively to problems
which, in Marxian terminology, could be defined as referring to ‘relations be-
tween things’ or to ‘relations between man and things’, while leaving aside the
‘relations between people’ in economic processes.
To remedy this shortcoming in socialist economics, it is necessary to go be-
yond general statements of the differences in growth processes as between capi-
talist and socialist economies, and to make a proper analysis of factors which
are too often taken for granted, e.g. changes in social relations under socialism,
and the r61e and way of operation of the political superstructure. These and
other factors do not, and cannot, remain stable, and the changes which take
place may have a profound influence on the behaviour of people engaged in the
economic process and consequently, on the pace and structure of growth. In this
respect, the theory of growth under socialism as presented in Marxist literature
in socialist countries is still far from adequate. For example, the links between
growth theory and the theory of the functioning of the economy (some econo-
mists speak about the behaviouristic aspect of economics) are recognized to be
unsatisfactory; similarly as between the theory of growth and the general theory
of socio-economic development.
Mention must here be made of ‘growth-fetishism’ (or ‘growthmanship’, as
Colin Clark caIls it). An exaggerated importance is sometimes attached to in-
dices of growth, treated as the decisive criteria of the efficiency of an economic
system or policy, without paying due attention to such questions as the ultimate
impact of growth on living standards and the way of life of the population,
social equity, external diseconomies, and so on, although a simple positive cor-
relation cannot always be expected between economic growth as measured by
an increase in output per capita over time, and favourable social change. A
more cautious view of indices of growth would seem particularly necessary in
the case of the developing countries, but would be by no means superfluous in
the case of the advanced countries either. Little, unfortunately, has so far been
done to disarm the charge that the theory of growth treats growth as an end in
itself, and not merely as a foundation for development and progress seen in a
much broader and inore comprehensive sense.
So far, this paper has been largely confined to what appear to be the existing

326 Economics
dominant trends in economics. To forecast future trends in a science, however,
it is not possible to restrict oneself only to the prevailing trends; these must be
seen in conjunction with the various requirements and postulates which eco-
nomic problems imply. Approaching from this angle the consequences of the
dominant influence of dynamic issues in economics, a greater emphasis must be
put on the r61e of economics as a social science in trying to appraise its future
development; an attempt is made to do so in the pages which follow.
B. Macro-dynamics and social criteria
Economic growth problems are macro-economic and dynamic; hence, the domination
of growth problems in economics necessarily leads to a considerable
widening of its scope.
It is in the nature of things that, under modern conditions, the approach to
economic growth should be macro-economic; it is the national economy as a
whole that is here involved, or even (e.g. supra-national integration) a still bigger
entity. In studying growth, economists must therefore employ macro-economic
(global) categories, and this is by no means the same as the sum total of the
processes involved in the different sectors of a national economy. Macro-scale
is more than just an amplified micro-~cale.~~ In shifting from single economic
units to the national economy as a whole, certain basic economic relationships
are completely inverted, as the Keynesian analysis has clearly demonstrated in
the case of a capitalist economy. In the individual enterprise, investment decisions
are determined by the amount of profits; in a national economy, the size of
investment determines the volume of total profits. By reducing wages while
maintaining prices, an enterprise may even succeed in making savings that allow
it to invest and expand; at the level of a national economy, the same procedure
would as a rule, aggravate depression by reducing aggregate effective demand.
One vital consequence of macro-economic reasoning is its demonstration of
the need to include in the economic calculus what Marshall introduced into
economics under the term external economies and diseconomies. Strictly speaking,
the distinction between ‘external’ and ‘internal’ economies has no relevance
in the context of a whole national economy (although it is relevant in an international
context). At the level of aggregation of a national economy, macro-economic
calculus must refer to categories of cause and effect on a national scale.
As a result, various questions previously considered to be non-economic move
into the purview of economics and demand their own new specialized disciplines
(e.g. the economics of education and, by analogy, the economics of research and
development). The total amounts spent on education, health services, rest and
eisure facilities, and so on, cannot be individually related to the total productive
capacity of a national economy.
The adoption of a dynamic, long-term approach has similar consequences.
In the static equilibrium theory, such factors as the volume of capital, the level
of technical knowledge and the extent to which it is widespread, the distribution
of income, the number and structure of the population, consumers’ preferences,

Economics 327
and so on, are assumed to lie outside the scope of economic theory which, in this
optic, is limited to very special relationships (mainly concerning patterns of
relative prices and relative amounts of products). The analytic apparatus of
static economic theory has reached a fairly high level of refinement (Walras).
This has been of considerable benefit to contemporary economics, but the sub-
ject-matter has remained limited to the factors which condition the equilibrium
of the system. Given a huge amount of ‘data’, and a number of simplifying as-
sumptions summarized in the notion of perfect competition, the investigator
could express the optimum in very simple terms: an equilibrium between de-
mand and supply within a pattern of relative prices that corresponds to marginal
costs, and a remuneration of the factors of production which corresponds to
their marginal productivity. The narrow framework of static analysis is apparent-
ly to be taken as exhausting the subject-matter of economics, although some
finishing touches may be added to the details of this perfectly logical construc-
tion. The ‘economic laws’ of static analysis are thus stated in unequivocal terms
and considered to be of general validity, irrespective of system or period. Fore-
most among these laws is the law of diminishing returns (or increasing marginal
substitution ratio, or marginal transformation ratio).79
The major inference from static analysis refers to something which is apparent-
ly considered as being beyond the scope of investigation: the institutional con-
ditions of the optimal allocation of resources. The logic of static analysis leads
inevitably to the conclusion that the conditions for optimal allocation can be
provided only by the free play of the classical market mechanisms, both in na-
tional economies and internationally (the principle of comparative advantage
providing a solid foundation for the international division of labour).
Despite its ostensible neutrality and its seclusion in the ivory tower of ‘pure’
and impartial theory, static analysis, as a general economic construction, has
always served important ideological purposes. This explains why it has persisted
so long despite the gulf that separates its assumptions fromreality andintervenes
between its methods and their verification.
There is no need to restate here all the convincing arguments that have been
advanced against the static theory of equilibrium and its corollaries. It may be
repeated, however, that to expose the essential weakness of the whole construc-
tion does not imply that it has made no contribution to economic theory. It has
certainly provided certain analytical tools. Its proper rejection as a general
theory should not induce us to abandon e.g. the concept of marginal magnitudes
or prevent us from assuming an increasing marginal substitution ratio when
taking decisions regarding the choice of technology at a given level of technical
knowledge and, even less, to reject the mathematical treatment of the inter-rela-
tions between all the magnitudes involved in an economic system, including the
co-efficients of inter-dependence (thus, Walras’ theory of general equilibrium is
one of the sources of Leontief’s widely used input-output method). Statics is one
of the moments of dynamics; although it is only a subordinate moment, it would
be unwise to ignore it.
Static equilibrium theory was briefly described above in order to emphasize
the tremendous broadening that has taken place in the subject-matter of eco-

328 Economics
nomics with the passage from the static to the dynamic (and particularly long-
term dynamic) approach. None of the ‘data’ of the static theory of equilibrium
retain their character in a long-term, dynamic analysis: they all change into ‘var-
iables’ and must be treated accordingly, The population changes, both in terms
of rate of increase and structure. The level and structure of income change. The
level of technical knowledge changes, and technological progress cheats the as-
sumption of diminishing returns. There is no way of determining once and for
all the long-term trend of the relation between outlays and effects. All these
changes affect incomes and the pattern of production, and necessarily affect
consumer preferences. The assumption of the absolute sovereignty of the con-
sumer whose preferences independently decide how adaptation shall take place
in production can no longer be upheld. Being a dependent variable, consumer
preferences must be investigated, forecast and suitably influenced - as must like-
wise the institutional organization, the capacity to innovate, the degree of social
mobility that exists, and so on.
Economics has thus come to face quite new problems:
I. The identification and classification of the factors which directly or indirectly
determine the growth of output, and effect changes in its structure;
2. The identification and quantification of the functional relationships that
exist between the variation of different growth factors, and the corresponding
variations in the volume and structure of output;
3. The investigation of the sources and trends of change in the factors of growth
or, at least, the adoption and verification of pertinent findings from other
disciplines.
Quite evidently, these and similar issues make much greater demands on eco-
nomics than the static equilibrium theory, and even the short-period dynamic
analysis that has been widely used since Keynes. This is not because the static
equilibrium theory and business cycle theory both employ simplified assump-
tions - in any theory, including the theory of growth, all the assumptions do not
necessarily have to be made tangible; it is because of the nature of the relation-
ships between the variables, and the number and diversity of the factors that are
involved in the process under investigation.
Under the static equilibrium theory, the investigator could assume that all
economic actions had the uniform motive of maximizing private gain (expressed
in monetary terms), and that the demand-supply equilibrium was a uniform,
objective condition. He could then analyse the mechanism necessary to establish
this equilibrium, and deduct the logical relationships between the economic
magnitudes, promoting these relationships to the status of laws. But in analysing
the conditions under which the existing factors of production could be fully
employed, the economist already had to resort to a less monolithic construction,
and introduce a variety of elements, including some not entirely verified elements
from other human sciences, e.g. the psychological categories of propensity to
consume, propensity to save, liquidity preference, and so on. In the course of
this process, reality proved far removed from the enticing and fallacious un-
equivocality of his conclusions. This is particularly true of one crucial point: the
factors which determine the volume of investment.

Economics 329
Against this background, the ‘new economics’ was forced to relinquish the
idea of a self-operating mechanism of adaptation, and introduce a new factor
into economic reasoning- the State. In maintaining that his theory applied only in
conditions of unemployment and that, under full employment, the neo-classical
approach (which regarded the automatism of the market process as sacred) would
again become valid, Keynes was less propounding a scientifically-based concept
than demonstratinghis attachment to tradition andthe ideologyassociated with it.
In considering questions of long-term economic dynamics, economics must
have resort to the other human sciences and - especially when production tech-
nology trends in the widest sense are concerned - to the natural and technical
sciences - as can be seen even in growth theory studies on the second group of
problems mentioned above (the identification and quantification of the func-
tional relationships that exist between the variations of different growth factors,
and the corresponding variations in the volume and structure of output). This is
the realm of mathematical growth models, whose validity is too often rated
according to the degree of formalization and the complexity of the mathematical
apparatus. Even the most (mathematically) complex models, however, fail to
yield categorical conclusions on any substantive question, providing instead,
findings of the type: ‘Assuming a given character of the relationships between the
variables, and a given behaviour of the independent variables, the dynamic
process wil take such and such a course’.
For the sake of methodology, progress is obviously very important here.
Methods for treating increasingly complex relationships are particularly needed,
e.g. models for the different production sectors, instead of models confined as
hitherto to aggregate national income only. However, the main problem lies
elsewhere.
It is contained in the first and third of the problems listed above (I) the iden-
tification and classification of the factors which directly or indirectly determine
the growth of output and effect changes in its structure; (3) the investigation of
the sources and trends of change in the factors of growth), and hence, in the anal-
ysis of circumstances which are not amenable to treatment in an econometric
model, and cannot be reduced to a single set of assumptions. Contemporary
economics must therefore strive to process data which reflect changes in large
social structures, taken in their entirety; hence it must seek to join forces with
other disciplines, and especially the social sciences, to an extent that has not taken
place except in sporadic instances during the past few decades. For this purpose,
economics does not have to merge with sociology, psychology, anthropology,
the theory of law, politics, and so on; nor does it have to become a passive con-
sumer vis-&-vis the technical sciences, or passively accept certain applications of
the natural sciences (incidentally, economic considerations have undoubtedly
influenced the research interests of scientists in various domains, though never
sufficiently). What economists must do is to extend their interest to include
findings of other sciences which are relevant to them, devote more attention than
they have done hitherto to problems that lie between the traditionally delimited
frontiers of other disciplines, and invite specialists from other disciplines to co-
operate with them in solving complex problems.

330 Economics
Let us revert to the relationship between economics and history. Especially
when viewed in the wider context of secular growth (i.e. long-term changes in
social structures and institutional factors), problems of dynamics provide a
common background for at least some generalizations on economics and his-
tory. It is significant that the more ambitious attempts at outlining regularities
in economic development have recently come from economic historians. De-
spite fundamental methodological shortcomings, W.W. Rostow’s book Stages
of Economic Growth has attracted so much attention precisely because it meets
the need for a synthesis of which economists are so acutely aware. Theoretical
generalizations regarding the process of economic development have been at-
tempted in the United States by A. Gerschenkorn; the revealing studies of the
Polish economic historian W. Kula have been mentioned in Part I.
Abramovits’ study, mentioned above, makes the important observation that
‘long-term growth presumably consitutes a process of cumulative rather than
repetitive change, to a greater degree than other economic phenomena’. The
study of economic growth, he continues, ‘therefore stands closer to history than
do other economic subjects. Not only will study of the past, even the distant past,
furnish us with the bulk of necessary data, but it seems unlikely that, for the
foreseeable future, the economics of growth can be much more than economic
history rationalized here and there to a limited degree as uniformities in the
economic processes are established. The sweeping visions of Marx, Sombart,
Weber and others will, no doubt, colour and direct our thoughts and work, but
the generalizations we trust will be less profound and of narrower application’.
The pessimism of the second part of this quotation appears to be justified only
if it is assumed that history in the wider sense is an idiographic science, without
any nomothetic ambitions. The close association of the study of economic growth
with history as thus defined does indeed amount to a renunciation of all attempts
to establish the laws of social (and hence economic) development, and to rele-
gating the study of secular (long-term) growth to the status of a discipline chiefly
concerned with the systematic description of past processes and the formula-
tion of timid statements as to the applicability (above all by analogy) of past
experience to contemporary and future situations.
As already pointed out, the economic laws of the theory of static equilibrium
have been invalidated so far as long-term dynamic processes are concerned.
Dynamic economics must therefore either give up searching for economic laws,
or seek them in the actual process of economic development. The present authors
believe that the second is a real alternative, and that both repetitive and cumu-
lative processes are characterized by certain regularities; this does not obviate
the need to keep their specific character in mind in studying specific develop-
ment processes. To use Kalecki’s terminology, it could be said that economic
laws should be sought not only within the econometric model but perhaps even
more so in the reciprocal relations between the mechanism of economic devel-
opment as described in the model, and the broad changes which take place in
the factors of development outside the model (cf. Kalecki’s article ‘Economet-
ric Model and Historical Materialism’).
Marxist historical materialism is based on the recognition of the development

Economics 33 I
regularities which result from this kind of inter-dependence. It defines these reg-
ularities in such a way as to relate changes in the production function to the
evolution both of productive forces and the relations of production, as well as to
the political and ideological superstructure, which is in turn affected by econom-
ic development. Whether or not we approve this particular approach, partly
or fully, the investigation of the factors which determine the production func-
tion as contained in the econometric model (and constitute the components of
historical development) would seem to be the crucial theoretical problem in con-
temporary economics; it is rendered all the more important by the fact that
growth theory has so far over-concentrated on perfecting formal instruments
for studying the relations between various factors of growth and the volume of
production while, as a rule, arbitrarily defining the character of the function
itself and neglecting the study of constants which underly secular variations in
the factors.
C. Problems of distributioiz
A significant shift of emphasis has occurred in the theory of distribution under
the influence of growth problems which are not necessarily entirely new - per-
haps merely well-known issues stated in a different form.
In classical economics, questions of distribution loomed large precisely be-
cause the conditions and factors of economic growth were treated as crucial
issues by men like Smith and Ricardo, who regarded the theory of distribution
as a broadly-conceived social theory which dealt extensively with the conditions
under which the different classes participated in the national income. This view
of the theory of distribution enabled them to explore the sources of accumula-
tion, and hence to forecast future developments.
It is hardly necessary here to stress the importance of the r6le accorded to the
theory of distribution in past and present Marxist thinking, or its close associa-
tion with the theory of economic development.
The classical attitude to distribution problems has never vanished entirely,
although long supplanted by a tendency to eliminate the social aspect of the
problem almost entirely (except of course in Marxist thinking). This technical
and formalized treatment results quite evidently from the dominant r61e ac-
corded to static analysis. Under the theory of static equilibrium, the idea of the
various social classes participating in the national income was replaced by the
idea of the factors of production being remunerated according to their marginal
productivity. As elsewhere, price relations provided the criteria of optimization,
the factors of production being remunerated in accordance with their marginal
productivity. This was based on the assumption that self-operating market
mechanisms were capable of cancelling out all departures from the position of
equilibrium. Not only did this strike out the criteria of social equity as a separate
issue (since the closer market mechanisms get to satisfying the principles of
perfect competition, the better do they satisfy the criteria of optimization by
adjusting the remuneration of the factors to their productivity), but it likewise

332 Economics
eliminated the criteria of rationally distributing income from the point of view
of the effect of this distribution on global output.
Drawing to some extent, via Marshall, on classical economics, the old welfare
economics of Pigou strove to restore their autonomy to distribution problems by
relating the global effect (degree to which aims are achieved) to the system of
distribution: the redistribution of income in favour of the poor increases the
sum total of satisfaction because of the higher marginal income utility among
those with lower incomes than among those with higher incomes. But the au-
tonomy of distribution in the definition of welfare disappears in Pareto’s
celebrated formulation of the concept of optimum which, by refusing to recog-
nize the validity of comparisons of relative economic utility as between persons,
removes distribution from economics to ethics in so far as welfare is concerned.
The optimum is attained when the allocation of resources is in accordance with
the equilibrium state of perfect competition, it being assumed that the structure
of income distribution is given from outside. Thus, there can be a plurality of
optimal situations, corresponding to the plurality of income distribution struc-
tures. According to this view, economics provides no means of comparing these
structures, or of rating them hierarchically. Whether this view is correct or not
is still an essential question in economics. Furthermore, the development of
different forms of economic planning that involve stating aims for economic
policy on a macro-economic scale renders the question of whether the structure
of distribution be an independent factor of general welfare or not even more
urgent, especially as it is scarcely possible to exclude incompatibilities of aims as
between e.g. the volume of planned income and the planned distribution struc-
ture (cf. 0. Lange’s book Optymalne decyzje (Optimal Decisions), Ch. VI:
‘Planning in Conditions of Plurality of Goals’; cf. also J. Tinbergen’s article
‘The Significance of Welfare Economics for Socialism’). Little progress has been
made towards solving this problem; nothing more definite was contributed by
the formulation of Bergson’s social welfare function, intended as one of the
distinctive features of what is known as new welfare economics.
The position of distribution theory in the early post-war years was thus des-
cribed by Bernard Haley (‘Value and Distribution’ in: A Survey of Contemporary
Economics, Vol. I): ‘Distribution theory continued to be limited in the main to
analysis of the determinants of theper unit rate of remuneration of the factors of
production. Although such analysis should contribute to an understanding of
the determinants of the corresponding functional shares of the national income,
little progress is to be reported with respect to this higher stage of distribution
analysis. The impact of the work of Keynes and his followers, however, may in
time have the effect of directing more attention to this latter problem.’ Haley is
right; as the work of Keynes became known, dynamic, macro-economic prob-
lems were brought into focus, and distribution theory, in the broad sense,
regained significance.
Once the dynamic approach is accepted, there is no doubt whatsoever that the
distribution of income has a preponderant influence on the general accumulation
potential and on the way the accumulation is allocated, and hence, on the rate
of growth. It is equally obvious that the macro-economic structure of income

Economics 333
distribution is largely determined by the political and institutional organization.
Here, accordingly, the main purpose of economics must be to trace the influence
of socio-political conditions and institutional factors on the choice of a form of
income distribution that facilitates the full utilization of existing production
capacities and their further expansion.
This is a particularly important matter for the developing countries where the
skewed social distribution of income inherited from outdated socio-political
systems constitutes a major obstacle to accelerated development.
The influence of the socio-political system and institutional factors on the
choice of a distribution system that wil ensure optimal development opportunities
is also reflected in the discussions on economic surplus, that is, the difference
between the volume of national output and the costs necessary to achieve it. Not
only economists but anthropologists regard the notion of economic surplus as
pivotal to a proper understanding of the mechanisms of growth. Some time ago,
P. A. Baran, an American Marxist, wrote as follows of the concepts of actual
and potential economic surplus (Political Economy of Growth): ‘actual economic
surplus, i.e. the difference between society’s actual current output and its actual
current consumption.. . ; potential economic surplus, i.e. the difference between
the output that could be produced in a given natural and technological environment
with the help of employable productive resources and what might be
regarded as essential consumption’. This kind of reasoning is subject to criticism
on many counts (which is probably why Baran omitted the distinction between
actual and potential surplus in his later book Monopoly Capital, written jointly
with P. A. Sweezy), and clearly goes beyond distribution in the strict sense. The
mere fact that the question is raised, however, is of great importance as, once
again, it demonstrated the need of including non-economic issues in economic
analysis. With this in mind, it seems absolutely essential to continue to investigate
the capitalist economy on the lines followed by Kalecki in his Theory of
Economic Dynamics, i.e. to continue the study of the inter-relations between the
economic power and the political power of certain institutions (Kalecki concerned
himself with the impact of the degrees of monopoly power on the relative
share of wages in income); the relative shares of the different classes and social
groups in the national income; and the distribution of the national income as
between accumulation and consumption. This approach to distribution theory,
replacing the ‘objective’ criterion of marginal productivity by the idea of the
power structure, could be extremely useful in analysing the specific but crucial
problems of the distribution of income on an international scale, especially as
regards relations between the developing countries and the major industrial
powers. What has been referred to as the ‘non-equivalent’ conditions of trade
(and this is closely associated with the degree of monopolization) undoubtedly
becomes an essential element in analysing international economic relations.
Work on long-term dynamics has shed new light on the age-old questions of
egalitarianism and income differentiation, hitherto treated almost exclusively in
the context of social philosophy and political doctrines. Unequal distribution of
income influences the intensity of accumulation and the application of innovation
(understood in the widest sense). There was a time when economists be-

334 Economics
lieved that accumulation could be stimulated only by having wide differences of
income, because the propensity to save was considered to grow proportionately
with income. This is no longer taken as obvious, however, for at least two
reasons :
I. It is by no means the volume of savings in monetary terms that determines
accumulation in the highly-developed capitalist countries ; on the contrary,
the fist problem usually is to provide the stimuli to real investment (especially
investment in fixed capital) ,after; which the financial counterpart:can easily
be found;
2. The growing r61e of the public sector causes personal income to lose its
importance to at least some degree as a source of accumulation - in the social-
ist countries, personal income has almost entirely ceased to be a source of accu-
mulation.
Mention must be made here of a question long overlooked: investment in
human resources. The unequal distribution of income is a major reason why
prospects for the young are unequal, and hence for the waste of talent that oc-
curs unless material conditions for its development have been otherwise provid-
ed. In post-war literature in England, in which there was a strong political un-
dercurrent (cf. Strachey, Crossland), this is often used as an argument in favour
of narrowing down the income gap and expanding the r6le of the public sector
in education, science, health services, and so on. The socialist countries face the
same problem, though on a different level. In view of what is needed to imple-
ment economic and social policies, economics has hitherto had far too little to
say in such questions as the differentiation of personal income, and the r61e and
possibilities of services provided from public funds, and hence associated with
redistribution. Here, too, there seems to be a distinct need for a much closer co-
operation between economics and sociology, psychology, organizational tech-
niques and - in view of the r6le of the public sector in income redistribution -
political sciences.
The ties between income distribution and readiness to innovate call for re-
consideration, primarily because of the increasing separation of functions as be-
tween the manager and the owner of the means of production. The r61e of in-
centives created by differences of income must thus be considered against the
entire range of economic motivations. The inadequacy, under present conditions,
of the traditional narrow definition - the maximization of private gain - has al-
ready been pointed out, but it nevertheless continues to serve as the foundation
of many economic theories. Its existence need not be denied; it is only necessary
to evaluate it properly and rank it among other incentives of varying importance.
The study of economic motivation, however, is only beginning. Some of the
new considerations introduced rate as little more than slogans or ornament
(e.g. the ‘socially-minded corporation’; cf. the extensive American discussion
on this, and particularly The Corporation in Modern Society, edited by E. Mason).
Economies which have a large public sector and, above all, the socialist countries,
need to go beyond such generalities, and aim at a high degree of precision.

D. Problems of economic planning
Economics 335
Reference has repeatedly been made above to the link between the study of
dynamic problems which is now gaining ground in economics and the recognition
of the need to intervene in economic processes and, in this way, end the
age-old cult of spontaneity in an all-important sector of social life. Tinbergen
believes (cf. Central Planning, Yale University Press, 1964) that laissez-faire
ideas are entirely outmoded: ‘The formulation of aims of policy became more
necessary after the belief in laissez-faire was given up. Before that time there was
no need for planning since it was believed that free economic forces would lead
to the best development conceivable. When this belief died it became necessary
to formulate norms for optimum development.’ Myrdal (International Economics)
is even more categorical and defines laissez-faire as an exceptional and
short-lived phenomenon in the history of capitalism (‘laissez-faire interlude’).
Other Western economists do not regard the end of laissez-faire as quite so certain,
although (sometimes not without regret, as in the case of the Chicago
school) they recognize its decline.
The authors of the Economic Survey of Europe in 1962, Part 2 - Economic
Planning in Europe (Geneva, United Nations, 1965) mentioned the following
four factors as contributing to the gradual acceptance of planning by the ‘market
economies’ of Western Europe (in the East European countries, planning is
regarded as a direct outcome of revolutionary changes in their socio-political
systems) :
I. The gradual adoption of a global view of the economy was given a new impetus
in the market economies by the great depression and by the second
world war and its consequences.. .
2. The gradual recognition of the need for a more active rde of the government..
.
3. The growing preoccupation with long-term objectives.. . Even when balance
of-payments equilibrium or full employment or monetary stability are the
primary objectives, their purposeful pursuit requires an extension of the
time-horizon.. .
4. The trend towards widening participation in the shaping of medium and
long-term economic policies.
These findings largely endorse our own conclusions. Obviously, the impact of
the practical achievements of the planned economies must have been quite im-
portant.
The proliferation of planning ideas has significantly increased the gamut of
forms of planned intervention in economic processes. Such concepts as ‘eco-
nomic plan’, ‘planning’, and so on, have lost the unequivocal association with
specific political systems, or institutions, or techniques which they had when the
only existing planned economy could be readily contrasted with the rejection,
by the market economies, of the very principle of planning. Aneed thus arose to
define such concepts as plan, planning, planned economy, as distinct from such
concepts as projection, forecast, government intervention, and so on. The divid-
ing line is not easy to trace (which accounts for the constantly repeated attempts

336 Economics
at definition). One thing can be taken for granted: planning involves the active
shaping of the factors and directions of economic growth. It is not planning to
intervene with a view to removing some obstacle that disrupts the operation of
market mechanisms (e.g. anti-trust legislation), or for the sole purpose of im-
proving the co-ordination of market processes. Planning aims at an allocation
of resources different from that which results from the spontaneous operation
of the market, although this does not preclude using market mechanisms, under
appropriate supervision, as an instrument of planning. Planning evidently also
implies taking measures on a national scale - national economic planning. This
does not mean that each plan must embrace the whole of the national economy
- there can be smaller scale plans for a given sector, region, enterprise. However,
national economic planning implies that sector or regional plans should be an
integral part of the national plan, at least to the extent that they are based on the
same comprehensive criteria; otherwise, the economy is not a planned economy,
although individual economic units within it employ highly sophisticated plan-
ning techniques so far as the resources available to them permit.
Without going into a detailed examination of the formal definitions of plan,
planning and planned economy put forward in the literature, it may be noted
that contemporary economics and economic theory have largely failed to cover
the new areas that planning is opening up for them, or will do so in the not too
distant future. It might even be said that planning has not really been incorporat-
ed at all into economic theory, that it remains on the periphery, used in the West
to describe factors which modify the characteristic processes of market eco-
nomies and, in Eastern Europe, as an essentially technical discipline for the def-
inition of planning procedures. It can be expected that it will now be a major
concern to link up economic theory with planning theory and examine the eco-
nomic process as shaped by macroeconomic decisions. Something on these lines
can be discerned in certain studies on the theory of growth in a socialist econ-
omy (Kalecki).
Pending this link-up, various sets of problems await solution. An outline of
some of the crucial problems follows, in lieu of the exhaustive treatment that is
hardly possible here.
a. Minimum scope
Bobrowski uses the terminology ‘minimum scope and field of plan’ in his study
Planowanie gospodarcze. Problemy podstawowe (Economic planning. Fundamental
issues) (Warsaw, 1965). As many objectives have to be included in the plan as
are necessary to ensure (as indicated above) that planning has an active r6le.
Lange (‘Rola planowania w gospodarcze socjalistycmej’ : Pisma ekonomiczne i
spoeczne z930-z960) (‘The R61e of Planning in a Socialist Economy,’ published
in Economic and Social Studies zg30-~960), Warsaw 1961), suggested that ‘The
national economic plan must cover at least two questions. First, the distribution
of the national income as between accumulation and consumption. Second, the
distribution of investment among the different branches of the economy. The
first is decisive for the general rate of growth of the economy, the second for the
direction of development. If these two issues are missing in the plan, there can

Economics 337
be no active control over the development of the national economy’ (p. 141).
The present authors believe that a dynamic, and hence effective plan must, in
addition to these two, cover a third question: economic relations with other
countries.
As opinions regarding minimum scope may, of course, vary, another point
should be mentioned: the importance of the way in which these three items are
included in the plan and subsequently dealt with. This is particularly important
in capitalist countries where the government presumably does not control all
the resources. The ‘distribution of investment among the different branches of
the economy’ (the second item mentioned above) implies that the government
will not only intervene (by e.g. a system of licensing) in order to alter the struc-
ture of private investment, but also take positive action in the form of the actual
investment required in the national interest whenever the private sector lags be-
hind. This matter is of vital importance in the developing countries, where limi-
tations on undesirable investment instigated by the market demand for luxury
goods are an indispensable condition of growth. All these factors considerably
influence implementation (discussed below).
b. Economic calculus in planning
Today, this problem is quite different from what it was a few decades ago, when
the main theoretical discussion was whether, outside a market economy, eco-
nomic calculation was feasible. This controversy has meanwhile almost com-
pletely disappeared from the literature. As programming theory and techniques
develop, it has become clear that the market is only one of many servo-mecha-
nisms - in other words, only one of many ways of dealing with co-ordination
problems (and helping to identify the bottlenecks that limit the effect of plan-
ning decisions), and ensuring optimization under the plan. For the purposes of
elaborating the plan, economic theory has therefore to appraise the relative
utility of the data based on the market or available from other sources; almost
certainly, it wil not regard them as alternatives having equal value. So far, the
indications are that criteria for the dynamic allocation of resources cannot be
derived from specific market magnitudes which, naturally, primarily reflect
specific conditions.
Thus, the directions development should take cannot be decided by data sup-
plied through the operation of market mechanisms, but must be worked out on
the basis of non-market (or ‘direct’) factors. Even when these are technically
very primitive (e.g. do not lend themselves to the elaboration of a comprehensive
network of hypothetical prices), market mechanisms are no substitute-especial-
ly as computers now offer real prospects of employing mathematical methods in
planning. Admittedly, mathematical models are still used only to a very limited
extent in the elaboration of comprehensive economic plans, as an enquiry made
in connexion with the present study shows; they are much more widely used
to help solve partial problems and check the internal consistency of plans. How-
ever, progress is likely in this respect, especially in view of the recent intensifica-
tion of theoretical studies in the countries in which economic planning is most
advanced and experience is most extensive (cf. in particular, the Soviet school of

338 Economics
mathematical economics with which are associated such names as Kantorovich,
Nemchinov and Novozhilov).
It must at the same time be borne in mind that:
1, The widespread application of modern mathematical methods in central
planning depends on the solution, not only of various mathematical and tech-
nical problems, but even more, on a number of theoretical problems in
growth theory and in the theory of the functioning of a planned economy;
2. The purely economic calculations do not in themselves fully decide what goes
into the plan, but merely help in elaborating a set of realistic and effective
variants; the choice among these variants is made in thelight of the economic
objectives which constitute the general policy and the feasibility of attaining
them within the given time-limits.
What has just been stated does not imply that, in drafting the plan, the market
mechanism possibilities should be ignored - especially in view of the progress
likely to be made in the solution of both the theoretical and the technical prob-
lems of mathematical programming. It is a) the thesis of the automatism of the
market and b) the superior rBle of the market, which are rejected; hence the
need for control over market processes, and the limitation of market mecha-
nisms to a sui generis ancillary function, within the limits of the development
aims laid down on the basis of non-market considerations. Within the frame-
work so defined, both market and non-market sources of planning information
can be used, their relative weight varying according to a number of criteria such
as the speed of iterative processes, the amount and cost of the information
required, the efficiency of the corrective mechanisms (particularly during the
transition from the initial to a postulated structure), and so on.
Stressing the need for a combination of direct and market mechanism sources
in planning, Oskar Lange makes two points in his essay ‘The Computer and the
Market’. One is that the capacity of even the most powerful computer is limited,
which makes it either impossible or uneconomic to solve problems that are
extremely complex in terms of either the number of variables or the type of re-
lationships between them. Under these circumstances, not to make use of market
mechanism sources to the extent fixed by the general aims of the plan would
mean excluding various acts of choice from the plan’s purview. This point was
made by Novozhilow (‘Zakonomernosti razvitija sistemy upravlenija sotsialis-
ticeskim hozjajostvom’ in Ekonomika i matematiceskie metody (Economics and
Mathematical Methods), Vo1.1, No. 5, Moscow 1965) who employs the terms
‘direct and indirect (market) forms of centralization of economic decision’. He
writes: ‘The direct centralization of the solution of economic problems of a
particular type consists in making concrete decisions by the central planning
office. The indirect centralization.. . consists in determining such parameters of
the outlay-effect calculus as could serve the local bodies.. . to find the variants
which best suit the general economic plan ... The indirect centralization is in-
dispensable under both socialism and communism ... (for) it has the great ad-
vantage of subordinating all local decisions, including the most detailed ones, to
the plan.’ The correlation between plan and market is currently described on
very much the same lines in the literature of the socialist countries: there is no

Economics 339
longer any doctrinal negation of the r61e of the market, but stress is laid on the
subordinated function of the market as an instrument of the plan, rather than
the other way round.
A second point made by Lange in the essay mentioned above is the distributive
r6le of the market, especially in respect of consumer goods and in the allocation
of manpower. ‘Here the market is an existing social institution, and it would be
useless to employ any other calculation. The computer may serve to work out
forecasts, but the calculations must be later verified by the actual behaviour of
the market.’ The r6le of the market in the distribution of goods and the alloca-
tion of manpower raises a number of interesting problems of theory and, in par-
ticular, the correlation between the hypothetical, accounting prices derived from
the long-term programme and the current prices, which must satisfy the con-
ditions of short-term market equilibrium while playing an essential r6le in the
redistribution of income. But this brings us to the question of implementation.
c. Implementation
Implementation can be considered only partly in isolation fromplan elaboration
because a) a planned economy is possible only if there are effective ways of im-
plementing it, and b) certain forms of elaboration predetermine to a considerable
extent the ways in which the plan wil be implemented. Once the market mecha-
nism is invoked as an iterative procedure during the elaboration of the plan, it
will hardly be possible to eliminate it from the implementation; the basic ques-
tion is whether the manipulation of market parameters (prices, interest rates, the
kind and degrees of taxation, credit terms, customs duties, and so on) provides
a sufficiently effective instrument of indirect control over economic entities to
ensure the fulfilment of the general lines of the plan.
This is precisely the question that confronts countries moving away from pre-
dominantly market economies towards planning. In our opinion, the answer is
negative. If they are to ensure that the plan is implemented, the authorities must
also have direct control over the allocation of resources, negatively (authorizing
investment in certain branches only under license, or the selective licensing of
export and imports), and positively (by being entitled to make productive invest-
ments from public funds).
Some kind of effective price control wil also as a rule prove necessary. Any
capitalist country, regardless of the circumstances, which undertakes to plan
realistically, has to face the problem of having both controlled and uncontrolled
market elements simultaneously, and both direct (administrative) and indirect
(market) methods of intervention, together with informal methods of persuasion
that are less easy to define.
In the socialist countries, planning and implementation do not form a sym-
metrical whole, and this is likely to continue even though, as compared with
planning in a capitalist country, the relative weights of direct and indirect meth-
ods are reversed. For a time, the socialist countries excluded market mecha-
nisms both in elaborating the plan and in its implementation. Apart from the
question of the distribution of consumer goods, and the allocation of man-
power (which was not always consistent, and was especially inconsistent at

340 Economics
certain times), resources (physical and financial) were allocated directly with a
view to attaining objectives that were fixed from above. Central planning on
these lines, with market mechanisms almost completely eliminated, was former-
ly alone considered to constitute a planned economy. As a result of extensive
discussions on the functioning of a socialist economy, and more or less advanced
experiments in using controlled market mechanisms in implementing (and to
some extent in elaborating) plans, this view was later discredited. Accordingly,
the socialist countries are now also investigating the extent to which the market
is compatible with planning and the consequences of its inclusion. However,
they retain a distinct preference for direct methods in elaborating the plan and
the elements which constitute it, especially the long-term trends of development
and hence, the planning of investment and the pattern of growth of production
capacities.
The present theoretical discussions, and the reforms introduced in the socialist
economies should therefore not be taken as a sign that planned economies are
being discarded. The real issue is to retain the advantages of central planning
but at the same time make use of innovation potential that is now dispersed.
A major problem of economics is to decide, at the existing level of economic
development, which of the available planning techniques will best serve to
attain the objectives laid down under the plan.
d. Social and political consequences of the growing r6le of planned control over
economic processes
AS the emphasis shifts in economics from spontaneous to controlled, dynamic
processes, the implications are not confined to economics or planning, since
planning involves questions that go far beyond the traditional subject-matter of
economics, including vital decisions that affect social development in all its as-
pects which must be checked against the community’s social scale of preferences.
This is where the way in which the plan is elaborated and implemented takes
on a particular importance. For example, there can be no doubt that, with the
use of controlled market mechanisms in planning in the socialist countries,
certain conflicts between different elements of economic policy will come more
easily into the open, thus allowing a more accurate compromise, i.e. the one
which approximates most closely to what may be regarded as the social prefer-
ence of the community. Involving a higher degree of autonomy for the various
units and sectors that go to make up a national economy, market mechanisms
should in various ways help to facilitate the people’s direct participation in econ-
omic decision-making, although they are not sufficient in themselves to ensure
it. In any case, it is obvious that certain elements of pluralism in a planned eco-
nomy depend on the way in which the economy is organized.
But is this all? If what has been said above - particularly concerning the
primacy of the central plan in any realistic system of planning - is correct, the
answer must be in the negative. Centrally-made economic decisions that concern
essential development processes are bound to have a strong influence, either in-
directly or directly, on all the constituents of the economic system, present and
future. It will also be recognized that such decisions cannot be fully objective in

Economics 341
the sense of being deduced only from the logic of economic calculation: they
must also include a political content, and relate to a specific scale of values.
This is of tremendous consequence for all the relations between society and the
individual. Without going into these problems, it is perfectly obvious that, as the
r6le of planning increases, the political mechanisms which constitute an essential
element in the analysis of the working of a modern economy must be examined.
This point has not yet been given its due attention either in economic theory
(which tends to take for granted the general criteria adopted for the evaluation
of the aims of economic policy and the means of implementing it) or in political
science - particularly as regards the rBle of the State- which seems to have adopt-
ed the general idea of ‘big government’ (with positive or negative overtones)
without paying sufficient attention to the specific relations between the rapidly
expanding economic rBle of the State and the evolution of political mechanisms.
E. Models and socio-economic systems
In discussing above what seemed to be the vital problems of contemporary economics
and the directions of its future development, it has been suggested that,
at each of its stages, economic analysis must pay due regard to the particular
conditions that go with a particular level of the forces of production and the
associated socio-economic and political system. Obviously, a theoretical analysis
cannot explore each situation in all its details, but must resort to techniques of
typological classification, and to models.
Recent economic literature reveals a better understanding of the significance
of specific conditions in the sense just mentioned, and pays increasing attention
to e.g. the need to differentiate between growth in pre-industrial and industrial
countries respectively. Further progress in this direction may be expected to lead
to a differentiated approach for the advanced, developing and other countries in
an intermediate position between the two.
It is even more important, from the methodological point of view, to adopt a
differentiated approach in dealing with different socio-economic and political
systems, not only because of controversies about the respective merits of capitalism
and socialism but also because of the significance of actually making the
differentiation itself.
The need to make this differentiation is often implicitly denied in contemporary
growth theory when attempts are made to construct universal growth
models irrespective of the socio-economic and political differences. The result is
that many vital relationships are overlooked. In a capitalist economy, for example,
it cannot be assumed that there is an aggregate effective demand for the
growth factors that are available, and a failure to pay due attention to this point
markedly reduces the cognitive value of growth models. This is particularly
true of neo-classical theories which, in discussing the process of economic
growth, take it for granted that there is a perfect competition equilibrium (investment
equals savings) at full employment level, that the demand for labour
and other forces of production is fully balanced with effective supply, and so on.

342 Economics
With minor reservations, this can be applied to the well-known growth theo-
ries of the British economist R.F. Harrod and the American E. D. Domar. Their
models describe, not so much the actual, or expected movement of the factors
of growth over time, as the relationships which must be realized in order to
achieve balanced growth in conditions of full employment of all the factors.
Abramovits points out quite rightly that these are not so much theories of
growth as ‘properly speaking, theories of the requirements of steady growth at
full employment. They make no assertions with respect to the likely develop-
ment of capital formation over time’ (A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol.
11, p. 170). This could be put in another way by saying that these models assume
as the general rule that there is perfect adaptability as between effective demand
and the supply of factors, whereas, in actual fact, this happens only in a real
planned economy, when the planning authority defines the desired growth rate,
together with the volume and structure of effective aggregate demand, duly re-
lated to the supply and structure of the factors of production; in particular, the
planning authority must adjust the total volume of real investment (real capital
formation) to the increase in available labour and to the opportunities offered
by technological progress.
The tendency to overlook, or at least minimize, the need to differentiate in
dealing with different socio-economic systems has been accentuated as capitalist
countries move towards planning and socialist countries make a growing use of
the market mechanism. In its various versions (one of the best known is that of
Tinbergen), the theory of convergence attempts a synthesis of this double move-
men t .
The present authors consider it to follow, from the entire line of their reason-
ing, that (particularly in regard to the theory of growth), it is vital to make a
distinction between capitalism and socialism in any proper analysis of contem-
porary economic problems. Should the convergence theory imply a negation, or
even a diminution, of the methodological validity of this distinction, they would
consider it a hindrance rather than a help in dealing with the problems discussed
here.
Certainly, the convergence theory could be taken differently. It could be taken,
for example, as an attempt at generalization in considering the ways in which
various countries are moving towards socialism. To discuss this, however, would
go beyond the scope of the present study. But the very fact that the question of
convergence has been raised emphasizes the desirability of including the compar-
ative analysis of socio-economic systems as a fully-fledged, integral part of the
main body of economics. The main purpose of such analysis would be to study
the comparative effectiveness of the different ways and means of directing eco-
nomic processes, and the type, quality and consequences of economic decisions
taken under different systems.
But an analysis contrasting capitalism and socialism must not be limited to a
surface examination of the institutional structures each provides for dealing with
the various parts of the economic process - the purely institutional framework
for planning, for example. The inquiry must go deeper. It must go into owner-
ship and the class and group interests ownership entails. Capitalist countries -

Economics 343
to take an example - have for some time now known what economic machinery
must be used, and have developed the necessary institutions, for counteracting
cyclical fluctuations under capitalism; but their use is often hampered by political
considerations as, for instance, when class interests are used to influence
government intervention in economic affairs. Hence the phenomenon of the
so-called ‘political business cycle’, which is due to the domination of certain
class interests rather than to any technical difficulties in maintaining full employment.
And, indeed, there can be no other explanation for a difficulty which,
theoretically, should not exist: the difficulty, for certain capitalist powers, of
replacing expenditure on armaments by other outlays under a policy of preventing
cyclical fluctuations. Again, economic development in the socialist
countries cannot be fully understood - in both its positive and its negative
aspects - without due consideration of such issues as the ownership of the means
of production, the machinery by which control is exercised over the economy,
and the associated pattern of interests, motives and limitations that affect the
process of decision-making. It is only through research on such lines that the
thesis of the convergence of systems can be confirmed, refuted, or appropriately
modified; that the inter-relations between the processes of economic growth and
the current socio-economic system can be determined; and that, thus, the general
trends of development can be established.
CONCLUSION
The present study of the major problems in economics today is not meant to be
exhaustive. It has not touched many of the questions that were the subject of
research by the classical economists: questions arising out of theories of pro-
duction, market and prices, money, foreign trade, and so on. This is not to say
that these are issues of minor importance, or to prejudge their importance in the
future. The aim here has simply been to single out what seemed to be the vital
problems; not so much to look at all the problems that demand solution as to
indicate what the basic approach to them should be; and to show that economic
problems must be treated in dynamic terms, with a growing emphasis on long-
term dynamics. There is no doubt that, if economists are to be fully able to face
future realities, they must treat socio-economic elements, in the broadest sense,
as an integral part of their theoretical research. As the science of macro-eco-
nomic dynamics, economics must again become more of a social science: po-
litical economy in the strict sense of the term.
Those who consider that these new perspectives in economics are incompati-
ble with the mathematization of its analytical tools completely misunderstand
the question. The far greater complexity of the inter-relations between the vari-
ous aspects of the economic process when they are looked at in the context of
socio-economic and political changes increases, rather than diminishes, the
need for instruments that afford the precision necessary to explore their full
intricacy. There is a danger, but it lies, not in the instruments themselves, but
in the temptation to regard them as an end in themselves, i.e. to allow form to

344 Economics
dominate content; it is only in this sense that much of contemporary economic
literature can be accused of excessive formalization. By discarding this forma-
lization and a certain linking for doctrinal approaches that lead to a priori
thinking, economics could attain a much more important position among the
sciences in general, and the human sciences in particular.
NOTES
I. T. KOTARBINSKI, Praxiology: An Introduction to the Science of Eficient Action,
Oxford, Pergamon Press; Warsaw, PWN, 1965, p. 1.
2. We do not mean to say that praxiological-economic problems were alien to Sombart
and Weber, as this was not the case. Not only was Max Weber aquaintedwith
them, but he had many achievements to his credit. After Pareto, he was the first
to take a serious step towards replacing the extremely subjectivist hedonistic
interpretation of the category of utility by a theory of choice. He also made a
profound historico-sociological analysis of the quantification of the means and
goals of economic activity resulting from the development of a commodity-money
economy. Against this background, he presented the capitalistic process of
rationalizing economic activity which found its expression in the increasing use
of the principle of economic rationality. We know, however, that there is a long,
difficult and tortuous path from the historico-sociological analysis of the principle
of economic rationality to its employment in economic practise at a scale broader
than that of an enterprise or corporation.
3. The pioneering work by T. PARSONS and N. S. S~LSER, Economy and Society:
A Study of the Integration of Economics and Social Theory, London, 1956, must be
mentioned here. The authors dedicated the book to A. Marshall and M . Weber
as ‘the great pioneers in the integration of economic and social theory’. It is
significant that Weber’s leading work had the same title, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft.
4. Such conceptions had been almost completely forgotten, so that e.g. Feldman’s
model of economic growth which had been devised in the twenties was a real
sensation, both in Eastern Europe and the West, after it had been exhumed by the
American economist E. D. Domar.
5. The following fragment from a book by Paul SAMUELSON, written during thesecond
World War, gives agoodexplanationof thisname: ‘If onesought for asinglecriterion
that would help to differentiate the contemporary economic theory from its classical
predecessor, one would probably conclude that it should be traced in the introduction
of the so-called subjective theory of value into economic theory. This
revolution in economic thought broke out almost simultaneously on three fronts,
and we associate with it the names of Jevons, Menger and Walras’ (Foundations of
Economic Analysis, p. 92). These three men are considered to be the creators of
three different schools in political economy: theneo-classical headed by A. Marshall,
the Austrian (psychological) and that of Lausanne. These are, however, but different
varieties of the subjectivist trend.
6. The hypothesis of the preferences in a household can be explained by assuming that
the consumer ‘arranges a competition for the commodities and selects those that
win the greatest number of points’, which secures the maximum amount of utility.
Writing on this assumption of subjectivist economists, J. Robinson holds that
they chase phantoms, and argues: ‘Consumers can be observed from outside to
choose what they choose; but each of us knows from his inner experience that a
consumer, even in such a prosaic act as buying a pound of tea, is reacting to a
whole complicated social situation, not to its strictly economic aspects only. We
know that he is influenced by moods ( .). We know (or at least salesmen believe)

Economics 345
that he is influenced by appeals to fear and snobbishness that advertisers cunningly
trail before him. We know that his consumption is a complicated intertwining
pattern of goods and services so that the idea of putting any one pair of items, or
any one item and purchasing power in general, through a competitive examination
is a very misleading metaphor to apply to it. We know that his pattern of consumption
is much influenced by the habits of his forbears . ..’ (J. ROBINSON, The Accumulation
of Capital, London, 1956, p. 389).
7. M. BLAUG, Economic Theory in Retrospect, Homewood (Ill.), 1963, p. 612.
8. L. ROBBINS, The Nature and Significance of Economic Science, 2nd ed., London,
1945, P. 16.
9. L. ROBBINS, op. cit., pp. 16-17.
IO. This is pointed out by a number of authors, e.g. K. ROTHSCHILD, ‘The Old and the
New - Some Recent Trends in the Literature of German Economics’, The American
Economic Review, March 1964.
11. J. ROBINSON wrote in her preface to the Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth
(1962): ‘My chief concern is to lead economics out from the marsh of a static
theory of equilibrium. Once it is put on clear water, the possibility of attractive
wanderings in many directions opens up.’ A similar view is frequently expressed by
many contemporary economists.
12. See J. ROBINSON, ‘Kalecki and Keynes’, in: Problems of Economic Dynamics and
Planning, Warsaw, PWN, 1964.
13. This opinion wil arouse vehement protest from many Western economists. For it
is a common conviction that modern economists are able to remain aloof from
ideologies. To the authors of this study, such a conviction reflects the growing
‘ideal image’ of the specialized economist who may not always be quite aware of
his own ideological assumptions.
14. F. VON HAYEK, Scientism and the Study of Society, Glencoe (Ill.), Free Press, 1952,
Chap. VI.
15. P. A. SAMUELSON closes his considerations of macro-economic analysis by a conclusion
which he calls ‘a grand neo-classical synthesis’. It may be quoted at length, as
it demonstrates how the general methodological approach has been conditioned by
the structural changes of contemporary capitalist economy and by the needs of
economic practice. Samuelson writes : ‘By means of appropriately reinforcing
monetary and fiscal policies, our mixed-enterprise system can avoid the excesses
of boom and slump and can look forward to healthy progressive growth. This
fundamental being understood, the paradoxes that robbed the older classical principles
dealing with small-scale “microeconomics” of much of their relevance and
validity - these paradoxes will now lose their sting. In short, mastery of modern
analysis of income determination genuinely validates the basic classical pricing
principles; and the economist is now justified in saying that the broad cleavage
between microeconomics and macroeconomics has been closed‘ (Economics, 5th
ed., New York-Toronto-London, 1961, p. 403). In the widespread tendency to organic
unification of macro- and micro-economic analyses, which can also be
observed in the cconomic literature of the socialist countries, one can obviously
agree with the view that a ‘great synthesis’ is at stake. But the mere spread of this
phenomenon, which has quite different theoretical and practical roots in the socialist
countries, is not necessarily sufficient justification for calling this synthesis ‘neoclassical’.
16. We shall come back to these in subsequent sections.
17. T. C. KOOPMANS, op. cit., p. 129. Interesting excerpts from a speech delivered by
Harrod as early as 1938 are quoted by Koopmans: ‘Exposed as a bore, themethodologist
cannot take refuge behind a cloak of modesty. On the contrary, he
stands forward ready by his own claim to give advice to all and sundry, to criticize
the work of others which, whether valuable or not, at least attempts to be constructive;
he sets himself up as the final interpreter of the past and dictator of future
efforts’ (ibid., p. 130.).

346 Economics
18. This is one of the features that differentiates this publication from its predecessor,
published by the American Economic Association as A Survey of Contemporary
Economics (Vol. I- 1949,Vol.II- 1952).whichcontahedasurveydevoted tomethodological
problems by Richard Ruggles. It is also interesting to observe that, even
then, the critics blamed the author for having given a description of research techniques
rather than a survey of fundamental methodological problems. Domar
wrote: ‘This paper is concerned not with methodology as a part of the philosophy
of knowledge but rather a description of present day economic research‘; and M.
Friedman added that the ‘essay presents a thoughtful analysis of trees at the almost
inevitable cost of paying little attention to the forest’.
19. The well-known book by SCHUMPETER, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy must
be acknowledged as being the most mature. It influenced J. K. GALBRAITH in his
recent books, including The New Industrial State, London, 1967.
20. T. PARSONS and N. SMELSER, Economy and Society, p. 246. These authors are also
correct in criticizing the psychological premises of Keynes’ theory (known as
‘propensities’).
21. It must be repeated that our remarks refer to the macro-scale. But we stress the
rapid development of research in these countries and the growth of psycho-socioeconomic
literature dealing with various aspects of the enterprise and with consumer
behaviour. The recently-published three-volume collective work L’entreprise
et I’dconomie du XX‘ siPcle (Paris, 1967) seems to be representative of this type of
co-operation between economists, sociologists and psychologists - and of co-operation
between scientists of both socialist and capitalist countries.
22. T. KOOPMANS, ‘Measurement without Theory’, Review of Economics and Statistics,
August 1947.
23. L. ROBBINS, Essays ..., p. 16.
24. L. VON MISES, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, New Haven (Conn.), Yale
Univ. Press, 1949, p. 3.
25. W. KULA, Problerny i methody historii gospodarczej [Problems and Methods of
Economic History], Warsaw, 1963, p. 93.
26. Cf. ibid., p. 94.
27. The article by E. SLUCKI, published in Kiev in 1926 as ‘Ein Beitrag zur formalpraxeologischen
Grundlegung der Oekonomik’, is considered the first study on
praxiology. The first systematic exposition of praxiology is T. Kotarbinski’s book
already quoted, which was published in its Polish edition IO years ago. Recently
the term praxiology has been increasingly used in French literature (for details cf.
L. ARENILLA, ‘L’action et sa connaissance’, Cahiers de I‘lsea, December 1965). In
Poland there is a whole centre of praxiological thought led by T. Kotarbinski. This
centre has been publishing the periodical Materialy prakseologiczne (Praxiological
Notes) since 1962, recently renamed Prakseologia (Praxiology). Twenty odd volumes
already published testify to the activities of the centre. In several special
contributions the mutual relationships between praxiology and the other sciences
of man, especially between praxiology and economics, were defined. This problem
is discussed in the following: Chapters v and VI of Vol. I of of 0. LANGE’S PoliticalEconomy
(the title of Ch. v: ‘The Principle of Economic Rationality. Economics
and Praxiology’) ; 0. LANGE, ‘Znaczenie prakseologii dla ekonomii politycznej’
[The Significance of Praxiology to Political Economy], in: Maferialy prakseologiczne,
no. 20; T. KOTARBINSKI, ‘Praxiology and Economics’, in: On Political
Economy and Econometrics. Essays in Honour of Oskar Lunge, Warsaw, 1964. See
also a popular introduction to praxiology: A, KAUFMANN, The Science of Decision-
Making (trans. by R. Audley), London, 1968 (original French: L’homme d’action et
la science, Paris, 1968).
28. T. KOTARBINSKI, ‘Praxiology and Economics’, loc. cit., pp. 310-311.
29. This argumentation is borrowed from 0. LANGE’S ‘Znaczenie prakseologii dla
ekonomii politycznej’, op. cif., p. 24. A more precise analysis of the same problems
can be found in Chapter 11 of Vol. 11 of 0. LANGE’S Political Economy,

Economics 347
entitled ‘Quantitative Relations in Production’, published in Ekonomista 4, 1964.
30. This view is at present generally criticized. Both anthropologists and economic
historians argue that in different socio-historical contexts the principle of rationality
takes different concrete forms. There is no reason for refusing rationality to the premarket
societies. The case of Weber-Mises, who, starting from the abstract principle
of rationality, denied the possibility of creating a rational socialist economy,
should be sufficient warning to those who rigidly link economic rationality only
with conditions provided by a commodity economy. On the discussion on rationality
in different socio-economic systems cf. M. GODELIER, Rationalite‘ et irrationalite‘ en
Pconomie, Paris, 1966.
31. We shall be mainly concerned here with macro-economics, because of its recent
and rapid expansion and its importance for planning. Moreover many already
elaborated and easily applicable tools of econometric analysis now exist in
micro-economics. On the other hand, the application of mathematical methods to
macro-economics involves a great number of difficulties, still unsolved, which will
probably demand the attention of economists for many years to come.
32. Such a problem does not exist in a pure market economy, where ex defilzitione
there are no macro-economic preferences, but only those of individual economic
agents. It appears, however, in the guided economy, even when comprehensive
planning is not aimed at. In neo-classical economics, the problem manifested itself in
attempts to make a distinction between individual and social profitability, and also
in elaborating the concept of external economies (as already mentioned). As for
‘welfare economics’ and its continuation by so-called ‘new welfare economics’, the
shift of emphasis from micro- to macro-economics is very clear.
33. This notion is borrowed from H. LEIBENSTEIN (Kyklos 19, 1966, Fasc. I), but the
meaning is slightly different here.
34. It is sufficient to mention the controversies on the Cobb-Doulas function.
35. This assumption in practice negates the direct application of the method, as there
is no objective quantitative yardstick for evaluating qualities of labour.
36. See e.g. F. J. DE JONG, Dimensional Analysis for Economists, Amsterdam, 1967.
37. See e.g. papers by J. & J. FOUR AS TI^ and A. KONUS in: The Social Sciences: Problems
and Orientations, Paris-The Hague, Unesco-Mouton, 1968, pp. 57-66 and 93-107.
38. Not to mention the technical difficulty, even in our mass media epoch, of asking too
many questions of too many people: whether the average public opinion has
sufficient imagination to decide on questions likely to affect the standards of
living and patterns of consumption of our grandchildren is open to doubt.
39. Anthropological studies have drawn attention to the existence in many primitive
economies of three categories of goods not subject to mutual exchange. The problem
then is simplified as, in each category, the possibilities of choice are as a rule
limited and are probably determined by comparing the inputs of indispensable
labour time for different products. But even there, a scale of social preferences is
called for to determine the amounts of labour time devoted to the production of
goods of each of the three categories, namely: the ‘necessities’, ‘luxuries’ and
‘ceremonial goods’.
40. The terms ‘theory of growth’ and ‘theory of dynamics’ are sometimes used interchangeably.
The theory of economic dynamics in the case of a capitalist economy
deals not only with the explanation of growth sensu stricto, but also of business
cycles (note the overlapping with the theory of functioning).
41. Which is not tantamount to abstracting them, as many an author of growth
models unfortunately does.
42. Cf. the excellent study by A. RAPOPORT, ‘Mathematical Aspects of General Systems
Analysis’, in: The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit., p.
331 : ‘A mathematical general system theory provides descriptions of these three
aspects of systems, namely, structure, behaviour and evolution, in abstract mathematical
language.’ In the case of economics, ‘evolution’ should be replaced by
‘growth’ and ‘development’.

348 Economics
43. Cf. below our considerations on the theory of growth.
44. It goes without saying that the attitude of socialist authors was in this respect
contrary.
45. There was hardly any mention of models, but like all theories, business cycle
theories were based on models giving a more or less simplified representation of
reality.
46. Another common example of statistical formalism in economics is that of calculating
the trend in a time-series by some statistical method and then promoting it to
the rank of a quantitative development law (also customary in the theories of
business cycles). Only a few theories of the dynamics of a capitalist economy correctly
assume that phenomena of growth and of business fluctuations should be
explained by the same set of variables.
47. Which explains why generals are usually preparing themselves for the last war, and
economists for the last depression.
48. I.e. an economy with a small but dynamic public sector and a private sector englobing
modern (domestic and foreign-owned) and traditional sub-sectors.
49. In economics, laboratory experiments sensu strictu cannot be made. They are
replaced by specially conceived sample surveys of increasing application although
of limited scope, and by the so-called ‘economic experiments’ carried out in socialist
countries. These consist in experimental management of selected enterprises according
to definite rules. A vast field is also being opened by simulating mathematical
models.
50. Cf. the pioneering work of 0. LANGE, Introduction to Economic Cybernetics, published
posthumously in 1965. See also L. SOLARI, ‘ModBles Cconomiques et r8gulations’,
in : The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp. 384-396.
51. This, as a matter of fact, is the basic formula of KALECKI’S theory of growth of a
socialist economy. See his Zarys teorii wzrostu gospokarki socjalistywcnej, Warsaw,
second edition, 1968, and a brief account of this theory in English published
by A. Zauberman in Kyklos 3, 1966.
52. See M. KALECKI, Theory of Economic Dynamics, London, 1954.
53. ‘Disembodied technological progress’ is taken care of by the coefficient U. A quite
different problem is that of non-technological aspects of technical progress from
which, however, economists busy in drafting growth models must abstract. Cf. H.
Janne’s paper in : The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp. 67-92.
54. More investment today means less consumption in the immediate future, but a
higher rate of growth and, therefore, more consumption later.
55. For a more systematic, though very condensed treatment of the subject, cf. D.
MACRAE, ‘Mathematical Models of Economic Growth’, in : The Social Sciences:
Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp. 371-383.
56. The connexion of individual theories with practise (i.e. with economic policy) is
more or less direct. Keynes’ theory is an example of such direct connexion, but
contrary to the theories of growth, it is rather centred on short-run problems.
57. It is, to be exact, the weighted mean of capital intensity of all the projects included
in the plan. The consistency of micro-choices (i.e. of capital intensity of individual
targets) with macro-economic decision may be ensured in a parametrical way, i.e.
through the introduction into the calculus of comparative advantages of investment
variants of a national recoupment period of capital. The greater the availabilities
of manpower, the shorter should be the recoupment period.
58. By efficient techniques, we mean techniques which are best at the given moment,
i.e. using the minimum quantity of labour for a given outlay of capital, or vice
versa, when there is a sufficiently large number of points, with regard to the economy
as a whole, to form a convex curve.
59. Change of time horizon changes the data of the problem.
60. Also because of our familiarity with Kalecki’s theory, as all three of us had the
privilege of participating in his seminars for a number of years.
61. This concept is given different connotations by different authors. Cf. R. NURKSE

Economics 349
and 0. HIRSCHMAN. We follow the approach of K. LASKI, Zarys teorii reprodukcji
gospodarki socjalistycznej [An Outline of the Theory of Reproduction of Socialist
Economy], Warsaw, 1965.
62. The above argument can be mutatis mutandis transplanted into the province of
micro-economics to describe the functions of the economist in the enterprise where
the scope of ‘political’ factors influencing the decisions is, of course, narrowed. A
certain indetermination resulting from incomplete knowledge still remains, however,
and calls for political-like decisions even there. In current language we speak
of a firm’s policies.
63. Or more exactly, the mathematicians tell us that we should find the class of decisions
that are Pareto-optimal with respect to such a many-dimensional objective.
Usually, this still leaves a large area of indeterminacy (Cf. K. SZANIAWSKI, ‘The
Logic of Economic Calculus’, in : The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations,
op. cit., p. 163).
64. One of the important steps in model building consists in determining the permissible
variability of parameters.
65. Cf. the considerations of the American anthropologist E. R. WOLF which, mutatis
mutandis, may also find an application in economics (Anthropology, Englewood
Cliffs (N.J.), 1964, pp. 53-54): ‘The fact is that the concept of culture no longer denotes
a watertight category, clearly separate and separable from similarly watertight
categories, such as the Environment or Man as an Organism. We have moved
on to emphasize interrelationships, and tovisualizechainsof systems withinsystems,
rather than isolated phenomena with impermeable boundaries. Even when particular
investigators single out one aspect of reality for intensive consideration, they are
aware much more than in the past that abstraction, the “taking out of context”,
involves a complementary action, in which the abstracted phenomenon is returned
to its “ground”. We are less willing to assert that culture possesses this or that absolute
attribute, that it is a mechanical sum of culture traits, or that it is like an organism,
more willing to consider that it may be thought ofas a sum of culture traits, or
as an organism, depending on the appropriate context. The statements made about
culture or cultures now include the observer, and the observer has grown sophisticated
in his knowledge that there may be other positions of vantage from which
the object may be viewed, and that he may himself occupy successive points of
vantage in approaching his “object” of study. Any object can thus be seen as
belonging to multiple systems: a human population may be considered as carriers
of culture, related to other cultures in both space and time; or as breeding ground
for micro-organisms that prey on it; or as agents of ecological disequilibrium when
its members fire the forest cover in pursuit of game or prepare the soil for cultivation.
Each aspect, singled out for analysis, may be viewed in its particular systematic
characteristics, in orderliness in which a change in one part reacts to other parts; but
the systems intertwine so that one system represents a component in another that, in
turn, may form the co-ordinate of still a third.’ (The italics are ours.)
66. This seems to be H. LEIBENSTEIN’S attitude (cf. his article already quoted from
Kyklos 19, 1966, Fasc. I) and his interpretation of the influence of environmental
variables. For him, development theories ‘are theories about unfolding segments of
history in an environment that remains constant’ (p. 3), or they find application
where the influence of strategic variables is much stronger than that of environment.
Hence, his less limiting statement: ‘Now what should we expect from a development
theory? Briefly put, we should expect a conceptual framework that would
facilitate the creation of theories or models that contain manipulable variables
whose dosages can be raised sufficiently to swamp the environmental effects, to
obtain sufficiently accurate directional predictions for a limited period of time’ (op.
cit., p. 18). Still, Leibenstein seems to deny the possibility of controlling environment
and the ‘matrix of general history’ in which economic phenomena are embedded.
67. Cf. the discussions which have been going on for many years about different ways

350 Economics
of transition to socialism and about the so-called oriental mode of production. On
this latter point, see E. HOBSBAWM’S introduction to the English edition of Marx’s
manuscript Pre-Capitalist Forms ofProduction, London, 1964, andvarious articles in
La Penske.
68. Actually, Rostow is close to all the authors who, indulging in statistical formalism,
attempt to derive quantitative laws of development via regression equations - from
individual variables in per capita level of income.
69. Rostow’s book has also met with many criticisms on historical grounds. One of
many is the article by H. BAUDET and J. H. VAN STUYVENBERG in Weltwirtschaft-
Iiches Archiv 15 (I), 1963, pp. 57-58.
70. It becomes more and more difficult to separate mathematics from logic. Mathematization
is used here to include the application in economics of up-to-date, formalized
apparatus of logic, of the theory of decisions, etc.
71. A considerable part of the so-called mathematical economics was devoted to
deducing consequences from the unrealistic assumptions of perfect competition
and of automatic convergent adaptative market processes. Welfare economics
builds a whole prescriptive system on the assumption of the existence of individual
utility functions, subject to maximization. Besides the fact that it is impossible to
make such utility functions operational, Mrs. Joan Robinson was right when she
attacked ‘the idle wheels of the pure theory of welfare’, drawing attention to its
ideological bias: ‘Setting the whole thing out in algebra is a great help. The symmetrical
relations between x and y seem smooth and amiable, entirely free from
the associations of acrimony which are apt to be suggested by the relations between
‘capital’ and ‘labour’, and the apparent rationality of the system of distribution of
the product between the factors of production conceals the arbitrary nature of
distribution of the factors between the chaps’ (Economic Philosophy).
72. Econometrics deals with items (a) and (b), without exhausting them. Cf. Lange:
‘Econometrics is the science which deals, by statistical methods, with the determination
of concrete, quantitative regularities occurring in economic life’. With
the development of planning, planimetrics tends to become a separate branch of
econometrics.
73. A good recent example of an application to economics of a method worked out
by physicists and engineers for their own practical use is the ‘dimensional analysis’
already referred to.
74. We agree with Pierre Auger that ‘il n’y a pas de savant qui ne pense continuellement
par modkles - m6me s’il ne I’avoue ni aux autres ni a hi-meme’, but only the logical
construction of the model enables us to penetrate it and seize upon new features,
which are in turn subjected to empirical verification.
75. In principle, tools exist which facilitate an optimum choice of techniques and the
short-term optimization of foreign trade. Long-term optimization of foreign trade
involves finding the most efficient set of export-oriented or import-substituting investment
projects. However, there are no uniform criteria for optimization of a
consumption pattern; because of the number of variables and their heterogeneity -
rapidly increasing with the rise in living standards - this remains one of the most
difficult problems in the theory of economics.
76. Comments based on similar experiences in the USSR, France, Poland and Hungary
(cf. the papers by N. FEDORENKO and M . GODELIER in: The Social Sciences: Prob-
lems and Orientations, op. cit.).
77. Cf. the pertinent sections in Part 11 of this chapter.
78. Cf. Part 11.
79. For a ‘praxiological ’interpretation of the same, see above.

CHAPTER V
Demography
JEAN BOURGEOIS-PICHAT
I. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
Demography 351
I. Trends in demographic research are affected by demographic development
itself. All human sciences have this feature in common. The human being is
caught up in the evolution of living species and the questions he asks himself,
the explanations he seeks, the actions he hopes to accomplish are not the same
depending on the evolutionary moment at which he happens to find himself.
Hence, in order to plot the course of future research, it is essential to examine
what changes have occurred throughout the ages in the characteristics of the
facts being studied - in this case the demographic facts.
2. Demographic facts are few in number and easy to define as soon as one asks
oneself how the life of the human species develops. In the study of matter, for
example, as research goes forward, new particles are progressively discovered
and works on physics, published within a €ew years of each other, present very
noticeable differences both in language and content. Nothing like that in
demography. A work such as Moheau’s, written nearly two centuries ago, on
demographic phenomena contains the same headings as the latest treatises. To
put it in another way, it can be said that in demography the real is immediately
apprehended in its totality. By real is meant here, following FourastiB’s conception,
‘that which is or can be made sensible, perceptible by the senses ...’.
In the sciences to do with matter, they are still at the stage of exploring the real,
and it seems as though this exploration were likely to last some time. Both the
infinitely great and the infinitely small seem to us to be limitless, which is why
we refer to them as ‘infinite’. Demography, and in general the sciences to do with
man, are in the realm of the. finite. The human being is the indivisible element
forming the essence of phenomena, and when you have said that he is born,
lives for a certain time during which he reproduces himself,’ travels about, and
finally dies, you have defined essentially what demography is about. Everything
in demography can be reduced to those essential happenings.
3. This invariability of the language might give the impression of a static type
of research. But, behind similar expressions highly different contents are to be

3 52 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
found, and in this again human phenomena differ from phenomena of the
world of matter. The electron in the Stone Age is no different from the one in
the Atomic Age, whereas the family of Neanderthal man is very far removed
from the American family of the present day. But there has been no break in
the continuity between the two: one has merged gradually into the other, and
there has never been the least hesitation at any moment in using the same word
to describe them. Here we have the world of animate matter in process of
evolution. These assertions are no doubt too cut and dried and perhaps, one of
these days, it will be proved that inanimate matter, too, shares in a similar
evolution. The electron of the primary age will then appear different from the
one of today.
4. Demographic events set going phenomena of various kinds, and particularly
biological phenomena at all levels - cellular, organic, individual, but also social
phenomena. These last provide the occasion for group manifestations. On the
occasion of a birth, a marriage, a death, or of someone’s departure or return,
the groups to which the individual belongs make their presence manifest and
this manifestation forms part of a cultural system. These groups may either
approve or disapprove of the event, may rejoice about it or bewail it - in a
word, they judge it according to their own moral code.
Finally, because every demographic event is lived, in the first place, in an
individual consciousness, it sets in motion the individual’s whole psychological
apparatus.
These three combinations of phenomena - biological, socio-cultural and
psychological - possess different evolutionary speeds. Biological phenomena
vary but slowly and a demographic event such as death, for instance, once
detached from environmental influences, does not change much in the flow of
time. All research has demonstrated that while the age-expectancy limit has
increased, this process has been extremely slow. Such data as we possess which,
unfortunately, do not take us farther back than the last two centuries, indicate
no variation in this respect.
Socio-cultural phenomena are also very slow-moving, but they nevertheless
have far greater evolutionary possibilities than biological phenomena; for where-
as the available research data show the latter to be static, they offer us many
examples of changes occurring in the former.
Psychological phenomena are obviously the ones which change the quickest,
and it frequently happens that biology and the socio-cultural system are no
longer adapted to the psychology of the individual, thus producing various kinds
of tension. Birth control provides an excellent example of such conflict. It is
decided upon in the privacy of the individual consciences, but more often than
not it comes up against the survival of socio-cultural systems oriented towards
uncontrolled fertility and biological urges which it is not yet known how to curb.
5- This evolutionary possibility in phenomena which demographic events set
going - a relatively important one if compared with that of inanimate phenom-
ena - is not without having a certain influence on the characteristics of demo-

Demography 353
graphic research. It is true of course that observation can cause disturbance in
the facts observed, so much so that the description given no longer corresponds
to the phenomenon under investigation.
Further, if and when the results of demographic research become known to
the populations concerned, they can, through a boomerang effect, produce
changes of behaviour, a knowledge of the facts being one of the factors deter-
mining such behaviour. This is one side of the question that has been little
studied until now but which should engage the attention of demographers in
the future.
6. These relations between observers and facts observed determine to a certain
extent the choice of the means of observation. They must be such as to disturb as
little as possible the phenomena being studied.
Sample surveys fulfil this requirement. No doubt they disturb the fraction of
the population under survey, but as this fraction is small, the disturbance of the
bulk of the population is small also and it may be inferred that, on completion
of the survey, no significant variation has occurred in the characteristics of the
entire population.z Neither do observations derived from census returns of
population and civil status statistics have much effect on people’s behaviour. In
this case they extend to the whole population, but are carried out in such a way
as not to seem connected with demographic research; consequently they have
little effect on the objects of that research.3
But it would be difficult to imagine, for example, a survey on the rate of
fertility taking in the whole population. Let us choose as an example the situa-
tion in France. In that country, a law of 1920 regulates the sale of contracep-
tives. Sample surveys carried out withsmall groups ofthepopulationshowed that
58 % of the persons interviewed did not know that law existed. If, instead of
such surveys, the entire population were to be questioned, obviously, once the
total survey was over, there would no longer be many people left who were una-
aware of that law. The figure of 58 % that would be obtained4 would refer to a
population of the past which no longer existed.
No doubt the above example is exceptional and the disturbing influence
exercised by observer on observed has so far been fairly slight. If, as may be
thought, however, demography ought to direct its attention to the study of in-
dividual motivations, disturbance is then likely to become less and less negligi-
ble.
7. Another uncertain quantity arises from the fact that demography confines
itself to the study of group manifestations. The demographer’s indications con-
tain no precise information concerning a given individual’s destiny. All they
show is the possibility that that destiny wil lead to such and such a situation.
The result of this is that it is nearly always possible to find individual cases
which are decidedly at variance with the average laws enunciated. These cases
then appear to contradict such laws and this apparent contradiction sometimes
leads, quite wrongly, to doubts being cast on the soundness of the demographer’s
conclusions.

354 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
8. The fact that the phenomena produced by demographic events should be
endowed with memory is yet another handicap with important consequences
for observation and, more particularly, the analysis of such observations. It is
self-evident that a birth, for example, is an event which is lived in two individual
consciousnesses, the mother’s and the father’s, and that it is something which
can only be understood in relation to the past as experienced by those two con-
sciousnesses and to the idea they have formed as to the future.
But when this birth is announced to the socio-cultural groups to which the
parents belong, it becomes included in both the past and future history of those
groups and enters into the social memory.
9. We must pause here to define more clearly the notion of ‘history’ as applied
to demography, and, more generally, to the human sciences. The life of a human
being begins at the moment the spermatozoon has fertilized the ovum. Twenty-
three pairs of chromosomes have constituted themselves bearing information
which will make it possible for the individual to develop. This information takes
the form of a certain number of genes distributed over the 23 pairs of chromo-
somes. It can therefore be said that an individual is constituted ab initio by a
combination of genes drawn by lot, from a considerably greater number of
possible genes forming the genetic heritage of the human species.
Let us suppose that the synthesis of a given protein is dependent on the in-
formation contained in a number of genes. If these genes are carried by the
chromosomes of a single individual, that individual will manufacture the protein
in question. But if, in the following generation, the genes are distributed among
several individuals, none of these wil possess all the necessary information for
manufacturing the protein andno one will be able to effect its synthesis. Nonethe-
less, the recipe for this synthesis will not have been lost. In some later genera-
tion, through the operation of chance, and provided one is prepared to wait
long enough, one can be certain that the right combination of genes for pro-
ducing the synthesis will be found in a single individual who will then manufac-
ture the protein exactly as his remote forbear did.
A similar procedure exists in the world of matter. For instance, in order to
produce an atom of oxygen, a certain number of electrons have to be arranged
in a certain way around a proton. If this is done in a different way, then you
obtain something other than an atom of oxygen. It is possible that on certain
stars conditions are such that the combination for producing an atom of oxygen
will never exist. This does not mean that the matter composing that star has
lost the recipe for producing oxygen. A variation in the conditions would be
enough to enable oxygen to make its appearance.
In the world of animate nature, once a new being has been formed he posses-
ses an individuality, he is going to have a history in the course of which he wil
preserve the impression left by events in which he takes part. The combination
of genes which presided at his birth is his essence; subsequent events constitute
his existence. It is in this sense that we shall speak of his history.
IO. However, in the case of a living being, history is not simply an accumulation
of past events, it is also - and perhaps especially - the consciousness of such an

Demography 355
accumulation; so much so that history is as much the future as it is the past.
Certainly, for the living being, the present is not separated from the past, but he
wants to be also a creation of the future. This quality, in a rudimentary stage in
the case of primitive living beings, is definitely developed in the man who, no
longer prepared to undergo his existence, insists on building it up.
No doubt it would be as well to recall here what we were saying just now
about the evolution of inanimate matter and that of living matter. Essence and
existence are probably to be found in all phenomena. But it is with man that
the difference between ‘being’ and ‘existing’ takes on its full meaning, and that
alone gives research into the human sciences a special orientation of its own.
I I. Now, if it is true that every demographic event is a moment in a given life
and can only be understood when re-inserted in the totality of that life, it is
equally true that every such event is also subject to the influence of the condi-
tions of the time. For instance, the death of a person depends certainly on his
past life, but also on the sanitary conditions existing at the time of his decease.
If he goes through some area where an epidemic is raging, he runs a far greater
risk of dying than if he stays somewhere which is free from contagious disease.
It is for demographic analysis to disclose and gauge the influence of the condi-
tions prevailing at the time. Instantaneous behaviour then appears as the result
of two sets of factors: those which only have a meaning in terms of a specific
history, and those the existence of which is determined by the environmental
conditions prevailing. It is essential to draw a careful distinction between them,
for there is a great temptation to confuse the two. A lowering of the fertility
rate due, for instance, to an economic crisis does not necessarily mean any
lasting change in the behaviour of married couples. More often than not, their
desires will not have changed at all. They will merely be putting off the birth of
their children to a later date when the crisis has disappeared.
12. The variety of phenomena brought into play by demographic events gives
an all-embracing scientificcharacter to demographic research. Of all the human
sciences, demography is the one that can least afford to do without the other
sciences. We have already mentioned biology, sociology and psychology, but
other disciplines should be added: political economy inasmuch as the human
being is a producer during a part of his life and a consumer during the whole of
it; ethnology inasmuch as behaviour attitudes are determined by cultural fac-
tors; ecology inasmuch as man lives in the midst of nature and is therefore oblig-
ed to enter into a kind of symbiosis with her, and philosophy inasmuch as demo-
graphic events possess a clear ontological significance. Then there are mathe-
matics and statistics which provide demography with its analytical tools, and
technology which, through modifying the environment, gives rise to new types
of behaviour. Geography, medicine, history, law and criminology, theology,
ethics, political sciences, educational science - all these are brought into touch
at one time or another with demography. One can say that progress in any one
of these sciences has immediate bearings on demographic research.5 This close
link with all the sciences is brought out in the language, as witness the various

356 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
adjectives that are frequently used to qualify the word ‘demography’, such as:
economic, historical, social - or better still - psycho-social demography; math-
ematical demography (one also speaks of pure demography), population
genetics demography, i.e. statistics, etc.
13. Despite demography’s close links with the other sciences, little interchange
takes place betweeen demographers and other science specialists. The result is
that the latter are unaware of the full scope of their own particular branch in
which their researches would prove useful to demographers. It is to be hoped
that this situation will change and that demographers and other scientists will
be led to cooperate fully together. The present work might well serve to start such
collaboration. The questions that have hitherto been left unanswered by the
other sciences, because actually they had never really been put to them, will
then be the ones that demographic research will take up during the coming
years. We now propose to examine some of these questions.
n. DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND BIOLOGY
Population genetics
14. We pointed out just now how each human being, at his conception, was
chosen haphazardly from among the multitude of genetic combinations possi-
ble, and how the sum total of possibilities formed the genetic heritage of the
human race. But it is only a potential heritage; every moment we see how
it is incompletely realized. All configurations are possible, each stands a
virtual chance of being realized, but of course there is only one which is, in
fact, realized.. . The individual can, by his behaviour, exert an influence on the
materialization of this collective heritage: in the first place, by the way in which
he and society regulate the choice of the marriage partner. Speaking broadly,
there are two categories of genes: the dominant and the recessive. The character
of each individual is determined by two genes (or two groups of genes), one
proceeding from the mother, the other from the father. A gene is said to be
dominant when it can display its character in one single dose, whether it be
from the father’s or mother’s side. The recessive gene can only display its
character if it exists in double doses, that is, if it proceeds from both father
and mother at the same time. This explains the influence exerted by matri-
monial customs. Consanguineous marriages, for instance, encourage the appear-
ance of recessive characteristics, because the couple then stand a greater chance
of transmitting to their offspring the identical recessive genes they themselves
inherited from their common ancestors.
However, the individual can also bring his influence to bear on the materializa-
tion of the collective heritage through his own fertility. According to whether he
chooses to have, or puts up with having, few or many children, the genetic in-
formation which he carries within him will be transmitted in a greater or lesser
degree to the following generation. The differential mortality rate has a similar
effect in so far as it concerns groups that are genetically different. We shall

Demography 357
return to this question later on. The same can be said of differential migration,
and for the same reason.6
The result of all this is that in populations the average frequency of each gene
(or group of genes) giving expression to the information it bears within it
evolves from generation to generation. The essential purpose of population
genetics is the study of this development, or in other words, it endeavours to
describe and to estimate the effects of different kinds of behaviour and different
conditions of existence on the collective genetic heritage. It is a comparatively
young science calling for new mathematical instruments and which ought to
develop in the years ahead. We find here a mixture of biology (transmission of
genes) and sociology (differential marriage customs, fertility, mortality and
migrations).
Here are a few examples of research in progress: to start with, theoretical
research. We take a hypothetical case of panmixia, that is to say, a situation
wherein marriages take place haphazardly within an inter-marriage area of
given size. The average size of the family when the children reach marriageable
age and the variation in that average determine then the proportions of con-
sanguineous marriages.’ Similar calculations are conducted by taking hypoth-
eses other than panmixia. The application of these theoretical researches is
to be found by reversing thecalculation procedure: byobservingtheconsanguini-
ty incidence, the size of the inter-marriage area can be calculated. The manner in
which inter-marriage areas - isolates, as they are called - develop and disinte-
grate has important effects on the health of the population, for while there are
relatively few hereditary diseases, the organism always inherits a certain type of
internal environment which can be more or less favourable to the incubation
of diseases. Population genetics has hardly begun the study of all these phe-
nomena, but it is a branch of demography which is expanding rapidly.
Intra-uterine mortality
15. But let us return for a moment to the fertilized ovule which has just started a
new life - first of all an intra-uterine life during which it wil be exposed to
dangers such that, for very many of them, this life wil be a short one indeed
and will end long before the birth of a living child. We know quite a lot about
that intra-uterine mortality during the last months of pregnancy, which is known
as still-birth; but we are largely ignorant of what affects the rest of intra-uterine
life. Strange as it may seem, we know next-to-nothing about intra-uterine
mortality during the first month of pregnancy, and as for the succeeding months,
our knowledge is confined to two or three tables referring to observations car-
ried out in the case of a few thousand conceptions. That is not much in a world
where each year there are IOO million births.
The question of male births has been discussed for a long time, but we do not
know what makes for maleness at the moment of conception. It is thought that
there are differences in intra-uterine mortality between populations and the
various social groups belonging to a given population, but at present we are not
in a position to estimate such differences-still less to discover the factors re-
sponsible for them. Someof them are biological. Actually, the formation proce-

358 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
dures for new cells, from the initial cell onwards, remain fragile for some time
afterwards, and changes in the chromosomes take place during the fist months
of pregnancy. The reason for some of them is known, but we are far from know-
ing the reasons for all of them. There are perhaps social reasons also, but all
that remains to be discovered. No doubt during the next few years we shall have
an answer to these questions. To know what happens between conception and
birth is of capital importance. Only in this way may we hope to be able to
guard against defective evolutionary processes, or even intervene in really
serious cases.
The following concrete example will help to clarify this last point. We know
already how to discover, before birth, certain changes in the chromosomes and
it is possible, for example, to predict with certainty if a pregnant mother will give
birth to a Mongolian child. Diagnosis is still far from easy, and the method
cannot be applied to all the products of gestation, but perfecting the method is
only a matter of time. No additional discoveries are needed and later on it will
apply to changes other than those which produce Mongolian characteristics. ln
the name of what principle will it then be possible to refuse to carry out an abor-
tion in the case of a mother who is known to be about to give birth to a de-
formed infant?
Infertility
16. Thus, sooner or later, the mechanisms set in motion by the fertilizing of the
ovum come to a halt. If everything has gone well, they have been functioning
for nine months and a live child is born in good health. If there has been any
deficiency in their functioning, that child may have some deformation. It may be,
too, that the gestation period ended with a miscarriage or a still-birth. Now,
suppose we leave the child for a moment, well or ill-formed, as the case may be,
to pursue its life in this world, and concentrate on the mother.
17. Up to then, she was fertile, since she conceived only a little while back. But
when we consider a whole group of such mothers who have just given birth to a
child, we know that all the time a certain number of them will become infertile,
thus being unable to continue to procreate. And we know also that age is the
deciding factor of this infertility. Even the person most ignorant of such matters
knows very well that nearly all women are in a condition to procreate some
time after puberty and that nearly all are sterile at the age of fifty. It follows,
therefore, that progressive infertility must take place in between those two age-
limits. But that is about all we know - at any rate so far as the present popula-
tions using contraceptives are concerned. We know a little more about popula-
tions in which married couples do not control their own fertility, whether it be
the present populations of the undeveloped countries or, better still, the age-old
populations of Europe. However, we know next-to-nothing about the laws
governing progressive infertility with advancing age in the populations of in-
dustrialized countries, and in any case the causes of such infertility remain
unknown to us.8

Demography 359
18. It is believed that genital diseases are responsible for the high infertility
rate in some of the developing countries. But setting aside such environmental
influences, a fact remains which has not yet been explained. How is it that out
of the 750,000 odd ovules9 present at the birth of a woman only a few hundred
are used for fecundation purposes? And to what sort of ‘ageing’ process are
those ovules subject? Obviously, the ovules which remain capable of being
fertilized deteriorate in ‘quality’ as the mother grows older, as witness the
increasing incidence of still-birth and congenital defects with the mother’s ad-
vancing years. Lastly, how is it that this ageing process comes to an inevitable
end towards the age of fifty? Here we have a whole field open to research in
the coming years.
The spacing of births
19. Let us now turn to the women who remain fertile at the end of their preg-
nancy. It has been observed that they only regain their fertility after a certain
lapse of time. A dead period intervenes in the production of progeny. While,
however, we know that this dead period exists, we do not yet know much about
the duration and causes of this temporary infertility and, here again, paradoxi-
cally enough, we know more about the populations in the developing countries
than we do about those in the industrialized countries. It is known that breast-
feeding plays a part in it. For the time being, all we can do is to observe the
effect of this in a collectivity. It can be stated, for example, that in a population
where all the women breast-feed their children for, say, two years, the interval
between births is increased by about 30 % as compared with a population where
breast-feeding is not practised. But we are not able to identify in advance those
women who wil remain sterile; which means that the action exerted by breast-
feeding on fertility is far from being understood. Genetic factors are certainly
involved.
20. Let us place ourselves at the moment when the dead period ends and observe
what happens. We wil suppose that the couples do not practice contraception.
The woman is going to become pregnant within a certain time which wil depend
on two factors: the frequency of sexual intercourse and the proportion of ovules
of ‘sound‘ quality. Indeed, it appears that, even in the case of a fertile woman, all
the ovules are not capable of being fertilized. The woman continues to produce
ovules, which is why she is not relegated among the henceforth infertile women.
But from time to time she produces ovules that are not able to be fertilized. This
amounts to a sort of temporary infertility, but which is not bound up this time
with any preceding pregnancy. The corresponding menstrual cycles may even
be anovular, presenting all the characteristics of normal cycles, except for the
presence of ovules. Such explanations are only the reflection of our ignorance.
We know that something happens, but we do not know the mechanism. It is
essential for the demographer to know whether the cycles during which fecunda-
tion is impossible occur at haphazard intervals or whether they occur in a
series.

360 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
21. The frequency of sexual intercourse obviously does not depend on biologi-
cal factors alone; social and psychological factors play an equally important
part. Still, biology certainly has its say in the matter. Moreover, all things being
equal, sexual desire weakens with age. But here again, we are totally ignorant
of the mechanism of this weakening. W e do not even know its extent. Informa-
tion collected around 1950 concerning 6,300 American women and around
1957 concerning 600 Japanese women - that is all we have at present for the
entire human race.
22. But especially the effectiveness of sexual intercourse depends very much on
the length of time during which the ovule can be fertilized in the course of a
woman’s menstrual cycle. The length of life of the ovule, once it has been emitted,
and that of the spermatozoa deposited in the woman’s genital organs are com-
bined in such a way that fertilization is only possible during a few days in
each cycle. But we do not know how this combination is brought about, nor do
we know the result. It it one, two or three days? The experts argue the matter
without being able to reach any agreement.
23. We have spoken so far of woman’s infertility; but, actually, it is the infer-
tility of the couple which the demographer tries to evaluate, and which is the
result of either the man’s or woman’s infertility, or again a combination of the
two, with each partner able to be fertile in a different combination. One day the
demographer will really have to distinguish between these three types of in-
fertility, but that will necessitate a prior reorganization of the statistics. At the
same time biology will have to enlighten us as to the mechanism producing
masculine sterility and that of the sterility of the couple when each of the two
constituents is fertile. All the biological problems connected with increasing
infertility with age and with infertility at the beginning of puberty need to be
studied separately as regards the male, the female and the couple.
24. The questions we have been led to raise in the course of this report concern
all those fields in which the demographer - who specializes in the biological
aspects of fertility- ought to direct his researches during the next few years. The
World Health Organization clearly sees the importance of this, and has set on
foot a research programme covering all these aspects.
Contraceptive practices
25. We have assumed that couples were not practising contraception. The prac-
tice of contraception is going to raise new problems. It is going to do even more
than that: under its influence the very nature of the problems is going to be
changed. W e meet again with the idea expressed at the beginning of this report
showing how man is caught up in the evolutionary process of living species and
how demographic events, by sharing in this evolution, change their nature
through the ages. The populations which do not make use of contraceptive
methods are far from using all the possibilities that biology offers them. By re-
tarding the marriage age, and with the help of celibacy and sexual taboos, these

Demography 361
societies reduce fertility, and it may be said that at this stage of evolution,
couples have the children that biology and society together permit them to
have - but they have all of those. The individual has little say in the matter;
he can only submit to the laws of nature and of society.
26. The practice of contraception has, in the first place, a quantitative effect,
making possible the avoidance of a considerable number of births. But it also
has a qualitative effect. Let us imagine a perfectly effective contraceptive. Then
all the children who would be born would be children wanted by their parents.
Their arrival in this world would no longer depend on a decision of society. This
decision would be taken in the private consciences of the parents. The birth of a
child instead of being a socio-biological event, would become a psycho-sociological
one.l0This change in its nature would have important results for research;
it would no longer be sufficient to know how births happen, we should want to
know also why they happen. No doubt we shall still have to wait some time for a
completely effective contraceptive. Still, recent progress in this domain has
brought us sufficiently close to such an eventuality for it to have induced research
to turn its attention to the question of ‘why’ births happen.
27. Additional problems arise from the fact that psychological knowledge is in
advance of biological knowledge. These undesired children that are born willy-
nilly, because we do not yet know how to exercise full control over biological
phenomena, are at the origin of family tensions which ought to be studied.”
The mere possibility of contraception can even be an occasion for discord
between a married couple.
Further, the mechanisms which society has devised to limit the size of fami-
lies have not disappeared for all that. Their continued existence can also be a
source of difficulty. This provides a good example of the tensions resulting from
variations in the evolutionary speed of the three sets of factors brought into
play by demographic events - biological, sociological and psychological.
28. The manner in which demographers approach the study of fertility needs
changing in order to take into account the above-mentioned factors. The tradi-
tional method at present when studying fertility is to distinguish between mar-
ried couples and others, and to pay particular attention to legitimate fertility.
But, behind this distinction lies a variable which we have referred to above
- the frequency of sexual intercourse, and it is because we know little about
it that we choose, for want of anything better, to deal separately with married
couples. In so doing, we divide the population up grosso nzodo into two
categories with differing frequency rates for sexual intercourse, a lesser rate in
the case of the non-married than in that of others.IZ But the day we know more
about the sociology of sexuality, parameters that are at present ignored wil be
seen to be fundamental. Whereas today we use the marriageable age or the age
of puberty as parameters, later on we shall take into consideration the age at
which sexual intercourse begins, and we shall draw distinctions between various
types of couples based on the frequency of such intercourse. We shall also take

362 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
into account the age at which contraceptive methods begin to be used, and
we shall distinguish between sexual intercourse that is sanctioned as opposed
to sexual intercourse that is not. We shall also have to bear in mind the various
contraception techniques, as well as the various ways of effecting sexual
intercourse. No doubt the latter have a certain bearing on the efficacy of con-
traception.
Endogenous and exogenous mortality
29. Let us return to that child born alive, usually well proportioned though
occasionally deformed, whom we left just now at the very moment he was
starting life in this world. At the instant when the fertilized ovule begins its
new existence, an ageing process is set in motion. During a certain time the for-
ces of growth and of decay are going to co-exist in the same individual, then
gradually the latter will gain the upper hand and lead him on finally to his
death. But before this final event takes place, the individual will have to go
through a series of crises characterized by a variety of biological disorders
putting his existence in danger which he will have to overcome.
That, grosso modo, is the sequence of biological phenomena that will accom-
pany him from the cradle to the grave.
30. The causes of biological disorders leading to illness can be classified under
two main headings : either the individual carries the cause in question within
him, or else it is brought to him by the external environment. However, this
distinction between endogenous and exogenous causes of disease is a little too
arbitrary. A disease is always the result of a variety of causes in which endoge-
nous and exogenous are mixed together. It seems that individuals have certain
predispositions for contracting a particular disease. In the case of cancer of the
lung, for instance, it is possible to distinguish between three separate classes of
persons: those who are predisposed to this disease and will contract it even if
they do not smoke; those who are proof against it and will not be affected even
if they do smoke; and those who contract the disease through smoking but who
can avoid it by not smoking, or, at any rate, by smoking less. Similarly, it is
often hard to distinguish between a deformity due to some alteration in the
chromosomes which occurred at the time of conception and one acquired
during life in the uterus, due, for instance, to some disease of the mother. As we
come to understand all these mechanisms better, demography will have to
consider the re-classifying of deleterious factors, and it will no doubt be led to
adopt a more subtle distinction than the one which consists in acknowledging
only the two sets of causes - endogenous and exogenous.
3 I. In an endogenous disease, the deleterious factor can be present at birth in the
form, for example, of a chromosomal alteration, but it can also be acquired in
the course of existence, as a result of the actual functioning of the life-giving
mechanisms. These two possibilities are largely related to two sets of causes of
disease: deformities and senescence.
In the case of an exogenous disease, the ailment springs from an encounter

Demography 363
between the individual and the deleterious factor. If such an encounter is
successfully avoided, the disease does not occur, and for a long time health
precautions were conlined to that. The sole aim of public health measures is to
protect the individual from dangers from the outside.13 Progress in vaccina-
tion pursues the same object: vaccination cannot prevent encounters with
deleterious factors, but its tendency is to reduce the effects of such encounters
to a minimum. The disease ceases to be dangerous.
32. If, despite everything, the deleterious factor penetrates into the individual
and the disease obtains a foothold, a return to normal calls for new methods of
intervention. These have been lacking for a long time: the patient was left to
recover his biological balance through his own personal efforts. The situation
has been radically altered by the discoveries of the last few years. We know
now how to cure, and we are getting better and better at it - so much so that we
run the risk of forgetting the importance of preventive measures.
33. Public health measures are generally cumbersome. They set in motion
administrative machinery that is often complicated and are only truly efficient
when applied to the whole population. There is a great temptation, when cures
can be effected easily, to abandon the difficult path of preventive medicine. It
seems that we are now witnessing this tendency. The death-rate is certainly
going down, but the disease-rate remains high.
34. There is thus a danger of creating a serious situation the consequences of
which we are only just beginning to perceive. The reason is that the individual
organism is a ‘memory’ and the person whom we say is ‘cured’ remembers
nevertheless the ravages of the disease in question. We do not yet know if this
‘memory’ will not have unfortunate effects on his future biological behaviour.
35. A similar situation has arisen through the success obtained in combating
the other category of diseases - those due to some deleterious factor the indi-
vidual carries within himself, with this difference, however, that in this case it
seems impossible for the time being at any rate to escape the consequenccs of
our intervention, whereas in the case of diseases due to external causes we can
still hope to be able to master those causes. There exist various methods of
dealing with diseases due to internal causes. In the presence of a functional
defect, there are several ways of trying to re-establish normal conditions. Some-
times a surgical operation is necessary to put the organism into proper working
order again, or at any rate to get it to function differently. At other times, the
faulty functioning of an organ is made good by supplying the organism with the
elements no longer produced by that organ, or again, by ordering a special diet.
But it is quite obvious that in solving a temporary difficulty the way is left open
for further problems later on.
36. This is clearly shown in the case of a hereditary diabetic treated with in-
sulin. An injection or the absorption of a number of pills a day enables the

364 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
diabetic to lead a normal life. Nowadays he is able to work, to marry, have
children, whereas before, his activities were severely restricted, and having
children was out of the question. But, of course, the daily injection of insulin
has no effect on the genetic deficiency which can be the root cause of the disease.
So, by allowing the diabetic to beget children, we encourage the transmission of
the disease. The case of the diabetic is simply quoted here as an example, be-
cause it is the most striking and perhaps the oldest and most carefully studied,
but of course there are many other similar cases.
37. All these cases lead in the same direction as the accumulation in the popula-
tions of individuals designated as ‘cured’, to whom we have already referred.
These phenomena have made their appearance too recently for us to be able to
gauge the consequences with any precision, but they already comprise a vast
field towards which research ought to be directed in the coming years. This
raises the whole problem of eugenics, which is stirring up very serious moral
considerations.
38. All that we have been saying here about diseases applies equally well to
those of old age, but the treatment of the latter has social and psychological
repercussions which call for additional research. It is well known that the
decrease in the death-rate applies particularly to youth. At the age when the
diseases of the senescent begin to play a serious part, the decrease has been
less marked, indeed, in certain cases, an increase has been registered.
Health priority
39. The problem no longer appears to be a medical one. Certain research work
has shown what should be done so that the drop in the death-rate at this time
of life should continue. The main factors responsible are obesity, high blood-
pressure, too rich a diet, the consumption of alcohol and the immoderate use of
tobacco. This means, of course, changing the whole way of life if a continued
lowering of the death-rate is desired. It does not seem as if man were socially
and psychologically ready to accept such changes. To do everything possible to
save a human life is a basic principle of the present-day morality of humanity,
but it would seem to apply only to the moment when the danger of death be-
comes manifest.
40. For instance, it is assumed that an inveterate smoker suffering from cancer
of the lung has every right to expect society to do its utmost to cure him. But
this same smoker bears a certain responsibility for what has happened to him,
and if he calls on society to help him in the last phases of the disease which
finally causes his death, surely society would have had every right to require
him to change his way of life during the preceding phases of the development of
his disease. Here we come up against a source of dispute which ought to engage
the future attention of research.
41. We can observe here a change in the way of regarding questions of mortality
different from the one we noted in fertility cases. Fertility, which is determined

Demography 365
by biological and social causes, has become something depending for the most
part on psychological factors. Mortality, on the other hand, has become an
occurrence concerning which society has more and more to say. The progress
of medical science enables us to cope better and better with diseases, the causes
of which lie within the individual himself. However, the therapeutic treatment
is so expensive that there is a danger of no longer being able one day to give
everyone the benefit of such treatment. Society comes up against an economic
obstacle in applying the principle referred to above, according to which every-
thing must be done to save a human life. Perhaps it wil be obliged to choose
between free medical care for all and, for example, the motor-car and colour
television. Naturally, everything wil still be done to restore the would-be
suicide to life. The condemned man wil still be given the medicines his body may
require, even on the eve of his execution. Mother and child in danger of death
as the result of an attempted abortion will still be saved, and the driver of a
motor-car who has been hurt in an accident for which he is responsible will
receive just as much medical attention as his victims. Attacker and attacked
will continue to find themselves next to each other in hospital. But all these are
exceptional cases, as can be seen resulting from some sudden crisis and the
relatively small number of which has no perceptible impact on a country's
economy.
The demands connected with the treatment of old people's diseases wil be of
an altogether different order. They wil present themselves more and more fre-
quently until in the end they become part of the daily routine, and an important
fraction of economic activity wil then have to be devoted to meeting them.
If the burden becomes too heavy, a series of choices wil have to be made; as
a rule these wil be anonymous, and will be effected by means of credit alloca-
tions. At the executive level, regulations wil inevitably be inhuman.
Our society has not been morally prepared for the advent of this age of social
mortality and the whole subject calls for research. This is certainly beyond the
scope of the demographer, but he could make a useful contribution thereto.
42. Purely economic considerations concerning the 'cost of human life' would
no doubt be of help in reaching a solution, despite the fact that many illusions
exist about this way of presenting things.
Economic development has no memory: the present and future alone count
in its scheme of things. If a factory which has been 90% built shows itself
economically useless, interest dictates that construction be stopped forthwith.
The same applies to a human being. Whatever may have been spent on his
training in the past, his economic usefulness has to be judged according to the
present and future situations.
43. We have pointed out how the priority accorded by humanity to the saving
of human life might be questioned if the notion of individual responsibility in
the series of events leading finally to death were more broadly interpreted. It
seems unrealistic in this series to isolate the final event and leave out of account
the events which have led up to and explain it, and in which individual responsi-

366 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
bility often plays a very large part. For instance, if it were definitely proved that
by living in a certain way certain situations leading to death could be avoided,
it would be difficult to insist on society’s providing unconditional aid for all
those who voluntarily decided not to live in the prescribed way. The return to a
view of mortality as resulting from an individual decision could help to solve the
conflict already referred to between the various aims of social and economic
development.
44. We have just propounded implicitly the relations between morbidity and
mortality. It is rather suprising that while, in dealing with the question of
birth, the demographer has set out to distinguish between the results of various
factors - marriage situation, infertility, spacing of births, frequency of sexual
intercourse, etc. - he should never have made any serious attempt to study the
process leading from disease to death as a whole. This is something which
demographic research should undertake immediately.
Progress to be expected in biology
45. Hitherto we have discussed the problems confronting the demographer due
to the biological development of the human race as at the time this report was
written (May 1968). We have not described the changes in biology that are
likely to take place in the years immediately ahead. It is always dangerous to try
to imagine the evolution of a science from the sole point of view of another
science. We shall, therefore, restrict ourselves to a few remarks.
Completely effective contraception
46. The most striking progress - which is very likely to produce fairly quick
results - has been achieved in the placing at the disposal of couples of contra-
ceptives that are being continually improved and easier to use. Consequently,
we are going to witness a rapid change-over from social fertility to individual
fertility, as described above. It is therefore going to become more and more
essential to understand the ‘whys’ of conception. The impact on the developing
countries will be considerable, but the essential change will occur in the actual
evolution of the human race which wil then follow a new direction.
The choice of sex
47. A more long-term development which could take place is the parental
ability to choose the child‘s sex at the time of conception. The solution of this
problem is unlikely to present any serious difficulties to biological research4The
importance of being able to make such a choice is obvious for stock-raising
purposes, and there, no doubt, the problem will first of all be solved. Extending
it to the human race wil quickly follow. It is hard to foresee the consequences
of such a discovery. If it were found that certain peoples showed a marked
preference for one of the sexes, the demographic balance in those countries
could be clearly upset, and no government could afford to disinterest itself in
the matter. Recent sociological developments in the study of the process of
decision will here find their natural application. It is for the demographer to
1

Demography 367
hasten to indicate the consequences which any big increase in the proportion
of male births, as compared with the present proportion of 51 boys to 49 girls,
could have on the development of populations in the various countries. There
is also the possibility that the percentage of males could be at the mercy of
changes in fashion.
In the past, certain populations, by resorting to infanticide, have already
carried out such a choice of sex, and the difficulties they have encountered offer
an indication of what a choice at the time of conception could entail. Certain
tribes of Eskimos which saw in the male infant a potential hunter and in the
female infant a useless mouth to feed, have resorted to the systematic killing of
girls at birth. Obviously, this brought about an imbalance between the sexes
which no longer enabled the population to reproduce itself.
The mastery of old age
48. In a still longer term development, one can look forward to the discovery by
biology of the mechanisms of the ageing of the organs. The ageing of each
individual begins at the precise moment when the ovule is fertilized by the sper-
matozoa. It presents itself as a kind of successive forgetfulness of the biochemi-
cal cycles built up on the basis of the information contained in the genetic
heritage. The child who has just been born can already no longer produce cer-
tain substances which he manufactured perfectly well in his mother’s womb.
Thus the life of an individual can be viewed as the perpetual creation of new
machinery for replacing older machinery which no longer works and which he
no longer knows how to build. Death happens when the inventive faculty itself
ceases.
Such are the apparent facts. But what is the profound reason for this non-
remembrance which forces the individual to keep on inventing in order to
survive? We do not know. Biology has set about trying to solve the problem and
we may expect that a solution to it wil emerge progressively in the course of the
next century.
From the demographic point of view, the chief result wil be the progressive
disappearance of old-age diseases and, consequently, the postponement of
endogenous mortality. This will have little effect on population growth, but
considerable effect on its age composition. Whereas hitherto the lowering of
the death-rate has scarcely had any effect on the age composition, the disap-
pearance of endogenous forms of death will result in a noticeable increase in
the percentage of old people, with economic and social consequences of which
there is no need to remind the reader.
Infertility overcome
49. Suppose we go even further? We are then in science fiction. There is a
phenomenon which is connected with the ageing process: the progressive devel-
opment of female infertility between puberty and the menopause. A better
knowledge of the causes of old age wil no doubt enable us to understand better
how it is that woman loses her reproductive powers, and then perhaps to prevent
her from losing them. However, we must face the fact that here we are dealing

3 68 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
with complex phenomena which go far beyond those set in motion by the mere
ageing of the organism.
The demographic consequences would be far-reaching. The ability to have
children after the age of fifty would make it possible to build up a family in
successive stages: for instance, two children between 20 and 24 and two more
between 50 and 54 years of age, and possibly with different marriage partners.
However, four children per family would constitute a very high fertility rate
which, if applied to all women, would very soon lead to intolerably high
population densities. Consequently, society would have to take steps to prevent
a certain number of women from having that second family after the age of 50,
even if they should desire it. We would thus go back - partly at any rate - to
a social fertility situation, allowing only the first family, for example, to decide
for itself in perfect freedom, thanks to the discovery of efficient and easily used
contraceptives.
50, We could cite a good many more biological developments that would have
important demographic repercussions. If, for instance, it became possible to
transplant a fertilized human ovule into the body of a mammal for gestation
purposes, the whole institution of the family would be upset.
If a method could be discovered for changing the genetic heritage artificially
and creating new beings by intervening at the level of molecular biology, the
whole evolutionary process of living species would be transformed.
It is for science fiction to put these questions to us, but it remains for the
demographer to gauge their results on population development.
III. DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
51. W e have spent a long time on the biological aspects of demographic events.
This is not surprising. As we have already said, the human being is only the last
link in a long chain of living beings that have gone before him and prepared for
his arrival. It is he who has taken the phenomena of reproduction and old age
out of pure biology, though of course they remain, in essence, biological
phenomena. It is by prolonging them existentially that they become economic,
social and cultural phenomena. Let us examine the human being’s economic
activities first.
52. Man is a consumer and a producer of goods and services. Before the
agricultural revolution, he was content to consume whatever the earth provided
for him. Agriculture turned him into a producer and mankind organized itself
in what is called a subsistence economy, whereby products are consumed on the
spot, or practically so, by the producers, or at any rate all those either directly
or indirectly associated with production.14 There is no intermediary between men
and goods and services. Money, by enabling goods and services to be exchanged,
ushered in an important development and thenceforward a market economy
took the place of the subsistence economy.

Demography 369
From a consideration of the new kinds of relationship thus established
between products a new science was born, namely, political economy. But in
the process, man himself disappeared. Henceforth, money was to become the
unit of measurement, and all one had to do was to get enough of it for oneself
in order to realize one’s heart’s desire. But this conception of economy left out
of account the fact that, on the individual plane, man moves in a finite world
and that whatever is seized momentarily thanks to the power of money is only
done by taking it away from others.
A whole new political economy in which men would replace money as the
unit of accountancy remains to be thought out, and here the demographer can
be of considerable aid to the economist. Moreover, it wil be from more than
just a collaboration between these two branches of science alone that the new
political economy wil emerge. W e are only now beginning to hear its first un-
certain utterances.
53. It is in a planned economy that one is better able to understand the r61e
of demography, and so that is the situation in which we shall first place ourselves.
We wil follow the planner in his preparation of an economic and social devel-
opment plan by trying to show the help the demographer wil give him. W e shall
then see how the type of research undertaken by the demographer can also be of
considerable use in a non-planned economy.
54. Economic development is in the first place a question of the production of
goods and services, and it is in view of certain more or less precise production
goals that a country’s economic activity is organized. These goals are fixed in
relation to needs, that is to say, patterns of consumption. The elaboration of
such patterns is a matter for the experts in the various fields. For instance, the
nutrition expert fixes the food patterns, the architect the housing patterns, and
the town-planner the dwelling conditions. These three examples have been
chosen from among a number of others because they represent three specific
classes of consumer goods :
a. goods and services consumed by the individual, or rather, the consumption
patterns of which depend on individual characteristics ;
b. goods and services consumed by the household, and
c. goods and services consumed by the collectivity.
Naturally, each of the above classes includes a greater number of goods and
services than those we have just indicated.
Demographic variables have some influence on the fixing of patterns, but are
not among the most important factors to be considered. It is obvious, however,
that the needs of a collectivity depend on its age composition and also on the
fertility and death rates.’s Similarly, the household consumption of goods and
services depends on the demographic characteristics of the households concern-
ed (their size and composition). Finally, certain individual nutritional needs are
closely related to fertility and mortality rates. But, above all, each average
class for which a consumption pattern is fixed by the expert is, more often than
not, self-designated in relation to demographic characteristics, viz. children,

370 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
adults, the aged, workers, pregnant women, newly-weds, sick persons, aliens,
household, family, village, etc. Hence collaboration is obviously necessary
between the various experts and demographers, for these latter alone are able
to give the number of units of each category, thus making it possible to pass
from average individual needs to global needs, that is, to the global production
necessary in order to satisfy those needs.
Population censuses provide the answers in all ordinary cases, but therealways
remain classes of consumers that have escaped the census and whose numbers
have to be calculated. The demographer is relied on to supply such estimates.
Demographic prospects
55. Comparing needs with possibilities, the planner generally finds that the
former are greater than the latter and he draws up a plan of investment designed
to reduce the difference, hoping to eliminate it altogether in due course. However
as a rule, this final goal is found to be out of reach within a strictly limited time,
and plans are spread over a period of years. All investment implies saving of
some kind,16 that is to say, a restraint on consumption, and if this restraint is
too severe, the population feels itself to be under compulsion. Where there
is a difference between needs and possibilities, the shorter the duration of the
plan the greater the compulsion necessary. Consequently, this duration will be
in terms of the capacity of the population to suffer, and the planner will, as a
rule, prepare several plans of varying duration, leaving it to the political authori-
ties to decide which one will not go beyond the point acceptable to the popula-
tion.
In the case of each of these plans, it is indispensable to know what the needs
will be throughout its entire duration, and it is here that the demographer again
has his part to play, for he must be able to calculate not only the existing num-
bers of the various classes of consumers, but also those for the years iminediately
ahead.
Prospective calculations have led to the invention of special methods which
now form an important side of demography: the calculation of demographic
prospects, or again, of population projections. For a long time we were satisfied
with very simple calculations, such as population prospects according to age
and sex. Lately we have undertaken the calculation of prospects more useful to
the planner, dealing with households, families, school population, urban
population, etc. However, this is only a beginning and the field of activity is
vast. With electronic computers it is now possible to deal with sectors which,
without them, we have so far been prevented from going into. They also enable
us to vary our assumptions.
Working population prospects
56. Assuming that the means of production are there, they then have to be used,
and for that we need labour. The investment plan will have to be set out in
terms of manpower and not confined to planning the building of factories and
manufacture of machines. It will also have to show the number and the structure
of the working population required to turn the means of production to ac-

Demography 371
count, and this brings us to a special side of the demographic perspective - the
working population.
At any given moment, the working population can be divided into four
concepts:
a. the working population corresponding to the aims of the plan;
b. the working population corresponding to the training which could be given
by the various existing types of instruction;
c. the working population corresponding to the training actually received. This
training is not necessarily that which corresponds to the training possibilities,
for it is the combined result of such possibilities and of the use that is made
of them. Everything may be on hand for training notaries, but if that profes-
sion is disdained by the population, the schools wil remain empty and there
will not be any notaries;
d. the working population corresponding to the termination of the plan, that
is, when needs have been satisfied.
Of all these working populations, only the third has any real existence. But the
calculation of the other three is a rewarding exercise. They must not differ too
much from the third one, otherwise they give rise to tensions that are responsi-
ble for all kinds of troubles. And if the differences are too great, it may become
necessary, as a result, to rearrange the development plan.
It is the task of the demographer, with the assistance of the economist, the
teacher, and technicians representing the various branches of production, to
calculate the above possibilities. We are still only at the experimental stage, but
there is no doubt that this branch of demography is going to be developed very
rapidly in the course of the next few years. The interpretation of these prospects
is certainly difficult. The relationship between the training of producers and
the aims of production is not a relationship in the sense in which that word is
employed in mathematics, or even in the natural sciences. A given type of
training does not correspond to one single class of production but to a whole
range of production; which means that there exists an uncertain quantity in
production which corresponds to a given type of training. This is just as well,
moreover, for this uncertain quantity makes it possible for technical progress
to take place without becoming too inhuman.
57. So long as a large part of the economy only requires a relatively unskilled
labour force, the question of training is not of any great moment. But with
technical development and the increasing activities of services connected with
teaching, culture and health, the finding of trained personnel is going to depend
more and more on the number of suitable persons available for training. The
discovery of such persons sufficiently early so that their talents can be made to
serve the aims and objects of the economic development plan wil then become
an essential task calling for the collaboration of teachers, economists, demog-
raphers, psychologists and sociologists.
Regional prospects
58. We wil assume that the development plan has been chosen. If everything

372 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
has been properly organized, the desired means of production and the workers
to make use of them, are available. This means that in the end the goods and
services planned are placed at the disposal of the population. It is still essen-
tial, however, that these goods and services should be made available to con-
sumers where the latter happen to be, so it is obviously necessary that the plan
should have provided for a distribution of products that corresponds to the
population distribution within the country. In this, demography has a clear
r61e to play, and the capacity to view events in their proper light required of it
just now on a national scale for various classes of consumers wil be wanted
this time on a regional scale, even down to that of the small administrative
district. The mobility of man has a fundamental influence on the way in which
he settles into the outside environment. He can produce, consume and spend
his leisure time in different places. To pass from production to consumption
requires, therefore, a knowledge of these migrations. A study of them is
demographically important. We shall return to this question in a moment.
The distribution of currency
59. In a market economy, however, it is still not enough to have the necessary
quantity of goods and services available in the places where the consumers are;
the latter must still to be able to buy them, and for that they must have money.
So it wil be impossible to carry out the plan properly unless an adequate dis-
tribution of currency has been arranged for.
The three ways of acquiring money
60. There are three principal ways in which a person can obtain money: in
remuneration for work done, as income from capital and, lastly, through pay-
ments effected by a collectivity and, more especially, by the State in accordance
with existing legislation. The proportions of these three means vary, depending
on the country and the political rkgime. Income from capital while practically
non-existent in Marxist economies is about at its maximum in countries such
as the United States of America. It seems that it is not possible for such income
to exceed one quarter of a country’s gross national product. A nation’s capital
represents four or five times that product, which makes it possible with a rate
of interest” of 4 to 5 % to distribute by this means 25 % at most of the monetary
resources placed at the disposal of the public.I*
The proportion distributed by collectivities also varies considerably, depend-
ing on the country. It is large wherever the development plan stresses the
social aspects of the situation. This procedure has been very much developed in
the recent past in support of a policy of the redistribution of income.
Finally, there is remuneration for work done, which accounts for the largest
proportion.
Behind all this monetary machinery, there is man himself. The worker receives
in principle, in exchange for his work, the necessary money for obtaining the
goods and services he and his family consume. But this does not mean that the
other two means lie outside his scope. On the other hand, persons who do not
form part of the labour force have only those two means at their disposal.

Capital income
61. The income from capital has automatism on its side. It is levied at a stage
in production such that the worker does not receive the impression that what
belongs to him is being taken away, whereas the money distributed by collec-
tivities is derived in large part19 from direct or indirect taxation submitted to
rather than voluntarily accepted.
However, the income from capital acts in blind fashion most of the time and
often is not channelled towards the persons who are in greatest need of it - those
who do not form part of the labour force. The whole population shares in the
ownership of capital, including members of the labour force, and it is often
they who are in the best position to benefit from it. This drawback is mitigated
by the proportion which this procedure places in the hands of collectivities.
The latter, by serving as intermediaries, influence the distribution of income,
but the proportion accruing to them is small. The system of inheritance adds
further to the dilution of capital income among the population in general, a
dilution which is again offset in this case by probate duties levied by the State.
This dilution among the population is far from presenting only drawbacks.
Indeed, the possession of capital goes far beyond the right to receive an income
from it. Owners of capital can bring great influence to bear on the economy and
it would be dangerous were they to belong to one class of persons only, as, for
example, the aged. Besides, it seems hardly desirable that ownership of capital
should be out of contact with the labour force.
If we add that with this procedure it is impossible to distribute more than
25 % of the total currency placed at the disposal of the private citizen, recourse
to the third procedure would seem to be imperative.
62. It is none the less true that currency distribution effected through paying an
interest on capital is the method in use in numerous countries. The mechanism
the working of which we have just outlined is not very well understood, but its
connexion with demographic variables is clear. Marriage conditions, fertility,
death rate - all these have an influence on the way in which capital is distributed
between the different generations, and the legal methods used in this distribu-
tion have a reciprocal effect on demographic variables. This is a sector which
seems to have been unjustly neglected by demographers, and by economists
also. It is true that we lack precise data, and the patterns we can imagine very
quickly become complicated. So far, mathematical demography has failed to
undertake a systematic study of the relationship between the generations. One
of the results of controlling the endogenous death rate wil be the accumulation
of capital in the hands of the aged. Although from a social point of view we
can congratulate ourselves on this evolution, seeing that the money goes pre-
cisely to those who no longer receive a wage in exchange for work done, we are
entitled to be apprehensive about the effects which this concentration of capital
is bound to have on the investment policies in the various countries. With the
future evolution of the death rate these questions can be expected to become
one of the main studies of demographers and economists.

374 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
Payments effected by collectivities
63. Those persons who are cut off from the labour force and remain outside the
flow of money distribution in the form of interest on capital present problems
of a different nature. Collectivities, and more particularly the State, must look
after them and laws must be introduced enabling them to receive the money they
need in order to live. No country has so far succeeded altogether in setting up
the proper machinery to meet the case, and the persons concerned are, generally
speaking, unfairly treated as compared with the other population categories.
In most cases this is not due to insufficient production. The goods and services
exist in the places where these persons are living, but they do not have the
necessary money to pay for them, and the spectacle of unused goods and services
in the face of palpable need is one of the most distressing paradoxes at the
present time.
The lowering of the death rate as a result of the progressive disappearance
of the endogenous causes of death should soon render the problem so acute
that society will be obliged to find solutions.
In exactly the same way as for the procedure based on capital income, doubt-
less the distribution of income by collectivities can not exceed a certainthresh-
old. Rightly or wrongly, the worker has the feeling that what he produces
belongs to him, and the proportion deducted from such production cannot be
indefinitely increased in order to distribute it among those who do not form
part of the labour force. It is clear that social demographic data concerning
these classes of persons are indispensable for the planner. He must know the
number of persons to date in each class and also the rate of increase through
the years. Thus one comes up against the need for new perspectives, no longer
related this time to consumption rates but to the way in which persons acquire
the money they need in order to live. It is not difficult to imagine who those
persons are: the aged no longer in employment, widows with children to bring
up, orphans, unemployed persons, the sick, ‘outsiders’, etc. All the demogra-
phic history of these groups remains to be studied. How does one begin?
and where? How is one to solve the difficulties? It will be the demographer’s
task in the coming years to discover the laws governing all such phenomena.
Planners must also know what characteristics are likely to induce these persons
to become reincorporated in the labour force: desire to remain active, possibili-
ty of attending a refresher course, finding a help for the household, undergoing
a readaptation course, especially in the case of the disabled, etc. Socio-demo-
graphic researches alone can provide the answers to these questions.
The international market
64. There is a special type of money which all countries are very interested in
possessing - the type which can be exchanged on the international money market
and which countries obtain by means of a variety of international operations
(trade, tourism, loans, gifts, etc.).
The goods and services offered to the population of a country are never
used to the fullest extent, especially the services. Thus there are often vacant
seats in theatres, cinemas, museums, trains, aeroplanes, etc. The economic

Demography 375
value of such marginal goods and services is small and they can frequently be
offered free of charge. But as soon as a foreign tourist takes advantage of them,
they immediately acquire a great value. When a foreign tourist sits down in a
cinema in a seat which would otherwise have remained empty, it is just as though
the country had an additional worker at its disposal and, what is more, a high
quality one at that, since he is free to choose his kind of activity. For with the
money spent by the tourist, the country wil be able to buy anything it likes on
the international market.
Once more, one meets with the three chief means of obtaining money avail-
able for use on the international market - labour, capital income, and recourse
to foreign States.
The income obtained from labour can be direct when a country has some of
its workers living abroad who have not severed their ties with the mother coun-
try and send remittances to it. This form of income can be quite large in some
cases, but remains small taken as a whole. The amount of income received
through international trade is decidely greater: in selling its products, a country
is, in effect, selling its work.
Income derived from capital follows exactly the same course as that de-
scribed at the national level.
Income from foreign States which was for a long time supplied under
colonialist conditions is now given more and more in the form of bilateral or
international aid.
65. Such means have their limit - and in the first place of a currency order -
on an international scale, exactly as they have on a national scale. Whoever
possesses currency that can be exchanged on the international market is
able to obtain whatever he wants with it. If this power is too widespread, and
especially if it is misused, it can endanger the normal working of the internation-
al monetary system. We saw this recently in connexion with what was called the
gold crisis. Economic aid is naturally limited by the generosity of the donors.
In this connexion, the United Nations made the following proposition to the
wealthy countries, namely, I % of their national revenue, which percentage, in
the aggregate?O has never yet been reached.31 Income derived from capital is,
taken as a whole, restricted to 25 % of the total world product.
But this refers to global limitation. Just as, in a given country, the limitation
of capital income to 25 % of the gross national product does not prevent cer-
tain persons from obtaining very big incomes by this means, so there are
countries which obtain a great deal of money by lending abroad. There are
also countries which receive considerably more economic aid than the average.
On the international level, countries play the same r6le as do individuals of
a particular country. But whereas there are a great many individuals, there is
only a small number of countries, about one hundred, and the exceptions are
no longer submerged in the general mass. On the contrary, they stand out as
examples and might well be put forward as standard types without it being
noticed that, in point of fact, they are exceptional cases.

376 Jean Bourgeois-Pichi
66. But, it will be said, we have got far away from the subject of demography.
I a m not so sure. The exchange currencies on the international market often
constitute the key to economic development for those countries which possess
such currency. When added to the national savings, the total represents the
investment potential and determines, in consequence, the rate at which the
production growth plan can be carried out. But, the difference between this
production growth rate and the population growth rate is a rough measurement
of the growth in the standard of living. By a boomerang effect, the growth in
the standard of living has an impact on the savings effected and on the develop-
ment of international trade.
All these factors are connected with each other without our yet knowing in
exactly what manner, and yet it is through being aware of such connexions that
one might expect to bring about the economic development of the developing
countries, thus avoiding the fixing a priori of unattainable aims. For instance,
if it were found that the suggestion made by the United Nations Organization
to the rich countries, whereby each country devoted I % of its national revenue
yearly to assist the poor countries, was incompatible with the proper function-
ing of the present international monetary system, then measures for reducing the
fertility rate of the poor countries would be of top priority. If, on the other hand,
machinery were to be devised enabling transfers from rich countries to poor
countries to be increased with impunity, the high population growth rates in
the developing countries could be accepted more easily.
Irreconcilable aims
67. So far, we have considered economic problems from the sole standpoint of
the creation of a certain level of production and the distribution to consumers of
the necessary currency for obtaining the goods and services produced. However,
society has a number of other aims which may often be incompatible with the
aim of maximum production. We shall review them briefly.
68. An economic development plan often presents the necessity of ensuring
full employment. This matter has not been touched upon so far. With the pro-
duction of goods and services at the desired level, and the currency distribution
machinery duly functioning, the matter was then regarded as solved, even if
only half the potential working population was actually in employment. All
that was necessary was that this currency distribution should provide for those
not in work. If, in addition, what is wanted is that every one should have em-
ployment, everything will have to be reconsidered and it is then not certain
whether the economic structure finally arrived at will not entail a decrease in
production.
69. The right to education can also be at variance with the aims of production.
There is no doubt that by offering too great a number of young people the op-
portunity to reach the higher branches of education, in the first place their
arrival on the labour market is delayed and the number of workers is thereby
reduced, but more important still, there is the risk of training a working pop-

Demography 311
ulation ill adapted to the aims of production. There is the danger that the gap
between the working population required for carrying out the plan and the
working population receiving a university training wil be widened, and we have
already shown how this discrepancy was at the bottom of dangerous social
tensions. The Human Rights Conference, held in Teheran in 1968, accentuated
still further this conflict in laying down the right of each individual to choose
freely his own employment.
70. If absolute priority is given to the right to health, that also can render the
aims of the production plan unattainable. We have already observed how the
increasingly excessive cost of the new forms of medical care is likely to result
in a revision of the principle whereby society is in duty bound to do everything
possible to protect the health of its members.
71. The right to leisure, or, more precisely, to rest is of course central to any
plan for economic development. There are as a matter of fact two ways to
utilize the results of increased productivity: produce more per capita or shorten
working hours. Both ways have been used in the past, doubtless without fully
realizing that such a choice was involved. There is today a tendency to believe
that one can independently set length of leisure time and production goals,
leaving it to automation to iron out the difficulties. This is of course a view of
the problem fraught with illusions. In fact automation does not decrease the
number of jobs, but rather transforms them; and if in the long run one can
succeed in increasing at the same time production per capita and the length of
leisure time, it must be realized that these are two objectives which can be irrec-
oncilable if one wants to advance too quickly.
72. Finally, there is a right which so far has been looked forward to rather
than experienced by the majority of the human race, but which is gradually be-
coming a reality and constitutes an essential variable in economic and social
development, namely, the right to plan one’s family.
Short-term j7uctuations in the economy
73. Hitherto we have spoken of economic progress as though it were a con-
tinuous movement towards a better way of living. But we know, in actual fact,
that it is made up of a series of more or less regular jolts, involving improvement,
on the one hand, followed by losses on the other. As long as fertility remained
at the stage described as ‘social’, very powerful economic fluctuations were
needed before their effects were felt on the number of births. But now that the
birth of a child is left to the discretion of the parents, all the economic ups and
downs consciously experienced, or simply expected or even imagined, are likely
to have a decided repercussion on fertility. It is not even a question here of the
effects of the fluctuation itself, but of the use which is made of them, and
behavioural changes can take place in couples which are quite out of proportion
to the economic happening as such. Moreover, boomerang effects are to be
expected. Indeed, while economic development exerts pressure on the fertility

378 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
rate, the fluctuations of the latter also have their influence on the economy.
Something resembling a perpetual series of oscillations could even result,
economy and fertility rate varying indefinitely, changes in the one giving rise to
variations in the other. A whole new behavioural science lies here ready to be
created in which sociology, political economy and demography should help
each other.
IV. DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND HUMAN ECOLOGY
74. In order to exercise his functions as a consumer and producer, and to pre-
pare himself for the same, to start a family, have children, make arrangements
for his old age, and finally, die, man settles down in his outer environment
through a process of mutual adaptation, modifying the environment and at the
same time accepting certain aspects of it. Human ecology is the study of these
relations between man and his environment.
Migrations
75. We have already referred to the importance of migratory movements, and
they traditionally form part of demographic research. The researcher aims at
getting to know their scope, direction and motivation, but these aims, it must
be admitted, have remained very far ahead of the results so far achieved. We can
learn a lot from population censuses about the distribution of population in a
given territory and the growth of the various localities, but they tell us nothing
about the inner dynamics of such movements. All these localities appear to be
the scene of powerful going and comingmovements. Annual intake and exit rates
of around 40 per 1,000 are by no means uncommon, and the positive or negative
balance of 4 to 5 per 1,000 revealed by the census seems to leave out of account
the essential aspect of the matter. From the point of view of the inhabitants of a
locality, there is not much difference between a situation in which the arrival
rate is 40 per 1,000 and the departure rate 30 per 1,000 and the reverse situation:
arrival rate 30 per 1,000 and departure rate 40 per 1,000. In each case the local-
ity witnesses the departure of an important section of its inhabitants and has to
extend a welcome to about the same number of new arrivals. One can hardly
believe that the newcomers take the place of the leavers.
In fact, such movements are invariably accompanied by changes in the
demographic, economic, social and cultural structure, and if a town with a
surplus of leavers has a little less difficulty in absorbing arrivals than has one with
a surplus of arrivals, the two problems do not differ essentially. What can be
described as the ‘floating population’, composed of those who decided to go and
of those who came to stay, represents just about the same number in each case.
The importance of such going and coming movements is obvious. That new
science concerned with ‘the organization of the territory’ (aminagement du
territoire) requires that we should know about them if we want to be able to
channel them. Research in this connexion has been begun in a good many
places. The processing of data collected by population censuses with the aid of

Demography 379
electronic computers ought to help in the development of such studies. In fact,
it is now possible to compare information obtained concerning the same person
in the course of two successive censuses.z2 By joining to this data supplied by
registry office records, it is possible to analyse arrival and departure flows. The
initial application of this method has produced very promising results.
76. However, the statistical analyses of existing documents are not enough.
All they can do is to prepare the way for more exact longitudinal studies showing
the effects of migratory movement in a person's life. Here are a few of the
questions that have so far remained unanswered. Does the migrant preserve
the fertility and life-expectancy rates of his country of origin, and if not, how
long does it take him to acquire the habits of his new country of residence?
Which are the migrants who return to their own country and under what con-
ditions is this return effected? How is the social, economic, political and cultural
integration of non-returning migrants effected ? All those preliminaries in order
at last to try to answer the basic question: Why does such and such a person leave
his homeland while another remains there?
To wn-planning
77. The overall (at the national or regional level) point of view of the planner
concerned with the greater or lesser population density in a given part of the
territory, is something altogether different. Whereas in the immediately preced-
ding paragraphs we were concerned with the development of localities (that is,
towns or urban development), here we are dealing with what is called urbaniza-
tion, which corresponds to something of another order. A country becomes
urbanized when the proportion of its inhabitants living in towns goes on in-
creasing. Although the two phenomena generally go together, one could,
strictly speaking, have urbanization without urban development. Seeing that the
more or less urban nature of localities is bound up with economic and socio-
cultural characteristics, it is the study of urbanization which throws light on a
country's all-round policy in its most varied aspects. Urban development as
such is restricted to a particular locality. We can say that while it is the mayor of
a locality who studies urban development, it is the government ministers who
study the question of a country's urbanization.
78. Very early on, human beings realized that the city was a factor making for
cultural development, and it can be said that all or just about all we call 'civili-
zation' derives from the fact that men learned to establish cities. We tend to
forget this too easily when we count the disadvantages that have also accom-
panied this creative achievement. Without wishing in the least to minimize
these disadvantages, it must be admitted that the balance is very much on the
credit side, and one of the features of the present day is the craze for the urban
type of life, which must be regarded as a fact of existence rather than as a re-
versible parameter. This brings us to the living conditions whose description,
understanding and improvement are made possible by the study of urban
development.

380 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
79. Migratorymovements towards thetowns have geneticresults, the importance
of which has not yet been fully appreciated. The most gifted are attracted to the
towns and so the country districts slowly lose their best elements. This factor
is even beginning to produce an effect at the international level. The brain-drain
being carried out by the most economically developed countries is a subject
which should enlist the attention of demographers.
80. At the same time, it is an open question whether the tendency to create
bigger and bigger urban centres - megapolises, as they are called - will con-
tinue at the rate with which we are familiar.
The technical progress about to take place in high-speed mass transport could
call into question the existence of such ‘megapolises’. As long as man was
obliged to move about on foot, the size of towns was limited by his physical
walking powers, as it was then impossible to live too far from the place of
work. Water, the horse, the railway, and fmally the motor-car changed this
situation and extended considerably the range of urban centres.=3 Magazines
of the beginning of the century have pictures of those later known as subur-
banites arriving in the morning at the railway stations to work in the cities. A
whole new sociology developed around this new means of transport which
contributed enormously to the creation of ‘megapolises’. The motor-car, owing
to its being an individual means of transport, arrived to upset everything. In
multiplying by five the surface transport congestion per person, it has brought
cities to the very verge of total paralysis.
me new means of rapid mass transport
81. The new means of rapid mass transport which we are told are about to be
realized will perhaps involve a complete overhaul of the situation. We are
promised trains on air cushions able to go at three or four hundred km. an hour.
One can imagine that it will only need a few years to approach the speed of
sound, so it is thinking in terms of mass transport movements at, say, 1,000 km.
(6-7 hundred miles) an hour that we have to envisage the situation of our pres-
ent-day cities. There can be little doubt that no method of individual transport
will ever attain such speeds as those. Consequently, mass transport is bound to
recover an overwhelming superiority. When it will take only twelve minutes to
get to work 125 miles from one’s place of residence, the geographical distribu-
tion of populations will be based on very different criteria from those of the
present day.
At the same time, cities ought to be able to rid themselves of hundreds of
thousands of cars which block the streets every morning and evening. This
means that the transport services within cities will themselves have to be reor-
ganized. It does not seem too early to try to imagine what urban life could be
like based on such technological innovations - for these innovations will be
here tomorrow. It is on these bases that the megapolis of the year 2,000 wil func-
tion. These new means of transport could also affect the use of country homes,
since it will be possible to live in them all the year around.

Demography 381
The new audio-visual means of cornrnunication
82. In addition to the changes of residence which number perhaps three or four
on an average during the life of an individual, and the more or less daily jour-
neys to and fro because people nowadays often live at a distance from their
place of work, there is a kind of shifting about occasioned by the particular type
of work. For instance, the intellectual has to go to his library, the engineer or
business man to consult with professional colleagues, the scientist to take part
in conferences, etc.
The progress already achieved or envisaged in transmitting information by
what are called audio-visual media should alter the type of such comings and
goings and make them less frequent. It is now technically possible, thanks to
television, to organize a ‘meeting’ of industrialists scattered about between, say,
New York, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Tokyo, London and Paris without them
having to go outside their respective offices. Soon it wil be possible to do the
same for zoo persons. There seems to be no limit. No doubt such ‘meetings’
will be considerably lacking in human warmth; but as they wil not cost much,
it wil be possible to hold them far more frequently and engage the most suitable
persons to take part in them so that one thing will balance another.
Another technical invention already brought out, but as yet in little use, is
going to upset completely the traditional method whereby one sets out to obtain
the information required. It wil soon become current practice, without stirring
a step, to address an inquiry to a machine and receive the answer at home - and
a printed answer at that.
83. Lastly, seasonal migratory movements, whether connected with work or
holidays, are becoming ever greater and greater, and wil make their effects felt
more and more in the social and economic life of a country.
V. DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND SOCIOLOGY
84. When dealing with human ecology, we were already in the realm of sociol-
ogy. As Jean Stoetzel has said, ‘Ecology is on the borderline between the
science of population and that of social phenomena; (it) constitutes the natural
bridge between these two branches of knowledge’. Sociology contributes to
demography its theories, principles and methods. We give below a few examples
of sociological theories serving as a fulcrum for demographic research.
85. On several occasions we have been led to emphasize the voluntary aspect
of demographic events: a birth, a marriage, a migration are more and more the
result of some individual decision. In the case of a death, there is a mingling of
individual decision and collective decision, without it being possible to see very
clearly as yet which wil prevail. Indeed, there is a branch of sociology exclu-
sively occupied with ‘decision’. It discerns in the various circumstances in which
a choice is necessary the use of standard procedures which are applicable to de-
mographic events, and this broadening of the notion of choice should help the
demographer to understand the variations which he notes in his findings.

382 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
86. For the demographer, a fundamental choice is that of the marriage partner,
which has obvious genetic, economic and social repercussions. There is some-
thing that he finds difficult to describe owing to the fact that he is dealing with
two distinct population entities - marriageable men and women among whom
motives of attraction and repulsion exist which will decide the composition of
the couples, with many other variables added, such as composition according
to age, social group, religion, colour, etc. Is it possible to measure suchmotives
of attraction and repulsion? That is a matter for sociological research.
87. There is another field in which sociology can assist the demographer - that
of the relations between the generations. In most of the industrialized countries,
the birth-rate went up after the second world war. Children born from I 945
onwards have been brought up in a relatively large family circle. They are now
reaching the age for having children of their own. It is quite possible that their
attitude towards fertility will take the form of a reaction against their own home
environment. Hence we can imagine alternate sequences of greater or lesser
fertility between generations. However attractive this idea may be, it remains
simply a conception of the mind until its truth has been established. But if this
reactive behaviour is true, it will not be restricted to fertility: it will be found in
the majority of attitudes which go to make up social life. If sociology can
demonstrate this, then the demographer will know that the explanation he gives
must be included within a wider frame of reference altogether. He will like-
wise know that his idea can be elaborated on and arrange his findings in con-
sequence.
88. The behaviour of an individual in a particular situation is often contradic-
tory depending on which aspect is being considered. Demographic events are
naturally subject to such contradictions. One person will insist, for example,
that society must do everything in its power to save the life of a sick man, but
will consider the health-insurance contribution to be much too expensive.
Another wil dream about receiving a good pension on retirement, but will at
the same time insist that families should be reduced in size, forgetting that those
children which society does not have are going to make their absence felt when
it comes to producing what is necessary to supply his retirement needs. We
could think of any number of such examples. Are these contradictions so much
as recognized by the individuals concerned? And if so, are they regarded as
embarrassing for the general purpose of everyday life ? These are questions which
sociology can answer and the reply given will be of importance to the demogra-
pher, for instance, in the research he conducts into ways of influencing demo-
graphic development.
89. But sociology has also its standards of judgement to bring to the cause of
demography, and more particularly in the use that is made of social stratifica-
tion. In fact, all the demographer’s investigations are stratified and, as a rule,
according to the social characteristics of the persons interrogated.
Conversely, however, demographic forms of behaviour differ according to

Demography 383
the social group, and demographic development brings about changes in
society.
90. To sum up, sociology uses the same methods as demography. The demog-
rapher notes, observes and measures phenomena. He unravels the ‘how’ of
things and calls upon the sociologist to help him find the ‘wherefore’ of them.
He discovers, for instance, that matrimonial habits vary from one region to
another. In order to do this, he has started off with numerical data supplied to
him by the census and civil registry office. Then, in the variations he notices in
this data, he takes into account those which are due to factors other than matri-
monial habits. He is then able to define and calculate the degree of what he
calls the ‘marriage situation’. Carrying on with his analysis, he discovers that
the ‘marriage situation’ varies according to social class, profession, education,
religion, etc.; that it also varies in time, depending on the economic develop-
ment, season of the year, etc. But how is he to understand that these are regarded
as standard habits by this or that social group?By using the methods of sociol-
ogy, the demographer is able to show how demographic events take their place
within a socio-cultural framework which gives them meaning.
VI. DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND MEANS OF OBSERVATlON
91. In every science, research is also affected by the means of observation.
Progress in those means entails progress in every branch of science. For instance,
the discovery of optical instruments in physics made research possible in hitherto
unsuspected fields. During the past few years, progress in three sectors has been
observable in demography and, more generally, in the human sciences as a
whole, the effects of which on research are being and wil continue to be felt for
a long time to come. These are:
a. the development of techniques for collection of sample survey data;
b. the development of techniques for data analysis by demographers and
statistical theorists, and
c. the invention of ever more advanced electronic computers.
Sample surveys
92. For many years, demography has drawn most of its source material from
official statistical publications, based for the most part on results of population
censuses and records in the civil registry. It was for a long time believed that
anything and everything could be obtained from such documents. W e now
know that they have their limitations. The tendency is rather to simplify them
and to rely on surveys for the accumulation of more varied information.
However, there is more to it than that: apart from the administrative pur-
poses for which they were created, censuses and civil registration returns have
always had, above all, an informative purpose. They are required to increase
our knowledge, and that was enough so long as demography confined itself to

3 84 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
the description of phenomena. In sample surveys, one observes in order to see,
without knowing in advance what is going to be found.24 We rely on sampling
to increase our understanding, and it became indispensable from the moment
when demography set itself the task of comprehending phenomena.
Progress in data analysis
93. But it is not only the method of collecting data that has been changed,
progress has also been made in analytical methods. Demography has given
birth to a new discipline: [demographic analysis, which has clarified ideas,
classified methods, caused principles to be reviewed, and raised questions. It is
in full process of development and ought to make its presence still more felt in
the years immediately ahead.
Remarkable progress has also been achieved in mathematical statistics, offer-
ing the researcher new methods of analysis.
A certain hesitancy is still observable in putting these new methods to use,
because they call for detailed calculations the results: of which cannot be fore-
seen.
Electronic computers
94. Electronic computers ought to get rid of this disadvantage. One might
hesitate when faced with a calculation requiring several weeks’ work. There is no
longer any need for this when the same calculation can be done electronically in
a few seconds. This means, it is true, that the researcher should have been trained
accordingly, and no doubt training programmes should now be altered to take
this new development into account.
95. But demography stands to gain even more from electronic computing.
Like most of the human sciences, demography is unable to make use of experi-
ment to which researchers in the natural sciences owe their most brilliant
discoveries. Besides, we have already explained how the observer disturbs
phenomena by the mere fact of observing them. For the human sciences, these
are serious handicaps. However, electronic computing, by making it possible
to simulate the behaviour of populations, is in the process of rapidly changing
the situation. By making use of the laws of probability in their effect on individ-
ual motivations established by correct analysis of an observation of demo-
graphic events, it is possible in an electronic computer to simulate the result of
the adoption of such laws by a population. And by causing these laws to vary,
the conditions for a pseudo-experiment are brought about. One can, in particu-
lar, observe the variation in phenomena by repeating the experiments. Up to
now, we did not know how to calculate this variation except in very simple
cases, as the formulas quickly became extremely complicated. Although it is
useful to know the average value of a parameter, it is often equally useful to
know how that parameter is distributed about such an average. Indeed, it is
indispensable if the object is to compare a number of populations with each
other.
It is not yet very clear where this use of simulations on electronic machines is

Demography 385
going to lead us, but we may expect it to prove of very considerable aid to
demographic research, so long as it is not forgotten that nothing wil ever be
able to replace direct observation of reality. The appearance of new methods of
analysis and of electronic computers has not only influenced research, but has
also had an effect on the teaching of demography: today demographers must
receive substantial training in mathematics.
96. The application of population policies offers a good illustration of the
difficulties encountered experimentally. For instance, in order to facilitate
family planning, the question of which contraceptive measures were best suited
to a given cultural environment was considered. Several groups of couples were
formed to whom different sorts of contraceptives were given, and the results
were observed. In this way, the necessary conditions for a proper experiment
were established. Unfortunately, individuals in one group very quickly dis-
covered that those in another group had different contraceptive means to theirs
and this led to various exchanges. Reactions on the part of the observed thus
had a disturbing effect on the conditions for the experiment.
It has sometimes been thought that when a government brought in legislation
concerning family allowances it was engaged in a genuine experiment, but it
cannot revert to the preceding situation. If it finds it has made a mistake, it is
unable to rectify it, and it sets in motion an evolution rather than an experiment.
97. In contrast to the special lines of research which we have indicated above,
and which were connected with specific problems, we must henceforth expect
research to be developed in every direction as a result of the progress made in
the means of observation.
VII. THE CONTRIBUTION OF DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH TO THE OTHER SCIENCES
98. Every time a branch of science helps to solve a question raised by demo-
graphic research, it stands to benefit itself from the research work thus instigat-
ed. So we can say that with regard to each of the subjects we have examined,
demographic research has some contribution to make to the sciences con-
cerned.
99. Just as demographic research, however, finds itself held up by unsolved
questions in the other sciences, so it is likely that these same sciences also en-
counter matters that have not yet been studied by the demographer, because he
is for the most part unaware of those sectors to which his research could be
directed so as to be of use to others.
Hence the demographer is badly placed for indicating in what way he can
help in the development of the other sciences. This is rather the task of special-
ists in the other sciences. We shall therefore confine ourselves to a few general
considerations.

386 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
100. The term ‘population’ has a very general sense. Its use is often limited to
human populations. But the statistician employs it for any group of objects.
Among all these ‘populations’, he distinguishes those which renew themselves
by a process of arrivals and departures. This is the case with human populations,
but there are many others besides, such as animal populations. We can also
refer to vegetation populations - for instance a forest - and to microbial popula-
tions. We can even talk of populations of objects: a series of types of electric
light bulbs is a well-known example; the books in a library is another. The
methods used by the demographer for studying the evolution of human popula-
tions can be applied to other sorts of population. But we must all the same take
care when analytical methods are thus extended. Certain peculiarities attached
to human populations are connected with the form of the fertility and mortality
functions of the human species. When populations other than human popula-
tions are considered, the arrival and departure functions will, as a rule, be
different from such fertility and mortality functions. It would be extremely
useful, therefore, if the demographer could distinguish very clearly in his studies
between, on the one hand, what is true for all self-renewing populations, and
on the other hand, what is true only for human populations.
IOI. W e remarked at the beginning of this chapter how one of the essential
characteristics of demographic events was that of being events as part of history.
This characteristic is not peculiar to demographic events. It is found in all the
human sciences, but in the case of demography, it lies at the very core of the
matter and cannot be eluded. All phenomena which form part of an historical
process share this common characteristic, namely, that they unfold in successive
stages in such a way that it is impossible for them to reach a given stage without
having gone through all the preceding stages. A whole method of analysis has
been built round this characteristic. There are, however, many phenomena
unconnected with demography to which the same analysis can be applied. We
mention, for example, the circulation of products in a market economy; the
circulation of vehicular traffic from place to place; the building of a succession
of barrages along a river; the tax on increased nominal value, etc. - all subjects
in which the demographer can collaborate.
102. We have a recent example of the results to be derived from such col-
laboration, namely research into historical demography. In many countries,
long before the establishment of a civil registration system, marriages, births
and deaths were registered by the religious authorities in what are called in
Europe parish registers. These documents, which are very numerous, had not,
until quite recently, been systematically used. Demographers have found means
for dealing with them and have applied those means with such success that they
are now used by hi~torians.~5
103. The human being has remarkable powers of adaptation, but these should
not be developed too rapidly. If environmental conditions change too quickly
they give rise to tensions which can endanger the very existence of the social

Demography 387
body. The increasing speed of technological progress which we are witnessing
is the cause of such a phenomenon. As a result of this acceleration, within ten
years the training received wil no longer correspond to the level reached by
technology. Consequently in industrialized countries there are increasing num-
bers of workers insufficiently equipped for their task. A study of the characteris-
tics of this section of the population in difficulties ought to help towards re-
instating it in the economic and social circuit.
104. The same is true, moreover, of a number of other sections of the popu-
lation, such as the unemployed, those on the sick-list, etc.
105. Politics is another field which stands to benefit from the progress in
demographic research. Numerous decisions of a political nature have demo-
graphic consequences which call for the use of methods of demographic analysis
in order to be understood and which, therefore, only demographers are in a
position to interpret accurately.
106. Political science itself has often had recourse to demographic data as a
foundation for its doctrines. The best known case is that of Malthus at the end
of the eighteenth century, but there have been more recent examples. Such
doctrines require the assistance of demographers for taking the consequences of
the principles on which they are based to their ultimate conclusions.
VIK ORGANIZATION OF DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
The three requisites for an organization of research
107. The success of research depends very much on the surroundings in which
it takes place. To have a research programme is not enough; it must be carried
out.
To begin with, all research requires a body providing the researcher with
the necessary means. In its most elaborate form this wil be, for example, a
specialized institute which wil offer the researcher the necessary rosm-space
and equipment to enable him to work, see to the collection and distribution of
financial resources, and, lastly, sanction expenditure. In its simplest form, this
would be, for instance, a grant of funds for carrying out a given piece of
research. Between these two extremes, a number of other situations are readily
conceivable.
108. In view of the fact that demographic research relates to many different
branches of science, an institute, by gathering together under the same roof
researchers from different branches, obviously provides a co-operative element
which is absent when research is conducted individually, and from this point of
view there is much to be gained by making an institute’s range of interest as
wide as possible.

3 8 8 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
109. In addition, the researcher needs to submit his findings to the scrutiny of
his colleagues. Research is a collective enterprise in which each researcher
draws sustenance from the work of others similarly engaged. It is important
for him that the results of his work should be discussed, or even criticized. This
can be done in writing, in which case the journal, printed report or even book
are the means employed. But if it is by word of mouth, we then have the sym-
posium, conference, congress, or seminar, etc. We should add that teaching also
quite often takes a share in both forms of expression. A scientific course, occa-
sionally printed, provides an opportunity for setting forth the results of re-
search.
110. And this brings us to the third requirement of research: it needs re-
searchers. In each branch of science, therefore, it is necessary to arrange for a
form of instruction which can either be incorporated in instruction as a whole,
or else be given in specialized schools.
Need for international co-operation
I I I. The organization of research as we have just described it is the type that is
usually found at the national level. In the first place, questions of language
limit the geographical scope, and secondly, the source of funds - in most cases
national - produces the same effect. That is why international contacts between
scientists working in the same branch need to be organized. This is the object of
private international associations which undertake to arrange meetings, publish
journals, or even entire works.
I 12. It often happens that research passes beyond the scope of a single country.
For instance, the expense involved may be too heavy for it. It is also possible
that the research is of a supra-national interest, making co-operation between
several countries necessary. In such cases as these, governmental or private
international institutions have their part to play.
Practical applications on a national scale
I 13. Let us now see how these principles have been applied in the organization
of demographic research. Here, we must have a little look at history. To start
with, emphasis was placed on research institutes and the teaching side was
neglected. After using for a long time the data from population censuses and
civil registration statistics as its only source of raw material, demographic
research, on its first appearance, naturally found its field of operation in the
official statistical services of the various countries. This situation continued up
to the first world war. After the war, various institutes made their appearance,
but for a long time they never exceeded ten in number. These were:
in the United States:
- the Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems, founded in
1922 at Miami University (Ohio);
- the Office of Population Research, founded in 1936 at Princeton University
(New Jersey);

Demography 389
- the Milbank Memorial Fund, a private institution founded in New York
immediately after the first world war;
- the Population Research and Training Center, founded in 1947 at Chicago
University (Illinois).
in France:
- the Institut national d'Ctudes dbmographiques, founded in 1945, in Paris, as
a research institute coming under the Ministry of Social Affairs.
in Japan :
- the Institute of Population Problems, founded in 1939 in Tokyo, and attached
to the Ministry of Health.
in Italy:
- the Comitato Italian0 per lo Studio dei Problemi della Popolazione, founded
in Rome in 1928.
in Brazil:
- the Laboratbrio de Estatistica, established in Rio de Janeiro immediately
following on the 1940 census, and forming part of the Instituto Brasileiro de
Geografia e Estatistica.
in the United Kingdom:
- the Population Investigation Committee, established in 1936 in London.
in Spain:
- the Instituto Balmes de Sociologia y Asociaci6n para el Estudio Cientifico
de 10s Problemas de Pobladbn, research institute founded in 1943.
All these organizations founded between 1922 and 1947 were originally interested
essentially in research. Many of them very soon began to publish technical
reviews, and all of them have publishedreports and other works setting forth the
results of their researches.
I 14. At the international level, co-operation between demographers first began
to develop through the International Statistical Institute (I.s.I.) founded in
1885, then in 1928 demographers grouped themselves together in the Inter-
national Union for the Scientific Study of Population (I.u.s.s.P.). Finally, the
Biometric Society was established in 1944. At the meetings of theI.s.1. and during
the conferences held by the I.U.S.S.P. and the Biometric Society, demographers
have been able to exchange their points of view.
I 15. The above-mentioned institutes, with their publications, and the three
international associations that have just been mentioned, with their conferen-
ces, fulfilled the first two requisites for enabling research to go forward. Never-
theless, these various institutions differed considerably from one another both
as regards their size and the scope attributed to demography. The creative
spirit produced by the juxtaposition of researchers from different disciplines
was often lacking. All had the disadvantage of not taking sufficient interest in
the teaching of demography. To remedy this situation, either developing this
teaching within the institutions themselves or its separate autonomous develop-
ment could be considered. In fact, both courses were adopted.

390 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
116. In the United States, for example, although the Scripps Foundation26 and
the Milbank Memorial Fund have remained research institutes, the other in-
stitutes have developed their educational activities. Moreover, within the last
twenty years, numerous other centres have been founded which immediately
combined teaching with research. In France, teaching and research have tended
to follow separate paths. University institutes have been created, notably the
Institut de dkmographie of the University of Paris (I.D.u.P.). In addition, the
teaching of demography has been made compulsory in certain branches of
general teaching. As a result these two countries have fulfilled all the necessary
conditions for the development of demographic research, and it is not by acci-
dent that they are now the ones where this type of research is most actively
pursued. On the other hand, in Japan and Brazil which have kept their research
institutes as they were, without reserving even the smallest place to teaching, no
progress has been made in demographic research.
117. Let us mention yet another recent example - the creation in 1963, in
Budapest, of the Research Group for Population Studies (now the Demographic
Research Institute). Shortly after, the first number of the review published by the
Group appeared, giving the results of work undertaken by researchers. In 1964,
the Group organized an international symposium on social mobility and fertili-
ty, followed by a second one in 1965. At the same time, exchanges of researchers
with those of other countries were arranged. We observe again the various steps
taken in the organization of research. But we also find the same flaw - no pro-
vision for teaching. However, this has just been remedied. Since 1967, courses
in demography have been given by researchers belonging to the Group at the
University of Budapest.:'
118. Along with the successes, it is interesting to observe, if not exactly the
failures, at any rate the attempts that have not led to any notable results. Such is
the case with Germany and Italy. In these two countries, demographic research
was organized in the thirties under the national statistical services. That was a
bad beginning in view of the priority given by those services to short-term affairs.
For since demographic factors follow a slow process of development and do
not make their presence immediately felt, they were bound to be neglected
sooner or later. But that is not all. The successful demographic researches
carried out in those two countries at that time were due to the powerful per-
sonalities of the men conducting them, but whose failing was to place their
branch of science at the service of politics. The collapse of the political systems
so served brought about their disappearance from the international demograph-
ic scene. To this day, the Italian - and especially the German - demographers
have been unable to surmount this So it would seem that demography's
own independent research with respect to the other branches of science - in
this case statistics - and with respect to the public authorities is all-important.
Practical applications on an international scale
I 19. W e now come to the r6le of the international governmental organizations.

Demography 391
We have already said how, for a long time, censuses and civil registers were the
essential sources for data on which demographers had to base their work. In
those days, it was only the variety of national conditions which gave the
researcher the appearance of conducting experiments. Hence it was essential
to reach a certain homogeneity in the information collected by the various
countries. The International Statistical Institute originally undertook to en-
courage international co-operation in this field, but a private institution such
as this lacked the powers possessed by the international governmental organiza-
tions, so the United Nations Organization was given the task of standardizing
questionnaires, methods of collecting data, and tabulation procedures.z8 All it
amounts to really is preparatory work for research purposes, but of essential
importance in itself: the Statistics Committee of the Economic and Social
Council issues the directives, and these are carried out by the Bureau of Statistics
of the United Nations.
120. Among the aims of the United Nations Organization, the economic and
social development of the developing countries was very quickly given a high
priority, and in the efforts made to further this development the demographic
obstacle became immediately apparent. It was also found that the mutual
relationships between population growth and the economic and social development
aimed at were not properly known. Accordingly, demographic research
became of supra-national importance, and there was room for international
action. This action has been developed by following lines of approach
similar to those followed by individual countries, viz:
a. Founding regional institutes for teaching and research: one for Latin
America, one for Asia and the Far East, and one for Africa.
b. Publishing of reports and textbooks.
c. Organizing courses of professional studies and convening world and regional
conferences.
The Population Committee of the Economic and Social Council draws up the
programmes which are carried out by the Population Division of the United
Nations Secretariat.
An unsolved dificulty
121. The multidisciplinary character of demographic research has been the
cause of a difficulty which is far from being overcome.
The large United Nations system is itself multidisciplinary. In addition to the
central organization in New York, we have
in Geneva:
- the International Labour Office (ILO), and
- the World Health Organization (WHO);
in Rome:
- the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) :
in Paris:
- the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

392 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
In addition there are now four regional economic commissions - for Europe,
Asia and the Far East, Latin America and Africa.
This multidisciplinarity, however, goes hand in hand with a dividing-up of
responsibilities. Each of the agencies mentioned has its own budget, conferences
and programme. The large United Nations system thus creates conditions which
are contrary to those necessary for the proper functioning of a research institute
where research workers with varied training and interests work together.
This difficulty is now recognized by the United Nations which is considering
the establishment of a co-ordinating body. This body will doubtless merely discover
that everything is of interest to everybody, and will be hard put to it to
allot the part each should take.
It might well be that the establishment of an organization specializing in
population questions would meet the difficulties raised by this proposed coordination.
The recent creation by the Secretary-General of the United Nations of a
special fund for demographic questions is a step, albeit a timid one, in the right
direction.
The Advisory Committee on the Application of Science and Technology to
De~elopment,3~ a newcomer in the field of population problems, has correctly
attacked the issue. At its 10th session held in Vienna (Austria) in December,
1968, it requested the various agencies of the United Nations to present a
report on their activities in the field of demography which will be subsequently
examined at its 12th session at the end of 1969. The Committee proposes at that
time to ‘give special attention to the possible need, within the United Nations
family, for some new machinery, or a change in existing machinery, to maintain
an overall view of the scientific and technological aspects of population problems
and policies’.
A special case: the Council of Europe
122. Apart from the UnitedNations institutions, a number of other international
governmental organizations are interested in demographic questions.
There is:
in Paris:
- Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD);
in Geneva:
- the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM);
in Strasbourg:
- the Council of Europe.
This last organization deserves particular mention. It is the only one having
a political arm for translating into action the resolutions adopted by its assembly.
This provides an excellent means of encouraging research not possessed by
the United Nations Organization which has little authority over governments,
and whose appeals in favour of a co-ordinated development of demographic
research31 have so far remained without much effect.
Much can be expected from the experiment now being undertaken by the
Council of Europe. In 1966, this body convened a European Demographic

Demography 393
Conference which outlined a plan for a vast research programme. Following
on this conference, a committee of experts was, in 1967, given the task of select-
ing a small number from among the most important subjects for investigation,
and these were handed over by the Committee of Ministers of the Council to
some ten demographers who were instructed to promote the necessary research
in the European research organizations. The action of these demographers wil
be supported by the authority of 17 governments, members of the Council of
Europe, and it is to be hoped that this action wil prove more effective than the
resolutions passed by the United Nations institutions which governments,
unfortunately, tend too often to ignore.
Finally, in 1971 the Council of Europe is to convene a second European
Demographic Conference at which the results of researches thus undertaken
wil be discussed.
Private initiatives taken
123. W e must not forget to mention the activities of private organizations which
have greatly contributed towards the progress of demographic research through-
out the world. In most cases they are American foundations which do not
themselves engage in research, but give financial assistance to individual re-
searchers or to research institutes. Being more flexible than the official organiza-
tions, they can intervene precisely in those cases where the latter fail to act, and
so they have a far-reaching catalytic effect. We may mention the following:
- the Population Council
- the Ford Foundation
- the Milbank Memorial Fund
- the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- the Tata Institute of Social Sciences
- the Getdio Vargas Foundation
Gaps to be filled
124. Despite the progress made in the last fifty years, the organization of
demographic research still appears incomplete. Though its principles seem to
have been accepted by all, they are far from being applied everywhere, more
often than not because of lack of funds. Teaching, moreover, needs to be co-
ordinated between the various countries and, indeed, between the various
universities inside these countries. Sound research requires that researchers
should receive as uniform a training as possible. We have already pointed out
how considerable efforts have been made in the past few years to build a properly
equipped educational structure with its professorships, university degrees and
textbooks. A good deal remains to be done, and this presents a good opportunity
for international action.
125. Lastly, we come to the question of collaboration with scientists of other
branches. Collaboration within the limits of the same institute does not solvejit
entirely, owing to the fact that you cannot assemble together under one roof all
the scientists whose services wil only be needed now and again.

394 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
IX. SURVEY OF THE PRESENT SITUATION
126. To what extent do demographic researches in progress already foreshadow
the trends mentioned above? That is what we propose to discuss now. W e will
obviously not try to draw up a complete list of demographic researches in the
world today. That would be a formidable task. Ten years ago, it was undertaken
and brought to a successful conclusion by the Population Research and Train-
ing Center of Chicago University. A voluminous work consisting of nearly goo
pages was compiled by a team of thirty or so demographers belonging to a
number of countries. The first edition was published in 1959 and the last (4th)
in 1964. More recently, two French researchers were commissioned by the
Maison des sciences de l’homme to write a report on present trends in, and
organization of, demographic research for the period 1955-1965. This work was
published in 1966. It covers the researches undertaken during that period in the
form of bibliographical analyses.
Our purpose is quite different: we shall try to pick out the main centres of
interest that are gradually becoming apparent in demographic work.
Health questions
127. In the first place, we find a whole series of activities centred around health
questions. In these, the World Health Organization (WHO) is playing an impor-
tant pioneering part. Realizing that the living habits of a sick person may be of
more significance in the determination of his illness than is the specific agent
usually regarded as the causes of it, the General Assembly of WHO approved the
establishment within the organization of a special service to promote research
aimed at a rethinking of the very concept of ‘health‘. This service, ‘by using the
latest advances in modern technology and by constituting a multidisciplinary
group of sophisticated research scientists, including epidemiologists, ecologists,
sociologists, operational research :specialists, mathematicians, computer
technologists and others, [hopes] to develop a facility that will be able to predict
the probable developments in a given country in the coming years, which will
enable that country to institute such preventive measures as are possible before
the apparently unavoidable and undesirable side-effects of socio-economic
development and cultural change have had an unalterable effect.. .’.32
128. This international endeavour to introduce the human sciences into the
sphere of medical science has found an echo in a number of countries.
In the United States, a private foundation such as the Milbank Memorial
Fund, considering that in dealing with the problem of public health we are
nowadays faced with a ‘maze of social, cultural and economic considerations
which up to now were not the concern of public health authorities’, has decided
that it was its duty ‘to help to create clusters of trained and even inspired people
who will not apply slavishly the traditional solutions, but who will seek through
innovation and experiment for new ways through the maze.’33
Several of the annual conferences organized by the Milbank Memorial Fund
have been devoted to health problems in the modern world.

Demography 395
129. Again in the United States, the studies undertaken by the National Center
for Health Statistics, and in particular those based on data collected since 1956
by the National Health Survey through repeated sample surveys on disease and
mortality rates in the population, are on similar lines.
130. In the International Biological Programme (IBP), which was established
jointly in 1966 by 44 nations and is to continue for a period of ten years, pro-
vision is made for a section on man’s adaptability to his environment, which
wil also be dealing with the same problems.
131. This idea that, to arrive at an understanding of a person’s ‘state of health’,
it is necessary to take into consideration the whole of his past life, has led to the
development of research on differential mortality according to social environ-
ment.
The various statistical services in theUnitedKingdom have for a long time cal-
culated mortality figures according to social class. These figures are difficult
to calculate because they represent a relation, in the case of the numerator, to
data on mortality (that is to say, data supplied by the statistics on population
trends) and, in the case of the denominator, to data supplied by the census. The
factor common to both numerator and denominator is the social class, and this
factor is therefore determined by reference to different statistical documents.
This is bound to result in a lack of homogeneity which falsifies the results. In
the United Kingdom, this dificulty is overcome thanks to the high quality of
the demographic statistics. But the same does not apply elsewhere and other
methods have recently been devised.
132. The Population Research and Training Center of Chicago University, in
co-operation with the national service concerned with population trends and the
United States Census Bureau, compared the death certificates of 340,000 per-
sons who died during the four months (May-August) immediately following
the census of April 1960 with the census returns for those deceased persons. It
was thus possible to determine the ‘social class’ factor from the census report
alone.
Over the past fifteen years, a similar method has been used in France for cal-
culating the infant mortality rate in the various social classes. The death
certificates of the children are compared with their birth certificates.
133. Another method used in France for calculating the adult mortality rate
consists in keeping a record over the years of a sample group of persons drawn
from a population census. This makes it possible to calculate mortality rates
according to generation.
134. Mention may also be made of a biometrical survey in Hungary, on a
sample of 720 persons chosen from among the candidates in the year 1966 for
the university or professional colleges, undertaken by the Research Group for
Population Studies of Budapest. The object of this survey is to follow the per-

396 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
sons concerned during their educational careers. It therefore goes far beyond a
mere study of mortality incidence; on the other hand, it is confined to a partic-
ular group of social classes and covers only a short phase of a lifetime.
135. In addition, there are the studies conducted in the United States by the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company on its clientkle. Although not represen-
tative of the American population as a whole, this clientkle, consisting of several
tens of millions of persons, enables the company to study the influence on the
death-rate of factors connected with the way of living. Research is also carried
out on morbidity.
136. Rapid progress is being made, too, in research on mortality of genetic
origin. There are frequent discoveries of chromosomal disorders responsible
for various physiological ailments. It has been demonstrated that the frequency
of chromosomal disorders in new-born children is 4 per 1,000, and that chromosomal
anomalies account for 20 % of the root cause of miscarriages.
137. The question of parental incompatibilities between blood groups raises a
number of problems at the present time from the point of view of selection. We
are well acquainted with the problem of Rh incompatibilities (hemolytic disease
in new-born children), but it is thought that they are to be found also in the
ABO and m systems, among others, with very different mechanisms: gametic
selection, selection in utero, mortinatality, post-natal selection, specific mortali-
ty. All these aspects are of great importance from the point of view of public
health.
Procreation in the human race
138. Works on the subject of procreation in the human race relate to another
equally important field of research. Three main sectors may be distinguished:
First, the study of the biological and physiological aspects of human repro-
duction. Here again, we find a vast programme of research launched by WHO.
A service specialized in the reproduction of the human species was established
in 1965 at the Organization’s headquarters in Geneva. It has carried out the
following work:
a. It has organized a number of meetings of experts with the object of
reviewing the present state of our knowledge and indicating new lines of re-
search. The conclusions of these discussions have been published in the series of
technical reports issued by WHO. The mere mention of their titles is enough to
show how they fit into the general scheme of this chapter: biology of reproduc-
tion (1963),34 physiology of breast-feeding (1963), effects of confinement on the
foetus and new-born child (1964), neuro-endocrinology and the reproduction
of the human species (1964), mechanisms of action of sexual hormones and
allied substances (1964), biochemistry and microbiology of the genital organs
of man and woman (1969, immunization of human reproduction (1969,
chemistry and physiology of oral contraceptives and their clinical aspects
(1969, gametes (1969, the sterilet and its clinical aspects (1966).

Demography 397
b. It has drawn up a list of research institutes and individual researchers
working on the problems of human reproduction.
c. It has encouraged and co-ordinated biological research undertaken in most
parts of the world concerning human reproduction, more especially by provid-
ing financial aid for laboratory research or surveys. Funds have also been
used for the training of technicians.
The service contemplates increasing its activities in the foregoing sectors. It
proposes in particular to study the variations, associated with the environmental
conditions, to be found in phenomena such as puberty, the menopause, single
ovulation, multiple ovulation, anovular cycles, etc. It also proposes to under-
take longitudinal studies of genetic histories by trying to discover the effects,
on production, of the mother’s age, the number of children, the intervals between
births, miscarriages, the father’s age, the parents’ health, the children’s health,
etc.
139. These same problems are being tackled by demographers, but in this case
in relation to populations. Innumerable research projects are in progress; most
countries have researchers in this field. They are trying to bring to light the
demographic effects of the factors studied in the above-mentioned technical
reports of WHO, either through direct observation of present-day populations, or
by constructing models, or again through observation of populations of the
past, making use of historical documents hitherto unused. Mention may be
made of the works of Indian, American, French, Hungarian and British demog-
raphers, among others. The limits of such researches have been apparent for
some time. To enable them to progress, it is necessary that biology should
provide an answer to the questions they raise. The importance of the programme
launched by WHO is, therefore, obvious.
140. Another considerable amount of research centred on procreation in the
human species is constituted by study of the motivations which determine the
size of families.
Over the past ten years or so, sample surveys of couples have been conducted
in most parts of the world with the object of discovering the social, economic
and psychological reasons for such decisions.
About a hundred of these surveys have taken place, ranging from simple
opinion research of the kind carried out in France - this means quota sampling,
the conception, execution and analysis of which can be completed in a few
months, thus allowing for its repetition - to longitudinal surveys such as the
American ones. These involve long-term studies aimed at following a sample of
couples over a period of time with the object of recording any changes that
may take place in their opinions and attitudes.
These surveys have hitherto been organized without very much co-ordination
between them, which has made it difficult to compare the results. The Inter-
national Union for the Scientific Study of Population has set up a working
group to prepare a basic questionnaire for use in all such surveys.

398 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
141. The third sector of research relating to human procreation covers everything
that has a bearing on birth control.
People did not wait to be thoroughly acquainted with the biological and
physiological mechanisms of conception, or with the social, economic and psychological
motivations of the founding of a family, before passing on to the
practical applications of birth control. Incidentally, biology and physiology come
into play again here with the research aimed at discovering contraceptives that
are increasingly effective and increasingly easy to use.
Here, the Americans undoubtedly take the lead, and mention should be made
of the work done by the National Committee on Maternal Health. Experiments
now in progress would seem to indicate the possibility in the near future of
ensuring, by means of a single injection, the temporary sterility of a woman for
an unlimited length of time that can be chosen at will and in advance.
A whole series of surveys of couples has also been undertaken concerning
acceptance of contraceptive practices : acceptance in principle, choice ofmethods,
distribution of information, etc.
Lastly, in all countries that have adopted an active birth control policy, the
effects of this policy need to be closely followed, and a methodology for assessing
these effects is gradually being evolved.
Economic development
142. A third topic around which several lines of research can be grouped is the
relationship between population trends and economic and social development.
A first series concerns the problems raised by the developing countries. A
recent work produced by G. Myrdal with the help of several associates35 gives
a remarkable account of research in progress. Information is also to be found in
United Nations publications, and more particularly in the work entitled Deter-
minants and Consequences of Population Trends, which summed up the state of
our knowledge some fifteen years ago and is now being revised. In the past,
similar researches were conducted in France and led to the publication of a
work on the developing countries. They have lately been resumed and a new
work on the developing countries is soon to be published. In these various
works, problems have been approached from the macro-economic angle. More
or less complicated models have been elaborated, in which the population
variable is set beside the economic variables.
143. Another series of researches is centred round the preparation of forecasts
of the active population. In this case, the population is no longer considered
as a whole; a distinction is drawn between the different sectors of activity and
professions.
In outlining the kind of collaboration that might be established between
economists and demographers, it was shown that the assistance which could be
provided by the latter was mainly in the form of projections: producer and con-
sumer projections (individuals, households, towns, villages, etc.); projections
according to the mode of living (urban, rural); projections according to situa-
tion in the labour force (retired persons, widows, etc.).

Demography 399
Let us take the case of the preparation of a projection of the active popula-
tion in relation to a production plan. The demographer can, of course, extrap-
olate curves of activity .rates and calculate the labour force available, on the
basis of a population projection according to sex and age. This method is
perhaps acceptable from the global standpoint; but it is no longer so when we
come to the different branches of economic activity. For some years past, the
economists have been drawing up tables showing the exchanges between differ-
ent branches in terms of monetary units. As long as these same tables are not
drawn up in terms of working hours, it will be impossible to know what the
production of an extra ton of steel, for example, implies for the active popula-
tion. Account must also be taken of variations in productivity. Research in this
direction, particularly in France, is in its infancy.
143. The methods used in preparing a projection of the active population in
relation to a given training are even less precise. We are only just beginning to
study this connexion between training and economic activity (France, United
Kingdom, United States of America, Federal Republic of Germany, Mexico).
The achievement of definite results in this respect is becoming a matter of
urgency. It is to be feared that a considerable discrepancy wil be found between
the active population in relation to training received and the active population
in relation to the needs of production. This may well be the root cause of the
‘revolt’ of the younger generation that we are witnessing in almost all parts of
the world.
In the United Kingdom, foliowing the issue of the Robbins report on the
shortage of highly qualified personnel, a special research group of the London
School of Ec0nomics3~ carried out a survey on the factors of work production
in the electrical construction industry.
In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has calculated employment
forecasts for 1975, taking account, in particular, of the technological
advances to be expected in the coming years and using the double-entry table
showing the active population distributed according to occupation and branch
of economic activity (known as the ‘employment matrix’). A team from the
Population Research Center of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia
is also working on the subject. Boston’s Northeastern University has published
a work giving the same employment matrix in respect of some twenty developed
countries.
In France, the employment matrix has been used for preparing projections
of the active population by occupation. Similar projections have been prepared
in Japan.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, similar studies are being carried out by
the Institut fur ernpirische Soziologie at Nuremberg.
In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the planning of education is one of
the chief factors in economic development plans, though the employment matrix
does not seem to be used in this connexion. Apparently, projections relating
to skilled workers and middle- and higher-grade personnel are based merely
on a detailed analysis of the expected posts in production development.

400 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
This is a method of dealing with these problems which is also used in France.
In Mexico, the Centro de Estudios Econdmicos y Demogrkficos was established
in 1964 by the Colegio de Mbico, and since 1967 it has been publishing a
periodical, Demografia y Economia. This juxtaposition of the words ‘Demo-
grafia’ and ‘Economfa’ is in itself significant. It shows that there is a real desire
to see economists and demographers working together. In the first numbers,
interest has been focused on the geographical distribution of the population in
relation to economic and regional development.
Projections of the active population have been prepared, taking account of
internal migrations. In these studies the macroscopic approach has been adopt-
ed, and they should rather be classified among the first series mentioned above.
But they are the precursors of other researches that are, moreover, already
under way and are following the tradition of the British, American and French
studies to which reference has just been made. The Centre intends ‘to examine
the relations between the economic trend and education’. A pilot project has
already been carried out on the relations between higher education, science and
technology, on the one hand, and economic development in Mexico, on the
other.
Mention should also be made of the work done by OECD (Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development). This organization has tackled the
same problems, adopting a different approach. A calculation has been made of
the correlations existing between the employment :structure and a host of
indicators of economic production. It is hoped in this way to go on from a plan
for the development of production to a projection of employment. The work is
proceeding.
OECD has published a methodological work on Argentina, in which it is shown
how far it is possible to go by using the traditional methods, that is to say,
without making use of the employment matrix.
145. With regard to the active population representing the satisfaction’Tof
desires that are universally regarded as legitimate, it has never been calculated,
for the same reason for which exchanges between branches are seldom expressed
in terms of men. Yet the results would, without any doubt, be highly instructive.
We should find that, to satisfy the needs of a population of 50 million,
70 million persons would, for instance, be necessary.37 This would bring out
clearly the absurdity of endeavouring to satisfy all the needs immediately. It
would at the same time make it possible to estimate the tensions produced by
discrepancies of this type, which explain how it is that the dissatisfaction’:of the
younger generation finds a favourable echo among the rest of the population.
It is doubtful whether such questions can be solved without adopting the
principle of shock-teams mentioned earlier in connexion with the Milbank
Memorial Fund projects for mortality studies.
146. So far, we have been concerned with producers. In the case of consumers,
the problem is easier, since the various categories of consumers are mostly
determined with the aid of demographic parameters such as age, civil status,

Demography 401
size of family, rural or urban environment, etc. In most cases, therefore, the
calculations are purely a matter for demographers. But this does not solve all
the difficulties. For instance, no satisfactory method has yet been devised for
preparing projections relating to households or families, and still less so if the
number of children has to be taken into account. The Population Division of
the United Nations has undertaken to promote research in this matter. It has
itself conducted research on urbanization.
147. In the case of populations dehed according to the position of individuals
in the labour force, research bears principally on three main categories: old
people, young people attending school or joining the active population, migrants
and their families. A good deal of such research is taking place in most parts
of the world. As regards migrations, a team from the Population Center of
the University of Pennsylvania (USA) is about to publish a textbook on methods
for measuring migratory currents.
148. In all this research centred on economic and social development, the
Population Division of the UN, with assistance from UNESCO, ILO and the re-
gional Economic Commissions, could play a pioneering r61e somewhat similar
to that which WHO has begun to play in the study of fertility and mortality rates.
In which case, its human and financial resources would then have to be increased,
since its present activities are more and more taken up with problems connected
with birth-control in the developing countries.
Some progress has, moreover, been made recently in this direction. The
Population Division of the UN intends to convene, in 1969, a group of experts to
advise on the demographic aspects of social development. A textbook on
methods of establishing a projection of the active population is to appear in
1968. Studies are in progress concerning urban and rural population forecasts.
As regards projections based on occupation, the Population Commission, at its
14th session, in October 1967, stated as follows:
‘The future distribution of the population by educational attainment is ob-
viously correlated to the future occupational pattern, and it wil be useful for
this purpose, therefore, to study the educational and training requirements of
workers belonging to different occupations.’
With regard to projections relating to households and families, the Popula-
tion Cornmission, at the same session, pointed out ‘the need for future analytic
work to provide a sound basis for projections relating to households and fami-
lies, including the investigation of factors influencing formation, growth and
dissolution of families and households.’
The importance of these problems and the urgent need for their solution is
therefore clearly recognized, but the organization which would be prepared to
act as a catalysing agent in the service of all interested parties has not yet been
chosen.
Historical demography
149. In the last few years, aseries of studies possessing a commoncharacteristic-
that of taking their raw material from the past - have contributed towards

402 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
developing a new aspect of demography, namely, historical demography. In
France, a historical demography society was' established in 1962, and publish-
es yearly records on the subject. In 1967, a research team specializing in the
study of the history of the French population was formed, with the help of
various research agencies and of the universities.
150. In the United States, the team of graduates and researchers at Harvard
University responsible for the periodical Daedalus (Journal of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences) organized two international meetings on histori-
cal demography, one in Boston (USA) in 1966 and the other in Bellagio (Italy)
in 1967.
151. In 1965, a national symposium on historical demography was held in
Budapest.
Lastly, a number of research workers belonging to various research institutes
now have programmes bearing on the study of populations of the past.
152. So much for the tools. Everything is at hand for a balanced development
of the new discipline: journal, specialized team, international meetings. Now
let us have a look at the subjects treated. As the studies in question are centred
on the past and do not relate to one subject of research only, they present a
considerable diversity. All the aspects of demography are dealt with.
153. In France, an ambitious project launched about fifteen years ago is nearing
completion. Its purpose was to reconstitute the population trend in France from
the beginning of the eighteenth century, by means of a perusal of parish registers.
A sample of parishes was chosen by lot, and data on the life and death of the
families which had made up the population of those parishes was patiently
assembled. Only some of the results have so far been published. The moment
is approaching when a mass of unpublished results will become available, which
will throw new light on the trend of mortality and fertility rates at a time when
the practice of birth control had only just begun. In the course of this reconsti-
tution of the past, special methods of analysis were gradually developed and a
textbook for researchers wishing to undertake similar studies has been published.
Besides the above-mentioned over-all study of France, a number of regional
research projects have been undertaken by individual researchers.
154. Similar studies are taking place in the United Kingdom. A specialized
research group has been formed at Cambridge (Cambridge Group for the
History of Population and Social Structure). An important demographic study
of the peers of the Realm in the United Kingdom was published recently by the
Population Investigation Committee of the London School of Economics. In
addition, a work published in Great Britain by D. V. Glass and D. E. C.
Ever~ley,3~ gives an excellent selection of the studies conducted in most parts
of the world.

Demography 403
155. The Office of Population Research of Princeton University has under-
taken a study, by small administrative districts, of the population trend in the
various European countries during the nineteenth century. The object of the
study is to show where and how the decline in the fertility rate in this part of
the world began.
Mention should also be made of the studies being carried out at the Univer-
sity of California (Berkeley), while at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadel-
phia) work is in progress on a history of world population.
156. The specialized research team recently formed in France has just begun
its work. The research programme covers the following six points:
It is proposed to extend to 1866 the nominal record of the population of 40
villages already studied for the period 1670 to 1829 in the research mentioned
above. A study of the causes of death at the end of the eighteenth and beginning
of the nineteenth centuries wil be undertaken with the aid of various medical
and statistical documents. A reconstitution is to be effected of families formed
in the eighteenth century in Rouen and about a hundred neighbouring parishes.
An examination of Catholic registers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries is expected to provide methodological information for a more general
study of the same kind. The geographical distribution of the French population
from 1600 to the present time wil be determined through the use, in particular,
of tax rolls. This piece of research wil lead to the publication of departmental
dictionaries in which the administrative history of each department (administra-
tive sub-division ofFrance) wil be found. Lastly, an anthropological study of the
French male population in the nineteenth century is to be undertaken, based on
documents concerning recruitment for military service. All the foregoing
studies are already under way.
157. In connexion with these researches, France is continuing the publication
of forgotten works of the past relating to demography. In 1967, an annotated
edition of the works of Boisguilbert was published. This important French
official belonging to the reign of Louis XN expressed during his life-time some
very shrewd ideas about the links between economic and social development and
population trends which, considering the time when they were put forward,
seem astonishingly up to date.
A French edition of the works of the German demographer Siissmilch, who
published in 1741 his masterpiece Die Cottliche Ordnung, is in preparation. It
should be noted that Shssmilch’s works are not to be found anywhere except
in the big national libraries.
158. Similarly, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population
is preparing for publication a work by the Dutch demographer Kerseboom - a
pioneer in the establishment of mortality tables.
159. We may also mention the forthcoming publication in France of a study of
demographic ideas in the nineteenth century, as seen through French literature.

404 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
Use of defective data
We now come to a series of studies of an entirely different kind.
160. The importance of demographic factors in the economic and social
advancement of the developing countries has led demographers in those coun-
tries and demographers working in the international organizations to consider
the use made of the mass of demographic statistics collected over the years in
those parts of the world. For a long time it was thought that these data were of
too poor a quality to yield any significant information on the demographic
situation in those regions.
161. The advances made in demographic analysis have led to a revision of this
attitude and, gradually, a new system of methods has been devised enabling the
best possible use to be made of defective data. In this respect, the Population
Division of the United Nations has acted as a powerful catalysing agent for the
researches undertaken. Two books have lately been published summing up the
results so far achieved. The development of these researches was due to cir-
cumstances and it is unlikely that they will be extended much in the future. The
efforts made to improve the quality of demographic statistics are beginning to
bear fruit and there are grounds for hoping that sound data will soon be
available.
I 62. One of the fundamental aims of this work on the analysis of defective data
was to establish ‘sample situations’ and to compare with these situations the
countries under investigation. In this way, some series of sample mortality-rate
tables have been drawn up representing the different stages through which
mankind passed when its mortality rate fell. Here, the Population Division of
the United Nations blazed the trail by publishing a series of such tables in a
single dimension. Further series in several dimensions followed (France, USA).
Similar researches have been undertaken in the matter of fertility, but they are
less advanced.
163. Theoretical considerations have also played their part. The concept of
stable population evolved before the last war by Alfred J. Lotka has been
debated afresh and two new concepts have emerged - those of ‘quasi-stable’ and
‘nearly stable’ populations. The former are empirical populations, that is, populations
arrived at by maintaining the fertility rate constant and varying the
mortality rate over the area defined by the sample tables just referred to. It has
been observed that these populations differ little from the stable populations.
I 64. Nearly stable populations are populations that are invariable in their
composition by age. It has been shown that, at any given moment, the relations
existing between the various characteristics of these populations are the same as
those existing in the case of stable populations.
165. The populations of the developing countries fulfil approximately one or
other of the conditions which served for the elaboration of the two concepts of

Demography 405
population, ‘quasi-stable’ and ‘nearly stable’. It wil readily be realized how these
concepts can be used for the analysis of the demographic data assembled in
those countries.
Electronic computers
166. We must also mention another type of research, the originality of which
resides in the use of new media of investigation - electronic computers.
As in the case of research in historical demography, this type relates to all
the sectors of demography and the only reason for placing it in a special cate-
gory is the novelty of the methods employed.
167. Electronic computers have made possible what are now known as ‘simu-
lations’. The word is a new one, but the idea is extremely old, and the demog-
raphers who formerly worked out projections using the classical methods of
calculation were really doing nothing other than simulation. They observed
what would happen to a population subjected to a given set of demographic
conditions. Because of the inadequate means of calculation then available, the
data had perforce to be simplified. The use of electronic computers now permits
of all possible complications.
The advances made in demographic analysis and the establishment of
‘sample situations’ have therefore made it possible to construct ‘models’
bearing an even stronger resemblance to actual situations.
168. But that is not all. Thanks to computers, we have been able to pass from
determinist models to probabilist models. What is happening in a population
where decisions are taken at the individual level is actually simulated. It is
sufficient to introduce laws of probability into the computer; the machine then
produces haphazardly the:demographic events corresponding to those probabil-
ities. This enables us to observe not only the trend of average values (which the
determinist models already made possible) but also their variation.
169. By modifying the laws of probability, different simulations are obtained
and in this way the demographer brings into being the conditions of a pseudo-
experiment. In real life, the behaviour of individuals is modified by population
trends and, as little is known about these modifications, simulation by elec-
tronic computer cannot be regarded as a true experiment. However, here again
progress is possible and, indeed, probable.
170. It is also thanks to electronic computers that research based on a ‘compari-
son of documents’ has recently been able to emerge from the handicraft state in
which it was hitherto confined through lack of facilities. The principle of this
research resides in the comparison of documents drawn up on different occa-
sions. We have already mentioned in connexion with mortality rates a research
project in France and another in the USA where this method is being used. In the
case of both projects, death certificates are compared with census returns. Some
Canadian demographers have set out to compare in the same way successive

406 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
censuses from the beginning of the French occupation of the territory. The
computer provides a document in which each inhabitant appears as many
times as he or she was included in a census, and in the case of each census the
characteristics recorded are available. Consequently, by following a given
individual throughout the course of his or her life, any particular census can be
corrected by another.
Comparison in time is not the only kind possible. One can also compare at a
single given date documents drawn up by various administrations.
Population genetics
171. W e now propose to touch on present research in population genetics.
In the early stages of population genetics three names stand out: R. A. Eisher,
J. B. S. Haldane and S. Wright. In the direction indicated by them, important
research was carried out by mathematicians who gradually became more interest-
ed in refining equations than in studying their biological significance. Present-
day research relies on ever more elaborate mathematical techniques but becomes
less and less applicable to actual cases. The danger is all the greater in that the
concepts used are often ambiguous: the fact that such highly technical problems
as the ‘genetic load’ or the calculation of ‘lethal equivalents’ have given rise to
passionate controversy shows how important it is that an attempt should be
made to clarify ideas and terms.
Over the last twenty years, a new approach has been provided by G. MalCcot.
His replacement of questions of population genetics in their proper mathemati-
cal context, that of probability, has given rise to research concerned more
particularly at the present time with a clarification of concepts.
Simultaneously with this theoretical research, practical work ‘on the spot’ is
in progress with the object of measuring the genic or genotypical structures of
actual populations ; this work is particularly directed to the ‘experimental popu-
lations’ constituted by isolates, that is, more or less isolated human groups, in
respect of which there is some hope of being able to furnish figures in support of
theoretical parameters - selection coefficients, consanguinity coefficients, pan-
mixian deviation, etc.
But the findings of such research are often unreliable. Since these measure-
ments relate to populations, it is becoming increasingly clear that use should be
made in them of demographic techniques; current research is concerned with
clearly defining the kind of contribution that population genetics may expect
to receive from demography.
X. A FEW CLOSING REMARKS
172. From the foregoing it will undoubtedly have been noted that the objec-
tives pursued by demographic research have a bearing on the daily life of in-
dividuals. This is not always the case with the other human sciences, whose lines
of research seem sometimes to be far removed from everyday life.

Demography 407
173. This practical aspect of demographic research is not entirely to its advantage.
Observing that the demographers’ areas of research are so closely
akin to his own preoccupations, the man-in-the-street may be tempted to think
that there is no need to be a specialist to discuss these problems. Whereas no one
would dream of casting doubt on the assertions of an astrophysicist explaining
the result of his observations on the sun, for example, it is not unusual to see the
conclusions of demographic research called in question by persons who have no
authority in the matter. Since these conclusions are generally based on ‘probabilities’,
it is, by definition, always possible to quote particular cases which
contradict them. The would-be demographer is bound to be led into such misconceptions.
174. One way of remedying this unfortunate situation would be to give demo-
graphic training a place of its own in education. So far, this training has never
been very well integrated in the various educational systems, and it is under-
standable that public opinion should not take with all due seriousness the results
of research which even the universities long regarded as unworthy of being
taught as a separate subject in its own right. Considerable progress has been
made in this direction over the past few years, but much still remains to be done.
175. Since the subjects of demographic research are closely related to actual
situations, their variety necessitates, as a rule, a choice influenced by the condi-
tions of the moment. Moreover, it is often at this price that it is possible to
obtain the necessary funds for research. For instance, a team of demographers
working in Asia wil not direct its research along the same lines as another
team working in Europe. The first team wil tend to concern itself with prob-
lems raised by the very high fertility rate of the countries in which it is living,
while the second wil rather study those raised by the decline in the fertility
rate such, for example, as the ageing of populations.
This diversity of interests might lead to a belief in the existence, among demog-
raphers, of different schools of thought throughout the world. In fact, this
diversity does no more than indicate differences in demographic situations and,
contrary to what may be observed in other human sciences, demographers all
agree on the content of their science.
NOTES
I. We are referring here to sexual reproduction, with the marriage institution as a
natural consequence.
2. We have here an essential difference between human sciences and those concerned
with inanimate matter. With the latter, you cannot descend below a certain ‘quan-
tum’ of action. Of course, it is not impossible that one day we shall discover that
human science phenomena are, in their turn, ‘quantified’.
3. Conversely, it can be asked if population censuses have not been used sometimes
to change the way of thinking of the population concerned, for instance, in the
case of a new nation. The fact of being counted creates a bond between the inhabi-

408 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
tants, strengthens the feeling of belonging to a group. Possibly it is this idea which
is expressed in Article II of the United States’ Constitution.
4. In the survey, the 58 % is found with a margin for error which depends on the size
of the sample. W e know, for instance, that it is situated between 55 and 61 %. By
questioning the entire population, we know the exact percentage. It will be 58.2%,
for example. W e will have gained in precision; will have a better idea of the popula-
tion’s ‘situation’. But opinion will have been affected to such an extent that we
shall no longer know where we are at the end of the total survey. We should no
longer know anything about the population ‘rate’ in relation to the phenomenon
being examined.
5. Of course, the converse is also true.
6. In small populations, even without the differential choice of the marriage partner
or the differential fertility, mortality or migration rates, the mere operation of
chance causes a variation in the proportion of genes - what is known as genetic
deviation. However, the effect of this is only noticeable in very small populations.
7. We assume that first cousins and descendants of first cousins are included in the
inter-marriage area.
8. Furthermore, we know little about the short-term infertility which affects a girl
immediately after puberty.
9. More exactly 75o.000 oocytes, forerunners of the ovules.
IO. At the socio-biological stage, short-term variations are observable in the birth-rate,
even if only for example, seasonal variations.They are then due, seemingly, to
modifications in the intra-uterine mortality rate, whether provoked or unprovoked.
In the former case, to which may be added infanticide, we have already a partial
psycho-sociological determinant of fertility.
I I. It might well be asked in this connexion, if it is not such tensions which have lent
so much prominence to discussions concerning abortion during the last few years.
12. It is known, moreover, that sexual intercourse prior to marriage is by no means a
rarity, and a strong proportion of first-borns are the result of pre-marriage concep-
tions. What is less well known is to what extent such pre-marital relations are the
result or the cause of marriage.
13. The outside environment can also be changed. For instance, malaria has been
banished from vast tracts of country by the use of powerful insecticides. On the
other hand, economic development can also have evil consequences : thus irrigation
has encouraged the spread of diseases such as bilharziasis.
14. It can be conceded that the ancestor who no longer produces anything directly
still participates in production by being, for example, ‘the one who knows the
group’s past’, provided that this past is regarded by the group as useful to its
daily life.
15. The type of hospital depends, for example, on the mortality rate. Diseases that
call for attention differ according to whether the mortalitv rate is high or low.
16. Unless gifts are received from a foreign country.
17. We are referring here to the income of a private citizen. The global capital income
is very much higher, but only a fraction of this is distributed to the owner of the
capital. This fraction normally represents 4 or 5 % on the capital.
18. By resorting to the world capital market it is possible to exceed this percentage.
But, obviously, not all countries can do this.
19. A part of a State’s or collectivity’s financial resources can also be derived from
capital income.
20. Certain countries have exceeded this percentage.
21. Seen from the angle of the developing countries, I % of the national revenue of the
wealthy countries represents IO % of the revenue of the poor countries - which is
far from being a negligeable amount.
22. We mean here a practical possibility, for before electronic computers existed it
was of course already possible to compare two census returns one by one. But this
was a lengthy process and only very rarely undertaken. Now, with the aid of

Demography 409
electronic computers, such comparison can be extended to entire populations.
23. The aeroplane also plays its part, but it seems unlikely to become a means of mass
transport.
24. Changes could of course be made in the manner of carrying out censuses, so that
they could also be used for observation purposes. But it is now clear that they wil
never be able to take the place of sample investigations.
25. Historical demography has made great strides within the last few years. We shall
return to this subject when dealing with research now in progress.
26. This institute ceased its activities, however, some years ago.
27. This is what Elizabeth Pfeil wrote in 1958 in a booklet published by Unesco: ‘At
the present moment, no interest is taken in demography in Germany.. . Yet between
1920 and 1930 very active research in this science had produced important results.
But, later on, national socialism made demography serve its own political party
ends, which interfered with progress’.
28. Of course this attempted standardization must not be carried too far. It was very
quickly realized that a complete standardization of ideas and definitions would be
illusory and, indeed, misleading, having regard to the varied economic, social,
cultural and political conditions in the various countries.
29. We only mention here the Specialized Agencies with a direct interest in population
questions.
30. This Committee was created in August, 1963 by the Economic and Social Council
following a report of the United Nations Conference on the Application of Science
and Technology for the Benefit of the Less Developed Areas (Geneva, February,
1963). It comprises 15 members.
31. In 1967, a European Working Group on Social Demography was set up by the
United Nations Office in Geneva, whose task is to bring about such coordination.
32. Speech delivered by Marcolino G. Candau, M.D., Director-General of WHO at the
forty-second conference of the Milbank Memorial Fund in New York, October,
1967.
33. Speech delivered by Alexander Robertson at the forty-second conference of the
Milbank Memorial Fund in New York, October, 1967.
34. Dates indicate year of publication.
35. Asiun Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverfy of Nations.
36. The Higher Education Research Group.
37. These figures are given merely as an example. They would obviously vary from one
country to another, though it is probable that the ratio mentioned here would
remain the same.
38. Population in History. Essays in Historical Demography.
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Demography 41 I
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86. A. GIRARD, Le choix du conjoint, Paris, P.u.F., 1964. (Coll. ‘Travaux et Documents’ de
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94. J. BRACKETT, ‘Report on the One-Day Seminar on Computer Applications to Demography
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M. C. SHEPS and J. RIDLEY, ‘An Analytic Simulation Model of Human Reproduction
with Demographic and Biological Components’, Population Studies 19 (3), March
1966, pp. 297-310.

Demography 415
H. HYRENIUS and I. ADOLFSSON, A Fertility Simulation Model, Goteborg, Demographic
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A. JACQUARD, ‘La reproduction humaine en regime malthusien. Un modkle de simulation
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117. Demogrdfia. Quarterly journal.
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120. UNITED NATIONS, Population Commission, Reporr on rhe 13th Session. Official papers of
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‘Population Trust Fund’, UN Monthly Chronicle, Sept. 1967.
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E. GARLOT, ‘Une initiative du Conseil de 1’Europe: la Confdrence ddmographique
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L. HENRY, Legons d’analyse dimographique, Paris, Centre de documentation universitaire,
1960 and 1964.
L. HENRY, Perspectives dimographiques, Paris, I.N.E.D., 1964.
R. PRESSAT, L’analyse ddmographique: mithodes, rdsultats, applications, Paris, P.u.F.,
1961.
R. PRESSAT, Principes d’analyse, Paris, I.N.E.D., 1966.
R. PRESSAT, Pratique de la dimographie. 30 sujets d’analyse, Paris, Dunod, 1967.
Methods of Estimating Basic Demographic Measures from Incomplete Data, Manual IV,
New York, United Nations, sales no. 67.x111.2.
126. P. HAUSER and 0. D. DUNCAN (eds.), The Study of Population. An Inventory and Appraisal,
Chicago-London, The University of Chicago Press.
L. TABAH and J. VIET, Dimographie. Tendances actuelles et organisation de la recherche,
1955-1965, Paris-The Hague, Mouton, 1966 (Maison des sciences de l’homme,
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127. Human Resources for Health. Forty-Second Conference of the Milbank Memorial Fund
(October 17 to 19,1967). New York, Milbank, Memorial Fund, 1967.
128. Human Resources for Health (op. cit.).
‘Social Science and Health Planning: Culture, Disease and Health Services in Colombia,’
Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly (2), 1968.
129.
Various publications of the National Center for Health Statistics. U.S. Public Health
Services. Washington (D.C.).

41 6 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
130. J. S. WEINER, International Biological Programme. Guide to Human Adaptability,
London, I.c.s.u., Special Committee for the International Biological Programme,
1965.
131. Bibliography in: W. A. WILSON, ‘On Mortality Trends by Occupation and Social Class’,
European Demographic Conference, Strasbourg 30 Aug. - 6 Sept. 1966. (Official
documents of the Conference, Vol. I.)
132. E. M. KITACAWA and P. M. HAUSER, ‘Social and Economic Differentials in Mortality
in the United States, 1960. A Report on Methods’. Contribution to the Congress of
the International Scientific Union for the Scientific Study of Population held in
Ottawa, Canada (21-26 Aug. 1963), LiBge, 1964.
M. FEBVAY and M. CROZE, ‘Contribution 5 1’6tude de la mortalit6 infantile’, Etudes
statistiques (3), July-Sept. 1954.
G. CALOT and M. FEBVAY, ‘La mortalit6 diffbrentielle suivant le milieu social’, Etudes
et Conjoncture (II), Nov. 1965, pp. 75-159.
C. BLAYO and 5. MABAUD, ‘Statistiques dbmographiques et organisation de la recherche
en Hongrie’, Population (9, May-June 1967, pp. 511-526.
135. Statistical Bulletin, New York, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
136. Social and Genetic Influences on Life and Death, Eugenic Society Symposium, Vol. 3.
Proceedings of the 3rd Symposium of the Eugenic Society; introduction by Lord
PLATT and A. S. PARKES, Edinburgh-London, Oliver and Boyd.
Bibliography in: T. E. REED, ‘The Evidence for Natural Selection Due to Blood Groups’,
in: WorldPopulation Conference (Belgrade, 1965) (Vol. I I), United Nations, Sales
no. 66.xu1.6.
138. UNITED NATIONS, Document ~/~~/9/219/Add. I of 16 October, 1967. Prepared for the
14th session of the Population Commission (30 October - IO November 1967).
139. Books and articles cited with reference to 5 15, 17. 18, I9 and 21.
140. Bibliography in: N. B. RYDER and C. F. WESTOFF, ‘The Trend of Excepted Parity in
the United States: 1955, 1960, 1965’, Population Index 33 (2), Apr.-June 1967.
C. MIRO, ‘Some Misconceptions Disproved: A Program of Comparative Fertility
Surveys in Latin America’, pp. 615-632, in: B. BERELSON et al., Family Planning and
Population Programs. A Review of World Developments, Chicago, The University
of Chicago Press, 1966, 848 p.
C. MIRO and F. RATH, ‘Preliminary Findings of Comparative Fertility Surveys in
Three Latin American Cities’, Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 43, Oct. 1965, pp.
36-38.
L. TABAH and R. SAMUEL, ‘Preliminary Findings of a Survey on Fertility and Attitudes
Toward Family Formation in Santiago (Chile)’, in: C. V. KISER (ed.), Milbank
Memorial Fund Research in Family Planning, Princeton, N. J., Princeton University
Press, 1962, p. 289.
Review Estadistica Panamena, 1964.
Selected Questionnaires on Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice of Family Planning, New
York, The Population Council, 1967.
141. Publications of the National Committee on Maternal Health Inc., New York, with
special emphasis on nos. 6 and 23 which contain an important bibliography.
B. BERELSON and G. STEINER, Human Behavior. An Inventory of Scientific Findings,
New York-Chicago, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964.
C. V. KISER (ed.), Research in Family Planning, Princeton (N. J.), Princeton University
Press, 1962.
Proceedings of the XVIIth International Conference on the Family (1-17 December 1966),
New Delhi, Family Planning Association of India.
142.
G. MYRDAL, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations,NewYork, Pantheon,
Random House, 1968, 3 vols.
UNITED NATIONS, Causes and Consequences of the Demographic Evolution, Sales no. 53.
x111.3.
Le Tiers-Monde, Paris, P.u.F., 1961. (Coll. ‘Travaux et Documents’ de ~‘I.N.E.D., Cahier
no. 39.)

Demography 417
143. J. MAGAUD, ‘Equivalent travail d‘une production. Nouvelle mBthode de calcul et de
prevision’, Population (z), Mar.-Apr. 1967, pp, 193 and 238.
144. America’s Industrial and Occupational Manpower Requirements, 1964-1965, Washington,
United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jan. 1966.
M. HOROWITZ, M. ZYMELMAN and I. HERRNSTADT, Manpower Requirements for Planning.
An International Comparison Approach, Boston (Mass.), Northeastern University,
Dec. 1966.
C. VIMONT, P. ~’HUGUES and M. PESLIER, ‘La prevision de l’emploi dans le cadre du
Vhme Plan en France. La rbpartition de la population active par profession en 1970.
Hypotheses de travail pour 1978’, Population (3), May-June 1966, pp. 483 and 521.
C. VIMONT, ‘Les previsions des besoins en main-d’axwre dans les pays en voie de
developpenient. Aspects methodologiques’, pp. 173-18 I, in: Contributed Papers,
Congress of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, 21-25
August, 1967, Sydney, Australia.
Higher Education: Government Statement on the Report of the Committee under the
Chairnzaaship of Lord Robbins, London, H.M.s.o., 1963, 11 vols. + annexes.
Technology and the American Economy, Report of the National Commission on
Technology, Automation and Economic Progress, Washington (D.C.), Government
Printing Office, 1966.
Education, Human Resources and Development in Argentina, Paris, o.c.D.E., 1967.
Publications of the Institut fur empirische Soziologie, Nurnberg, 7 Furdelgass, Bundesrepublik
Deutschland.
M. R. POIGNANT (ed.), Educational Planning it1 the U.S.S.R., Paris, Unesco, International
Institute for Educational Planning, 1968.
C. VIMONT and G. RERAT, ‘L’incidence du progres technique sur la qualification ouvriere:
une nouvelle methode d’analyse’, Population (3). 1966, pp. 541 ff.
C. VIMONT and G. RERAT, ‘L‘incidence du progrks technique sur la qualification professionnelle’,
Population (I), 1967, pp. 81 ff.
Deniografia y Economia. Journal published by El Colegio de Mexico, Guanajuato 125,
Mexico 7, D.F.
146-148. UNITED NATIONS, Population Commission, Report on the 14th Session (30 Oct.-zo Nov.
1967), United Nations, Document E/44.54 or E/CN.9/220.
149. Annales de dkmographie historique: 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967. Published by the Societe de
demographie historique.
153. Y. BLAYO and L. HENRY, ‘Donnees d6mographiques sur la Bretagne et 1’Anjou de 1740
a 1829’, Anmles de dimographie historique, 1967.
L. HENRY, Manuel de dkmographie historique, Geneva, Paris, Proz, 1967.
154. D. E. C. EVERSLEY, P. LASLETT and E. A. WRPGLEY, An Introduction to English Historical
Demography, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966.
P. LASLETT, ,411 Age of Satire, 1660-1730. The Extent of Bastardy in Restoration England.
An Essay of Literacy Evidence in Relation to Social Structure (in the press).
E. A. WRICLEY, ‘Family Limitation in Pre-Industrial England’, Economic Statistical
Review, 1966.
P. LASLETT and J. HARISSA, Clayworth and Cogenhoe. Historical Essays 1600-1750,
London, 1964.
D. V. GLASS and D. E. C. EVERSLEY (eds.), Population in History. Essays in Historical
Demography, London, Edward Arnold, 1965.
T. H. HOLLINGSWORTH, The Demography of the British Peerage, London, The Population
Investigation Committee, London School of Economics, n.d. (Supplement to
Populution Studies 18 (z).)
P. LASLETT, The World We Harve Lost, 1965.
E. A. WRIGLEY, London Population. Past and Present, 1967.
At the University of California (Berkeley) can be cited the work of Messrs. BORAH,
CIPOLLA and COOK.
155. At the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), MR. JOHN DURAND is preparing
a history of the world‘s population.

41 8 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
157. Pierre de Boisguilbert ou la naissance de l’dconomiepolitique, Paris, I.N.E.D., 1966,Z vols.
161. Methods of Estimating Basic Demographic Measures from Incomplete Data. Manual
ZV, United Nations, 126 p. Tables, graphs. Sales no. 67.x1n.z.
162. Age and Sex Patterns of Mortality. Model Life-Tables for Underdeveloped Countries,
United Nations, 1955 (sT/soA/ Series A/22, Population Studies no. 22).
A. J. COALE and P. DEMENY, Regiotial Model Life Tables and Stable Populations, Princeton
(N.J.), Princeton University Press, 1966.
163-164. The Conceptof a Stable Population. Application to the Study of Populations of Countries
with Incomplete Demographic Statistics, United Nations, 1968 (sT/soA/series A/39,
Population Studies no. 39).
168. A. JACQUARD, ‘La reproduction humaine en regime malthusien. Un modkle de simulation
par la mkthode de Monte-Carlo’, Population (5), 1967, pp. 897-920.
J. C. RIDLEY and M. C. SHEPS, ‘An Analytic Simulation Model of Human Reproduction
with Demographic and Biological Components’, Population Studies 19 (3), Mar.
1966, pp. 297-310.
170. R. BACHI, R. BARON and G. NATHAN, Methods of Record-Linkage and Applications in
Israel. Paper (ref. 1/3) given at the 36th Session of the International Statistical
Institute, Sydney (28 Aug.-7 Sept. 1967). Cf. Bibliography at the end of the paper.
171. Results of research on population genetics are published in the following journals:
Genetics. Official publication of the Genetics Society of America. University Station,
Austin, Texas (u.s.A.).
Evolution (International Journal of Organic Evolution). Journal published by the Society
for the Study of Evolution. Allen Press Inc., Lawrence, Kansas (u.s.A.).
Annals of Human Genetics. Galton Laboratory, University College, London. Bentley
House, 200 Enston Road, London N.W.I.
American Journalof Human Genetics. Bimonthly journal published by the American Societyof
Human Genetics. Grune and Stratton, 81 Park Avenue South,NewYork, N.Y.
Population. Bimonthly journal published by the Institut national d’btudes dkmographiques.
Editions de ~‘I.N.E.D., 23 avenue Franklin-Roosevelt, Paris wre. See in
particular in Population the following recent articles :
A. JACQUARD, ‘Logique du calcul des coefficients d’identitk entre deux individus’,
Population (4), July-Aug. 1966; ‘Liaison gknktique entre individus apparentks’,
Population (I), Jan.-Feb. 1968 ; ‘Evolution des populations d‘effectif limitk’, Population
(2). Mar.-Apr. 1968.
A. JACQUARD and R. NADOT, ‘Mariages consanguins et fertilitk diffkrentielle’, Population
(2), Mar.-Apr. 1968.
J. SUTTER, ‘Frkquence de l’endogamie et ses facteurs au mkme sikcle’, Population
(2), Mar.-Apr. 1968. [At the end of this article is a long bibliography.]
J. SUTTER, ‘Interprktation dkmographique de la frkquence des groupes sanguins
chez les Wavena et les Emerillon de la Guyane’, Population (4, July-Aug. 1967.
C. J. BAJEMA, ‘Human Population Genetics and Demography: a Selected Bibliography’,
Eugenics Quarterly 14, 1967, pp. 205-237.
Demographic journals (both French and foreign):
C. LEGEARD, Guide de recherches documentaires en ddmographie, Paris, Gauthier-
Villard, 1966, pp. 209-219.
Recently published works:
M. REINHARD, A. ARMENGAUD and J. DUPAQUIER, Histoire gdndrale de la population
mondiale, Paris, Montchrktien, 1968.
E. SZABADY, World Views of Population Problems, Budapest, Akadkmiai Kiad6, 1968.
J. HENRIPIN, Tendances et facteurs de la fdconditd au Canada, Ottawa, Bureau Fkdbral
de la Statistique, 1968.
W. BRASS, A. J. COELE, P. DEMENY et al., The Demography of Tropical Africa, Pnnceton,
Princeton University Press, 1968.
G. WOLSTENHOLME and M. O’CONNOR (eds.), Health of Mankind, London, I. and A.
Churchill, 1967.

CHAPTER V1
Linguistics
ROMAN JAKOBSON
I. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE AND OTHER SCIENCES
A. The place of linguistics among the sciences of man
The autonomy of linguistics was the catchword launched and propagated by
Antoine Meillet at the First Congress of Linguists (Hague, 1928), and the con-
cluding report of its secretary, the noted Dutch linguist J. Schrijnen, with ref-
erence to Meillet’s standpoint, viewed the entire historic assembly as a solemn
‘act of emancipation’ : C’e‘tait un coup d’essai, une tentative.. . La linguistique a,
au grand jour et devant le forum du monde entier, plaide‘ ses propres causes ...
(r, p. 97)*. This was a pertinent and timely program which, throughout the
subsequent decades, deepened and enhanced the methods and tasks of our
science. At present, however, we are faced with an urgent need for an inter-
disciplinary teamwork to be pursued diligently by savants of different branches.
In particular, the relationship between linguistics and the adjacent sciences
awaits an intensive examination.
The necessity to combine the internal consolidation of linguistics with a
substantial widening of its horizon was enunciated by Edward Sapir shortly
after the Hague Congress and most probably as an immediate lucid response to
the latter’s platform. He argued that linguists, whether they like it or not, ‘must
become increasingly concerned with the many anthropological, sociological, and
psychological problems which invade the field of language’, because ‘it is
difficult for a modern linguist to confine himself to his traditional subject
matter. Unless he is somewhat unimaginative, he cannot but share in some or
all of the mutual interests which tie up linguistics with anthropology and culture
history, with sociology, with psychology, with philosophy, and, more remotely,
with physics and physiology’ (155 or 154, pp. 166, 161).
Let us add that unless these two complementary notions - autonomy and
integration - are linked intimately with each other, our endeavor becomes
diverted to a wrong end: either the salutary idea of autonomy degenerates into
* For sources cited see p. 48.

420 Roman Jakobson
an isolationist bias, noxious as any parochialism, separatism, and apartheid, or
one takes the opposite path and compromises the sound principle of integration
by substituting a meddlesome jheteronomy (alias ‘colonialism’) for the indis-
pensable autonomy. In other words, equal attention must be paid to the specifics
in the structure and in the development of any given province of knowledge,
and furthermore to their common foundations and developmental lines as well
as to their mutual dependence.
Recently the interdisciplinary rally of the law-seeking (nomothetic) sciences
of man - whether labeled ‘social sciences’ or ‘humanities’ - has been brought
forward by the Panel of Consultants drawn together by the Department of So-
cial Sciences at UNESCO in connection with the preparation of the present vol-
ume, and the modalities of such a cooperation underwent a stimulating discus-
sion. The spontaneous and many-sided interest manifested by the Tenth Inter-
national Congress of Linguists (Bucharest, 1967) for the ties between the science
of language and the various adjacent disciplines is likewise significant. The prob-
lem of interrelations between the sciences of man appears to be centered up-
on linguistics. That fact is due primarily to the unusually regular and self-
contained patterning of language and to the basic role which it plays in the
framework of culture; and, on the other hand, linguistics is recognized both
by anthropologists and psychologists as the most progressive and precise among
the sciences of man and, hence, as a methodological model for the remainder
of those disciplines (zoz, pp. 37, 66; 73, p. 9). As Piaget states, ‘La linguistique
est sans doute la plus avanctk des sciences sociales, par sa structuration thko-
rique aussi bien que par la prkision de son devoir, et elle entretient avec d‘autres
disciplines des relations d’un grand int6ret’ (137, p. 25). Already at the threshold
of our century Peirce assigned to ‘the vast and splendidly developed science of
linguistics’ a privileged position among the ‘studies of mental performances and
products’ (136, I, 5271).
In contradistinction to all other sciences of man and to some natural sciences
of relatively recent, modern origin, the study of language belongs to the few
earliest branches of knowledge. A keen outline of Sumerian, the most archaic
among the extant grammatical writings, is separated from us by almost four
thousand years ; both linguistic theory and empirical research have displayed a
varied and continuous tradition from ancient India and Greece through the
momentous achievements of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the era of
rationalism and Enlightenment, and, finally, the manifold scholarly trends of
the last two centuries.
It is precisely the rich and many-sided scientific experience of linguistics
which impels us to raise the questions: what place does it occupy among the
sciences of man and what is the outlook for an interdisciplinary cooperation on
a strictly reciprocal basis and without violation of the intrinsic needs and prop-
erties of any domain involved? Some doubts arose as to whether the ‘admirable
interdisciplinary collaboration’ that ties together the natural sciences could
actually be matched by the sciences of man, in view of the fact that a firm,
logical filiation and a hierarchical order of underlying concepts in respect to
relative generality and complexity are manifestly present in the interconnection

Linguistics 421
of natural sciences but seem to be missing among the sciences of man (I37, p.
2). Apparently, this uncertainty goes back to those early classificatory attempts
which did not take into account the science of language. If, however, precisely
linguistics is chosen and used as the point of departure for a tentative ordering
of the sciences of man, such a system based ‘on the principal affinities of the
objects classified’ proves to find its solid theoretical grounds.
The internal logic inherent in the sciences of man, in turn, demands their
serial arrangement paralleling the linkage and concatenation of the natural
sciences. Language as one of the sign systems, and linguistics as the science of
verbal signs is but a part of semiotic, the general science of signs which was
foreseen, named, and delineated in John Locke’s Essay: ‘arpiwtrxrj or the
“doctrine of signs”, the most usual whereof being words’ (108, Book IV, Ch.
XXI, $4). Charles Sanders Peirce, convinced that many passages of the Essay
Concerning Humane Understanding ‘make the first steps in profound analyses
which are not further developed’, took over Locke’s term ‘semiotic (orpm~tmrj)’
which he redefined again as the ‘doctrine of signs’ (136,11, $3 649, 227). This
pioneer and ‘backwoodsman’ in the work of clearing and opening up ‘the new
discipline’ issued the first of his numerous attempts towards a classification of
signs in 1867 (I, $3 545ff.) and devoted a ‘life-long study’ to ‘the doctrine of the
essential nature and fundamental varieties of possible semiosis’ (v, $ 488).
Since his drafts of the nineties, where the name ‘semiotic’ was first introduced
for the new branch of knowledge, were published only in the posthumous
edition of Peirce’s legacy, they could hardly have been known to Ferdinand de
Saussure when, like his American precursor, the Swiss linguist in turn conceived
the need for a general science of signs which he tentatively labeled ‘skmiologie’
and which he considered indispensable €or the interpretation of language and
all other systems of signs in their interrelation with language: ‘Puisqu’elle
n’existe pas encore, on ne peut dire ce qu’elle sera; mais elle a droit 8 l’existence,
sa place est dkterminke d’avance ... Par 18, non seulement on Cclairera le problkme
linguistique, mais nous pensions qu’en considkrant les rites, les coutumes,
etc., comme des signes, ces faits apparaitront sous un autre jour, et on sentira
le besoin de les grouper dans la skmiologie et de les expliquer par les lois de cette
science’ (156, p. 33).
The first, highly interesting version of Saussure’s views on the prospective
science of signs was recorded by his Geneva colleague A. Naville: ‘M. Ferdinand
de Saussure insiste sur l’importance d‘une science trbs gknkrale, qu’il appelle
skmiologie et dont I’objet serait les lois de la crkation et de la transformation des
signes et de leur sens. La skmiologie est une partie essentielle de la sociologie
[since social life, as Naville comments, is not conceivable without the existence
of communicative signs]. Comme le plus important des systkmes de signes
c’est le langage conventionnel des hommes, la science skmiologique la plus
avancke c’est la linguistique ou science des lois de la vie du langage. La linguistique
est, ou du moins tend 8 devenir de plus en plus, une science des lois’
(1.27).
We have witnessed a spontaneous and rapid international development of the
new discipline which encompasses a general theory of signs, a description of

422 Roman Jakobson
different sign systems, their comparative analysis and classification. Unquestionably,
Locke and Saussure were right: language is the central and most
important among all human semiotic systems. On these grounds ‘linguistics is
the chief contributor to semiotic’, as Leonard Bloomfield stated (rI, p. 55).
Yet, on the other hand, any confrontation of language with the structure of
different sign patterns is of vital significance for linguistics, since it shows what
properties are shared by verbal signs with some or all other semiotic systems and
what the specific features of language are.
The relationship between the verbal pattern and the other types of signs may
be taken as a starting principle for their grouping. One variety of semiotic
systems consists of diverse substitutes for spoken language. Such is writing,
which is both ontogenetically and phylogenetically a secondary and optional
acquisition as compared with the all-human oral speech, though sometimes the
graphic and phonic aspects of language are taken by scholars for two tantamount
‘substances’ (e.g. 66). However, in the relation between graphic and
phonological entities, the former always functions as a signans and the latter
as a signatum. On the other hand, written language, often underrated by
linguists, deserves an autonomous scientific analysis with due respect to the
particular characters of writing and reading. The transfer of speech into
whistles or drumbeats offers another example of a substitutive system, while
the Morse code exhibits a second-order substitution: its dots and dashes are a
signans which stands for the ordinary alphabet as their signatum (153, p. 20;
154, P. 7).
More or less formalized languages used as artificial constructs for various
scientific or technical purposes may be termed transforms of natural language
(cf. r38). The comparative study of formalized and natural language is of great
interest for the elicitation of their convergent and divergent characters and
requires a close cooperation of linguists with logicians as experts in formalized
languages. According to Bloomfield‘s reminder, which is still opportune, logic
‘is a branch of science closely related to linguistics’ (11, p. 55). Such mutual
assistance helps linguists to determine the specificity of natural languages with
ever greater precision and explicitness. On the other hand, the logician’s analysis
of formalized superstructures requires a systematic collation with their natural
fundament, subject to a strictly linguistic interpretation. A serious impediment
in such a joint comparative study is the still persistent view of natural language as
a second-rate symbolic system accused of a constitutional bias toward imprecision,
vagueness, ambiguity, and opacity. As Chomsky succinctly stated, the
high approximation of the formalized ‘artificial’ languages to a context freedom
and, conversely, the context sensitivity of the natural languages substantially
differentiate these two semiotic classes (32, p. 9; 30, p. 441). The variability
of meanings, particularly their manifold and far-reaching figurative shifts, and
an incalculable aptitude for multiple paraphrases are just those properties of
natural languages which induce its creativity and endow not only poetic but
even scientific activities with a continuously inventive sweep, Here, indefiniteness
and creative power appear to be wholly interrelated. One of the chief
pioneers in the mathematical discussion of the finiteness problem, Emil Post,

Linguistics 423
pointed to the decisive role which ‘language of the ordinary kind‘ plays in the
‘birth of new ideas’, their rise ‘above the sea of the unconscious’, and the subsequent
mutation of vaguer, intuitive processes ‘into connections between
precise ideas’ (I@, p. 430). The Freudian concept ‘id‘ was certainly prompted
by the es-Satze; the German conspicuous derivative Gestalt favored the kneading
of a new trend in psychology. As Hutten remarks, the incentive ‘technical
discourse cannot do without metaphorical language’ and such figurative terms
as ‘field’ and ‘flow’ left their sensible imprint on physical thought (70, p. 84).
It is just natural language that offers a mighty and indispensable support to
‘the ability to invent problems, capacity for imaginative or creative thinking’,
a gift viewed by the explorer of human evolution as ‘the most significant characteristic
of intelligence’ (65, p. 359.)
The functional difference between formalized and natural languages must be
respected by the experts in the one or the other variety (cf. 135). Andersen’s tale
about the ugly duckling is not to be reenacted, and the logician’s contempt for
the synonymy and the homonymy of the natural language is as equally misplaced
as the linguist’s bewilderment over the tautologous propositions of logic.
Throughout the long history of linguistics, criteria peculiar to technical constructs
are imposed arbitrarily upon natural languages not only by logicians but
sometimes by linguists themselves. For example, we run up against heteronomous
and forced attempts to reduce natural language to declarative statements
and to view requisitive (interrogative and imperative) forms as alterations or
paraphrases of declarative propositions.
Whatever verbal problems are treated, the fundamental concepts used by
logicians are based on the formalized languages, whereas pure linguistics ‘can
only proceed from a consistently intrinsic analysis of natural languages. As a
consequence, the entire approach to such problems as meaning and reference,
intension and extension or the existential propositions and the universe of
discourse is quite different; but these distinct views may be interpreted as two
true, while partial, modes of description which face each other in a relation
safely defined as ‘complementarity’ by Niels Bohr.
The formalized language of highest refinement is attained in mathematics
(14, p. 68), and at the same time its deep embeddedness in ordinary language is
emphasized repeatedly by mathematicians. Thus, for Borel, calculus necessarily
rests upon the postulate of the existence de la langue vulgaire (15, p. I~o), or, in
Waismann’s formulation, it ‘has to be supplemented by the disclosure of the
dependence that exists between the mathematical symbols and the meanings of
words in the colloquial language’ (183, p. I 18). For the science of language, the
adequate conclusion from this relation was made by Bloomfield when he stated
that ‘since mathematics is a verbal activity’, this discipline naturally presupposes
linguistics (11, p. 5).
In the relation between context-free and context-sensitive structures, mathematics
and customary language are the two polar systems, and each of them
proves to be the most appropriate metalanguage for the structural analysis of
the other one (cf. 117). So-called mathematical linguistics has to meet both
linguistic and mathematical scientific criteria and, therefore, requires a system-

424 Roman Jakobson
atic mutual control on the side of experts in each of the two disciplines. The
diverse aspects of mathematics, set theory, Boolean algebra, topology, statistics,
calculus of probability, theory of games, and information theory (cf. 176) find
a fruitful application to a reinterpretative inquiry into the structure of human
languages in their variables as well as their universal invariants. Al these
mathematical facets offer an appropriate multiform metalanguage into which
linguistic data may be efficiently translated. Zellig Harris’ new book, which gives
a transcription of grammar into terms of set theory with a subsequent comparison
of natural language and formalized constructs, may be cited as an eloquent
example (62).
A further area of semiotic embraces a wide range of idiomorphic systems
which are but indirectly related to language. Gesture accompanying speech is
defined by Sapir as an ‘excessively supplementary’ class of signs (154, p. 7).
Despite the usual concomitance of gesticulation with verbal utterances, there
is no one-to-one equivalence between the two systems of communication. There
are, moreover, semiotic patterns of bodily motions disjoined from speech. These
patterns, as in general all sign systems independent in their structure from language
and performable also out of touch with verbal means, must be subjected
to a comparative analysis with special regard for the convergences and divergences
between any given semiotic structure and language.
The classification of sign systems used by mankind must resort to several
criteria, as, for instance: the relation between the signans and signatum (in
accordance with Peirce’s triadic division of human signs into indexes, icons, and
symbols with the transitional varieties); discrimination between sign production
and mere semiotic display of ready-made objects (132; 150); difference
between merely bodily and instrumental production of signs ; distinction between
pure and applied semiotic structures; visual or auditory, spatial or temporal
semiosis; homogeneous and syncretic formations ; diverse relations between the
addresser and addressee, in particular intrapersonal, interpersonal or pluripersonal
communication. Each of these divisions must obviously take into
account diverse intermediate and hybrid forms (cf. 80).
The question of presence and hierarchy of those basic functions which we
observe in language - fixation upon the referent, code, addresser, addressee,
their contact or, finally, upon the message itself (81) - must be applied also to
the other semiotic systems. In particular, a comparative analysis of structures
determined by a predominant fixation upon the message (artistic function) or,
in other words, a parallel investigation of verbal, musical, pictorial, choreographic,
theatrical, and filmic arts belongs to the most imperative and fruitful
duties of the semiotic science. Of course the analysis of verbal art lies within the
immediate range of the linguist’s vital interests and tasks and imposes upon him
a strained attention to the intricacies of poetry and poetics. The latter may be
depicted as the inquiry into the poetic function of language and into verbal art
with respect to the poetic function of language as well as to the artistic function
of semiotic systems in general. The comparative study of poetry and other arts,
viz. a teamwork of linguists and experts in such fields as musicology, visual
arts, etc., stands on the agenda, especially in view of the speech ingredient in

Linguistics 425
various hybrid formations, e.g. in vocal music, dramatic performances, and
sound film. (On the relevance of written language in painting see 25a.)
Despite an indubitable structural autonomy of these sign systems which we
have defined as idiomorphic, they, too, like the other varieties of semiotic
patterns used by human beings, fall under the significant conclusions drawn by
two eminent linguists : Sapir realized that ‘phonetic language takes precedence
over all other kinds of communicative symbolism’ (r54, p. 7), and in Benveniste’s
view, le langage est l’expression symbolique par excellence, and all other systems
of communication en sont derivgs et le supposent (8, p. 2s). The antecedence of
verbal signs in regard to all other deliberately semiotic activities is confirmed by
studies of children’s development. The ‘communicative symbolism’ of children’s
gestures after the rudiments of language have been mastered is noticeably
distinct from the reflex movements of the speechless infant.
In brief, the subject matter of semiotic is the communication of any messages
whatever, whereas the field of linguistics is confined to the communication of
verbal messages. Hence, of these two sciences of man, the latter has a narrower
scope, yet, on the other hand, any human communication of nonverbal messages
presupposes a circuit of verbal messages, without a reverse implication.
If the cycle of semiotic disciplines is the nearest one to encompass linguistics,
the next, wider concentric circle is the totality of communication disciplines.
When we say that language or any other sign system serves as a medium of
communication, we must caution at the same time against any restrictive conception
of communicative means and ends. In particular, it was often overlooked
that besides the more palpable, interpersonal face of communication,
its intrapersonal aspect is equally pertinent. Thus, for instance, inner :speech,
astutely conceived by Peirce as an ‘internal dialogue’ and until recently rather
disregarded in linguistic literature, is a cardinal factor in the network of language
and serves as a connection with thelself’s past and future (136, IV, $6; cf.
180; 194; 196; 165; 154, p. 15).
The natural task of linguistics was to bring forward the primordial significance
of the concept ‘communication’ for social sciences. In Sapir’s formulation,
‘every cultural pattern and every single act of social behavior involves communication
in either an explicit or an implicit sense’. Far from being ‘a static structure’,
society appears as ‘a highly intricate network of partial or complete
understandings between the members of organizational units of every degree of
size and complexity’, and it is being ‘creatively reaffirmed by particular acts
of a communicative nature’ (r54, p. 104; cf. 16). While realizing that ‘language
is the most explicit type of communicative behavior’, Sapir saw both the significance
of the other ways and systems of communication and their multifarious
connections with verbal intercourse.
It was Levi-Straws who gave the clearest delineation of this subject matter
and who launched the most promising attempt ‘B interpreter la societe dans son
ensemble en fonction d‘une thkorie de la communication’ (ror, p. 95; 103). He
strives toward an integrated science of communication which would embrace
social anthropology, economics, and linguistics, or let us replace the latter concept
by a wider notion of semiotic. One can but follow Gvi-Strauss’ triadic

426 Roman Jakobson
conception that in any society communication operates on three different
levels: exchange of messages, exchange of commodities (namely goods and
services), and exchange of women (or, perhaps, in a more generalizing formula-
tion, exchange of mates). Therefore, linguistics (jointly with the other semiotic
disciplines), economics, and finally kinship and marriage studies ‘approach the
same kinds of problems on different strategic levels and really pertain to the
same field’.
All these levels of communication assign a fundamental role to language.
First, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, they imply the preexistence
of language. Second, all forms of communication mentioned are accompanied
by some verbal and/or other semiotic performances. Third, if non-verbalized,
all of them are verbalizable, i.e. translatable into verbal messages in uttered or
at least inner speech.
Here we do not dwell at length on the still controversial question of delimiting
social anthropology and sociology, and we treat both of them as two aspects
of one and the same discipline. According to the epigrammatic formula (55)
advocated in this volume by Stein Rokkan, social anthropology is the science
of man as a talking animal, and sociology is the science of man as a writing
animal. This division demonstrates the relevance of the two distinct verbal levels
for the whole network of social communication.
If one envisages the two spheres of linguistic investigation, the analysis of
coded verbal units on the one hand, and of discourse on the other (8, p. 130;
61), the necessity for a primarily linguistic inquiry into the structure of myths
and other forms of oral tradition becomes obvious. They are not only higher
units of discourse but a specific variety of discourse, namely, these texts are
coded, their composition is ready-made. It was Saussure who, in his notes on
the Nibelungen, perspicaciously advocated the semiotic interpretation of myths :
‘I1 est vrai qu’en allant au fond des choses, on s’apeqoit dans ce domaine,
comme dans le domaine parent de la linguistique, que toutes les incongruitks de
la pens& proviennent d‘une insuffisante rkflexion sur ce qu’est ridentit6 ou les
caractkres de l’identitk lorsque’il s’agit d‘un Etre inexistant comme le mot, ou
lapersonne mythique, ou une lettre de l’alphabet, qui ne sont que diffkrentes for-
mes du SIGNE au sens philosophique’ (54, p.!136). The verbal aspect of religious
patterns becomes a timely and gratifying field of research (25), and a consistent-
ly linguistic inquiry into the myths and, in particular, into their syntactic and
semantic structure, not only lays down the foundations of a thoroughly scientific
approach to mythology but may also give efficient cues to the linguistic attempts
at the analysis of discourse. (Cf. Lkvi-Strauss’ experiments - Ior, Ch. XI; 102;
104 - and their confrontation with the new tasks which face the science of
language: 23.)
Ritual usually combines speech and pantomimic components, and, as noted
by Leach (96), there occur in these ceremonial customs certain kinds of informa-
tion which are never verbalized by the performers but are expressed only in
action. This semiotic tradition is, however, always dependent at least on a
framing verbal pattern which passes between generations.
Evidently, language is a constituent of culture, but in the ensemble of cultural

Linguistics 427
phenomena it functions as their substructure, groundwork, and universal
medium. Therefore, ‘it is obviously easier to abstract linguistics from the
remainder of culture and define it separately than the reverse’ @I, p. 124; 178).
Certain peculiar features of language are connected with this particular position
of language in relation to culture, especially the early acquisition of language
by children and the fact that neither the ancient nor the contemporary languages
of the world which are known to the linguist show any difference whatsoever in
their phonological and grammatical structure between more primitive and more
progressive stages.
Whorf’s acute search (189) hints at a tangled and creative interplay between
the array of our grammatical concepts and our habitual, subliminal, mythologi-
cal and poetic imagery, but without authorizing us to imply some foremost
compulsory relation between this verbal pattern and our purely ideational
operations or to derive our system of grammatical categories from an ancestral
world-view.
The linguistic framework of courtship, marriage, and kinship rules and
taboos is their indispensable implement. The careful and exhaustive observa-
tions of Genevibve Calame-Griaule on the pragmatics of language in the erotic,
societal, and religious life of a community is a telling illustration of the decisive
role of verbal behavior in the entire domain of social anthropology (26).
In the centuries-old history of economics andlinguistics, questions unitingboth
disciplines have arisen repeatedly. One may recall that economists of the En-
lightenment Period used to attack linguistic problems, as, for example, Anne-
Robert-Jacques Turgot, who compiled a study on etymology for the EncyclopO
die, or Adam Smith, who wrote on the origin of language. G. Tarde’s influence
on Saussure’s doctrine in such matters as circuit, exchange, value, output/input,
producer/consumer is well-known. Many common topics, as, for instance,
‘dynamic synchrony’, contradictions within the system, and its continual motion,
undergo similar developments in both fields. Fundamental economic concepts
were repeatedly subjected to tentative semiotic interpretation. In the early
eighteenth century, the Russian economist Ivan Posoikov coined the catch-
phrase ‘a ruble is not silver, a ruble is the ruler’s word‘, and John Law taught
that money has only the wealth of a sign based on the prince’s signature. At
present, Talcott Parsons (in 134 and rggu) systematically treats money as ‘a
very highly specialized language’, economic transactions as ‘certain types of
conversations’, the circulation of money as ‘the sending of messages’, and the
monetary system as ‘a code in the grammatical-syntactical sense’. He avowedly
applies to the economic interchange the theory of code and message developed
in linguistics. Or, according to the formulation of Ferruccio Rossi-Landi,
‘I’economia in senso proprio b studio di que1 settore del segnico non-verbale,
che consiste nella circolazione di un particolar tipo di messaggi solitamente
chiamati “merci”. Pih in breve, e con una formula: l’economia 2 studio dei
messuggi-merci’ (r48, p. 62). In order to avoid a metaphorical extension of the
term ‘language’, it is, perhaps, preferable to interpret money as a semiotic
system with a particular destination. A semiotic interpretation of the processes
and concepts involved is necessary for the exact scrutiny of this medium of

428 Roman Jakobson
communication. Since, however, ‘the most general matrix’ of symbolic systems,
as Parsons rightly points out, ‘is language’, linguistics actually appears to offer
the most helpful model for such an analysis. Yet there are further reasons for
connecting economics with linguistic studies : the exchange of utilities ‘converted‘
into words (134, p. 358), the direct concomitant role of language in all monetary
transactions, and the translatability of money into purely verbal messages, such
as checks or other obligations (67, p. 568). Indeed, the symbolic verbal aspect of
the economic transactions deserves a systematic interdisciplinary investigation
as one of the most beneficial tasks of applied semiotic.
Thus, communication of mates and goods or services proves to be to a high
degree an interchange of auxiliary messages, and the integrated science of
communication incorporates semiotic proper, i.e. the study of sheer messages
and their underlying codes, plus those disciplines wherein messages play a
relevant yet solely accessory role. In any event, semiotic occupies a central
position within the total science of communication and underlies all other
provinces of this science, while semiotic, in turn, comprises linguistics as its
central section which influences all other semiotic provinces. Three integrated
sciences encompass each other and present three gradually increasing degrees
of generality :
I. Study in communication of verbal messages =linguistics;
2. Study in communication of any messages =semiotic (communication of ver-
bal messages implied) ;
3. Study in communication =social anthropology jointly with economics (com-
munication of messages implied).
Studies developing at present under such overlapping labels as sociolinguistics,
anthropological linguistics, and ethnolinguistics or folk linguistics represent a
sound reaction against some still frequent survivals of the Saussurian tendency
to curtail the tasks and aims of linguistic research. Yet all such constraints of
aims and purposes superimposed by individual linguists or linguistic teams on
their own investigatory program should not be labeled ‘pernicious’; any particu-
lar emphasis upon some limited sections of linguistic science or any degree of
self-restriction and rigorous specialization is perfectly legitimate. What would
be, however, erroneous and pernicious is any degradation of all the other
facets of language as supposedly residual, second-rate linguistic questions, and,
especially, any attempt to expel these topics from linguistics proper. Linguistic
experimentation may deliberately cut off certain inherent properties of language.
Such were, for example, in a large group of American linguists, experiments with
the exclusion of meaning, first from linguistic analysis in general, and later at
least from grammatical analysis. Such have been, also, Saussurian, recently
revived propensities to confine analysis merely to the code (langue, competence)
in spite of the indissoluble dialectic unity 1angueJparole (code/message, compe-
tence/performance).
None of such eliminative experiments, however useful and instructive they
are, can be viewed as a compulsory narrowing of the total scope of linguistic
science. The various tasks and questions recently advanced and discussed under
such labels as socio-linguistics all deserve a thorough study, and, one must add,

Linguistics 429
many of these topics have behind them a long history of international research,
and their local oblivion is of short duration. All these items, however, form an
integral part of linguistics and require the same structural analysis as all other
intrinsic constituents of language.
The domain of ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics - we can but agree with a
farsighted promoter of their program, Dell Hymes - must and, finally, wil be
simply incorporated into linguistics (74, p. 152), because the latter cannot be
separated and isolated from ‘questions of the actual functioning and role of
language in human life’ (72, p. 13).
Any verbal code is convertible and necessarily comprises a set of distinct
subcodes or, in other words, functional varieties of language. Any speech
community has at its disposal a) more explicit and more elliptic patterns, with
an orderly scale of transitions from a maximal explicitness to an extreme
ellipsis, b) a purposive alternation of more archaic and newfangled dictions,
c) a patent difference between rules of ceremonial, formal and informal, slovenly
speech. The areally distinct and manifold sets of rules permitting, prescribing,
or prohibiting talk and silence are destined to serve as a natural preFace to any
veritably generative grammar. Our linguistic performance is, furthermore,
governed by a competence in dialogic and monologic rules. In particular, the
varied verbal relations between the addresser and the addressee build a sub-
stantial part of our linguistic code and border directly upon the grammatical
categories of person and gender. The grammatical and lexical rules relating to
the present or absent differences in the hierarchical standing, sex, and age of the
interlocutors cannot be bypassed in a thorough and accurate scientific descrip-
tion of a given language, and the place of these rules in the total verbal pattern
raises a challenging linguistic question.
The diversity of interlocutors and their mutual adaptability are a factor of
decisive importance for the multiplication and differentiation of subcodes
within a speech community and within the verbal competence of its individual
members. The variable ‘radius of communication’, according to Sapir’s felicitous
term (154, p. IO^), involves an interdialectal and interlingual exchange of
messages and usually creates multidialectal and sometimes multilingual aggregates
and interactions within the verbal pattern of individuals and even of entire
communities. An exact comparison of the usually wider competence of the
individual as hearer and his narrower competence as speaker is a pertinent but
frequently overlooked linguistic task (cf. 68; 177).
Centrifugal and centripetal forces displayed by territorial and social dialects
have been already for many decades a favorite subject in world linguistics. The
recent application of structural analysis to the field work in social dialectology
(92; 93) once more disproves the myth of homogeneous speech communities,
discloses the speakers’ awareness of variations, distinctions, and changes in the
verbal pattern, and, hence, brings new illustrations to our view of metalanguage
as a crucial intralinguistic factor.
The necessity to cope with the problems of standardization and planning
(63; 170), and herewith to put an end to the last superstitious survivals of the
neogrammarian noninterference in the life of language (‘let your language

430 Roman Jakobson
alone’), belongs to the urgent linguistic tasks vitally connected with the progres-
sively increasing radius of communication.
Our cursory survey of topics itemized in the recent programs of socio- and
ethnolinguistics (cf. particularly 75; 59; 17; 106; 29; 58; 46; 48) shows that all
of these questions require a strictly and intrinsically linguistic analysis and
present a pertinent and inalienable part of linguistics proper. William Bright
shrewdly points out the common denominator of these programs: ‘linguistic
diversity is precisely the subject matter of sociolinguistics’ (r7, p. 11; cf. 73).
Yet this same diversity may be characterized as the chief target of international
linguistic thought in its endeavors to overcome the Saussurian model of langue
as a static, uniform system of mandatory rules and to supplant this oversim-
plified and artificial construct by the dynamic view of a diversified, convertible
code with regard to the different functions of language and to the time and
space factors, both of which were excluded from the Saussurian conception of
the linguistic system. As long as this conception finds its adepts again and
again, we must repeat that any experimental reduction of linguistic reality can
lead to valuable scientific conclusions so long as we do not take the deliberately
narrowed frame of the experiment for the unrestricted linguistic reality.
Since verbal messages analyzed by linguists are linked with communication
of nonverbal messages or with exchange of utilities and mates, the linguistic
research is to be supplemented by wider semiotic and anthropological investi-
gation. As foreseen in Trubetzkoy’s letter of 1926 (r74), the integrated science
of communication is intended to show, according to Bright’s formulation, ‘the
systematic covariance of linguistic structure and social structure’ (17). Or, in
Benveniste’s terms: ‘le problkme sera bien plutBt de dkcouvrir la base commune
5 la langue et a la sociktk, les principes qui commandent ces deux structures,
en dkfinissant d‘abord les unitks qui dans I’une et dans I’autre se preteraient 2
6tre comparks, et d’en faire ressortir l’interdependance’ (8, p. 15).
Lkvi-Strauss contemplates the path of such future interdisciplinary research :
‘Nous sommes conduits, en effet, h nous demander si divers aspects de la vie
sociale (y compris I’art et la religion) - dont nous savons dkji que l’ktude peut
s’aider de mkthodes et de notions empruntkes a la linguistique - ne consistent
pas en phhomknes dont la nature rejoint celle meme du langage ... il faudra
pousser l’analyse des diffkrents aspects de la vie sociale assez profondkment
pour atteindre un niveau oh le passage deviendra possible de I‘un a l’autre;
c’est-&-dire klaborer une sorte de code universel, capable d‘exprimer les pro-
priktks communes aux structures spkcifiques relevant de chaque aspect. L‘emploi
de ce code devra Etre lkgitime pour chaque systkme pris isolkment, et pour tous
quand il s’agira de les comparer. O n se mettra ainsi en position de savoir si
l’on a atteint leur nature la plus profonde et s’ils consistent ou non en realites
du mEme type (ror, p. 71). He envisages a ‘dialogue’ with linguists on relations
between language and society (p. go). One may recall Durkheim’s comprehen-
sion of the ever increasing superiority of linguistics among social sciences and
his paternal admonition to build up a linguistic sociology (cf. 3). Until now,
however, the initial steps in this direction were taken precisely by linguists, as,
for instance, in the stimulating attempts towards a correlation of language and

Linguistics 43 I
sociocultural problems made in Russian linguistic literature on the threshold
of the 1920s and, 30s (cf. 179; 140; 76). Sociologists acknowledge ‘the cruel
truth’ that awareness of language can do more for sociology than sociology
can do for linguistic studies, and that the lack of training ‘in formal linquistics’
hinders workers in the social sciences from achieving a fruitful concern with
language (106, pp. 3-6).
The variable radius of communication, the problem of contact between the
communicants - ‘communication and transportation’ - aptly advanced by
Parsons as the ecological aspect of the systems, prompts certain correspondences
between language and society. Thus, the striking dialectal homogeneity of nomads’
languages bears an obvious relation to the wide radius of nomadic roaming.
In hunting tribes, for long periods hunters remain out of communication with
their women but in close contact with their prey. Hence, their language undergoes
a noticeable sexual dimorphism reinforced by the multiform taboo changes
which hunters introduce in order not to be understood by animals.
The relation between psychology and linguistics or, generically, between
psychology and communication sciences, differs substantially from the interrelation
of the three concentric circles discussed above : communication of
verbal messages, of any messages, and communication in general. Psychology
of language, or, under the newly-made label ‘psycholinguistics’ (which renders
the inveterate German compound Spruchpsychologie) enjoys a venerable tradition
in spite of fashionable assertions (cf. 126) that until recently psychologists
remained indifferent to language, and linguists to psychology. Blumenthal is
right when he states that this current belief ‘belies historical facts’ (rz), but he,
too, has been unaware of the true scope and longevity of such interdisciplinary
research. In the world history of science since the mid-nineteenth century one
could hardly name a psychological school that did not endeavor to apply its
principles and technical devices to linguistic phenomena and that did not produce
representative works devoted to language. Furthermore, all of these successive
doctrines left a significant imprint on contemporaneous linguistic trends.
It is true, however, that strong attractions to psychology alternate in the development
of modern linguistics with no less serious repulsions, and several reasons
are responsible for such temporary alienations.
In the first third of our century, at the onset of the structural bent in the
science of language, there arose a strong need for applying strictly and solely
linguistic, intrinsic criteria to the treatment of verbal problems. Saussure, in
spite of his ardent interest in a connection between these two disciplines, warned
his disciples against an excessive dependence of linguistics on psychology and
insisted expressly on a radical delimitation of approaches (54). The Husserlian
phenomenology, with its struggle against the hegemony of conventional psychologistic
explanations, was another sensible factor, particularly influential in the
continental thought of the interwar period. And finally, as linguists complained
and as Sapir in particular pointed out, most of the psychologists at that time
were as yet too little aware ‘of the fundamental importance of symbolism in
behavior’; he predicted that just such an insight into the specific symbolism of
language ‘will contribute to the enrichment of psychology’ (154, p. 163).

432 Roman Jalcobson
Sapir’s expectation was soon fulfilled by Karl Biihler’s book (zq), which still
is for linguists probably the most inspiring among all the contributions to the
psychology of language. Step by step, though with frequent relapses, psychol-
ogists dealing with language began to realize that mental operations connected
with language and semiosis are essentially different from any other psychological
phenomena. The necessity to master the foundation of linguistics became more
and more evident. However, George Miller’s ‘preliminary admonitions’ to
psychologists for an ever deeper penetration into this intricate science remain
quite opportune (z22; z2z).
The continuously growing number of instructive publications (see particu-
larly 130; 13z; zo9; 99; 163; 123) must stimulate a lively discussion between psy-
chologists and linguists. Such significant questions as the inward aspects of
speech, the so-called strategies of mind deployed by the interlocutors, require
psychological experimentation and elucidation. Among relevant questions,
partly discussed by psychologists and partly awaiting an answer, one may cite
speech programming and speech perception, the perceiver’s attention and fatigue,
redundancy as an antidote against psychological noise, immediate memory and
simultaneous synthesis, retention and oblivion of verbal information, genera-
tive and perceptive memory for the verbal code, interiorization of speech, the
role of different mental types in language learning, the interconnection of
speechless status and language acquisition with different grades of intellectual
development, and, on the other hand, relations between verbal impairments and
intellectual deficits or, finally, the significance of language for intellectual
operations as compared with the prelingual status.
Mutatis mutandis, analogous psychological problems arise with respect to
other forms of semiotic communication and to communication in general. In all
these cases there is a clearly delimited area for psychologists’ fruitful interven-
tion, and so long as experts in psychology do not intrude in the intrinsically
linguistic sphere of verbal form and meaning with alien criteria and methods,
both linguistics and psychology can and must derive considerable benefit from
mutual lessons. One must, however, constantly remember that verbal processes
and concepts, briefly, all the signantia and signata in their interrelations, require,
first and foremost, a purely linguistic analysis and interpretation. The still
occurring efforts to substitute a psychological treatment for indispensable lin-
guistic operations are doomed to failure; for instance, in the voluminous and
erudite grundriss by Kainz, his plan of a psychological grammar as an ‘explana-
tory and interpretative discipline’ opposed to the linguistic grammar, which
he believes to be merely descriptive and historical, reveals a glaring misconcep-
tion of the scope and aims of linguistic analysis (86, I, p. 63). For instance, when
claiming that from the use of conjunctions in a given language the psychologist
can infer ‘die Gesetze des Gedankenaufbaus’ (p. 62), the author demonstrates
a lack of insight into the essentials of linguistic structure and analysis. Similarly,
no psychological contrivances can replace a circumstantial and rigorous struc-
tural analysis of the infant’s gradual, daily growing mastery of language; such
an inquiry demands a careful application of a purely linguistic technique and
methodology, but, of course, the psychologist is called upon to correlate the

Linguistics 433
results of this linguistic expertise with the entire development of children’s
mentality and behavior (cf. 120).
The communication science on all its three levels is concerned with the mul-
tiple rules and roles of communication,:the roles of its partners, and the rules of
their partnership, whereas psychology is focused upon the individual partners
themselves, their nature, personality, and internal status. The psychology of
language is primarily a scientific characterization of language users, and, con-
sequently, there is no overlapping but rather fruitful complementarity between
both of the disciplines concerned with verbal activities.
One of the typical examples of the psychological preoccupation with per-
formances and performers is the psychoanalytic endeavors to disclose the privata
pvivatissiina of language by provoking the verbalization of unverbalized, sublim-
inal experiences, the exteriorization of inner speech, and both theory and thera-
peutics may be stimulated by Lacan’s attempts to revise and reinterpret the
correlation between signarzs and signaturn in the mental and verbal experience
of the patient (94).
If linguistics guides the analyst, the latter’s considerations on the supremacy
of the signans may, in turn, deepen the linguist’s insight into the twofold nature
of verbal structures.
B. Linguistics and natural sciences
When from specifically anthropological sciences we go on to biology, the
science of life which embraces the total organic world, the different kinds of
human communication become a mere section of a much vaster field of studies.
This wider range may be entitled: ways and forms of communication used by
the manifold living things. We are faced with a decisive dichotomy: not only
language but all the communication systems of language users (which all imply
the underlying role of language) differ substantially from any communication
system employed by speechless creatures, because for mankind each system of
communication is correlated with language, and within the over-all network of
human communication, it is language that takes the dominant place.
Several essential properties notably separate verbal signs from all kinds of
animal messages : the imaginative and creative power of language; its ability
to handle abstractions and fictions and to deal with things and events remote in
space and/or time, in contradistinction to the hic et nunc of animal signals; that
structural hierarchy of linguistic constituents, which was labeled ‘double articu-
lation’ in D. Bubrix’s keen essay of 1930 about the uniqueness and origin of
human language (zz), namely, the dichotomy of merely distinctive (phonemic)
and significative (grammatical) units and a further scission of the grammatical
pattern into the word and sentence levels (coded units vs. coded matrices); the
use of diremes, especially judgemental propositions ; and, finally, the assemblage
and reversible hierarchy of diverse concurrent verbal functions and operations :
referential, conative, emotive, phatic, poetic, metalinguistic. The number of dis-
tinct signals produced by an animal is restricted, so that the entire corpus of
the different messages is tantamount to their code. The cited specificities in the

434 Roman Jakobson
structure of any human language are totally unfamiliar to animals, whereas
several other properties formerly believed to be confined to human speech have
been detected now also in various species of primates (4).
The transition from ‘zoosemiotic’ to human speech is a huge qualitative leap,
in contradiction to the outdated behaviorist creed that the ‘language’ of animals
differs from men’s language in degree but not in kind. On the other hand, we
cannot but share objections raised recently on the linguistic side against ‘study-
ing animal communication systems within the same framework as human
language’ and motivated by a presumable lack ‘of continuity, in an evolutionary
sense, between the grammars of human languages and animal communication
systems’ br, p. 73). But no revolution, however radical, discards the evolution-
ary continuity; and a systematic comparison of men’s speech and their other
semiotic structures and activities with the ethological data on the communica-
tive means of all other species promises a stricter delineation of these two distinct
fields (20; 193) and a deeper insight into their substantial homologies and no
less important differences. This comparative analysis wil promote a further
broadening of the general theory of signs.
For the most part, observations and description of animal communication
belonged until recently to the neglected tasks, and records made were usually
fragmentary, unsystematic, and superficial. At present we possess much richer
data, collected with greater skill and care; however, in many cases they suffer
from a somewhat anthropomorphic interpretation of the valuable material
stored by assiduous field work. Thus, for instance, among cicadas the communi-
cation of messages, in spite of excessive attempts to ascribe to them a high
semiotic differentiation, consists solely of ticks used for distance signals and of
close-range buzzes; both varieties are combined into a squawk when the call is
addressed simultaneously to the nearby and the remote recipients (2).
The traditional opposition of human language and animal communication
as cultural vs. natural phenomena proves to be oversimplified. The nature-
nurture dichotomy (40, p. 55) presents an utterly entangled problem. The buildup
of animal communication implies, in Thorpe’s terms, ‘an elaborate integration
of inborn and learned components’, as proved by vocalizations of song birds
separated while in eggshells from their associates, and not only reared in total
isolation but in certain experiments even deafened (173; r71; 172). They still
perform the inborn blueprint of the song proper to the habit of their species or
even to the dialect of the subspecies, and the pattern of this song ‘is not funda-
mentally affected’ and after gradual trials may undergo some corrections and
ameliorations. If hearing has been left intact and the bird returns to its native
environment, the quality of its performances improves and the song repertory
can grow, but all this only occurs within the period of the bird’s maturation,
e.g. no alterations and additions are achievable in the warbling skill of a chaf-
hch when the latter is more than thirteen months old. The lower the organism,
the more nature prevails over nurture, but even lower animals can benefit from
learning (118, p. 316). As Galambos states, learning is common, for example,
‘to octopus, cat, and bee despite the large differences in their neural apparatus’
(50, P. 233).

Linguistics 435
Also in the child‘s acquisition of language, nature and culture are interlaced:
innateness constitutes the necessary basis for acculturation. However, the
hierarchy of both factors is opposite: learning for children, and heredity for
fledglings, cubs, or other young animals acts as the determining factor. The
infant cannot begin to talk without any contact with speakers, but as soon as
such contact is established, then whatever the environmental language is, the
child wil acquire it, provided he has not passed his seventh year (rr6), whereas
any further language can be learned also during the adolescence or the mature
age. All this means that learning of the initial communication system both for
birds or other animals, and for human beings can take place only between two
chronological maturation limits.
This puzzling phenomenon and the substantial fact that speech is a universally
human and exclusively human property imperatively call for an attentive
inquiry into the biological prerequisites of human language. Bloomfield‘s
reminder that among the special branches of science, linguistics ‘intervenes
between biology, on the one hand, and ethnology, sociology, and psychology,
on the other’ (Ir, p. 55) is most opportune. The complete failure of mechanistic
efforts to transplant biological, e.g. Darwinian or Mendelian, theories into the
science of language (157; 51) or to fuse linguistic and racial criteria led linguists
temporarily to distrust joint designs with biology, but at present, when both the
study of language and the study of life have experienced continuous progress and
stand before new, crucial problems and solutions, this skepticism must be overcome.
The research in question requires a cooperation of biologists and linguists
which would avert premature ‘biological theories of language development’
(as 98), enterprises familiarized neither with the properly linguistic evidence nor
with the cultural aspect of language.
Language and other means of human communication in their various operations
- mirtutis mutandis - offer many instructive analogies with the transfer of
information among other species of living creatures. ‘The adaptive nature of
communication’ in its manifold varieties which has been outlined pithily by
Wallace and Srb (184,
Ch. x) involves two correlate genera - self-adjustment to
the environment and an adjustment of the environment to one’s own needs.
Indeed, it becomes one of the ‘most exciting’ biological problems and, mutatis
n2utundis, it is of vital concern to contemporary linguistics. The similar processes
in the life of language and in animal communication merit a diligent and com-
prehensive exploration and juxtaposition beneficial both for ethology and for
linguistics. The interwar period witnessed the first mutual suggestions between
the investigators of these two disciplines who had been concerned with the
same two aspects of evolution: adaptive radiation and convergent evolution
(83, pp. 107-235); precisely in this connection, the biological concept of mimicry
has attracted the attention of linguists (cf. 83, p. 107), and, on the other hand,
diverse types of mimicry have been analyzed by biologists as displays of com-
munication (r84 p. 88 f.). The divergent development which is opposite to the
convergent tendency in the spread of communication and which acts as a
powerful counterpart of diffusion preoccupies the science of language as well
as biology more and more. The usual manifestations of such a linguistic non-

436 Roman Jakobson
conformism, particularism, or ‘parochialism’ (esprit de clocher, in Saussure’s
parlance) find remarkable ethological analogues, and biologists investigate and
describe what they call ‘local dialects’ that differentiate animals of a single
species, for instance crows or bees; thus, two neighboring and closely related
subspecies of fireflies differ in their courtship flashes (184, p. 88). From the
testimony of many observers on dissimilar vocalizations performed by one and
the same bird species in different ‘dialect areas’, Thorpe infers the presumption
that ‘these are true dialects and are not based on genetic discontinuities’.
During the last five decades many significant universals have been gradually
discovered in the phonological and grammatical pattern of languages. Obviously,
among the countless tongues of the world no one displays any structural features
which would conflict with children’s inborn abilities to master it in
the step-by-step process of language acquisition. Human language is, as biologists
term it, species-specified. There are in any infant innate dispositions, propensities
to learn the language of his environment; in Goethe’s terms, Ein jeder
lernt nur, was er lernen kann, and no extant philological or grammatical laws
overstep tyro’s capacities. How far the inherited potentiality to grasp, adjust,
and appropriate the elders’ language implies an innateness of linguistic universals
remains an utterly speculative and sterile question. It is evident that the
inherited and acquired patterns are closely linked together: they interact and
complement each other.
Like any other social modeling system tending to maintain its dynamic
equilibrium, language ostensively displays its self-regulating and self-steering
properties (435, p. 73; 107), Those implicational laws which build the bulk of
phonoIogical and grammatical universals and underlie the typology of languages
are embedded to a great part in the internal logic of linguistic structures
and do not necessarily presuppose special ‘geneticinstructions’. Thus, for instance,
as Kori showed long ago in his lucid contribution to comparative syntax (89),
hypotactic constructions and relative clauses in particular are far from being
universal, and in many languages such clauses present a recent innovation.
Nonetheless, whenever they appear, they constantly follow some identical
structural rules which, as he guesses, reflect certain ‘general laws of thinking’
or, let us add, inhere in the self-regulation and self-movement of language.
It is particularly noteworthy that the alleged ‘strict limits for variations’ lose
their compulsion in secret jargons and in verbal plays - private or semiprivate -
as well as in personal poetic experiments or invented languages. Propp’s trail-
blazing discovery (142) recently enforced and deepened (100; 56; 159) has
revealed the rigid structural laws which govern all the fairy tales of Russian
(and any other) oral tradition and admit but a severely limited number of com-
positional models. These restrictive laws, however, find no application to such
individual creations as Andersen’s or Hoffmann’s fairy stories. To a consider-
able degree, the rigor of general laws is due to thecircumstance that both language
and folklore demand a collective consensus and obey a subliminal communal
censorship (13). Precisely the fact of belonging to a ‘strictly socialized type of
human behavior’ is, in Sapir’s terms, highly responsible for ‘such regularities as
only the natural scientist is in the habit of formulating’ (155 or 154, p. 166).

Linguistics 437
‘The adaptive nature of communication’, rightly emphasized by modern
biologists, is manifest in the behavior both of higher and lower organisms
adjusting themselves to their living environment or, inversely, adjusting this
environment. One of the most striking examples of the ability to make persistent
and intensive adjustments is the child’s imitative and thereby creative learning of
language from parents or other adults, notwithstanding the recent untenable
surmise that nothing is needed other than ‘some superficial adaptation to the
structure of their behavior’ (98, p. 378).
The child‘s gift of acquiring any tongue whatever as his first language and,
perhaps even more generally, the human, especially juvenile aptitude to com-
mand unfamiliar linguistic patterns, must arise primarily from the instructions
coded in the germ cell, but this genetic assumption does not authorize us to
conclude that for the little apprentice the language of adults is nothing more than
‘raw material’ (98, p, 375). For example, in the Russian verb system none of its
morphological categories - persons, genders, numbers, tenses, aspects, moods,
voices - belong to linguistic universals, and children, as it has been shown by
abundant and precise observations and records, deploy all their gradual efforts
in order to comprehend these grammatical processes and concepts and to pene-
trate, step by step, into the numerous intricacies of the adults’ code. All the
devices needed for its attainable mastery are used by the beginner: its initial
simplification with selection of accessible components, progressive grades of
approximation to the entire code, glossing metalinguistic experiments, various
forms of tutor-tutee effective relations, and insistent demands for learning and
instruction (60; 87); everything positively contradicts the credulous references to
the ‘absence of any need for teaching of language’ (98, p. 379). But the question
of genetic endowment arises as soon as one deals with the very foundations of
human language.
The spectacular discoveries of the last few years in molecular genetics are
presented by the explorers themselves in terms borrowed from linguistics and
communication theory. The title of the book by George and Muriel Beadle,
The Language of Life. is not a mere figurative expression, and the extraordinary
degree of analogy between the systems of genetic and verbal information fully
justifies the guiding statement of this volume: ‘The deciphering of the DNA
code has revealed our possession of a language much older than hieroglyphics,
a language as old as life itself, a language that is the most living language of
all’ (6, p. 207).
From the newest reports on the gradual breakthrough of the DNA code and,
in particular, from F. H. C. Crick‘s (34) and C. Yanofsky’s (191) condensed
accounts of ‘the four-letter language embodied in molecules of nucleic acid’,
we actually learn that all the detailed and specified genetic information is con-
tained in molecular coded messages, namely in their linear sequences of ‘code
words’ or ‘codons’. Each word comprises three coding subunits termed ‘nucleo-
tide bases’ or ‘letters’ of the code ‘alphabet’. This alphabet consists of four
differing letters ‘used to spell out the genetic message’. The ‘dictionary’ of the
genetic code encompasses 64 distinct words which, in regard to their components,
are defined as ‘triplets’, for each of them forms a sequence of three letters.

438 Roman Jakobson
Sixty-one of these triplets carry an individual meaning, while three are apparently
used merely to signal the end of a genetic message.
In his inaugural address to the CollBge de France, Jacob vividly depicts the
scientists’ astonishment at the discovery of this nucleic alphabet: ‘A I‘ancienne
notion du gBne, structure intkgrale que l’on comparait A la boule d’un chapelet,
a donc succkd6 celle d’une sequence de quatre 616ments rBpBt6s par permutations.
L‘h6r6dit6 est dkterminke par un message chimique inscrit le long des chromosomes.
La surprise, c’est que la spkcificitk g6n6tique soit kcrite, non avec des
idkogrammes comme en chinois, mais avec un alphabet comme en francais, ou
plutbt en Morse. Le sens du message provient de la combinaison des signes en
mots et de l’arrangement des mots en phrases . A posteriori, cette solution
apparait bien comme la seule logique. Comment assurer autrement pareille
diversit6 d’architectures avec une telle simplicit6 de moyens?’ (78, p. 22). Since
our letters are mere substitutes for the phonemic pattern of language, and the
Morse alphabet is but a secondary substitute for letters, the subunits of the
genetic code are to be compared directly with phonemes. We may state that
among all the information-carrying systems, the genetic code and the verbal code
are the only ones based upon the use of discrete components which, by themselves,
are devoid of inherent meaning but serve to constitute the minimal senseful
units, i.e. entities endowed with their own, intrinsic meaning in the given
code. Confronting the experience of linguists and geneticists, Jacob aptly
stated: ‘Dans les deux cas, il s’agit d’unit6s qui en elles-mbmes sont absolument
vides de sens, mais qui, groupies de certaines facons, prennent un sens, qui est
soit le sens des mots dans le langage, soit un sens au point de vue biologique,
c’est-&-dire pour l’expression des fonctions qui sont contenues, qui sont “6crite~”
le long du message chimique g6n6tique’ (79).
The similarity in the structure of these two informational systems goes, however,
much farther. All the interrelations of phonemes are decomposable into
several binary oppositions of the further indissociable distinctive features. In
an analogous way, two binary oppositions underlie the four ‘letters’ of the
nucleic code (cf. 125, p. 13; 49; 35, p. 167); thymine (T), cytosine (c), guanine
(G), and adenine (A). A size relation (termed ‘transversion’ by Freese and Crick)
opposes the two pyrimidines T and c to the larger purines, G and A. On the
other hand, the two pyrimidines (T vs. c) and, equally, the two purines (G vs. A),
stand to each other in a relation of ‘reflexive congruence’(r86, p. 43) or ‘transition’
according to Freese’s and Crick‘s nomenclature: namely, they present two
contrary orders of the donor and acceptor. Thus T:G=C:A, and T:C=G:A.
Only the twice opposed bases prove to be compatible in the two complementary
strands of the DNA molecule: T with A and c with G.
Linguists and biologists display a still clearer insight into the consistently
hierarchical design of verbal and genetic messages as their fundamental integrative
principle. As pointed out by Benveniste, ‘une unit6 linguistique ne sera
reGue telle que si on peut l’identifier dans une unit6 plus haute’ (8, p. 123,), and
the same device underlies the analysis of the ‘genetic language’. The transition
from lexical to syntactical units of different grades is paralleled by the ascent
from codons to ‘cistrons’ and ‘operons’, and the’ latter two ranks of genetic

Linguistics 439
sequences are equated by biologists with ascending syntactic constructions
(144), and the constraints on the distribution of codons within such constructions
have been called ‘the syntax of the DNA chain’ (42a). In the genetic message
the ‘words’ are not separated from each other, whereas specific signals indicate
the start and end of the operon and the limits between the cistrons within the
operon, and are metaphorically described as ‘punctuation marks’ or ‘commas’
(77, p. 1475). They actually correspond to the delimitative devices used in the
phonological division of the utterance into sentences and of the latter into
clauses and phrases (Trubetzkoy’s Grenzsignale: 175). If, from syntax, we
proceed to the still insufficiently explored field of discourse analysis, the latter
seems to offer certain correspondences with the ‘macro-organization’ of genetic
messages and its highest constituents, ‘replicons’ and ‘segregons’ (144).
In contradistinction to the context freedom of diverse formalized languages,
the natural language is context-sensitive, and in particular, its words display a
variety of dissimilar contextual meanings. The recent observations on changes
in the meaning of codons, depending on their position in the genetic message
(33), may be noted as a further correspondence between the two patterns.
The strict ‘colinearity’ of the time sequence in the encoding and decoding
operations characterizes both the verbal language and the basic phenomenon of
molecular genetics, the translation of the nucleic message into the ‘peptidic
language’. Here again we come across a quite natural penetration of a linguistic
concept and term into the research of biologists who, by collating the original
messages with their peptidic translation, detect the ‘synonymous codons’. One
of the communicative functions of verbal synonyms is the avoidance of partial
homonymy (e.g. utterances substituting adjust for adapt to prevent the easy
confusion of the latter word with its partial homonym adopt), and biologists
question whether a similar subtle reason could not underlie the choice between
synonymous codons ; ‘et cette redondance donne quelque souplesse 5 1’Ccriture
de l’hCrCdit6’ (78, p. 25; cf. 33a).
Linguistics and cognate sciences deal chiefly with speech circuit and similar
forms of intercommunication, i.e. with the alternate roles of the addresser and
the addressee who gives either an overt or at least a silent reply to the inter-
locutor. As for the processing of genetic information, it is said to be irreversible;
‘the machinery of the cell can translate in one direction only’ (34, p. 56). How-
ever, the regulative circuits disclosed by the geneticists - repression and retro-
inhibition (112; 124; 77; 1r9, Ch. x) - seem to offer a slight molecular parallel to
the dialogic nature of speech. While such regulative interactions within the
‘physiological team’ of the genotype effect a control and selection of genetic
instructions either accepted or rejected, the transmission of hereditary informa-
tion to offspring cells and oncoming forward organisms maintains a straight,
chain-like order. Linguistics of today is actually faced with closely related sub-
jects. Thevaried questions connected with the exchange of verbal information in
space overshadowed the problem of language as legacy; the temporal, forward-
oriented, programming role of language bridging the span between the past and
the future is now on the agenda. It is noteworthy that the eminent Russian
expert in biomechanics, N. BernStejn, in his testamentary ‘Conclusion’ of 1966

440 Roman Jakobson
@, p. 334) has suggestively compared the molecular codes which ‘reflect the
processes of the forthcoming development and growth’ with ‘language as a
psycho-biological and psycho-social structure’ endowed with an anticipatory
‘model of the future’.
How should one interpret all these salient homologies between the genetic code
which ‘appears to be essentially the same in all organisms’ (185, p. 386) and the
architectonic model underlying the verbal codes of all human languages and,
nota bene, shared by no semiotic systems other than natural language or its
substitutes ? The question of these isomorphic features becomes particularly
instructive when we realize that they find!no analogue in any system of animal
communication.
The genetic code, the primary manifestation of life, and, on the other hand,
Ianguage, the universal endowment of humanity and its momentous leap from
genetics to civilization, are the two fundamental stores of information transmitted
from the ancestry to the progeny, the molecular heredity and the verbal
legacy as a necessary prerequisite of cultural tradition.
The outlined properties common to the systems of verbal and genetic information
ensure both speciation and boundless individualization. When biologists
maintain that the species ‘is the keystone of evolution’, and that without speciation
there would be no diversification of the organic world and no adaptive
radiation (119, p. 621 ; 43; 49, similarly, languages, with their structural regularities,
dynamic equilibrium, and cohesive power, appear as necessary corollaries
of the universal laws underlying any verbal structuration. If, furthermore,
biologists realize that the indispensable diversity of all individual organisms,
far from being incidental, presents ‘a universal and necessary phenomenon of
living things’ (161, p. 386), linguists, in turn, recognize the creativeness of
language in the unlimited variability of personal speech and in the infinite
diversification of verbal messages. Linguistics shares with biology the view that
‘stability and variability reside in the same structure’ (112, p. 99) and imply
each other.
Now, since ‘heredity, itself, is fundamentally a form of communication’ (184,
p. 71), and since the universal architectonic design of the verbal code is
undoubtedly a molecular endowment of every Homo sapiens, one could venture
the legitimate question whether the isomorphism exhibited by these two different
codes, genetic and verbal, results from a mere convergence induced by similar
needs, or whether, perhaps, the foundations of the overt linguistic patterns
superimposed upon molecular communication have been modeled directly
upon its structural principles.
The molecular hereditary order has no bearing on the diverse variables in
the formal and semantic make-up of different languages. There is, however, a
certain facet of individual speech that permits us to presume the possibility of a
genetic endowment. In addition to the multiform intentional information, our
talk carries inalienable and unalterable characteristics which are generated
chiefly in the inferior part of the speech apparatus, from the abdomen-diaphragmal
area to the pharynx. The study of these physiognomic characteristics was
inaugurated by Edward Severs under the label Schallanalyse and developed by

Linguistics 441
him and his disciple,’ the ingenious musicologist Gustav Becking, throughout
the first third of our century (160; 7). All the speakers, writers and musicians
proved to belong to one of the three basic types (with further subdivisions)
expressed in the entire exteriorized behavior of any individual as specific rhythmic
curves which, therefore, received the name of Generalkurven or Personalkurven;
they were also termed Beckingkurven, since they were discovered by
Becking during his joint research with Sievers. These three curves have been
mapped as follows (7, p. 52 f.):
Hauptschlag: Nebenschlag:
spitz - spitz (Heine-type)
spitz - rund (Goet he-t ype)
rund - rund (Schiller-type)
If a representative of one type has to recite, sing, or play a work of a poet or
composer of the same kinesthetic type, the performance appears to be reinforced
by this affinity, but if the author and performer belong to two totally opposite
types, the reproduction undergoes inhibitions (Hemrnungen). It turned out that
these three idiosyncratic types and their interrelations apply to all kinds of our
motor activities, such as the manner of bodily, manual, and facial movements,
gait, handwriting and drawing, dancing, sport, and courtship. The attractions
and repulsions between different types act not only within a single motor sphere
but also across the diverse spheres. Moreover, the effect of certain auditory and
visual stimuli is akin to one of the three motor types, and, correspondingly,
these incentives inay either stimulate or inhibit the response, as was experienced
by readers when they faced, in alternate order, the same verses coupled with a
wire figure now of a coincident and now of an opposite type.
In his notable summarizing report on these personal curves, Sievers asserts
‘dass sie das konstanteste sind, was es uberhaupt beim denkenden und handelnden
Menschen gibt: wenigstens ist mir trotz mehrjahrigem Suchen kein Fall
bekannt geworden, dass ein Individuum beim eigenen Produzieren uber mehr
als eine Beckingkurve frei verfugte, mag es auch sonst noch so reich sein an
klanglicher Variabilitat . Es lasst sich auch nicht bezweifeln, dass dieBeckingkurve
sum angeborenen BesitzIdes Individuums gehort (wie ich bei Neugeborenen
habe feststellen konnen), und dass bei ihrer ubertragung vom Individuum zu
Individuum die iiblichen Allgemeingesetze der Vererbung eine grosse, wenn
auch nicht die allein ausschlaggebende Rolle spielen. So ist es auch allein zu
verstehen, wenn ganze Stamme oder gar Volker sich manchmal fast bis zur
Ausschliesslichkeit nur einer und derselben Beckingkurve bedienen’ (160, p. 74).
The innateness of the three ‘individual curves’ seems probable but still requires
careful verification.
This research, which exhibited a superb skill and penetrating intuition of the
two inquirers, yet which originally lacked any theoretical foundation, unfortunately
has been discontinued, but now it could and should be resumed on new
methodological principles. The tentative psychophysical typology advanced by
Sievers and Becking should be confronted with such problems as the attraction

442 Roman Jakobson
and repulsion between associates and mates, the varying types in the progeny of
dissimilar parents and the presumable influence of these variations upon relations
between parents and offspring. The question whether the heredity of such
physiognomic, virtually aesthetic, components of language may find a widened
phylogenetic application remains open.
It was the physicist Niels Bohr who repeatedly warned biologists against
fear of ‘notions like purposiveness foreign to physics but lending themselves so
readily to the description of organic phenomena’. He diagnosed and prognosticated
that the two attitudes - one mechanistic and the other end-directed - ‘do
not present contradictory views on biological problems but, rather, stress the
mutually exclusive character of observational conditions equally indispensable
in our search for an ever richer description of life’ (14, p. 100). The programmat-
ic paper by Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow on purpose and teleology (I&,
with its scrupulous classification of purposeful behavior, would, as Campbell
acknowledges (27, p. 5), ‘make a useful introduction’ to the latter’s book - and
one could add, to many other cardinal works - on organic, especially human,
evolution.
The discussion of goal-directedness in today’s biology is of vital interest for
all branches of knowledge relating to organismic activities, and the judgments
advanced may serve to corroborate a consistent application of a means-ends
model to the language design, to its self-regulating maintenance of integrity
and dynamic equilibrium (homeostasis), as well as to its mutations (28; 44).
Although the same labels that were used in the prestructural stage of historical
linguistics - ‘blind, haphazard, fortuitous, random changes, accidental slips,
multiplied errors, happenstances’ - are still tenacious in biological creeds and
phraseology, nevertheless such pivotal concepts as ‘purposiveness’, ‘anticipa-
tion’, ‘initiative and foresight’ take ever deeper root (36, p. 239; 172, Ch. I).
Wallace and Srb criticize the traditional avoidance of teleological phraseology
and of references to purpose as outdated, since the problems involved are no
longer related to any belief in an dan vital(r84, p. 109). According to Emerson,
biologists are forced ‘to recognize the existence of direction toward future
functions in pre-mental organisms such as plants and lower animals’. He sees
no necessity ‘to put the word purpose in quotation marks’ (45, p. 207) and
maintains that ‘homeostasis and goal-seeking are the same thing’ (44, p. 162).
For the founders of cybernetics ‘teleology’ was synonymous with ‘purpose
controlled by feed-back’ (r47), and this approach has been widely developed in
Waddington’s (182; r8r) and Smal’gauzen’s (169; 168) biological studies. As
the leading Russian biologist of our time, N.A. BernStejn, recently stated,
‘numerous observations and data in all the areas of biology have shown for a
long time an indisputable purposiveness in the structures and processes peculiar
to living organisms. This purposiveness strikes as a manifest, perhaps even de-
cisive, difference of living systems from any objects of inorganic nature. In
application to biological objects, the questions “how” and “for what reason”
exhaustively sufficient in physics or chemistry, have to be necessarily supple-
mented by a third, equally relevant question “for what purpose’” @, p. 326).
‘Only the two concepts introduced by biocybernetics, the code and the coded

Linguistics 443
anticipatory model of the future, have indicated an impeccable, materialistic
way out of this seeming deadlock’ (p. 327). ‘All the observations on the formation
of the organism in its embryology and ontogeny as well as on the phylogenetic
scale show that the organism in its development and activities strives
for the maximum of negentropy compatible with its vital stability. Such a
formulation of the biological “purpose” requires no psychologization’ (p. 328).
‘The biological relevance pushes the indispensable and unavoidable question of
purpose into first place’ (p. 331). The discovered ability of organisms to build
and integrate material codes which reflect the manifold forms of activity and
extrapolative performances from tropisms to the most complex forms of influence
upon the environment enables BernStejn, according to his own assertion,
‘to speak about the goal-directedness, goal-orientation, etc., of any
organism whatever, perhaps starting with the protists’, without risk of sliding
into a supernatural finalism (p. 309).
An even more resolute claim for the autonomous status of the science of life
was expressed by the eminent Harvard biologist, George Gaylord Simpson:
‘The physical sciences have rightly excluded teleology, the principle that the end
determines the means, that the result is retroactively connected to the cause by
a factor of purpose, or that usefulness is in any sense explanatory (162, p. 370).
But in biology it is not only legitimate but also necessary to ask and answer
questions teleological in aspect concerning the function or usefulness to living
organisms of everything that exists and that occurs in them’ (p. 371). Simpson
repeatedly insists that ‘the purposeful aspect of organisms is incontrovertible’
and that the antiteleological reductionism ‘omits the bios from biology’ (161,
p. 86). In an earlier re-examination of teleology, Jonas Salk underscored that
‘living systems require different considerations as compared with non-living
systems; the idea of purpose in living systems is not only relevant but is essential’.
He explains ‘that it is in the nature of the organism to be oriented for the
change that occurs. The intrinsic nature of the organism influences the range
and direction of change that can occur; the change that occurs becomes added
to others, all of which together seem to be “causes” toward which the developing
organism is drawn, and the word “cause” in this context obtains the
philosophical meaning of “end or purpose”’ (152).
Leaning upon the example of scientific astronomy which superseded speculative
astrology, Pittendrigh proposed to substitute ‘teleonomy’ for ‘teleology’
in order to make it clear that ‘the recognition and description of end-directedness’
is freed from undesirable associations with the Aristotelian metaphysical
dogma. The new term carried the idea that all organization recognized as being
characteristic of life ‘is relative and end-directed‘, and that any randomness is
‘the converse of organization’ (139, p. 394). The new term proved to be opportune
go), and, in Monod‘sview, ‘laTdIBonomie, c’est le mot qu’on peut employer
si, par pudeur objective, on prkfkre dviter “finalit6”. Cependant, “tout se passe”
comme si les Etres vivants dtaient structurds, organisb et conditionnds en vue
d‘une fin: la survie de l’individu, mais surtout celle de l’espkce’ (125, p. 9).
Monod describes the central nervous system as ‘the most evolved of teleonomic
structures’ and ventures to interpret the emergence of the superior, specifically

444 Roman Jakobson
human system as a sequel to the appearance of language, which changed the
biosphere into ‘a new realm, the noosphere, the domain of ideas and consciousness’.
In other words, ‘c’est le langage qui aurait cr66 I’homme, plut6t que
l’homme le langage’ (p. 23).
If the questions of goal-orientation are still under discussion in biology, any
doubts are misplaced as soon as we approach human beings, lifeways, and institutions,
in particular, human language. The latter, like man himself in Mac-
Kay’s sagacious formulation, ‘is a teleological or goal-directed system’ (114;
cf. 71). The obsolete belief that ‘purposiveness cannot logically be the mainspring
for language development’ (98, p. 378) falsifies the very nature of language
and of intentional human behavior.
Recidives of superstitious fear of a means-ends model which still torment a
few linguists are the last survivals of a sterile reductionism. As a characteristic
example we may cite a linguist’s affirmation that ‘in the discussion of man’s
place in nature there is no place for mentalism’, since ‘man is an animal and
subject to all the laws of biology’, and, finally, that ‘the only valid assumption
is that of physicalism’, since ‘life is part of the inorganic world and subject to all
the laws of physics’ (69, p. 136; 67).
This quasi-biological bias of linguists is categorically rebuffed by biologists
themselves. As for antimentalism, they teach us that in the evolution of human
nature ‘intelligence integrates knowledge and gives it direction’; it is a ‘purposively
directed mental process with awareness of means and ends’ (65, p. 367). As
for animalism, Dobzhansky condemns the fancy cliche that man is nothing but
an animal as ‘a specimen of “genetic” fallacy’. In regard to an all-embracing
biologism, he reminds us that ‘human evolution cannot be understood as a
purely biological process, because, beside the biological component, the other,
cultural factor in turn must be taken into account’ (41, p. IS). As for simplistic
physicalism, ‘organisms do in fact have characteristics and processes that do
not occur in conjunction in nonorganic materials and reactions’ (162, p. 367).
While biology has realized fully that the units of heredity are discrete and,
hence, nonblending, the same linguist, faithful to the spirit of reductionism,
ventures to explain the emergence of the discrete constituents of the verbal
code through the ‘phenomenon of blending’ as ‘the only (!) logically (!)
possible (!) way’ (69, p. 142).
The ultimate phylogenetic question of linguistics, the origin of language, has
been proscribed by the neogrammarian tenet, but at present the emergence of
language must be brought together with the other changes which mark the
transition from prehuman to human society. Such a juxtaposition can also
give certain clues for a relative chronology. Thus, attempts have been made to
elucidate the genetic interrelation between language and visual art (22; r43).
Figurative art seems to imply the presence of language and thus the earliest
vestiges of representative art provide glottogony with a plausible terminus
ante quem.
Moreover, we may connect three universals among the solely human achievements:
I) manufacture of tools to build tools; 2) rise of phonemic, purely
distinctive elements, deprived of their own meaning but used to build meaning-

Linguistics 445
ful units, namely morphemes and words; 3) incest taboo, conclusively inter-
preted by anthropologists (115; 188; 105; 151) as the indispensable precondition
for a wider exchange of mates and hereby for an expansion of kinship and for a
consequent buildup of economic, cooperative, and defensive alliances. In brief,
this device serves to create men’s ‘solidarity transcending the family’ (133).
As a matter of fact, all of these three innovations introduce pure auxiliaries,
secondary tools necessary for the foundation of human society with its material,
verbal, and spiritual culture. An abstract mediate principle lies in the idea of
secondary tools, and the emergence of all of their three aspects must have been
the cardinal step from ‘animality’ toward the thoroughly human mind. The
rudiments of these three fundamentally similar possessions must have emerged
within the same paleontological period, and the earliest excavated specimens
of tools - such as gravers or burins (129, p. 95) - destined to make tools enable
us to posit a conjectural glottogonic epoch. In particular, the need of articalate
speech for the formulation of rules which define and prohibit incest and inaugu-
rate exogamy (187) prompts a further specification of the evolutionary sequence.
As the psychologist puts it, ‘distinctions between those who are permitted or
favored as mates and those who are ruled out as “incestuous” are governed by a
system of naming that can only be mastered by one who can handle a human
language’ (21, p. 75). The importance of speech for the development and diffu-
sion of tool manufacture may be likewise assumed.
The physiology of speech production overcomes its former piecemeal,
atomizing stage and acquires an ever broader interdisciplinary range. Among
instructive examples one could cite Zinkin’s comprehensive tabulation of speech
mechanisms (195) and the fruitful experiments going on especially in the labora-
tories of Leningrad, Los Angeles, Lund, New York, Prague, Santa Barbara,
Stockholm, Tokyo, etc. The novel biomechanical interpretation of programmed
and controlled movements which has been developed by Bernitejn and his
collaborators (9) ought to be taken into account by phoneticians as well. The
study of speech sounds as goal-directed motor commands and acts, with partic-
ular reference to their auditory effect and to the purpose they serve in language,
requires co-ordinate efforts of experts in all the facets of phonic phenomena,
from the biomechanic aspect of articulatory movements to the subtleties of a
purely phonological analysis. As soon as such teamwork is achieved, the speech
analysis will obtain its thoroughly scientific foundations and wil respond to the
‘exigencies of relativistic invariance’ as the binding methodological requirement
for any field of modern research (14, p. 71).
The deepest discernment of the relation between the human organism and its
verbal abilities and activities is achieved by the mutual help of neurobiologists
and linguists in a comparative inquiry into the various lesions of the cortex and
the resulting aphasic impairments. An intrinsically linguistic analysis discloses
three dichotomies underlying those six types of aphasia which have been
delineated by Luria (110) and corroborated by observations of other contem-
porary neurobiologists (64). The classification of aphasic impairments based on
this analysis yields a patently coherent and symmetrical relational pattern, and
when we confront this strictly linguistic pattern with the anatomical data, it

446 Roman Jakobson
proves to coincide with the topography of the cerebral lesions responsible for
the diverse impairments (84). The prospective development of such interdisciplinary,
‘neurolinguistic’ research in aphasic and psychotic speech (cf.
III; 42) will undoubtedly open new vistas for a comprehensive study of the
brain and its functions as well as for the science of language and other semiotic
systems.
A deeper insight into the biologic foundations of language may be expected
from the ongoing experience with split-brain operations (see 166). A further
progress of comparative inquiry into aphasia, on the one hand, and into agraphia
and alexia, on the other, must throw new light on the interrelation between
spoken and written language, while general semiotic will benefit from a parallel
research in language disorders and other forms of ‘asemasia’ (cf. 84, p. 289)
such as amusia or disturbances of gestual systems.
So far almost nothing is known about the internal network of verbal communication
and, in particular, about the neural stage in the output and input
of distinctive features ; one may hope that in the near future neurobiology will
provide an answer to this question of primary interest for the comprehension
and further study of the ultimate linguistic units. Their transmission obtains a
more and more precise elucidation with the rapid progress of physical acoustics,
but the discrimination of invariants and variables requires the assistance of
those linguists who realize the extrinsic abstrusity and intrinsic autonomy of
phonological systems, and a more systematic exchange of information between
these two sets of scientists must further a fuller and clearer grasp of the universal
laws of phonemic patterning (82). This research becomes particularly productive
when linguistic findings are matched with the psychophysical data, e.g.
with the recent experiments of Yilmaz which disclose a basic structural homology
not only between the vowels and consonants but also between the speech sounds
perceived by the human ear and the colors seen by the human eye (192).
Acoustics is the only branch of physics that shares a common subject matter
with the science of language. Yet the gradual reorientations both in physics and
linguistics throughout our century brought forward some crucial epistemological
lessons and questions which turned out to be common to both sciences
and deserve a concentrated discussion. F. de Saussure still believed that ‘dans
la plupart des domaines qui sont objets de science, la question des unites ne se
pose m6me pas, elles sont donnees d’emblke’ (156, p. 23). At that time linguistics
seemed to its protagonists to be the only discipline having difficulties in positing
its elementary units. Today similar problems have spread over various fields of
knowledge. Thus, particle physics, for instance, is faced with the controversial
question whether the ‘elementary’ particles that form the nucleus are not
built from even smaller discrete units labeled ‘quarks’, and the underlying
principles of these physical and linguistic debates are of mutual interest and
use also for other fields of knowledge.
Although the interaction between the object under observation and the
observer and the dependence of the information obtained by the latter on his
relative position, briefly, the inseparability of objective content and observing
subject (14, pp. 30, 307), are realized nowadays both by physicists and lin-

Linguistics 447
guists, nevertheless in linguistics all necessary inferences from this compelling
premise have not yet been drawn, and, for instance, when mixing the speaker-
hearer’s standpoints, investigators get into difficulties. The possibility and
desirability of applying Bohr’s principle of complementarity to linguistics were
brought out already by his outstanding compatriot Viggo Brondal (r9), but it
still awaits systematic examination. Many more examples of common theoret-
ical and methodological problems could be named, as, for example, the con-
cepts of symmetry and antisymmetry which acquire a still more important
position in linguistics and in natural sciences, as well as questions of ‘temporal’
or ‘morphic’ determinism and of reversible fluctuations or irreversible changes
(cf. 83, pp. 527,652). Several essential points common to sciences ofcommunica-
tion and thermodynamics, particularly the ‘equivalence of negentropy and
information’ (IS), open new prospects.
The joint seminar on physics and linguistics which we conducted with Niels
Bohr over ten years ago at M.I.T. resulted in the conclusion that the contraposi-
tion of linguistics as a discipline of inferior precision to the so-called ‘exact’
sciences and, in particular, to physics is one-sided. Actually, in those sciences
‘observation is essentially an irreversible process’ (14, p. 232); information
obtained from the outer world by the physicist consists merely of one-way
‘indexes’, and in their interpretation he imposes upon the experience his own
code of ‘symbols’, an additional ‘work of imagination’ (in Brillouin’s parlance:
18, p. 21), whereas the code of verbal symbols actually exists and functions
within the speech community as an indispensable and efficient tool in the reversible
process of intercommunication. Consequently, the realistic investigator, a
factual or virtual participant in such an exchange of communication symbols,
merely translates them into a code of metalinguistic symbols and, hence, is
enabled to achieve a higher verisimilitude in the interpretation of the phenomena
observed.
Since, in the end, science is a linguistic representation of experience (70, p.
151, the interaction between the objects represented and the linguistic tools of
representation demands control of these tools as an indispensable prerequisite
for any science. This task implies an appeal for assistance to the science of
language, and linguistics, in turn, is called upon to widen the scope of its
analytic operations.*
* The author gratefully acknowledges valuablediscussions with George Beadle, Suzanne
Bourgeois, Jacob Bronowski, Jerome Bruner, Zellig Harris, Frangois Jacob, Claude
LBvi-Strauss, A. R. Luria, Andr6 Lwoff, Leslie Orgel, David McNeill, Talcott Parsons,
Karl Pribram, Jonas Salk, and Francis Schmitt, as well as the assistance of the Research
Laboratory of Electronics (M.I.T.), the Center for Cognitive Studies (Harvard), and the
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, all of which have graciously furthered the research
work connected with this study, and thanks Bevin Ratner for her help in its preparation.
He is particularly obliged to Emile Benveniste and Thomas Sebeok for helpful critical
remarks on the first draft of the present paper.

448 Roman Jakobson
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452 Roman Jakobson
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Linguistics 453
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197. ZINKIN,
Jakobson, 111, The Hague-Paris, 1967.
U. ESSENTIALS AND GOALS OF CONTEMPORARY LINGUISTICS
A. Outline
At first glance, linguistic theory of our time seems to offer a stunning variety
and disparity of clashing doctrines. As any age of innovative experimentation,
the present stage of reflections on language has been marked by intensive con-
tentions and tumultuous controversies. Yet a careful, unprejudiced examination
of all these sectarian creeds and vehement polemics reveals an essentially
monolithic whole behind the striking divergences in terms, slogans, and techni-
cal contrivances. To use the distinction between deep and superficial structures
that is current today in linguistic phraseology, one may state that most of
these allegedly irreconcilable contradictions appear to be confined to the sur-
face of our science, whereas in its deep foundations the linguistics of the last
decades exhibits an amazing uniformity. This communality of basic tendencies
is particularly impressive in comparison with the substantially heterogeneous
tenets that characterized some earlier epochs of this discipline, the especially
nineteenth and the early years of the twentieth century. Factually, most of the
recent discord is based in part on dissimilarities in terminology and style of
presentation and partly upon a different distribution of linguistic problems
chosen and pointed out by single scholars or teams of inquirers as the most
urgent and important. Indeed, sometimes such selection amounts to a rigid
confinement of research and to an abstention from the topics that have been
ruled out.

454 Roman Jakobson
At present, different sciences display similar phenomena. In the same way
that general topology underlies and encompasses a wide range of mathematical
approaches, also the manifold treatments of language reflect merely the plural-
ity of its aspects that are in complementary relation with each other. This view
is beginning to gain ground among experts. Thus, Noam Chomsky (1968)
emphasizes the necessity for a synthesis between those major linguistic currents,
one of which ‘has raised the precision of discourse about language to entirely
new levels’, while the other is ‘devoted to abstract generalization’.
The inquiry into the verbal structure is the undeniable aim of contemporary
linguistics in all its varieties, and the cardinal principles of such a structural
(or in other terms, nomothetic) approach to language that are common to all
the shades and sectors of this research may be defined as the conjugate ideas of
invariance and relativity. The habitual bias branded by Sapir as a ‘dogged
acceptance of absolutes’ was gradually overcome. The scrutiny of the verbal
system demanded an ever deepening insight into its intrinsic coherence and into
the strictly relational and hierarchical nature of all its constituents. The next
indispensable request was a similar insight into the general laws governing all
verbal systems and, finally, into the interconnection between these laws. Thus,
the elicitation and interpretation of the entire linguistic network - or, in
remodeled wording, ‘the concern for explanatory adequacy’ - has been the
dominant theme of the movement that took shape during the interwar period
under the label ‘structural linguistics’, coined in Prague in 1928-29.
Sometimes a parochial overestimation of discord threatens to distort the
developmental history of linguistics from the first world war until its present
state. In particular, the inflationary myth of gradual revolutions allegedly ex-
perienced by the science of language throughout this period arbitrarily assigns
certain strivings and ideas to single phases of this period. Hence, for example,
the structural trend in general linguistics which took root with the International
Congresses of the late twenties and early thirties is now being reproved for its
supposed estrangement from philosophy, whereas in reality the international
protagonists of this movement had close and effective connections with phenom-
enology in its Husserlian and Hegelian versions. In the Moscow Linguistic
Circle of the early twenties, continuous and ardent debates led by Gustav
Spet - in Husserl’s opinion, one of his most remarkable students - were con-
cerned with the linguistic use of the Logische Untersuchungen and especially
with Husserl’s and Anton Marty’s suggestive return to ‘the thought of a uni-
versal grammar conceived by the rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries’ and anticipated by the medieval philosophers of language. T. G.
Masaryk and Marty, both of whom, like their friend Husserl, had been molded
in Brentano’s school, exerted a wholesome influence on their auditor, Vilkm
Mathesius, the later founder of the Prague Linguistic Circle, where Husserl’s
ideas and his remarkable personal address of November 11, 1935 - ‘Phano-
menologie der Sprache’ - met with a responsive welcome. Acta Linguistica,
published by the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen, were inaugurated in 1939 by
Viggo Brondal’s editorial article, which treats the structure of language ‘comme
objet autonome et par conskquent comme non-dkrivable des BlBments dont elle

Linguistics 455
n’est ni l’agrkgat ni la somme; c’est pourquoi il faut considkrer l’ktude des
systkmes possibles et de leur forme comme &ant de la plus grande importance.’
It is significant that Brondal’s essay developing this thesis ends with a reference
to ‘Husserl’s penetrating meditations on phenomenology’ as an inspiring source.
Hendrik Pos, the Dutch disciple of Husserl (1898-1955), has taken a prom-
inent part in advancing the phenomenology of language and the theory of
structural linguistics.
Hegelian phenomenology and dialectics, too, left a manifest imprint on the for-
mation of structural linguistics. One can again refer to thementioned groups and
individual searchers. Emile Benveniste’s preface to Origines de la formation des
nonis en indo-europgeen begins with a reminder: ‘De fait, on ne va gubre au dela
de la constatation. L‘effort consid6rable et mkritoire, qui a Ct6 employ6 a la
description des formes, n’a Btk suivi d’aucune tentative s6rieuse pour les inter-
pr6ter.’ This foreword ended with an appeal to Hegel’s beneficial principle :
‘Das Wahre ist das Ganze.’
It must be added that perhaps the most prescient forerunner of modern lin-
guistics among scholars of the late nineteenth century, Mikolaj Kruszewski,
wrote in 1882 to Jan Baudouin de Courtenay that in addition to the extant
science of language it is necessary to establish ‘a new one, more general’, which
he defined as ‘a certain kind of phenomenology of language’. According to the
proponent, ‘the permanent foundations of such a science are to be found in
language itself’. The concept of phenomenology was obviously detected by the
young linguist in Eduard von Hartmann’s Phanomenologie des Unbewussten
(1875), characterized in H. Spiegelberg’s history of the phenomenological move-
ment as ‘an isolated landmark on the way from Hegel to Husserl’. Kruszewski’s
earlier statements disclose that it was the ‘unconscious character’ of linguistic
processes which evoked his ‘magnetic attraction’ to the logic of language and
to the problem OP general linguistic laws. Although Hartmann’s book was
disapproved of by Kruszewski as ‘tedious, boring‘ and unfit in its conception of
unconscious processes, certain items in Hartmann’s chapter on language are
akin both to Kruszewski’s search and to the lines of modern linguistic theory,
in particular, the philosopher’s insistence on the universality of the nuclear
grammatical categories (Grundformen) as an ‘unbewusste Schopfung des
Genius der Menschheit’, and his commendation of Humboldt’s teaching on
language and mind. Kruszewski, in turn (1883), pointed to the ‘eternal creativity
of language’ with an enforcing reference to Humboldt. In his address to the
Second International Congress of Linguists (1931), Mathesius presented the
Humboldtian doctrine of language as a substantial constituent of ‘functional and
structural linguistics’; and one of the first French representatives of this move-
ment, Lucien Tesnibre, extolling Humboldt as ‘un esprit universe1 hautement
cultiv6 et arm6 en particulier d‘une culture scientifique approfondie’, blamed
the neogrammarian tradition which underrated this great spirit and which gave
preference to ‘un simple technicien de la grammaire compar6e comme Bopp’.
Thus, the recent Humboldtian restitution (G. RamiSvili, N. Chomsky) has
merely strengthened a tendency which was already inherent in structural lin-
guistics.

456 Roman Jakobson
The legend of a ‘militant anti-psychologism’, allegedly proper to this movement,
is based on several misunderstandings. When phenomenologically
oriented linguists resorted to the slogans of anti-psychologism, they used this
term in the same way as Husserl did when he opposed a model of a new, phenomenological
psychology with its fundamental concept of intentionality to the
orthodox behaviorism and to other varieties of stimuli-responses psychology.
This model and kindred psychological orientations met with vivid interest
among linguists and with their readiness to cooperate as well.
One may recollect the contact and convergences between the research of Saussure
and ClaparBde,Trubetzkoy’s and Karl Biihler’s fruitful discussions, the particularattention
which West Europeanand American linguistspaid to the progress
of Gestalt psychology, and theinstructivewarnings of two American experts in the
relationship between language and mind, E. Sapir and B. L. Whorf, to the gestaltists
who, as far as language is concerned, rather ‘let the matter drop’ since they
‘have neither the time nor the linguistic training required to penetrate this
field’ and since ‘their ideas and terminology inherited from the old laboratory
psychology are a liability rather than an asset’ (Whorf). In a similar way, Sapir,
although aware that linguistics is destined to have a special value for configurative
psychology, suspected that ‘a really fruitful integration of linguistic and
psychological study lies still in the future’, because linguistics is one of the most
intricate fields of inquiry for psychologists.
The only offshoot of modern linguistics which the allegations of antiphilosophical,
anti-mentalist, and anti-semantic bent really suit has been the linguistic
activity of the so-called mechanists, a group of American linguists influential
mainly in the forties but now nearly vanishing. The rigorously restrictive
problem of mechanistic investigation may be interpreted, however, as a set
of useful reductionist experiments, irrespective of the philosophical credo of
the experimentalist. At any rate, despite all the particularities of this regional
team which separate it from all the other groups of linguists in the present-day
world, the analysis of linguistic structures is the common denominator of all
the contemporary scientific currents. And this persisting trait sharply distinguishes
the linguistic research of the last four or five decades from the main
routes and targets of the anterior period.
The late nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries were marked by a continuous
upsurge of comparative historical studies. At the same time, however,
tentative writings of lone seekers in different countries reveal the first, precursory
inklings of a prospective, structural approach to language. These anticipations
and efforts culminate in Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours de linguistique
ginkrale, a posthumous edition of 1916 arranged by Ch. Bally and A. Sechehaye
on the basis of students’ records. The five subsequent decades have witnessed an
unprecedented, strenuous rise and capital revision of the linguistic science, and
the clearest way to point out the essential innovations will be to confront them
with the Saussurian doctrine, which has been viewed as the start of a new era
in the science of language.
Most of the fundamental theoretical concepts and principles introduced by
Saussure go back to his older contemporaries, Baudouin de Courtenay and

Linguistics 457
Kruszewski; but in the Cours these notions were presented in a more perspicuous
and expanded manner, and an effective emphasis was placed on the mutual
solidarity of the system and its constituents, on their purely relative and opposi-
tive character, and on the basic antinomies which we face when we deal with
language. It must be added, however, that the factual analysis of linguistic
systems was a task passed on to the future researchers, and the elaboration of
the most appropriate methods for such an analysis has become a vital question
of linguistic theory and praxis for several decades.
The consistent attention focused upon the antinomies “qu’on rencontre dks
qu’on cherche B faire la thkorie du langage’ is one of the greatest assets of the
Cours. It was important to realize these dichotomies, but as long as they
remained unresolved, the wholeness and unity of linguistics was imperiled. In
Husserl’s terms, ‘Halbheiten oder unzulassige Verabsolutierungen von nur
relativ und abstraktiv berechtigten Einseitigkeiten’ had to be overcome, and
gradual efforts to bridge and synthesize these ‘inner dualities’ actually mark
the post-Saussurian stage of linguistics.
At the very end of his scientific activities, Saussure adopted the Stoic con-
ception of the twofold verbal sign composed of the perceptible signans and the
intelligible signaturn. He realized that these two elements are intimately united
‘et s’appellent l’un l’autre’, but taught that the bond between the signans and
signaturn is arbitrary and that ‘the whole system of language is based on the
irrational principle of the arbitrariness of the sign’. This assumption has been
submitted to a gradual revision whereby the role of relative, grammatical
motivation as invoked by Saussure to restrict the arbitrariness of the connection
between the two aspects of the verbal sign proved to be quite insufficient. Inner,
iconic ties of the signans to its signaturn and, in particular, intimate connections
between grammatical concepts and their phonological expression cast doubt on
the traditional belief in ‘the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign’, as maintained
in the Cours. In post-Saussurian linguistics the question of relationship between
the signans and signaturn has been extended also to the phonological aspect of
language, and the entangled questions of interplay between the phonological
and grammatical levels as well as of their mutual demarcation have come to
the foreground of linguistic attention. The essential difference between the
phonological oppositions which are rooted in the signans and the grammatical
oppositions founded in the signaturn has been apprehended.
‘The linearity of the signans’, which was decreed by Saussure to be a self-
evident fundamental principle fraught with incalculable consequences for the
science of language, has been shaken by the dissociation of phonemes into their
concurrent components (‘distinctive features’); and, on the other hand, the
question of the successive order in the structure of the signaturn regains the im-
portance it had in the classical age, and the increasing attention to the hierarchy
of immediate constituents has removed the shortcomings of the former,
straightforward approaches to the sequence. Saussure’s remarks on the irrele-
vance of the ‘substance’ in which the linguistic form is expressed and on the
arbitrariness of the relation between form and substance were put to the test,
and have finally yielded to a hierarchical view of primordial speech and its

458 Roman Jakobson
graphic substitutes and to a tenacious request for an exhaustive, comparative
inquiry into the distinct autonomous properties of the oral and written varieties
of language; sound patterns utilized for the building up of meaningful distinc-
tions proved to be based on a semiotic selection and adaptation of natural
phonic means; a typology of the extant phonological systems based on a strictly
relational standpoint was attempted, and implicational laws of universal valid-
ity were inferred from it.
The Saussurian inner duality of langue and parole (which mirrors the synony-
mous distinction of jazyk and re? launched by Baudouin de Courtenay in
I 870) or, to use a modern, less ambiguous terminology, ‘code’ (Saussure’s code
de la langue) and ‘message’ - alias ‘competence’
and ‘performance’ - gives rise
to two divergent approaches within the same section of the Cours: ‘Sans doute,
ces deux objets sont Ctroitement lies et se supposent I’un l’autre’, and, on the
other hand, the author claims the impossibility of grasping ‘le tout global du
langage’, insists on a strict bifurcation of the inquiry into langue and parole, and
even declares the latter as the sole object of linguistics proper. Although this
restrictive program still finds its theoretical adherents, in fact the absolute
separation of the two aspects turns into a recognition of two different hierarchic
relations: an analysis of the code with due regard for the messages, and vice
versa. Without a confrontation of the code with the messages, no insight into the
creative power of language can be achieved. Saussure’s definition of langue as
‘la partie sociale du langage, extkrieure A l’individu’ in opposition to parole as
a mere individual act does not consider the existence of a personal code which
removes the temporal discontinuity of the single speech events and which
confirms the preservation of the individual, the permanence and identity of his
ego; nor does he take into account the interpersonal, social, mutually adaptive
nature of the ‘circuit de la parole’ which implies the participation of at least two
individuals.
The uniformity of the code, ‘sensibly the same’ for all the members of a speech
community, posited by the Cours and still recalled from time to time, is but a
fiction; as a rule, every individual belongs simultaneously to several speech
communities of different radius and capacity; any overall code is multiform and
comprises a hierarchy of diverse subcodes freely chosen by the speaker with
regard to the function of the message, to its addressee, and to the relation be-
tween the interlocutors. In particular, the subcodes offer a scale of transforms
ranging from explicitness to the gradual degrees of ellipsis. When one-sided
concentration on the cognitive, referential function of language gave way to an
examination of its other, likewise primordial, underivable functions, the prob-
lems of the code-massage relationship .showed much greater subtlety and multi-
valence.
La langue, according to the Cours, ‘must be studied in itself’, and it ‘never
requires premeditation’ on the part of speakers. The new rapid progress of
applied linguistics with such items as language planning and policy, language
teaching, communication engineering, etc., is a natural and predictable offshoot
of the modern goal-oriented linguistic thought, but it remains alien to Saussure’s
view of linguistic science and to the predominant scholarly ideology of his time.

Linguistics 459
Saussure followed Kruszewski in teaching that the ‘generative’ operations
of language involve two kinds of relations - one, relying upon selection, was
characterized by him as ‘associative’, ‘intuitive’, or ‘paradigmatic’, while the
other, based on combination, was named ‘syntagmatic’ or ‘discursive’. The
terms ‘paradigmatic’ and ‘syntagmatic’ have entered into general use, but the
interpretation of these two notions and of their interdependence has undergone
significant changes. The Cours affirmed that the members of a paradigmatic
series have no fixed order ‘et c’est par un acte purement arbitraire que le
grammairien les groupe d‘une faqon plut6t que d’une autre’; at present, however,
this agnostic habit is being supplanted by an insight into the objective
stratification within any series which displays a set of correlations between
‘markedness’ and ‘unmarkedness’ or, in a different formulation, between relatively
nuclear (‘deep’) and relatively marginal structures.
For Saussure, syntax ‘rentre dans la syntagmatique’, and no clear-cut boundary
between facts of langue and parole may be found in syntactic structures.
The linguistics of today has exhibited a lucid distinction between the totally
coded words and the coded matrices of the sentences; so-called transformational
grammar is viewed as an auspicious extension of a paradigmatic analysis to the
sphere of syntax. The dual system of syntagmatic and paradigmatic solidarities
proves to be applicable also to the developing studies in the makeup of multisentential
utterances and dialogues. The philological interpretation of entire
texts enters gradually into the orbit of linguistics, and the chasm ‘between the
two sciences’ - linguistics and philology - signaled in the Cows becomes obliterated.
With the widening and deepening of paradigmatic analysis, the interconnection
between grammatical ‘processes’ and ‘concepts’, in Sapir’s terms, assumes
ever greater importance, and properties of different grammatical levels prove
again and again to play a pertinent role in semantic interpretation. The heightened
interest in the manifold questions of context throws a new light on the
pivotal, though long neglected, question of linguistic semantics, the relation of
contextual meanings to the general meaning. Semantic analysis of language
finds a powerful tool in the study of metalinguistic messages, which were until
recently dismissed.
The difference between two linguistic disciplines - synchronic and diachronic -
was clearly outlined and exemplified by Baudouin de Courtenay throughout the
last third of the nineteenth century. Influenced by Brentano’s lectures on descriptive
psychology as a new and guiding discipline to supplement the traditional
field of genetic psychology, Marly and Masaryk in the middle eighties advocated
the need for a synchronic description as the first and chief linguistic task and as
an indispensable premise to the history of language. According to Saus sure’s
Cours, the radical, inner duality of synchrony and diachrony threatens linguistics
with particular difficulties and calls for a complete separation of the
two aspects: what can be investigated is either the coexistent relations within
the linguistic system ‘d‘o~ toute intervention du temps est exclue’ or single
successive changes without any reference to the system. In other words, Saussure
anticipated and announced a new, structural approach to linguistic syn-

460 Roman Jakobson
chrony but followed the old, atomizing, neogrammarian dogma in historical
linguistics. His fallacious identification of two oppositions - synchrony versus
diachrony, and statics versus dynamics - was refuted by post-Saussurian linguistics.
The start and &ish of any mutational process coexist in the synchrony
and belong to two different subcodes of one and the same language. Hence, no
changes can be understood or interpreted without reference to the system which
undergoes them and to their function within this system; and, vice versa, no
language can be fully and adequately described without an account of its
changes in progress. Saussure’s ‘absolute prohibition to study simultaneously
relations in time and relations within the system’ is losing its validity. Changes
appear to pertain to a dynamic synchrony.
The diachronic linguistics of today examines the succession of dynamic
synchronies, confronts them, and, in this way, delineates the evolution of a
language in a wider historical perspective, with due attention not only to the
mutability of the linguistic system but also to its immutable, static elements.
The concentration upon the system and the application to diachrony of the same
analytic principles as those employed in synchrony has enabled the diachronic
research of our time to achieve impressive results in the field of internal reconstruction;
and, on the other hand, when focusing upon the historical stratification
of linguistic systems, explorers observe new, significant affinities between
this stratification and the synchronic patterning of languages. Present-day
linguistics could hardly adhere to the reminder which was quite opportune half
a century ago, when it was necessary to emphasize and to set the tasks of
descriptive linguistics : ‘L‘opposition entre le diachronique et le synchronique
eclate sur tous les points.’
In Saussure’s opinion, as soon as we approach the question of spatial relations
of linguistic phenomena, we leave ‘internal’ and enter ‘external’ linguistics.
However, the entire development of linguistic geography, areal linguistics, and
study of affinities between adjacent languages: this all compels us to consider
the spatio-temporal pattern of verbal operations as the integral part of each
‘idiosynchronic’ system, corresponding to Saussure’s coinage. The assiduous
fieldwork of contemporary linguists has prompted the conclusion that the code
used by any representative of a given language or dialect is convertible: it involves
different subcodes compliant with the extant variations in the radius of
communication. It becomes ever clearer that the code as well as the circuit of
messages exhibits a perpetual interplay of conformism and nonconformism
(or, in Saussure’s terms, force unifiante and force particulariste) both in the
spatial and in the temporal aspects of language. The tendency of the Cours to
isolate each of these two aspects has been abandoned in the further development
of linguistics; thus, the alleged unlikeness between the sources (foyers)
of innovation and the areas of contagion and expansion proved to be deceptive,
since any innovation arises solely through a multiplication in time and space.
In comparative linguistics, the search for common patrimony became more
and more closely linked with the pressing questions of neighborhood affinities.
But now the leading role passes on to the typological comparison of languages
and to the quest for ordered laws which underlie this typology and govern all

Linguistics 461
languages of the world as well as their acquisition by infants. These universal
laws restrict the diversity of linguistic codes similarly to the way in which the
ordered structural rules of any given code limit the variety of virtual messages.
The elicitation, correlation, and interpretation of these double constraints are
on the agenda, and linguistics is about to fulfil the crucial task which had been
wisely anticipated by Ferdinand de Saussure, namely, ‘to search for those forces
which are permanently and universally at work in all languages.’
B. Recent surveys of current linguistic issues (1958-1968)
AXMANOVA, O., I. MEL’EUK, E. PADU~EVA and R. FRUMKINA, 0 tocnyx metodax issledovanija
jazyka, Moscow, 1961.
AXMANOVA 0. and S. MIKA~LJAN, Sovremennye sintaksiteskie teorii, Moscow, 1963.
BACH, E., An Zutrodkction fo Transformational Grammars, New York, 1964.
BACH, E. and R. T. HARMS (eds.), Universals in Linguistic Theory, New York, 1968.
BAR-HILLEL, Y., Language and Information, Reading (Mass.)-Jerusalem, I 964.
BENVENISTE, E., Probldmes de linguistique ginirale, Paris, 1966.
BOLINGER, D., Aspects of Language, New York-Chicago, 1968.
BOLINGER, D., Generality, Gradience and the All-or-none, The Hague, 1961.
BUDAGOV, R. and M. GUXMAN (eds.), Voprosy teorii jazyka v sovremennoj zarubeinoj
lingvistike, Moscow, 1961.
BWSSENS, E., La communication et l’articulation linguistique, Brussels, 1967.
CHOMSKY, N., Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Cambridge (Mass.), 1965.
CHOMSKY, N., Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, The Hague, 1964.
CHOMSKY, N., Language and Mind, New York, 1968.
CHOMSKY, N., Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar, The Hague, 1966.
CHRISTENSEN, N. E., On the Nature of Meanings, Copenhagen, 1965~.
COSERIU, E., Sincronia, diacronia e historia, Montevideo, 1958.
COSERIU, E., Teoria del lenguaje y lingiiisfica general, Madrid, 1962.
DEROSSI, G., Segno e struttura linguistici nel pensiero di F. de Saussure, Udine, 1965.
DERRIDA, I., De la grammatologie, Paris, 1967.
DIXON, R. M. W., What is Language? A New Approach to Linguistic Description,
London, 1965.
FILIN, F., (ed.), Jazyk i myilenie, Moscow, 1967.
FIRTH, J. R., Selected Papers, Bloomington (Ind.), 1968.
FODOR, J. A. and J. J. KATZ (eds.), The Structure of Language, Englewood Cliffs
(N.J.), 1964.
GARVIN, P. (ed.), Natural Language and the Computer, New York, 1963.
GARVIN, P., On Linguistic Method, The Hague, 1964.
GLEASON, H. A., An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics, New York, 1961.
GLEASON, H. A., Linguistics and English Grammar, New York, 1965.
GLEASON, H. A., The Organization of Language, Washington (D.C.), 1964.
GREENBERG, J. M. (ed.), Universals of Language, Cambridge (Mass.), 1966~.
GUILLAUME, G., Langage et science du langage, Paris-QuBbec, 1964.
GUXMAN, M. and E. BOEKAREV (eds.), 0 sootnoknii sinxronnogo analiza i istoric‘eskogo
izucenija jazykov, Moscow, 1960.
GUXMAN, M. and V. JARCEVA (eds.), Osnovnye napravlenija strukturalizma, MOSCOW,
1964.
HALLIDAY, M. A. K., The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching, Bloomington
(Ind.), 1965.
HILL, A. A., Introduction to Linguistic Structures, New York, 1958.
HJELMSLEV, L., Le langage, une introduction, Paris, 1966.

462 Roman Jakobson
HJELMSLEV, L., Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, Madison (Wisc.), 1961.
HOCKETT, C. F., A Course in Modern Linguistics, New York, 1958.
HOCKETT, C. F., Language, Mathematics, and Linguistics, The Hague, 1967.
HOENIGSWALD, A. M., Language Change and Linguistic Reconstruction, Chicago-London,
1960.
HYMES, D., Y. MALKIEL and J. J. GUMPERZ, ‘Linguistics’, International Encyclopedia
of the Social Sciences, New York, 1968.
IvrE, M., Trends in Linguistics, The Hague, 1965.
JAKOBSON, R. (ed.), Structure of Language and Its Mathematical Aspects, American
Mathematical Society, Proceedings of Symposia in Applied Mathematics 12, 1961.
JUILLAND, A. and H. H. LIEB, ‘Klasse’ und Klassifikation in der Sprachwissenschaft,
The Hague, 1968.
KATZ, J. J. and P. POSTAL, An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions, Cambridge
(Mass.), 1964.
KOLSANSKIJ, G., Logika i struktura jazyka, MOSCOW, 1965.
KURYLOWICZ, J., Esquisses linguistiques, Wroclaw- Krakow, I 960.
KUZNECOV, P., 0 principax izuc‘enija grammatiki, MOSCOW, 1961.
LAMB, S, M., Outline of Stratificational Grammar, Georgetown-Washington (D.C.),
1966.
LEPSCHY, G. C., La linguistique structurale, Paris, 1968.
LEROY, M., Les grands courants de la linguistique moderne, Brussels, 1963.
LIEB, H.-H., Communication Complexes and Their Stages, The Hague, 1968.
‘Linguistic Analysis and Phenomenology’, The Monist 49 (I), 1965.
LONGACRE, R. E., Grammar Discovery Procedures. A Field Manual, The Hague, 1964.
LYONS, J., Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics, Cambridge, 1968.
MALKIEL, Y., Essays on Linguistic Themes, Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1968.
MALMBERG, B., New Trends in Linguistics: dn Orientation. Stockholm-Lund, 1964.
MALMBERG, B., Structural Linguistics and Human Communication, Berlin, 1963.
MARTINET, A., A Functional View of Language, Oxford, 1962.
MARTINET, A., La linguistique synchronique, Paris, 1965.
MATTOSO CAMARA, J., Principios de linguistica general, Rio de Janeiro, 19593.
MCINTOSH, A. and M. A. K. HALLIDAY, Patterns of Language, London, 1966.
MCINTOSH, A. and P. STREVENS, The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching,
London, 1964.
MEL’EUK. I., Avtomaticeskij sintaksic‘eskij analiz, Novosibirsk, 1964.
MPthodes de la grammaire. Tradition et nouveaute‘, Bibliotheque de la Facult6 de
philosophie et lettres de l’Universit6 de Liege, 175, Paris, 1966.
MOHRMANN, C., F. NORMAN AND A. SOMMERFELT (eds.), Trends in Modern Linguistics,
Utrecht-Antwerp, 1963.
MOHRMANN, C., A. SOMMERFELT, and J. WHATMOUGH (eds.), Trends in European and
American Linguistics, Utrecht-Antwerp, 1961.
MOLOSNAJA, T. (ed.), Issledo vanija PO strukturnoj tipologii, Moscow, 1963.
MOLO~NAJA, T. (ed.), Strukturno-tipologiceskie issledovanija, Moscow, 1962.
NIKOLAEVA, T. (ed.), Lingvisticeskie issledovanija PO obic‘ej i slavjanskoj tipologii,
Moscow, 1966.
PIKE, K. L., Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior,
The Hague, 1967.
POTTER, S., Modern Linguistics, London, 1960.
POSTAL, P., Constituent Structure. A Study of Contemporary Models of Syntactic
Description, The Hague, 1964.
POTTIER, B., Presentation de la linguistique. Fondements d’une thdorie, Paris, 1967.
‘Problems of Language’, Diogenes 51, 1965.
PUHVEL, J. (ed.), Substance and Structure of Languages, Los Angeles, 1968.
Readings in Linguistics, I, II, Chicago, 1966.
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REVZIN, I. I., Models of Language, London, 1966.

Linguistics 463
REVZIN, I. and J. ROZENCVEJG, Osnovy obitego i maiinnogo perevoda, Moscow, 1964.
ROBINS, R. H., General Linguistics. An Introductory Survey, London, 1964.
ROSETTI, A., Liiiguistica, The Hague, 1965.
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RUWET N., 'La linguistique gknkrale aujourd'hui', Archives europiennes de sociologie 5,
1964.
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111: Theoretical Foundations, The Hague, 1963, 1966.
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jazykov, Moscow-Leningrad, 1965.
SIERTSEMA, B., A Study of Glossematics, The Hague, 1965~.
SOMMERFELT, A., Diachronic and Synchronic Aspects of Language, The Hague, I 962.
STREVENS, P. D., Papers in Language and Language Teaching, London, 1965.
SWADESH, M., El lenguaje y la vida humana, Mexico, 1966.
SZEMERENY, L., Trends and Tasks in Comparative Philology, London, 1961.
SAUMJAN, S., Strukturnaja lingvistika, Moscow, 1965.
SAUMIAN, S. (ed.), Problemy strukturnoj lingvistiki, I, 11, Moscow, 1962, 1968.
SAUMJAN, S. (ed.), Transformacionnyj metod v strukturnoj lingvistike, Moscow, 1964.
TESNI~RE, L., &%nents de syntaxe structurale, Paris, 1966~.
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UNGEHEUER, G., Logischer Positivisnius und moderne Linguistik (Glossernatik).
Uppsala, 1959.
VACHEK, J., A Prague School Reader in Linguistics, Bloomington (Ind.), 1964.
VACHEK, J., The Linguistic School of Prague, Bloomington (Ind.), 1966.
VINOGRADOV, V. (ed.), TeoretiEeskie problemy sovremennogo sovetskogo jazvkoznanija,
Moscow, 1964.
WARTBURG, W. VON, Einfiihrung in Problematik und Methodik der Sprachwissenschaff,
Tubingen, 1962~.
WATERMAN, J. T., Perspectives in Linguistics, Chicago, 1963.
WEINRICH, H., Linguistik der Luge, Heidelberg, 1966.
WIERZBICKA, A., 0 jpyku-dla wszystkich, Warsaw, I 964.
ZAWADOWSKI, L., Lingwistyczna teoria jgzyka, Warsaw, 1966.
ZVEGINCEV, V., Teoretiteskaja i prikladnaja lingvistika, Moscow, 1968.
ZVEGINCEV, V. (ed.), Novoe v lingvistike, I-IV, Moscow, 1960-1965.
M. (ed.), Voprosy obitego jazykoznanija, Moscow, 1964.
ZIRMUNSKIJ,

2. Interdisciplinary aspects
of research

CHAPTER VII
General problems of interdisciplinary
research and common mechanisms
JEAN PIAGET
Interdisciplinary research can result from two sorts of inquiry, one relating to
common structures or mechanisms and the other to common methods, although
both sorts may of course be involved equally. As an example of the former we
could quote this or that analysis of linguistic structuralism leading to the question
as to whether the elementary structures discovered have any relationship
with logic or with the structures of intelligence; this kind of question has been
revived in the works of N. Chomsky,’ for, contrary to the ‘positivist’ view that
logic can be reduced to language, this author returns to the traditional subordination
of grammar to ‘reason’. As an example of the latter sort of inquiry or
the two combined, we could quote the many applications of ‘games theory’, initially
peculiar to econometrics. As this mathematical procedure can be applied
to many psychological behaviours (problem solving, thresholds of perception,
etc.) it was only natural that econometrists and psychologists should conduct
joint research on economic behaviour itself. This is the case with the works of
R. D. Luce (Individual Choice Behavior, N.Y., Wiley &Sons, 1959) and S. Siege1
and L. E. Fouraker (Bargaining and Group Decision Making, N.Y., McGraw
Hill, 1960).
As Chapter VIII (R.
Boudon), which deals with methods and models peculiar to
the various human sciences, is mainly concerned with this problem of
methodological convergence, more attention will be paid to common mech-
anisms in the present chapter.
I. POSITION OF THE PROBLEMS
I. Interdisciplinary collaboration in the natural sciences
In order to understand the situation of the social and human sciences it is
essential to start by examining that of the natural sciences, for the differences
separating these two situations, seen from the interdisciplinary point of view,
are instructive and do not appear to be due solely to the fact that the natural
sciences have a lead of a few centuries over the human sciences.

468 Jean Piaget
Two differences, which still obtain but may diminish in the future, oppose
the natural sciences to the nomothetic sciences of the manifold forms of human
behaviour. On the one hand, the former involve a hierarchical order, not of
course as regards their importance, but as regards the filiation of ideas and
their decreasing or increasing generality and complexity. On the other hand, by
their very development they give rise to all manner of problems of reduction or
non-reduction of phenomena of the ‘higher’ degree to those of the ‘lower’
degree. In view of these two circumstances, each specialist is obliged continual-
ly to look beyond the frontiers of his own discipline.
No doubt the natural sciences do not all follow a linear order and disciplines
such as astronomy, with its many chapters, or geology, can only find their place
on the lateral branches of the common trunk. But there is a common trunk and,
going from mathematics to mechanics, then to physics and from there to
chemistry, biology and physiological psychology, we can certainly discover in
the main a series of decreasing generality and increasing complexity in accord-
ance with Auguste Comte’s famous criteria. Without entering into the argu-
ments of various kinds2 to which such a classification can give rise, we shall
deduce from it but two facts beyond dispute. The first is that one would seek in
vain a similar order in the human sciences today, and so far no one has suggested
such a thing. One can hardly imagine placing linguistics before economics, or
vice versa, for example.3 The second is that each of the specialists in these
natural sciences actually needs a fairly good grounding in the disciplines preced-
ing his own in that hierarchical order and often even needs the collaboration of
research workers belonging to these preceding sciences, which leads to the latter
taking an interest in the problems raised by the following sciences.
Thus a physicist is constantly in need of mathematics, and theoretical
physics, while lending itself to experimentation, is essentially mathematical in
its technique. Conversely, mathematicians are often concerned with physics and
they are responsible for a ‘mathematical physics’ which, despite its name, is not
experimental but solves by deduction some of the problems posed by physics.
Nor would a chemist go far without physics: theoretical chemistry is often
called ‘physical chemistry’. Similarly, a biologist needs chemistry, physics,
mathematics, etc. In all these fields, therefore, interdisciplinary research is
becoming increasingly imperative by the nature of things, given the hierarchy
of scales of phenomena, which corresponds to the hierarchical order of disci-
plines. Whole sciences such as contemporary biophysics or biochemistry are the
inevitable products of this situation.
But although even here we have a rather different picture from that of the
human sciences, another contrast is even more striking. In some of the social
sciences there is certainly a tendency to reduce or, more precisely, annex, for
the ‘reduction’ desired is generally in the direction of the science represented by
the author. Sociologists have been known to reduce everything to sociology,
for example. However, no economist has, to our knowledge, claimed that the
facts studied by him can be reduced to linguistics (or vice versa). Now in the
natural sciences, by very reason of the hierarchical filiations to which we have
just referred, the problem of reduction is constantly coming up, according to

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 469
the order indicated above. Consequently interdisciplinary trends receive a
continual impetus.
This certainly does not mean that everyone is of the same opinion or that any
problem of reduction actually leads to three possible solutions. But these very
possibilities result in a closer investigation of the problems so that all three lead
to interdisciplinary discussions. These solutions are : I) reduction from the
‘higher’ to the ‘lower’; 2) irreducibility of the phenomenon of the ‘higher’ level;
and 3) reciprocal assimilation by partial reduction of the ‘higher’, but also by
enrichment of the ‘lower’ by the ‘higher’.
Many examples of these three kinds of solution are to be found. For instance,
Auguste Comte is known to have considered chemistry as necessarily separate
from physics because the phenomenon of ‘affinity’ did not seem to him to be
reducible to the known mechanisms. History has shown, on the contrary, that
reduction was possible, and even necessary. On questions on which the current
state of knowledge remains ‘open’, such as the relations between life and physico-chemistry,
biologists are divided between the three trends. Some are of
the opinion that there can only be reduction to the physico-chemical phenomena
known at present, and the new links discovered between unorganized and living
bodies confirm them in this way of thinking. Others are of the opinion that the
vital phenomenon remains irreducible, but in order to defend this vitalism
against the former tendency they are of course obliged to study possible connexions
with chemical or physical facts just as closely. Others again quote
opinions such as that expressed by the physicist Ch. E. Guye in his Frontibres
entre la biologie et la physico-chimie. According to this profound author, reductions
on the physical terrain itself consist almost always in the subordination of
the simple to the complex, as well as the converse, in a finally reciprocal co-ordination,
so that if a physico-chemical explanation of life can be expected, our
present physico-chemistry wil gain new properties thereby, thus becoming
more ‘general’ instead of being applied exclusively to more and more special
fields.
Analysis of such thought-processes in the development of explanations - those
which have already proved acceptable and also those which are anticipated - is
very instructive for our purposes. On the one hand, it shows the reasons for
interdisciplinary collaboration in branches where it has become current prac-
tice and where its usefulness needs no further proof. But on the other hand, it
overcomes at the outset any prejudices we might have and it dispels the belief
that any connexion going beyond the frontiers of our own discipline is likely
to lead to exaggerated reductions and to a weakening of the specific character
of the phenomena under study. In particular, when we realize that ‘it is the scale
which gives rise to the phenomenon’ - a fact fully brought home by the same
physicist cited above - relationships established between processes on different
scales both explain very well and respect the specific aspects. The first half of
this centurydwitnessed a series of partly sterile arguments between the two human
sciences best fitted to co-ordinate their findings - psychology and sociology.
We shall see, in section I 6 and elsewhere, how in this particular matter, the method
of establishing mutual relationships has made it possible to dismiss a number

470 Jean Piaget
of false problems and, on certain points, achieve an as yet very small measure
of collaboration.
As for the hierarchies which might be established between the human scien-
ces, this of course remains an open question so long as the central problem of
sociology, that of society considered as a whole and the relations between the
sub-systems and the whole system, is still not solved. Meanwhile, each disci-
pline employs parameters which are strategic variables for other disciplines,
and this opens up a vast field of research for interdisciplinary collaboration;
but as there is no linear breakdown of the system into sub-systems, collaboration
is only too often reduced to mere juxtaposition. On the other hed, it is very
likely that new light will be thrown on the problem of the hierarchy of scales
of phenomena and the related studies by the future progress of two essentially
synthetic disciplines and their repercussions on the question of infrastructures
and superstructures. These are ethnology, the multidimensional character of
which is manifest, and history, regarded not as the mere reconstitution of
events, but as interdisciplinary research dealing with the diachronic aspects of
each of the fields studied by the various human sciences (see Part II, section 9).
As these various aspects are of course interdependent, it can be hoped that, when
history eventually achieves nomothetic status, its lessons combined with those
of ethnology and sociology in general, will bring us nearer to solutions of the
central problem of the relations between the sub-systems. The future of inter-
disciplinary research in the human sciences (with or without hierarchy) depends
not only on these solutions, but on many internal questions peculiar to the
various disciplines (macro- and micro-economics, etc.).
2. Convergence of problems within the human sciences and their relative afinity
with those of the life sciences
A number of circumstances explain why interdisciplinary research in the
social and human sciences, although generally recognized as having a great
future, is not taken nearly so far as in the natural sciences. We have just had
the two main and basic reasons. But to these must be added at least two kinds
of contingent circumstances which have, even if contingent, played an un-
disputed historic r61e. One is the tragic splitting up of courses among university
faculties which are more and more cut off from each other, or even among
sections within these faculties, but watertight nonetheless. Whereas in a science
faculty the training of any specialist requires a more or less extensive culture, a
psychologist may know nothing about linguistics, economics, or even sociology.
If an economist is trained in a law school, he may be completelyignorant of
linguistics, psychology, etc. Whereas some universities, such as that of Amster-
dam, for instance, in an effort to combat this partitioning, have placed philoso-
phy in an inter-faculty institute so as to re-establish contact between it and the
natural and social sciences, nothing similar yet exists, to our knowledge, to co-
ordinate the disciplines with which we shall be dealing here.
The second factor of a general nature which has weighed on the human scien-

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 471
ces in the past is the idea that going over the bounds of one’s own discipline
implies a synthesis and that the discipline specializing in synthesis, if any can be
said to do so (and the very fact of expressing oneself in this way shows the
weakness of such an assumption), is no other than philosophy itself. Now philos-
ophy, as we saw in the ‘Introduction’, certainly includes a position of synthesis,
which relates, however, to the co-ordination of all human values, and not to the
coordination of knowledge alone. Consequently if disciplines such as scientific
psychology or sociology have after much difficulty achieved their independence
by opposing experimental or statistical test methods to methods of abstract
reasoning, it is not in order to return to these methods when interdisciplinary
links imposed by the facts and not by the desire for systematization are involved.
Nevertheless, if we want to have an idea of the future of interdisciplinary
research between sciences all of which have their tried methods of approach and
testing, but are not yet accustomed by tradition to what is now current practice
in the natural sciences, the best course is perhaps to begin by comparing their
problems.
Here we are immediately struck by three fundamental facts: firstly, the
convergence of certain general problems, which are to be found in all the
sectors of our huge field; secondly, the fact that these general problems have
little connexion with those of the inorganic world, but do link up fairly directly
with certain central questions of the life sciences; thirdly, that in order to solve
these problems, we must have recourse to certain cardinal ideas which actually
rest on common mechanisms. If all this is true, we see immediately to what
extent the study of these common mechanisms demands, and wil increasingly
demand, a concerted interdisciplinary effort which should be encouraged in
every way, among the human sciences of course, but sometimes also in relation
to biology.
First of all, confining ourselves to the most general problems, there is little
doubt that the three questions most central and most specific of the biological
sciences (for they have little significance on the physico-chemical level) are :
I) that of the development, or evolution in the sense of gradual production, of
organized forms with qualitative transformations at different stages; 2) that
of organization in its balanced or synchronic forms; and 3) that of the
exchanges between the organism and its environment (physical environment
and other organisms). In other words, the three cardinal ideas expressing the
principal facts to be explained are: I) that of the production of new structures;
2) that of equilibrium, but in the sense of regulation and self-regulation (and not
merely the balance of forces); and 3) that of exchange, in the sense of material
exchange, but equally (for this is also the language of contemporary biologists)4
the exchange of information.
It is worth noting that the study of these central problems is conducted more
and more in the light of three instrumental methods inspired more or less
directly by the human sciences, or in any case by human activities. Although
there is no common semantic correspondence between these problems and
methods (each method helps to solve each problem), those methods are games or
decision theories (Waddington refers in this connexion to the ‘strategy of

472 Jean Piaget
genes’), information theory in general, and cybernetics to the extent that it
concerns communication, guidance or control.
This being the case, it is evident that these three problems of transformation
(particularly diachronic transformations), balancing and exchanges are also
the three principal questions encountered in all the human sciences. Not only
are they encountered in very spec& forms in each of those sciences, but the
relations between the diachronic and the synchronic dimension differ very
significantly according to the type of phenomenon studied: structural linguistics
has thus revealed, since F. de Saussure, that the meaning of words at a given
moment in history depends much more on the total system of the language seen
from the standpoint of its synchronic balance than on its etymology or its
history. In the psychological development of an individual, on the contrary, the
final balance of the structures of the mind, for instance, depends much more on
the balancing process which characterizes the whole of its previous develop-
ment. Economic history, for its part, when it studies the price of wool on the
London market in the thirteenth century or that of pepper in Lisbon in the
sixteenth, does not see an explanation of the prices of these commodities on the
same markets today, but attempts to throw light on these examples from history
by recourse to the synchronic dimension, which predominates in questions of
values.5 On the other hand, problems of economic structure, as opposed to
economic situations, depend upon another kind of relationship between the
diachronic and the synchronic. Exchange problems, too, whether they be
exchanges with the environment in physical or mental production or exchanges
between individuals, are common to all the human sciences. And they combine
in very different ways with the various processes - diachronic or evolutionary
and synchronic or self-controlling.
This convergence of problems does not of course mean that the human scien-
ces can be reduced to the life sciences. The former remain specific because of the
existence of cultures transmitted socially and involving an inextricable complex
of factors. But if this specificity in itself raises a question, this is no reason for
not starting with common problems, all the more since, as we shall see, their
solutions are neither uniform, which would render their terms simply trivial,
nor uniformly different from one discipline to another, which would deprive
their comparison of interest, but are to be differentiated from one type of
structure or phenomenon to another, which means on the contrary that inter-
disciplinary research is essential.
3. From problems to general processes: structures, functions and meanings
The first question to be discussed in connexion with the principal problems
which have just been mentioned is that of the criterion for this choice and
consequently of its exhaustive or arbitrary nature. We have a striking example
to guide us in this connexion: that of the determination of elementary structures
(so-called ‘mother-structures’) by the Bourbaki school in mathematics. In order
to determine these fundamental structures, from which all the others are supposed
to derive by combination or differentiation, these well-known authors,

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 473
although working in a purely deductive science the exactitude of which is uni-
versally recognized, state that the only method they could follow was inductive
and not apriori. It was by simple procedures of systematic comparison (creation
of isomorphisms) and regressive analysis that they arrived at three structures
which could not be reduced to one another, it remaining an open question
whether or not further structures should one day be added. In this particular
case one could not a fortiori proceed differently. This simply means that the
other central ideas which might be added to those of production of structures,
balancing and exchange, seem in the present state of affairs to be reducible to
them. For instance, the idea of ‘direction’, which is so important (in biology, in
developmental psychology, etc.) appears to be the result of a compromise
between the production of structures and their gradual balancing, when the
situations are sufficiently analysed.6
This being the case, let us see what our three ideas stand for. First of all, when
we compare the use of the term ‘structure’ in the various natural and human
sciences7 we find the following characteristics. Structure is, in the first place, a
system of transformations having its laws, as a system, these therefore being
distinct from the properties of the elements. In the second place these trans-
formations have a self-regulating device in the sense that no new element
engendered by their operation breaks the boundaries of the system (the addition
of two numbers still gives a number, etc.) and that the transformations of the
system do not involve elements outside it. In the third place, the system may
have sub-systems by differentiation from the total system (for example, by a
limitation of the transformations making it possible to leave this or that charac-
ter constant, etc.) and there may be some transformations from one sub-system
to another.
However, from the standpoint of the various disciplines, two kinds of struc-
ture must immediately be distinguished. The first are completed, because the
way in which they are produced comes under the head of inventive deduction or
axiomatic decision (logico-mathematical structures) or physical causality (for
example, ‘group’ structures in mechanics, etc.), or because these structures con-
stitute the form of final or momentarily stable equilibrium of a previous
mental development (structures of the mind) or social development (juridical
structures, etc.). The second, on the contrary, are in the process of constitu-
tion or reconstitution; the ways in which these structures are produced come
under the head of vital processes (biological structures) or a spontaneous or
‘natural’ human genesis (as opposed to formalizations) : mental or social struc-
tures in the formative stage, etc.
The preceding definition can be applied forthwith to the former of these two
categories, for we are concerned here with completed structures, hence struc-
tures closed in on themselves. In this case the whole ‘production’ of the struc-
ture becomes one with its internal transformations, without there being any
necessity for distinguishing formation and transformation, since a completed
structure is at the same time structured and indefinitely ‘structuring’. In the
second place, the self-regulating system of the structure accounts for its ‘bal-
ance’, its stability being due to the laws governing that structure, or to a set

474 Jean Piaget
of ‘norms’. There is thus no need to distinguish structures and functions (in the
biological and not the mathematical sense of the term), for the functioning of
the structure is reduced to its internal transformations. In the third place, there
are no ‘exchanges’, except those of an internal nature, which take the form of
possible (and mutual) transitions between one sub-structure and another.
On the contrary, in the case of structures in the formative stage or in the
process of continual reconstitution (as with metabolism in biology) or of mo-
mentary reconstitution, the three characteristics - production, balance and
exchanges - appear in appreciably different aspects, although the forms just
described may be regarded as the extremes of those with which we shall be
concerned, the essential distinction between the two being that the former
correspond to a stable completion and the latter to processes or developments.
In the first place, the production of the structure appears in two forms, the
second being the end-result of the first: a formation and transformations.
Consequently the organism, the thinking being or the social group, builders of
structures, are only centres of functioning (or structuration) and not completed
structures containing all possible structures by a sort of ‘pre-formation’.8 In
other words, a distinction should be drawn in this formative process between the
function as a ‘structuring’ activity and the structure as a structured result.
In the second place, in the case of structures in the formative stage, the self-
regulating system can no longer be reduced to a set of rules or norms charac-
terizing the completed structure: it consists of a system of regulation or self-
regulation, with correction of errors after the event, and not the ‘pre-correc-
tion’ to be found in the final system (where self-regulation, moreover, marks
the extreme of the self-regulation which functions during the formative stages).
Lastly, in the case of structures in the process of constitution or continual
reconstitution (as with biological structures), exchange is no longer limited to
internal reciprocities, as is the case between the sub-structures of a completed
structure, but involves a considerable proportion of exchange with the outside,
to enable these structures to obtain the supplies necessary for their functioning.
This is so with structures in the formative stage, as regards the development of
the intelligence, when the subject must constantly have recourse to trial and error
(even in the case of specifically logico-mathematical experiments, when the
information is drawn not from the objects as such but from the actions exerted
upon them). This is especially so with biological structures, which are elab-
orated solely by constant exchanges with the environment, by means of those
mechanisms of assimilation of the environment to the organism and adjustment
of the latter to the former which constitute the transition from organic life to
behaviour and even mental life.
A living structure, as Bertalanffy has shown, constitutes an ‘open’ system in
the sense that it is preserved through a continual flow of exchanges with the
outside world. Nevertheless, the system does have a cycle closing in on itself in
that its components are maintained by interaction while being fed from outside.
Such a structure can be described statically since it is preserved despite its
perpetual activity, but as a rule it is dynamic since it constitutes the more or
less stable form of continual transformations.

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 475
Considered from the standpoint of its activity, therefore, an ‘organized‘
structure has a way of functioning which is the expression of the transformations
characteristic of it. The word ‘function’ is usually applied to the rBle (sector of
activity or sector of functioning) played by a sub-structure in the functioning
of the total structure and, by extension, the action of the total functioning on
that of the sub-structures.
Any functioning involves production, exchange and balancing, that is, it
continually presupposes decisions or choices, information and regulation. The
result is that, even in the biological field as such, the very ideas of structure and
function carry with them the derived ideas of functional utility or value and
meaning.
In the first place, any function or functioning involves choices or selections
among the internal or external elements. Consequently an element can be said
to be useful when it enters as a component into the cycle of the structure, and
harmful if it threatens or interrupts the continuity of the cycle. But two sorts of
functional utility or ‘value’ must be distinguished:
I. Primary utility, that is, the utility of an internal or external element
(production or exchange) in relation to the structure concerned, but insofar as
this element has a qualitative effect on the production or preservation of the
structure as an organized form; for example, the utility of a food containing
calcium for bone preservation or the utility of a group of genes in a genetic
recombination likely to survive.
2. Secondary utility, related to the cost or gain stemming from the element
which is useful in sense I : cost of a transformation, of an exchange, etc., in its
functioning.
Consequently this distinction refers, on the one hand, to the relational or
formal aspect of the structures, hence to the structural aspect as such, and, on
the other hand, to the energetic aspect of the functioning. These two aspects are
of course inseparable, for there is no structure without functioning, and vice
versa. But they are different, for in any production and in any exchange it is
necessary to distinguish a) what must be produced or what must be acquired or
exchanged, having regard to the structures to be maintained or built up; and
b) what that production or exchange costs or earns having regard to the energy
available.
Yet another distinction should be made as we review these general principles
of biology capable of serving as a background for the analysis of the common
mechanisms peculiar to the various human sciences. This distinction relates to
the r61e of information, the latter being necessary for production, as it is for
exchanges and control:
I. Information can be immediate, when a stimulus identified at once provokes
a response forthwith, which means that spatio-temporal distance is abolished.
2. Information can, on the contrary, be mediate if there is an encoding in ac-
cordance with a fixed code and a decoding which occurs later (which means
that spatio-temporal distance is not zero). The genetic information stored in
germinal materials (deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA, whose code is made up of
sequences, as Watson and Crick discovered in 1953) is described in this way.

476 Jean Piaget
Special mention should be made of the ‘signals’ (indices significatifs) which
release instinctive behaviour (Lorenz, Tinbergen, Grass6 and others).
It is therefore essential to take into account the idea of communication in
addition to the structures and values of functioning, insofar as it is possible that
a given element cannot be integrated as such, at least at once, in an existing
structure or may have no direct or immediate functional value, but can constitute
the representative or announcer of subsequent structurations or functioning.
Two cases have then to be distinguished: a) the representative is not recognized
as such by the organism, in other words, it does not affect behaviour, but
participates in a kind of storage or reserve of information, which is used later - it
is in this sense that we speak of genetic information etc.; or the transmission of
information which characterizes the feedback as opposed to the main energetic
process the adjustment of which is controlled by the feedback; b) this representative
is used in ‘behaviour’ and thus becomes a signalling stimulus, etc. This
brings us to the threshold of the systems of messages affecting human behaviour.
In all, we thus have before us three broad categories of ideas: structures or
forms of organization; functions, sources of qualitative or energetic values; and
messages. All three of course give rise to problems which may be diachronic,
problems of evolution and construction, or synchronic, problems of balance and
control, or problems of exchanges with the environment, but obviously the
relations between the diachronic and the synchronic dimensions cannot be the
same, according as to whether structures, functional utilities or messages are
in question.
What should be done in order to enter upon the analysis of the common
mechanisms considered by the various human sciences is thus to translate this
general theory into terms of human behaviour. Here a preliminary remark is
called for. The production, regulation or exchange which occurs in the forms we
have just reviewed may as much be organic, as mental or intra-psychic, and we
started speaking of the organic as our initial frame of reference. Now we saw
in the ‘Introduction’ (section 7, m) that although most of the human sciences dealt
with human behaviour without attempting to delimit in detail what is conscious
and what is unconscious, the disciplines in which an explicit relationship
between mind and body can continually give rise to problems, as in psychology,
have moved in the direction of parallelism and isomorphism. We proposed
(‘Introduction’ section 7, m) to interpret the ‘psycho-physiological parallelism’
in terms of a more general isomorphism between causality, the field of application
of which is actually restricted to matter, and implication in the broad sense,
which is the sui generis relation uniting messages peculiar to the conscious state.
Here again the few general ideas referred to in the present section should be
viewed in terms of conscious implications.
4. Laws, values and signs
While all the human sciences deal with production, regulation and exchange
and all use for this purpose the ideas of structure, functional utility and meaning

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 477
envisaged diachronically and synchronically by turns, these ideas appear in
different forms according as the researcher takes a theoretical or abstract
standpoint, or again takes into account the behaviour of the subjects and even
the way in which that behaviour impacts upon their minds. From the first of
these two standpoints the specialist wil seek the most objective language to
describe structures. This he wil do in varying terms but as a rule they wil be
capable of formalization or of mathematical expression. For instance, he will
describe kinship structures in terms of algebraic systems, in the same way as
Lkvi-Strauss, transformational grammars in terms of monoids, in the same way
as Chomsky, or micro- and macro-economic structures in terms of contingency
or cybernetic diagrams, etc. However, none of all this directly affects the mind
of the subject.
On the contrary, in the psychological research which we are pursuing concerning
the development of the intelligence in the child and the adolescent, we
also try of course to translate into abstract language the structures of intellectual
operations evidenced by the behaviour of the subjects, and we use for this
purpose various logico-mathematical structures coming under the head of
‘groups’, ‘networks’ and ‘groupings’; but we also try to discover the form these
structures take in the minds of the subjects,g insofar as their reasoning is expressed
in words and is accompanied by various intentional justifications :
what we discover is of course no longer an abstract structure but a set of intellectual
rules or norms which take the form of impressions of ‘logical necessity’,
etc. When a sociologist of law investigates why a legal system (formalisable or
codifiable as a ‘pure’ normativist construction in the manner of Kelsen) is
‘recognised‘ as valid by the subjects of laws, he is confronted with a series of
bilateral or multilateral relations such as that a ‘right’ for some corresponds to
an ‘obligation’ for others, etc., and what these facts imply is in turn expressed
in terms of specific rules. When a logician axiomatises a certain number of
operations with the consequences which derive from them, he does not have to
pay the slightest attention to the subject who performs them. But he may perfectly
well concern himself with the normative aspect of the connections he is
manipulating and may even end by constructing, with Ziembinski, Weinberger,
Peklov, Prior and others, a logic of ‘norms’1o (and even, with Weinberger,
applying it to the legal norm).I1 Likewise, linguistic structures are translated
in the consciousness of subjects by rules of grammar, even if this translation is
inadequate, as indeed are many other translations (through realization) of structures
in the form of rules.
The general and interdisciplinary problems that are going to arise in this
connexion (see sections 5 to 9 below) now become evident at once: comparison
of various types of structures, comparison of systems of rules (depending
on whether these systems come close to the methods of logical composition
or diverge from them in the direction of simple constraints or miscellaneous
dominances), comparison of various translations or realizations of structures in
the form of rules (adequate or inadequate, and why), etc.
Another major system of notions concerning the actual experiences of individuals
in their mental life or in their collective relations is the system of vabes or

478 Jean Piaget
realization of functional utility which we mentioned in section 3 above. The re-
markable thing, showing once more the profound unity of reactions of all living
beings in the social and human as well as the biological spheres, is that the
distinction between primary utility or utility relative to the qualitative aspects of
production or of the conservation of structures, and secondary utility or that
relative to the energetics of functioning, recurs in the sphere of experienced values
in the form of what we shall call ‘values of finality’ and ‘values of yield’.
Values of finality include, in particular, normative values which are deter-
mined by rules: a moral value such as those which, in all human societies,
distinguish actions judged to be good from those judged to be bad or indifferent,
refers of necessity to a system of rules. The same applies a fortiori to legal values.
In the sphere of individual or collective representations, judgements are valor-
ized as true or false (bivalent values) or true, false, or plausible but not yet
determinable, etc. (trivalent or polyvalent values) in terms of the accepted rules.
Notions are elaborated, accepted or rejected by virtue of multiple value judge-
ments and, while constituting structures, are constantly valorized, but once
again in terms of overall normative structures. Aesthetic values do not depend
on rules as imperative as these, but nevertheless refer to more or less regulated
structures. On a more individual level, a subject’s interest in a particular group of
objects or a particular kind of work in the form of miscellaneous finalities may
be remote from any normative structure and depend solely on regulations, but
may also be organised according to more or less stable scales of values.
However, there also exist values of yield linked with the costs and profits of
functioning. It may be argued that economic and even praxeological values are
all more or less hedged around by legal norms : an individual who does not pay
his debts is proceeded against and another who steals, i.e. practices what
Sageret jocularly described as the most economical form of conduct (maximum
of profit with minimum of expense), is punished by law. But the definition of
the frontiers between what is permitted and what is forbidden is one thing and
the actual determination of a value by a norm is another. Economic value obeys
its own laws which legal rules cannot determine and which do not in themselves
lay down any obligation (a norm is recognisable by an obligation which may be
honoured or violated, as opposed to a causal determinism which constrains but
does not ‘oblige’ in this normative sense). Economic value is of course insepar-
able from all kinds of values of finality and normative values; likewise, the
internal praxeology of an organism or of individual behaviour (that ‘economy’
which certain psychologists hold to be the principle of elementary affectivity)
is connected with many questions of structure. But the general problems of
cost and profit are quite distinct from those raised by other forms of evaluation
and cannot but lead to multiple interdisciplinary research, as the numerous and
increasingly widespread applications of the theory of games demonstrate.
Thirdly, in all spheres of human behaviour there are systems of meanings or
messages, the essential part of which is studied by linguistics within the collec-
tive system of language. But while language has played a rBle of the first im-
portance in human societies by the oral and written transmission of values and
rules of every kind, it does not constitute the only system of signs and especially

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 479
of symbols belonging to the mechanism of messages. Without mentioning the
language of animals (bees, etc.), which raises all kinds of problems of comparison,
it should be remembered that the appearance of representation in individual
development is not due to language alone but to a much wider semeiotic
function also including symbolic play, mental image, drawing and all forms of
deferred and interiorised imitation (the latter constituting the transitional term
between sensori-motor functions and representational functions). Further,
language - which constitutes, so to speak, a system of messages to the power of
one - is accompanied in collective life by systems to the power of two, such as
myths, which are simultaneously symbols and semantic characters carried by
verbal or graphic sign-vehicles. Thus general semeiology gives rise to interdisciplinary
problems of the broadest kind.
XI. STRUCTURES AND RULES (OR NORMS)
Having posed the problems in their most general forms in sections I to 4, let
us now try to go into the details of common mechanisms by following the
plan provided by the distinction between rules, values and signs.
5. Concepts of structures
One of the most general trends of avant-garde movements in all the human
sciences is structuralism, which is taking the place of atomistic attitudes or
‘holistic’ explanations (emergent wholes).
The method intended to master problems of wholes -which at first seems to
be the most rational and rewarding because it corresponds to the most elementary
intellectual operations (those of assembling or adding together) - consists
in explaining the complex by the simple, in other words in reducing phenomena
to atomistic elements the sum of the properties of which is supposed to
represent the whole which has to be interpreted. Such atomistic methods of
posing problems eventually lead to the laws of the structure as such being forgotten
or distorted. They have by no means disappeared from the field of human
sciences and may be found for example in psychology in associationist theories
of learning (school of Hull, etc.). Generally speaking authors frequently revert
to these types of additive constructions when a certain empiricism or a mistrust
of theories which they consider premature impels them towards what they believe
to be greater respect for directly observable facts.
The second trend which can be observed in a number of separate disciplines
is one which, in the face of complex systems, consists in stressing the characteristics
of ‘wholeness’ peculiar to these systems, while considering that wholeness
to be directly ‘emergent’ from the assembly of elements and as imposing itself
upon them, by structuring them, as a result of this constraint of the ‘whole’;
above all, it consists in considering the whole to be self-explanatory by the mere
fact of its description. Two examples of such an attitude may be given, one

480 Jean Piaget
corresponding to certain current psychological trends and the other connected
with a sociological school which is now extinct. The first example is that of
certain adherents of ‘Gestalt’ psychology which was principally the product
of experimental studies on perception but was extended by W. Kohler and M.
Wertheimer into the field of intelligence and by K. Lewin into that of affectiv-
ity and social psychology. According to some of these authors we proceed in
all fields from an awareness of wholes preceding any analysis of the elements,
these wholes being due to effects of ‘fields’ which determine the forms by quasi-
physical principles of equilibrium (minimum action, etc.) ; the whole being
distinct from the sum of its parts, Gestalts then obey laws of composition which
are non-additive but are of qualitative predominance (Prugnauz) (the ‘best’
forms prevail by reason of their regularity, their simplicity, their symmetry,
etc.). The prevalent opinion today is that this method offers good descriptions
but not explanations and that, if one advances from perceptive or motive
Gestalts to forms of intelligence, these latter constitute systems which are
additive but which nevertheless involve laws as being complete systems (which
puts the problem in terms of algebraic structures or systems of transformations
and no longer in terms of Gestalts).
In an entirely different field, Durkheim’s sociology proceeded in a similar
manner by seeing in the social whole a new totality emerging on a higher scale
from the assembly of individuals and reacting upon them by imposing on them
a variety of ‘constraints’. It is interesting to note that this school, whose twofold
merit was to emphasize with particular vigour the specificity of sociology as
distinct from psychology and to supply an impressive body of specialized work,
likewise died a natural death for the lack of a relational structuralism which
might have supplied some laws of composition or construction instead of refer-
ring unremittingly to a totality conceived as ready-made.
The third position, then, is that of structuralism, but interpreted as relational,
that is to say as positing systems of interactions or transformations as the pri-
mary reality and hence subordinating elements from the outset to the relations
surrounding them and, reciprocally, conceiving the whole as the product of the
composition of these formative interactions. It is of great interest, from our
interdisciplinary point of view, to note that this trend - which is increasingly
evident in the human sciencesI2 - is still more general and manifests itself just as
clearly in mathematics and biology. In mathematics the Bourbaki movement
has led to breaking down the frontiers between the traditional branches in order
to identify certain general structures regardless of their content and to draw,
by combinations or differentiations, the details of particular structures from
three mother-structures. And although this process of fusion has today been
replaced by analysis of ‘categories’ (classes of elements with their functions),
that is again a form of relational structuralism, but one which comes closer
to the effective construction characteristic of the work of mathematicians.
In biology ‘organicism’ similarly represents a tertium between pseudo-mecha-
nistic atomism and the emergent wholes of vitalism, and the most convinced
theoretician of organicism has created a movement of ‘general theory of sys-
tems’ with interdisciplinary aims as regards, inter alia, the field of psychology

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 48 I
(Bertalanffy has been influenced by Gestalt theory but goes considerably beyond
it).
Having said this, there exists a whole range of possible ‘structures’ spread
over three directions, and our first problem is to understand the relation between
them (the first of these directions corresponds to what we called completed
structures in section 3 and the other two to structures in process of formation or
not closed) :
I. Algebraic and topological structures, including logical models since logic is
a particular case of general algebra (for example, the ordinary logic of propositions
is based on Boolean algebra). Thus in ethnology L6vi-Strauss reduces
kinship relations to group or lattice structures, etc. In intelligence theory we
have tried to describe intellectual operations the formation of which can be
followed in the course of individual development by defining overall structures
in the form of elementary algebraic structures or ‘groupements’ (akin to
groupoids) and then, at the level of pre-adolescence and adolescence, of lattices
and groups of assembled quaternities. Structuralist linguistics likewise has
recourse to algebraic structures (monoids, etc.) and the same is true of econometrics
(linear and non-linear programmes).
2. Cybernetic circuits which describe systems of regulations and whose use
is essential in psychophysiology and in learning mechanisms. Ashby, the designer
of the famous ‘homeostat’ which enables problems to be solved by a process
of balancing, has recently supplied in his Infroduction to Cybernetics a model of
regulation whose feedback actions are themselves determined by an imputation
table of the games theory type. This model, which he regards as one of the most
general and the simplest to be made biologically, shows a possible link between
psychological and praxeological or even economic regulations (see section I 3).
3. Stochastic models used in econometrics, demography and often in psychology.
But whereas chance plays a constant role in human events and therefore
requires to be treated on its own, it is never pure in the sense that the reaction
to the fortuitous, whether favourable or unfavourable, is in varying degrees an
active reaction, which brings us back to regulations. Thus this type 3 results
from a complication of 2, as type 2 is of I (remembering that the operation is a
‘perfect’ regulation with pre-correction of errors).
Thus structuralist research gives rise to at least three major interdisciplinary
problems (without semantic correspondence with these three types of structure
but in relation to them as a whole):
a. A problem of comparison of structures according to their spheres of
application. It is not by chance, for example, that structures of perception
(‘good forms’, perceptual constancy regarding size, etc., systematic errors or
‘illusions’, etc.) refer to models of regulations which are more or less close, or
applicable, to an assumed whole, and that structures of intelligence at various
levels of equilibrium relate to algebraic models; the reason is that the latter
involve a logic, whereas perceptual structures, despite their partial (but only
partial, while Gestalt theory postulated direct identifications) isomorphisms
with the former, contain a possibility of systematic deformation (or ‘illusions’)
which from the algebraic viewpoint constitute ‘non-compensated transforma-

482 Jean Piaget
tions’. The same goes for the unquestionable advantage to be found in looking
among social phenomena for those which do or do not relate to a particular
type of structure, which amounts in the end to delimiting what is amenable to
logic and what is a matter of guesswork and readjustment.
In this connexion attempts can be made (and we have tried to do this in
genetic psychology) to establish ‘partial isomorphisms’ to facilitate such com-
parisons between structures, in particular by specific fields. Such a concept
has no meaning from a purely formal point of view, which requires that an
isomorphism must be total or not exist at all; after all, anything is partially
isomorphic with anything else. But the method acquires concrete and genetic
meaning if two preliminary conditions are set for such research: I) that one can
determine the transformations which are necessary in order to pass from one
structure to an adjacent one, and especially, 2) that one can show, genetically
or historically, that these transformations are effectively achieved in certain
situations or are sufficiently probable (by direct affiliation or by collateral kin-
ship, the common trunk from which the branches diverge being specified).
b. This leads us to the second of the major intradisciplinary or interdisciplin-
ary problems raised by structuralist research. Whereas the explanation of ;wholes
by atomistic methods leads to a geneticism without structures and the theory of
emergent wholes leads to a structuralism without genesis (which is also partially
true of Gestalt theories or of any irreducible social view in sociology), the
central problem of structuralism in the biological and human sciences is that
of reconciling structure and genesis, since every structure involves a genesis and
every genesis must be conceived as the (strictly formative) transition of an
initial structure to a final structure. In other words, the fundamental problem is
that of the fliation of structures, and the triad of algebraic, cybernetic and sto-
chastic structures immediately raises the question of the possibilities of transition
from one of these categories to the others.
There is above all the problem of relations between cybernetic and algebraic
structures, and in this connexion genetic psychology supplies some highly
significant indications. Between the elementary levels where cognitive conduct
proceeds by trial-and-error or immediate perceptive intuitions (two forms im-
plying regulations in the sense of cybernetic circuits) and those levels where,
towards 7-8 or 12-15 years, algebraic structures recognisable by the strict
co-ordination of ‘operations’ are constituted (as actions which are directed in-
wards, reversible and related to overall structures with their laws of composition),
one finds all the intermediary stages in the form of pre-operational representa-
tions still involving simple regulations but tending towards a form of operation.
From this one may conclude that operation constitutes the limiting stage of
regulation in the sense that the latter, being at first a correction of error as the
result of action and later a correction of action as anticipating its possible
deviations, finally becomes pre-correction of error, which is the function of
operational deduction: feedback is then promoted to the rank of an inverse
operation and the system by its composition alone ensures all the possible com-
pensations. Although it is not possible at present to say whether this process is
peculiar to the field under consideration or can be more generally applied to

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 483
others, we may conceive of similar processes in the spheres of the sociology of
knowledge, sociology of law and sociology of moral facts, and possibly also in
structuralist linguistic~.~3
c. The third major problem which arises in comparative studies is that of the
nature of the structures arrived at, i.e. whether they constitute simple ‘models’
in the service of theoreticians or whether they should be considered as inherent
to the reality under study, in other words as structures of the subject or subjects
themselves. This question is fundamental, because in the eyes of authors critical
of structuralism the latter is merely a language or a computing instrument which
refers to the observer’s logic but not to the subject. This problem is often raised
even in psychology, where experimentation is relatively easy and where one can
in certain cases be fairly sure that structure reaches down to the underlying
explanatory principle of phenomena, in a sense which recalls what the philos-
ophers call the ‘essence’, but with the addition of an undeniable deductive
power. But in disciplines where experimentation is difficult, even in the broadest
sense as in econometrics, experts often stress the divergence they see between the
mathematical ‘model’ and the ‘experimental design’, a model without suffi-
cient relationship with the concrete being no more than a play of mathematical
relations, whereas a model which adopts the details of the experimental design
can claim the status of a ‘real’ structure. It goes without saying that in most
situations the models used in the human sciences are placed, still more than phys-
ical and even biological models, halfway between the ‘model’ and the ‘struc-
ture’, in other words between the theoretical design partially related to the
observer’s decisions and the actual organization of the behaviours to be ex-
plained.
Note. - Lastly, we should say a few words about a problem allied to the preced-
ing one and which we were advised to include in the list of topics covering all
the sciences of man, namely that of what some have ventured to call the ‘empiri-
cal analysis of causality’. Two questions should be carefully distinguished here,
that of causal explanation in general and that of functional dependence between
observable facts which can be identified either by dissociation of factors in ex-
perimental research or by analysis of multi-variabilities in non-experimental
research (in economics and sociology, cf. the works of Blalock, Lazarsfeld, etc.).
The second of these questions does indeed concern all the human sciences, but
from an essentially methodological point of view, without leading, properly
speaking, to the discovery of new common mechanisms unless by further refining
the concept of functional dependence as opposed to simple correlations. On the
other hand, the problem of causal explanation in general brings out the latent
conflict which will doubtless exist for a long time yet between the partisans of a
positivism wedded to observables and those authors who seek to identify,
beneath those observables, ‘structures’ capable of accounting for their varia-
tions. It goes without saying that problems of causality are reduced, if such
structures exist, to the lattices formation, their internal transformations and
their self-adjustment; seen in this light, the search for functional dependence is
only a stage towards the discovery of structural mechanisms, and the analysis
of function could not be pursued to any length without arriving sooner or

484 Jean Piaget
later at these mechanisms. As to which of these two fundamental lines of
approach will eventually prevail, it is not for us to say. For the moment we
should merely note the rather striking convergences becoming apparent between
schools of thought which may be described by the very general name of genetic
structuralism in psychological research on development, in the study of ‘genera-
tive grammars’ in linguistics, and in certain analyses, outwardly very different,
in economics and Marxist-inspired sociology.
6. Systems of Rules
The third problem we have raised (under c) often finds a possible solution in the
following form: when following the formation of a structure one observes on its
completion some modifications in the subject’s behaviour which are difficult to
explain otherwise than by that completion itself, in other words by the ‘closure’
of the structure. These are fundamental facts which are translated in the consciousness~4
of the subject by feelings of obligation or of ‘normative necessity’
and in his behaviour by obedience to ‘rules’. Let us recall that according to the
habitual, if not general, terminology of experts in the study of ‘normative facts’15
a rule is recognised by the fact that it imposes an obligation but can be either
violated or respected, contrary to a causal ‘law’ or determination which suffers
no exceptions unless it be by reason of contingency variations due to a mixture
of causes.
An example should explain this r61e of the closure of structures.IB A child
of 4 or 5 years is generally unable to deduce that A < Cif he has noted separately
that A < B and then that B < C (but without having seen A and C together).
Moreover, he is unable to construct a seriation of slightly differentiated
objects A < B < C < D . or manages to do so only by groping. On the other
hand when he later achieves a flawless construct consisting in the successive
placing of the smallest of the remaining elements (hence comprehension of the
fact that an element E is simultaneously greater than the preceding elements,
E > D, C, etc., and smaller than the following elements, E < F, G, etc.), he
resolves by so doing the problem of transitivity and will no longer judge A < C
as undecidable or simply probable, but as necessary (‘it’s got to be’, etc.) if he
has seen that A < B and B < C. This feeling of logical necessity, difficult to
evaluate like all states of consciousness, will be translated in behaviour by the
use and recognition of transitivity.
Many other examples could be quoted in other fields of individual development,
such as the emergence of a sense of justice as a highly imperative norm
succeeding a morality of obedience at the age where relations of reciprocity are
structured outside or in opposition to relations of subordination. In the historical
development of societies it seems clear likewise that democratic ideals have
gained currency as a function of changes in structures, etc.
Thus the study of rules or normative facts constitutes an important sector of
the study of structures, the more so as it provides a link between structuralism
and the actual behaviour of subjects. Moreover, such rules are observed in all the

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 485
fields covered by the human sciences; even in demography it is impossible,
for example, to dissociate the birth rate from a variety of moral and legal rules.
Where Durkheim saw the process of ‘constraints’ as the most general social
fact, he was expressing this common characteristic of various social behaviours,
namely, that they are accompanied by rules.
There arise out of this a certain number of interdisciplinary problems which
are as yet far from being resolved, but in respect of which a twofold trend can
be observed: they are raised in every field and they are treated by means of
bilateral connexions. We may distinguish three such problems :
a. The first question is to establish whether rules or obligations are necessarily
of a social nature, that is to say whether they presuppose an interaction
between at least two individuals, or whether they may be of an individual or
endogenous character. The queston is merely a sub-division of the more general
question whether all ‘real’ or natural structures (as opposed to exclusively
theoretical ‘models’) are translated in the behaviour according to rules.
To this more general question one might be tempted to reply immediately in
the negative, since there exist, for example, perceptive structures whose social
component is nil or very srna1l17 and which are not accompanied by ‘rules’
in the normative sense. However, they are translated by ‘predominances’ (‘good
form’ wins over an irregular form, etc.), and in the opinion of certain authors
there are many intermediate stages between predominance and logical necessity,
which would raise the question of relations between the normative and the
‘normal’, not in the sense of a simple dominant frequency but of the state of
equilibrium (achieved, moreover, by self-regulation, which implies possible
new connexions between the ‘regulable’ and the ‘rule’).
The question therefore is far from simple. The dominant trends would seem
to be the following: on the one hand there is increasingly general doubt as to
the existence of ‘innate’ rules such as a logic or a morality transmitted through
hereditary Natural logical operations begin to occur only very gradually
(on an average hardly before 7 or 8 years in developed societies) in
accordance with a constant sequential order but without that fixed regularity
in age levels which would bear witness to internal or nervous maturation. They
are certainly drawn from the most general forms of co-ordination of actions, but
these are collective as much as individual actions, so that they appear to be the
result of a progressive balancing of a psycho-sociological kind, far more than
as biologically inherited (in other words the human brain contains no hereditary
programming, as would be the case if logico-mathematical behaviours constituted
something in the nature of instincts; instead it shows a hereditary functioning
the utilisation of which allows both collective life and the setting up of
general co-ordination from which these structures obtain their point of departure).
Moral obligations, as J. M. Baldwin, P. Bovet and Freud have shown, are
linked in their formation with inter-individual interactions, etc.
Moreover it appears increasingly probable that if every balanced structure
imposes not only regularities but also a certain predominance due to its own
regulations, and if every system of regulations involves, by the very fact of its
successes or failures, an obligatory distinction between the normal and the

486 Jean Piaget
abnormal (concepts peculiar to living matter and devoid of meaning in physico-
chemistry), there nevertheless exists a kind of limiting point which both sepa-
rates and unites regulations and operations (see section 5). This point of transition
might well in many cases be that between the individual and the inter-individual.
b. A second general problem which follows on from that we have just said is
that of types of obligations or rules. Logical necessity is translated into coherent
operations capable of constituting deductive structures, but there exist a large
number of obligations and rules without intrinsic consistency, arising essen-
tially from constraints of a more or less contingent or momentary kind, the
extreme case being that of the rules of spelling whose arbitrary nature is
sufficiently demonstrated by history. Even independently from the questions
raised under a, it is evident therefore that not every obligation extends into
possible ‘operations’ in the limited sense in which we have adopted this term
(section 5), but that a certain number of systems of rules do not go beyond the
level of structures of regulations.
The second general problem raised by systems of rules is thus to construct,
by means of interdisciplinary comparisons, a hierarchy of varieties of structures,
starting with operational structures of various forms and ending with those
which are based on regulations, likewise of various forms and involving a greater
or lesser degree of chance.
c. The third great problem raised by systems of rules is that of interference
between rules belonging to different fields. This problem, some examples of
which we shall presently discuss, occurs in two forms. First there is the question
of effective intersections of structures leading to interferences between rules : for
example, a legal system is a body of rules sui generis, that is to say irreducible
to moral or logical rules; but objectively it involves all kinds of interferences
with those other two systems by the mere fact that it must not contradict
either of them (which may be easier in one case than in another).IQ But there are
also intersections due to the subject’s realization of the structure, this realization
perhaps being adequate but partial or distortive as a result of various subjective
influences. Thus the usual grammar of teachers is nothing other than a very
incomplete and in part distortive realization of linguistic structures and general-
ly interferes with obligations of the quasi-moral type.
7, Examples of interferences in the field of logical structures
The case of logical structures is a good example of how impossible it is today
to isolate a form of research which yet is very distinct and possesses every
characteristic that might have made of it a kind of absolute, secure from interdisciplinary
contacts. Formal logic is at present perhaps the most exact of
disciplines in terms of the rigour of its demonstrations. It can be placed at the
starting point of mathematics, so much so that one might hesitate to include it
among the sciences of man and that those responsible for the organization of
the present volume have not included it among the disciplines selected for study.
Above all, logic, using as it does an axiomatic or ‘formalising’ method, ignores the

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 487
psychological ‘subject’ as a matter of principle, having become a ‘logic without
subject’ so that the attributes it has mapped out for itself forbid it even to inquire
whether ‘subjects without logic’ even exist.
Yet the internal evolution of logic itself as well as the external evolution of
branches outside its field compel us to note the existence of numerous centrifu-
gal trends which inevitably give rise to problems of interdisciplinary connex-
ions.
The iirst of these trends arose from the discovery by K. Goedel in 1931 of
the limits of formalisation. In a series of celebrated theorems Goedel showed
that it is impossible for a theory of a certain richness (e.g. elementary as opposed
to transfinite arithmetic) to demonstrate its own non-contradiction solely by
its own means and by logical means weaker than those it implies; in this way it
must of necessity arrive at certain undecidable propositions, and in order to
decide these it is necessary to resort to ‘stronger’ means (e.g. transfinite arith-
metic). In other words logic is no longer an edifice resting on its base but a
construct whose consistency depends on higher levels which are never completed
because each in turn has need of the next. But as soon as there is a construct we
must ask: a construct of what and by whom? And if there are limits to formali-
sation we must ask why, to which J. Ladribre, for instance, replies by invoking
the impossibility for the subject to embrace in a single actual field the totality of
its possible operations (which in fact is an appeal to psychology to produce an
epistemology of logic; see below).
Another and equally remarkable internal trend is the concern shown by
certain logicians for establishing a connexion between formal logic and certain
systems of norms or rules used by subjects collectively. We have already quoted
(section 4) works like those by Weinberger, etc., which apply formal logic to
connexions between norms posed in the imperative. But mention should be
made especially of the important work of the Belgian logician Ch. Perelman in
the field of argumentation. Perelman sets out to study from a logical point of
view the many situations where a partner seeks to act upon another not through
sentiment or extrinsic arguments of authority, etc., that is to say not through
those sophisms which have so wrongly been grouped under the name of ‘logic
of sentiments’ (for the true logic of sentiments is morality, with which Perelman
is beginning to concern himself), but through an argumentation which is logi-
cally coherent although directed and organised so as to convince. Avast body
of works has appeared on this subject20 among which we find in particular a
study by L. Apostel on the presuppositions of such a theory and more particu-
larly on the relations between logical operations and the general co-ordination
of actions (Apostel shows in this respect the kinship between Perelman’s analyses
and the writer’s own research on the development of logical structures proceed-
ing from action). Starting from the theory of argumentation, Perelman has
naturally been led to study the logic of legal structures, and a very active collab-
oration on this issue between jurists and logicians has been established under
his direction and has already yielded a number of studies.
A third trend common to certain logicians consists in taking an interest in
psychology, not of course in order to find in it the internal foundations of logic

488 Jean Piaget
(which would mean going from the fact to the norm, or ‘psychologism’, as little
valid as the inverse movement or ‘logicism’) but with a view to its general epis-
temology. If it is the nature of logic to be a construct, it becomes difficult to inter-
pret it epistemologically as a simple language and moreover a strictly tauto-
logical one as logical positivism proposes. That is why logicians who no longer
believe this thesis or have never believed it are turning in the direction of psy-
chological or psycho-social construction of structures. It should be noted how-
ever that this is not simply a formalisation of ‘natural’ thought or logic, which
is of limited interest (except in situations where it develops specific techniques
such as that of argumentation, which has been analysed by Perelman): first
because natural logic is generally poor compared with the richness of axiomatics,
but especially because it constitutes only a highly imperfect realization of the
underlying structures. What these logicians are seeking is therefore less an
analysis of the consciousness of subjects than a study of structures, in their
filiations and formations, which then makes it possible to show the stages
whereby one arrives, starting with elementary behaviours, at the algebraic
structures of logic itself (Boolean algebra and network, etc.). This is the subject
studied by the logicians working at the International Centre of Genetic episte-
mology in Geneva: L. Apostel, S. Papert, J. B. Grize, C. Nowinski, etc.
One of the reasons why the problem of the epistemology of logic thus forms
a bridge between logic and genetic psychology, is that the latter has for years
gone out to meet problems of this kind. For it is impossible to study the devel-
opment of the intelligence from the first years of childhood to adolescence or
to the adult state without coming up against a certain number of findings which
fall within the sphere of logic. The first of these findings is that even in the
pre-language stage there exist, at the level of sensori-motor action patterns,
certain structures of interlocking, order, correspondence, etc., which prefigure
logic and display its links with the general co-ordination of action. Later we
find that by a process of successive balancings the common operations of
classification, seriation, correspondence or intersection come to constitute
(towards 7-8 years) formalisable structures halfway between ‘groups’ and ‘net-
works’, which we have called ‘groupings’. We find above all that at a third
stage (I 1-12 years) these groupings are co-ordinated simultaneously in a
quaternality group and a network of interpropositional connections. For
interdisciplinary research it is of interest to note that this ‘group’ of proposi-
tional transformations, widely studied by logicians since 1950, was discovered
in genetic psychology before it was analysed in its logistic formalisation.
Relations between logic and economics are of two kinds, thanks to the theory
of games. O n the one hand the logician may take an interest in games theory
as in any other logico-mathematical procedure in order to establish its axio-
matics. On the other hand, however, induction (in other words the full range
of inferences applied to a field of experience where contingency intervenes) is a
‘game’ between the experimenter and nature, and it is possible to conceive of a
theory of induction based on strategies and decisions. Since several authors
regard deduction as an extreme case of induction, we thus see the connexion
between logic as a whole and epistemology. There is no need to recall that this

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 489
epistemology of logic can a fortiori be placed in relation with cybernetics by a
double movement similar to that just referred to, which we may cite with T.
Greniewski, an expert in connexions between logic and cybernetics.
As to exchanges between logic and linguistics, we shall come to them when
discussing the latter.
8. Systems of non-deducible norms: sociology of law, etc.; customs and habit
patterns
Independently of the specific questions of legal logic which have been discussed,
there exists a major problem the importance of which has found expression in
several contemporary trends in a variety of disciplines, namely that of the general
structure of systems of norms. From this viewpoint of overall structures, which
is becoming increasingly dominant, it is by no means sufficient to know that a
particular legal reasoning can be put in logical form; this does not alter the
fact that a legal system in its total form in the sense employed by H. Kelsen
(from the ‘fundamental norm’ and the constitution to individualised norms
such as all court judgements, diplomas, etc.) is at the same time very close to a
logical system and very different from it.
The analogy is that in both cases there exists a construct of normative values
achieved by means of actions or operations, and that these results are valid
depending on a series of transitive implications. If such and such axioms are
accepted, then such and such theorems TI follow which lead to such and such
other theorems T2, etc., according to a series of implications placed in hierar-
chical order. Thus if a constitution is accepted, then parliament has the right
to enact laws L which are valid by virtue of the constitutional norm; then the
government has a right to take a decision D which is valid by virtue of the law
L; then such and such an office has the right to settle an individual case C in a
valid manner by virtue of the governmental decree D, etc. This succession of
normative constructions (each norm being at the same time the application of
the previous one and the creation of the next one) is readily comparable to a
series of implications, and Kelsen explicitly defines this implicative relationship
under the term of ‘imputation’ (central or peripheral depending on whether it
qualifies the subjects of law or the implications alone).
The great difference however is that if one knows the content of axioms, one
can deduce the succeeding theorems : they were not, of course, tautologically
pre-formed within the axioms, since these axioms are independent one from
another, but the new combinations obtained are ‘necessary’ (they could not
have been other than they are by virtue of the given operations). In the legal
system, on the other hand, one merely knows that parliament cannot violate
the constitution, but within this framework it votes what it likes; in other words
the constructive operations take place in a valid fashion as a function of transi-
tive and necessary imputations, but their results remain contingent because
they are not determined by the form of these operations, only their validities
being so determined to the extent that they are not in contradiction with norms
of a superior category.

490 Jean Piaget
In other words there exist normative structures whose actual form determines
their content and which for this reason can be described as formal, and others
whose form does not determine their content. The former, which can give rise
to ‘pure’ deductive disciplines (pure logic and mathematics) nevertheless concern
all human behaviour, since economic exchanges could not proceed beyond
the barter stage if everyone did not accept the fact that twice two makes four.
There is therefore some advantage in making a comparison of structures and
systems of rules from the standpoint of these relations between form and content,
and it will be seen at once that such comparative analyses can be carried
out only by means of close interdisciplinary collaboration.
The study of moral facts offers another example of such problems and it is
not pure chance that this subject has attracted the interest of sociologists,
psychologists, certain logicians, jurists,z1 experts in the sociology of law and an
appreciable number of economists (utilitarian explanations of moral facts are
essentially the product of schools of thought built up by Anglo-Saxon economists).
The French economist J. Rueff, in a highly stimulating study on moral
facts, has raised the problem of the formalisation of different moralities, using
the significant terms ‘Euclidian’ and ‘non-Euclidian’ moralities to bring out the
differences in postulates associated with moralities observable and widespread in
the social group. By following the psychogenetic development of moral rules in
the child and adolescent, the writer has been led to distinguish in that development
two clearly distinct forms of structures depending on whether the source
of the norms is to be found in obedience to persons who are the object of
unilateral respect or whether it relates to a system of reciprocity or mutual
respect (that being, in particular, the source of concepts of justice which are
acquired independently and often to the detriment of the morality of obedience).
From the point of view which concerns us here, the former of these moralities
clearly belongs to those structures whose form does not determine their
content, while in the latter we do observe an effect of form upon content. The
writer was accordingly able to try to formalise the second of these two systems,
in which it is not difficult to find analogies with those logical operations which
are involved in an inter-individual co-operation of a cognitive nature. Thus the
generality of such problems becomes evident at once.
Indeed these problems are so general that they can be found in all those
aspects of social life which Durkheim described under the common term of
‘constraints’ and within which we must distinguish at least two poles: that of
norms imposed by an authority or by custom, which place an obligation on the
individual without his participating in their creation, and that of norms resulting
from a collaboration of a kind in which the partners contribute to the formation
of the norm which places an obligation upon them. It will be seen at once
that the latter case is oriented in the direction of systems whose form determines
their content to varying degrees.
The problems crystallize in particular around the question (always a central
one) of relations between custom or habit and obligation or rule. When Thurnwald
in a famous phrase laid down that ‘recognised constraint transforms custom
into law’ he was raising a much more general problem than that of the birth of

General problem of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 491
law in tribal societies, and one which is still under study today: how does one
move from a structure which is simply regular or balanced to a system of rules
or norms? In the sociology of law the formula we have quoted emphasises with
great truth that custom does not suffice so long as there has been no ‘recogni-
tion’. Similarly in the field of moral facts neither habit nor example are suffi-
cient, so long as a certain relation of ‘respect’ or recognition of avalue connected
with the person has not been established (and no longer connected merely with
transpersonal functions or services, as in the legal sphere). But in the field of
intellectual operations where, as we have just seen, the very form of the norms
determines their content, although logic is certainly a morality of the exchange
of thought and of cognitive co-operation, a certain coefficient of internal
necessity attaches to any deduction based on a balanced operational structure,
as though the transition from action to reversible operation were sufficient to
engender the regulated structure which governs cognitive common production
as well as individual constructs. Lastly, in the sphere of patterns of habit and
perception peculiar to the individual alone, although no normative necessity is
involved, there nevertheless exist phenomena of predominance due to an
internal balance where there is no longer any question of norms but where we
are nevertheless faced with an attenuated form of that necessity which dominates
in the higher varieties of balance.
Hence the trend which we discern in this line of research would lead to the
acceptance of the fact that the transition of structures into rules presupposes two
conditions. The preliminary condition is a condition of balance : the structure
becomes a rule only if it closes back on itself in a sufficiently balanced form
which expresses itself in predominances of different kinds if that balance is due
to regulations, and by intrinsic necessity if it is operational. The second condition
appears with inter-individual relations and is once again a matter of forms of
balance, but in this case forms which are relative to these collective situations :
their regulations or the operations which derive from them are then expressed
by those different states of consciousness which lead from trans-personal rec-
ognition or from respect for persons to various forms of obligation properly
speaking.
9. Diachronic and synchronic problems in the field of norms
It is well-known that linguistics, beginning with the works of F. de Saussure,
has proceeded to dissociate diachronic studies, or studies of history and evolu-
tion of language, from synchronic considerations connected with the balance
of language as an existing system in a state of relative independence from its
past. We also know the extent to which economic crises can modify the state
of values and so dissociate them from their previous history. On the contrary
it is in the nature of rules or norms to introduce compulsory conservation,
which is why their function is of such great importance in the life of societies and
individuals. The norm is therefore by its very nature the essential instrument of
connexion between the diachronic and the synchronic.

492 Jean Piaget
The fact remains that structures and rules develop, that they were formed
little by little, and that even in the case of progressively acquired stability new
structures or norms can modify the meaning of preceding ones to a more or
less deep extent, even if they do not replace them. W e are thus confronted with a
new major problem of interdisciplinary comparison, that of the uniformity or
variety of relations between diachronic and synchronic factors depending on
different types of structures or norms.2z
Taking logical norms first, these may appear to constitute the prototype of
unchangeable structures since a variety of philosophers from Plato to Husserl
have linked them with Ideas, apriori forms or eternal or at least timeless funda-
mentals. A. Comte, one of the precursors or founders of scientific sociology,
described the development of fundamental concepts in his Law of the Three
States (whose value we are not called upon to discuss here), but maintained
that this development concerned only the content of human reason whilst its
forms, in other words the actual processes of reasoning or ‘natural logic’,
remained invariable. A trend which is fairly general today, due to the history of
sciences and techniques, to work on comparative sociology and on genetic
psychology and especially to the evolutionist viewpoints which are now domi-
nant in ethologyand zoopsychology, leads us to think on the contrary that reason
was built up by stages and continues to evolve, not without reason or reasons
but in such a manner that not only is the evidence transformed but even that
which appears logically demonstrated or rigorous at a given stage may sub-
sequently appear doubtful and may give rise to considerably greater degrees of
rigour.
On the other hand, if reason evolves, the progressive constructs to which it
may give rise constitute an extremely remarkable type of development in the
sense that the previous structures are not set aside or destroyed but are integrat-
ed in the subsequent ones as specific casesvalid in a certain sector or at a certain
scale of approximation. The same is not true of the experimental sciences,
starting with physics where a theory can be contradicted by another or retain
only a limited degree of truth. But in the field of logico-mathematical structures
no structure which has been demonstrated as valid at a moment in history is
subsequently abandoned, the error consisting merely in believing it to be unique
and in that sense necessary, whereas later it becomes the sub-structure of a
richer and broader whole. From the point of view of relations between the
diachronic and the synchronic we thus have here an exceptional situation in
which the existing equilibrium appears as the product of a historical process of
more or less continuous balancing (crises or momentary imbalances being no
more than crises of growth or break-throughs to new problems).
If we compare this situation with that of a system of legal norms, the contrast
is striking. A well-made system of such norms does, of course, provide for its
own modification in the sense that as soon as a constitution exists, and at every
stage of normative construction provided and implied by it, there is a possibility
of revision or modification. In a certain sense therefore there is continuity in
normative creation, and in this respect we find here the connexion between the
diachronic and the synchronic which is peculiar to systems of rules as opposed

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 493
to systems of non-normative values or signs. Yet the situation is quite different
from that which exists in the case of rational norms. In the first place there is
nothing to prevent the new norm from replacing and contradicting the one
which is abolished; this does not create any break in the transitive succession of
valid ‘imputations’, but it does create a discontinuity in the actual content of
the norms. Secondly, the relative continuity of which we have been speaking
remains subordinate to the stability of the political r6gime; in the event of a
revolution, the entire system is abolished for the benefit of a new one unrelated
to the old.
In the field of moral norms continuity is doubtless greater, but the problem of
relations between diachronic and synchronic factors nevertheless arises in very
different terms than in the case of logical norms. When Durkheim, who tended
to subordinate the synchronic entirely to history, explained the prohibition of
incest in developed societies by the exogamy of tribal organizations, he was for-
getting to explain why so many other rules likewise attributed to totemism have
not been perpetuated in our time.
There is no point in piling up examples to show that this is a field of inter-
disciplinary research of considerable general importance. In the last analysis the
question comes down to this: to what degree is contemporary man dependent on
his history? A superficial answer based on what has just been demonstrated
would be to maintain that historical factors are vitally important precisely
because they are timeless and are, like rational norms, a matter of invariables
which history uncovers but does not create or explain; while the great historic
changes which introduce continuities between certain systems of norms and the
preceding ones would, by this reasoning, stress the importance of synchronic re-
balancings rather than of continuous constructive processes. In reality there is a
history of events or of visible and in part contingent manifestations, and there
is also the history of the underlying dynamism or of processes of elaboration
and development. We are becoming increasingly aware that organic develop-
ment is far more than a history of events or a succession of phenomena, but is a
matter of progressive structuration or organization whose qualitative stages
are subordinate to an increasing integration. That is why the history of civiliza-
tion is becoming more and more an interdisciplinary task within which the
history of science and technology, economic history, diachronic sociology, etc.,
have to analyse concurrently the innumerable facets of the same transformations.
But it is also why history is explicative even in what appear to be its timeless
invariables, because they have become such only as a result of constructive
processes and balancings which have to be reconstituted and which, by varying
from one field to another, mutually illuminate one another both in their differ-
ences and in their common mechanisms.
111. FUNCTIONING AND VALUES
In all the sciences of life and of man there has always been opposition between
so-called functionalist trends and structuralist trends. In biology kamarck

494 Jean Piaget
maintained long ago that ‘the function creates the organ’, whereas the neo-
Darwinian theory of fortuitous variations and of selection after the event tended
to deprive Lamarck‘s formulation of any significant content; but the contem-
porary views according to which the phenotype is a ‘response’ of the genome
to the tensions of the environment tend to go beyond both terms of the alterna-
tive by creating a new synthesis. In the psychological and social disciplines the
conflict is equally general between a functionalism some of whose adherents
see in the ‘structures underlying the observables’ no more than simple abstrac-
tions created by theoreticians, and a structuralism some of whose adepts
regard the functional aspects of behaviour as secondary characteristics without
explicative meaning. It is therefore a major interdisciplinary problem to identify
the common mechanisms which might be capable of co-ordinating functions
and structures in all human behaviour. This problem naturally leads to that of
utility or values as objective or subjective indices of functioning, and also to the
problem of the possibility of a general theory of values based not on a priori
reflation but on possible convergences that may emerge from mutual con-
nexions between research in all our fields.
IO. Functioning and functions. Aflectivity and praxeology
We must first ask ourselves whether the conflicts between functionalism and
structuralism do not in part stem from too narrow a conception of structures
which emphasises only their characteristics of totality and internal transfor-
mations but overlooks their essential property of self-adjustment. For if this
property is neglected, the structure takes on a static aspect which devalorises
functioning, thus giving the impression that with structure one has established
a kind of permanent ‘entity’ related to the unchangeable properties of the
human spirit or of society in general. Hence the scepticism of functionalists
vis-&-vis such a hypothesis, which can in effect lead to anti-functionalism.
But if one distinguishes between formal or formalized structures whose ad-
justment is due to the axioms conferred upon them by theoreticians, and real
structures which exist independently from theory, it is necessary to ask how
structures are conserved and how they act, which comes down to raising the
question of their functioning. Their self-adjustment can in some cases be
assured by rules or norms, as we have seen under II, but then these rules already
represent a function, that of maintaining the integrity of the structure by a
system of constraints or obligations. On the other hand it may be that the struc-
ture is not completed; in its formative stages its self-adjustment will of course
not as yet imply a system of rules but a self-regulation whose functioning may
involve multiple variants. In particular it may happen that a structure is not
capable of ‘closure’ but depends on continual exchanges with the exterior (see
section 3). It is in such situations that functions are distinct from structures
and that functionalist analysis becomes necessary to such a point that its par-
tisans sometimes forget that it is difficult to conceive of functions without organs
or overall structure.

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 495
Thus the problem of accurately defining the relations between structures and
functions is a general one in the human sciences and requires constant interdisciplinary
help. In this connexion we should recall how K. Lewin, whose social
psychology is the product of Gestaltist structuralism, came to describe the
actual needs in that language and how W. Kohler, his teacher, wrote a whole
work on ‘the place of values in a world of facts’. Let us also recall how T. Parsons
called his method in sociology ‘structural-functional’, considering structure
to be the stable arrangement of the elements of a social system unaffected
by fluctuations imposed from outside, and function as occurring in the adaptations
of structure to situations exterior to it? In economics, J. Tinbergen sees
structure as ‘the consideration of not immediately observable characteristics
concerning the manner in which the economy reacts to certain changes’. These
characteristics, expressed in terms of econometric coefficients, give on the one
hand an architectural picture of the economy but, on the other hand, indicate
the ways in which it reacts to certain variations; thus we find once again that
structure is accompanied by functions because it is capable of ‘reactions’.
If the structuralism of Uvi-Strauss leads to a certain devalorization of functionalism,
that is essentially due to the fact that genetic and historical factors are,
so to speak, bound to be overlooked when one is studying societies whose past
is unknown and doubtless lost without recall. On the other hand it is interesting
to note that the ‘neo-functionalism’ of young American sociologists such as A.
W. Gouldner and P. M. Blau is by no means closed to structuralist perspectives.
Thus both these authors endeavour to clarify the relations between sub-systems
and system, and to re-examine the classical problem of social stratification,
basing their analyses, however, on the central notion of ‘reciprocity’ in the one
case and on that of elementary ‘exchanges’ in the other. It seems clear that such
viewpoints in no way conflict (quite the reverse) with what we described in section
5 as relational structuralism, their specific nature being that they do not proceed
from totalities in order to come down to constituent relations but from the latter
in order to illuminate the functioning of sub-systems.
Generally speaking one may (cf. section 3) consider functioning as the
structuring activity whose structure constitutes the result or the organized
event. In the case of a completed structure functioning is identical with those
transformations which are real among all those which are possible, and which
characterize the system as such. As to function, the term can be used to
designate the particular rBle played by a specific transformation relative to
that entire set of transformations (the two meanings, biological and mathematica1,Z‘
of the word ‘function’ then tend to become interchangeable). But in the
case of a structure in process of formation or of development, or generally not
‘closed‘, where for that reason self-adjustment so far consists only in regulations
and where exchanges are open to the exterior, functioning is formative and not
merely transformative and functions correspond to utilities (or values) of various
kinds depending on the r6les of conservation, reinforcement or perturbation
which the functioning of sub-systems may play in relation to the total system,
or vice versa.
It is from this view point, among others, that an interdisciplinary model

496 Jean Piaget
such as that of the theory of ‘general systems’ is of particular value (a system
being defined as a complex of elements in non-contingent interaction). In his
works on scientific thought A. N. Whitehead already supported the notion that
interpretations usually denounced as being ‘mechanical’ could not deal ex-
haustively with the analysis of the real and that the concepts of organism or
organization have specific characteristics which ought to be used. Proceeding
from biology (but also from a Gestalt-oriented psychological view), L. von
Bertalanffy studied this problem by seeking to derive from this ‘organicism’
certain general models whose interest is not merely biological (theory of ‘open’
systems and their specific thermodynamics) but also extends to a certain number
of the human sciences insofar as it is possible to generalize the notions of
homeostasis (inter alia for the theory of needs), differentiation, stratification,
etc.25 Experiments in the mathematical analysis of such structures having an
‘organized complexity’, with which A. Rapoport and others have been associat-
ed, rapidly showed the convergence between some of these anticipations and N.
Wiener’s26 cybernetics, especially in the field of ‘equihality’ (arrival at final
states which are relatively independent of initial conditions). But the central
problem remains that of relations between sub-systems and the total system
when (and this is the general case of structures not yet reducible to algebraic
forms) the composition of the whole is not additive or linear.
To return to functions, utility or values, it therefore seems evident that to the
extent that the structures under consideration are in process of development
(or of regression), questions of functioning are at the heart of the problems.
Any genetic process which results in structures undoubtedly consists of balanc-
ings alternating with imbalances followed by rebalancing (which may succeed
or fail), since human beings never remain passive but constantly pursue some aim
or react to perturbations by active compensations consisting in regulations. It
follows from this that every action proceeds from a need which is connected
with the system as a whole and that values likewise dependent on the system as
a whole are attached to every action and to every situation favorable or un-
favorable to its execution. In the sphere of cognitive structures, where needs and
values are relative to the activities of comprehension and invention, such a
model makes it possible to explain simultaneously the psychological progres-
sion of stages of mental development and the logical nature of the structures
thus achieved (since regulations lead to operations and balancing leads to their
reversibility; see section 7). This cognitive development is already a social
as much as a psychological or even a biological one, since the operations of the
individual are indissociable from inter-individual co-operation (in the most
etymological sense of the word). Thus the model seems to be partly open to
generalization in the social field as a whole (we shall return to this issue in
section 14), but only on condition that consideration is given to needs and
values of whatever nature, not only in their cognitive forms.
In this connexion reference should undoubtedly be made to a specific type of
research which may be called ‘praxeology’ (cf. Chapter IV, “Economics”)
and which is a theory, essentially interdisciplinary, of behaviours as relations
between means and ends from the viewpoint of yield as well as of choice.

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 497
Certain authors have tried to reduce all economics to this question, e.g. L.
Robbins who speaks of ‘relations between rare (or limited) ends and means
with alternative uses’ (An Essay on the Significance of Economic Science, 1932)
and L. von Mises; but although economics does in certain respects constitute a
sector of praxeology, it is a sector which involves many other factors and a com-
plexity of social interactions and which cannot be reduced to these simpler rela-
tions already present in exchanges between the individual subject (or the organ-
ism itself) and his physical and inter-individual surroundings.
In order to understand the very general scope of these praxeological analyses
and their effects on the theory of values as a whole, it is necessary to start by
recalling the present state of trends as regards relations between affective life
and cognitive functions.
A highly significant fact likely to concern all the human sciences strikes us
from the outset, namely the surprising difficulty met in trying to characterize
affective life in relation to cognitive functions (insofar as these relate to struc-
tures) and especially of defining their inter-relations in the actual functioning of
behaviour. This fact immediately gives rise to the general problem as to whether
values, or at least some values, are determined by structures and in what sense,
whether these values or some of them (on the contrary or in turn) modify struc-
tures and which ones, or whether values and structures are two aspects - in-
dissociable but so to speak parallel - of all behaviours whatever they may be. It
is immediately evident that the problem goes well beyond the sphere of psy-
chology, for whereas praxeology, as the ‘general theory of effective action’
(E. Slucki as early as 1926, T. Kotarbinski 1955, 0. Lange, etc.) invokes a
‘principle of rationality’ (maximum effects with a minimum of means), that
principle concerns affective values as much as cognitive structures.
In psychology the general trend today is to distinguish in any behaviour a
structure which corresponds to its cognitive aspect and an ‘energetic’ element
which characterizes its affective aspect. But what is the meaning of this some-
what metaphorical term ‘energetic’? Freud, who was reared in the atmosphere
of the ‘energetic’ school (as opposed to atomism) of the physicist E. Mach,
himself sometimes a psychologist, saw instinct as a reserve of energies .whose
‘charges’ are stored in certain representations of objects which by that fact be-
come desirable or attractive. The terms ‘investment’ or cathexis have become
current in this connexion. K. Lewin visualizes behaviour as a function of a
total field (subject and objects) in the Gestalt manner, the structure of this
field corresponding to perceptions, acts of intelligence, etc., while its dynamics
determine functioning and eventually attribute positive or negative values to
the objects (characteristics of attraction or repulsion, barriers, etc.). But the
problem which remains is that an operational mechanism unquestionably
involves a dynamic and that it is necessary to distinguish within it the structure
of transformations as such and what makes them possible in their desirability,
interest, speed, etc.; and this second aspect brings us back to an ‘energetic’. P.
Janet distinguishes in all behaviour a primary action or relation between sub-
ject and object, which corresponds to (cognitive) structures, and a secondary
action which regulates the former as to its activations (interest, effort, etc., on

498 Jean Piaget
the positive side or fatigue, depression, etc., on the negative side) and to its
terminations (rejoicing in the case of success, sadness in that of failure). This
suggests that elementary affective life expresses behaviour adjustments, but
what kinds of adjustments (for these may be structural or cognitive)? Janet
explicitly puts forward the hypothesis of a reserve of physiological forces which
are stored, used up or reconstituted in accordance with variable rhythms, and
suggests that it is these forces which affectivity regulates in accordance with a
‘behaviour economy’ co-ordinating gains and losses of energy. Going on to
generalize at the inter-individual level, Janet analyzes sympathy and antipathy
from this point of view, people for whom one feels sympathy being energy
sources or excitants and those for whom one feels antipathy being tiring or
‘costly’.
This brings us to a first problem: does affectivity as ’investment’ or as a
series of regulations depending on gains and losses actually modify structures
or does it merely ensure their functioning in terms of energy?Some authors
believe the former, arguing that the systematic defect of ‘investment’ characteristic
of schizophrenics who are not interested in reality leads to a schematic
and pathologically formal type of thought, while the ‘over-investments’ of
paranoiacs lead to loss of reason (delusions of grandeur, etc.). Other authors
(including the writer) think that a child with a lively interest in arithmetic and
another suffering from multiple complexes regarding itself will both recognize
that two and two make four and not three or five, because activity makes structures
function by accelerating or retarding their formation but without modifying
them; and that the behaviour difficulty in a schizophrenic or a paranoiac
can simultaneously affect structures and their affective functioning according
to a dynamic which always involves both aspects at But of course
it remains possible that a distinction should be made between structures whose
form determines the content (logico-mathematical structures) and those
whose content depends on a variety of values, although in a ‘value judgement’
the form (or judgement) is structural and therefore cognitive and the content is
relative to affectivity precisely as a value.
The second problem, however, is even more important and concerns all the
human disciplines to a still greater extent, namely that of the multiplicity of
values or of their reduction to their energetic ‘economic’ (in the praxeological
sense) dimension alone. When the economist speaks of production, exchange,
consumption, reserves or investments, etc., we see clearly enough that these
terms recur in exactly the same form in every field, including that of the affectivity
of infants before all language (in terms of expenditure or recovery of
energies, ‘investing’ in objects or people, etc.); but it remains to be knownwhether
the meanings involved are always comparable. And it is impossible to attempt
a classification without immediately finding that it applies to all the sciences of
man (certainly including linguistics, if only because F. de Saussure drew his
inspiration from economics and because the ‘affective language’ described by
Ch. Bally gave rise to a theory of values by the sociologist G. Vaucher).
As an introduction to this classification (in section I I) we should first recall
that in the sphere of individual as well as inter-individual values there exists a

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 499
fundamental duality which recurs everywhere,28 namely that of values of finality
(or instrumental values, i.e. means and ends) and values of yield (costs and
benefits) which are inseparable but clearly distinct from one another. In the
individual sphere this distinction is based on the double meaning of the word
interest. On the one hand all behaviour is dictated by interest in the general
qualitative sense, in that it pursues an end which has value because it is desired,
and this end can be entirely disinterested (in the second meaning of the term)
although it is of great interest in the first sense. On the other hand interest is an
energy adjustment which releases the available forces (Claparkde and Janet),
that is to say increases the yield, and from this second point of view a behaviour
is called ‘interested’ if it is intended to increase the yields from the viewpoint of
the subject’s ego. By playing on these two meanings of the term while refusing
to distinguish between them, utilitarianism sought to explain altruism by
selfishness under the pretext that all behaviour is interested - which is false
since behaviour is always directed by interest in the first meaning of the term
and can therefore be, as we have just shown, disinterested and interesting at
the same time. This sophism is sufficient in itself to justify the two types of
values. Furthermore, when Janet explains sympathy and antipathy in terms of
values of yield he is right in a large number of cases, e.g. when one chooses a
travelling or table companion, but it is possible to love an extremely tiring
person, and one does not always marry a woman for the sole reason that she
is ‘economical’ in the sense that she wil not prove very wearying. We may even
consider that ‘investments’ of affective charges which occur in love are a function
of a common scale of values, of twin production projects in the broadest
sense and even of values which are highly disinterested although they involve
interest (in the other sense of the term) to an exceptional degree.
I I. Classification of values
The gist of the foregoing is that praxeology is everywhere, but nowhere by
itself. It is impossible to accomplish a moral act or to perform a logical opera-
tion without expenditure of energy, which is a matter of values of yield, whereas
the behaviours studied by economic science may have no matter what intrinsic
finality and whereas concepts of production and consumption are necessarily
related to structures accompanied by their own values or finalities. It is there-
fore evident that all the sciences of man lead to the search for a classification of
values.
I. One must first justify the first dichotomy suggested by the psychology of
affectivity, which recurs everywhere. Values of finality, or instrumental values,
bring together those which are by their very quality related to structures, in
other words which correspond to the needs of qualitatively differentiated ele-
ments, with a view to the production or conservation of structures. That is not
to say that values and structures are identical; a structure exists on the strength
of its own laws, which can be described in terms of algebra (including logic)
or topology without reference to speeds, forces or energies as working capacities ;

500 Jean Piaget
and this same structure can be desirable and indeed must be so for the subject
to take an interest in it, which then presupposes an intervention of affective
charges or ‘investments’, etc., i.e. of energy. From this second point of view a
further distinction has to be drawn between the choice of elements to be invested
(values of finality) and the quantities involved. Values of yield are then precisely
relative to this quantitative aspect if we admit by definition that a yield is
distinguished from a qualitative result by reason of the quantity produced or
expended (quantity of energy in the case of intra-individual ‘economy’ or tech-
nical production, conventional or accountable quantity in the case of commer-
cial exchanges).
2. Values of finality may give rise to a second dichotomy. Structures to
which these values are attached can be translated by rules which are to a greater
or lesser extent capable of logical expression, or which may remain at the level
of simple regulations. In the former case we may speak of normative values to
the extent that the value is influenced or actually determined by the norm,
whereas in the case of spontaneous and free exchanges we may speak of non-
normative values. As to the former, one may once more wonder whether value
and norm or structure are identical. But, once again, that is not the case since
the norm comprises its (cognitive) structure on the one hand and its value on
the other, the latter being as usual related to affectivity; we have seen (in section
8) that a moral norm is accepted only as a function of specific feelings of respect
which are a valorization of the person issuing instructions or of partners in a
relationship of reciprocity. A legal norm, on the other hand, is valorized only
as a function of an attitude of ‘recognition’ which is the valorization of a
custom or of a trans-personal relationship.
Non-normative values of finality extend to many diverse fields. In the first
place, they grow from individual interests to inter-individual sympathies and
to those in numerable exchanges which make up everyday social life, whether
these be exchanges of information, economically non-quantified services of all
kinds, politics, courtesy, etc. In addition they also include those valorizations
which occur in symbolic expression by means of gestures, clothes, words, etc.,
since systems of symbols or signs include - besides their strictly semeiotic laws -
a body of values which tend to either reinforce or diminish expressivity, as Bally
has shown with regard to what he called ‘affective language’.
3. Lastly, values of yield accompany all the foregoing but give rise to specific
valorizations which express themselves both in the internal energetic praxeology
of action (cf. in section IO the conceptions of P. Janet) and in inter-individual eco-
nomics dealt with by economic science. In both cases it is striking to note the
predominant importance of quantification as compared with the qualitative
nature of values of finality. In other words, as soon as there is a question of
yield, what counts is no longer the quality of the objective judged in relation to
a differentiated need (that need itself expressing either a gap or a momentary
imbalance in a structure which has to be completed or re-balanced), but the
quantum of the result obtained in relation to the expenditure required in order
to obtain it.

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 501
12. Regulations and operations relative to valorizations of finality
The concept of finality has a bearing on all the human sciences since there is
scarcely a form of human behaviour that does not involve intention. Yet we
know well enough that finalism has given rise to many difficulties and presented
a problem in biology until the formulation of present-day solutions which seem
to offer satisfaction, at least on the level of principles. Three phases may be
distinguished in this connexion.
During the first phase, which was of psychomorphic origin, finality seemed
to carry its explanation within itself as being a causal principle. Aristotle, who
attributed finality to all physical movement as well as to living processes,
separated ‘final causes’ from ‘efficient causes’, as though the existence of an
aim entailed ipso facto the possibility of attaining it, which presupposes either
a consciousness (within which the aim corresponds to an existing representa-
tion) or an effect of the future upon the present.
In the second phase, the unintelligible nature of this final cause led to the
concept of finality being broken down into its components, a causal explanation
being sought for each. Thus the concept of direction found its explanation in
processes of achieving balance, that of anticipation in the utilization of previous
information, that of functional utility in the hierarchic nature of organization,
etc. As to the central concept of adaptation, efforts were made to reduce it to
two concepts of fortuitous variation and of selection after the event, which re-
places finality by a set of tentative efforts (at the phyletic as well as the individual
level) directed from the outside through successes and failures.
The present phase, which is marked by very comparable schools of thought
in the sphere of the human sciences, results from the conjunction of three kinds
of influences. In the first place, while finalism has never supplied satisfactory
explanations, it has always excelled at denouncing the inadequacies of over-
simplified mechanistics. To explain the eye by hazard and selection is all very
well if one has plenty of time, but if it requires more generations than the age
of the earth will allow, as has been calculated on the basis of, if anything,
favourable postulates, it is best to search in other directions. Secondly, analysis
of phenomena - which always begins in an atomistic mood - leads in all spheres
of life to the unveiling of regulations; after the discovery of physiological
(homeostasis) and embryogenetic regulations, the notion was abandoned that
the genome is an aggregate of independent particles, and it was sought instead
to establish the existence of co-adaptations, regulator genes, ‘responses’, etc.
Thirdly and particularly, these organistic trends, which originated in part in-
dependently from mathematical models, were found to converge with one of the
fundamental discoveries of our age, that of the mechanisms of self-regulation
or self-direction studied by cybernetics. This was rapidly followed by the realiza-
tion of the possibility of supplying a causal interpretation of finalized processes
and of finding ‘mechanical equivalents of finality’ or, as one says today, a
‘teleonomy’ without teleology.
It is in this context, needless to say, that a certain number of trends are at
present evolving towards an analysis of regulations in the field of functioning

502 Jean Piaget
and values as well as in that of structures. But it should also be noted that in the
human sciences as in all others, but in the biological disciplines in particular,
efforts are directed first of all - and rightly so - towards the two extreme ends of
the range of phenomena, for it is the comparison between these extremes which
offers the best chance of understanding the whole range of mechanisms involved.
This pendulum action is particularly evident in economics. After limiting itself
in many cases to micro-economics, economic science - following the intuitions of
Quesnay and especially the conceptions of Marx - struck out on the path of
macro-economics, and the same is true of the differently oriented work of
Keynes. However, with operational research and econometrics there has been
a new trend to re-establish the micro-economic approach. In sociology, where
the degree of precision is naturally much smaller owing to the complexity of the
problems involved, we observe an instructive process of shuttling back and forth
between macro-sociology and micro-sociology. In the sphere of values of
finality it goes without saying that a double approach is needed, since while
global exchanges, etc., show irreducible aspects depending on overall mecha-
nisms, it is only in the sphere of elementary reactions and exchanges that we
may hope to witness the birth of valorizations and in certain cases to determine
their connexions with psycho-biological functioning.
In the sphere of normative values it goes without saying that moral facts are
studied principally from their psychological and micro-sociological angles,
especially as there exists no adequate method at the higher levels except where
societies are of limited dimensions, like those studied in cultural anthropology.
But even in fields where consideration of wholes would appear to be necessary,
as for instance in the sociology of law (since positive law is linked with the life
of the entire State down to its most individualized applications), there exists a
movement which has attempted the study of, as it were, micro-juridical process-
es. Thus, marginally to codified law, or at the point where it begins, Petrazycki
has analysed attributive imperative relations such as that the right of one part-
ner corresponds to an obligation for the other. This relation, which is distin-
guished from the moral relation (although less so than Petrazycki believes,
since while it is true that the moral obligation of a subject B confers no right
upon his ‘neighbour’ C, it nevertheless results from the right which A or C
had to issue instructions to him or to enter into reciprocity with him), is also
clearly distinguished from codified or structured legal order and thus charac-
terizes a kind of spontaneous or deontological juridical view which is interesting
from the viewpoint of mechanisms of valorization.
In the sphere of non-normative qualitative values the writer has attempted to
analyse the mechanism of the exchange which determines valorizations and its
relations with normative cons~lidations.~Q In any relationship between two individuals
A and B, what is done by one of them, say rA, is evaluated by the
other according to a satisfaction sB - positive or negative - which may be
conserved in the form of a kind of debt or psychological gratitude tB, the latter
for that reason constituting a credit or a valorization VA for A (process naturally
following a sequence rB, SA, tA and vB). A large number of circumstances may
of course prevent a balance in the form of equivalences r = s = t = v: over- and

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 503
under-evaluation, forgetfulness, ingratitude, using up of credit, inflation, etc.,
and especially discordances between momentary or durable individual scales of
values. Nevertheless the formula can be used to describe the most varied situa-
tions: sympathy between two individuals as based on a common scale and
profitable exchanges, a person’s reputation with or without inflation, real or
fictitious exchanges of services which affect credit in micro-politics, etc. Al-
though without practical interest, this type of analysis helps to establish two
small theoretical assumptions.
One is the often striking analogy between such processes of qualitative
exchange and certain elementary economic or praxeological laws. In the first
place it goes without saying that evaluations and reputations s and v are rather
closely subject to the law of supply an demand: the same average talent gives
rise to entirely different estimations in a small town, where it enjoys a certain
‘rarity value’, and in a more dense environment. Furthermore one finds here,
despite the absence of quantification, an equivalent of Gresham’s law (‘bad
money drives good money out’) in situations of crisis or imbalance where new
scales of values take the place of others and where reputations are readily in-
flated but fragile, etc.
Secondly, it is easy to see that the conservation of the virtual values t and v
(as opposed to the real or existing values r and s) remains partially contingent
so long as the exchange remains non-normative, whereas any course of action
launched in accordance with an obligation leads to new relationships imposed
by this structure (just as in economic exchange, cash sales involve few legal
relations while credit sales presuppose a greater measure of protection). Thus
the value t is eroded of its own accord through forgetfulness or ingratitude, etc.,
whereas the intervention of a moral sense of reciprocity leads towards conserva-
tion (the French word ‘reconnaissance’ means both spontaneous gratitude and
the fact of recognizing a debt or an obligation). The transition from spontaneity
to normative reciprocity is marked by a new type of exchange where there is no
longer simply an approximate correspondence between services and satisfac-
tions, etc., but substitution of points of view, that is to say access to decentred
or disinterested attitudes.
The above is only a small example of possible analysis. Many others can be
found in the current, highly lively work of American neo-functionalism already
referred to (Gouldner, Blau, etc.). Hence the sphere of qualitative values repre-
sents a fairly large potential area of comparative research, even including
transition from regulations to reversible operations. We have already seen (in
section 5) that this transition is under study in the structural sphere proper (cog-
nitive regulations and operations). There is no reason why the same should not
apply to the sphere of values, in terms of attractions or ‘investments’ of affective
charges, reciprocities and exchanges, in isomorphism with what is observed in
the case of structural regulations and operations. A first striking fact in this
connexion is the logical form assumed by scales of values - seriations, genealog-
ical trees, etc. - and authors like Goblot have attempted a ‘logic of values’.
But above all there exists a system of operations bearing not on the knowl-
edge of structures, but on the regulation of available forces, and the theory of

504 Jean Piaget
games has given it status under the name of ‘decision’: this is the will, the
explanation of which has never ceased to create problems and difficulties for
psychologists. Since W. James it has been generally agreed that the will is not a
simple tendency capable of isolation, unless confused with effort or intention.
The will intervenes when there is a conflict between a tendency which is judged
inferior and is momentarily the stronger (a specific desire, etc.) and a tendency
which is judged to be superior but is initially the weaker (a duty, etc.); the act of
will consists in reinforcing the latter tendency until it overcomes the former. A.
Binet concluded from this that there is a need for an additional force, and Ch.
Blonde1 suggested that this force derived from collective imperatives (a ques-
tionable solution since if such imperatives are sufficient to determine an action
there is no further need for the will, and if they are not sufficient the problem
remains intact). The solution would seem to be the following: a tendency is
neither strong nor weak in itself but only in relation to the context; so long as
that context is merely a matter of fluctuating adjustments bound up with the
perceptive existing situation, the lower tendency is likely to prevail; if the will is
interpreted as a reversible operation or as the extreme stage of normal energy
adjustments, the act of will can then be seen to consist in deflecting the subject’s
concentration from the existing situation (‘decentration’) so as to allow a return
to the permanent values of his scale. Hence having a will means being in posses-
sion of a scale of values sufficiently resistant to be referred to in the course of
conflicts. The analogy with intellectual operations (section 5) is e~ident.3~
I 3. Cybernetic circuits and economic adjustments
Values of finality play a very general part in all fields of the human sciences, but
unfortunately they are not always measurable for that reason. Values of yield,
on the other hand, are measurable by their very nature, and since economic
science is concerned with both types of values simultaneously, it is in this field
that the meaning of these two kinds of common mechanisms, active in all human
behaviour, can be most readily appreciated.
Generally speaking every value is the expression of the functioning of the
structure and every functioning is a flow subject to regulations, that term being
taken in its broadest sense to cover both the spontaneous processes of balancing
and intentional and systematic regulations such as economic regulations resulting,
for example, from a policy of stabilization or one of growth. Our problem in
this section is therefore to seek to identify the most general models of regulations
applicable to all spheres of values, and for this purpose to examine the
manner in which economists use the notions of cybernetic circuits to master
the complex systems of interactions with which they are confronted. This is not
to say, of course, that loop circuits (or feedbacks) are the result of the work of
economists; quite on the contrary, economists are only now beginning to take
an interest in the operational content of the theory of servo-mechanisms,~l not
merely as a result of intellectual inertia but owing to the difficulty of adapting
the complexity of experimental measurements to that theory. But the example

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 505
of economics is of particular interest, in the first place because of the convergence
between these models and classical concepts such as that of the economic
circuit and, secondly, because the generalized nature of economic mechanisms
is already becoming apparent, some of their central aspects recurring in the
fields of biology, psychology and even of linguistics.
The advantage of loop systems is that they confer a clearly defined status on
some of the innumerable situations in which concepts of interaction and circular
causality have to be substituted for the concept of a linear causal sequence. In
physics the principle of action and reaction, the existence of many systems which
retain their balance by compensation of the various equivalent efforts which they
allow, and Le Chfitelier’s law (or the law of equilibrium displacements in the
direction opposite to that of the initial disturbance) show the impossibility of
reducing certain forms of causality to a linear sequence pattern. In biology the
very fact of organization and its conservation through successive adjustments
involving on each occasion a set of gains and losses makes the consideration of
loop systems more and more indispensable, and even in the case of apparently
simple effects of an environment on an organism (phenotypical modifications
or selection with genetic effects) it is increasingly believed that the organism
chooses and modifies its environment as much as it depends upon it, which
suggests the relevance of cybernetic circuits. In the sphere of the human scien-
ces, where interactions are always accompanied by automatic or more or less
intentional regulations, the notion of circuits is even more obviously applicable
and it is becoming increasingly apparent that even the general pattern S- R
(stimulus-reaction) is itself circular in nature, for a subject reacts to a stimulus
only if he is sensitized to it, and he is sensitized to it only as a function of the
pattern which determines the response, without it being possible to interpret the
latter in turn independently of the habitual stimuli.
In the field of economics, which offers the advantage of allowing extensive
measurements, a certain number of notions which have gained currency pre-
pared the way for cybernetic models. Such a notion, for instance, is the some-
what intuitive one, but one essential to economic thought, of a ‘variable which
is self-influencing by means of other variables dependent upon it’. Such also is
the notion of the ‘economic circuit’, for instance in the relations between pro-
duction, consumption and investment, which constitute numerous cases of
circular causality. Such too are the notions of multiplicator and accelerator,
frequently used by economists, which can furnish examples of simple trans-
formations in a loop system.
Let us, for the sake of concreteness, give an elementary example (taken from
L. Solari) of the translation in feedbacks of an economic circuit. Let us suppose
that this model refers to a closed national economy (without exchanges with
other countries) and let us assume only three variables, as follows: Y(t) =
national product, eft) = global consumption and I(t) = global investment.
These variables are continuous functions of time (t) ; they represent monetary
flows within an interval t, t + dt. We then obtain the accounting relationship:
Yft) = I(t) + C(t)
which may be completed, e.g. by the introduction of the two behaviour laws

506 Jean Piaget
C(t) = c.Y(t) and I(t) = v - dY(t.J
dt
c and v being respectively the marginal propensity towards consumption and
the investment coefficient.
The former is a function of consumption of the most common type. The
second law translates globally the reactions to the investment decisions of
economic agents faced with variations in the national income: we have here,
in its simplest form, the well-known phenomenon of the accelerator which
‘repercusses’, as regards investment, the variations in the national income. This
elementary dynamic model may then be reduced to the differential equation
-=-- I-c I dY(t)
v Y(t) dt
the immediate solution of which, taking account of the initial condition
Y(o) = YO, is Y(t) = Yoopt with, for the sake of simplification,
p=-=--,
I-c s
v v
where S represents the marginal propensity to save. The rate of growth p,
normally positive, is therefore proportional to the propensity to save and in-
versely proportional to the investment coefficient. The model can then be
represented by the following diagram in which the circles represent variables
and the parallelograms represent the transformations undergone by them (in
the direction of the arrows):
Feedbacks may be recognized in the two loops of the diagram. The first trans-
lates the ‘multiplicator effect’: Y(t) is self-influencing through the agency of
C(t). The second translates the ‘accelerator effect’ : Y(t) is self-influencing
through the agency of I(t). Both effects are additi~e.3~
The method of which the foregoing is a concrete example offers two advan-
tages, one from the viewpoint of economic research itself and the other in that
it supplies a representation of mechanisms common to all the life and human
sciences (not only because loop systems are found in them all but also because
circles of production, consumption and investment recur in all fields of values
of finality as well as values of yield).
From the viewpoint of economic science (which, we repeat, can serve as an
example because, inter alia, of its infinite possibilities of measurement), patterns

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 507
such as the one we have just examined make it possible to carry out a logical
and causal analysis of the interactions involved, and there is nothing to prevent
this analysis from being extended to the consideration of more complex transfers
or of new feedbacks. In particular it is possible to add to the model we have
shown, which already relates to regulations in the general sense of the term, a
regulatory feedback in the limited economic sense (policy of stabilization, which
here would in fact be a policy of growth): it would be enough to introduce a
new variable G(t), such that Y(t) + G(t) + Y(t), making it possible to
modify the rate of growth p by the nature of the transfer achieved33 (the model
would of course have to be expanded to take account of delayed variations,
which play an essential motivating rBIe in economic regulations).34
The general significance of such models is considerable; in fact they represent
one of the most important common mechanisms in the field of values and even
in that of the build-up of structures.35
As for values, that is to say, as we have seen ( section IO), the rale of the affective
life in general, it is clear that the loops connecting production with consumption
or investment recur in the most widely different situations: all production,
i.e. all constructive action, is reinforced or held back by its own results, i.e.
by the consumer actions to which it gives rise; on the other hand it leads to new
affective ‘investments’ which reinforce the initial action or supplement it with
others. Thus we have here a very general mechanism from which the economic
models we have just examined differ only by their specific social characteristics
and by the remarkable degree of quantification to which they lend themselves.
As to the build-up of structures, this is closely linked to what we have just
called production in the general sense of constructive actions. From this it follows
that in all fields a structure which finally acquires a well-regulated or logicomathematical
nature (e.g. a ‘group’ structure) starts with a phase of simple adjustment,
i.e. of construction by trial and error whose corrections are effected
by means of feedbacks analogous to those described. Later, once the structure
has been sufficiently balanced, the play of reversible operations takes the
place of the initial regulations (as we have seen in section 5) : correction as a function
of the results alone is then replaced by an anticipatory pre-correction of
the actions in progress, and the loop system thus arrives at a system of direct and
reverse operations whose regulation is now identical with its constructive activity
(the values initially involved being thereby promoted to the rank of normative
values).
14. Synchronic and diachronic problems in the sphere of functions and values
We have seen (in section 9) that the normative structure achieves a condition of
equilibrium (with, or course, variable degrees of stability depending on the
relations between form and content: see section 8) as a function of a process of
development which itself constitutes at all stages a balancing in the sense of a
process of self-regulation. This self-regulation is to varying degrees inherent in
the actual production of the structure in that there are no constructive mecha-

508 Jean Piaget
nisms on the one hand and no corrective mechanisms on the other hand or after
the event, but that progressive organization - which construction consists in - is
at the same time a regulating one and therefore proceeds by balancing. We shall
see (in section 18) that a system of meanings, in contrast to this, shows a maxi-
mum of disjunction between the history of the sign-vehicles, on which their pres-
ent meaning depends only in part, and the synchronic balance of the system
which is relatively independent from diachrony. The system of functions, utility
or values lies halfway between these two extreme situations, and it is highly in-
teresting in the study of common mechanisms to note that this intermediate posi-
tion, from the viewpoint of relations between synchrony and diachrony, recurs in
all disciplines having an important functionalist dimension, from biology to
economics by way of psychology and sociology, in other words wherever a
distinction has to be drawn between present utility and historical filiation.
In the field of economic history, for instance, this intermediate situation
shows the following two characteristics. On the one hand one frequently finds
a bipolarity between the endeavour to explain some set of present (or in any
manner synchronic) facts by its previous development and the reverse approach
which seeks to interpret a set of historical events by general mechanisms con-
sidered to be ‘timeless’ and related to the laws of balance. But on the other hand
one finds in Marx and his followers a methodology which sets out to overcome
this duality of historical and supra-historical factors dialectically by resorting
to what might be called today a genetic structuralism in the sociological, psy-
chological and even biological fields.
As regards the duality of interpretations found in authors not influenced by
Marx, everyone agrees in assuming that major economic structures are ex-
plained by their history, whereas events related to current situations (such as
the cost of certain foodstuffs in the 13th or 16th centuries, referred to in section
2) are interpreted in the light of theories on the determination of prices which
lead to these mechanisms being considered ‘timeless and necessary’, by no
means because these prices do not vary but because their variations in historical
curves which are irregular in detail are held to depend on laws of balance re-
curring over a fairly wide range of social situations.
By contrast, the originality of Marx’s approach consisted in seeking to over-
come this conflict between structures and fundamental laws by regarding neither
as ‘eternal’ and subordinating both to an overall dynamic force. As regards
structures, Marx of course emphasized the temporary or historically transitory
nature of capitalism, whose laws were regarded as permanent by the classical
economists. But with regard to the laws of functioning, Marx made the very
basic point that these laws frequently begin to operate ‘in the pure state’ at the
stage of maturity of the system; thus a study of function at the terminal stages
would lead to an understanding of the history of the structure from which this
functioning proceeds. Hence the fundamental observation (in the Critique of
Political Economy) revealing the links between Marx’s methodology and
biological problems: ‘The anatomy of man is the key to the anatomy of the ape’,
which is to say that final states illuminate the process from which they result
as much as that process is necessary to the development of those states.

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 509
But this reference to biology, which stresses the very general nature of the
problem of relations between structural diachrony and functional synchrony,
leads us to enquire into the particular status of concepts of function, utility or
values in relation to structural development and, finally, to reflect once more on
the reasons why it is difficult to treat history as a nomothetic discipline.
In the field of biology an organ can change its function without that change
resulting from the previous history of the structure concerned: to borrow a
classical example, the fact that the swim-bladder of the Dipneusti now serves as
their lung is not due to the general historical factors which ensured the evolution
of the Invertebrates into Fishes, but results from unforeseeable changes in the
environment. It is therefore doubtful whether it wil ever be possible to create a
deductive model of the history of life which would supply the details of all
known transformations, whereas we may be permitted to hope for an ‘organicist’
model (see section IO) which would account both for the general characteristics
peculiar to living structures and for the major functions common to all
or almost all organisms, such as assimilation, respiration (except for viruses),
etc. But these ‘functional invariables’ are of variable content and are thus
differentiated in the course of their history, and that history, like all genuine
history, constitutes an inextricable mixture of deducible and contingent structurations
: whereas reactions to the contingent consist in regulations or rebalancings
which are intelligible after the event, the sequence of their succession is
nevertheless unforeseeable, and this makes the present functions of a sub-structure
relatively independent of its previous development.
The same applies in part to the sphere of human history, despite the corrections
implied in man’s twofold specificity, of having created a culture which
incessantly enriches itself because it is socially transmitted and of having a
reflexive intelligence which makes it possible to multiply rational behaviours
(despite their obvious limits in the common consciousness). It follows that although
certain historians would like to give nomothetic status to their discipline
by means of interdisciplinary fusion of the history of science and technology,
of economic, cultural and political history and of diachronic sociology, etc.,
the laws of development or functioning that could be derived therefrom might
nevertheless differ considerably, depending on the types of structure envisaged
and, consequently, on the varieties of possible relations between structures on
the one hand and of functions, utility or values on the other.
Were we to assume that we could adopt as one methodological ideal that of
genetic structuralism, which indeed seems to be common to many disciplines,
the fact nevertheless remains that the distinction between structures capable of
‘closure’ and structures as yet incomplete or destined to remain open for all time
imposes a series of differentiations which express themselves in particular in
the need to recognize several varieties of values depending on whether they are
normative or non-normative, etc. (sections IO and I I). C. Nowinski, an expert
in Marxist methodology, has pointed out, for instance, that ‘the kinship of
methods as between genetic psychology and Marx’s theory is sometimes surprising.
There remains, however, an important difference. For Piaget the notion
of balance as the central mechanism and necessary mainspring of the process of

5 I 0 Jean Piagel
development remains characteristic, although each state of equilibrium succeeds
the previous one by reason of the imbalances which engender it. For Marx,
conversely, the central mechanism of development is the continuous destruc-
tion of equilibrium, with all the methodological consequences which result’.36
The reason for this difference is strikingly obvious: the development of intel-
ligence culminates in completed structures in which functions and values are
entirely subject to the normative laws of internal structural transformations,
which means that such development is directed by equilibrations or self-regula-
tions leading to the ha1 balance; but biological, economic, political, etc.,
structures, being constantly open, cannot - because of the absence of closure -
involve such complete integration of function in the structural mechanism,
whence the historical role of imbalances which can actually lead to integrations
of structures.
This situation, peculiar to structures incapable of closure, explains the
relative independence of values connected with synchronic balance from the
diachronic formation of the corresponding structure. This is observed in the
case of certain crises (provided they are neither accidents of growth nor durable
disintegrations) where one may find abrupt modifications of economic, political,
or social values (reputation, personal credit) or of the affective values of an
individual. And it also accounts for the difficulty of characterizing sequential
stages (i.e. stages occurring in a necessary order of succession) in the social
sphere and the relatively small success of the ‘stages’ which Rostow believed he
had discovered in the processes of economic growth (from take-off to maturity).
The general problem in this respect consists in distinguishing a sequence of
transformations without organized internal development from a development
with sequential stages involving in particular what Waddington in embryology
called ‘homeorhesis’ (automatic return to the necessary trajectory in the case of
a deviation imposed from outside).
Such facts seem to demonstrate that functions andvalues are the more depend-
ent on history and diachronic explanation as they are better subordinated to the
corresponding structures. A system of values, on the other hand, obeys laws of
equilibrium or of present regulations which are the less dependent on the preced-
ing stages the less those values are normative, that is to say the less they are
conditioned by the structure alone and depend on exchanges whose external
conditions may vary. In other terms, the balance of these values does not in
such a case represent the final stage of a progressive diachronic balancing but
remains the synchronic expression of situations in part independent of develop-
ment; in this case there occurs only a succession of rebalancings whose laws
may be constant but whose contents vary, in part contingently and in part
cyclically.
IV. MEANINGS AND THEIR SYSTEMS
Every structure or rule and every value has meanings, just as every system of
signs has a structure and values. Nevertheless, the relationship of signifiant to

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 51 L
sign@ differs in kind from that of desirability (value) or the structural (or nor-
mative) subordination of one element to the whole to which it belongs. And this
relationship of meaning is again extremely general in scope, so that interdiscipli-
nary problems are as important in this sphere as in the previous ones.
I 5. Biological signalling and semeiotic function
Reactions triggered by indices or signals are to be found at almost all levels of
animal behaviour, ranging all the way from the simple sense-reaction of proto-
plasm in the unicellulars to the sense-reaction of the nervous system or its re-
sponses to meaningful messages. Moreover this type of meaning, linked to signals
or indices, is the only observable one in children until around 12 to 16 months
(sensori-motor levels) and it remains at work in regard to perceptions and motor-
conditioning throughout life. It was therefore necessary to begin by recalling the
r61e of this initial system of signalling.37
Index is the name given to a signifant which is not differentiated from its
signifiP (except by its signalling function), in that it constitutes a part, an aspect
or a causal result of that signifit: a branch protruding over a wall is an index
of the presence of a tree, and the tracks of a hare are the index of its recent
passage. A signal (like the sound of the bell which triggers the salivary reflex in
Pavlov’s dog) is only an index unless there is attached to it a conventional or
social significance (telephone ringing, etc.), in which case it is a ‘sign’.
In some higher primates and in man (from the second year) there appears a
set of signifiants which are differentiated from their sign$& in that they no
longer simply belong to the designated object or event, but are produced by the
subject (individual or collective) with a view to evoking or representing those
signifits, even in the absence of any immediate perceptive stimulus on their
part : such are symbols and signs, and semeiotic (or often, symbolic) function is
the term given to that capacity of evocation by differentiated signifiants which
then makes possible the construction of the image or thought. But there are
two levels still to be distinguished in these semeiotic instruments, although in the
normal child they all appear more or less at the same time (except as a rule in
drawing).
The first level is that of symbols, as the term is used by de Saussure in con-
tradistinction to signs: these are the signifiants ‘motivated‘ by a resemblance or
some analogy with their signif&. They appear in the child in completely spon-
taneous fashion with symbolic (or fictional) play, deferred imitation, the mental
image (or interiorized imitation) and the graphic image. The initial feature of
these symbols is that the individual subject can construct them by himself, al-
though their structuration usually coincides with language (except among the
deaf and dumb who add a new term - gesture language - to the preceding series).
Their common source is imitation, which begins as early as the sensori-motor
level, where it already constitutes a kind of representation, though only in
actions, and then goes on to deferred or interiorized imitations, whence the
preceding symbols.

5 I 2 Jean Piaget
The second level characteristic of the semeiotic function (a level which, until
we know more about it, would seem to be peculiar to the human species) is
that of articulated language, of which the two new features as compared with
the previous level are, firstly, that it implies social or educational transmission
and thus depends upon the whole of society and no longer on individual reac-
tions; and secondly that the verbal signifants consist of ‘signs’ and no longer of
symbols, the sign being conventional or ‘arbitrary’ as required by its collective
nature.
The first major interdisciplinary questions which such a picture raises are then,
firstly, to determine the common mechanisms and the antagonisms in and be-
tween various manifestations of the semeiotic function, but going right back to
the level of the significant indices and the currently known forms of animal
language; and, secondly, to determine their connexion with the development of
representation or thought in general, regardless of any possible or more partic-
ular relations between articulated language and logic.
The first of these demands collaboration between zoopsychology or ethol-
ogy, genetic psychology, the psychopathology of aphasia, deaf-mutes, the
blind, etc., and linguistics. Ethology has already built up a fairly substantial
body of material on the innate releasing mechanisms (IRM) which come into
play at the instinctual level and on the releasing mechanisms acquired through
learning. Von Frisch’s well-known studies on the language of bees have evoked
many reactions from psychologists and linguists (Benveniste), while Revesz
has undertaken some systematic comparisons of the ‘languages’ of vertebrates
and of man. The general tendency is to regard animal language as being based
not on systems of signs but on a ‘code of signals’ (Benveniste). For one thing,
there is neither dialogue nor the free composition of elements; for another, the
signals used are essentially imitative or mimetic (though it has not yet been
established whether there is already deferred imitation). Such imitative mecha-
nisms thus fall within the sensori-motor pattern, innate or acquired, and do not
yet correspond to a conceptualization; whereas in human language not only
does every word connote a concept, but the syntactical arrangement of the
words itself conveys information.
It is therefore tempting to look for the source of thought itself in sign language,
as indeed many psychologists and linguists believe. But although the system of
signs has undoubtedly one exceptional advantage on account of its constructive
mobility and of the considerable number of meanings which it is capable of
conveying, considerations of two kinds regarding the limits of its powers must
be remembered.
The first is that although language is a necessary auxiliary to the fulfilment of
thought insofar as the latter constitutes interiorized intelligence, it is nonetheless
activated by intelligence, which precedes it in its sensori-motor form; this is a
problem which we wil consider again shortly in connexion with the relations
between logic and language. But it must be remembered that, however collec-
tive language may be (in its structures, findings, penalties, etc.), it is bound up
in its functioning with individual intelligences outside of which its signifants
would have no signif& and whose sensori-motor pattern itself creates a multi-

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 5 I 3
tude of meanings (space-time patterns, permanent objects, causality, etc.) which
provide the sub-structure of verbal semantics.
Furthermore, the interiorization of the sensori-motor intelligence in image
or thought is not just a matter of language but of the entire semeiotic function.
In this respect psycho-pathological data are of great interest and much is
still awaited from co-operation between linguists, psychologists and neurologists.
Without going into the highly complex problem of aphasia, on which
much work is still being done but which has so many neurological incidences
that the language and thought factors cannot easily be isolated, it is interesting
merely to note the case of children deaf-and-dumb, or blind, from birth, but
otherwise normal. Among the former there is, of course, some delay in the
development of the intellectual operations as compared with children capable
of speech, but the fundamental Operations of classification, seriation, correspondence,
etc., are not missing at all up to a certain level of complexity, which
testifies to a pre-speech organization of those acti0ns.3~ Among blind children,
on the other hand, the delay appears to be greater because of the lack of a sensorimotor
control during the formation of the action patterns, and although
language makes good that lack to some extent, it is not enough to replace
general co-ordinations and depend upon the latter while their build-up is
necessarily retarded.
I 6. Linguistic structures and logical structures
The links between linguistics and logic are of unquestioned importance and are
still in process of fdl development, particularly as they impact upon longstanding
arguments between psychologists and sociologists.
This, it should first be noted, is no accident. The convergence between the
basic ideas of a linguistic doctrine like F. de Saussure’s and a sociological
theory like Durkheim’s is quite remarkable : language is a collective ‘institution’
transmitted from the outside and imposing itself upon individuals; any innovations
made by the latter must accord with common rules established before them,
and their initiatives are subject to the approval of the linguistic group, which
may reject or accept them, but in the latter case only because of needs related
to the overall equilibrium of the system, etc. Now Durkheim drew from his
ideas on the social totality the conclusion that the rules of logic are imposed by
the group upon the individual, in particular through language, the shaper of
intelligences and the holder of structures which are imposed from childhood
through education.
Current trends in social and cultural anthropology are moving in the same
direction, and we all know how much the structuralism of L6vi-Strauss has been
influenced by Saussurian linguistics and by phonology (Troubetskoy and Jakobson),
in that the system of meanings seems to him to throw light both on the
economic exchanges of tribal societies and on the relations of kinship, the latter
comprising a logic that is at one and the same time collective and a source of
individual manipulations (hence his opposition to LBvy-Bruhl’s pre-logic which
Durkheim also contested for similar reasons).

5 I 4 Jean Piaget
But these trends in linguistic sociology have come up against a completely
different tendency. The vast logical positivism movement (developed by the
‘Vienna Circle’) has attempted, while reducing experimental truths to simple
perceived facts, to make allowance for the logico-mathematical arrangement
of knowledge, but without seeing in it a source of truth in a strict sense: it
conceived of it, in the nominalist tradition, as mere language, while characteriz-
ing this linguistic status more precisely. R. Carnap began by proposing that all
logic should be reduced to a general syntax, which the natural languages would
reflect with various degrees of faithfulness but the exact image of which would
be supplied by the formalized language of modern symbolic logic. Tarski,
followed by Carnap, then showed the need for a general semantic system or
meta-language designed to establish meanings; and finally Morris, though not
with everyone’s support, proposed the constitution of a ‘pragmatic’ system,
though purely in the sense of the establishment of the rules of such ‘languages’.
These concepts have been applauded by a number of linguists and in the
Encyclopedia of Unified Sciences Bloomfield vigorously applauds the disappear-
ance of the naive idea that concepts must still be sought beneath the logical or
mathematical liaisons : nothing exists except the observable, perceived fact
and the system of signs, whether natural (current languages) or scientific, used
to describe or connote it.
Yet this dual sociological and linguistic movement (whose unity through
convergence is, however, still remarkable, despite the wide gap between the nor-
mative realism of Durkheim and the more or less conventional nominalism of
the ‘logical empiricists’) is in fact being contested, and in senses that are again
convergent but opposed to the previous ones, by a great deal of research now
being conducted by psychologists, linguists and logicians.
On the psychological plane the author for years has been trying (and these
studies are in full swing with the co-operation of linguists) to show that the
sources of the logico-mathematical structures are to be sought at a deeper level
than language, i.e. at the level of the general co-ordination of actions. At thelevel
of sensori-motor intelligence one finds indeed, in the make-up of the patterns of
action and in the co-ordination of those patterns, structures of interlocking
elements, of order correspondence, etc., which are already of a logical nature and
which lie at the start of future thought operations. Moreover, the operations
themselves are more closely connected with the interiorization and regulating
mechanisms than with the purely verbal influences. It is not until we reach the
higher levels that a logic of ‘propositions’ becomes possible in liaison with the
handling of hypotheses enunciated verbally; whereas a whole period of ‘concrete’
operations, i.e. operations bearing directly upon the object, points to the lasting
liaison between those operations and material action.
From the linguistic point of view it then becomes possible to carry out
precise experiments on the correlations between the linguistic structure of the
verbal expressions used by the child and the latter’s operational level; the results
of those experiments tend much more to prove that the language employed is
subordinate to the operational structures than vice-~ersa.4~
As regards that interminable ‘dialogue of the deaf’ between sociologists and

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 51 5
psychologists as to whether ‘universal‘ logic, meaning applicable to all individuals,
is superimposed on society or is only a product of it, the two opposing
contentions are in fact out of date, in that although logic is concerned with the
general co-ordination of action, that co-ordination is as much inter-individual
as intra-individual : and indeed, the operations occurring in cognitive exchanges
are found upon analysis to be the same as in individual constructions, so that
the former are as much a source of the latter as vice versa, the two remaining
inseparable by reason of their common biological roots.
On the other hand the linguists, while continuing their structuralist analyses
and in particular while attempting to formalize them as precisely as possible
in order to express the structural liaisons in a language based on algebraic and
sometimes even on physical methods, were far from ending up with a simple
logic, but discovered instead a series of structures sui generis and peculiar to
sign systems as such. This result is of two-fold interest, firstly because it shows
how a system of signs differs from a system of intellectual norms of truths, and
secondly because it brings up the problem of the relationship between the two.
And that relationship certainly exists, for while signs have their own laws, it is
also their function, within the active range of the subjects of the language, to
express meanings which are of a logical nature in varying degrees. It was in
this way that Hjelmslev, the linguist, came to propound the theory of a ‘sublogical’
level where connexions are formed between logical and linguistic coordinations.
It would seem very likely that analysis of that sub-logic would bring
us back io questions of co-ordination of action.
It must however be remembered, in particular, that linguistic structuralism,
which was essentially static with F. de Saussure, has become dynamic since
Z. Harris stressed the ‘creative’ aspect of language and since N. Chomsky discovered
his ‘transformational grammar’, which makes it possible to derive from
a ‘fixed kernel’, which he regards as innate, an indefinite number of terms in
accordance with precise rules of transformation (and in conformity with a
‘mono‘ide’ ordinal and associative structure). Now Chomsky attributes his
‘innate fixed nucleus’ to reason itself, which is the complete reverse of the
positivist position of the linguists (Bloomfield, etc.). One can, of course, without
in any way changing the purely linguistic aspects of Chomsky’s doctrine, query
his innateness of reason, since the sensori-motor intelligence which precedes
language is the end-product of a long structuration in which the hereditary factors
(which play a part everywhere) are far from being the only ones involved;
and H. Sinclair is currently trying to demonstrate that the constitution of the
‘monolde’ could be explained as the co-ordination of the sensori-motor patterns.
It is nonetheless true that, in the very sphere of linguistics, we have here a reversal
of the subordination of logical structures to language, thus opening up a
very broad field of experimental research to interdisciplinary collaboration
(psycholinguistics, etc.) in the study of questions which have hitherto mainly
been dealt with in a speculative fashion.
Furthermore, those logicians who, venturing beyond the problems of pure
formalization, look into the question of the relations between logical structures
and the activities of the subject, steer naturally in the direction of self-regulating

5 I 6 Jean Piaget
systems capable of taking account of the self-correction proper to logical
mechanisms. N ow cybernetics, which can supply such models, is a synthesis
of the information or communication theories and of the guiding or regulatory
theories. It is thus on this two-fold plane that a more natural relationship than
a simple and straightforward assimilation can be established between linguistics
and logic. On the one hand language is information, and various relationships
are conceivable between the praxeological aspects of the codes and their logical
structure. It was along these lines that L. Apostel studied language as a system
for the pre-correction of errors. Again, logical operations constitute the extreme
case of thought regulation, and there can be many intermediate stages, capable
of influencing the language, between the weakest forms of such regulation and
the strictest or operational forms. It can thus be seen how interdisciplinary
research, in this field also, is both necessary and promising.
17. The higher symbolisms
The general semeiology advocated by F. de Saussure provides, as we saw in
section 15, for systematic comparisons between the sign systems and various
symbolisms or signallings inferior in nature to articulated language. But it also
presupposes comparisons with what could be called symbolisms to the second
power, or of a nature superior to language, that is to say using language but
constituting ‘signifants’ whose collective meanings are ideological and situated
on a different scale than verbal semantics: such, for example, are the myths
folklore stories, etc., which are conveyed through language but each of which is
itself a symbol with a religious or affective meaning conforming to very general
semantic laws, as their surprising and frequently intercontinental dissemination
shows.
However, the problem is not an easy one to master or even to set. In a nomi-
nalistic conception of logic and mathematics, it could be said that any concept
or particular structure is still a sign which symbolizes, together with but in
addition to the words designating it, the objects to which it applies: thus the
notion of a mathematical ‘group’ would merely be a higher symbol whose
meaning would be reduced to the different displacements, physical states, etc.,
which can be described by it. In the operative sense, on the other hand, the
‘group’ or any other logical or mathematical concept constitutes a system of
actions impacting on the real, which are true actions even though interiorized
and which would therefore have nothing symbolic in themselves, the symbolism
coming in the arbitrary signs designating the operations but not in the opera-
tions as such.
If this latter interpretation is accepted, not all thought is necessarily symbolic,
but symbolism reappears in all forms of thought whose value is not linked to
its operative structure but to its affective content, conscious or unconscious:
in such an interpretation there is nonetheless an immense field of human produc-
tions, with the more or less individual ‘symbolic thought’ studied by the psycho-
analysts of different schools, the mythological and folklore symbols, the art

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 5 17
symbols and lastly perhaps certain forms of ideologies as they express momentary
collective values and not rational structures (each of these manifestations,
of course, being capable of ‘rationalization’ to some degree). It can be seen that
at these levels there is a substantial field of comparison open to a general semeiology
and that the latter, inspired by linguistic methods, would be no less essentially
interdisciplinary.
Freudian psychoanalysis, helped in this instance by Bleuler’s work on ‘autistic’
thought and followed by Jung’s dissident school, brought to light the existence
of an individual ‘symbolic thought’ visible in dreams, in childrens’ play
and in various pathological manifestations. Its criterion is that whereas rational
thought seeks adequation with the real, the function of symbolic thought is the
direct satisfaction of desires through the subordination of representations to
affectivity. Freud began by explaining this unconscious symbolism as camouflage
mechanisms due to repression, but later came round to the broader conception
of Blueler who, with his ‘autism’, explained symbolism as a centring
on the ego, and he pursued his research in the direction of art symbols. Jung, on
the other hand, quickly saw that this symbolism constituted a sort of affective
language and, as a result of large-scale comparisons with mythologies, came to
demonstrate the fairly universal nature of a great many symbols or ‘archetypes’
which he considered, without giving proof, as being hereditary, but which are
very widespread - which is quite another thing.
The link thus established between the more or less subconscious symbolism
which the psychoanalysts find in individuals and the mythological artistic
symbolism (one recalls the typical example of the Oedipus myth and ‘complex’)
is evidence that the laws of such a symbolism concern collective as much as psychological
realities. It therefore goes without saying that in the field of social
and cultural anthropology the direct study of mythical representations provides
a contribution of vital importance to this general semeiology at the level above
language; and when Lkvi-Strauss, for example, conceives of it in Saussurian
terms he thereby introduces into this vast and difficult field an indispensable
methodology which was only too lacking in the analyses of Jung and Freud.
Nevertheless that is merely the beginning of the work, for obviously laws
which are general at a certain scale of civilization must have some applications
in societies which are familiar with scientific thought. When K. Marx raised the
problem of the opposition between economic and technical infrastructures and
ideological superstructures, he brought up in doing so a considerable number of
questions regarding the nature and functioning of the various possible types of
ideological productions. To show how necessary it is to raise these questions, it
is worth recalling that one of the most determined adversaries of the Marxist
docrines, V. Pareto, brought into his sociology a distinction which was visibly
based on them: for it was Pareto’s view that social behaviour patterns are
governed by certain needs or affective invariants which he calls the ‘residues’;
but these - and this is the only point which interests us - are in fact manifested
not in naked or direct form but wrapped up in all manner of concepts, doctrines,
etc., which Pareto calls ‘derivations’. It is thus immediately apparent that these
‘derivations’ constitute an ideological superstructure, but one of an essentially

5 I 8 Jean Piaget
symbolic nature since it comprises essential and constant affective meanings
beneath a variable and secondary conceptual mechanism.
In this chapter, whose purpose is to seek out the common mechanisms and
to stress the interdisciplinary problems from a methodological and, particular-
ly, from a prospective point of view, mention must be made, because of its
highly significant implications, of the research bearing upon the symbolic mean-
ing of doctrines of intellectual form and affective content, since such research
constitutes a striking meeting-point between the possible extensions of a general
semeiology bearing upon higher-level symbolic systems and the sociological and
even economic analysis of Marxian inspiration. One remarkable example of
such meeting-points has been supplied by L. Goldmann in his studies on Jan-
senism, and our reason for choosing this example is that it forms one of those
somewhat rare cases in sociology where through theoretical research the
existence of a hitherto unknown fact - in this particular case the discovery of
an historicaI person but one overlooked by history -has been predicated. Gold-
mann explained Jansenism by the social and economic difficulties of the noblesse
de robe under Louis XIV: the complete withdrawal from the world preached
by the doctrine was thus the symbolic manifestation of an affective and col-
lective situation. But pure Jansenism, as reconstituted through this analysis
in terms of social symbolism, was not fully realised in any of the individuals
known to history (Arnauld, etc.), and it was therefore necessary to build up
the complete hypothetical Jansenist - unknown precisely because completely
consistent - who had directed the movement without being seen outside.
Having thus ‘calculated‘, so to speak, the existence of such a leader, Gold-
mann went on to find him in the person of the Abbd Barcos and proceeded
to demonstrate his effective and until then unsuspected r61e in history.
One can thus see the number of literary, artistic and metaphysical productions
which could emerge from such analyses, the syntactic and semantic aspects of
which remain essential even though the most difficult to distinguish, and whose
sociological and even economic aspects are obvious.
18. Diachronic and synchronic problems in relation to meanings
Comte’s sociology drew a distinction between static problems (‘order’) and
dynamic ones (‘progress’), but the Saussurian linguistic system was probably the
first to give a positive status to the relative opposition of synchronic and dia-
chronic considerations in the human sciences. The history of language and the
etymology of words do not explain everything, since the meanings of words
change, just as the function of biological organs may change, to meet the needs
created by the balance of the language as it is at a particular point of time.
Now, systems of meanings as relations between the signifant and the
signifie’ occupy a special position in regard to the connexion between syn-
chronic balance and diachronic transformations. As we have seen (paragraph
g), the maximum dependence between these two aspects is to be found in the
sphere of normative structures, because the evolution of norms - the operational

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 5 19
structures of the intelligence, for example - is a process of gradual equilibration :
this being so, the nearer the structure under consideration is to its state of
final closure (which, it should be added, in no wise excludes the possibility of
its being subsequently integrated into new structures) the more closely, of course
does the synchronic balance depend upon this same self-regulating process. We
have seen an intermediate situation (section 14) in the case of values, whose
dependence upon their history increases the more closely they are linked with
structures (normative values) and the less nearly they correspond to the needs
of a changing function. As for the ‘signifiants’ that operate in systems of mean-
ing, it is obvious that the more conventional or ‘arbitrary’ they are, the more
subordinate to the needs of the moment and the more independent of the pre-
vious history they wil be. It is therefore in these situations that we find the
minimum of relationship between present balance and diachrony. This can be
seen, for instance, in a system of artificial, technical signs such as mathematical
language. Fundamentally, the choice of signs such as AxB, A.B or AB to
express multiplication, or of any particular sign for other operations, depends
only on the conventions of the time, and not on the history of symbols, which
in any case comprises series of transformations that are explicable, but usually
linked to the very overall balance of the system at each period under considera-
tion; fidelity to the past may even be a disturbing factor rather than a useful
one, if it hinders the reorganization of perspectives, which would on the contrary
be facilitated by a new symbolism.
It is true that ‘signifiants’ can be divided, as F. de Saussure pointed out (and
Beirce earlier, although his method of classification does not seem so logical)
into motivated ‘symbols’ and arbitrary ‘signs’, and that there are transition
series between the two. The very notion of the arbitrary nature of the sign has
given rise to discussion, by Jespersen in the past and by Jakobson today. De
Saussure, however, appears to have answered these objections before they were
raised, by himself distinguishing between the ‘relatively arbitrary’ and the
‘radically arbitrary’. Broadly speaking, it does seem to be true that the word
used to designate a concept has not as close a relationship to it (relationship
between the phonic subject and the meaning of the idea) as the concept has with
its meaning and its content. Even if the verbal signs are sometimes accompanied
by symbolism (in the Saussurian sense of a relationship of resemblance or
motivation between that which symbolizes and that which is symbolized) and
even if, as far as the speaker is aware, there is nothing arbitrary about the word
(as Benveniste has pointed out), it seems obvious that the multiplicity of lan-
guages bears witness to this conventional nature of the verbal sign. Signs, more-
over, are always social (explicit or implicit conventions originating in usage),
whereas the symbol may have an individual origin, as in the symbolic games of
children, or in dreams.
The problem raised by linguists of the relationship between synchronic and
diachronic factors in the sphere of relations between structures and meanings is
very broad in scope, and to study it may help us to understand various inter-
disciplinary questions, such as those of the interpretation - which may be lin-
guistic or, on the other hand, operative and constructive - of logical and mathe-

520 Jean Piaget
matical structures. If we accept the nominalist hypothesis, according to which
these structures are a mere language used to express experiential data, the
relations between their syntax and their semantic should obey the general laws
that govern their synchronic and diachronic relations. And at first sight, this
indeed appears to be the case: syntactical rules are continuous in time, while
meanings vary. The theorems of Euclidian geometry are true today, even though
they have changed in meaning, mainly for two reasons: first, they do not seem
to us today to be the expression of a unique, necessary form of space, as Kant
still thought; we see them as one of several systems of measurement, and this
undoubtedly alters their meaning, enriching it, moreover, with all the possible
transitions between Euclidian and non-Euclidian structures; the other reason,
which is still more general, is that spatial forms do not appear to us today as
static figures, but as the results of transformations, so that each form of geome-
try is subordinated to a basic ‘group’ of transformations, and that these groups
give birth to each other in the same way as sub-groups can be differentiated
within a main group. But although these meanings depend, at every point in
history, on the synchronic system of knowledge under consideration at that
moment, they do not succeed each other at random, as if they were the result of
accidents or exogenous factors; proceeding by reflective abstraction from pre-
vious states of construction, new inventions which alter meanings are in line
with a progressive equilibration in which the synchronic balance is at once
the result and the starting-point of new constructive processes. In this respect,
therefore, the situation is considerably different from that of the ‘natural’
languages, in which synchronic balance is a question of re-equilibrations that
are governed by a great many external and internal factors.
This problem of the relationship between synchronic balance and diachronic
evolution gives rise to another closely allied problem - that of the nature of
the innovations which change human behaviour in the course of history and
necessitate re-equilibrations. Here we may identify three possible types of
innovation, which play a very different r61e in the relations of approximate
continuity or discontinuity between present equilibrium and previous equilibra-
tion processes. The first of these types of innovation is that of ‘discoveries’,
which bring to light what was already in existence, independently of the subject,
but which was not known or perceived before (for instance, the discovery of
America). Obviously, in such a case, the necessary re-equilibration, are not
determined solely by the previous states of the system. Secondly, we speak of
‘inventions’, when new combinations emerge as a result of the actions of the
human subject (without going back to what some biologists have called organic
‘inventions’ in relation to highly differentiated organs that are specially adapted
to a new situation). It is the property of an invention that, however well the
components that are combined may have been known (so that the innovation
is only a matter of making the actual combination for the first time), yet the
invention could have been a different one; to invent a new symbolism, for in-
stance, does not imply that others could not have been invented instead. It is
obvious that in such cases also present re-equilibrations and past history are
relatively independent. There is, however, a third type of innovation in human

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 52 I
behaviour, which can have considerable social significance ; it is sometimes
called ‘invention’ and sometimes ‘discovery’ in relation to logico-mathematical
structures or the structures of intelligence in general. Mathematical ‘invention’,
however, is not a ‘discovery’ (unless one is a Platonist), since it is a new combination;
the imaginary number d-1, for example, is the result of a combination,
made by Cardan, of the negative number and the extraction of the root. Nor
is it simply an invention, since once it is accomplished one must admit that it
could not have been different, and that it therefore arose of necessity from within
its own laws. It is in this third case (many examples of which are to be found
in the sphere of mental development, in the spontaneous formation of logical
structures) that synchronic re-equilibration depends closely upon previous evolution,
because diachronic constructions, even at that stage, were based on
progressive equilibration, and because the present balance is the (provisional)
termination of such a process..
V. CONCLUSION: THE SUBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES
As we saw in the ‘Introduction’, the social and human sciences have their own
series of epistemological problems. But there are two quite distinct types of ques-
tion to be considered in this connexion: questions concerning the research work-
er as such, or, in other words, those that are proper to the epistemology of his
branch of study as a particular form of scientific knowledge; and those that con-
cern the subject of study himself, who, since he is a human being, is a source of
knowledge and indeed the starting-point of all the knowledge - whether artless,
technical, scientific, etc. - available to the various societies, and which is the
origin of the human sciences. By grouping interdisciplinary problems around
realities - structures or rules, values and meanings - that are common to them
all, we have referred to the three great manifestations of the activity of this
natural subject; it remains in conclusion for us to see how the human sciences
regard this subject as a subject, for this is perhaps one of the most promising
points of convergence to be kept in mind for the future, although it has not yet
been sufficiently analysed.
19. The development of knowledge and the epistemology of the human subject
Al the social and human sciences are more or less closely concerned, in their
diachronic aspects, with the development of knowledge. The economic history
of human societies would not be complete without a history of techniques, and
the latter is of basic importance in relation to the growth of the sciences. Pre-
historical anthropology is an extension of these studies, and brings in all the
problems of the transition from behaviour involving the use of tools (which has
been studied closely among the Anthropoids) to techniques in the proper sense.
Social and cultural anthropology opens up extremely important questions
concerning the formation of group pre-logic or logic, as related to social and

522 Jean Piaget
family organization, economic life, myths and language. And this problem of
logic in tribal civilizations has by no means been solved; indeed, it requires not
only detailed psychological experimentation, which has not yet been developed
in this comparative form, but also careful comparison, in each society, between
practical or technical intelligence and discursive or merely verbal thought.
Linguistics provides us with basic material concerning the oral or written ex-
pression of cognitive structures such as numeration systems, classifications,
systems of relations and so on.
The two main branches of science, in connexion with the formation of the
tools of cognition - the sociology of knowledge and genetic psychology - are
complementary. The socio-genesis of knowledge shows us both the progressive,
co-operative construction of movements of ideas as they are transmitted and
developed, from one generation to another, and the effects of the numerous
obstacles that slow down or divert the progress of ideas. The historical sociol-
ogy of knowledge, for instance, which is bound to depend increasingly on the
history of ideas, sciences and techniques, should be able to throw light on phe-
nomena as momentous as the Greek miracle or the decay of Greek knowledge
in the time of Alexander, and it will at once be seen that this last problem, for
which the human sciences should provide some solution, cannot be solved
except by comparing economic and social factors with the inner evolution of
concepts and principles whose initial imperatives might furnish reasons for their
subsequent sterility.
Genetic psychology and comparative psychology (including ethology) are
far from dealing with such central facts, but their great advantage is that they
are concerned with series that are not so incomplete and, most important, can
be reproduced at will. An example of this is the construction of whole or ‘natu-
ral’ numbers. All the data collected by the foregoing branches of knowledge
show that the elaboration of such numbers is common in the different civiliza-
tions, and also that the levels reached differ widely, but none of these facts show
us the construction itself; we know only its results. On the other hand, although
a young child is surrounded by adults who teach him to count, and although
the form of expression he uses includes a system of numeration, yet one can
easily, by means of carefully-planned experiments, go back to stages where the
term ‘numbers’ cannot yet be used because numerical sets are not conserved
(5 items are not 5 if their arrangement in space is changed, and so on), and by
starting at such stages it is possible to observe the mechanism by which number
is constituted through purely logical operations, yet by making a fresh synthesis
of the operations of inclusion and arrangement in order. Such information, there-
fore, throws light on ethnographic and historical data, which would be super-
fluous if we could go back to the mental activity of prehistoric man - but that,
unhappily, is impossible in a sphere such as the origin of number. On the other
hand, information of this kind gives rise to fresh problems of logic, and not
only has this genetic construction been formalized (J. B. Grize and G. Granger),
but it has also been shown that, implicitly but necessarily, its essential aspects
were found in all the models elaborated by logicians concerning the transition
from classes or relations to numbers. Thirdly, it is instructive to compare such

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 523
facts with zoopsychological data as to the way in which animals learn about
numbers (experiments carried out by W. Kohler and others).
Another instructive example is that of notions of space, for which we have
ample ethnographic and historical data, but again insufficient information
about the way in which they were arrived at. But in this sphere we find a some-
what paradoxical situation as regards relations between history and theory. For
the history of geometry shows that the Greeks began by systematizing the
properties of Euclidean space in a remarkable way. They also had certain
intuitions about projective space, but did not succeed in establishing an analogy
or in evolving any really topological theory. Projective geometry did not emerge
as an independent branch of science until the seventeenth century, and topology
finally came into its own in the nineteenth century - at the time when non-Eucli-
dian geometries were being discovered. But from the standpoint of theoretical
construction, topology is the starting-point of the geometrical edifice, and from
it proceed projective geometry on the one hand and general metrics on the other
(whence the differentiation between Euclidian and non-Euclidian). Now genetic
psychology and studies of perception show that natural development is actually
nearer to theory than to history, the latter having inverted the genetic order by
starting with the results and only subsequently going back to the sources (a
common proceeding, which of itself demonstrates the value of comparisons
between psychological genesis and historical evolution). For on the one hand
the study of the formation of space structures in children shows that topological
structures precede the two others and are the pre-requisite of their formation,
whilst later on projective and Euclidian structures emerge concurrently. On the
other hand, Luneburg thought he could prove that elementary perceptive space
was Riemannian and not Euclidian (perception of parallels, etc.), which is
perhaps an exaggeration, but at least appears to show that there is an undifferen-
tiated situation from which Euclidian structures are only organized secondarily.
Many other examples could be given concerning the notions of time, speed,
causality and so on, and physicists have even been known to use the findings of
psychogenesis as to the initial independence of ordinal ideas of speed as related
to duration. Thus the facts that have been ascertained, taken together, show
that interdisciplinary collaboration is possible in the sphere of the epistemology
of the human subject in general, and that this epistemology of natural thought
links up with the great problems of the epistemology of scientific knowledge.
This is a special case of the study of structures (under 1), but it has a very wide
significance.
20. Re-combination through ‘hybridization’
The foregoing considerations show that the human sciences, in so far as they
necessarily include in their field of study the subject of knowledge - the source
of the logical and mathematical structures on which indeed they depend - do
not merely maintain a set of interdisciplinary relations between one another, the
need for which we attempted to demonstrate in Parts I-IV, but are part of
an extensive circuit or network that really covers all the sciences (this was clear

524 Jean Piaget
in any case owing to their relations with biology; cf. section 2). It was essential to
recall this so as to be able to shape our conclusions in such a way that they
might succeed in revealing the true significance of interdisciplinary relations.
For their significance far exceeds that of a mere tool for facilitating work,
which is all they would amount to if used solely in a common exploration of the
boundaries of knowledge. This way of viewing collaboration between specialists
in different branches of knowledge would be the only possible one if we admitted
a thesis to which far too many research workers still unwittingly cling - that
the frontiers of each branch of science are fixed once and for all, and that they
will inevitably remain so in the future. But the main object of a work such as
this, a work that deals with trends and not with results, with the perspectives
and the prospective study of the human sciences and not merely with their present
state, is rather to make clear that in fact the object of any innovatory trend
is to push back the frontiers horizontally and to challenge them transversally.
The true object of interdisciplinary research, therefore, is to reshape or reorganize
the fields of knowledge by means of exchanges which are in fact constructive
recombinations.
Indeed, one of the most striking features of the scientific movements of
recent years is the increased number of new branches of knowledge born precisely
from the union of neighbouring fields of study, but in fact adopting new
goals that impact upon the parent sciences and enrich them. We might speak
of a sort of ‘hybridization’ between two fields of study that were originally
heterogeneous, but the metaphor is meaningless unless the term ‘hybrid‘ is
understood not in the meaning it had in classical biology fifty years ago, when
hybrids were thought of as infertile, or at least impure, but as the ‘genetic recombinations’
of contemporary biology, which prove more balanced and better
adapted than pure genotypes, and which are gradually replacing mutations in
our conceptions of the mechanism of evolution. There are many fruitful hybridizations
in the natural sciences, from topological algebra to bi ophysics
biochemistry and the young science of quantum biophysics. A movement of
much smaller scope but comparable in spirit has produced several new branches
of study in the sciences of man and we may by way of conclusion describe these
hybridizations, trying to bring out their productive significance for the parent
sciences from which they sprang.
Those branches of knowledge which have come into being simply through the
refinement of mathematical or statistical methods and through being more
closely synthesized with experimentation should not be classified amongst these
new branches of knowledge born of re-combinations. Econometry, for instance,
may in one sense enrich mathematics, but solely because of the problems it produces
for mathematics to solve. The games theory was known to Emile Bore1
(1921-1927) quite apart from its applications to economics, and the mathematician
Von Neumann’s general theorem (minimum maximorurn) dates from 1928,
whereas his collaboration with the economist Morgenstern dates from 1937.
Nevertheless, as we have seen, the study of economic behaviour has established
valuable links with psychology and other sciences, and there is no need to mention
the numerous other applications of the games theory.

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 525
On the other hand, a genuine ‘hybridization’, with fruitful re-combinations,
is that of psycholinguistics, for it enriches both psychology - obviously - and
linguistics itself, inasmuch as only this new branch of science leads to systematic
studies of the individual’s use of language, which, on the contrary, is institutionalized.
Doubtless much, too, may be expected from ‘sociolinguistics’, in which
Greenberg and others have undertaken studies combining linguistics and sociology.
Social psychology is as useful to sociology as to psychology, on which it
confers a new dimension ; and while social psychologists sometimes display
that kind of imperialism that is the mark of a science in its youth, it is also a sign
of independence and an augury of syntheses to come.
Ethology, or zoopsychology, is today undertaken by professional zoologists
as much as - indeed, more than - by psychologists, and it unquestionably enriches
biology (especially with regard to the theory of selection, by showing that
the animal chooses and fashions his environment as much as it is conditioned
by the latter), while at the same time it makes a uniquecontribution to psychology,
in particular in the analysis of the cognitive €unctions (instinct, learning
and intelligence).
The author must be forgiven for laying equal stress on the experiment undertaken
in genetic epistemology in the last ten years or so, or the study of the formation
and building up of knowledge. In the study of the development of logical,
mathematical, kinematical and other structures, the international centre set
up for this purpose in Geneva has always encouraged psychologists to collaborate
with logicians, mathematicians, cyberneticians, physicists and so on. Now,
genetic epistemology is on the one hand a new branch of science, which results
from the hybridization of epistemology (especially in its ‘historico-critical’ methods)
and geneticpsychology. And it serves both at once, for, as the logician S. Papert
has said, in order to understand man we must know something of epistemology,
and in order to understand epistemology we must have a knowledge of man.
In a sense, therefore, the situation of these new and essentially interdisciplinary
branches of science confirms what was said (in section I) about situations
in which the link between a ‘higher’ (in the sense of ‘more complex’) and
a ‘lower’ field results neither in a reduction of the first to the second nor in
greater heterogeneity of the first, but in mutual assimilation such that the second
explains the first, but does so by enriching itself with properties not previously
perceived, which afford the necessary link. In the case of the human sciences, in
which there can be no question of growing complexity or of declining generality,
because all aspects are to be found everywhere, and because delimitation of the
different fields is a process of abstraction rather than a question of hierarchy,
mutual assimilation is still more necessary and there is no danger of vitiating the
specificity of phenomena. The difficulties, however, are considerable. But, apart
from the difference between various forms of university training, which is undoubtedly
the main obstacle to be overcome, the common logico-mathematical
tcchniques that are gradually coming into general use are at once the best indication
of the convergence that is called for and the best means of effecting a junction.

526 Jean Piaget
NOTES
I. See N. CHOMSKY, Cartesian Linguistics.
2. See the ‘Introduction’, 6, IV.
3. It is worth mentioning, though, that F. de Saussure took inspiration from economic
doctrines of equilibrium when founding his synchronic structuralism. But he
might just as easily have based his distinctions on that between organ and function
in biology.
4. For instance, Schmalhausen.
5. In this connexion cf. J. F. BERGIER and L. SOLARI, Pour une mdthodologie des scien-
ces dconomiques, Geneva, Librairie de l’Universit8, 1965, p. 15, where J. F. Bergier
refers to ‘a verification of the mechanisms of price formation insofar as these are
timeless and imperative’, an opinion on which Chapter IV shows that economists
are not always in agreement.
6. On the contrary, it is clear that different degrees and types of balancing or controls
giving a direction must be distinguished. Soviet authors, while emphasizing that
the mechanisms of retroaction are an indispensable attribute of the higher degrees
of organization of structures, maintain that ‘plan regulators’ are necessarily ac-
companied by ‘regulators of statistical structure’,, which are not identical with
them (see Y. A. LEVADA, ‘Knowledge and Direction in Social Processes’, Voprosy
jilosofii 5, 1956).
As for the problems of typology in general, they are studied closely in economics
and linguistics, less effectively in psychology and sociology. But it is doubtful whether
they could lead to interdisciplinary research at the present time (except in econom-
ics and sociology), for the ‘types’ differ considerably from one field to another.
7. For this comparison see J. PIAGET, Le structuralisme, Paris, P.u.P., 1968.
8. If the human subject or the social group were more than centres of functioning, if
they constituted a ‘structure of all the structures’ (which is impossible both because
of the known categorical antinomies and because of the theorems on the limits
of formalization), they would merge with the ‘transcendental subject’ of G priori
idealism.
9. This does not mean, as just stated, that consciousness is cause, since it remains
parallel to its physiological concomitants ; but it involves systems of meanings
mutually connected by implications, in isomorphism with the sequences of neu-
rological causality.
IO. B. PEKLOV, ‘Weber Norminferenzen’, Logique et Analyse 28, 1964, pp. 203-211.
11. 0. WEINBERGER, ‘Einige Betrachtungen iiber die Rechtnorm vom Standpunkt des
Logik und der Semantik‘, Logigue et Analyse 28, 1964, pp. 212-232.
12. It should be noted in particular that these trends of relational structuralism show
considerable similarity with those of research in epistemology and methodology in
the works of a certain number of Soviet authors (V. I. Kremyanski, Y. A. Levada,
G. P. Chtchedrovitski, V. N. Sadovski, V. A. Lektorski, E. G. Youdine, etc.).
13. True, one may wonder what the term ‘operation’ signifies in a social system. But
if we define an operation as an action which is capable of interiorisation, reversible
and related to other operations within an overall structure, it is clear that opera-
tions occur in all inter-individual actions which are not based solely on relations of
force or authority and in all collective actions where norms apply, in short wherever
a trace of rationality can be found in a social system (which is by no means excep-
tional).
14. When we say ‘translated in the consciousness’ this means that the causality involved
should not be sought within the consciousness but in the underlying structures of
which the subject’s consciousness knows only the results, which he translates into
terms of implications (see the end of section 3).
15. A ‘normative fact’is the establishment by the sociologist (in sociology of law, etc.)
of the fact that the subject recognises a norm as binding upon him; by establishing

General problems of interdisciplinary research and common mechanisms 527
this fact the observer merely notes it without himself adopting any position normatively,
i.e. without evaluating the norm of the subject under study.
16. This example is already quoted in the ‘Introduction’, 3, IV but from a different
point of view.
17. The r6le of language in colour perception has been studied but the effect is arguable.
Bruner and Postman’s celebrated experiments on estimations of the diameter
of a dollar coin or of any disc, varying with the subject’s economic level, have
not been generally confirmed and are moreover open to other interpretations
(centration effects) in those cases where they may possibly have been verified.
18. Exception should be made for N. Chomsky who believes that grammars have an
‘innate fixed nucleus’; but one is entitled to wonder from the psychological point
of view whether the rational fixed nucleus does not result from the balancing of the
sensori-motor mechanisms whose constitution precedes language and is only
partially programmed by heredity.
19. Cf. the problem of ‘r61e conflicts’ (N. Gross, etc.).
20. Cf. inter alia ‘La theorie de l’argumentation. Perspectives et applications’, Logique et
Analyse, nos. 21 to 24, 1963.
21. We should mention the important and still lively movement created by Petrazycki,
to which we shall refer in section 12.
22. This problem coincides with one of the aspects of the question of relations between
logic and history as they are formulated in Marxist literature: the relation of historical
continuity in the formation of a system with structural dependence within the
system under consideration (this as a reaction against the ‘unhistorical’ approach
still so frequent in certain disciplines).
23. Cf. inter alia the collective work edited by T. PARSONS and E. SHILS, Toward a Theory
ofAction, in which a number of ethnologists, sociologists and psychologists collaborated.
Cf. also the comparative essay by Clyde Kluckhohn defining the r6le of
the notion of value in various disciplines (as well as the many definitions proposed
by the authors).
24. In the present-day mathematical sense function is defined as an ‘application’ or an
oriented couple, which psychologically makes its origin go back to the general
patterns of action. Cf. Episte‘mologie et psychologie de la fonction, Etudes d’Epist6mologie
gknetique, vol. XXIII.
25. Mention should also be made of the conception of ‘systems’ of a group of researchers
from the Case Institute of Technologyin Ohio (M. Mezarovitch, R. Akkof, D.
Fleming, etc.), the theory of systems developed by L. Zade (a much wider class essentially
of a technical nature), the conception of 0. Lange, and the numerous works
of theoretical research in relation with ‘man-machine’ systems (e.g. within the
framework of the System Development Corporation of California).
26. This does not mean that the translation of processes into cybernetic language automatically
allows the mathematization which might be hoped for from that language;
however, the fact that questions are formulated in qualitative terms of
interactions may in itself constitute an advance because it means a liberation from
one-way forms of causality.
27. pathology is not merely a matter of affective aspects. Let us make clear that while
affectivity as energetic functioning can naturally be the cause of accelerations or
retardations in the formation of structures (since energy affects speed among other
things), this does not mean that it intervenes causally in the structure as such, or
vice versa.
28. Cf. primary and secondary utility as distinguished in section 3.
29. See J. PIAGET, Etudes sociologiques, Droz, 1965, pp. 100-142.
30. It is not within the scope of this chapter to discuss the general problem of measurement.
In section 4 of the ‘Introduction’ we stressed the absence in the human
sciences of units comparable to those available in physics. In the sphere of values the
difficulty is overcome by the establishment of various scales (ordinal, superordinal,
etc.), examples of which may be found in Variations in Value Orientations by F. R.

528 Jean Piaget
KLUCKHOHN and F. F. STRODTBECK; their significance may be ascertained by
reference to the well-known works of Stevens who, in psychology, has endeavoured
to construct a kind of subjective psycho-physics.
31. Avant-garde schools, such as the Polish school, being of course duly excepted.
32. Without wishing to refer here to the mathematical aspects of feedbacks, we may
recall that in the case of this simple model the transfer function is in the form
F(p) = where p = a+iW and for the ‘free variations’ of the system F(p) = I,
S
hence W = o and a = - in the absence of sinusoidal fluctuations. The latter
would appear if delayed reactions between variables were introduced.
33. Supposing that G(t) represents State demand (negative in the case of subsidy), one
dY(t)
would obtain, for example, C(t) = -g. -or g > 0, which would constitute a new
dt
feedback allowing the rate of growthfto be increased in the form p‘ =
34. Let us note further that H. A. Simon (‘On the Application of Servomechanism in the
Study of Production Control’, Econometrica 20, 2, 1952, pp. 247-268) has tried to
formulate, in situations of a dynamic kind, decision criteria enjoying certain properties
of stability. He thus arrived at a loop system making it possible to determine
qualitatively a criterion whose intuitive meaning is immediate: the rate of production
must be increased or diminished proportionally to the deficit or surplus of
effective stocks as compared with optimum stocks and proportionally to the variations
of that deficit or surplus.
35. Cf.,inter alia H. A. Simon’s well-known formalization of Festinger’s experiments on
communication in small social groups.
36. Logique et connaissance scienti’que (EncyclopBdie de la Plkiade), pp. 879-880.
37. It should even be remembered that biologists speak of the transmission of information
as early as the genome level, the signifiant then depending on the order of
the sequences in the DNA code (Watson and Crick).
38. And collectively as well as individually pre-speech, for among themselves the
young deaf-mutes build up a language of gestures.
39. See H. SINCLAIR, Acquisition du language et ddveloppement de la pensde, Dunod,
1967.
v-g

CHAPTER VI11
Mathematical models and methods
RAYMOND BOUDON
INTRODUCTION
It would be impossible to deal in a single chapter with trends in methods and
models used in the human sciences without first carefully defining the limits of
the subject.
This being a general chapter inserted into a scheme comprising a series of
chapters on single disciplines, there can be no question here of supplanting the
specialists. Chapters on trends in economics or psychology cannot dispense
with their own descriptions of the methods and models used in their disciplines.
That it has nevertheless been felt necessary to include a general chapter on
models and methods in the human sciences is because, in this domain, methodo-
logical intersection between disciplines are frequent. Thus it can be said that
elementary statistical methods are common to all the human sciences, while
others such as stochastic process theory, though not introduced to the same
degree in all disciplines and not used in the same way in, say, sociology and
psychology, are tending to attract the attention of all disciplines.
The problem was, however, to trace, apriori, a frame of reference which could
serve to distinguish the methods and models of general interest - or more pre-
cisely, the interdisciplinary methods and models -from the rest. It was felt that a
convenient dividing-line was provided by the distinction between the methods
and models which were respectively mathematical and non-mathematical.
Of course one should not attribute any absolute validity to this distinction.
Obviously, for instance, interview methodology, in which mathematics plays
little part, is interdisciplinary in a high degree since it is of interest to econo-
mists and demographers no less than to psychologists and sociologists. Converse-
ly, it would be easy tQ quote mathematicalmethods which are specific to partic-
ular disciplines. All that can be said, then, is that the mathematical methods
and models are more often interdisciplinary in character than non-mathematical.
That being so, it is important to note that the distinction is used essentially for
convenience, and that no absolute value should be ascribed to it.
Within these limits, the intention in this chapter is not - be it repeated - to

530 Raymond Boudon
tabulate the uses of mathematical models and methods in one or another disci-
pline, nor even to exhibit the trends characterizing the use of such methods in
the contexts of the individual disciplines. For this reason, the reader should not
expect to find in this chapter a survey of the applications of mathematics to
economics or to sociology for example.
What will be found below is rather an exposition of the trends marking the
applications of mathematics in the human sciences as a whole. In citing examples
of method borrowed from this or that discipline, the intention will be illustrative
rather than to give an exhaustive picture of the applications of mathematics in
the discipline concerned.
It is therefore important to keep in mind that the examples I shall give will not
reflect the relative extent of the recourse to mathematical methods and models
according to discipline. No one doubts that economics is a much more mathe-
matical science than, say, sociology. Nevertheless rather than citing a plethora of
examples to stress the economists’ recourse to mathematics, and corresponding-
ly neglecting the more recent efforts of the sociologists or psychologists, I have
not scrupled to try to draw about equally on each discipline.
One last word to conclude these preliminary remarks on the scheme followed
in this chapter: in the first part, I deal briefly with the traditional uses of mathe-
matics in the human sciences. In this part the sole intention is to enable the
reader to make a better appreciation of developing or confirmed changes (notably
since the second world war). In the second part I shall deal with the major
trends characterizing the use of mathematical models and methods in recent
years. The third part will present a typology of mathematical methods and
models, its essential purpose being to describe more in detail their applications
in the human sciences, analyse the diversity of scientific functions they may have
and identify the trends which seem to be appearing. The fourth and last part will
be devoted to summing up the situation and plotting the lines of future develop-
ment as far as possible, with the present state of the methodology as the point of
departure.
I. THE TRADITIONAL USES OF MATHEMATICS IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES
The application of mathematics to the analysis of human phenomena is no
recent development. W e have Buffon’s work on moral arithmetic, and Con-
dorcet’s on the problem of the general interest. But it is only since a compara-
tively recent date that there has been a continuous development of mathematical
research over the whole range of the human sciences. Of the latter disciplines,
some were early and some late starters. Economics and demography are un-
doubtedly the first two disciplines to have given rise to mathematical research
with a degree of continuity. In either case it is difficult to date the shift, but for
economics it may perhaps be put in 1838, the year in which Cournot’s Essai
sur la thkorie des richesses (Essay on the theory of wealth) appeared. In effect,
the Essai was the first work on economic theory to be expressed in the language
of mathematical analysis and before it there had been little more than occasional

Mathematical models and methods 531
recourse by economists to algebraic methods, mostly elementary, as in the work
of Canard in France or Whewell in England.' However Cournot's example long
remained unfollowed and criticized, and accordingly it is perhaps more prudent
to date the birth of mathematical economics from the work of the Lausanne
School of the 1870s which is associated with the name of Walras and Pareto.
With these two and Marshall in England we get the start of a tradition which was
indeed to be widely criticized until a recent date but was to prove viable.
It is perhaps even more difficult to date the emergence of a mathematical
methodology in demography, inasmuch as this discipline, since its beginnings,
has run in double harness with biology. In point of fact the work of men like
Verhulst, who formulated the logistic law, Poisson, who gave his name to a
law basic to the analysis of rare events (like accidental death), Bortkiewicz,
QuCtelet, Lexis and others, most often stemmed from consideration of the
statistical data supplied by demography. But it is more correct to say that since
the work of Laplace there has been a tradition of research into typical statistical
distributions, and that its pabulum has been statistical data drawn, indeed,
from demography, but also from biology and sociology. For the work of these
savants brings in not only vital and accident,but also epidemiological and crime
statistics.
What is certain is that demography and economics were the first of the human
sciences to use mathematical methods in a systematic way.
They were followed by psychology. Although in fact there was some use of
mathematical methods in this discipline as early as the last years of the nine-
teenth century, the instances are few, and the mathematics rudimentary:
Weber-Fechner's law is perhaps the only example worth remembering in the
nineteenth century. It should indeed be conceded that this law can be regarded
as the first instance of a scientific tradition with which the names of Spearman and
Thurstone are associated. In fact the first problem sector which elicited a corpus
of cumulative mathematical researches was the mensurational, beginning with
psycho-physical measurement and going on to psychological measurement
thereafter. In this sense, Fechner and Spearman, who wrote his fundamental
article in 1904," may be considered to be the precursors of the mathematical
theory of measurement in psychology. This theory may be regarded as finally
established from the time of Thurstone's work on these problems between 1920
and 1930, and the foundation of the Psychometric Society in 1935.
As the theory of economic equilibrium long dominated mathematical eco-
nomics, so the theory of tests and psychometrics long remained the only branch
of psychology where mathematical research really took hold. Thus it was not
fortuitous that most work in mathematical psychology was until recently pub-
lished in the review Psychornetuika, the journal of the Psychometric Society.
Sociology is undoubtedly the discipline which w2s most grudging in accepting
the use of mathematical methods. But here as in other disciplines, we have a
multitude of studies dating back to the nineteenth and even the eighteenth cen-
tury. Buffon's moral arithmetic and Condorcet's research on vote-counting
operations have already been mentioned. There are also Laplace's researches on
the applications of probability calculus to the decisions of legislative assemblies

532 Raymond Boudon
and Cournot’s on those of the law courts. And it must not be forgotten that
the works of statisticians like Poisson, Lexis or Quktelet were born of reflec-
tion on statistical distributions often sociological. Even so, it can be reckoned
that it is only recently that well-established traditions of mathematical research
have developed in sociology, previous to which this discipline has nothing to
show which is comparable with the work of the economists on equilibrium
theory, or that of the psychologists in psychometrics.
If we had to fix the birth-dates of modern mathematical methodologies in the
main human sciences, then, it would have to be the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury for economics, 1g20-1g30 for psychology, and the years following the
Second World War for sociology. In this respect ethnology is probably in the
same situation as sociology.
The history of the applications and uses of mathematics has been more
agitated in the human than in the natural sciences. As there is some doubt as to
whether the modern methodology has completely ironed out the difficulties of
the pre-modern period, it will be as well to give a brief account of the charac-
teristics of that period’s mathematics.
A very striking feature is that for a long time there were three quick separate
types of mathematical approach to human phenomena, with no meeting point
in very many cases. Thus from the very first attempts at a mathematical ap-
proach worth mentioning we get a situation extremely different from that charac-
terizing the natural sciences generally, and physics in particular since Galileo.
Specially notable in the applications of mathematics to the human sciences is
the divorce between the theoretical and the inductive approaches: at the risk of
oversimplifying, it could be said that for the most part the theoretical approaches
remain mostly speculative while the inductive do not embody theoretical
propositions. This situation, which sharply differentiates the methodologies of
the human and the natural sciences, is indisputably typical of the ‘pre-modern’
period. But it is by no means certain that the snag has been completely overcome
even today.
The three types of mathematical approach to human phenomena distinguish-
able throughout the whole pre-modern period are as follows:
a. To begin with, we find a biform theoretical tradition which may be
either normative or speculative. There is a plethora of examples of the normative
theoretical tradition at the end of the eighteenth century in France: the mathe-
matics of Buffon, Laplace and Condorcet are all ethical mathematics. They
reason upon choosing the best lines of action, on the means of regulating the
functioning of juries so as to avoid judicial errors, on the manner of analyzing
voting figures for optimum service of the general interest, etc. In other words,
the earliest applications of probability calculus are aimed at immediate utility :
their point is to direct action. This form of mathematics can, if one wishes, be
deemed to prefigure what today is called operational research.
Alongside this normative tradition, there emerge, rather later, with Cournot
in particular, mathematical theories which can be rated as speculative to the
extent that usually no concern is shown to check them against experience or
observation. Their function is more to analyse the consequences of the axioms

Mathematical models and methods 533
with whose aid writers endeavour - usually on highly idealized lines - to express
real situations.
This twin tradition was mostly the work of professional mathematicians. It is
anything but dead today. It has, for example, an heir in game theory, which is
an attempt at a mathematical analysis of the rationality of decisions in compet-
itive situations. Similarly, in sociology, we have Rashevsky’s theory of imita-
tion, which analyses highly simplified imitation mechanisms. Though using the
most classical of mathematical tools this theory exhibits a degree of formal
complexity which is far above the elementary level. However, it figures situa-
tions showing so little correspondence with those of real life that it is almost
unanimously regarded as an exercise in pure mathematics, for which the social
reality is no more than a pretext. Of course, Rashevsky cannot be considered a
typical example.
Any theory, whatever it be, must have recourse to idealized and simplified
descriptions. The result is that the simplification can be overdone to a greater
or lesser extent, and the usefulness of the theories can vary. Hence the contrast
between game theory, which is a ‘live’ theory, and Rashevsky’s theory which we
can reckon is already forgotten after a brief life of IO years. Nevertheless,
Rashevsky’s case does serve the useful purpose of underscoring one basic
difficulty: the human and social sciences yield case after case of models con-
ceived on such idealized hypotheses that it is hard to see what scientific
function they can fulfil.
b. The second traditional approach is one whose products would now be
regarded as belonging to the domain of mathematical statistics. As we have
seen, this is a longstanding tradition which goes back to the last years of the
eighteenth century, since it is associated with the name of Laplace. Apart from
Laplace, the chief pioneers in this domain are - as we have seen - Verhulst,
Poisson and Lexis. This traditional approach is inductive: having observed that
the distribution of a given phenomenon presents a particular set of characteris-
tics, the investigator begins by working out mathematical expressions of the
hypothetical mechanisms which he guesses to be operative in the process, and
then inquires whether the distribution deducible from them is comparable to
that observed.
By way of example let us take Verhulst’s concept of logistic distribution,
worked out to explain the propagation phenomena of epidemics. It had been
observed that in drawing the graph of proportions of infected individuals as a
function of time elapsed, the result was a characteristic curve like a stretched-
Figure I

534 Raymond Boudon
out S and for this reason sometimes called an S-curve (Figure I), with the infec-
tion spreading very slowly at first, becoming progressively faster up to a maxi-
mum rate of spread when 50 % of individuals are infected, and then progres-
sively slowing down to give a curve symmetrical with that for the first half of the
process. To explain this distribution, Verhulst used a very simple hypothesis:
he assumed that the increase in the proportion of individuals infected in a given
unit of time varied with the proportions respectively of the carriers of the in-
fection and of infectible individuals at the moment under consideration. Ex-
pressed symbolically, this gives us the relation
--
dpr - KP, (I-Pt),
dt
in which P, is the proportion of infected subjects (carriers) at time t and, ob-
viously, I -Pt the balance of uninfected and hence infectible subjects. Without
integrating the above equation, it is easy to see that the curve ‘which gives the
proportions of those infected as functions of time must follow the development
described in the previous paragraph. At the beginning of the process PI is very
small. It follows that dP,/dt is also small and the rate of infection is low. Natural-
ly the rate increases in proportion as Pt increases, reaching its peak rate when
P, = I -Pt, i.e., when 50 % of individuals are infected, since the product of
PI (I -PJ is greatest when the two quantities are equal. Furthermore, it is easy
to see, in view of the symmetrical r6les of the quantities P, and I -PI that the
two parts of the curve on either side of the point corresponding to the attain-
ment of equality between Pt and I-P, are symmetrical.
The deduction of logistic distribution is a ‘textbook‘ example of a mathemati-
cal theory explicating the properties of observed data. Here we are near the
ideal case of an inductive or a verifiable theory.
Of course, if we itemize the research of this kind up to the end of the nine-
teenth century, we find little more than a corpus of theory permitting of the
deduction of a very limited number of typical distributions : the Laplace-Gauss
law, Poisson’s law etc. Nevertheless, this tradition is very important: in the
first place because it provides instances of mathematicized theories of an induc-
tive character, and secondly because it prefigures a branch of mathematical
statistics whose importance for the analysis of social phenomena is only now
beginning to be realized: the theory of stochastic processes.
c. Finally there is a third tradition in this collection of attempts to introduce
mathematics into the analysis of human phenomena. It is what is called ‘curve-
fitting’. Right down to the present day, numerous research projects are to be
found aiming at finding a mathematical function to fit the graphical representa-
tion of a particular phenomenon. The object is to obtain a good fit rather than
to test a theory expressed in mathematical terms and in point of fact the func-
tions chosen are most often empirical assumptions. Consequently, the analyti-
cal form of the function does not throw much light on thenature of the phenom-
enon. What it is sought to do in this type of application of mathematics is to
create tools for prediction: if it is seen that a process observed over a sufficiently
long period of time fits a third degree polynomial, this function will be used to

Mathematical models and methods 535
predict the subsequent course of the process. The fact that the process can be
expressed by a third degree polynomial is simply accepted without attempting
to deduce it from the nature of the phenomenon.
Examples of this tradition are Gannet’s work in demography, that of Schultz
in economics, or some of Quktelet’s work in sociology. Here, as elsewhere,
demography, economics and sociology have often found guidance and inspiration
in biology where, indeed, we find a particularly rich tradition of curvefitting
to observed data, down to about the 1910-1920 decade, especially in
epidemiology. There is, for instance, the work of Evans, published in 1875, on
the smallpox epidemic of IS~I-1872, or that of Brownlee who in 1906 carried
out systematic experiments in fitting Pearson curves to epidemiological phenomena
of various kinds. From 1920 onwards, this tradition, which all in all had
not been brilliantly successful, became relatively outmoded and epidemiology
returned to the tradition of analytical models made famous by Verhulst pending
a massive switch to stochastic models.
Things followed the same course in demography, economics and sociology:
curve-fitting-had always been regarded as a make-shift which needed to be outgrown.
Be it noted, however, that it still has a r61e in sciences like economics or
demography, which use curve-fitting techniques for prediction purposes. In
many instances, when no way is known of constructing a more efficacious
theoretical model, empirical curve-fitting to a data series is the least unsatisfactory
means available for predicting the evolution of a phenomenon.
It should, however, be observed that the wide currency of this approach is
not due solely to its facility. It also comes from the influence exerted on the
human and social sciences by the triumphs of physics. Hypnotized by the pattern
of Newtonian physics, the human and social sciences long believed that in
the domain of human phenomena, as in that of physics, there were general laws
to be discovered whose formulae it was important to lay bare. In social psychology,
for instance, this is illustrated by the work of Tarde, who thought that in
‘geometrical progression’ he had the universal law of imitation phenomena. It is
also no coincidence that the first applications of mathematical methods to
psychological problems issued in a law which was thought no less universal than
the law of gravity: namely the Weber-Fechner law.
The seminal r6le of the Newtonian model can be seen in all these experiments.
In most cases, statistical regularities or regular patterns in experimental data
are analysed by methods which are imagined to be analogous to those of the
physicist: the researcher wants to reduce them to rigid laws. The attempt which
best illustrates the influence of Newtonian physics is Haret’s curious book, La
mdcanique sociale, published in Paris in 1910, which attempted nothing less
than the rigourous application of classical mechanics to the analysis of social
phenomena.
It was important to recall these three main trends into which the earliest
applications of mathematics to the human and social sciences became split,
firstly for a better appraisal of the progress made since then, and secondly because
the three trends, while losing their sharp differentiation, still persist and
are still imperfectly reconciled. Thus the sociology of the phenomena of popu-

536 Raymond Boudon
lation-spread and migration from 1945 to 1955, along with a proportion of
efficacious analytical and stochastic models, also offers us a whole collection of
researches associated notably with the names of Dodd and Zipf, which resolute-
ly held to the tradition of curve-fitting models. Later on, we shall iind Zipf,
working on shakily developed hypotheses, endeavouring to apply the Newtonian
law of attraction to migratory phenomena.
II. THE MAJOR TRENDS CHARACTERIZING THE APPLICATIONS OF MATHEMATICAL
METHODS AND MODELS IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES
Before going on to examine in greater detail the mathematical models and
methods utilized by the human and social sciences, it will be useful to recall the
main traits of the mathematical methodology as they seem to have been taking
shape in the last few years.
A. The quantitative increase in mathematical models
Here we have what is the most superficial but also the most striking feature of
the situation: all disciplines have now reached the point of heavy reliance on
mathematical instrumentation, and what was true of economics alone before
the second world war is now equally true of psychology, sociology, anthropol-
ogy and linguistics, not to mention demography.
Without enlarging on this, it is enough to point out that collected papers and
textbooks with ‘mathematical psychology’ or ‘mathematical sociology’ in their
titles are becoming more and more common. As regards psychology, we have
Developments in Mathematical Psychology, published in 1960 under the general
editorship of Luce, the three-volume Handbook of Mathematical Psychology,
published in 1963 under the editorship of Luce, Bush and Galanter, Contribu-
tions to Mathematical Psychology, published in 1964 with Gulliksen as editor.
In sociology, there is Mathematical Thinking in the Social Sciences, published
in 1954 under the direction of Lazarsfeld, Coleman’s recent Introduction to
Mathematical Sociology, which came out in 1964, and Alker’s Mathematics and
Politics, which appeared in 1965. There is also Kemeny and Snell’s pluridisci-
plinary Mathematical Models in the Social Sciences, published in 1962. This
increase in textbooks and collected writings on mathematical methodology is
important, as it is indicative of the effort undertaken to provide an introduction
to this methodology at student level.
Another sign of the general trend to mathematicization is the proliferation of
new journals devoted specifically to methodological problems : there is, for
instance, the bulletin Mathtmatiques et sciences humaines, founded in 1963, the
Journal of Mathematical Psychology, the Journal of Multivariate Methods, and
Quality and Quantity, all founded quite lately, and the recently rechristened
British Journalof SfatisticaZandMathematical Psychology. In addition, journals
are being published like Behavioral Science which transcend the limits of the
individual disciplines, and study the problems attaching to the development of a

Mathematical models and methods 537
mathematical methodology and the question of computer applications in a
multidisciplinary context. These new ventures and realignments have changed
the situation as regards the question of methodology in the social sciences from
one in which-leaving aside the statistical reviews such as the Journal de la
Sociite‘ de statistique de Paris or the Journal of the American Statistical Associa-
tion - two major journals (Econometrica, founded in I932 and Psychometrika,
founded in 1935) held the field to one when there are between ten and a score
of reviews which are either specifically methodological or carry a large propor-
tion of methodological articles.
B. Differentiation of the functions performed by mathematics
The second main feature of current trends, also very striking, is the diversifica-
tion beginning to appear in the functions performed by mathematics in the
human and social sciences.
As we have said, the pre-modern period is characterized essentially by one
‘pure theory’ tradition, another dominated by mathematical statistics and a
third involving the seeking of curve-fitting models. Today, mathematics is
taking on new functions, of which some examples follow:
a. In disciplines like sociology and psychology, the development of the
observation techniques together with the growing quantity of data collected
have engendered a whole multitude of methods and techniques, the main func-
tion of which is to enable the investigator to get his bearings in a mass of in-
formation exceeding his intuitive grasp.
Let us consider, for instance, the methods of factorial analysis associated with
the names of Thurstone, Hotelling and, more recently, Guttman. Looked at from
the point of view of their principles, they are grading, classifying or typologizing
techniques. In other words, they are intended to replace the intuitive procedures
used in ordinary life and for some scientific problems, and grade or order ob-
jects on the basis of a given number of characteristics observed in them. The
intuitive procedure is the one we are using when we observe the behaviour of
two children in n situations, and then declare the first more intelligent than the
second. It is likewise the procedure used by Max Weber in defining his famous
ideal types. One could put it that the techniques we are discussing are meant to
reproduce the logic of these intuitive procedures, while eliminating the scientific
risks implicit in reliance on intuiticn. Obviously, the inadequacy of intuition
increases with the volume of data collected. In situations like that arising in
psychometrics when dozens of tests are given to a multitude of subjects, it is
obviously impossible to rely on intuitive techniques. Hence the idea of construct-
ing grading, classification or typologizing models. The need for this kind of
model was so strongly felt, notably in disciplines like psychology, social
psychology and sociology, that there is now an extremely voluminous corpus of
mathematical models and methods for solving grading, classification and typo-
logizing problems in observational situations of the utmost diversity.
It was again the limitations of intuition which led sociologists to develop a

- ,
538 Raymond Boudon
specific methodology for survey analysis. The fact is that when systematic ob-
servations are carried out on a given population, what one gets is a complex of
information which amounts to a person-by person characterization of that pop-
ulation by reference to a set of variables. The development or interpretation of
the sampling is then a matter of analysing the relations between these variables.
Usually, the question is how n explicative variables help to explain an (n+ I)‘~
variable. Thus, to take a classical example, we may want to explain the phenom-
enon of suicide, given victims’ marital status, sex, places of residence, job etc.
Generally speaking, the explicative variables make up a complex network, and
the usual methods in statistics like variance analysis, single equation regression
analysis etc., as Stouffer and Lazarsfeld have shown, are inadequate. The situa-
tion is even more complicated, and the need for a mathematical methodology
even more urgent, when complex forms of survey are used, as seems to be in-
creasingly necessary nowadays, forms such as contextual and panel surveys.
Contextual surveys are surveys with samplings at not less than two levels, as
for instance when a sample group of secondary schools is first selected followed
by a sample of the pupils in each. Panel surveys are surveys in which the same
population is polled at least twice. These forms of survey, which appear in-
creasingly indispensable for the needs of sociology, produce massive and com-
plex collections of information, for whose analysis intuitive methods cannot
possibly be adequate. The problems presented by the development of socio-
logical surveys have raised many methodological questions, to which sociologists,
in the last ten years or so, have begun to find satisfactory answers.
For a final example of the growing recourse to a mathematical methodology
to meet the needs created by a new observational technique, we can turn to
social psychology. The technique in question is the famous sociogram, de-
vised by Moreno. It consists, as we know, in representing the individuals in a
group by dots, and the affectionate or inimical relations maintained by each
individual with each of the others by arrows linking the paired dots. At the
beginning, investigators contented themselves with developing the information
contained in the sociograms by intuitive procedures, using extremely empiri-
cal indices of cohesion, influence, isolation, etc. However, it quickly became
apparent firstly that these indices suffered from a number of logical defects, and
secondly that the intuitive methods for the analysis of sociograms were
awkward to handle when the group observed - say, a school class - had more
than about ten members. This led to the development of a battery of techniques
enabling the researcher to analyse in as objective and comprehensive manner as
possible the almost indecipherable complex of information constituted by a
sociogram covering a group of 40 or 50 individuals. These techniques use the
results at once of graph theory and of matrix algebra, as a sociogram can
always be represented by a matrix.
It is to be noted that while the methods just described were indeed devised to
meet the needs created by the progress of the observation techniques, it was the
development of electronic computers which favoured their spread. We have, for
instance, Hotelling’s researches on principal components analysis - a special
variant of factor analysis. They demonstrate that a satisfactory solution to the

Mathematical models and methods 539
problem of constructing types where n objects are characterized in terms of rn
quantitative characters (where, for instance, m psychometric tests are given to
n subjects) can be obtained by seeking the eigenvectors of the correlation
matrix of the m characters. But to calculate these is so complicated, as soon as
the correlation matrix reaches a quite small dimension, that the application of
this method became possible only when computers became available.
b. While the contribution of mathematical methodology is important in the
analysis of large quantities of data, there is another logical field in which mathematical
methods and models have proved their effectiveness: that of the synchronic
analysis of systems.
Two examples will be considered. The first is the analysis of kinship structures,
the second the mathematical theory of grammars.
In kinship structure theory, the anthropologist finds himself faced with facts
which, at a level of unsophisticated apprehension, seem peculiar and incoherent :
thus, given two archaic societies, he observes that in society A, a man may
marry his father’s sister’s daughter and his mother’s brother’s daughter, but not
his mother’s sister’s daughter or his father’s brother’s daughter. In society B,
the rules are identical, except that here it is forbidden to marry the father’s
sister’s daughter as well. In this kind of situation, it is impossible to resort to
the classical explanations of the incest taboo, such as those which ascribed it to
concern for eugenics. Thus, we are faced with an assemblage of facts which at
first sight are strange and irrelevant and the temptation may come to imitate
certain ethnographers prior to Murdock and Lkvi-Strauss and record these facts
purely and simply.
One of the novel factors of mathematical methodology which has evolved
over the last few years in the field of anthropology has been to produce theories
whereby it can be demonstrated that these marriage rules on permitted and
prohibited degrees of kindred and affinity, despite their oddity, form coherent
systems to the extent that each of the rules can be deduced from a set of axioms.
A further example completely comparable to the first one is the mathematical
linguistics associated more particularly with the name of Chomsky. Mere again,
the starting point of analysis is the apparent oddness of the rules governing the
formation of grammatically correct utterances in a natural language. Take for
example one of the rules for the pronunciation of the English language: if one
compares the words ‘compensation’ and ‘condensation’, which are closely
paronymic, one is surprised at the apparently arbitrary difference in pronunciation.3
In pronouncing ‘compensation’ the e-vowel of the second syllable is
elided, while the corsesponding vowel in ‘condensation’ is audible. On meeting
this kind of thing - and examples are legion - one may 5e content to assume
that the rules of a language consist of a collection of arbitrary items which it
would be enough to note. But this attitude is in flagrant defiance of certain
basic facts: for, if the grammar of a language must be deemed no more than a
hodge-podge of rules associated with a multitude of exceptions, how are we to
explain the ease with which adults of English mother tongue - since English is
the language being considered in the above examples - and even tiny children
apply these rules with perfect assurance, even to vocables which they have never

540 Raymond Boudon
heard pronounced or are themselves forming for the first time. Such facts sug-
gest the notion that the corpus of grammatical rules of a natural language is to
be regarded not as an aggregation of arbitrary rules, but as a system of specific
rules following logically from a few basic rules. In other words, the problem is
to show, as in the preceding anthropological example, the real but hidden co-
herence of a set of apparently arbitrary laws.
A later section will analyse in detail how these problems led to the develop-
ment of an elaborate methodology of which was born what it is now appropriate
to call mathematical linguistics.
It should incidentally be noted that the term structural analysis is often
applied to the methods whereby the coherence of systems can be analysed. The
rules on permitted and forbidden marital unions characterizing a society, or
the rules for the formation of grammatically correct utterances in a natural
language are examples of such systems.
c. A third function of mathematical methodology which can be regarded as
recent consists in its increasing application to the problems of experimentation.
Of course, this function only relates to those human or social sciences in which
it is possible to set up experiments on the subject matter, notably psychology
and social psychology.
By way of a first example, social psychology offers an impressive volume of
experiments and investigations of all sorts into the formation and changing of
opinions, attitudes or individual feelings as functions of the changes occurring
in the group or environment to which the subject belongs. Since the work of
Heider and of Festinger in particular, a fact strongly emphasized is that the
individual, when he is obliged to modify one of his feelings or attitudes - as when
he is placed in a situation where he is in a minority of one-reacts by undertaking
a general reorganization of his correlative attitudes and opinions. Summarizing
these theories, one could put it that in a social situation which incites him to
modify one of his opinions, his beliefs, etc., the individual will reorganize the
whole body of his opinions, beliefs, etc. so as to restore at least cost the balance
destroyed.
While, until recently, these theories (Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance,
Heider’s theory of cognitive organization, etc.) had given rise to many experi-
ments of the classical type, over the last few years a number of writers, notably
Cartwright and Harary, have been using graph theory to formaIize them, ex-
pressing the notion of equilibrium in the representations by the formal notion
of the balanced graph. This formalization, although still very elementary, has
nevertheless had the twofold effect firstly of explicating the concepts embodied
in the theories discussed above, and secondly of contributing to the formulation
of a precise experimental schema which has subsequently led to intensification
of experimentation in this domain.
The second example, this time from psychology, is provided by the psycholog-
ical theory of learning. This theory has been under continuous study for many
years past and for almost as long there have been some psychologists who were
convinced that the hypotheses relating to learning mechanisms should be given
mathematical expression.

Mathematical models and methods 541
A typical example of this attitude is to be found in Hull's efforts to express
his theory of learning in mathematical terms. Nevertheless, Hull's ideas on the
application of mathematics to the human or social sciences were close to those
of the psycho-physicists : he sought to express universal relations or discover
laws. Like Tarde in the matter of imitation phenomena, he saw in the exponen-
tial function the preferential expression of learning phenomena. The fact thus
remains that Hull's experiments were of the classical type, analogous to the
procedures already being used by the psycho-physicists.
However, over the last few years - to be precise since the initial efforts of
Bush and Estes - a mathematical theory of learning has been taking shape
which draws largely on the theory of stochastic processes. It is certainly no
exaggeration to say that this new line of development has completely revolu-
tionized the nature and principles of experimentation on the learning process.
The aim is no longer to verify that a hypothetical relation -e.g. between learning
time and the number of syllables memorized - has a particular form. The first
step is to describe the mechanism of the learning process as being hypothecized
in a particular situation. We thus get a stochastic process, whose mathematical
properties are then studied, with the effect that the learning curves - which
earlier theories attempted to describe by using a known function to express
them directly - are now deduced from a theory. In other words, it is no longer a
matter of adjusting a function to a curve, but of deducing the form of the curve
from hypothetical mechanisms expressed in a mathematical form.
There is no point in dwelling on the considerable epistemological consequences
which these changes involve: no longer is it believed that the phenomena of the
learning process follow simple laws like those postulated by Hull, for instance.
It is truer to say that they only follow these simple laws in particular cases.
Hence the principle, obligatory in learning theory henceforward, of expressing
mathematically the learning mechanisms corresponding to each specific learning
situation and deducing the corresponding learning curves from the mathematical
theory thus constructed.
This naturally implies a complete change in experimental research. In effect,
obedience to the rule of expressing learning mechanisms in a mathematical
formimplies therestriction of the study to comparatively simple situations, though
it can be anticipated that as research develops this technical limitation wil be
progressively overcome. Epistemologically the important point is that the
mathematization of learning theory imposes a formal framework on experimen-
tal research which it previously lacked.
These two examples - which are by no means of equal importance - show the
influence of a mathematical methodology on experimental research. Although
the characteristic situation of the modern psychology of the learning process
conforms to a model which is widespread in the natural sciences, it is impossible
to exaggerate its novelty in the human and social sciences. Modern learning
theory is surely one of those rare instances in which, in the same manner as in a
science like physics, experimental research is closely tied in with a mathematical
theory.
Of course, the three new functions of applied mathematics in the human and

542 Raymond Boudon
social sciences described above are not the only ones which could be pointed out.
Another such function which can be instanced is what might be called quasi-
experimentation. It is particularly important in the case of disciplines like eco-
nomics or sociology which, with some exceptions, cannot conduct experiments.
Where this is so, it is possible to represent a particular real position by a model,
and study the latter’s behaviour under different structural conditions. This is a
typical situation in mathematical economics: since it is usually impossible to
manipulate the economic variables experimentally, to determine the effect of
their variations, the researcher sets about constructing models incorporating the
quantities in which he is interested in the form of parameters, so as to make a
quasi-experimental study of the effects of these parameters on the behaviour of
the system symbolized by the model.
The quasi-experimentation function is not new. However, it has been consid-
erably extended: it is no longer a monopoly of economics; sociology now uses
it on a large scale as is evidenced by the work of Simon or Abelson on group
dynamics, by Rapoport’s researches on the phenomena of diffusion, etc.4
A more general account of the rBle of mathematics in the development of the
human sciences wil be given in Section D below. All that has been sought to do
here is to bring out the diversification in the functions of mathematics which the
human sciences’ recent developments entail.
C. The new fields of research dependent on a mathematical methodology
Although this section covers some of the same ground as the preceding one,
it is as well to recapitulate briefly the main fields of research which have latterly
become accessible to methodologies of a mathematical type.
In psychology and social psychology, we have the considerable development
of test theory and measurement theory. These are such technical areas that
henceforward only the professional mathematician or statistician wil be able
to contribute to them. As we have seen, they provide the main subject matter of
the review Psychometrika; in addition, new works in the field are continually
appearing.5 As well as the long-recognized fields of measurement and test
theory, there is the mathematical theory of learning, of recent, but rapid devel-
opment, on which one or more publications appear each year.6 Again, logic and
mathematics are now resorted to on a large scale in developmental psychology
in general, and genetic psychology in particular.
In economics, there has been a considerable development of econometric
methods both for micro-economic phenomena and for macro-economic phe-
nomena of limited incidence, while important progress has been achieved of
recent years in the field of optimization procedures. Today, linear and dynamic
programming are used extensively on partial phenomena when the utility func-
tion can be defined.
Furthermore, research into optimization at the macro-economic level is
being intensively pursued.
In social psychology and sociology, mathematical models are being used for

Mathematical models and methods 543
problems of group dynamics, and in a more general way for the analysis of
organizations' and of the processes of social diffusion and migration. One of
the most highly mathematicized fields in these disciplines is that of small-
group research, on which there have been several joint publicationss in recent
years. There is also mathematical research into the development of sociological
survey data.Q
In linguistics, the development of mathematical methods is of particular
importance. Initially the dominant branch of structural linguistics was structural
phonology. Here, the shift towards a mathematical methodology has only
developed quite recently and the methods used by researchers like Trubetzkoy,
Roman Jakobson or Andre Martinet are not properly mathematical. The
notable development of mathematical methods in linguistics dates mainly from
Chomsky's research on the theory of grammars. This theory which began as an
outcome of reflexions on the grammatical structure of natural languages, later
engendered a theory of grammars of a more general type, which is, in effect, a
full fledged branch of mathematics.
The mathematical interest of the theory of grammars is all the greater for its
being susceptible of translation into the language of the mathematical theory of
abstract automata, so that well-determined classes of grammars can be repre-
sented by well-defined automata. As a result the situation of the two theories
today is one of interdependence and fecund interaction.
But grammar is not the only field in linguistics where recourse to a
mathematical methodology has increased considerably. Phonological problems
are also beginning lo be handled mathematically.
It should be noted that the considerable development of mathematical lin-
guistics is largely due to the growth of interest in mechanical translation: an
ideal translating machine - at present non-existent - would be one capable of
getting behind the varieties of an utterance's formulation to lay bare its struc-
ture.I0
In anthropology, one field, that of kinship structure analysis already men-
tioned in the preceding section, now largely depends on a mathematical method-
ology. Here the initial stimulation comes from the work of Lkvi-Strauss which
has inspired a whole series of mathematical models, notably by Andre Weil,
Robert S. Bush and Harrison Whyte."
Outside these research fields associated with specific disciplines, there are
other groups of problems notable for a considerable extension of the use of
mathematical methods and models. The most important of these groups is un-
doubtedly that of the decision-making and action problems where game theory
has been a potent revitalizing factor. The discoveries of game theory although
- at present - they seem primarily applicable to economic problems, obviously
provide a common capital available to all the sciences which analyse human
action and decision in competitive situations.
Along with game theory, there is the considerable development of statistical
methods. While this arises from the growing requirements primarily of econo-
metrics, and secondarily of psychometrics, it is, of course, a gain for the totality
of the social and human sciences.

544 Raymond Boudon
D. The new mathematics
Another noteworthy circumstance is the demand in the social and human scien-
ces for new mathematical techniques. For many years the mathematics they
used were limited to elementary algebraic procedures, classical mathematical
analysis, or elementary applications of probability calculus and statistical
method. Here again, the example of classical mechanics undoubtedly contribut-
ed greatly to the choice of the mathematical instruments used.
Quite recently, the sciences of man have been using a number of mathe-
matical tools of more recent design. Moreover, the development of the mathe-
matical methodology is sufficiently advanced in some fields to give rise to a
need for new formal instruments and secure their creation. In this section, it
must suffice to cite some instances of branches of mathematics whose application
to the human sciences is in most cases of very recent date.
Advanced algebra, particularly linear algebra, is coming into ever more
general use in the sciences of man. It has uses in economics, where one of the
best known instances of its application consists in the well-known Leontieff
matrices. In psychology, factorial analysis is so called - perhaps in part - be-
cause it consists in factorizing certain matrices, the basis equation of factorial
analysis, as of many methods of dimensional analysis used by psychologists,
being the matrix equation:
R = AA‘
Here R is a matrix of correlation, e.g. between psychometric tests, while A is the
matrix expressing the correlations (saturations) between the tests, and the
unknowns or latent factors responsible for the responses being right or wrong.
Matrix A’ is simply the transposed matrix of A (that is, the matrix obtained by
interchanging the lines and columns of A).
In social psychology, the measurement theory known as latent structure
analysis has- and on some points still does- set the mathematician complex alge-
braic problems. Again, as was stressed in an earlier section sociometric analysis
(analysis of sociograms) frequently relies on matrix algebra to the extent
that any system of relations can always be represented by a matrix.
In anthropology, some research procedures, like the kinship structure analysis
model proposed by Bush, use linear algebra.
In sociology, a very large number of phenomena are ‘naturals’ for represen-
tation in matrix form, followed by some application of linear algebra: social
mobility tables, turnover tables deriving from panel surveys (surveys carried
out more than once on the same sample), etc.
Stochastic process theory. The introduction of stochastic process theory into the
social and human sciences is recent. Even the most mathematicized of these
sciences, economics, still resorts to these processes on a modest scale only. It is
safe to say that currently the only tool from the battery of stochastic processes
which is used on any scale is Markov chain theory, at that almost exclusively
homogeneous Markov chains (chains characterized by the fact that the prob-

Mathematical models and methods 545
ability ptj of passing from state i to statej for all values of i andj is independ-
ent of time). In this particular, then, the human sciences are unquestionably
backward in relation, say, to biology: today works on epidemiology for in-
stance, rely almost exclusively on stochastic models and the classical analytical
models prevalent at the time of Volterra’s Theory of the Struggle for Life be-
long to apast age. None of the social or human sciences is as yet, in this partic-
ular, even approaching the stage reached by biology. There are several rea-
sons for this: for like hypotheses, the mathematics of stochastic processes are
much more complex than the mathematics of the corresponding deterministic
models. Putting this another way, it amounts to saying that at any given level of
complexity, a hypothesis is much more difficult to reduce to a stochastic than to
a deterministic model. Secondly, it so happens that although processes with
highly simplified assumptions can be of great help in epidemiology, it is not the
same, say, in economics or sociology, where even elementary phenomena can-
not be represented by models using highly simplified assumptions.
To summarize, for the convenience of the reader, the difference between
deterministic and stochastic models, it is well to present a simple example of
two equivalent models, of which one is a classical analytical model of deter-
ministic type and the other stochastic. For this we can use the ‘geometrical
progression’ to which Tarde attached great importance for the explanation of
social phenomena.
Let us assume that the increased number of those converted to an innovation,
at any arbitrary moment, varies with the number of people who have already
adopted that innovation at that moment. If we call this number x(t), the
model is expressed by the differential equation :
~- dx(t) - kx(t)
dt
Assuming that the number of converts x(o) at time zero is equal to xo, the
integration of the above equation gives:
x(t) = xoekf
This is a deterministic model: it enables us, in the light of parameters xo and Ir,
to predict the exact number of converts at time t. Now let us consider the sto-
chastic equivalent of this model.
If x(t) is the number of converts at time t, we posit that the Probability of
having gained one more convert after a time interval of (f, t+dt) is proportional
to x(t)dt, and additionally that the probability of gaining two or more in the same
interval of time moves towards zero when At moves towards zero. The prob-
ability of finding exactly x converts after the interval of time (f, t+ At) is then
given by the following expression:
(probability of x converts in t) x (probability of no change after the interval
of time) + (probability of there being x- I proselytes at t) x (probability of
a new convert in the interval) + (probability of two proselytes appearing).
Symbolically, this expression is written :
Px(t + At) = P,(t) (I-kxdt) + Px-,(t) k (x-1)At + o(d t)

546 Raymond Boudon
By substracting P.(t) from both sides, dividing by At and making At tend
towards zero, we get the differential equation
-= dPx(t)
-kxPx (t) + k(x-~)P,-, (1)
dt
which is resolved :
Px(t) = C::? e--Kx~t(l-e--Kf)x-xo
This equation, the expression of the ‘Yule-Ferry’ law, is obviously more
complicated than the corresponding deterministic equation. Its advantage is
that it describes the probability of finding x converts at time t, instead of asserting,
like the corresponding deterministic model, that x converts wil be found
at time t. In this specific case, assuming that we observe the process described a
great many times with attention to the number of converts we can expect to find
on average at time t, we shall find that the stochastic model gives average
values of Px(t), whose expression is simply the expression yielded by the deterministic
model. In other words, average of
~,(t)
03
= C XP,(~) = xoeKt
XFO
Here then we have a specimen of the cases where the deterministicmodel can
be regarded as expressing the states of highest probability of the corresponding
stochastic process. But sometimes the average values of Px(t) do not obey the
same law as the corresponding deterministic model. Hence the value of the
theory of stochastic processes : when the mechanisms representing the passage
of the system from one state to another are properly expressed, it is possible
firstly to deduce from them the degree of probability of each possible state of
the system at any moment, and secondly to observe that the sequence of most
probable states of the system does not match the answer given by any simple
deterministic model. Further, it is unquestionably easier to formulate reason-
able hypotheses on the mechanisms of the changes of state than on the overall
changes.
Taken together with the observed fact that several disciplines are tending to
abandon deterministic models in favour of stochastic models, the above con-
siderations seem to indicate that one of the essential lines of research in the
field of mathematical methodology should be on wider applications of the
theory of stochastic processes to human phenomena.
Already most of the social sciences can instance some few applications of the
theory of stochastic processes.
In psychology, learning theory makes extensive use of Markov chain theory
while applications of the Poisson processes are to be found in psychometrics.
In anthropology, stochastic processes are used in the models for kinship
structure analysis propounded by Harrison Whyte. In linguistics, the use of
the Markov chain theory dates from the work of Markov himself, as this
theory was first formulated in connexion with an analysis of the successions of
consonants and vowels in Eugene Onegin. Also worth noting in this regard
are Simon’s analyses of Zipf‘s law with the help of a stochastic-type formaliza-

Mathematical models and methods 547
tion.'3 In sociology, several researchers have published applications of process-
es other than the Markov chain type to the analysis of the distribution of
accidents, the distribution of votes cast and the phenomena of spontaneous
concourse: the processes used in such work are usually discrete Poisson dis-
tributions over a continuous period. Coleman's bookI4 gives a good overall
view of the applications to sociology of stochastic processes other than Markov
chains. In addition he introduces contagious and exhaustive versions of the
Poisson distribution, which can be applied to social phenomena of minimal
complexity. As regard Markov chains, wide use is made of them in sociology
as in other disciplines: e.g. for the analysis of attitude change mobility phenom-
ena, etc. In general, however, it must be admitted that the interesting proper-
ties of the homogeneous Markov chain (expressed in particular by the ergodic
theorems) can rarely be applied in this field, since it is only rarely that a social
system can be considered stationary.
Graph theory. Conceived by the German mathematician Koenig and developed
thereafter by C. BergeIS more particularly, graph theory offers a useful means
of solving certain problems under the head of 'operational research'. In social
psychology numerous uses are found for it in the analysis of sociograms
and, more generally, of social structures. It should however be noted that
the most important results in this field are mostly obtained by algebraic
methods. In psychology, there are some applications of graph theory in the
formalization of the theories of Heider, Festinger and others on the coherence
of opinions. Thus, despite its possibilities, applied graph theory is limited, for
the present at least, to a few comparatively specialized fields.
Generally speaking, not only graph theory but also topology is used by the
human sciences, particularly linguistics. In Section IIIA are given some examples
of the application of combinatory topology to problems of grammar. For a
more complete idea of the applications of topology to linguistics the recent
work of Harris should be c~nsulted.~~
It is impossible within the scope of this chapter to expatiate at length on
all the new branches of mathematics with uses in the social and human
sciences. There is no point for instance in dwelling on the value of the recent
branches represented by game theory, information theory and cybernetics,
or the new. applications of certain aspects of mathematics long abandoned by
the Social sciences, such as logic, which is now used in fields as far apart as
genetic psychology, the analysis of court verdicts or the analysis of social
r6les.17 In addition, a review would be needed of the intimate connexions be-
tween certain new branches of mathematics and certain social science research
fields - for instance between coding algebra or the mathematical theory of
automata and linguistics.
However, a few words are appropriate on simulation methods, the importance
of which is growing in most of the social and human sciences. Of course, simu-
lation is not a mathematical theory. It is simply a technique which enables us
to substitute a model or physical maquette, usually constructed with the aid of
a computer, for a theory which one does not know how to express mathemati-

548 Raymond Boudon
cally or develop deductively, and observe its behaviour with a computer (ob-
viously, simulation as here used means only ‘machine simulation’, and excludes
simulation games involving human actors, which implies a completely differ-
ent type of theory and is an experimental rather than an analytical technique).
Simulation methods raise all sorts of problems in logic. Thus when the
number of parameters built into a simulated model is too great, it is impossible
toproceed to a systematic evaluation of the parametric space, leaving the investi-
gator with a situation not much clearer or more advantageous than the natural
situations which he is claiming to analyse. Generally speaking, it is probably
still too early to make an appreciation of simulated methods: despite their
widespread use, simulated experiments are still too few in number for it to be
possible to attempt a definition of their methodology. Nevertheless, it can be
predicted that, by reason of their flexibility, they will make rewarding contribu-
tions to sciences, especially economy and sociology, in which experimentation
is impossible and where, in addition, the complexity of the hypotheses often
makes them very difficult to translate into mathematical terms.
In demography, simulation has been used with some success and has led to
appreciable results in the matter of forecasting. Particularly notable is the work
of Orcutt and his associates.15 Here the simulation consisted in using a certain
number of functions (such as probabilities of marriage, divorce, death, etc.,
according to year, month, sex and age, etc.), the parameters of which were
estimated from official American statistics. With these functions to work on, a
computer simulated the evolution of a population from an initial state: here
the r61e of the computer was confined to producing series of random numbers.
These numbers, interpreted with the aid of the basic functions, simulated deaths,
births, divorces, etc. The retrospective estimates which Orcutt and his team
worked out for past phenomena proved remarkably good in themselves and, in
any case, enormously better than any obtainable by extrapolation. It will be
noted incidentally that this achievement is congruent with what was said
earlier about stochastic processes : in effect, Orcutt’s simulated experiment can
be regarded as the physical equivalent of a stochastic process. To be more
precise, it can be shown to be the equivalent of a Markov process in which the
number of states is astronomically high.
Simulation has been used in economics as a substitute for mathematical
models, in cases when the hypotheses introduced were too complex. An exam-
ple here is a publication by Hogatt,Ig in which he takes certain classical hypoth-
eses on cost functions, price formation, etc., and studies them in the context of
an open market, that is a market where old firms can disappear when they
operate at a loss and new firms come into being when opportunities for profit
exist. The hypotheses of this model are naturally very complex and analysable
on deductive lines only with great difficulty; here again, the model can be regard-
ed as the physical realization of a particularly complex stochastic process.
In sociology, examples of applied simulated methods are numerous. Sim-
ulated models have been made of the phenomena of social diffusion whose
productive quality was outstanding, and these methods have also been applied
successfully to the problems of forecasting election results. Yet another example

Mathematical models and methods 549
of their use is in the analysis of the mechanisms characterizing groups or organizations
.20
Finally, in psychology, there are several examples of particular interest in
which simulation has slightly different connotations from those it has in the
preceding examples. The outstanding instance is the case study by Newell,
Shaw and Simon,z1 describing their attempts to simulate the human process of
deductive reasoning on a computer by programming the machine with a diversity
of items of ‘knowledge’ and behaviour choices.
To close this section, a point which needs stressing is the profound interaction
already observed with regard to several examples, between the development of
mathematics and that of the sciences of man. It is not going too far to say at
this date that the social sciences have had a real influence, however modest, on
the development of some branches of mathematics. Take the example of graph
theory, due, as was said earlier, to the researches of Koenig published in 1936.
This theory remained comparatively unnoticed until the beginning of the 1950s
when a first practical use was found for it in the sociometric studies of Ross and
Harary. In addition, several instances can be cited of theories, first begotten of
encounters with problems posed by the human and social sciences, which have
since become full-fledged branches of mathematics: one example of this is tbe
mathematical theory of grammars, which had its start in research directed to
analysing the grammars of natural languages. It very soon became apparent
that this problem was of infinite complexity and this led on to the consideration
of artificial languages: for instance, the language composed of two ‘words’ a
and b, in which all sentences are structured on the basis of m repetitions of a and
n repetitions of b. At this point it becomes possible to formulate mathematical
problems, sometimes complex, about the grammars capable of generating such
a language. This example suffices to show how it was possible for the theory
of formal grammars to achieve a degree of independent existence to the point
of becoming a special branch of mathematics. Naturally it is to be hoped that
applications wil be found for this theory. However to a certain extent this consideration
has ceased to be envisaged with any immediacy.
Another example of a theory born of the concerns of the human and social
sciences but which has since become a sort of branch of mathematics, is game
theory. Nevertheless, the position in this case is rather different from that of
formal grammars. Game theory raises and propounds numerous mathematical
problems, and to this extent is the starting point for results belonging to the
nature of pure mathematics. However, it cannot be deemed to be a theory of
pure mathematics inasmuch as it has retained a close connexion with the problems
of the human and social sciences, and especially with those of economics.
Indeed, the most important problems which game theory is now seeking to
solve are those posed by defining the notion of rational action in the complex
cases of non-competitive non-zero-sum games with n participants : these are
unquestionably the games which express most realistically the situations encountered
by the economist.
However if there is some effect by the social and human sciences on mathematics,
there are also cases where the development of the social sciences is not

550 Raymond Boudon
just influenced by mathematics - that is too obvious to state - but strictly
dependent on the solution of a problem in pure mathematics. The most striking
example of this is perhaps the aporia which stultified the Walras-Pareto theory
of economic equilibrium as long as certain results in the realm of pure mathematical
analysis, like the ked-point theorems, remained unknown. It can be
reckoned that the Walras theory of general equilibrium was blocked by our
ignorance of mathematics from the 1870s to the 1960s~ and it is noteworthy
that those chapters of books on mathematical economics which dealt with
general equilibrium are out of date wherever the books antedate 1960: an
example is Allen’s Mathematical
To take another example already cited, there is no doubt that, if the theory of
stochastic processes is still very rarely applied to economic and social phenomena,
it is largely that it needs further development by mathematicians before it can
be used in connection with the problems of the sociologist and the economist.
Indeed, one thing which is quite certain is that in the years to come the social
and human sciences will have occasion to use increasingly complex mathematics.
Today we are still in the preliminary phase of development of a mathematical
methodology in the human sciences and the mathematicians of real substance
who have decided to devote themselves to this field are still infrequent. For
the rest, while some disciplines like linguistics and economics have already
reached the stage of posing complex mathematical problems to the mathematician,
it is otherwise in psychology and in sociology, disciplines characterized
by a high proportion of banal mathematical researches. However everything
points to the probability that there will be rapid progress in this field over the
next few decades.
E. The new epistemology
The last trait which must definitely not go unmarked in a chapter on social
science methodology, consists in the epistemological changes which have follow-
ed the development of mathematical methods and models.
Considering the situation in its least specific and most superficial aspect, that
of opinions on the usefulness or otherwise of mathematics in the social sciences,
it is roughly true to say that there is an increasing tendency to exhibit one or
other of two forms of nafvet6. The iirst consists in the belief that human phe-
nomena, for some obscure reason, cannot be susceptible of mathematical
treatment.
This dogmatic opinion dates from a period when mathematics was looked on
as a quantitative science, and when mathematical approaches to human phe-
nomena were most commonly ill-judged. Nowadays, when there are whole
branches of mathematics which do not use either the notion of number or the
familiar operations of arithmetic, it is very difficult to demonstrate a priori, by
philosophical arguments, that the social sciences cannot depend on mathematics.
There is a growing feeling that the possibilities of applied mathematics are not
restricted a priori by the nature of the subject to be treated and that the main
function of mathematics is to clarify. We should, however, note that this evolu-

Mathematical models and methods 551
tion of opinion is not yet complete, as can be seen from P. Sorokin’s rather
ill-informed book, Fads and Foibles in Modern Sociology, and Don Martindale’s
recent essay, ‘Limits to the Use of Mathematics in the Study of Sociology’.z3 The
first of these publications is a sort of pamphlet written against the quantification
maniacs (quantophrenes). But one gets the impression that the adversaries the
author is combating were manufactured for the needs of the cause. In any case,
no one today would even think of claiming hegemony for the quantitative
methods and forgetting the considerable importance of qualitative methods in
sociology. Martindale’s essay is an attempt to demonstrate that sociology’s
subject matter and the special relationship between observer and observed
limit theappiicability of mathematics. Thisisadoubtful argument since sociology
does not deal with a particular subject matter, but with a variety of subject
matters, extremely diverse in logical character, resulting in forms of analysis and
definitions of the observer-observed which in turn are extremely diverse; to
appreciate this one need only recall that the mathematical approach is the
natural one for the analysis of ‘polls’ while ‘community studies’ have never yet
drawn on mathematics, the distinction resulting from the form of the data
collected in either case.
It should be noted, however, that sociology is today the only discipline in
which, at long intervals, doubts of the utility of mathematical methods are
still expressed.
The second form of nayvet6 consists in believing that the sciences of man can
be handled with a mathematical language and models shaped for the use of the
natural sciences. As was pointed out in Section I, a high proportion of the applied
mathematics in the human sciences dating from the ‘pre-modern’ period consists
of comparatively crude imitations of models borrowed from physics and biology.
The mathematics used on the phenomena of social diffusion and migration
are typical in this respect : throughout the ‘pre-modern’ period, mathematical
methodology in these areas consisted of pure transpositions of the law of
gravitation or the logistic curve. Nowadays, on the one hand it is more clearly
appreciated, that it is more often a matter of inventing new mathematical methods
than applying existing ones, and on the other it is acknowledged that the application
of mathematics to the social and human sciences cannot so easily attain
to logical integration and effectiveness as in the natural sciences.
But these phenomena of opinion are of only superficial interest. It is more
worthwhile to dwell on a certain number of concepts which have become central
in the methodology of the human and social sciences and are intimately tied in
with the development of mathematical methods: these are the concepts comprehended
in the terms model and structure. The definition of these two terms
poses major problems, and there is an abundant philosophical and epistemological
literature which endeavours to delimit their signification.”4 This fact
alone demonstrates that, despite the importance and widespread use of the two
concepts, these definitions and meanings are manifold. Despite this, it is possible,
eschewing any idea of hard and fast definition, to trace the notable features
of the history of the social sciences in recent times which explain the importance
of the blanket notions of model and structure.

552 Raymond Boudon
The notion of model. The present considerations wil be limited to the concept
of the mathematical model.
A model in this sense of the term is always a hypothetical-deductive theory.
In other words, it is a set of premises or axioms from which a set of consequences
is deduced.
In certain cases, these consequences may be checked by observation and in
that case the model is verifiable. But this property of verifiability, or more pre-
cisely falsifiability (since, as Popper has stressed, a universal proposition can be
proved false, but never proved true), is not indispensable, for there are models
which are not falsifiable.
This point gives us an initial distinction between the notion of the model and
that of the theory (in the sense in which the natural sciences use the latter word).
In effect, many examples can be cited of non-verifiable models such as the
multi-factorial analysis in psychology which always produces a solution, what-
ever the data available, the solution itself being rejected or accepted on criteria
other than that of congruence with the observed situation, which, by definition,
is always achieved. Similarly, a multitude of models in mathematical economics
could be cited where it is impossible to decide on unambiguous criteria whether
the model is true or false. Take for instance the models of Samuelson, Goodwin
or Phillips on economic cycle theory. These models show that, for certain hy-
potheses as to the immediate or deferred linkages between the global economic
quantities (investments, savings, consumption, etc.) and for certain classes of
value of the models’ parameters, the global quantities mentioned manifest
oscillations. Certain of these models can then be judged preferable to others
to the extent that they will reproduce more faithfully the general characteristics
of the real cycles. Thus Goodwin’s model, as against the Samuelson-Hicks
theory, has the advantage of giving theoretical cycles where the rising phase is
longer than the falling, as in the real cycles. The first will therefore be preferred
to the second. But it cannot be said that we are really in a position to verify
this type of model (show it to be either false or not false); in short, we can say
that Goodwin’s model is more ‘realistic’ than the Samuelson-Hicks model, but
we cannot say that it is more veridical.
It could easily be shown that many models are universally recognized to be
useful, although they are not strictly theories in the usual sense, meaning that no
criterion of falsifiability can be used directly on them, or that they cannot be
made the subject of an experimentum crucis. But this is not to say that they are
thereby reduced to the status of arbitrary constructs. No experimentum crucis
can be imagined which could invalidate, for example, game ‘theory’ or phonolog-
ical classification. Similarly, no falsifiability criterion can be worked out from
the psychoanalytic ‘theory’ of personality. To conclude that such ‘theories’ are
meaningless would run counter to the weight of opinion. What it does, on the
contrary, seem important to bring out is that these examples suggest the neces-
sity of rethinking the whole question of inductive logic in the social and human
sciences, since the logical principles inherited from the natural sciences, as de-
scribed for example by Karl Popper in his famous Logik der Forschung, are of no
service whatever for enabling us to understand why unverifiable models or

Mathematical models and methods 553
theories are nevertheless something other than purely arbitrary constructs. Of
course we can do no more here than merely mention this problem which belongs
to the realm of the philosophy of science, its treatment being outside the terms
of reference of this chapter.
This brings us to the second essential characteristic marking the distinction
between the notion of model and the classical notion of the0ry.~5 This is
that models being often theories whose point lies more in whether they illumi-
nate the nature of a phenomenon than whether they are true, there is nothing
outrageous in the fact that models which provide very different explanations of
the same phenomenon can co-exist without invalidating each other. Examples
of multiple models relating to the same phenomenon are extremely numerous. Let
us look at one case only - that of the Zipf-Pareto law. This law states that phe-
nomena in widely differing fields (distribution of income, of agglomerations,
of linguistic phenomena, etc.) are governed by the following equation:
f(x) = (a/xh)b”
Thus the number of words which occur exactly x times in James Joyce’s Ulysses
equals f (x) (in this particular case, parameter b equals I). So does the number
of writers who have published, say, exactly x articles in a particular scientific
review. So, again, does the number of towns of more than x inhabitants. This
very odd fact - since apparently unrelated phenomena obey a single and very
specific law - long ago caught the attention of mathematicians. Now, it SO
happens that at the present time we have at least two interpretations of the
Zipf-Pareto law: that of Herbert Simon and that of Mandelbrot, unfortunately
not susceptible of brief description. Both are equally attractive in so far as they
offer complete explanations of the mystery of this law, but the two are very far
apart in their hypotheses.
Apart from this characteristic which might be labelled theoretical pbruality,
the notion of the model also has yet other implications differentiating it from
the classical concept of theory. In effect, whereas a theory is conceived of as
having a certain minimum of general relevance, instances can be quoted of
mathematical models which explain specific facts, so that the notion of the
model contravenes the postulate that science deals only in generalities. Thus we
can try to express a particular society’s marriage rules or the operating rules of
a particular business by a mathematical model. We can even go further and say
that the progress of mathematics and the sciences of man is partly connected
with the fact that it should have been thought worthwhile to analyse things
which, without necessarily being unique, are specific. Admittedly this kind of
model usually incorporates some general propositions. But these propositions
by themselves are inadequate for explaining an observed reality, SO that the
main problem is the adequate adjunction of particular propositions.
Take for example the sociological analysis of the phenomena of migration -
an extremely useful example, for it illustrates very clearly a typical evolution1in
the applications of mathematics to the social and human sciences. At the end
of the nineteenth century, and even as late as I940 it was believed possible to
set up universal laws or theories of migrations. More exactly, it was thought that

554 Raymond Boudon
particular migration phenomena would prove to be explainable by reference to
a law of the Newtonian type. Thus it was postulated that the migratory flux
between two poles could be considered in general terms as proportional to the
product of their respective masses (defined by their respective populations)
and inversely proportional to the square of the distance:
MM'
Migratory flow = a - DZ
It was very soon realized that this function was unusable and under the best
circumstances yielded only the roughest answers. The law was accordingly
suppled, this time by introducing two free parameters adjustable at discretion
to the particular situations being studied, giving the function :
MM'
Migratory flow = a -
OB
The results were little better than before, and migration theory marked time
until it was realized that the particular aspects of the situations analysed also
had to be axiomatized if one wanted to arrive at valid results. The most impor-
tant contribution in this connexion is represented by the researches of Stouffer26
which demonstrate more particularly that the axioms must be varied according
as the researcher is concerned with intra-urban or inter-city migration and that
the structural characteristics of the poles of the migration (e.g. the characteris-
tics of their social composition) can in some cases be ignored, and in others
must be taken into consideration, depending on the scale of the observation.
This doctrine gave Stouffer distinctly better results than were obtained by his
predecessors. But it has one important implication, namely that the idea of a
general law expressing the phenomena must be abandoned and that achieving
an efficient model in a given situation means the adjunction to the general
axioms of particular axioms differing from one case to another.
In the confidence of after knowledge, it can, no doubt, be asserted that such a
conclusion is obvious. From another angle, however, it is indisputable that the
idea of resorting to a mathematical formalization to express a reality particular
in character is utterly at variance with the epistemological model offered by
classical physics, to which the social and human sciences clung slavishly through-
out the whole of the nineteenth century and part of the twentieth.
Of course the analysis presented above does not exhaust the difficulties of
the notion of model. Yet it certainly suffices to show why an entirely new
notion took the place of the notions of theory and law: because the latter
imply properties such as unicity, generality, verifiability, they are in most cases
unsuitable for describing the results of the attempted formalizations applied
to the analysis of human phenomena.
The notion of struct~re.~7
The notion of structure, like the notion of model,
is somewhat obscure and bears different meanings according to the context in
which it is used.
Nevertheless, as in the case of the model, the uses made of the idea permit us

Mathematical models and methods 555
to identify certain fundamental developments in the recent history of the social
sciences.
In practice, structure is the sign that the social and human sciences have
successfully achieved a scientific approach to the analysis of systems, that is of
complex objects made up of elements whose particular features are compre-
hensible only in relation to the whole of which they are parts. Instances of
systems are organisms, personalities and societies.
It might be said that this definition of ‘system’ is so broad that almost nothing
is left which cannot be termed a system. But we should note that the scientific
achievements which served as examples to the present social sciences - the law
of falling bodies, or the law of gravitation - do not imply the system concept.
They express relations between quantities, rather than systems of relations,
whereas in the structural analysis of the marriage rules of a society, for example,
the problem is to show that each of the rules implies another, that they form a
coherent whole and that changing one of them would modify the general econ-
omy of the whole. It is the same in linguistics, in the theory of grammars, when
we seek to demonstrate that the set of grammatical rules and exceptions of a
natural language makes up a system of reciprocally implicit elements.
It can thus be said that the notion of structure reflects the importance to
social and human science of the notion of system. In the writer’s view, the
notion of structure simply designates the class of theories permitting analysis
or explanation of the interdependence of the elements of an object conceived
as a system. Again, if the notion of structure is recent, at least as a widely used
instrumentality, this means not that the concept of system is not an old one, but
that it is only of late that we have succeeded in producing theories of a scientific
character to explicate it.
In a word, the notion of structure and its relatively recent acceptance are the
sign that we have contrived to work out the beginnings of a scientific answer
for the long standing preoccupation with the analysis of systems, where formerly
that preoccupation found expression in sterile philosophic doctrines like vital-
ism, or in explications on teleological lines. The elements of the answer are to be
found in the methods of structural linguistics and anthropology, or in the
economic or sociological methods which permit of the analysis of economies
and societies in their quality of systems of interdependent elements. With these
methods, it can be said that the social and human sciences have found a middle
way between the mechanistic and the teleological explications, or more precise-
ly, that they have succeeded in explaining what on the contrary used to serve
as an explanatory law : i.e. that systems seem to be governed by final causes.
The notions of structure and structuralism are thus a sort of common denom-
inator at a fairly undifferentiated level between extremely diverse methods.
Expressing the same idea in other terms, we can say that structuralism is not so
much a method as a way of looking at things.
For this reason we shall have to refer separately to two scientific movements
where the interest is centred not on the explication and analysis of individual
systems but on systems in general. The first is cybernetics. This is the study of
automatic control systems defined by collections of variables linked by circu-

556 Raymond Boudon
larly causal relationships. The most frequent instance of a control mechanism is
the thermostat. When the temperature of the system reaches a maximum NI,
the thermostat cuts off the heat-source. The system then cools down progressive-
ly until the thermostat turns on the heat-source when the temperature in the
system falls to a minimum temperature N2. By complicating this basic control
schema considerably, satisfactory representations say, of certain economic
systems, can be got.
However, the logic of the systems dealt with by cybernetics is too simple to
represent certain other systems, notably those capable of learning. The fact is
that, if we define learning as the possibility of making new responses to specified
situations, a ‘cybernetic’ system is incapable of learning : the responses are
predetermined. Cybernetic systems, therefore, are more advanced than the
mechanical systems characterized by unidirectional causality - without being
sufficiently developed to permit of the representation of systems capable of
learning.
For some years past these ‘higher’ systems have been the subject of sustained
research which is given the blanket title general systems theory. These
researches are recorded more particularly in the General Systemsza series.
111. THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF MODELS
As was said at the beginning, it is impossible to cover all the applications of
mathematics in the social and human sciences in the space available. However,
it will be useful to provide a more direct account of the methods and models
used in the social and human sciences than can be got from what has gone before.
It is difficult to classify the mathematical models used by the social and human
sciences according to criteria acceptable to all thedisciplines. Thus the economists
attach great importance to the distinction between dynamic and static models, or
open-ended and closed models. Psychological measurement theory, on the other
hand, distinguishes between deterministic and probabilistic models. The ethnologists
are emphatic in separating statistical and ‘mechanical’ models, a distinction
which does not coincide with that made by the economists, while the biologists
and sociologists insist on the difference between stochastic and nonstochastic
models. But we can also contrast descriptive and inductive models;
distinguish between predictive and explicative models like the economists and
sociologists ; or emphasize the importance of the models defining asymmetric
relations on a set of ordered variables like the sociological survey methodologists.
In short, it is impossible to use the criteria of a particular discipline to classify
the models used by the others.
Moreover it is little to the point to rely on a classification based on the type
of mathematics used.
The difficulty in establishing a satisfactory classification comes from the fact
that each model can be characterized according to a multitude of criteria whose
significance varies with the case and the discipline. Take for example Arrow’s29
analysis of the notion of the general interest: we can say that it is ‘theoretical’

Mathematical models and methods 557
(as opposed to ‘inductive’), that it makes use of set theory, etc. On the other
hand, if we take Thurstone’s multi-factorial analysis, it would have to be called
a multi-dimensional (as opposed to unidimensional) model, unverifiable, etc.,
so that the two systems of classification do not coincide.
What seemed the simplest and clearest answer to the problem was to class
models by their functions in research.
It is therefore proposed to begin by distinguishing two major groups of
models : descriptive models and non-descriptive models. The descriptive models
will be deemed to include measurement, classification and dimensional analysis
models, etc., which obviously do not have an explanatory or theoretical func-
tion: they simply classify or put in order large masses of data.
Among the many non-descriptive models, a distinction is made between
theoretical and inductive models. Inductive models are those seeking to explain
an observed reality: the task may be, for instance, to explain why - to take
Bortkiewicz’s famous example - the proportion of cases in the Prussian army
corps in which horses kicked out proved fatal shows a highly characteristic
distribution: the Poisson type. On the other hand, a theoretical model - or at
least what we are here terming a theoretical model - may be for analysing a
notion (as when Arrow shows that the conception of the general interest implies
contradictory exigencies) or for analysing the consequences of a collection of
axioms expressing a given reality (as in game theory, where there is no question
of forecasting the course of actual games, but rather of determining the prop-
erties of a game defined by a particular set of axioms).
Naturally these distinctions need to be clarified by examples, and in any case
can never be deemed absolute. Further, it wil be necessary to introduce addi-
tional subdivisions within the major groups of models we have defined. Thus it
is obvious that in the class of inductive models, it is relevant to distinguish the
models used in experimental situations from those used in the observational
sciences.
A. Theoretical models
Two types of theoretical models can be distinguished: general models and
specific models. The former deal with subjects defined in very wide terms: thus
we get action theory, diffusion theory, learning theory or imitation theory. The
second group is theoretical inasmuch as these models do not set out directly
to explain observed data, and specific inasmuch as they analyse the consequences
of hypotheses which express specific situations. A few examples wil clarify
these distinctions.
An example of a general theory is the theory of games, originated by von
Neumann and Morgenstern. It may be looked on as a range of models represent-
ing variations on the following simple situation: let us imagine two players A
and B, each having the choice between two decisions: a and b in the case of the
former, c and din the case of the second. Let us assume that at the instant when
each of the players chooses between his two alternative lines of action he is

558 Raymond Boudon
ignorant of the other’s decision. The decisions of each of the two players, taken
together, produce a particular pay-off for either. The position can be expressed
by means of a pay-off matrix.
B
C d
A
b (2, -2) (-595)
In this particular game, if A chooses a and B chooses c, player A gains 4 and
player B loses 4 (4 francs for example); if A chooses b and if B chooses c, A wins
2 and B loses 2, etc.
A game like this is distinguished by several special characteristics; in particu-
lar it is a game for two players and it is a zero-sum game. In other words the
gain of one player is always equal to the loss of the other, whatever the decisions
they take.
Zero-sum games for two players were the first to be studied systematically
and it has been possible to establish a number of important theorems with
regard to them. In the situation described above, there is little difficulty in
defining the rationality of the decisions. Thus, as soon as one assumes that the
actors are sufficiently perspicacious to understand that the game which they are
playing is represented by the matrix shown above, A will choose a as his strategy,
as it guarantees him a gain of 4 or 2 according to whether B plays c or d, these
results being more in his favour than what he would obtain by playing b. Simi-
larly, it is in the interest of B to play d. This game is said to have a saddle point,
and its final result will be (3, - 3).
But zero-sum games for two players, despite their theoretical importance,
must be considered mainly as notional cases. It is interesting to explore them,
not so much because they faithfully reproduce real situations as because they
present elementary cases, whose properties it is logical to study before going on
to the more complex. Indeed, although there are many games which can be’con-
sidered as being effectually games for two players - armed conflict for instance -
it is seldom that a social situation characterised by a collection of inter-connected
decisions can be represented as a zero-sum game. One need only take the in-
stance of military or diplomatic conflicts: let us suppose that decisions taken by
two players A and B (nations in the present case) issue in an atomic war: it is
obvious that in this case the result of the game is disastrous for both players.
Now, in the case of non-zero-sum games it is difficult to give-a formal definition
of the notion of rational decision. Take for example the two-player, non-zero-
sum game defined by the following matrix:
B
C d

A aL
(525) (-4,Q
b (6, -4) (-3, -3)
Looking at it from this angle, it must be recognized that game theory is a
relatively exceptional case in the social and human sciences. Of course there are
several examples of families of models obtained by a series of variations on a
basic model, but none has the importance of game theory.
Apart from game theory - an almost unique case of a theory with wide
mathematical ramifications made up of models which are closely connected
logically - other collections of models can be cited to which the name of

560 Raymond Boudon
‘theory’ is also given. These set out to analyse well-defined phenomena, but
unlike game theory, they consist of models which are to a large extent independent
of one another from the point of view of logic, as, for instance, with the
‘theory of economic cycles’. This title is made to cover a multitude of models
characterized by a common aim: to analyse the cyclic phenomena which are
features of almost all modern economic systems. The problem of the theory of
cycles, in other words, is to explain why all modern economic systems seem subject
to cyclic phenomena following a definite pattern. Briefly, the models
it is required to construct are not inductive but theoretical. As we see, when we
talk of the theory of economic cycles the word is used in a very different sense
from the one given it in the expression ‘game theory’. The models subsumed
under economic cycle theory are self-contained theorizations between which, on
occasions, the only connexion is their theme, despite the fact that certain of
them may be considered variously complex versions of the same hypothesis
(for example the successive versions of Kalecki’s m0de1).3~
Yet other disciplines have ‘theories’ comparable in logical nature with economic
cycle theory. For instance, in sociology, there is the analysis of diffusion
and migration phenomena, and in anthropology, the analysis of kinship systems.
Finally there are various ‘general theories’ where ‘theory’ is used in a third
sense, one example being the formal theory of grammars. Here we are not
dealing with a collection of more or less independent models, as with the theory
of economic cycles. Nor have we a theory closely tied in with some reality like
game theory (the latter, indeed, is inconceivable without the notion of rational
behaviour, which it endeavours, of course, to formalize, but which is based on
psychological and sociological experience). Rather we have here a true mathematical
theory which has got the same distance away from its ‘raw material’ as
Euclidean geometry from natural circles and lines. This theory has already
been mentioned in passing and at this point an example will give a better understanding
of its nature.
The analysis of natural languages led Chomsky to conceive a rule of grammar
as a rewriting rule. Consider for instance the following rules, where x + y
stands for the expression ‘x can be rewritten y’:
s +AB
A + CD
B +ED
C -+ a, the, another
D -+ ball, boy, girl
E +hit, struck
Applying these rules, we obtain the sentences: ‘a ball hit the girl’, ‘a boy hit
the girl’, both grammatically correct. All we need retain of this is the idea that
a rule of grammar can be expressed in the form x 3 y, where x and y represent
either terms in a non-terminal vocabulary (in this instance such vocabulary is
made up of terms S, A, B, C, D, E.), or terms in a terminal vocabulary (in this
instance: a, the, another, ball, boy, girl, hit, struck). This representation of
grammatical rules led Chomsky and other writers to set themselves problems of
formalization, and to raise the question, for example, of the types of language

Mathematical models and methods 561
which would be obtained by applying one or other group of restrictions to the
rules of grammar. To take now a more precise example of these formal investigations,
let us imagine that the rules of grammar are restricted by the following: 'if
x -+ y is a rule of grammar, then x is a single member of the auxiliary vocabulary,
and y is a nonnul segment'.
Let us suppose that the items of auxiliary vocabulary are termed A, B, C, . and the items of the terminal vocabulary a, b, c, ...; then the above condition
means that in the grammar under consideration such rules as :
AB+a
AB + ac, etc.
are prohibited. For in fact, when the above condition is applied, two items of the
auxiliary vocabulary cannot stand to the left of +. Similarly, if # stands for
boundary, a rule such as A -+ # is not permitted.
The following formal problem can then be tackled : given the restrictive
requirements set out above, is it possible, from a grammar observing this
requirement, to generate 'sentences' with this structure:
or, more generally, with the structure:
aaaabbbaaaabbb,
anbmanbm? (1)
Another instance of what might be asked: is it possible from this type of
grammar (which Chomsky calls conte xt-free grammar) to generate sentences
with the structure:
aaaadbbdacadb bdaaaa, (2)
or, more generallly, with the structure:
a "zk- Id.. .db"~da"~~a"idb"zd. ..bnzk-zdanzk- i,
where k, n,, nz,. . .nZk- are some arbitrary positive integers?
Evidently, these are purely formal questions. One theorem of the formal
theory of grammars states that sentences of type (2) can be generated by the
grammar in question.
Let us postulate the following rules :
rule I S + adAda
rule z S +aSa
rule 3 S +aca
rule 4 A + bAb
rule 5 A + bdSdb
Rule z permits the formation of segment aSa. Reapplications of the same
rules successively form segments aaSaa and aaaSaaa. By next applying rule I,
the following segment is formed:
aaaadArlaaa or ddAda4.
Going on now to apply rules 4, 5 and 3 the desired segment is obtained:
a4dbzdacadbzda4

562 Raymond Boudon
On the other hand, although the structure of type (I) sentences may seem
more elementary than that of type (2) sentences, it can be demonstrated that it
is impossible to generate type (I) sentences by means of context-free grammars.31
In order to generate sentences of this type, a context-sensitive grammar like the
following must be used:
rule I S+uS
rule 2 S+ bS
rule 3 # kS # -+ # kk #
where k represents any arbitrary string of terminal vocabulary. With this
grammar it is now possible, by applying rule I n times in succession, to generate
the rewritten expression:
S -+ anS,
then by applying rule 2 m times, obtain:
S -+ u"b"'S
Finally, by applying rule 3 the following sentence is obtained:
u"bmu"bm
which is in fact a type (I) sentence. As can be seen, rule 3 is incompatible with
the definition of the context-free grammars considered above, since the expres-
sion which appears to the left of the arrow is not 'a single symbol of the non-
terminal vocabulary'.
These examples should be sufficient to give an idea of the type of results
achieved in the 'formal theory of grammars'. Although such research derives
from considerations relating to the analysis of natural languages, it is obvious
that the theorems which it yields are of a purely formal nature The sentences
considered by the formal theory of grammars are constructs of the mind:
certainly, they are inspired by natural languages; but they are for the most part
independent of such languages.
The theory of grammars, therefore, is one of a set of purely mathematical
theories, in which the r61e of human phenomena is essentially to trigger a line
of thought. Other, more widely known examples of such theories are the mathe-
matical theories connected with the problem of the transmission of informa-
tion: information theory or code theory.
The three types of 'theory' which we have examined more or less exhaust the
types of general theoretical model discoverable in the social sciences. More
frequently the theoretical models met with in the literature of the subject are
specific models expressing specific situations and forming units in themselves.
It is these specific models which we shall now consider.
A typical instance of this state of affairs is provided by the mathematical
researches associated with group dynamics. These research items do not consti-
tute a general theory comparable to game theory, or even an assemblage of
models presenting logical affinities as with theories of economic cycles. There
have been many attempts at formalization in this domain, but the models which
can be instanced are each concerned with some separate aspect of the func-

Mathematical models and methods 563
tioning of groups, use mathematics of widely different types, and have unlike
functions. Without going into details, let us look at some examples of models
applied in this domain.
First of all we find models derived from laboratory experiments on the
mechanisms of influence within groups. The most famous experiment in this
field is Ash’s consisting in exposing a ‘naive’ subject to a sequence of stimuli
in order to elicit alternately correct and incorrect answers, while the other mem-
bers of the group, who in fact are ‘accomplices’ of the experiment, systematically
give the wrong answers. This experiment has been formalized by Cohen in an
ingenious mode1,32 in which the answers given by the subject of the experiment
are assumed to depend on the state in which he is. There are 4 such states:
I. Absorbing non-conformism (an absorbing state in the sense of the theory
of Markov chains: the subject who achieves this state at the nth test wil give
non-conformist responses in all subsequent tests) ;
2. Temporary non-conformism (there is some degree of probability that the
subject achieving this state wil move to state I in the following test, and
some degree of probability that he wil move to state 3;
3. Temporary conformism (the exact reverse of (2) above);
4. Absorbing conformism.
To put it in different terms, the model leads up to the definition of a Markov
chain between 4 latent states. The transition probabilities of this model can be
estimated by iterative methods. A good fit has usually been obtained between
the curves of the observed and of the theoretical responses. As can be seen, we
have here a model whose theoretical apparatus ties in with a highly specific
experimental situation.
Other attempts at formalization - using graph theory - are associated with
experiments which are akin to Ash’s but are of a more general type: the question
is not how an individual reacts to an opinion advanced unanimously by the rest
of the group, but how he modifies one of his opinions according to the links he
maintains with the rest of the group, the opinions of these others and his own
opinions on themes having a logical connexion with the opinion under consid-
eration. The theory underlying these formalization attempts is that an individ-
ual seeks to equilibrate his social ties and his opinions at the least cost.
Many instances could accordingly be cited of models dealing with the forma-
tion of individual opinions in social situations. But at the time of writing formal-
ization is not sufficiently advanced to allow us to speak in terms of a general
theory: all we find is a collection of relatively unconnected specific models, none
of which has yet engendered a genuine research line.
Apart from the models treating of the formation of opinions within thepgroup,
models are to be found which analyse the functioning of groups, the best-known
of which is perhaps Simon’s.33 Here again, the picture is one of dispersed and
unrelated probings.
These different examples are sufficient to show that theoretical mathematical
models take different forms according to the particular discipline in the social
and human sciences. Game theory is of course the only example of a theory
whose subject-matter is formally defined and whose developments consist in a

564 Raymond Boudon
series of models analysing the diverse formulations of a single basic situation.
In contrast, economic cycle theory should rather be considered as an assemblage
of concurrent models or hypotheses on the signification of the cycles. This state
of affairs is characteristic of the extensively mathematized sciences like eco-
nomics.
In the less developed sciences such as social psychology or sociology, theoret-
ical mathematical models occur as unrelated attempts: here Cohen’s model for
Ash’s experiment; there applications of graph theory to experiments in con-
nexion with the theory of cognitive disonance; here again a few models treating
of the functioning of groups. If we look at the situation of linguistics, it is
apparent that this discipline stands apart, having begotten completely formalized
theories like the theory of grammars. It must, however, be noted that in reality
they are mathematical rather than linguistic theories.
It may be wondered why such differences can be observed between the disci-
plines. Unquestionably institutional considerations must be borne in mind :
for example, it is surely not unimportant that until recently economists in all
countries were given more mathematical-statistical training than sociologists.
On the other hand we must not pretend that the degree or openness to mathema-
ticization does not vary from discipline to discipline: thus the economist is
dealing more frequently with naturally quantified variables (price, income,
investments) than the sociologist. In absolute terms, this state of affairs is not
a disadvantage but it largely accounts for economic theory having produced
attempts at formalization earlier on, for the classical mathematics presupposed
variables of a quantitative type. As a result economists were able to produce
formal analyses of certain economic problems on the basis of the existing
mathematics. On the other hand, in sociology, the nature of the problems, and
above all, of the variables, often involves non-classical mathematics.
From these two considerations it follows that any forecasting in this realm is
difficult. Undoubtedly in the years to come we shall see an increasing formaliza-
tion, for example, of sociological and psychological theories. But it is difficult
to foresee in what directions these formal theories will develop.
B. Descriptive models
We now turn to a class of models which is quite distinct from the previous one.
Here the aim is no longer to explain, but to classify, order or measure. Of course,
classification, ordering and measurement are not ends in themselves, and the
ultimate aim is still explanation; when we classify plants into species, or ar-
chaeological remains by their age, we are not doing it for the sake of classifying,
but to extract information which will give us a better understanding of the
phenomena into which we are inquiring. The fact still remains, however, that
the processes of classification, ordering or measurement are operations sui
generis, whose logic must likewise be so regarded. We used the term descriptive
models for those which set out to effect the classification, sub-division or
measurement of a ‘population’ of any description.
As was mentioned in a previous section, recourse to descriptive models has

Mathematical models and methods 565
increased markedly in the last few years. This increase is on occasion associated
with specific problems. Thus the utility measurement theory was born of needs
engendered by economic theory. But above all the development of measurement
and classification models got its impulsion from psychology and principally
psychometry. Only later did the social psychologists and sociologists
realize the value of measurement and classification models, notably when they
came up against the problem of ‘attitude measurement’.
Spearman, Thurstone, Guttman, Lazarsfeld and many others have lent their
names to classification and measurement models. In most cases the models
consist in the expression of a collection of observable variables (success in tests,
answers to questions about personal attitudes, etc.) as functions of classifying
variables, variously labelled non-observable, latent or genotypic. Thus, in
Spearman’s classical factorial analysis we write that the success zij of a subject
i in a test j is a linear function of an intelligence measure Fi and of the score
eiJ of subject i on a factor peculiar to test j. Accepting certain conventions on
how the variables t?J and Fi are measured, and assuming all latent variables to
be independent, it is possible to test the model and estimate the Fi quantities.
Lazarsfeld’s latent structure analysis can be regarded as an adaptation of
Spearman’s factorial analysis to the cases - frequent in sociology and social
psychology - when the observed variables are qualitative.
Over and above the researches in the direct Spearman lineage, there is another
research tradition which is important in the field of measurement theory,
namely the one deriving from the work of the psychophysicists.
This latter tradition was started by Thurstone in the 1920s, and developed in
greater mathematical depth by writers such as Mosteller between 1950 and
1960; Luce’s recent work on the theory of measurement can also be included.
All these researches present the common characteristic of confronting the
respondent not with isolated questions or stimuli, but with groups of stimuli
whose terms he must compare. These models, which presuppose complicated
observation procedures, are usable principally in experimental situations,
whereas models in the Spearman tradition are better adapted to observation
situations (surveys by questionnaire, psychometrical observations, etc.).
One other tradition, which started from a critical review of the two just
mentioned, is particularly well represented in the works of Guttman and
Coombs. Whereas the models arising from the researches of Spearman and
Thurstone are all statistical models, those of Guttman and Coombs are either
algebraic or combinatorial. They avoid the disadvantages of the assumptions
built into previous models (linear character of the relationships between overt
and latent variables in Spearman’s analysis ; normal distribution hypotheses in
the Thurstone-Mosteller models), but introduce others. In effect, they assume
that the data conform to the model not stochastically but exactly. (To mark the
contrast between the two types of model, the psychosociological measurement
theory relies on a choice of terms which, inasmuch as it may be the source of
all sorts of confusion, is highly debatable: it calls models of the latter type
deterministic, contrasting them with probabilistic models of the Spearman-
Thurstone type.)

566 Raymond Boudon
The best account of the measurement models proposed by psychologists and
sociologists is Torgerson’s and the most recent Coombs’.34 But there is also a
whole collection of model-less measurement methods, i.e. methods which,
without propounding any hypotheses about the subjacent properties of the
observed data, simply seek to work to purely formal criteria: for example,
minimizing the differences between individuals belonging to the same class,
and maximizing the differences between individuals in different classes. The
origin of this research tradition should undoubtedly be credited to Fisher’s
work on discriminant functions. Other methods of the same type have since
been propounded by the biologists, and borrowed by the social science re-
searchers.3 5
If one wanted to trace the history of psychosociological measurement theory
in the fewest possible words, one might say that it was very much in fashion
and in vigorous growth firstly between 1920 and 1930 and secondly between
1940 and 1950. Thereafter hardly any major progress is observable. Most of the
work published since the second of the two decades is confined to fuller explora-
tion of the formal problems posed by the models conceived in the previous
period, or to resolving the problems left open. Today, the proliferation of
measurement and classification models is characterized by a degree of rela-
tivism: no one believes any more, as was possible in Spearman’s time, that such
models can yield measurements just as well defined as those of physics. We know,
for instance, that when individuals are asked a series of questions aimed at
classifying them in terms of a particular attitude (for example, anti-Semitism),
and a measurement model is used on this information, the classification ob-
tained is quite likely to be better than what would have been obtained by
empirical means (for example, by finding the total of the number of ‘anti-
Semitic’ replies). But we also know that this classification cannot be considered
valid in any absolute sense, as a different model - which one would have no
reason to reject - would certainly give different results.
Lastly, the category of descriptive models includes a class of tools which are
not strictly speaking either measurement or classification models. These are the
dimensional analysis models, also fathered by Thurstone. Dimensional analysis
is a response to snags discovered in applying Spearman’s model, when it became
apparent that some psychometrical results could not be explained by a model of
the form zlj = ajFl + elj, in which, be it remembered, zlj is a measurement of
the success of individual i at test j, Fl the ‘intelligence’ of i, and ell a success
factor specific to the test j. The basic equation of the model suggests the generalization:
zlj = aIjFIl + + ... + anjF.t + ell.
In other words the success of the subject i at test j is considered to be a function
not of a single aptitude, but of several distinct aptitudes: F,, Fz ... F,,. If
the ‘factors’ F,, Fz ... F. are assumed to be independent they can be represented
by a system of n orthogonal axes, each subject then being represented by a point
in this space. This sort of analysis makes it possible, for example, to identify the
aptitudes brought into play by a battery of psychometric tests, or the ‘attitudes’
which explain the replies to a psychosociological inquiry.

Mathematical models and methods 567
After Thurstone, one of the pioneers of this type of research is Hotelling.
In particular, the latter showed that, assuming certain classical hypotheses
(generalizations of the hypotheses of Spearman), the eigenvalues of the correlation
matrix measure the relative importance of factors F,, Fz ... Fn, while
the eigenvectors of this matrix measure the ‘saturations’ (a coefficients). Recently,
dimensional models which are less restrictive in the hypotheses which they
introduce have been propounded by researchers such as Guttman and Shepard.36
There has been much discussion of the compass of these methods of dimensional
analysis. As in the case of measurement models, we find, at least initially,
a tendency to interpret the results of these models in a literal, absolute sense,
the object being deemed, as Thurstone himself put it, to achieve a scientific
identification of the mental ‘faculties’ beloved of scholastic philosophy. Nowadays,
the quality mainly seen in these analyses is that of descriptive models
usable, as the case may be, on problems of grouping or of classification or over
the construction of typologies. This new epistemological attitude probably
derives at least partly from the fact that these methods, used only in psychometric
contexts to begin with, have since been used in other fields (classification
of groups, geographical regions, etc.) working on an assemblage of observable
characteristics.
To conclude it should beInoted that it is probably not by chance that the
principal development of classification and measurement models should have
been in the frame of reference of psychology and sociology. The reason is that
most of the variables used in these disciplines are at once qualitative, and not
directly observable. In economics, on the other hand, the variables are usually
quantitative by nature. This is why, whereas psychology and sociology have
constructed what might be called a general theory of measurement, economics
has concentrated above all on the measurement problems posed by specific
concepts, such as ‘utility’.
C. Inductive models
In relation to the two preceding classes, inductive models are in some sort a
residual class. The characteristic they have in common is that of being ver$iabZe
theories. It is here that they differ, say, from game theory or from the formal
theory of grammar, which are theories inspired by real situations but are not
verifiable in the true sense of the term.
Among the inductive models several sub-categories can be distinguished :
some have a predictive, and others an explanatory bias. Some are adjuncts of
experimentation and others of observation. Some are ‘structural’, others are
not.
The distinction between the first two types is not always easy to make.
Nevertheless, a large number of models can be cited whose sole function is
predictive, as with the electoral models associated with names such as Ithel de
Sola Pool and Rosenthal.37 These models use well established information such
as the variation of voting behaviour with age, sex, religious predilections, socio-

568 Raymond Boudon
economiclevel, etc., and the problem is to use this information to best advantage
for predicting future electoral results.
Hagerstrand’s work3* on the spread of new ideas in an agricultural milieu
provides another example of predictive models. The original model used by
Hagerstrand (a simulated model) can be considered as a more complicated ver-
sion of the logistic model and is of little interest for explication or theorizing
purposes. On the other hand, it turned out to be an excellent tool for prediction.
The complications which Hagerstrand introduced were as follows : firstly,
‘contamination’ is not assumed to be uniformly effective; operationally, this
hypothesis is worked in by assuming that the number of necessaryzcontacts is
symmetrically distributed. Secondly, the probability of an individual i meeting
an individual j is not a constant as with the logistic model, but varies with the
distance between i and j.
No more will be said here about the predictive applications of the regular
statistical methods39 than that it is to be noted specially, with regard to the
problem of prediction, that excellent predictive models can be formulated with
very simple hypotheses: the predictive quality of work like that of Hagerstrand
or of Orcutt is founded on two facts. In both cases, the actual data used are
very numerous, which amounts to introducing into the model a large number
of parameters estimated empirically; secondly, the use of computers makes it
possible to introduce these data - which it would be impossible to study by
analytic (deductive) methods - into a simulated stochastic model.
‘Structural‘ models
The term ‘structural’ can be applied to models which, like those of kinship
structure analysis, aim at analysing the coherence of the elements of a system.
Other examples of this kind of model are the models applied in the analysis of
myths (which at the present time are still on the hither side of real mathematici-
zation) and most of those used in linguistics. Also akin to these are the models
used by genetic epistemology.
The structural type of model is relatively new, and it may well be that it has
an important future in disciplines like sociology or psychology where such
questions as the coherence of collective representations, institutional systems,
and systems of values, just as much as that of individual representations, are
obviously central.
Inductive models as adjuncts of experimentation
As we noted in a preceding section, the introduction of mathematical methods
into the social and human sciences has profoundly modified the nature of
experimentation in certain fields. It will pay us to confirm this as regards
what is probably the most important example: learning theory.
It can justifiably be said that the ‘birth certificates’ of what we can now call
‘the mathematical theory of learning’ are a paper by W. K. Estes,4O and another
by Estes and Burke.4’ Before these researches the mathematical element con-
sisted mainly in attempts to discover the best function to express the relation
between performance and learning,4= an example of the type of application of

Mathematical models and methods 569
mathematical instrumentation characteristic of the beginnings of methodological
research. The same type of preoccupation seems as late as Hull, whose work
on learning is of considerable importance.43
We should however note that Hull's mathematicizations have already got a
good way beyond the stage of simply trying to fit a function to a curve: for
example, he introduces non-observable factors. Thus he postulates the existence
of a non-observable variable which he calls 'habit strength' (sH,) with the
assumption that it is linked to the number n of reinforcements by the relation
,H, = m(I-e- '"),
where m and i are positive constants. From this equation other equations are
developed. Thus Hull uses the results of certain experiments to assert that the
quantity rn is to be considered as a function of the reward (w) attached to
learning, which gives the new equation:
m = in' (I-e-'"),
where m' and k are new constants. He further postulates that the upper limit
of ,H,, that is rn, decreases as the interval of time t between the response and the
reinforcement increases, whence :
m' = rn" e - Jt.
These examples are enough to characterize Hull's theory from an epistemological
point of view. Firstly he deems it necessary to introduce non-observed
variables of which the observed quantities are indicators (thus, N is the indicator
of &). In so doing he is performing a process comparable to Fechner's on
Weber's law. Secondly the relations between the variables are given an analytical
form imposed a priori: as can be seen from the examples given, the chosen
function, in accordance with the tradition of learning theory, is exponential in
form. It wil furthermore be observed that the variable ,H, is conceived as an
average (average of performances). In other words, there is no question of
analysing the learning process in sequential terms. Finally, the situations analysed
are essentially acquirement situations.
The epistemology accepted by Bush, Estes, Burke and the like is different.
Again non-observable variables are introduced, but the mathematics does not
consist in the analytical expression of an observed curve. It is the actual learning
mechanisms, obviously hypothetical, which are expressed in the form of a
mathematical theory. The learning curve is a consequence of this theory.
To give an idea of the importance of this change, there follows a brief description
of Estes and Burke's mode144 which, just as much as Hull's theory, falls
within the acquisition experiment framework. The experiments which provide
the basis for Estes and Burke's formalization are Humphrey's, and their design
is as follows: the left-hand light lights up; the subject must then guess if the
right-hand one is going to light up as well. On the experimenter's side, he may
choose to 'reinforce' the response with varying frequency (for instance for o %,
25 % or 100 % of the 'queries' according to the experiment). Formally, the subject
has a choice between two responses, A, and A,. The experimenter chooses
between E, (reinforcement of A,, or a sign that A, is the correct response) and Ez

570 Raymond Boudon
(sign that Az is the correct response). In the experiment we are considering, the
frequency n with which one of the responses, for example A,, is reinforced,
remains independent of the subject's responses. The formalization which
Estes and Burke produce for this learning process is as follows:
I. In any given experiment, the subject is confronted with a set S, which breaks
down a stimulus into a ked number s of elements.
2. At each stage, each element is connected either with response Ax, or with
response A,.
3. At each stage, the subject chooses at random a proportion 8 of the elements.
4. If among the 8 elements picked at random, i elements are connected with AI
and j with A,, then the subject chooses AI with the probability i/(i+j) = i/s.
5. If the investigator chooses E,, those of the elements in the sample which were
connected with Az become connected with AI and vice versa. The elements
outside the sample do not change their connexions.
This is obviously an abstract theoretical scheme. In some experiments, simple
representations of the elements of the stimulus have been constructed. But it is
not necessary to produce physical interpretations of these elements : they can
be treated as real, but not observable. Their function is simply to introduce the
parameter 8 which can be taken as a parameter measuring the effect of the
reinforcement. According as the value of 8 is greater or smaller, the conditioning
will change at a faster or slower rate. The advantage of the symbolic representation
of 0 under the form of a set of elements is that it enables learning to be represented
as a stochastic process, where the elements play the part of the balls
in an urn model. The learning curve is deduced from the process just described,
starting from the assumption that at each stage of the experiment the subject
can be deemed to be in one of the following states: state o when none of the s
elements is connected with A,; state I when I element is connected with A,, etc.
Making the assumption that s = 2, the probability of passing from state
o to state I then equals:
(Probability of the experimenter reinforcing response A, by E,) x (Probability
of one element being connected to A, and the others not).
Whence :
pox = n x 2e(1- e)
The whole range of transition probabilities, Poo, POI, PO2, ... Pz2, can thus be
calculated, forming the matrix P.
Next we consider the probability of response A, at the nth repetition:
rz(") = (o)P0(")
+ (l/s)PI(") + ... + (s/s)P8(")
where the quantities (o), (I/s), ... (s/s) are the probabilities of subjects giving a
positive response to A, when in states 0, I, ... s. From this is deduced:
It(") = Z-(I- 8)n[n-r,(0)]
We thus see that the probability of response A, at the nth repetition is a func-
tion of rzto), of 8 and IC. 8 is a parameter which measures the rapidity of learn-
ing; n is the probability of response A, at the conclusion of the learning process
(i.e. when n + 00, rz(n) -+ n).

Mathematical models and methods 571
This model is of interest for the following reasons. First of all instead of
seeking to plot a learning curve direct, the researcher tries to represent the
learning process by a physical model and this model has the advantage of
taking into account an obviously essential parameter: the 0 parameter, which
measures the effect of reinforcement. Further, the model is so constructed as to
eliminate the quantity s (number of elements) in the equation giving rz(n) as a
function of n and 0. Finally the model has thevirtue of providing a basic schema
which can be elaborated to adapt it to other experimental situations.
In point of fact, the variants of this model are numerous. Thus experiments
have been undertaken where the frequency of weighting conditions depends on
the subject's responses : here the experimenter chooses EI with probability nII
and E, with probability 7c12 if the subject has chosen A,. Again the model has
been extended by Estes, Suppes and Atkinson to handle social interaction
situations.45 By way of example let us look at an experiment summarized by the
following matrix.
A2
B
Here the two subjects are unaware of each other's responses, but the response
of the experimenter depends on the combination of the two subjects' responses.
If A chooses AI and B chooses BI, A's response is given a probability a, and
B's a probability of (I -a,). The other cells of the matrix are to be interpreted
in a like manner. An analysis on the same lines as that of the Estes and Burke
model shows that one can express this situation by a transition matrix containing
such items as PZ1,,,
(probability of passing from a situation where A is in state
2 and B in state I to a situation where A is in state I and B in state 2). As before,
the learning curves can be deduced from this.
Though there is no question of reviewing, however summarily, the complete
methodology used in the theory of learning, be it noted that the 'sampling
theory' we have been discussing in the preceding paragraphs is only one segment
of the full range of models applied to learning. As well as the sampling theory,
there is a whole school of research characterized by procedures consisting basi-
cally in recourse to an operator to arrive ar r("). If we call this operator Q,,
r(") is given by an equation of the form:
= Qrjr("
- I)
The operator Q, is determined by the responses (AI) and by the investigator's
interventions (Ej). The stimulus is always the same, as in the situations dealt
with by the theory of sampling, while the operators QiJ may be chosen in
various manners according to the nature of the experimental situations which
it is desired to represent. Thus in the case of the Bush-Mosteller model for two
responses, the operator is given the form:
rz(") = ai, y,(n - 1) + atj

572 Raymond Boudon
the values of aij and ail varying with the run of the tests (combinations of A,
and E,).
It should also be noted that in the whole of the above we have been considering
acquirement situations in their simplest state (constant stimulus). Of
course learning theory also concerns itself with the problems of discrimination,
of generalization, of extinction, etc. Several models, on the lines of those
described, have been devised to analyse these situations. Bush thus, in one of his
models, uses a double series of operators: on the one hand conditioning operators
which modify the probability of an Ai response when Ej has occurred; and
on the other generalization operators, which modify the probability of an At
response when the event Ej has not occurred.
It has been deemed useful to dwell at some length on the models associated
with the theory of learning, for the mathematical theory of learning is surely
ope of the important occurrences in the recent history of the applications of
mathematics to the human and social sciences. A research tradition with hundreds
of investigations already to its credit has been created in less than ten years
and has profoundly modified the nature of the experimentation. Today virtually
any experiment carried out in the domain of 1earning.process research must use
a mathematical formalization. Furthermore, we are witnessing the emergence
in learning theory, at both the research and informational levels, of cumulative
progress rare in the human and social sciences. Lastly, we should note that the
evolution of the theory’s methodology illustrates a general tendency : replacement
of groping after functions by a mathematical translation of the elementary
mechanisms.
Nevertheless, it should be stressed that research in the domain of the learning
process, despite the numbers and cumulative character of the investigations, has
as yet achieved only very elementary results, as the examples given show.
It is difficult to say whether the research strategy illustrated by the theory of
learning can spread to other fields. The writer himself sees no reason why it
should not be applied, for instance, to the analysis of the functioning of groups
in social psychology and of social processes in the domain of sociology or of
demography. That something of the sort is possible is demonstrated by a few
relatively isolated examples already mentioned, such as Cohen’s or Orcutt’s
models.
Znductive models used with observation
The observational sciences such as economics or sociology lack the possibilities
of simplification open to researchers in, say, psychology. This creates more
serious obstacles to the introduction of mathematical formalism. As we saw in
the previous section, experiments like those used by learning theory place the
subject in extremely simple situations. In contrast, the economist or sociologist
is confronted with complex situations which cannot be streamlined.
The inductive methods used by the economist belong essentially to the field
of econometrics, Progress made in econometric research, although consider-
able, cannot be said to exhibit breakthroughs analogous to those found in
psychology (with learning theory or genetic epistemology) or in linguistics

Mathematical models and methods 573
(with grammatical theory). However, the reader will note the importance of the
renewal in economic theory brought about by the development of the theories
of games and of decision-making, by cybernetics, by simulation, etc. Recourse
to these new instruments has forced the economist to think out ph,enomena in
terms of parameters and systems of variables. The result has been a formulation
of economic theory which makes it better fitted-for collation with the factual
realities.
In sociology inductive methods are mathematically less developed than in
econometrics, and, above all, less unified, but research in: the field is ‘live’
and abundant. Three categories of research can be distinguished of which the
first deals with the general methods applicable to the analysis of sociological
surveys. On certain points these methods are absolutely similar to those of eco-
nometrics on the one hand and of psychometrics on the other.46
However the fact that the sociologist for the most part collects his basic data
though surveys rather than from among administrative statistics, gives him
greater freedom than the economist to ‘tailor’ his data-collection to fit the
problem. Thus, it is no coincidence that the development of mathematical meth-
ods in sociology accompanied that of complex forms of survey, like contextual
surveys (those assuming several stages of sampling, for instance a sample of
secondary education institutions, of classes in these institutions and of students
in these classes) or panel surveys (those carried out several times on the same
sample).
The third point to stress is the increasing interest of sociologists in simulation
methods enabling models to be constructed to represent hypotheses which are
relatively complex and hence difficult to analyse by deductive methods.
IV. THE FUTURE
Obviously it is not possible to give a clear picture of what the applications of
mathematical methods wil be in the social sciences in twenty or even ten years
time: the recent history of such applications shows several examples of relatively
brusque breakthroughs. Now, the final factors in determining the development
of an effective methodology are above all the relatively unforeseeable discoveries
which have radically changed the course of research in this or that domain,
whether it be the work of Cournot, Walras and Pareto in economics, or of LBvi-
Strauss in ethnology, of Chomsky in linguistics, or of Estes or Piaget in psychol-
ogy, to give but a few examples. The most that can be forecast is the growth and
acuity of certain needs; thus one can foresee the urgency of developing the ap-
plications of stochastic process theory to social phenomena.
Nevertheless, certain factors whose action can be expected to persist and
increase in the years to come, give an indication of the lines of force operative
in the development of a mathematical methodology in the sciences of man.
These factors are:
I. A gaggle of technological inducements (whether translating machines, com-
puters, or the technical development of actual mathematics);

574 Raymond Boudon
2. The increase of research providing a larger mass of data for analysis;
3. The augmentation of ‘non-academic’ needs (e.g. improvement of forecasting
instruments in demography, economics or sociology; growing needs in surveys,
etc.);
4. Advances in information seeking and collecting procedures (as for instance,
in sociology, the spread of contextual and panel surveys);
5. Institutional factors : increased teaching of methodology, statistics and
mathematics ;
6. Social factors : increasing interest among professional mathematicians in the
application of mathematics to the social and human sciences.
All these factors will necessarily lead to a rapid spread of recourse to mathematics;
even now it is impossible to see how the problem of machine translation
could be resolved, how progress could be made with the problem of analysing
questionnaires or the accumulations of information contained in international
archives without the improvement of the mathematical methods. Similarly,
learning theory shows that it is now impossible to analyse some psychological
phenomena without using mathematical models which are already fairly
complex. Again (though the idea may well be condemned as over-bold in
some quarters), it seems unlikely that we can get much further with psychosociological
and sociological problems like the question of the formation and
alteration of opinion or that of the functioning of organizations, etc., without a
considerable development of mathematical methodology. It may be that certain
problems of sociological theory themselves hinge on a mathematical methodology.
Thus, although it is difficult to make detailed forecasts discipline by discipline,
we can safely say that, if there is no unforeseen disaster, the next few years wil
see a considerable development of mathematical methodology, and that the
social and human sciences will require increasingly complex mathematics.
Wil the result be, not perhaps the unification of the sciences of man, but a
degree of rapprochement ?
This is a difficult question to answer. No doubt there are factors making for
unification. The fact that mathematical tools like statistics are used by almost
all the social sciences is undoubtedly a factor for drawing them together. Further,
there are increasingly numerous cases of sociologists drawing inspiration
from the methods of the economists, and anthropologists from those of the
linguists. In addition, there is little difficulty in discerning fundamental preoccupations
common to all the disciplines as evidenced by such notions as model,
structure, general systems theory, etc. Finally there are instrumentalities like
statistics, game theory, information theory, cybernetics, etc., which have achieved
such a degree of independence from the disciplines within which they first
developed, that they form a sort of common stock on which all the disciplines
draw.
Nevertheless, nothing can be done to prevent differences of principle dividing
the disciplines: some are experimental, others not; some work with variables
which, generally speaking, are easily quantifiable, others not; some have administrative
statistics as their essential source of information and this source is

Mathematical models and methods 575
subject to obvious social constraints. Others rely on sample surveys as their
main source of information, and here the constraints are either financial or
inherent in the nature of things (take, for instance, Murdock‘s work on archaic
societies: he can hardly be faulted for conhing himself to a sample of two
hundred and fifty archaic societies - 250 is a small number for purposes of statis-
tical analysis, but the sample is huge when we consider that each component
sampled is a society).
Again there are single-subject disciplines - for instance, certain branches
of sociology - deprived by this circumstance of any comparative basis.
All these distinctions, which appear to be bound up with the very nature of the
individual disciplines, mean that if it is essential to seek to unify the sciences of
man, it is difficult to conceive of this happening at an early date.
In addition, one should be aware of the dysfunctions which the development
of mathematical methods can bring about in the social sciences. Several
authors,47 for example, have shown that the development of a complex tech-
nology induces in sociologists a detrimental passivity which causes them to
treat indifferently all sociological problems with uniform, but not necessarily
pertinent, techniques. Thus there exists a real risk- accentuated by the expansion
and bureaucratization of research - that technology, and in particular mathe-
matical technology, wil replace psychological, economic or sociological research
rather than serve it. Consequently, in order to avoid this danger provision must
be made to allow in teaching for critical reflection on the tools used in the
human sciences, i.e. for methodology.
NOTES
I. See L. HURWICZ, ‘Mathematics in Economics: Language and Instrument’, in: J. C.
CHARLESWORTH (ed.), Mathematics and the Social Sciences. The Utility and Inutility
of Mathematics in the Study of Economics, Political Science, and Sociology, Philadelphia,
The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1963, pp. 1-11.
2. C. SPEARMAN, ‘General Intelligence, Objectively Determined and Measured,’
American Journal of Psychology 15, 1904, pp. 201-292.
3. Chomsky’s analysis is of course based on the American pronunciation of these
two words.
4. H. SIMON, Models of Man, New York, Wiley, 1957; R.P. ABELSON, ‘Mathematical
Models of the Distribution of Attitudes under Controversy’, in: N. FREDERIKSEN
and H. GULLIKSEN, Contribution to Mathematical Psychology, New York, Holt,
1964. See also the many articles by A. RAPOPORT in the Bulletin of Mathematical
Biophysics.
5. See for instance among other recent publications, H. SOLOMON (ed.), Mathematical
Developments in the Measurement of Behavior, Glencoe (Ill.), The Free Press,
1960 ; H. SOLOMON (ed.), Studies in Item Analysis and Prediction, Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 1961.
6. Any reader sufficiently curious to wish to satisfy himself as to the importance of
literature in this field should see in D. R. LUCE, R. BUSH and E. GALANTER (eds.),
Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, the chapters by S. STERNBERG, ‘Stochastic
Learning Theory’, and by R. C. ATKKNSON and W. K. ESTES, ‘Stimulus Sampling
Theory’, Vol. z., pp. 1-268.

576 Raymond Boudon
7. See H. SIMON, Models of Man, op. cit. See also A. ETZIONI, Complex Organizations,
New York, Holt, 1961.
8. See, for instance, J. BERGER, B. P. COHEN, J. L. SNELL and M. ZELDITCH, Types of
Formalization in Small Group Research, and H. SOLOMON, J. CRISSWELL and P.
SUPPES, Mathematical Methods in Small Group Processes, Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 1962.
9. See especially J. S. COLEMAN, IIttroduction ro Mathematical Sociology, Glencoe
(Ill.), The Free Press, 1964, and R. BOUDON, L’analyse mathimatique des faits
sociaux, Paris, Plon, 1967.
IO. For an overall view of the mathematical methods and models used in linguistics,
see in LUCE, BUSH and GALANTER, op. cit., the chapters by N. CHOMSKY and G. A.
MILLER, ‘Introduction to the Formal Analysis of Natural Languages’, by N.
CHOMSKY, ‘Formal Properties of Grammars’, and that by G. A. MILLER and N.
CHOMSKY, ‘Finitary Models of Language Users’, pp. 269-492.
11. See C. L~vI-STRAWS, Les structures &Zc!mentaires de la parent&, Paris, Presses Univ.
de France, 1948; J. -MEW, L. SNELL and G. THOMPSON, Introduction to Finite
Mathematics, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.), Prentice-Hall, 1956; and H. WHYTE, An
Anatomy of Kinship, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.), Prentice-Hall.
12. G. RASCH, Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests,
Copenhagen, Nielsen and Lydiche, 1960.
13. H. SIMON, ‘On a Class of Skew Distribution Functions’, in: Models of Man, op. cif.,
PP. 145-164.
14. Op. cif.
15. C. BERGE, La thiorie des graphes et ses applications, Paris, Dunod, 1958.
16. Z. S. ~RRIS, Mathematical Structures of Language (1968), cited by R. JAKOBSON
in Chapter VI of the present study.
17. A. R. ANDERSON, ‘Logic, Norms, Roles’, in: CRISSWELL, SOLOMON and SUPPES,
op. cit.
18. G. O R C ~ N. , GREENBERGER, J. KORBEL and A. M. RIVLIN, Micro-analysis of
Socio-economic Systems. A Simulation Study, New York, Harper, 1961.
19. A. C. HOGATT, ‘A Simulation Study of an Economic Model’, in: A. C. HOGAIT
and BALDERSTON (eds.), Contribution to Scientific Research in Management, Los
Angeles, Western Data Processing Center, pp. 127-141.
20. See ABELSON, op. cit.
21. See, for instance, A. NEWELL, J. C. Smw and H. SIMON, Empiricd Explorations of
the Logical Theory Machine: a Case Study, Santa Monica (Calif.), Rand Corporation,
1957.
22. R. G. D. ALLEN, Mathematical Economics, London, Macmillan, 1957.
23. In J. C. CHARLESWORTH (ed.), Mathematics and the Social Sciences, op. cit.
24. See, for instance, R. BASTIDE (ed.), Sens et usages du terme structure, Paris/The
Hague, Mouton, 1962; H. FREUDENTHAL, The Concept and the Role of the Model
in Mathematics and Natural Social Sciences, Dordrecht, Reidel, I 961.
25. On this subject see P. AUGER, ‘Les moddes dans la science’, Diogsne 52, Oct.-Dec.
19651 PP. 3-15.
26. S. STOUFFER, Social Research to Test Ideas, Glencoe (Ill.), The Free Press, 1962.
27. Here we have drawn considerably on the ideas set out by A. RAPOPORT in ‘Mathematical
Aspects of General Systems Analysis,’ The Social Sciences: Problems and
Orientations, The Hague/Paris, Mouton/msco, 1968, pp. 320-334.
28. General Systems. Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research, edited
by L. VON BERTALANFFY and A, RAPOPORT, Bedford (Mass.), Society for General
Systems Research, 13 volumes since 1956.
29. K. J. ARROW, Social Choice and Iedividual Values, Cowles Commission Monograph
12, New York, Wiley, 1951.
30. See ALLEN, op. cit., Chapters 7 and 8.
31. Grammars defined by the restriction stipulated earlier.
32. In CRISSWELL, SOLOMON and SUPPES, op. cif.

Mathematical models and methods 577
33. Models of Man, op cit.
34. W. TORGERSON, Theory and Methorls of Scaling, New York, Wiley, 1958;
C. C. COOMBS, Theory of Data, New York, Wiley, 1964.
35. There is an inventory of such work in V. CAPECCHI, ‘Une mkthode de classification
fondke sur l’entropie’, Revue frangaise de sociologie 5 (3), 1964, pp. 290-306, and
in Techniques de la classification automatique, Paris, Centre de Calcul de la Maison
des Sciences de l’Homme, 1965.
36. On this subject, the book by TORGERSON, op. cif., is out of date. See, for example,
BOUDON, op. cit.
37. See H. GUETZKOW, Simulation in Social Science: Readings, Englewood Cliffs
(N.J.), Prentice-Hall, 1962, and the special issue of the Archives europdennes de
sociologie on simulation (I, 1965).
38. Archives europiennes de sociologie (special issue on simulation) I, 1965, pp. 43-67.
39. It should nevertheless be noted that forecasting needs, in recent times, have given
rise to important research into statistical mathematics, for which thanks are due
mainly to econometrics (see for example E. MALINVAUD, Les mdthodes statistiques
de 1’6conomdtrie, Paris, Dunod, 1964) and psychometrics (see for example H.
SOLOMON (ed.), Studies in Item Analysis and Prediction, op. cit.).
40. W. K. ESTES, ‘Toward a Statistical Theory of Learning’, Psychological Review 57.
1950, PP. 94-107.
41. W. K. ESTES and C. J. BURKE, ‘Application of a Statistical Model to Sample Discrimination
Learning in Human Subjects’, Journal of Experimental Psychology 50,
1955, pp. 80-88.
42. See for instance L. L. THURSTONE, ‘The Learning Curve Equation’, Psychological
Monographs 26, 1919, pp. 1-51.
43. C. L. HULL, Principles of Behavior, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1943.
44. Op. cit.
45. W. K. ESTES, ‘Of Models and Men’, American Psychologist 12, 1957, pp. 609-617;
P. SUPPES and R. C. ATKINSON, Markov Learning Models for Multiperson Znteractions,
Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1960.
46. COLEMAN, op. cif., and BOUDON, op. cit.
47. Cf. for example C. W. MILLS, The Sociological Zmagination, New York-London,
Oxford University Press, 1959, or P. BOURDIEU, et al., Le me‘tier de sociologue,
Paris, Mouton, 1968.

CHAPTER M
Problem-focused research
PIERRE DE BIE
INTRODUCTION
Contacts, communications, links, exchanges, fruitful and creative relationships :
these are primary goals for many of our contemporaries in a changing world
where the processes of specialization and differentiation which make for separa-
tion are developing at an ever-increasing pace. Individual efforts sometimes
pursued over a long period on parallel but separate lines, need to be compared,
reconciled and integrated. These problems of synthesis are to be found in a
great many sectors of human activity and they are by no means new. They arise
alike on the plane of knowledge and on that of action. The profusion of special-
izations and the speed with which they severally develop confer new dimensions
on such problems. This applies particularly in the case of action for which
scientific preparations and projections have been made; here data must be
collected and compared and then knowledge coupled with action.
Within the human sciences, between the realm of pure thought dealing with
theory, where knowledge alone matters and is of intrinsic value, and that of
informed action, where utility and practical considerations take precedence,
there is a vast area where questions of theory and utility mingle in varying propor-
tions. In this area, the desire for knowledge is to a certain extent linked with the
desire for action. This is the field of study which is described as problem-focused
research.
This field is extremely broad and varied; on an initial approach it seems to
defy definition. The first thing is undoubtedly to attempt to explain and delimit
it clearly by an analysis of the concepts and an examination of sectors of investi-
gation in which important and characteristic developments have been achieved.
Several instances of empirical research will be mentioned. They might equally
well be inserted at other places in the text than at the one chosen, but there is
necessarily bound to be an element of arbitrariness in any arrangement.-,The
account given in this chapter represents an attempt to deal systematically with
matters that are highly diverse.
After defining problem-focused research and placing it in its context, we

Problem-focused research 579
shall examine one of its characteristic features. The better to cover all aspects
of a subject, such research seeks to base itself on a variety of disciplines: it is
often multidisciplinary. Then shall be considered the major problems deriving
from the relationship between research and action which are at the heart of
the difficulties of problem-focused research, the chief being, in fact, to judge of
the status of this research in the world today, to estimate the extent to which it
is productive of results, and to look ahead to its prospects for the future.
I. PROBLEM-FOCUSED RESEARCH
The concept
The term ‘problem-focused research‘ has come into use fairly recently and, it
must be admitted, on a somewhat limited scale.
At first glance, the term even suggests a meaning that must be discarded at
once, that of research which is subjective in its approach and intended to achieve
given results rather than to take account of actual situations. Problem-focused
research or field-induced research is undertaken in order to solve a problem.
It is ‘field-induced‘ because it is required by the context in which it is conducted,
it is ‘problem-focused’ because its purpose is to make it possible to provide an
answer to a problem.
With use as the criterion, a definition may be arrived at by stating that problem-focused
research is responsive to, and to some extent depends on, social
needs, which determine its scope; it is focused on the problems which call for
scientifically informed action. It is functional in Malinowski’s understanding of
the term. But, surely, the whole subject matter of research in the sciences of
man depends to a large extent on the problems arising in the societies where
these sciences are developing.
In the questionnaire sent out by Unesco to some 550 national and international
organizations invited to take part in the study on the main trends of research
in the sciences of man, the place of problem-focused research is suggested by the
context of question 7, which situates it between free basic research and applied
research. These are easily definable parameters : free basic research responds
to no other stimulants than research itself, and aspires to knowledge for its
own sake; applied research is designed to meet specific criteria of utilization and
represents, therefore, the practical application of knowledge which seeks less to
advance than to be immediately translated into action.
Since problem-focused research lies between the realm of purely theoretical
thought and that of informed action, it is necessary, following a rapid survey
of the sectors in which it is applicable, to examine its situation in relation to
free basic research and applied research. For though at first sight the distinctions
made may seem clear-cut, they continue to be challenged and require
clarification.

580 Pierre de Bie
Sectors in which problem-focused research is applicable
Examples of problem-focused research are plentiful; so much so indeed, that
at the outset it is better to give a descriptive list than a systematic account, which
is bound to be arbitrary.
Our thoughts will probably turn in the first place to whatever, in the here and
now, is an ‘issue’ for public opinion in contemporary societies, and whatever
might be combated, changed or improved as a result of scientific research: a
number of research projects relating to crime, mental health, poverty, under-
development, inter-group conflicts and war immediately come to mind. But, in
addition to such matters, which clearly come within the field of social pathol-
ogy, there are those concerning the present state of the population and its
future: problems of youth, old age, the status and role of women, problems of
standards of living and economic development; and, further, the present state
and development of institutions and their operation : education, science policy,
the family, religion.
This list is summary and incomplete; its purpose is purely illustrative. In
present-day societies, where scientific knowledge is increasingly regarded as
a necessary component of social progress, mention should be made of all the
research being carried out, with a view to diagnosis and planning, at a variety of
levels : industrialization, work and leisure, fertility, housing, town and country
planning. Or again, at a more abstract level: research on growth, development,
organization, decision-making, forecasting. These more abstract concepts all
imply a desire for guided action without, however, specifying its particular
sector.
A systematic survey of the sectors in which problem-focused research is
applicable can more readily be provided in the context of a specific scientific
discipline. In a recent work’ analysing the uses of sociology, the authors distin-
guished in the following way the sectors in which problem-focused research
can be applied:
I. The uses of sociology in the professions: law, medicine, social work and
social welfare;
11. The uses of sociology in establishments: the military establishment, public
administration, political parties, educational establishments, foreign policy,
etc.;
ILL Social problems and formal planning : poverty, delinquency, developing
social programmes, the school and the family, unemployment, manpower
and area development, public health and aging;
IV. Rapid social change: sociology in developing areas and rural sociology.
These various sectors correspond to spheres in which the sociologist can place
his knowledge, his methods of analysis and his techniques at the disposal of
‘clients’; the first two - the professional sphere and the sphere of establishments
and administrations - are intranational, while the remaining two are national
or international. These spheres, which may seem to be delimited and classified
in an arbitrary fashion, correspond to a series of sectors in which problem-
focused research is applicable.

Problem-focused research 581
The definition and selection of such sectors wil vary according to the scientific
discipline under consideration : in political science, for example, there wil be
the problems connected with the functioning of the State, studies of the political
and administrative changes in the developing countries, analysis of the influence
of political Blites or study of the conditions necessary for peaceful co-existence;
the economist wil be concerned with the factors making for economic progress,
the relations between the spontaneous and the induced elements in economic
processes, planning in so far as it enables economic processes to be determined,
etc. Psychology, social and cultural anthropology, indeed every one of the
sciences concerned with man in society might equally be considered. In each of
them we find numerous examples of research reflecting a concern to provide
better guidance for action : by describing imperfectly known processes, filling
gaps in knowledge, indicating the various ways of achieving an objective,
forecasting the possible results of a policy, in short, by broadening the horizons
of all those who wish to act.
And if further examples were needed, it would suffice to mention certain
research programmes subsidized by the public authorities, such, for instance, as
the Department of Defense in the United States of America, the DClCgation
gCn6rale 2 la recherche scientifique et technique in France, or by foundations
or institutions that are mainly concerned with the promotion of economic and
social progress. If problem-focused research is responsive to social needs, it
must surely find its clearest expression wherever social needs are the subject of
systematic reflection calculated to guide and stimulate research. An awareness
of the need to forecast the future is a powerful stimulant. The sciences of man,
mindful of the rapid changes that are taking place in modern societies, reflect
these changes in their own history; they no longer regard them as an unavoid-
able happening but as the outcome of the behaviour and decisions of men and
groups.
Problem-focused research places itself in a context of questions and answers.
Let us consider successively the two terms in this relationship.
The existence of a question is necessarily implied; there can, therefore, be no
problem-focused research where social needs are not experienced and felt so
acutely as to give rise to research. And though awareness of a specific social
problem is a sine qua non, we should not be justified in qualifying research as
problem-focused on the basis of its content alone; account would also have to
be taken of the research workers’s intentions and of the objective reference to a
given social context.
What constitutes the subject matter of problem-focused research in one
country may very well not do so in another, not only because of objective differ-
ences as regards needs and sociocultural contexts, but also because of differences
of awareness to such contexts. For instance, research on aging is problem-
focused in Belgium and the United Kingdom. It tends to be much less so in the
Netherlands where the pyramid of the population according to age and sex has
a broad base, and a fortiori still less so in a developing country where the
population includes no more than a very slight proportion of old people. But

582 Pierre de Bie
there is also the question of awareness; although, as a result of a falling birth-
rate and successful efforts to reduce the death-rate, especially in the earliest years
of life, the aging of populations has for several decades been a feature of the
foreseeable demographic structures in industrialized contries, these countries
have only tardily awakened to an awareness of the phenomenon and succeeded
in diagnosing it correctly. And it is only since the consequences have made them-
selves felt - in an increase in the number of the aged - that inquiries have begun
to be made into their causes." This awareness has been belated and groping.
The history of social policy and organized action in this regard shows how far
an imperfect awareness of the needs may result in an imperfect organization of
the appropriate remedies.
Obviously, awareness does not in itself suffice, or it may fall short of what is
necessary. The case of research in rural sociology offers a striking example: there
is a marked contrast between the need felt for research in this field and the
situation of that research. In more than twenty European countries there is a
growing realization of the part which social research in rural areas might play,
both now and especially in the future; in addition to research workers, this
awareness is becoming increasingly marked among administrators and politi-
cians. The range of problems to be studied is vast, and several of them are
fundamental, as, for example, the problem of the integration of agriculture in
the modern economy, the structure and function of rural areas in an industrial
society, or the problem of social and economic development. Rural areas pro-
vide, in fact, a fascinating laboratory for the study of social change. Yet there is
a striking discrepancy between the multiplicity and importance of the tasks to
be accomplished and the small number of experts available - a situation which
is connected with the absence or inadequacy of facilities for training and re-
search. The Netherlands is the one exception.'
Having considered the question, let us now turn to the second term: what are
the characteristics of the answer?
The main point is clearly the content of the research. Needless to say, the
research must be objective and conducted in accordance with scientific rules.
But surely there should be some equation between the answer and the question.
In other words, surely research should be relevant.
The immediate reaction is to answer 'yes', It is desirable, however, to distin-
guish here between subjective relevance and objective relevance. Subjective
relevance ensues from the research worker's intention to carry out a research
project that is responsive to an objective social need; on the basis of the incom-
petence or inadequacy of this response, the value, but not the nature, of such
research may be judged. On the other hand, if the research represents an entirely
adequate response to the social problem in hand, there is objective relevance;
on this occasion, objective and subjective relevance coincide. In both these
cases the research is problem-focused in character.
However in the case where a research project contains the elements for the
solution of a social problem for which it was not devised, there is only objective
relevance. The value of that research for the study of the problem in question
does not ipso facto change its nature; having been focused neither in its con-

Problem-focused research 583
ception nor in its elaboration, it does not become so on account of its results.
This is the case with a good deal of so-called theoretical or basic research;
although it is not undertaken for any utilitarian end, it nevertheless proves
extremely useful in practice and is employed for purposes for which it had not
been intended. There are unforeseen utilizations and studies may have a far
removed impact, irrespective of their authors’ intentions. There is thus a rela-
tion of intention between needs and research: the latter should be undertaken
to provide a more or less appropriate answer to a given problem. Its focus is
the outcome of a choice. It aspires to being useful on the practical level.
A multitude of studies might be mentioned to illustrate this point. We shall
confine ourselves here to considering one or two.
In connexion with society and the family, a number of studies concerning in-
come and consumption have been carried out since the 19th century with the
object of drawing the attention of public opinion to the lot of the least privileged
classes and thereby promoting some action on their behalf. In a sense, these
surveys fitted into a much larger category of studies designed to draw attention
to the situation and living conditions of the working classes in societies in process
of industrialization, where the presence of a growing proletariat was in itself
giving rise to a social problem. At the present time, this research is conducted
far more systematically, so as to provide a vast amount of concrete data, estab-
lished with precision on the basis of very strict working hypotheses, which may
be used to support social and economic policies: e.g. determination of family al-
lowances in accordance with the number and age of children; establishment of
cost-living indexes; assessment of standards of living to provide information
for a housing policy; forecasting of economic growth, etc. There can beno doubt
that such studies constitute appropriate answers to social problems. What is
remarkable is that in course of time the questions have become increasingly
numerous and specific, and that certain types of research have become essential
instruments of social and economic policy.
The concept of concerted action which is to be found in the projects pro-
moted in France by the DClCgation gCnCrale a la recherche scientifique et
technique, and in the work of the Research Commission of the Fifth Plan, tallies
exactly with that of problem-focused research. The point is to ‘focus research
in the human sciences on those disciplines that are capable of covering all aspects
of the problems raised by the present-day evolution of life in society’,4or again to
collect and make available to the country’s leaders the elements required for the formu-
lation of decisions which, irrespective of the political and economic structures of each
nation, are always aimed at promoting activity and employment, harmonizing the devel-
opment of the different regions and distributing income fairly according to social and
professional categories ... During the Fifth Plan, emphasis will be placed on study of the
social and economic aspects of development, that is to say, study of the ways in which
standards of living and ways of life are affected by changes in structures and economic
ups and downs. In connexion with this central theme, a study will be made of prob-
lems that present a definite practical interest and are becoming more and more urgent
on account of the growing complexity of social life: education, training andinformation
for individuals, mutual understanding between societies and nations. 5

584 Pierre de Bie
From a reading of these statements, some idea can be gained of the extent to
which problem-focused research makes for continuity in studies, and of the
part that these may be called upon to play in progressive societies.
In some sectors the development of problem-focused research advances less
systematically, though after a comparatively short time it may be marked by a
great dynamism due to a growing concern on the part of interested individuals
or bodies. Thus the beginnings of gerontological research are relatively recent,
the impetus having been given by spontaneous and often isolated initiatives.
Very soon, following the first results achieved by studies of various kinds, there
was a growing awareness of this matter among administrations and responsible
bodies.
Before long research was being increasingly carried out at the instance of
public authorities at both the national and local levels and social security
organizations; to this should be added, in certain countries, help from special-
ized foundatiom6
The purpose of the major surveys on old people recently carried out in
various countries (United States of America, Denmark, United Kingdom and
Belgium) has not been solely to advance scientific knowledge or to furnish in-
formation on the social situation and living conditions of the aged, but also to
provide a basis for policies concerning their health, housing, standard of living,
activities - in short, ways of better meeting their needs.
The foregoing remarks explain the scope of the concept of ‘problem focusing’
or ‘orienting’; this presupposes a realization and a consideration of the social
problems and needs for which the research worker proposes to help provide an
answer by the elaboration of appropriate research. There is a twofold relation:
on the one hand, awareness of a problem and, on the other, concern to provide
an answer that will be useful from the point of view of knowledge.
Problem-focused and free basic research
Broadly, the distinction seems relatively simple. Problem-focused research
centres on the problems which arise in the life of societies, whereas free basic
research, for which knowledge for its own sake is the model, responds to no
stimulants other than research itself. The latter is independent, autonomous, and
may originate from mere curiosity or even a flight of fancy on the part of a
research worker. On one hand there is research oriented towards the practical
with its concern to cure, anticipate, organize, appraise, plan or predict; on the
other, research concerned with exact knowledge, its sole purpose being to shed
a clearer light on reality so that the intellect may better apprehend it.
Outwardly, the distinction is clear-cut. But is the same true as regards sub-
stance?
There are many authors who challenge its validity. It cannot be claimed that
the distinction is absolute, because it depends on the intentions of the research
worker: his motivations may be highly diverse and variable. Can they therefore
really provide a basis for the distinction? Is that distinction useful? Even in

Problem-focused research 585
cases where the research worker is mainly preoccupied by the purely noetic
aspects of his study, surely much research is still problem-focused because it
responds to collective needs, because its echoes directly or indirectly certain
requests and expectations. Much social, economic or political research is
turned to account in a way never anticipated by its authors: independently of
their intentions, studies conducted on living conditions, fertility variables,
population problems, psychological tests and measurements have an influence
on policies, on lawmaking and on behaviour.
The difficulty of differentiating basic research from problem-focused research
derives above all from the fact that the sciences of man form part of the social
context which they take as their subject. Because they are influenced by this
context, they change with it and, in studying it, they modify it. The research
worker cannot escape the new problems with which society confronts him and,
through the answers he gives, he modifies society. In other words, the sciences
of man may be taken as dependent variables and as independent variables in
relation to the social context.
In this respect the sciences of man may be contrasted with the natural sciences.
It has been rightly pointed out that the distinction made in the natural
sciences between pure and applied science cannot similarly be made in the case
of the social sciences. In the natural sciences the subject of research may be
abstract, isolated from its natural context and scrutinized apart; in the social
sciences such isolation from the social context is out of the question, because
the research worker must see to it that he obtains his data in their natural state,
and this is something of a poser. With this distinction in mind, the Board of the
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations stresses the realistic character of a
specific method for the insertion of the social science research worker which it
calls the ‘professional model’ : the research worker gains privileged access to the
data thanks to a special ‘professional’ relationship. He only gains this access,
however, if he can prove his competence by the services he renders. In a certain
sense, he starts off with practical work, even though it may be scientifically
imperfect, then reverts to the theoretical side, which he develops as systematically
as possible, finally returning to an improved practice. His status is determined
by his competence. The professional model implies that the problems to
be studied are determined to a greater extent by the needs of the individuals,
groups or communities concerned than by those of the research worker.7
The conclusion which may be drawn from this is not that, in the social
sciences, a distinction cannot be made between problem-focused research and
free basic research, but rather that this distinction is difficult and that it cannot
be made in the same way as in the case of the natural sciences. While stressing
the importance of problem-focused research, the members of the Tavistock
Institute do not deny the existence of basic theoretical research; on the contrary,
in their view, problem-focused research is often the condition of basic research,
and the relation found in the natural sciences - passing from theory to practice -
is here reversed; the development of problem-focused research is considered to
be primordial in the strategy for developing basic research in the social sciences.a

586. Pierre de Bie
In proposing a professional model for dealing with the aspects peculiar to the
social sciences, the members of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations had
primarily in mind certain of the most mobile and delicate fields of research,
such as the study of human relations in industrial concerns, in administrations,
in institutions, as opposed, for example, to macroscopic studies, statistical
studies or forecasting studies. The explanatory model they propose squares with
the facts, but it would be mistaken to apply it generally and to seek to give it a
legal connotation. Scientific activity consists in a constant checking by observa-
tion, and even by processes that are more or less akin to experiment, of working
hypotheses that derive from theories or that adumbrate theories. A question of
scientific policy arises here, namely whether preference should be given to the
development of branches of knowledge deemed by research workers to qualify
for priority treatment, or to scientific projects undertaken in response to specific
needs for which already established knowledge cannot, by itself, provide an
answer. Clearly, in a society where research responding to such practical needs
in fact enjoys a privileged status, it would be essential to reserve an important
place for basic research.
In all that characterizes problem-focused research, there is nothing that would,
apriori, prevent its affording a valuable contribution to basic research, provided
it is carried out in an objective and critical spirit, taking account of the scientific
heritage and methods suited to scientific work.
Johan Galtung expresses this idea very clearly: ‘All pure sciences are in
principle relevant to any oriented science, and any oriented science produces
findings that may have a bearing on research in any pure science’.IO If we
consider, for example, the relation between general criminology, which seeks to
establish universal laws such as exist in the physical and natural sciences, and
clinical criminology, which is the science of the specific fact, and often markedly
problem-focused in character, we are bound to conclude that the latter is either
a starting point or a field of application for the facts established by general
criminology.9
Similarly, in the field of sociology, note might be taken, for instance, of the
theoretical value of the contribution made by studies of racial conflicts or by
studies on advertising to knowledge concerning attitude change or information
processes. The studies carried out in industrial firms with the aim of increasing
productivity constitute another example of important contributions to the
theories of communications and of relations between formal and non-formal
groups. And who would deny the interest, for political science, of studies on
electoral behaviour, or the theoretical value of studies on the economic situation
in which the utilitarian aspect seems, at first glance, the most obvious?
Whatever the subject covered by problem-focused research - whether mental
health, the status of women in society, or physical planning - it abounds in
examples of research projects carried out not only in an objective spirit but
within the framework of conceptual patterns and working hypotheses, thanks to
which their findings constitute indisputably valuable contributions to science.
This is not invariably the case. In an analysis of problem-focused research

Problem- focused research 5 87
work, instances could equally well be found of investigations yielding only
trifling results. But, leaving aside the problems of the relationship between the
research worker and the person who finances or who uses the research, and
the constraints sometimes resulting from the need to act quickly (questions to
which further reference wil be made), such shortcomings are not ascribable to
the ‘focusing’ but to the actual conduct of the research.
Upon examination, however, the distinction between problem-focused
research and free research proves to be merely relative and even partly false.
Everything depends on the meaning that is attached to the terms.
Basic research is sometimes described as ‘free’ research to the extent that it is
at liberty not to take account of the practical needs and problems arising in
society; but consideration of developments in different sectors of science in a
number of societies, and particularly in socialist societies where such develop-
ments are more apparent, makes short work of this assertion. Sometimes, too, it
is called ‘free’ in so far as it is determined solely by the choice, personal preoccu-
pations, imagination, intuition or even whim of research workers; all that
the sociology of knowledge has to tell us points to thelimits of this freedom, and
studies on basic personality remind us how much we are moulded by the social
and cultural environment. Research in psychodynamics has more than ever
brought out dependency. No research worker is completely free. If we except
the case in which he has to take account of planning requirements, he still has
to consider the state of advancement of a science, the intellectual traditions
peculiar to a community and the instuments of research offered by the latter,
and also the requirements imposed by theory in a particular field of research.
He may aspire to academic honours, or be influenced by possibilities of gaining
promotion or securing financial assistance. Any research worker’s choice must be
oriented consciously or unconsciously. It is merely a question of proportion and
of visibility; in the sciences of man, where the research worker and his prob-
lems form part of the social context, social influences are undoubtedly more
numerous, even subtler and more insidious, than in the natural sciences.
By definition, problem-focused research cannot, in its origin and its concep-
tion, be free and unrelated to certain social needs. But problem-focused research
can be free as regards its manner of proceeding and its results in so far as these
are governed by scientific standards. However, the conditions in which problem-
focused research is carried out, the administrative or institutional arrangements
by which the research worker is bound, the pressures put on him by his clients
and by force of circumstances, may have repercussions on research and diminish
the worker’s freedom. But this is how matters are in fact, and not as they should
be. The situation is only partially ascribable to the nature of problem-focused
research, and far more to the conditions in which that research is carried out.
Moreover, in free basic research the research worker may also be exposed
to the stress of circumstances and to factors liable to obstruct his freedom: the
very obligation to abide by a time-table or to work as a member of a particular
team offers an example of this.

588 Pierre de Bie
Problern-focused research and applied research
Obviously, the distinction between problem-focused research and applied
research is less easy to make; few research workers make this distinction and,
if they do, it is rather verbal than real. In practice, problem-focused research
and applied research are considered as one and the same thing, and both are
contrasted with pure or theoretical research.
Information provided by some Mteen institutions (academies, universities,
research organizations) belonging to different countries, in reply to a question
on their preference for the promotion of free basic research, problem-focused
research or applied research, I I reveals that a few countries, in which scientific
research is highly developed, stress the importance of free basic research - its
actual and indeed rightful importance -, but that a larger number of countries
consider ‘problem-focused’ and ‘applied’ research to be vital.
It is by taking specific examples that applied research can most easily be
differentiated.
The establishment of retail price indices; the calculation of chronological
series; the elaboration, through the use of current techniques, of a sampling
plan allowing of multiple opinion polls; the devising of model maps or dia-
grams to assist the classification and representation of social or economic data -
all these are examples of applied research. In some cases it is the proximity of a
specific and limited practical goal that betokens an applied research project:
ascertaining the distribution of the attitudes of racial groups by re-utilization
of a scale of attitudes; making a study of consumer habits according to social
strata for the purpose of defining a welfare policy; bringing up to date a
description of duties and responsibilities for the purpose of correcting an
organization chart; applying psychological tests with the object of providing
‘pointers’ for a vocational guidance service or a group leader.
Applied research has been deiined as ‘research on the answers to specific
practical problems’. *z In attempting to distinguish clearly between applied
and problem-focused research, recourse must be had to the concept of utilization
and also that of repetition. Applied research is the application and exploitation
of acquired knowledge with a view to its concrete, practical use; typically the
effort involved is often proportionate to, and goes no further than, the prac-
tical usefulness of its results. Often, too, it is simply a matter of repetition:
analytical patterns, conceptual frameworks, techniques and instruments
are reapplied to a specific social reality. This is generally done by services,
research departments and administrations. It involves compiling and processing
a certain number of data and presenting them in a form which is in line with
the technical and conceptual structure of the sciences concerned; this immedi-
ately suggests many areas of research, such as public opinion polls, market
research and even certain studies on social, industrial or organizational relations.
In applied research the progression from study to action is sometimes
shorter and more perceptible; the effectiveness of its results is often better
assured. In comparing applied research with problem-focused research, how-
ever, the distinction should not be strained too far, considering that the differ-
,

Problem- focused research 5 89
ence may sometimes be merely a matter of degree. Moreover, applied and basic
research may in certain cases prove stimulating and enriching for problemfocused
research, as for example when repeated applications of a test or an
economic measure awaken the research worker to a realization of the imperfection
of the instruments, and even of the theories in accordance with which the
instruments have been elaborated.
Psychology and economics led on to applied research sooner than other
human sciences, and to a greater extent. Sociology is now reaching the same
stage, particularly in the United States where it is more firmly established and
more frequently consulted; at some distance behind, political science follows,
in SO far as progress is being made in the knowledge of electoral behaviour,
pressure groups and the technique of achieving power where opportunities
for application arise. It is no longer a question of knowledge for the sake of
knowledge, but of finding processes, contrivances even, and of being able to
use knowledge, however simplified, in order to act more efficiently in a given
framework.
The place of problem-focused research
Problem-focused research, lying between basic research and applied research,
can have features in common with each of them. While it may be free and basic
in its manner of proceeding and in its results, it is less free in its conception;
further, its applicability and the possibility of translating its results immediately
into action can be regarded as additional concrete confirmation of the fact that
it is problem-focused.
Since it partakes of the nature of basic research and at the same time of
applied research, problem-focused research seems to defy any simple classifica-
tion. It is a kind of ‘no man’s land‘ between the two. The proportion of theory
to application varies not only with the subject of the investigation but also
with its stages, with the investigator, the institution to which he belongs and the
society in which he works. Much depends on the conditions under which the
study is carried out, and in particular on other activities in the environment,
which may in some cases be purely academic, and in others be aimed exclusively
at practical results.
Thus the differences may be thrown into relief by the research institutions
concerned.
Basic research, which is mainly characterized by independence in the choice
of subjects, implies independent bodies : universities and academies are the
kind of bodies which, by virtue of their status and their function, seem suited
to the development of basic research.
Problem-focused research implies more specialized institutions, concentra-
ting on a specific area (youth, old people, regional economic development, etc.).
The degree of independence of the institutions, and of freedom in regard to
contracts, wil affect the possibilities of theoretical development (differences
between the ‘contract’, the programme and a broadly open field of research).
In its pure state, applied research is a matter for offices, administrative depart-

590 Pierre de Bie
ments and commercial concerns. Here again, contributions to theory are not
to be ruled out in principle, but the requirements of management and informed
action may often in practice be an obstacle to the exploitation of the data for
theoretical purposes.
Clearly, then, we are not justified in deducing from the nature of the ‘host’
institution the nature of all research conducted under its auspices. As if to
make the problem more complex, the parameters of problem-focused research
may not be sufficiently clear; frequently basic, so-called theoretical, research
leads to useful applications quite independently of the intentions of the research
worker, while applied research may open up new avenues for basic research:
political economy and demography provide several examples of this. I3
A well-conducted functional analysis might prove most useful in a study of
the relationship between the three types of research; it would be enough to
describe their characteristics in a stage by stage analysis according to the func-
tions they fulfil, making a careful distinction between the different meanings of
the word ‘function’ - the aim consciously pursued, the results secured, the
subjective or social motivations, the role of research workers and of research,
etc.
U. A n analysis based on consciously pursued aims is particularly important
because research investigations are frequently defined in terms of their aims.
Johan Galtung distinguishes between ‘pure’ sciences and ‘oriented’ or ‘fo-
cused‘ sciences on the basis of this sole criterion: ‘Both kinds of sciences are
games whereby problems are explored according to certain rules.. . They differ
in how the scientist is directed towards this activity, in other words in the nature
of the problem that spurs him to his work. In the pure sciences the problem is
defined by the research process itself.. . In the oriented or focused sciences the
problem is not derived from the research process itself, but from some autotelic
value like control of nature, health, welfare, legality, peace, etc.’I4
From an analysis based solely on consciously pursued aims, the distinction
between free basic research and problem-focused research becomes immediately
clear; that between problem-focused research and applied research is not
apparent.
Let us represent the three types of research by the symbols BR, P-fR and
AR, and the aims by the symbols (tu) (theoretical aim) and (up) (aim: solution
to a social problem). We then have the following associations or ‘constellations’ :
BR (tu), P-fR (up), AR (up). But a closer analysis of problem-focused research
and applied research shows that, although in both cases the investigator is
concerned with a social problem, its nature may vary considerably. I have
already emphasized this difference in defining applied research. We must
therefore adopt differentiated symbols: P-fR (up’) and AR (up”).
b. To analyse the results secured objectively by research, we may use the sym-
bols (tr) and (pr) to distinguish between theoretical results and practical results.
Here the associations which first come to mind are: BR (tr), P-fR (pr), AR
(pr), but also P-fR (tr). From the point of view of results, problem-focused

Problem-focused research 591
investigations may in fact belong either to the group (pr) or to the group (tr)
depending on the individual case. To be more exact, from this point of view
problem-focused investigations frequently give us mixed ‘constellations’ :
P-fR (pr, tr).* We also know that we cannot exclude the possibility of the
‘constellations’ BR (tr, pr) and even AR (pr, tr).
Set out in the form of a graph, where continuous lines are used for the most
normal and frequent associations, and dotted lines for less frequent associations,
we have the schematic presentation :
AR
a
$ap ,p
c. Turning to motivations for research, we should, to be exact, make a list of
differences such as those between individual and social, explicit and implicit, and
psychological and sociological motives. Individual motivations may be relevant
to the authors or users of the research; social motives may vary according to
the groups taken into account. Apriori, there is nothing to justify the assumption
that the motives may coincide, and everything to suggest the opposite.
Thus the explicit motivation of the investigator may be mainly of the type (pm)
- work aimed at practical and useful results - with a view to falling in with the
wishes of his sponsors and to obtaining financial resources for hisresearch,
which are more easily forthcoming for ‘constellations’ of the type (ap) and(pm);
whereas in fact the implicit motive is of the type (tm), which would no doubt
lead him to results that would also be of the type (fr), perhaps exclusively so.
The combinations of different motives may thus be extremely complex.
By introducing into the above analysis the various types of motives, we
might complicate it out of all proportion in relation to our purpose.
Apart from any attempt to label research in terms of its aims, results or motives,
another and more important set of problems presents itself; this concerns the
specific factors and stimuli of problem-focused research and of the conditions
of its development. Apart from the personal circumstances which may prompt
a research worker to embark on one or other sector of problem-focused research,
there is a whole series of general factors, some of which are well known - the
orientation of courses, the institutional structures favourable to the development
of team work, possibilities of securing financial assistance, career opportunities
for specialists, a turn of mind in which research tackling a social problem is more
likely than others to hold attention.
The orientation of courses conditions to some extent the progress of problem-
focused research and its nature, in that it may, for example, encourage the study
of the past rather than positive research bearing on the present and the future,
* The symbols in brackets indicate a decreasing order of frequency.

592 Pierre de Bie
or that it may be more concerned with norms and principles than with specific
social processes and patterns of behaviour. A comparison of societies serves to
bring to our notice the influence exerted by certain basic conceptions of the
social order on teaching and on the development and content of problem-
focused research. On the one hand, a sense of principles and of institutional
processes leads principally to the preparation of reforms of the social order by
means of the constitution, laws and regulations; on the other, a sense of prac-
tical values and of behaviour inclines to recourse to the behavioural sciences
rather than to the jurists. Political science, which has undergone such radical
changes over the past few decades, reflects in its evolution the transition from a
legal conception to one that takes account of social factors. For the develop-
ment of problem-focused research, it is not a matter of indifference whether it is
considered that social change can be brought about by means of decrees and
constitutional reforms or as the result of studies on attitudes and responses,
social and cultural factors, and economic data.
The prevailing disposition, which in modem States may be reflected in the
orientation of teaching, is itself dependent on the political structures and the
ideology which accompanies them; in contradistinction to societies of an
‘ancien rkgime’ type, or even more simply, societies possessing an aristocratic
or plutocratic structure, democratic or popular political structures spring to
mind, in which whatever is of concern to the masses and to the broadest cate-
gories of citizens is the subject of public discussions and is presented to research
workers as being likewise of direct concern to them. Thus, for instance, the
Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries have, for a longer time past and better
than many others, developed a practical and utilitarian disposition which,
allied to a feeling for collective social responsibility, has fostered a tradition of
positive research paving the way for social reforms.
It is more recent trends, however, that deserve to be noted here, to throw light
on the impact of ideology and of collective awareness. It is striking to see the
extent to which, in certain States where scientific research as a whole is mobilized
in the service of the national development plans, the distinction between prob-
lem-focused research and free basic research is overlooked or even denied, to
the detriment of the latter. This may be because in some countries, for example
the Marxist countries, where State-controlled planning is highly developed, the
distinction has almost lost its point since all research has become problem-
focused. In this case, it is free basic research that is more difficult to imagine.
Supported by an ideology, the concern for planning and forecasting, when
applied to different sectors of social Iife, may prove favourable to the develop-
ment of problem-focused research. In the end, value systems are established; it
is they that determine the proper place of research, the part that different types
of research can play, and the questions that can be tackled by means of problem-
focused research.
In this connexion, the replies to the questionnaire sent out by Unesco to
gather material for comparison on the main trends of research in the social
sciences are sometimes very significant. The reply to question 7 furnished by the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR is characteristic:

Problem-focused research 593
... The individual is at the hub of economic life and, consequently, of all the other
aspects of contemporary life in society. The task of Soviet society is in fact to ensure the
development of a well-balanced and many-sided personality.
. the very evolution of socialist society, in which the subjective factor is beginning
to play an increasingly important role, makes an historical necessity of man’s general
development. This aim can be attained only by a close study of the actual conditions in
which this development is taking place. This means that a searching and all-embracing
study of man in each and every one of his human, that is, his social relations, is the most
urgent task of our time.
There are groups of scientists in our country who, owing to their stock of theoretical
knowledge, are in a position to provide a creative solution to man’s problems.’s
In other words, it is the awareness of a need - in this case for the development
of a well-balanced and many-sided personality - that determines the trend of
research. Behind this awareness, an ideology may be discerned. In reply to the
question concerning the respective importance of free basic research, problemfocused
research and applied research, emphasis was placed on problem-focused
research; free basic research was not mentioned.
The characteristic feature of this statement is that the entire scientific effort
being pursued in sociology is presented as a response to the need for the development
of man in a socialist society. The studies carried out in developing countries
or in connexion with development programmes are also, and indisputably, of
a problem-focused nature. But in a good many countries where research is less
planned, or mobilized to a lesser degree in the service of national planning, the
sectors of concern to problem-focused research adjoin others which clearly
belong to free basic research.
It is interesting to see how these types of research are situated in relation to
one another in societies in which research is planned to a larger or smaller extent.
The report submitted by the members of the Institute of Sociology and
Philosophy of the University of Ljubljana (Yugoslavia) may serve as a starting
point for illustrating the recognized incidence of motivations :
It is primarily individual university research workers who are engaged in free basic
research, each preferring to embark on a separate project. Teams of research workers
in scientific institutions are concerned with problem-focused research, while as a general
rule the least interest is taken in explicitly applied research. Of course such differences
of interest are apparent at another level, namely, that of particular scientific disciplines;
at the level of specifically theoretical disciplines, as for example philosophy, the prevailing
interest is in free basic research (the same applies, mutatis mutandis, to history, letters
and similar disciplines), while interest in problem-focused research comes first and foremost
in the case of ‘experimental’ sciences such as psychology, political economy and
’ sociology (in the micro-regions of these scientific disciplines, at any rate, interest in
problem-focused research is perhaps more marked than interest in basic research).
With regard to interest in purely applied research, this depends principally on the
interest taken by the immediate users (industrial concerns, various organizations,
parishes, etc.) in this type of research. They show little interest in it, however.16
In this extract from the report from Yugoslavia the most interesting points
concern the priority given by the authors (university professors, research
workers) to basic and problem-focused research; the lesser interest in
applied research, which must be sponsored mainly by direct users; lastly,?the
assertion that the nature of the disciplines is an independent variable in relation
to which the motives may vary.

594 Pierre de Bie
It is characteristic of most socialist societies that research activity is mainly
dependent on national planning. It seems that the distinction between free
basic research and problem-focused research must yield before the basic social
values of commitment and service to the community. Here the idea of ‘free’
research assumes a new meaning.
The following report from the National Council for Social Sciences of the
Academy of Sciences of Czechoslovakia reveals the particular place accorded to
‘free’ research:
The highest body responsible for the planning and co-ordination of research in the
social sciences is the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The most important research
projects form part and parcel of the State’s scientific research plan which is approved,
on the proposal of the Academy, by the government of the Republic.
Basic research is, therefore, in the main focused methodically, on the one hand, on
basic problems related to the development of science itself and, on the other, on practi-
cal needs (material and particularly cultural) of society.
Over and above his work on scientific problems as laid down in the plan, any research
worker in the Academy or in an institution of higher learning may devote himself to
whatever branch of scientific research interests him personally (free research). 7
The Polish Academy of Sciences sent in a far more extensive reply, challeng-
ing the importance of the distinction between free basic research, problem-
focused research and applied research. For the Academy of Sciences, this dis-
tinction is based on the postulate that noetic problems are formulated either to
suit individual and purely intellectual interests, or else on the basis of the inter-
est attached to the development of a given system of knowledge, or on concern
for the requirements of practical life. There is no need, so it is claimed, to quote
the numerous examples revealing that this typology adopts criteria that are
far from being exclusive. These criteria, on the contrary, as the history of this
science bears witness, interlock in an extremely dynamic way.
The distinction between free basic, problem-focused and applied research
was universalized in Poland through the administrative channels available to
planners, but it has not been universally adopted by the scientists. This is so
particularly because this distinction is based on types of research that have
emerged in the most advanced sciences, especially in the exact and technological
sciences. When applied to the nomothetic, human and social sciences it may
have a certain value in any recourse to institutional and intentional interpreta-
tions. It may in fact be supposed that, among research institutions in Poland,
those concerned first and foremost with the development of knowledge in par-
ticular fields may be distinguished from those which, through the selection of
their data, aim at responding directly to the practical needs such institutions
have been created to meet.’*
In point of fact, the authors of the report of the Academy of Sciences make
awkward use of the distinction when it comes to applying it to particular
institutions. They reaffirm, firstly, that the prevailing trend in those spheres
exercising a decisive influence on the administration of scientific activities is to
support all types of research likely to serve the needs of practical life- to grasp
contemporary problems the better to organize social activities. ‘9 In the survey
of the activities of a number of institutions attached to the Polish Academy of

Problem-focused research 595
Sciences, emphasis is put first on the development of knowledge - and hence of
basic research - but it is elsewhere asserted that these institutions directly serve
the practical needs of life in society. The distinction may doubtless be applied
more easily in the case of university professorships and departments, more
concerned as they are with basic research, and taking greater account of prob-
lems of methodology than those professorships and departments attached to
schools of economics, technical schools, schools of agriculture and teacher-
training colleges.zo
The conclusion of the report is of real interest. After areminder that, by and
large, all such research is intended to increase knowledge, its practical import-
ance is once more stressed: in the view of many intellectual workers, the division
of basic research into problem-focused and applied research is an artificial one,
research being in reality aimed at advancing knowledge and at the same time
promoting action. The distinction between pure and applied science made in the
natural sciences has almost no relevance for those who are dealing with the
community and the individual.21
These national reports (others might equally well have been quoted) high-
light the basic role of collective values and assessments, on the basis of which
the various types of research are variously prized. In countries with a group
ideology of social progress through planning, all activities must be covered by
such planning; although the advancement of knowledge is certainly prized,
theoretical ‘free’ or ‘isolated’ research is suspect. The defence of theoretical
research is that it contributes to action. Viewed in this way, problem-focused
research takes up a central position; indeed, is not all research, in a certain
sense, problem-focused ?
The sciences of man are marked by the socio-cultural environment and by
what it considers to be important: it is the commonly accepted values which
determine the order of importance of different types of research and, within a
particular type, of various objectives.
Problem-focused types of research lend themselves to this more than others :
they are always associated with a value which defines their aim. In research on
mental illness this value is health, the well-balanced personality. In criminologi-
cal research the aim is an ethical one, which forms the basis of the autonomy of
research and serves to orientate the criminologist in his work: ‘criminology
would be meaningless if it were not directed towards specific values: its ethical
aim is attained through its application to the prevention of crime, the rein-
tegration of offenders into society (and, if necessary, their treatment).’22
Research on the family is always bound up with considerations of social
morality or ethics regarding the role of the family, its appropriate place in
society, and the equilibrium and healthy development of its functions in rela-
tion to its own members and within society.23 Rural sociology, which is depen-
dent financially and institutionally on vested interests and pressure groups, is
split between those who uphold ‘the good old order of country life’ and the
go-ahead people who are often regarded as tro~ble-makers.~4
All problem-focused research is based on assessment, which in the final

596 Pierre de Bie
analysis involves the very definition of the field of research. For not only do
individuals cling to different values, but they challenge other values, whence
ensue problems.
It is here also that lies the cause of the main challenge to the objectivity of
such research. Values do not always command the same degree of respect;
they may carry more or less weight and give rise to controversy. However it
happens too often that there is no controversy and critical examination of
judgements. Thus it is unusual for a specialist engaged in family-focused research
to question the basic judgements which commonly determine observations and
classifications, and even the criteria applied; unusual that he ask himself, for
example, the question: ‘What is a healthy family?’Z5 This problem of critical
judgement is encountered again and again. It is particularly acute in the case
of problem-focused research undertaken by developing countries on the basis
of criteria of economic growth and technical and social progress - criteria simply
borrowed from the country of origin of the investigator and alien to the country
where the studies, whose goal is to serve as a basis for action, are carried out.
11. THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY DIMENSION
The concept
The concept of problem-focused research seems to call forth spontaneously that
of multidisciplinary or pluridisciplinary research. Thus, at the very outset of
the preparatory discussions concerriing the present study on the main trends of
research in the social and human sciences, the link between problem-focused
and multidisciplinary research was acknowledged. Meeting in April, 1965 the
members of the Panel of Consultants already envisaged a chapter devoted to the
most important problems of problem-focused research, which seemed almost
bound to be multidisciplinary.26 The term ‘multidisciplinary problem-focused
research’ emerged as a matter of course.
As soon as any attempt is made by means of scientific research to shed light
on practical - and therefore necessarily complex - social problems, reference
to several scientific disciplines seems the obvious solution. In France, the
Dklkgation gknkrale A la recherche scientifique et technique considers that
concerted action in the cause of economic and social development means
mobilizing the findings of various scientific disciplines: ‘The field of studies
should not, therefore, be defined once and for all, but every effort should be
made to call upon disciplines which converge in their analyses and make it
possible to cover, by numerous observations, all aspects of the development
phenomenon and to distinguish, if possible, its constants and its laws’.27
Basing the distinction between pure and problem-focused sciences on the
fact that the former have a traditional field whereas the latter form a new sector
of research determined by specific values (social control, justice, peace, etc.),
Johan Galtung brings out excellently the almost necessarily multidisciplinary
character of problem-focused research. He illustrates this by a diagram in
which the intersecting of the cells suggests that they are interdependent and
mutually aiding.

Problem-focused research 597
However, like an input-output table of an economic system, the cells wil differ in sig-
nificance, even to the point where one oriented science stands in an exchange relation with
amost only one (group of) pure science(s). But in general this is not the case, as witness-
ed by the frequent reference to oriented sciences as multidisciplinary, since they mobilize
relevant knowledge from several disciplines to bear upon the study of the conditions for
obtaining the goals. However, one could just as well have referred to the pure sciences
as multidisciplinary since they incorporate knowledge derived from several oriented
disciplines. When this is not done it is probably due to the circumstance that the orient-
ed disciplines have grown out of the pure ones when a tradition of application has been
established, and then insights from other pure sciences have been amalgamated into the
body of knowledge and a “multidisciplinary approach” has been di~covered.7~
Pure sciences
Oriented sciences
1 VI 1 v2
I
... 1 V” I
F = fields of pure research
V = values determining fields of problem-focused research
The fields of niultidisciplinary problemfocused research
The history of scientific research in the social sciences offers many examples of
recourse to various disciplines in a concerted effort to solve specific social
problems. There are already examples in the past; they are becoming more and
more frequent today.
For the past, the classic example, taken from the Anglo-Saxon tradition, is
the social survey.
The utilitarian and pragmatic character of a good deal of empirical social
research undertaken in the United Kingdom and in the United States is well
known. It is striking how American sociology has been built up stage by stage
during the 19th century on the basis of two traditions; the one purely theoreti-
cal, and largely inspired by European models and particularly by Herbert
Spencer’s thinking, the other resolutely practical, devoted to the study of
social problems such as arose in the United States during the 19th and from the
beginning of the 20th century. In this latter tradition the most striking and
characteristic achievements are the social surveys. The Americans, taking as
their model famous English pioneers such as John Howard and Charles Booth,
have carried out a large number of social surveys, sometimes mustering, from the
start of the 20th century, considerable funds for the purpose. As early as 1930,
Eaton and Harrison drew up a first, and most impressive bibliography of social
surveys, listing 2,775 different studies, some of which, such as the Pittsburgh
and the Springfield surveys, have remained standard reference w0rks.~9
Multidisciplinary team-work was undoubtedly one of the most typical fea-

598 Pierre de Bie
tures of these surveys; sociologists and welfare officers worked alongside social
psychologists, economists and criminologists. This co-operation appears to
have been inevitable, since the surveys covered local communities or problems
such as poverty, delinquency and unemployment, which have manifold aspects.
The authors of the surveys were convinced that it was not possible to separate
family life from professional life, work activities from leisure activities, and
the economic aspects of problems from their psychological ones; they were also
convinced that an approach through a single, specialized branch of science could
only produce a fragmentary view of the problems involved, which would not
be adequate for the formulation of proposals and the taking of decisions re-
garding action. Undoubtedly, when it is a question of solving a problem
bearing on social and economic development, it is essential to look beyond the
horizons of one specialized discipline. It quickly becomes evident that many
links exist between elements which a specialized monodisciplinary scientific
analysis would be liable to separate, and the natural impulse is to go beyond
the frontiers of particular disciplines in order to get a more general and complete
picture.
At the present time, the investigations which are most closely allied to social
surveys, though without being consciously conducted along the same lines, are
undoubtedly those which relate to local communities and urban or regional
development. The horizon has, however, broadened out, specialists are now
looking beyond their national territory, and there is also the extremely rich and
varied range of studies on economic and social development in the developing
countries.
Different terms, sometimes varying according to the size of the unit under
observation, are here used to describe areas of concerted study and action:
community development, local community studies, regional investigations,
physical planning, surveys in developing countries, etc. The bibliographies on
investigations in these domains reveal the existence of a wide variety of special-
ists. The volume Industrialization and Society, the result of an international
conference on the social implications of industrialization and technological
change - a question of the greatest importance for the developing countries -
contains papers by sociologists, economists, demographers, social and cultural
anthropologists, and political scientists. Joint participation in this task was es-
sential.30
In a study on sociology in developing areas, Wilbert E. Moore has shown
how, depending on the size of the unit under consideration, different specialists
had to be brought in to work together on the investigation under way. For sur-
veys centred on the development of local communities, recourse is had to rural
sociologists and social anthropologists, often assisted by social welfare workers
and teachers, and even a great variety of other specialists such as dietitians,
doctors and agricultural experts. At the national level, however, ,economists
are the ones who are likely to play a leading role, but to them might added demo-
graphers, statisticians, political scientists and administrators.3 I

Problem-focused research 599
In order to illustrate the need for a multidisciplinary approach in the study
of such development problems, let us take some examples of less ample scope.
In a study on the non-technological aspects of technical development, Henri
Janne is led from the outset to give the following definition of technology: ‘In
sociological terms technology is the complex of systematic and transmissible
processes which, in a given society, and depending on the material and institutional
conditions of their employment, act in such away that the natural environment
responds to the objective needs as well as, within the framework thereof
and their prolongation, to the cultural needs of mankir1d’.3~ In other words,
when technological development is taken as the subject of problem-focused
research, account must be taken of a large number of non-technical factors -
economic, demographic, political, cultural, administrative, social - to which
the introduction of technical change is linked, as a condition or a consequence.
A monodisciplinary approach is totally inadequate.
When a concrete and highly specific goal is aimed at, a series of complex
problems often emerges which call for clarification from a number of different
angles.
The problem of hunger facing so many developing countries is a striking
example. This being essentially a question of the relationship between popula-
tion and food resources, it can be solved by achieving an equilibrium between
the two terms, either by modifying one or other, or both simultaneously; in
both cases a series of disciplines must be associated. If action is to be taken with
regard to food resources, dietetic insights must be allied with knowledge of
agriculture and of political economy. With regard to food production, consump-
tion and marketing, account must be taken of the data of social orcultural
anthropology that are immediately relevant. Examining the problems of agri-
culture in tropical countries, Pierre Gourou shows that these cannot be solved
by resorting to traditional techniques of cultivation alone; taking as an exam-
ple the cultivation of land fallowed over long periods (the ‘ladang’ or milpa,
ground freshly cleared in tropical countries), of which there are several varieties
throughout the world, Gourou points to many drawbacks. The milpa is not in
itself perfectible, and cannot be developed in response to the growth of the
population. It cannot be successfully manured. The instability of the fields
discourages the building of roads, bridges, wells, reservoirs, etc. ; farming ma-
chines are of no avail. With regard to manual techniques, no transition is
made from the extensive to the intensive: ‘the peasant is unwilling to adopt
intensive techniques when he finds that the extra work he puts in is worse paid
than the minimum work required by extensive farrning’.33 The author goes on
to stress how far the technical solution of this problem is affected by a series of
human, social, economic and organizational factors : ‘The agricultural future of
mankind lies in the tropics, where there is a vast amount of land that is hardly,
badly or not at all farmed. In addition problems of pure agronomy, econom-
ics, education, road transport and administration must also be tackled as a
whole, account being taken of their inter-relationship.’34
Already, with regard to action on the first term of the food-population rela-
tion, we have an excellent example of the vital contribution one discipline can

600 Pierre de Bie
make to another in solving a problem for which a single discipline would offer
false or unattainable solutions.
If the intention is to act on the second term of the relation, namely the popula-
tion, it is not demography solely or even primarily that is involved, but a whole
number of human and social sciences such as social psychology, social and cul-
tural anthropology, sociology and even political and administrative sciences.
To our knowledge of fertility rates and their variations must be coupled all
insights into attitudes and values, the mechanisms by which they are main-
tained and modified; the most influential social categories, those whose exam-
ple in the matter of family planning (or absence of planning) is likely to be follow-
ed, must be discovered. Though the aims to be set depend on the man of ac-
tion, the means of attaining them presuppose extensive psychological, social
and cultural knowledge.
Physical planning studies also involve recourse to specialists in a variety of
the social sciences, in order to cover properly all aspects of the problems raised.
Advocating that a place be reserved for social planners in physical develop-
ment teams, Demetrius Iatradis brings out strongly the vital need to combine
various disciplinary approaches in the study of urban planning :
In everyday practice, experts are becoming increasingly aware and accepting more
readily that the several types of space - such as perceptual, social, economic and physi-
cal - are indeed interdependent, and that successful urban planning requires that all of
them be correctly taken into account. Although a distinct planning specialization with
its own methodology, framework and vocabulary now appears to evolve around
various approaches to development (such as social, economic, technological, political
or spatial), there is an increasing awareness among practitioners that in planning
urban growth these approaches to development and the various concepts of space are
variables of one and the same entity and that they should merge. The greater this con-
viction, the more acceptable and essential the role of the social planner.
Most physical planners in the recent past had to be convinced that a limited speciali-
zation viewpoint no longer sufficed to meet the challenge to create an urban environ-
ment appropriate for human and social development, and that a social scientist could
prove an effective, realistic and full-status team member.35
A study of the effects of urban renewal projects and development programmes
reveals still more strikingly the need to associate from the outset experts who
wil be mindful of the social aspects of the plans established by the technicians:
The results are reasonably conclusive in certain aspects and have been the cause of
increasing concern in various places and of a distinct disillusion with existing physical
development programmes and practices. Critical and realistic assessments of certain
urban renewal projects in the United States of America, or of physical development
‘master plans’ in Asia and Africa, or the establishment of new cities in Latin America
have frequently pointed out major shortcomings and, at times, brought to the surface
undesirable and unforeseen consequences which usually disturb the socio-economic
pattern of the community. ... While physical planners are attempting more and more
to employ social science concepts and tools to improve the quality and effectiveness of
physical development programmes, social planners are also becoming nicreasingly
aware that the organization of the physical environment may be instrumental in
achieving human and social goals.86
The disciplines that are or may be associated in physical development plans
are extremely numerous. In the sciences of man alone, an initial survey of the
disciplines that are frequently found in collaboration during inquiries designed

Problem-focused research 601
to pave the way for the drawing up of development plans includes the following:
economics, demography, education, sociology, political science, law, adminis-
trative science, psychology and anthropology.
This is clearly not to suggest that all physical development plans should,
de jure, call for collaboration between all such disciplines, nor even that, de
facto, they may all be found within the framework of the major undertakings.
In point of fact physical development plans reveal an astonishing variety of
objectives, ranging from those that are extremely limited in time and space and
appear at first sight to be purely technical operations, to those of much vaster
spatio-temporal dimensions having considerable social repercussions. To illus-
trate this, one has simply to contrast on the one hand the plans for installing a
long-distance gas pipeline network in a restricted area and, on the other, the
plans for the creation of satellite towns around a capital intended to relieve
congestion. It at once becomes apparent that in the first instance there appears
to be no call for much interdisciplinary collaboration, whereas in the second
case there does.
Actually, however, multidisciplinary groupings may vary considerably,
depending on the type of operation, the contractor and the country.
The examples chosen so far, to illustrate the multidisciplinary character of
problem-focused research, have been taken from sectors in which planning is
vital at the communal, regional or national levels. Let us take a few further
examples, this time from quite different fields of problem-focused research,
namely, crime, old age and the family.
In so far as criminology is concerned with organizing knowledge tending to
combat crime, to contribute to the reintegration of offenders into society and
their treatment, it must call upon a number of disciplines.
The discussions that have taken place amongst criminologists on the general
orientation of their research bring out clearly the choices open to them between
general and problem-focused research and, stemming from the latter, the
diversity of methods and the multidisciplinary character of such research.
‘Must priority be given to research focused on the problents or on the
methods?’ This dilemma was well analysed by Hermann Mannheim in his
recent treatise (Comparative Criminology, London, 1965, vol. I, p. 88-89). The
ideal would be, of course, to study the crucial problems by the most rigorous
methods, but this ideal often proves to be unattainable; should we then perse-
vere with methods that leave much to be desired, or confine our study to second-
ary problems, using excellent methods ? The advocates of scientific criminology
tend to favour the latter alternative. However, in criminology as in medicine,
the urgent need for practical solutions may override the desiderata of scientific
theory. This, moreover, is why the followers of Beccaria did not wait, before
beginning their reforms, till criminology had brought its solutions to the
problems they were facing. The prevailing trend in modern criminology appears
to be problem-focusing, with special emphasis on finding new avenues in
order to improve methodology.

602 Pierre de Bie
It may be wondered why it is so difficult, in criminology, to tackle the crucial problems
by rigorous methods, why it is primarily secondary problems that lend themselves
thereto. The reason lies mainly in the complex nature of criminology. Criminology is
the study of the roots of crime, whose causes are, however, multiple, some being psy-
chological in origin, others sociological ... Clearly, then, it can only progress by applying
a number of different methods, which will be borrowed from other sciences (biology,
psychology, psychiatry, sociology), or be inherent to certain fields of criminology in the
broadest sense (criminalistics, penology). This approach entails important theoretical
and practical consequences.
From the theoretical point of view, if criminology is to be more than a mosaic of data
borrowed from auxiliary sciences, its aim must be to effect a synthesis of these data ...
Biological, psychological, sociological and other methods used in criminological research
must therefore all converge to provide this synthesis ...
From the practical point of view, an important consequence of the multiplicity of
methods is the multidisciplinary character acquired by most criminological research.
To be sure, there are opportunities for individual research, and many important dis-
coveries are due to scientists working alone in a closely bounded field (crime statistics
was founded by two such men, working in isolation, Quktelet and Guerry). The more
general the problems under study are, however, the more a multidisciplinary approach
is called for. 3 7
Another series of problems arises in connexion with aging, and the situation
and living conditions of old people. The anxiety of certain countries in face of
the aging of the population, that is, the increase in the proportion of old
people in the community, the modification of their status and role in societies
in which families are dwindling in numbers and which are moving increasingly
in the direction of urbanization, has been the starting point of much research.
Research workers in various branches of the human sciences have, little by
little, specialized, finally coming to be recognized under the new title of gerontol-
ogists.
Gerontology deals with a sphere in which there is a need for social work.
Research workers are in contact with case workers. It lends itself to multidis-
ciplinary problem-focused research, a tendency that is reinforced by the aims
to which the work is directed.
Gerontology is concerned, at one and the same time, with a situation and a process,
with the aging individual and with the group to which he belongs. It therefore calls
for the co-operation of:
- doctors, physiologists and biologists, for the study of physical senescence;
- psychologists and psychiatrists, to measure the changes occurring with age in the
mental, intellectual and affective state;
- sociologists, to study the relations of older persons with society and its various sec-
tions, and to evaluate the position accorded by society to the old (not omitting the
study of life in institutions intended for them);
- demographers, to measure the extent of the phenomenon and the repercussions of
the aging of the population structure, and to outline future prospects;
- specialists from the social services handling casework, to draw up the necessary
inventories and formulate the questions to be put to research workers, and to translate
their advice into practice.
This list is in no way exhaustive and should also include, for example, economists, for
global or sector analyses, specialists in occupational matters (including competent
representatives of trade unions and employers), actuaries, financiers, etc?
Here again, the range of techniques and methods employed is varied, and brings
out the dependence of gerontological research on a diversity of disciplines.

Problem-focused research 603
An examination of the research themes on the agenda of the most recent
congresses of gerontology reveals how great an amount of problem-focused
and muitidisciplinary research is being carried on in this sector. An analysis
of the programmes of the International Association of Gerontology congresses
shows that these investigations are being undertaken in the fields of psychology,
experimental psychology, sociology, demography, economics and social medicine.
Paul Paillat, having established this classification, concludes :
lt is obvious at once that certain subjects can be dealt with only by a multidisciplinary
team, for the fact that they are associated with a particular theme does not conceal the
variety of problems raised and avenues of approach open to those tackling them ...
It is, in any case, significant that the problem of the link-up between research and the
application of its findings is represented in these programmes. This concern is not so
clearly apparent in meetings of scientists dealing with other disciplines. This is in fact
the mark of its urgency; societies do not know how to deal with this gift of progress,
the mass appearance of a new age in life, the age of retirement.39
One of the two main sections of the sixth International Congress of Gerontology
was devoted to the relationship between social science and welfare; the
thirty-two communications submitted derived from various branches of
psychology (differential, experimental, social and educational), sociology and
political economy. All contained statements of results suited to being turned
to account within the framework of an old age policy.40
Amongst research subjects the family attracted the moralists and social
workers before it did the scientists. The history of research in this field is in
part the history of the determination and practical concern of individuals to
act and render services. In their International Bibliography of Research on
Marriage and the Family, Joan Aldous and Reuben Hil point out that still
more recently numerous studies have been centred on aspects that are of
special relevance in marriage counselling and family therapy.41
Given the complexity of the family phenomenon and the need to throw
light on it from various angles in order to gain a fuller and more revealing picture
of it, many sciences have understandably found it to be a rich field of
research. All research work focused on the fostering of family life and the
relationships upon which it is based (parents - children, husband - wife), and
the harmonious accomplishment of endogenous or exogenous family functions,
involves the participation of various disciplines such as psycholoy, social
psychology, sociology, psychiatry or of such specialized branches as child
development or home economics.
Practical and -utilitarian concerns were for a long time uppermost; more
theoretical and multidisciplinary research made a tardy debut in this field. It
has been suggested that, when this did occur, it was to provide the conceptual
ground-work for empirical and scattered investigations, in order to give them
greater intellectual coherence and to boost the credit of a developed sector of
research in which there was a too exclusive concern to satisfy the needs for service
and action on behalf of the family. This evolution of theory has emerged
very sharply in the United States, where it was possible to present the elaboration
of conceptual frames of reference borrowed from various disciplines as the

604 Pierre de Bie
result of a constant effort to overcome the weakness traditionally inherent in
this field of re~earch.4~
This observation is interesting, providing as it does a further example of the
fact of the professional status available to those who do theoretical research
compared with those who engage in problem-focused or applied research,
specialists in family studies wishing to acquire the higher status of those who
devote themselves to pure research. But this question of status plays only a
partial role in explaining the multidisciplinary character of family research;
multidisciplinary research is necessitated by the very nature and the complexity
of family problems.
This list of examples of multidisciplinary problem-focused research could be
substantially longer. When it comes to study man in society - and is he not the
problem ? - various types of disciplinary association are always inevitable. Any
attempt to give an account of man as a human being necessarily involves collab-
oration between different disciplines, since each disciplinary sector stems from
an abstraction and a separation. ‘Pure’ economic analysis is an outstanding
example, but in a whole number of sectors of economic analysis social factors
are introduced as additional and even essential explanatory factors; the study
of patterns of expenditure and saving and the theory of economic growth and
development spring to mind. In his study of economic growth, Rostow brings
out the interaction between economic variables and the socio-cultural context.43
Just as it was impossible at one stage to advance until the myth of homo
oeconomicus had been disposed of, so, too, the simple image of the ‘citizen’ has
had to be jettisoned in political science and acknowledgment made of the
artificial character of the ‘laboratory specimen’, entirely cut off from all social
contacts, studied by experimental psychology.
The American school of cultural anthropology has brought into focus the
insights of psychoanalysis, social psychology and anthropology in its work on
the theme of ‘personality and culture.’ The standard work by Linton on the
cultural basis of the personality was primarily interesting because it was one of
the first conscious attempts at a pragmatic statement of the problems involved
in integrating the sciences of man. In the arguments in favour of giving an
institutional framework to what are known in the United States as the ‘behav-
ioral sciences’, the range of disciplines envisaged is even wider: to the disciplines
at the centre of this constellation, namely, the American versions of psychology,
anthropology and sociology, are added elements of political science, psychiatry,
human geography, political economy and history.
In problem-focused research the object is man in situ - man as a social being
who must be helped, healed and protected, and included in plans and forecasts
for the future. It is man in situ who introduces the multidisciplinary dimension.
Factors of the disciplinary associations
A study of the fields of problem-focused research brings out a number of fac-
tors which determine the disciplinary associations :

Problem-focused research 605
I. Appreciation of the importance of study and research as bases for intelligent
action.
2. Complexity of the subject of research; not only are the phenomena to be
studied complex, but their complexity creates problems for research.
3. The need to solve new problems for which no traditional solution is avail-
able.
4. Certain topics lend themselves better thanothers toproblem-focused research;
in so far as future developments can be foreseen, they present a problem.
This is true wherever change, development and planning are concerned.
5. Industrialized and developing societies are changing societies. Planning
becomes a component of these changing societies and calls for joint study
by a variety of specialists.
6. The need to call on specialists from several of the sciences of man is partic-
ularly apparent when the investigator is faced with a problem in a cultural
context different from his own ; whether they be personality disturbances,
problems relating to the family, to crime, economic development, political
and administrative structures, it is plain that a whole series of elements in
the socio-cultural environment enter in.
7. Appreciation of team-work and, in a world in which special branches of
learning are multiplying fast, anxiety to increase communication and ex-
changes between them.
A number of the factors involved in multidisciplinary association are undoubt-
edly characteristic not only of problem-focused research, but also, in some
cases, of the association of scientific disciplines for free basic research. I have,
however, refrained from mentioning factors that would appear to concern the
latter more exclusively; in this connexion, I might have alluded, for example, to
the interest in multisectorial dimensions such as time or space, or the apper-
ception of new theoretical concepts which might be discoverable or applicable
in several fields of knowledge: models, information systems, etc.
Moreover, among the factors noted - and the list is, of course, incomplete -
there are five which relate to the content of problem-focused research, whereas
two only concern the human element and the mode of intervention. But though
it must be borne in mind here that research is becoming increasingly well
organized and teams more numerous, it must also be emphasized that private
and public funds are earmarked with increasing priority for this form of re-
search. In the domain of the sciences of man, problem-focused research stands
the best chance of being financed - and the better it is organized, the greater its
chances wil be.
Still other factors are suited to promoting certain forms of multidisciplinary
research: institutional proximity and scientific affinities play an appreciable
role.
The fact that specialists representing several of the sciences of man are en-
gaged, in the same institution, in studying a single problem makes it far easier
for them to exchange views and compare results than when they remain isolated
or work in separate disciplinary institutions. Multidisciplinary research teams

606 Pierre de Bie
formed within a problem-focused research institution, such as a development
study institute, a criminology centre or a family studies centre, are in a distinct-
ly privileged position, belonging as they do to a single institutional structure.
In this respect they are far better off than those who, working within a uni-
versity or academy, would like to create multidisciplinary associations because
they see their importance theoretically, but who in fact come up against in-
stitutional barriers in the form of schools, institutes and faculties, all jealous of
their disciplinary independence. Within the university or academy, incentives
to co-operate and exchange ideas may be lacking, or prove to be far less power-
ful than those resulting from the need for joint intellectual efforts in overcoming
a difficulty or executing a plan. This is emphasized by Eric Trist in connexion
with professional schools at university level which, far more than the institutes
or departments on the humanities side, tend to be multi- or interdisciplinary.44
It is not our purpose in this chapter to survey the various possible types of
institutional arrangements in their relation to research, as this question is dealt
with in Chapter XI. But attention should be drawn to scientific affinities condu-
cive to certain multidisciplinary associations rather than others. In one instance
it may be the tradition for demographers to collaborate with sociologists, in
another with economists. Social and cultural anthropology has, in fact, largely
taken over from ethnology, but is much closer to sociology and is intercon-
nected with linguistics. In continental European countries, political science
has for long been particularly preoccupied with constitutional and administra-
tive law; under the influence of Anglo-Saxon research it has broadened its
scope more and more to include the the work of sociologists, social psychologists,
linguists, ethnologists and organization theorists.45 And amongst the sciences
of man it is often sociology and sometimes anthropology that primarily attract
the psychologist. In the European countries the economist is more concerned
with history than sociology; if the latter discipline does have to do with eco-
nomics, it is doubtless less for purposes of collaboration than to criticize its
~chemata.4~
These are, in fact, relatively rough illustrations which may in particular
cases prove to be false; scientific affinities vary enormously according to coun-
tries, schools and individuals. What stands out in the background is the solid
fact of intellectual traditions, of educational and research structures. In several
countries teaching methods may be too narrowly aimed at monodisciplinary
specialization, and fail to foster a dialogue with those working in other dis-
ciplines or to encourage interest in other intellectual approaches or tools; jurists,
psychologists, economists are trained who are familiar solely with authors in
their own field. ‘Juridism’ is distinguished from ‘psychologism’ and from ‘econo-
mism’. Disciplinary constellations, affinities, bridges and associations vary
from country to country; it is one of the merits of Jean Viet’s all-round approach
in his report on the sciences of man in France that it represents an attempt to
review the various interdisciplinary relations obtaining within a single country.47
The multidisciplinary dimension of problem-focused research has been
treated as self-evident. Problem-focused research can, however, be monodisci-
plinary; in the sciences of man there is probably not a single discipline that has
-

Problem-focused research 607
been able to develop without taking account of the needs of practical action,
or being concerned with big social problems. Moreover, when one studies the
history of these sciences and considers their beginnings, one is struck by the
extent to which the pioneers were anxious to shape the course of action. Dr.
Quesnay and the physiocrats embarked upon a study of the laws of political
economy in order to lay down rules of conduct for the benefit of States and
individuals alike, and when Auguste Comte founded, as be believed, the science
of sociology, he did so with the intention of reconstructing the social order on a
rational basis. In varying proportions, depending on the discipline, there has
been an appreciable amount of research focused on social problems: research
by psychologists, for advisory purposes or in order to apply and interpret
mental tests in schools, hospitals and guidance centres; research by political
scientists aimed at understanding and forecasting electoral behaviour or at
improving the structure of political parties; analyses conducted by sociologists
of human relations in industry or of relationships between ethnic groups; and
studies by economists of the processes of economic decision-making, or of
factors involved in growth and prosperity. New fields for monodisciplinary
problem-focused research are opening up, praxeology for one, or again action
research in sociology,4* - following the example of action research in eco-
nomics - which would be at once basic and applied.
In some respects social and cultural anthropology, which owes its origins
to simple curiosity, has perhaps proved to be an exception - in so far as: its
objective at the outset was simply descriptive and interpretative knowledge of
cultures and modes of social organization foreign to the research worker’s own
country. But contacts between different civilizations and the problem-focused
approach to development conceived in terms of values and conceptions peculiar
to the Western world have largely modified this state of affairs, and the trend
of many anthropological studies is towards problem-focused research as part of
a development policy for which knowledge of the anthropological data is a
prerequisite for success.
The forms of disciplinary association
If problem-focused research is often multidisciplinary, why should not the
expression ‘interdisciplinary problem-focused research’ be used ?
The distinction between them is based on the level of integration of disciplines.
The multidisciplinary nature of a research project merely implies the calling in
of specialists in two or more disciplines; in a sense, it is enough for them to
juxtapose their findings. Interdisciplinary research, on the other hand, requires
far closer co-ordination of efforts and presupposes a certain integration of
research activities.
Multidisciplinary research calls for the services of various research workers,
so that since each approaches the same problem from the angle of his own par-
ticular training, the combined findings resulting in fuller and less one-sided
knowledge. The obligation to solve a problem or meet social needs requires,
if due account is to be taken of all their different aspects, the contribution of

608 Pierre de Bie
various disciplines; multidisciplinary research is thus often the spontaneous an-
swer when it comes to carrying out a problem-focused research project. The sheer
variety of disciplines contributing is enough to guarantee its multidisciplinary
character.
But when a particular investigation incorporates the findings of several disci-
plines, borrows their tools and techniques, above all when it makes use of
conceptual patterns and analyses pertaining to several branches of knowledge
in order - once these have been compared and appraised - with a view to bring-
ing them together, we are dealing with interdisciplinary activity. Similarly, where
certain concepts or terms are common to several sciences, there we may find the
starting-point for interdisciplinary research; recourse to new theoretical con-
cepts, which, taken up again in several fields of knowledge, may cross-fertilize
them (systems and information theories semeiological research, research on
decision-making), can be considered in the same perspective. It must surely prove
rewarding for the disciplines concerned to recognize and explore more fully what
they may have in common. This comes within the scope of interdisciplinary
research, whose principal aim is the integration of knowledge.
The distinction between multi- and interdisciplinary research is, then, based
above all on the degree of association amongst disciplines, which may range
from simple juxtaposition to highly advanced integration.
The transition from the first to the second is gradual. It may be brought out
more clearly by the following examples:
a. Research workers in different disciplines make a parallel study of various
aspects of a single problem and submit separate reports; thanks to this
juxtaposition, it is hoped that further light will be shed on the problem under
consideration.
6. Research workers in different disciplines tackle the same problem simul-
taneously and synchronize their efforts, exchange findings and draft separate
reports which wil be prefaced by a joint report attempting to integrate all
these findings; in this instance what is sought is some degree of convergence,
if not throughout the investigation, then at least in the comparison of
findings.
c. Research workers tackle a single problem together, compare their working
hypotheses, make a critical assessment of each other’s methods and draft a
final joint report.
d. One discipline has recourse to the tools and techniques of others so as to
arrive at a better understanding of its own aims (cf. the contribution made
by mathematics and statistics to the social sciences).
e. One discipline uses the results of others; as examples, we may quote the use
made in sociology of the data of human geography, the recourse had to
sociological data in order to interpret demographic phenomena or to supple-
ment the economic analysis of an industrial firm, or again the reliance on
psychoanalysis in order to clarify the relationship between culture and per-
sonality, etc. (at this point interdisciplinary areas emerge : rural sociology,
sociology of population, socio-economy of industrial firms, social psycho-
analysis).

Problem-focused research 609
There is no doubt about it - the opposition between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary
research is clear only in extreme cases. One is tempted to link the
forms of disciplinary association to a specific type of research since disciplinar
integration may be highly advanced in basic research, but is less so in
problem-focused research, and still less so (if it is not actually absent) in applied
research. But is this not a mind's eye view?
Moreover, in this series of examples designed to throw light on the various
degrees of integration of research, two dimensions have been mingled : teamwork
and the establishment of closer relations between disciplines. Examples
a, b and c refer to researchers and to methods of team-work, examples d and e
to borrowings amongst the disciplines and to their mutual penetration.
Another variable to be taken into account is the institutional structure, in
accordance with which the degree of co-ordination and integration of research
may vary - that is, according to whether researchers work in a single institution
or in several. Viewed from this angle two variables stand out: the situation,
firstly, in which there is institutional integration in so far as the research
workers all form part of the same institution, but do not integrate their research
activities, each studying a separate subordinate problem; and secondly, the situation
in which the researchers belong to different institutions, yet genuinely
integrate their research work and findings, drafting joint reports on these.
In it not possible that interdisciplinary research, which involves questioning
and listening carefully to fellow research workers, was a simpler matter when
one and the same scientist succeeded in penetrating neighbouring disciplines
and mastering them?
It must be remembered in this connexion that specialization as we know it
today is a recent phenomenon, and the great authors of the past - less preoccupied
with problem-focused and planned research than our contemporaries -
were in fact doing interdisciplinary work before the term had been invented:
Aristotle, Thomas More, Rousseau, Montesquieu were at once political
scientists, moralists, educators, sociologists and jurists. But today the fields of
research have increased in number and scope to such an extent that interdisciplinary
polyvalency can no longer be attained by any one individual, and multidisciplinary
team-work is agreed by all to be essential.
Is there not, after all, a certain danger of arbitrary eclecticism when a single
individual makes use of data from several disciplines ? Is there not a risk that his
work wil be less rich than what results from the careful collaboration of several
researchers, well trained in their various disciplines ?
Are interdisciplinary efforts to be excluded from the domain of problemfocused
research? A priori, it appears not. And it ought even to be added that
scientifically planned action will be all to the better if it is based on the results
of interdisciplinary research than if it depends on juxtapositions of data derived
from several disciplines.
Things must, however, be considered on a factual and not merely abstract
plane. It is ii~t easy to draw the line between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary
research, and the dificulty is increased when the distinction between
studies conducted with a view to action and theoretical research remains vague.

610 Pierre de Bie
Moreover the requirements of genuinely interdisciplinary research are many, and
the conditions in which much problem-focused research is carried out are
seldom conducive to successful interdisciplinary research : it is a difficult under-
taking, demanding great patience. It is not so much a matter of contributing to
the progress of knowledge as of making a concerted effort to open up new hori-
zons.
There is therefore no necessary link between the form of disciplinary asso-
ciation and the type of research. The aim of interdisciplinary work is the en-
richment and integration of knowledge: this work normally fits into the frame-
work of free basic research. Multidisciplinary work may tend towards a simple
accretion of knowledge : it meets a frequent demand of problem-focused research.
III. THE DIFFICULTIES OF PROBLEM-FOCUSED RESEARCH
The relations between research and action constitute the crux of problem-focus-
ed research. To realize this we must first consider development studies and all
studies which concern regional or national planning: most of these share the
characteristic of being truly at the crossroads - or rather at the junction - of re-
search and action.
There is much to perplex those who would define and situate this kind of study.
First of all as concerns the subject: it is difficult to distinguish studies which
directly serve action from more theoretical research. What was intended to guide
action is not always followed by an effect, and what was theoretical in character
may subsequently be used for information designed to modify attitudes and
facilitate the introduction of changes.
Then as regards the institutional framework: there is often a close link be-
tween the offices and administrative services entrusted with decision-making
and the research organs whose job it is to prepare the ground for the decisions.
In many countries there are joint bodies responsible both for research and for
informed action, and it is no longer possible to draw a distinction between the
research bodies and the institutions for stimulation and action.
Proximity to action
This leads to a reflection on problem-focused research in relation to how close
it is to action.
A whole series of studies have only a relatively broad connexion with action
based on the following line of reasoning: given that a particular social problem
merits our attention (e.g. the behaviour of young people, the living conditions
of the aged, religious observance), studies on the subject must be undertaken.
Anything which might improve our knowledge in this field may be useful to us
in the sphere of action. These studies represent problem-focused research in
the wide sense; let us call it 'widely-focused research'.
Studies relatively closely connected with action are very different. Their logic
is as follows: given that we are going to act on some data (e.g. the campaign

Problem-focused research 61 I
against slums, regional development, setting up of communications, modifica-
tion of formal structures in an industrial enterprise or an administration), it is
necessary to have exact knowledge of all the non-technical elements - human,
social, economic or political -which must be taken into account, and to foresee,
where necessary, the conditions to be observed if the change is to be carried out
without major difficulties. Of a piece with action, these studies represent prob-
lem-focused research in a much narrower sense: let us call it ‘narrowly-
focused research’.
This distinction allows of a better grasp of the relationship between problem-
focused research and basic theoretical research. In widely-focused studies, the
research workers may have little or no contact with the man of action, hence it
is open to them to develop their research in a relatively theoretical direction,
and this might be favoured by purely academic traditions and intellectual
environment. They are aware of the practical importance of the subject of their
studies, but only in a general way. They have a notion of it rather than apracti-
cal understanding of it, and this may be reflected in the result of their work: it is
sometimes presented in a theoretical and rather abstract form, in a scientific
vocabulary which is more or less a closed book to the potential users. We begin
with a social problem to which research is to be devoted; we end up with a
study which may turn out to be of basic theoretical importance, but which is
not necessarily of use or usable.
On the other hand, in narrowly-focused research the relations between
research workers and men of action are much closer, so that the former are
necessarily alive to the practical problems set by the latter. The fact that in
many cases both groups are working in the same institution, members of a
team in which the plan and the preparation of studies are under constant
review in accordance with the planning requirements and with decisions to be
taken, leads to research which can be translated into action much more quickly.
Here, although the research may be conducted very strictly as regards its
objectivity and the techniques used, purely theoretical concerns have less chance
of developing because of the pressure resulting from the need for action and for
keeping to prescribed timetables.
It is clear that the institutional framework plays an important part in the
distinction between these two forms of problem-focused research. The fact
that there are successive contracts, that the work is channelled into organiza-
tions concerned with management and application, normally leads to narrowly-
focused research. There are also the links and contacts institutionally provided
for between researchers and men of action. Finally there is the pressure for
action to be taken: urgent needs obliterate the time perspectives which are so
essential for theory.
Any instance of narrowly-focused research may serve to illustrate the
closeness of research to action. Area planning problems are an admirable
example of the type of research we have in mind.
Presenting ‘ekistics’, the science of the development of human settlements,
Iatradis describes an ideal model in which the work of specialists in various
social, economic and technological sciences is combined for specific action :

612 Pierre de Bie
In the analysis phase, a physical development team is primarily and usually concerned
with such general operations as the analysis of human and social needs in a human
settlement (or a physical area) ... In so doing, it takes into consideration the ability of
the people and of their governments to satisfy those needs, individually or collectively.
The team is likewise concerned as a rule with the analysis of total needs for equipment,
facilities and institutions, and identification of total resources and of the human settle-
ment (or phsyical area) in relation to the broader region in the context of nationalpolicy
and plans. Finally, the team synthesizes and interprets conclusions reached in thecourse,
of analysis in more general terms, relating them to findings and conclusions applicable
to other comparable areas.
During the policy phase, the team normally ranks alternative courses of action based
upon the conclusions reached during the analysis ; outlines the likely short and long-
term effects of each course of action upon the total set of social, economic and political
conditions, problems and policies of the area and their impact upon the people and the
governments; and develops a close familiarity with existing and proposed resources and
with the legal and legislative context within which to carry out projects, programmes
and plans. Finally it decides on and recommends a course of action and policy that not
only satisfies the identified needs (present and future), but also has the greatest possi-
bility of achieving successful completion.49
The policy selected is in turn organized scientifically and technically. Three
phases are distinguished by Iatradis: programme, ‘design’ or ‘plan’ phase and
implementation. During each phase there is a continuous comparison of aims,
insights and of the means best suited to achieve the objectives. Knowledge and
action overlap continuously, up to and including the introduction of research
to evaluate the policies and the results obtained, which may lead to modifica-
tions of the courses of action. There must be a careful synchronization of work
and a synthesis of the contributions of various disciplines. ‘In ekistic practice,
an effort is constantly made to engage the required experts from the conception
of the project to the very end and to operate the team as an integral unit.’so
The summary by P. Bolle and F. Perrin of the research related to develop-
ment planning in France gives an account of a complicated set of investigations
and concrete initiatives which likewise belong to the domain of narrowly-focused
research. Here an administrative body, the Ddkgation a l’arnknagement du
territoire et A l’action rkgionale, acts as a stimulus, co-ordinating and providing
technical help in planning. In the numerous technical studies initiated by this
body, the sciences of man play only a limited part: research is chiefly confined
to technical and financial matters. There is a certain amount of economic re-
search, but hardly any on sociology.
The work of the Ddkgation is presented as
an administrative mobilization for the undertaking of new tasks in stimulating and di-
recting economic life, at a time when decisive progress in the sciences of man makes it
possible to modify some of the conditions governing theexercise of these responsibilities.
Experiments in multidisciplinary association . . . constitute the DBkgation’s main in-
novation. This multidisciplinary association begins with the organization of the DBe-
gation itself, which includes, in addition to administrators and technicians - selected
with unusual care to ensure systematic diversity - one or two representative delegates
from the universities.
The very considerable use made of research committees comprising technicians
and researchers with different kinds of training does not always guarantee a multidis-
ciplinary approach to problems ... The most interesting studies, from the point of view

Problem-focused research 613
of method, are those associating two disciplines, or one technique and one discipline,
on a particular theme. A multidisciplinary team, on the other hand, is more effective
for an understanding of the research and for ensuring the transition from research to
action. It is a guarantee that, in the programming of a development plan, all the facts
will be taken into account and will be studied with all the means offered by the human
sciences. 5 I
The examples considered have been borrowed from the sector of narrowly-
focused research. In emphasizing how the proximity of action may act as a
constant challenge and get scientific research moving, we encounter further
basic questions in problem-focused research.
There is on the one hand the question of passing from insights to courses of
action. Institutional structures may favour this transition in narrowly-focused
research, but even then the utilization of research results is not automatic: an
examination of the factors which separate knowledge from the decision to act
cannot be avoided. On the other hand, from the programming of research
down to the translation of its results into courses of action, there arise problems
of communication and collaboration.
Utilization of results
Problem-focused research may lead to practical application of its results, in
other words, some of the propositions resulting from research are capable of
helping to formulate practical decisions, to support a policy, or at the very
least to inspire action.
The concept of multidisciplinary problem-focused research does not imply
its effectiveness in practice: its uses are purely potential. Extensions on the plane
of action, desired by those who do the research and by those who stimulate it or
subsidize it, are not a necessary part of it. Some problem-focused research may
well bear little fruit in the form of useful propositions, even may lead to no
practical action at all. There are innumerable reasons for this: they may, for
example, be found among the researchers, if they are incapable of formulating
their conclusions in terms sufficiently concrete and meaningful ; they inay be the
fault of the clients, either because they fail to take heed of the results achieved
and base a policy on them, or because they do not wish to fall in with the indica-
tions furnished by the research. In either of these events no action wil follow.
Yet it should not be claimed that the nature of research depends on the use
made of its results: its course is directed by its purpose.
This said, the question remains: what are the concrete conditions for practi-
cal utilization of the work done by problem-focused research? To achieve and
examine the application of scientific results is a task of sufficient complexity to
have become the subject of a research programme. The Center for Research
on the Utilization of Scientific Knowledge has been set up by the University of
Michigan in order to make headway in this particular field.
Let us be quite clear: here it is not a matter of just any sort of use. By the
mere fact of its existence and its development, a scientific discipline exercises an
influence on others, and can further the development of ways of thinking, e.g.

614 Pierre de Bie
the ‘legal mind’, ‘economic thought’ or the ‘perspective of the psychologist’. Research
of any sort may have effects of this kind, of a type which cannot be foreseen.
What is involved is primarily and above all the foreseen or foreseeable use,
translation of answers given by research into terms of action.
The practical conditions limiting utilization are many, and in reality they are
intermingled in various ways. We propose to consider some of them.
There is first of all the material produced by research: some researchers aim
at furnishing descriptive data of a demographic, economic or sociological nature
which need to be known for a programme of action drawn up elsewhere, and
the data, once assembled, will be used in the programme envisaged. Several
types of studies related to programmes for urban, community or regional development
come into this category. But there are other studies which serve to show
the complexity of the problem, to offer interpretations, to foresee the consequences
of some factor which may or is likely to intervene: here the distance
between transmission of the results of research and action on the basis of
these results is very much longer. Lazarsfeld, Sewell and Wilenski refer, in
this connexion, to thegaps between sociological knowledge and decision-making :
whatever study may have been made, whatever the sources of knowledge
drawn on, there comes a moment when.the jump must be made from knowledge
to making a decision. Generally speaking, it is easy to see why there is no
single route leading from knowledge to action.Unforeseen events may occur;
countermoves of competitors cannot be known in advance; reasonable modifications
of social policy may have completely unexpected consequences. The
client, as the man who makes the decisions, will have to make assumptions
and run risks beyond the limits of anything the sociologist may be able to tell
him.52 Research does not solve questions of strategy, it does not indicate the
choices to be made, it does not include the imaginative elements which might
offer an immediate solution. For example, in order to behave better, young
delinquents need models: where shall they be found? Should one turn to social
workers, to friends of the family standing in for a father, or to instructors
specially trained for this role ? Studies of industrial sociology show that what
is needed among foremen is a fair balance between those who are mainly concerned
about men and those who are concerned above all about production.
But what is a fair balance? How it is to be attained?53
Then there are the types of clients: from ordinary private people to business
concerns and industrial enterprises, from voluntary associations or philanthropic
foundations to public authorities, the range is extensive. What is asked of the
researcher may vary enormously, and so may in consequence the utilization of
the results. This utilization varies according to the type of relations established,
the intentions and values of the two sides and the ways of communications: all
these variables deserve separate consideration.
The type of relations between clients and research workers is evidently of
great importance to the extent that it affects the whole process of communication
when the order is given for the work to be done, during its execution and
at the stage of communication of the results obtained. It is worth recalling here

Problem-focused research 615
the differences which may result according to whether the relations are personal
or are established only through a huge administrative structure; or according to
whether the research worker is employed in the organization which finances the
research or stands outside it as a consultant or independent expert.
Practical utilization of results may depend on facilities for their reception,
whether a person is responsible or a study committee, and if these are absent
the report containing the results may remain wasted effort.54
The research workers and their clients often have profoundly different values
or casts of mind. Riley recalls that the difference in attitudes to time between
the specialist in social sciences and the business man sometimes creates an
acute problem.55 The business man is largely used to a daily rhythm of making
decisions and putting them into effect. Although he may recognize the impor-
tance of long-term research, he is generally forced to act in the short term. The
research worker does not feel the same pressures and has not the same habits:
he may disappoint the client or even discourage him by not keeping to the time-
table of work on which agreement has been reached.
In the field of values, there are other divergencies more fundamental. Among
research workers, there is the liking for independence, the sense of ‘academic
freedom’ and of scientific work well conducted with a feeling of autonomy,
what Blau and Scott call ‘professional orientation’ as distinct from ‘bureau-
cratic orientation’.j6 For this reason, many prefer to work in universities or in
organizations composed entirely of research workers and sometimes to earn less
there, doing the things which interest them, rather than earning more in doing
things which do not interest them. Research workers are not always co-opera-
tive, for fear of being regimented, of being subjected to excessive tutelage or of
being unable to express their ideas freely. To administrators these attitudes may
reflect a dangerous independence of spirit, or the absence of political sense or
of a practical bent. It is not uncommon on the one hand for research workers to
be very pleased to have brought new facts to light, or to have put forward origi-
nal explanations, and yet to have only a dim perception of the practical bearing
of their work, while on the other hand the users, anxious for an immediate and
striking translation into practical terms, make no effort to extract from research,
with its results formulated in abstract terms, the indications for practice that they
hold.
Administrators sometimes show themselves mistrustful towards research
workers, partly, no doubt, because the latter do not adequately recognize their
authoiity, and also partly because they have different ideas and are concerned
about different things. The mistrust of trade unions towards intellectuals, and
particularly towards those who have not come from their ranks, is a classic
example. But it is not only trade unions: generally speaking, most mass
organizations, concerned with social influence and strategy, may prefer propa-
ganda and the moulding of opinion in a particular direction to objective,
scientific information. The ‘organization man’s7 is more malleable and more
useful than the research worker. And in the same way, the reactions of authori-
ties, the potential users of the results of research which they have subsidized,
may prove more sensitive to the momentary political situation and may react

616 Pierre de Bie
to short-term considerations related to that situation instead of to the longterm
considerations implied by economic and social analysis. We might recall
here, reversing the terms, the contrast between the time-perspectives of the
research worker and of the man of action: for the research worker, concerned
with informed planning and sensitive to forecasts, it is to-morrow which is close
and important, while for the man of action it is today.
The intentions of those who commission research work are another important
condition of the way in which the results are utilized. Regional development
studies show this: ‘At one time the person responsible for a development area
is anxious progressively to recognize the main factors of the problem which
concerns him, and research takes on, around a single theme, a character of
great diversity; it is aimed then at improving a policy, either with a view to
carrying out an equipment programme, or in order to make a set of rules more
flexible - that is the case in a policy of decentralization based on studies of all
sorts. At another time, on the contrary, the research is aimed less directly at
action and seeks to modify the state of mind of the administration. It is useless
then to expect results which it does not ~arrant’.5~ In a more general way, it is
clear that many studies and pieces of research are subsidized by public authorities
or foundations only to throw more light on the various avenues open to
some possible policy. Here we must recall the effects of unforeseeable kinds and
the distinction between widely-focused and narrowly-focused research already
referred to. 59
Considering the practical utilization of the results of problem-focused
research has allowed us to look at several variable factors: the subject of the
research, the type of clients and differences in values, casts of mind, and intentions;
but the essential has not yet been touched on, namely communication
between research worker and man of action, the nature and quality of which
itself depends on the structures within which this communication materializes.
This is a central question and deserves particular attention.
Communication between research workers and men of action
It might be said that among the problems of relations between problem-focused
research and action the main question is that of the dialogue. On the quality of
the dialogue depend the adequate direction of the research, the reception and
grasp of the bearing of the results; it is the quality of the dialogue which makes it
possible to reduce misunderstandings, ambiguities and disappointments on both
sides. It is here that intentions can be made clear; the effects of differences in
values and casts of mind may be reduced.
In principle the dialogue is useful throughout the research: when it is devised
while it is being carried out and when its results are transmitted. But in fact
there are two moments which are particularly important and critical: the time
preceding the research and the time following the research. 6o
Preceding, dialogue controls the matching of the reply to the problem set:
the research worker and the man of action must understand one another.
The latter generally sets out his problem in concrete terms: the re-habilitation

Problem-focused research 617
of delinquents or the mentally ill, the fight against infant mortality, and so on.
To the research worker it is a matter of seizing the essential facts, and expressing
in clear terms the various practical problems which the research is to clarify.
On the other hand, the practical questions have to be translated into research
terms: it is necessary not merely to discover what subjects of research are likely
to illuminate the decisions to be taken, but also, within the limits of time and
means, to choose the tools of research most likely to be adequate and to give the
best chance of coming to a decision. The translation into research terms is not
always easy: it is the less so the more the inquiry is formulated in general
terms, for example, how to reduce the number of traffic accidents, what to do to
increase the chances of success in a family planning programme, how to suppress
tensions arising from an encounter between two cultures or two rival ethnic
groups, and so on.
There is also the need to remove ambiguities by defining the limits of the
research worker’s intervention. The latter cannot, in that capacity, say that it
is better for the faithful to attend divine service in larger numbers, or claim that
the cultural assimilation of immigrants is a good thing. But the specialist in the
sciences of man may help the inquirer to distinguish different kinds of aims, to
specify certain appropriate means for their attainment, and the consequences
which may arise from them.
Within the framework of multidisciplinary research, the limits appropriate
to each discipline, as part of its techniques, its ideas and sectors of research,
must also be specified: this wil allow of determining at the outset the degree
to which the reply matches the problem set, and to avoid later disillusionment.
But the problems of values which always slip in at this first stage remain the
most important: they must be viewed lucidly.
Following the research, the first problem to be faced is again one of transla-
tion. The research worker must take care to say in clear language what he is
tempted to express in a specialized and hermetically-sealed vocabulary, for on
that wil depend the plain statement of results.
But there is more to it than that. ‘The man of action is not always capable of
translating the results of research into information giving guidance on decisions.
Moreover, there is very often a need for a joint piece of imaginative work, in
which each of the disciplines, with its own specific point of view, plays an in-
dispensable part in translating the results of research into recommendations for
action’. Jean RCmy, from whom we have borrowed this observation, points out
that converting scientific knowledge into action requires assessments of effec-
tiveness: to what extent does the scientific knowledge gained in a particular
field make it possible to give specific instructions for attaining a proposed end
with the least effort? ‘For example, if in surroundings of a distinctly urban
character it is desired to increase the likelihood of cohesion within family
groups, or if it is desired to make of faithfulness in marriage a basic element of
morality, what are the elements of an economic, a psychological or a sociologi-
cal nature which must be brought into play in one way or another? When a
recommendation is made in one specialized subject, and those working in
other specialized subjects endeavour to discover the indirect effects, inter-

618 Pierre de Bie
disciplinary action is involved. For example, recommendations of an economic
type might have psychological and economic effects not perceived directly by
the economists, and which other disciplines owe it to themselves to point out.’6I
While anticipatory research is quite normally a part of purely scientific work
in many sciences of man, forward-looking research is clearly characteristic of
research with a view to action: starting from a diagnosis of the present position
and of its probable evolution, the forecast will try to set itself certain objectives
in order deliberately to influence the direction taken. In their relations with the
users of their knowledge, specialists in problem-focused research will often have
to participate in the work of reflecting on prospects, at least if they share the
concern that research shall be useful: having identified the problems of lack of
information, of misunderstandings, and other requirements, they will have to
help in establishing how to attain the aims of information, persuasion and
participation. It is not unusual for the first results obtained to form a starting
point for other problem-focused research perceived in the course of considering
prospects. With a change in the subject of research, other disciplines often have
to step in.
The quality of dialogue between the research worker and the client depends
on many conditions and we have by no means referred to all of them, but there
is one we cannot ignore: it is the administrative structure in the framework of
which a dialogue takes place, because that structure may dominate, sometimes
profoundly, the type of relations. Given the cost of problem-focused research,
finance for it comes almost always from some public or private body. At one
extreme of possible situations the research worker stands completely outside
the applicant organization, and at the other extreme is the researchworker
who is employed in it.
Although we do not in this chapter deal with the structures and organization
of research, we must say a word about them in relation to problem-focused
research. The question is to know to what extent the quality of problem-focused
research can be improved by the position of the research worker in relation to
the structure of a client organization: the question must be asked as regards the
dialogue, but also as regards other points not less important, such as the con-
tinuity of the research - and the continuity of the dialogue-access to subsidies
and to means of finance, and the research worker’s freedom of thought.
Where the research worker has an assured position outside the client organi-
zation, has he not all the advantages of independence and can he not therefore
more easily play the part of a free, imaginative and critical social commentator ?
Where, on the contrary, the research worker is a part of the structure of the
client organization, has he not a diminished degree of liberty and is he not, by
his position, less capable of resisting the internal pressures of policy and the
influence, sometimes subtle, but continuous, of value judgments made by the
organization to which he belongs? Has not the former much easier access to
and better contacts with his colleagues working in the theoretical sciences, while
the latter is riveted to his administrative setting and runs the risk of being gagged
by it, especially if he is isolated?
For these questions we could substitute others which might suggest the

Problem-focused research 619
contrary: the degree of dependence of the external research worker may be very
great, while the subordinate position of the internal worker may be only appar-
ent. Too many variables play a part here for us to be able to prejudge in the
abstract what influence the position of the research worker would have. If there
is no lack of good problem-focused research carried out by multidisciplinary
teams outside the organizations which subsidize and utilize research, there is
similarly no lack of collaboration between several research workers within
organizations which are also potential users : the research organizations working
for authorities and integrated in the administration of their countries provide
many examples.
The position of the research worker in relation to the structure of the client
organization is an important variable - one of several - in the relationship
between research and action. Apart from variables between individuals, those
of traditions, and those of circumstances, there is the whole problem of the
status and the ethic of the research worker62 which has to be raised here.
Dificulties in the dialogue between research workers
It is not enough to have a lucid dialogue with the men of action. A dialogue
must be sought between research workers, too. The specialist isolated in his
research department runs the risk of sclerosis; if the research is multidisciplinary,
a thousand obstacles may hinder or stultify the collective effort.
It is important that problem-focused research should remain close to developments
in the so-called pure sciences. As Johan Galtung very aptly puts it: ‘Much
oriented research in big bureaucracies or enterprises becomes stale because of
isolation from other research environments and because it is dominated by
people with insufficient motivation to renew themselves’. 63
Considering the problems of research directed towards peace, Galtung points
out that the institutionalization of the relations between scientists in the pure and
the problem-focused sciences is not easy; that we must see to stimulating institutional
structures; and that in the modern world these structures are
c hiefly universities and academies. Here exchange relations may exist not between
branches of pure research but also with problem-focused research, an
institute for research on peace collaborating broadly with a development institute,
or a social welfare institute, and so on.
This view is without doubt a little one-sided. Numerous research centres which
are attached neither to universities nor to academies have been able to supply
ample proof of their fertility on the plane of scientific research, although their
main calling is connected with problem-focused research. But it is certain that
problem-focused research, at the juncture between research and action, must
exercise unceasing care to maintain a delicate balance between the two: in
widely-focused research there is a risk that the academic spirit wil win, while
in narrowly-focused research the requirements of action may sometimes risk
making research sterile.
In order to bring out in sufficient relief the main snags which may be en-

620 Pierre de Bie
countered in a multidisciplinary dialogue, we must borrow examples from a
single research context.
Reflecting upon the experiments already carried out on collaboration between
different specialists in the field of mental illnesses, in which problem-focused
research was used from the start, and in which work involving several disciplines
is most frequent, Roger Bastide has clearly shown all the difficulties encountered
by a multidisciplinary research team.64
They arise from various factors such as :
a. The institutionalization of multidisciplinary research
Team work can be fruitful only if it is institutionalized: it needs an organiza-
tion and rules for work. Frequently research workers are employed in an estab-
lished organization and have to submit to its rules. In the case we are examin-
ing, the study of mental illnesses, the organizations which undertake the
research
are often old institutions, obeying old regulations (which date in any case from a period
in which no one dreamed of multidisciplinary teams) and which are in addition restric-
tive. And how can something new be set up in an archaic framework? Should the or-
ganization (with its weight of inertia) be prevented from blocking new concepts arising
from the dialogue? In the case of the study of mental illness, for example, one is most
often practically compelled to pass through the whole machinery of the psychiatric
hospital, with its binding regulations and its traditional organization, and to respect
its established hierarchy of statuses. Wil not the work of the multidisciplinary team in-
terfere with the authority of some people, for example, the hospital staff, the social wel-
fare workers, the educators, in relation both to patients and to their superiors, and thus
risk upsetting the more or less precarious balance between services ? Experiments of
which records have been kept in this type of research show that much more time has
been required to make the research acceptable than actually to carry it out -in order to
allay fears, find compromises with the administrative regulations - but also that in the
end the opposition between the various services and the administration was resolved
by joint work, and difficulties overcome by the energies of the combined gro~p.~5
But multidisciplinary research may also impose on itself its own laws and
create its own specific organization. Roger Bastide recalls that for the study of
morbid cases a ‘concentric’ order may be substituted for problem-focused
research ‘for several voices’: ‘At one time, . . . work was done as it were on a
linear pattern: the psychiatrist, as and when the case he was concerned with
offered new problems, called into his study the biologist, the psychologist, and
even sometimes the sociologist. Research work by a team substitutes for this
linear order an order which we may call concentric, that is to say, in which all
the researchers regularly come together in the same room, for example, in
meetings which are held daily (at the end of the day), or weekly (especially for
studying cases) or monthly (especially for merging different perspectives in a
single theoretical or at least conceptual whole)’.
b. Ecological constraints
The organization of research is carried out in a fixed space: the structure of
this space has definite effects on the development and fecundity - or the ac-
cumulation of difficulties - of research. Bastide is here referring to studies in the

Problem-focused research 621
field of functional architecture taking into account the need for exchance of
information and a disciplinary integration of which the criteria change over time.
c. Composition of a team
Although there is a lack of data concerning the effect of sex, age, experience, and
cultural and professional level of various research workers, ‘these variables
have definite effects on the conduct of research (e.g. too great a discrepancy in
age between a director of research and his collaborators), not only on the size
of the team and on its hierarchical organization. It appears, as far as the first
point is concerned, that the team must not be too large, otherwise it risks
reducing the frequency of direct communication between the various research
workers, and it also forces the director of research to devote much of his time
to administrative questions, to the detriment of the work of co-operation.
Bureaucratization still remains in fact the greatest obstacle to organized
researcP.67
d. The structures of authority
Here we have a point which more clearly concerns multidisciplinary research :
the important thing is to avoid ‘too rigid a hierarchy, which may hamper each
specialist in the expression of his opinions’. Referring to American experiments
on small groups, Bastide points out the advantages which a democratic climate
brings with it for carrying out a task. An atmosphere of anarchy is more un-
favourable, because it hinders a coherent integration of data: ‘it is therefore
necessary, as a preliminary, that the rules for the division of labour shall be
well known and that leadership should be established, not for a particular
research worker, but for one of the complementary disciplines ; thus everyone
knows that he is reponsible for a sector of the research but can at all times count
on the co-operation of all the others, the leader intervening only to ensure co-
operation in the direction desired for the research (in accordance with what has
been determined for the agreed aim in view, whether it be therapeutic, preventive,
educational or theoretical)’. 69
e. Statrrses and roles
Bastide draws attention not only to statuses and the roles such as may derive
from shared work, but also such as may be imposed from outside, either by the
institution in which the researchers are working or by society as a whole:
... It is a fact that the various sciences of man do not enjoy the same prestige (given the
general opinion that there is a hierarchy of values sometimes sanctioned by law), and
that every scientist (insofar as he is not devoted to the search for truth, which postulates
that there is no master discipline and no assistant disciplines, but allows himself to be
dominated by the determinism of society as a whole or that of his professional group)
tends to fight to maintain his dominant position; but if progress is to be made in re-
search, it is necessary that the various statuses should be adjusted one to another as
harmoniously as possible. It may even happen that, in our publicity-ridden society, con-
cern for a career or the desire to be noticed may lead some researchers either to publish
their own contributions before the overall results of the co-operative work, or even to
take credit themselves for what is the common property of all. It wil be observed that in

622 Pierre de Bie
order to settle these questions of amour propre and avoid frustrations, many works
containing the results of interdisciplinary research are composed of autonomous chap-
ters signed by different authors, which is almost an admission of failure. But it is to some
extent imposed by the organization of research as it exists today, when one can, it is
true, make researchers work together but where all that counts, when there is a ques-
tion of advancement, are individuals.
Interdisciplinary collaboration requires, by definition, qualities not only of mutual
tolerance, but of self-sacrifice, effacement of individuals for the sake of the functionality
of the group, to the point even of accepting anonymity. But the Western concept of
‘scientific property’, especially under capitalism, stands in the way of this almost obliga-
tory acceptance of anonymity.77
These remarks on structures of authority and on statuses and roles throw light
on an important condition of the dialogue between specialists collaborating in
the same piece of problem-focused research: this dialogue must be conducted
on a footing of equality. As Jean Rkmy points out: ‘Beyond the feeling of
superiority which one discipline might have in a general way in relation to
others, there is a problem of group dynamism in the strict sense ... We have
emphasized the part played by small discussion groups in which specialists from
different disciplines meet. It is very important . that each of the participants
should have a minimum familiarity with life within small groups to prevent
him handicapping their functioning by emotional problems of various types’.v1
In a report on an interdisciplinary seminar on sociolinguistics, Charles A.
Ferguson describes vividly the first contacts between numerous specialized lin-
guists with an impressive training in theory, and sociologists, much less well in-
formed about problems and theories of language, but otherwise armed with a
real arsenal of concepts and theories relating to social influences and measuring
techniques. At the beginning of the meeting, the linguists betrayed a feeling of
crushing superiority: ‘they all had the conviction - generally well hidden but
sometimes coming to the surface - that only linguists really understand how
language works and consequently sociologists would have to master many of
the concepts and techniques of linguistic science in order to do any fruitful work
at all on sociolinguistic questions’.72
But let us return, for a last series of examples, to the multidisciplinary rela-
tions now being adopted in research on mental illnesses. Bastide considers that
in some cases the struggle between the professions and the conflicts of authority
become even more bitter in problem-focused research than in theoretical
research: ‘We may take as an example the relations between the general medical
practitioner, the psychologist and the psychiatrist. The latter requires for the
treatment of his mental patients information which the doctors supply on
somatic matters and that which psychologists can supply on psychological
matters. Only the relationships between the positions in the first case have long
been regulated by tradition and offer no problems. The position is not the same
for clinical psychology, a new science, whose status is not yet properly fixe8.73
These statuses vary according to the development of disciplines and according
to countries: in France the psychologist may be subordinate to the psychiatrist
insofar as he is simply entrusted with submitting patients to tests. But the devel-
opment of clinical psychology is changing the positions. In the United States the

Problem-focused research 623
psychologist plays an active part in the social rehabilitation of the patient and in
this field it is he who directs the social workers. The sociologist, on the other
hand, would seem to have in many cases a devalued status in the sense that all
he can do is to offer the doctor some very general suggestions on the particular
case: ‘the psychiatrists, who have attempted experiments, complain either that
the models proposed by the sociologist (even in the field of adaptation) are
not compatible with those of the psychiatrist, being focused on problems of
a social structure and not on those of individual structures; or that where the
sociologist tries to leave his own field in order to propose practical solutions,
that is to say ‘to play the doctor’ as well, the results have always turned out
disastrous’.74
These matters of status may also be more or less directly influenced by col-
lective considerations outside hospital organization. Bastide reports that, in
Israel, ‘the psychologist has been helped to improve his status by the religious
authorities, because the neuro-psychiatrist is considered to be concerned more
with the body and the psychologist more with the
Of all this analysis bearing on the difficulties of working in a multidisciplinary
team, the most interesting point is without doubt to be found in the conclusions
Bastide draws. He gives there an attempt at a typology of multidisciplinary
research in the field of mental illness. This attempt has, in fact, a much more
general bearing, and the four types which the auth.sr suggests deserve to be
repeated hereT6 :
The first type is that of coexistence between equals: explanations are juxta-
posed or successive; they do not merge.
The second type is stratified coexistence: the director of the team draws up
the final report of the analyses in which specialists from other disciplines have
collaborated ;
The third type is called practical multidisciplinary integration: the contribu-
tion of each discipline does not imply subordinate relationships, each specialist
working independently within the general framework of the research, with one
specialist responsible for arranging the various types of data in a final report.
In the fourth type, integrated theoretical research, the research is conducted
jointly, it is a collective work born of a critical dialogue among equals; it is
considered the ideal type for innovations in method and theory, and as the
achievement of unity in really collective work.
In multidisciplinary problem-focused research, the first three types are
without doubt most frequently represented, whereas the fourth type corresponds
more to the model and the ideal of interdisciplinary research. However, as we
have stressed, although problem-focused research fits most frequently into
multidisciplinary associations, the interdisciplinary must not be excluded.
AtIthe heart of this section, running like a thread throughout the account, we
have again the problem of the dialogue, which is no less important, nor is it
always easier between scientists than between the research workers and the man
of action.
In addition to the various snags already indicated, there are two other diffi-

624 Pierre de Bie
culties of equal if not greater importance: the barrier between information and
ways of thinking, and the barrier of language.
Even in the apparently restricted circle of the sciences of man, specialists may
differ very greatly one from another in their training, their values and their ways
of thinking. The phenomenon is striking even between specialists in a single
discipline, for example in political science between a specialist in electoral
behaviour and a specialist in administrative structures, or in economic policy
between one concerned with macro-economy and one dealing with micro-
economy. But between different disciplines, the differences are shown in choices
of methods, in ways of reasoning, and in the types of material used or rejected.
Thus the psychologists, the sociologists and the economists make use of
coefficients of relations between variables, but the levels from which they con-
sider the coefficients obtained to be significant vary between these disciplines;
while clinical psychology is prepared to pursue analyses from very limited
samples, even from a few particular cases, the sociologist usually looks for
much larger and more random samples ; the psychologist and the sociologist
will often work on qualitative data extracted from interviews whereas it is not
the same in economics, where what is generally handled is variables which can
be regarded as quantities and be measured, and so on.
The sciences of man are also distinguished by more fundamental values con-
cerning practical action. Bastide draws a distinction here between the sociologist
and the psychiatrist, pointing out that the former is, by training, more attracted
by Wertjireiheit (the freedom of the scientist in regard to the values of society as
a whole), while the latter, concerned with the well-being of his neighbour, works
in a field where the dominant factor is Wertbeziehung (interdependence with
the values of society as a whole, science being always organized on a social
basis). In the same way, Jean RBmy points out that some sociologists are reti-
cent when they are asked to give advice, and in that respect differ from psy-
chologists and economists. 'This reticence of the sociologist may derive from the
fact that his problem is more complex, his science less well developed. But does
it not also arise from the desire of a whole generation of sociologists to disso-
ciate sociology from social philosophy ?"7 These examples might be multiplied
indefinitely. The differences are explained not only by the individual develop-
ment of each discipline, but also by intellectual proximities, the influence of
neighbour disciplines. Sociology often had its beginnings in faculties of phi-
losophy and has had to detach itself and keep its distance by seeking empirical
objectivity and displaying concern for disengagement; the psychologists have
benefited more from contacts with theexperimental sciences; while the specialists
in political science have found support successively in law and in the adminis-
trative sciences, then in sociology and social psychology.
Among the specialists in the sciences of man, just as between the research
workers and the men of action, the problem of communication remains fun-
damental. Each has his assumptions, his axioms, his language. It is not a ques-
tion of sacrificing a particular vocabulary in order to use that of another disci-
pline: each specialized vocabulary is an analytical tool adapted to its discipline,
shaped to fit its express object. When the economist uses the sociologist's

Problem-focused research 625
words, he risks attributing to them meanings which the sociologist did not
intend, which cannot but engender misunderstandings. Even less is there any
question of establishing a common vocabulary, a sort of Esperanto for the
use of specialists in the sciences of man: this would probably make for more
rather than less confusion and would certainly impoverish the attainments of
all. Every researcher must use his own specific vocabulary, without rejecting
anything of what is most proper to the progress of his analyses in the direction
of his particular concern. The important thing is not to speak the same language
but to understand the language of the others. Multidisciplinary problem-focused
research cannot mean the participation of all in everything, by which we mean
of all specialists in all aspects of the research. Once the framework of ultimate
concerns and common objectives is accepted, the autonomy of the various
specialists is a condition which is important to the value of their research and
without doubt an essential condition for the harmony of their relationships.
The picture of ‘organic solidarity’, defined by Durkheim as that of interdepend-
ence in diversity of functions and specialization in tasks, gives a very good
definition of this type of collaboration as opposed to ‘mechanical solidarity’
in which unity is born of fusion and levelling.
The perspectives must not be reversed: once the common aim is fixed it is
not at the beginning and in words that convergence must be established, but at
the end, in a comparison of the results obtained.
As Jean RBmy puts it, the problem of communications in a multidisciplinary
team is one of ‘transcoding’:
It is important that every member should have an adequate knowledge of the vocabu-
lary and viewpoint of the others, so that transcoding can be done, that is to say that he
must be capable of translating into the terms of his own discipline the deductions from
statements made by the others. Thus if the economist wishes to profit fully from the
results obtained from sociologists’ analyses of urban surroundings, explaining the rede-
ployment of the decision-making centres of enterprises in capital cities, he must be able
to transcode results into his own language. The range of these sociological analyses be-
comes truly enlightening for the economist when, starting with them, he discovers the
city as a form of a dimensional economy which does not postulate the fusion of compo-
nent units, but which is engendered by their juxtaposition in space. In this way he can
better place the city in relation to other forms of dimensional economy. These transcod-
ings permit a close integration of sociology and economics for the consideration of what
towns mean in devel0pment.7~
The example given is perhaps more related to interdisciplinary research than
to problem-focused research: in the latter the dialogue must aim, in a first
phase, at understanding and clearly perceiving what the results obtained in the
various disciplines imply for action, and in a second phase to establish judg-
ments of effectiveness in which these implications may be integrated.
Furthermore, it is an example of the collaboration of two disciplines. One
wonders to what extent the forms of bi-disciplinary association are not the
most convenient forms of association. Less prolific than some other multi-
disciplinary researches, they offer some of their advantages, while reducing
their difficulties to a minimum: such difficulties as the problems of co-ordinating
teamwork, problems of statuses and roles, and problems of language.

626 Pierre de Bie
Thus many studies concern both political science and sociology, such as
research on the behaviour of an electorate, on the behaviour of administrations,
or on the power structures in a local community. The study of an industrial
enterprise and its difficulties can profit from the collaboration of the economist
and the sociologist.
To the extent that the sociologist makes the specialists of other disciplines
aware of the social and cultural variables which they have not been conscious of,
he can be a useful partner in a two-discipline team. Thus studies in sociological
psychiatry offer numerous examples of fruitful associations : the psychiatrists
diagnose the illness and add elements of medical, psychoanalytical and psycho-
logical interpretation; the sociologists stress the importance of social and cul-
tural factors, if only by bringing out the differing frequencies of mental illness
in relation to urban zones, the characteristics of local communities, countries
and cultures.79 Epidemiological research takes ecological research as its start-
ing-point, and studies of the influences of social class, of mass civilization, and
of the capital city have allowed psychiatrists to make progress in the etiology
of mental illness and in its therapeutics. Studies on roles and social relations in
hospitals show perhaps better than any others the influence which new research
may have on action: thus the study by Stanton and Schwartz shows that
patients’ disorders and their fluctuations could be shown to be connected
with conflicts among the members of the medical staff.*O
The fact of there being only two types of specialist collaborating in a partic-
ular piece of problem-focused research leads more easily to a kind of integra-
tion of equals, in which the dialogue is easier because the distance between dis-
ciplines raises no problem of statuses.
IV. CONDITIONS OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY PROBLEM-FOCUSED RESEARCH
The purpose of this last section is to consider some of the main elements which
give a better understanding of the stage reached at present in the development of
multidisciplinary problem-focused research. Some basic questions must be
answered: What are the factors that help or hinder its development? What are
the strong points and what are the weak? What is the position in the world
today of the poles of expansion of this research and what is its place in the fur-
ther development of science ?
Positive and negative factors
Multidisciplinary problem-focused research is at the crossroads of research
and action: these may be regarded as two poles which are the source of its basic
material. In other words, the success of multidisciplinary problem-focused
research is proportional to the stimulus given by these poles and corresponds to
certain conditions of access and communication. In strategic terms, it could be
said that it is important in problem-focused research to ensure the existence of a
suitable work-basis and ease of access to material: a theoretical basis on the
one hand, a practical basis on the other.

Problem-focused research 627
There is no need to return here to the theoretical basis. Problem-focused
research is founded by definition on specialized monodisciplinary research: it
implies considerable development in the field of science and ease of communica-
tion between research workers and their colleagues working on more theoretical
lines. In discussions with colleagues in other disciplines they can take advan-
tage of certain affinities and relationships made possible by academic traditions
and institutional structures. These contacts are both fruitful and necessary. The
history of science offers no examples of backsliding, delay or handicaps resulting
from too much curiosity about the work in progress in another discipline. It is
full of examples of the contrary trend.
The practical basis claims most of our attention. Problem-focused research
receives its first stimulus from awareness of a problem and the belief that scien-
tific research can help to solve it. At the start there must be a demand, supported
by the offer of financial backing to satisfy it. Very often demands of this kind,
coming from men who hold certain values to be important, have given rise to
major developments in problem-focused research.
There are few fields in which this can be seen as clearly as in research relating
to work in which substantial funds have been invested by many countries.
By limiting the survey to studies concerning work-output factors, we already
find a very fruitful range of studies. The history of scientific theories on work-
output reveals many successive theories each offering new data: from the theories
mainly concerned with the effect of psychological and collective factors, and
continuing with those concerning time and motion and the organization of
work which underline the importance of technical factors. The essential point
here is perhaps not so much the fact that different disciplines have in turn
sought an explanation of a phenomenon, nor the fact that each theory and each
discipline has had its hour of glory, but that the work done and the need to take
practical steps to improve this output have constantly stimulated scientific
effort, and important basic theories have arisen from this research.
A famous instance is the research carried out in the Hawthorne factory on
the outskirts of Chicago (Illinois) where analyses, centred originally on material
work conditions, resulted in demonstrating the importance of psycho-social
factors and developing the theory of formal and informal groups and their
importance in the relationships between workers and their employers. The
example is a classic one and does not require further emphasis. Moreover in
this field it is only one example among a hundred. Problem-focused research
has stimulated industrial sociology and the sociology of work and given it afirm
basis: studies of the sociology and psychology of work, expressed in terms of
the material needs of industrial enterprises and administrative bodies, provide
many other examples of the fundamental contribution of problem-focused
research to science.
One of the most striking aspects of recent development in problem-focused
research is undoubtedly the research on fertility.
This is a field in which research has mushroomed suddenly in the last few
years under the influence of pressing problems on a worldwide scale, and of

628 Pierre de Bie
a new awareness on the part of political leaders and administrators which is
manifested by a large investment in research.
The most salient and significant points in the development of this research
may be summarized as follows:8r
I. Problem-focused research is a relatively recent field of study. The problem-
focused research period follows one of pure, disinterested research, in the course
of which the phenomena of fertility aroused less attention than other phenomena.
The awareness of certain present and future problems has modified this first
view of the question on account of the discrepancy between population and
resources in some countries, and of the rate of growth of the population in
some specific areas and also on a worldwide scale;
2. An improved sense of organization, planning and prospecting may be
detected in the field of population growth, as well as an understanding of the
decisive measures which could be taken to reduce fertility;
3. From this development, the problems of fertility are taken up by new dis-
ciplines which succeed others though without supplanting them. After the
demographers and the economists, the sociologists and social psychologists put
forward new methodological theories and points of view: on the one hand is
the belief that attitudes may be influenced through scientific study and men
taught to control their environment and behaviour; on the other hand is an
interest in phenomena not at the macroscopic level - the level at which the
demographer and economist work - but at a microscopic level: the study of
primary groups, of attitudes and opinions, of the channels through which ideas
are spread, wherever it is possible to iniluence decisions, especially concerning
voluntary parenthood. This work is completed, moreover, by demographers and
economists throwing light on the social and economic corollaries of birthrate
trends at the macroscopic level and adding to their demographic predictions
data concerning the implications of these programmes for education and well-
being;
4. Here as in other fields of problem-focused research, a new branch is
growing up alongside a more theoretical and traditional discipline : family
planning research. Professor Donald Bogue, a demographer by training, sup-
ports this field of study, differentiating between this branch and demographic
research in general, and emphasizing its great possibilities: ‘the upsurge of
family planning action has created new research demands and avenues of
enquiry that previously had not been of great interest to demographers and
which previous demographic research could not satisfy’?z
The following point appears finally to be the most relevant here: if the results
of problem-focused research are carefully followed and supported, they can
be used at the level of pure research. Both at the macroscopic level and at the
microscopic level, dimensions and viewpoints appear which have never been
dealt with before.
At the macroscopic level, theanalysis of theefficacy of national familyplanning
programmes makes it possible to call upon political scientists, public administra-
tion theorists, economists studying the market and consumption, cultural
anthropologists and specialists in mass communication. At the microscopic

Problem-focused research 629
level, the analysis deals at present with specific categories of families in terms of
their reactions to family planning, and with the temporal aspects of family
planning: it develops the study of specially chosen cohorts and examines the
social and psychological consequences of the use of different family planning
methods.
There is no need to go into further details here of the development of research
in this field. Reuben Hill, from whom we have taken this information, has
already done so extremely efficiently.
Here science and action are very close: the poles of problem-focused research
supply each other with material. Although much research is mainly descriptive,
its development does not hinder other research in which explanatory analyses
are predominant and which is aimed at testing certain variable factors - or
exploratory studies concerning the efficacity of certain experiments.
The cipher KAP, the popular term in the United States for research which
combines knowledge of fertility (K), attitudes to family planning (A) and the
practice of family planning methods (P), does not apply only to this field of
research. The value of KAP is much more universal, in that it applies to many
problem-focused research projects in which knowledge precedes action in the
solving of a problem.
However, multidisciplinary problem-focused research does not cover all
problems in our society. Let us consider in this respect the studies on the status
of women. Everything relating to the status and role of women is a problem in
our societies; whether these societies have reached a high degree of industrialization
or whether they are in a period of transition, the values and norms relevant
to the role and status of women are in process of changing. It has rightly been
said that at the level both of society and of the family, two great revolutions are
taking place: that of youth and that of women. In many countries the last subject
arouses keen public interest and the mass media seize upon everything
relating to it.
Yet there is no coherent development in this field of multidisciplinary problem-focused
research. There is only an impressive collection of pseudo-scientific
articles and pamphlets on the status and rights of women. Studies of women in
social and professional life, often inspired by values such as the equality of the
sexes or the emancipation of women, remain heterogeneous and are seldom
carried out systematically.
Let us consider the discipline in which scientific studies on women in society
ought to be most numerous: sociology. In an article on sociological research
carried out in France on the professional activities and role of women, Nicole
Lowit points out that this research consists of ‘documents and studies, composed
round a central theme, the whole forming a mosaic which, while interesting, is
nevertheless fairly in~oherent’.~3 Some research workers stand out among the
others for having focused their studies on the problems of women, but their work
is monodisciplinary : ‘there is no multidisciplinary research. In general, research
consists of surveys limited both geographically and qualitatively. This may be
accounted for by the very slender means at the disposal of research workers,

630 Pierre de Bie
which most frequently obliges them to work alone or with a reduced team’.84
The judgments that can be passed on the scientific relevance of this work are
by no means negative. Particular studies have made undeniable contributions to
the methodology of research: the use made of Guttman scales in new branches
of study, the elaboration of a special notation of the use made of time, etc.85
Moreover, the main body of this work has been published in scientific reviews.
But what is important here are the lessons to be drawn from this situation
regarding the further development of problem-focused research, even if they
are negative. Although research workers are generally attached to research
institutes, and are even called upon to make practical use of their knowledge by
giving information and advice, it is certain that co-ordination of efforts,
contacts and exchanges is lacking, as is the stimulus which funds and suitable
working conditions could give, as well as arousing the interest of specialists
belonging to neighbouring disciplines. Research workers are not given to widen-
ing their horizens spontaneously towards other disciplines : if it can be said
that problem-focused research is always multidisciplinary, it is nevertheless
necessary for the interest to be shared and for the multidisciplinary group to be
organized or supported by institutions.
The studies on youth call for similar comments. It is still sociology which
appears to be the discipline most concerned with the problem of young people.
Once again the subjects studied are widely disparate: the social concept of youth
and the social and cultural influences which help to build up categories of
adolescents and young people according to age; the changes in the social
conditions of the young: death rate, age at marriage, school attendance, etc.;
the sociality of youth and its integration into society; the family relations of
adolescents; peer groups and relations with the opposite sex; youth move-
ments, organizations and centres; different types of adolescent behaviour :
consumer behaviour, leisure, culture, reading habits, etc.S6 In this field,
problem-focused research is also rare: only a few bi-disciplinary associations
can be traced between sociologists and psychologists, and more rarely between
sociologists and economists. The work of the Committee on Human Develop-
ment at the University of Chicago and of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute
comes to mind. But this falls into the category of pure research. Studies are
frequently begun to give immediate information, but are rarely pursued sys-
tematically or for any length of time. Institutions or kancial programmes
authorizing and supporting conserted multidisciplinary efforts are few. The
Hamburg Youth Institute founded by Unesco was an isolated project.
Are certain fields of study, such as ‘the status of women’ and ‘youth in socie-
ty’ too vast to give rise to proper problem-focused research programmes? DO
they result in value judgments covering too diverse a field? Can it be that these
subjects lack a specific basic problem and one is faced with a sea of different
questions ? Or is it that they interest everyone and nobody in particular, and that
the development of problem-focused research depends not only on the existence
of a specific problem but on people willing to back the effort of research?

Problem-focused research 63 I
It is also necessary not only that these efforts be supported financially, but
that the support received should be adequate and convergent. The history of
problem-focused research in the sphere of the family is mainly one of preoccu-
pations, practical interests and immediate concerns with a view to action and
aid and services to be rendered. But these factors are all mixed up with short-
term situations and viewpoints, to the detriment of coherence and continuity. In
many countries, research into the family has received the encouragement and
collaboration of an impressive number of movements, associations, institutions,
and public and private organizations interested for one reason or another in
action to strengthen the family.87 %ut how many disconnected short-term re-
search projects there are, with no follow-up and only a limited sphere of action,
bordering on applied rather than theoretical research.
The heterogeneous and disconnected nature of these projects is a striking
characteristic of studies on the status of women, youth, old people and the
family. They are fields in which study projects spring up in a disorderly fashion
as a result of practical action. But the research efforts are scattered and are not
followed up, for lack of a structure in which they would be directed along
well-defined lines or which would institutionalize interdisciplinary discussion
and contact among research workers.
Among the positive factors in cumulative problem-focused research is the
creation of new multidisciplinary groups and professional associations, and
the existence of medium- or long-term programmes or even of institutions
organizing this kind of research.
The work of the American school of cultural anthropology has already been
mentioned, uniting the efforts of social psychologists and anthropologists and
making use of psychoanalysis, But besides psychological anthropology and
psychiatric sociology there is socio-economics and socio-linguistics ; the field of
demography is broadened by sociological studies of population, and that of
classical psychology by social psychology. And covering several traditional
disciplines centred upon relatively general and complex subjects, is a super-
structure formed by the studies of behaviour and development.
Research workers need some kind of banner which would be a sign of iden-
tification and a rallying point. A common designation is often useful: ‘human
relations specialist’, ‘development specialist’, ‘social planning expert’.
Under the heading ‘parent and family life education’, a fairly typical field of
problem-focused research is developing in the United States, bringing together
sociologists, educationalists, psychologists, psychiatrists, specialists in child
development and home economics. New values sustained by public opinion
have given rise to this. According to Kerckhoff, family education programmes
in the United States have two characteristic tendencies:
I. A waning interest in the study of the family as a social institution and a
growing interest in the preparation for individual participation at different sta-
ges of family life; 2.a growing movement in favour of the introduction of family
life education into primary and secondary schools.88
New professions are springing up also. In the United States there is not only

632 Pierre de Bie
the ‘family life teacher’, who specializes in family education, but also for many
years now, the ‘marriage guidance counsellor’, now coming into being in other
countries. Gerard L. Leslie has attempted to give a systematic presentation of
the field of action, terms of reference and the new professional problems of the
marriage guidance counsellor. Here again we have a multidisciplinary field:
the marriage guidance counsellor requires a knowledge of psychiatry and clini-
cal psychology and should possess the equipment of the social worker, and he
must base his advice directly on knowledge gained from the social sciences,
education, social hygiene, sex education and home economics. His job has more
to do with applied research than with problem-focused research. But the need
for diagnosis and treatment demands and stimulates research, which has here a
practical field of application.89 The same could be said of the professional
guidance specialists, guidance psychologists, etc.
No one can deny the advantages of the organization and co-ordination system
established by research workers who realize their affinities and common interests.
Those who study the problems of old age have found a common meeting
ground - gerontology : at international congresses they have taken account of
the heterogeneous nature of their research work and tried to find a solution to
this. After noting the miscellany of subjects presented at the congresses of the
International Association of Gerontology, a miscellany so scattered as to
‘leave an almost pointillist impression, to suggest doubts about the effectiveness
of what is being done’, Paillat mentions the advantage of the co-ordination and
planning mechanism set up by this Association. At the same time as the con-
gresses, seminars are organized bringing together a limited number of partici-
pants to study specific themes: ‘the quality of the papers, the interchange of
knowledge and the pooling of ideas undoubtedly gain thereby, so that thelessons
drawn, the new paths explored, the mistakes made and acknowledged, all help
forward research’.Qo
In conclusion, the factors determining the rise and development of multidisci-
plinary problem-focused research are many and varied. They can combine or
oppose each other in so many different ways that there could be no question of
basing on them a kind of ‘code of multidisciplinary problem-focused research’.
At the most, one can attempt to classify them roughly, more or less systemati-
cally, without prejudging their order of importance.
A. Firstly, there are the factors which constitute the ‘bait’ or stimulus to prob-
lem-focused research :
I. The existence of a problem, of certain needs and the consciousness that
concerted research is an advantage in the solving of the problem and the
satisfaction of the needs. The more acute this awareness91 and the more it is
expressed and defined as an effective and continuous support, the better,:the
chances of problem-focused research to develop;
2. The ‘usefulness’ of problem-focused research is not always as obvious in
the human sciences as it is in the natural sciences. A doctor, an engineer or
an agronomist has the opportunity of applying his knowledge in a limited
sphere in which the effectiveness of his action is obvious (curing a sick person,

Problem-focused research 633
building a dam, fertilizing barren soil). This possibility of proving usefulness is
not always as easy or as concrete in the human sciences. Doubtless this is
connected with the fact that in these sciences the factors involved are much
more numerous and complex: these complicate not only analysis and diagnosis
but also informed action itself. It can happen that the mere fact of studying
a social situation alters that situation; in the same way unexpected variables
may affect the action undertaken as the result of study;
3. The ‘values’ implied in all problem-focused research do not always command
assent. Here again a comparison with the acceptance given to the
values of practitioners in the natural sciences is often made to the detriment
of the social sciences, where the number of subjects prohibited by ‘taboos’ is
greater.
B. There are the conditions which make contact possible between scientific
research workers :
4. Those carrying out problem-focused research must be able to give their
work a solid basis of scientific research;
5. They must have easy access to this research and easy contact with those
carrying it out;
6. Research teams must be made up in a way that facilitates interdisciplinary
discussion.
C. There are conditions favourable to contact between clients and those applying
the results of research:
7. Problem-focused research workers must be free to have discussions with
the clients and with those presenting the problem;
8. These relations must be established at the start of research proceedings,
continue throughout and be resumed more actively after the results have
been communicated. These must serve as a point of departure for decisions
on action to be taken, in which the different responsibilities must be clearly
defined and understood by the people involved.
D. The fact that problem-focused research is situated at the crossroads between
research and action raises an institutional problem:
9. If this research is attached too closely to pure research centres it runs the
risk of becoming academic;
IO. If it is too near practical action there is a risk of it becoming applied
research.
E. The growth of problem-focused research within society as a whole implies
among other things the existence of institutions supporting it:
I I. Medium- and long-term financing ensuring continuity, as opposed to
short-term financing;
12. The existence of national or international associations and work groups,
the organization of seminars and professional training;
13. The benefit of work plans and of programmes with financial and institutional
backing.
The existence of a common rallying-point, a common designation, professional
identification, the organization of congresses, seminars and symposia, the exist-

634 Pierre de Bie
ence of information and communication media common to a field of problem-
focused research - all these are factors which toward coherent and continuous
progress in problem-focused research.
Strong points and weak points in problem-focused research
The fact of being concerned with a specific social problem and of being invited
to associate with other disciplines is a source of both advantages and disad-
vantages.
There is no doubt that a sense of the help they could give in solving specific
social problems and their dedication to important social values have spurred
specialists in the human sciences and given them a dynamism which they would
not otherwise have had. Society and its problems are the laboratory of the
specialist in the human sciences: the idea that he must work first in an ivory
tower to build up a purely theoretical core of research and only then approach
field work in problem-focused research is mistaken, in that problem-focused
research also increases basic theoretical knowledge. And this has proved to be
a very fruitful aspect of it, often the source of innovations. As a result, research
workers have been led along many different paths to which mere theoretical
reflection apriori would doubtless not have brought them: e.g. it seems possible
to credit problem-focused research with the preparation of research techniques
to evaluate action undertaken.gzIt has stimulated and encouraged many forms of
multidisciplinary association, the multidisciplinary nature of the research being
determined to a certain extent by the action.
But before considering the advantages and disadvantages of interdisciplinary
association it is necessary to mention the weak points resulting from demands
for action.
In many fields writers refer to the heterogeneous nature of the work, its lack
of coherent theories and of scientific maturity.93 Are these characteristics com-
mon to many fields of problem-focused research, or is this simply a phase in
their development, an early phase which has its advantages by enabling iso-
lated, independent research workers to give free rein to their inventive and crea-
tive abilities ? It is not for nothing that Paillat refrains from critizing isolated
research workers - alone or in groups - whose efforts ‘provide a means of guard-
ing against the risk of conformism that may be involved in planned research‘,
adding that ‘it is in the light of the findings of such work that oriented geronto-
logical research has been able to dehe its field of activity and its priorities’.94
The concern with action implies an awareness of the need for what is urgent
and immediately useful, and the slant towards specific practical problems can
have an adverse effect on the care given to methodology. Rather than spend
time on a detailed and exact analysis, which would cause the research worker
to exceed greatly the time allotted to him by those requiring practical action,
those engaged in research will prefer to use methods and procedures which
guarantee results in the least possible time, constituting an approximation
which, though it might appear somewhat crude to the scientist, is sufficient as a
guide for action. It is the same with public opinion polls where the ‘quota’

Problem-focused research 635
method is applied rather than research on a sample chosen at random; it is
also true of market studies, for which the method of written questionnaires
distributed in great numbers has been adopted rather than the technique of
fuller and more qualitative interviews. Or again the macroscopic view given by
official statistics - which may be open to question - is accepted rather than
longer and more meticulous research based on fresh and carefully-chosen
samples.
Some techniques lend themselves more than others to the relatively rapid and
systematic collection of data which can afterwards be used for different pur-
poses, and are often extremely useful in social work. W e should mention in
particular research on time-budgets and ecological research which attempt to
group, in two basic dimensions, a series of behaviours and activities. Time-
budget research has been of very great service in the study of the living con-
ditions of the working class and other social categories, in the study of leisure,
as part of social planning, and even in the study of behaviour and its motivations.
Ecological studies have been used for investigating and measuring the spatial
variations of the most varied phenomena: mental illness, crime, voting, delin-
quency, wealth, poverty, religious practice and even birth, marriage and death
rates, and so on. A precise knowledge of the spatial extent of phenomena takes
us a long way towards their explanation and therefore towards the steps to be
taken as part of any necessary action.
In various fields where problem-focused research is being undertaken, for
example in the field of youth, old age, the family, or even of family budgets, it
is most commonly the cross-sectional inquiry which prevails: it allows for rela-
tiveIy speedy results. And yet themajority of researchers, conscious of the value
of a dynamic analysis of phenomena, emphasize more and more the advantages
of researches in length: following young people through the course of their
schooling and the first few years of their professional career permits a much
sharper analysis of choices, their conditions and their motivations ; following
couples throughout the years of marriage allows a better analysis of marital
relationships as they evolve under the effect of the dynamic factors which con-
dition them in a changed social environment; analyses of family budgets should
be associated with the various stages of the family’s development, and so on.
But these studies are difficult, requiring arduous methodological refinements,
and have the inconvenience of being very long. When action cannot wait and
when the subsidies are inadequate, problem-focused research chooses the shortest
route, which is not always the best one.
Finally, delimiting research according to utilitarian criteria has not always
been found fruitful: the history of applied research in psychology shows us on
the contrary that such delimitation has sometimes been a source of impoverish-
ment.95 The concern for action is tied up with the influence of certain values.
Problem-focused research implies, by definition, the pursuit of a value other
than knowledge for its own sake. One of the dangers faced by research is that of
allowing itself to be penetrated by ideology, and it is no doubt through the bias
of problem-focused research that ideology is introduced into the concerns of
research workers. Engaged in a dialogue with the man of action or the client in

636 Pierre de Bie
order to define the field of research, invited to pursue this dialogue until certain
decisions are taken, the specialist in problem-focused research cannot be igno-
rant of the aims pursued. There is a great risk that he will not remain sufficiently
critical, that he will fail to take a sufficiently long view and that he will in fact be
more concerned about knowledge which serves in a particular perspective: by
that we mean not the perspective of action but the perspective of a specified
action. In other words, there is real danger that the researcher may become a
partisanof a particular type of planning, pursuing his research with certain
forms of development in view, that he may share an ideology of planning, re-
lated to, for example, technocratic values, to an ideal of development which is
mainly economic and technical, or to democratic change.
However, there are no doubt cases in which the pressure of values is such that
the objectivity of research is immediately prejudiced, sometimes to such a degree
that there is no longer any question of scientific research. The classic case is that
of the client who is ready to ‘buy replies’ which may lend a scientific and un-
challengeable status to his personal aims and wishes. But there are many cases
in which the penetration of values prejudicial to the quality of problem-focused
research is much less clear, more subtle.
Let us take an example from the field of studies of family life. In a comparative
study of the standards of measurement applied to various aspects of family life -
such as the relation between spouses or between parents and children, or the
degrees of integration and harmony in the family - Murray A. Strauss points out
the influence of moral and ethical bias: of 263 standards of measurements
listed he classes about 40% as of an ‘evaluative’ type, that is to say, based on
what is considered ‘desirable’, ‘satisfactory’ or ‘good‘ family behaviour as
distinct from ‘undesirable’, ‘unsatisfactory’ or ‘bad‘ behaviour.96 Various major
inconveniences may follow from using this type of evaluative standard. For
example, there is a risk of ascribing importance to variables chosen as a result
of conscious or unconscious evaluations by the research worker, when such
importance would not have been given to them in a neutral or objective analysis.
Or else one runs the risk of blending in a standard of measurement of an evalua-
tive type, items which theoretically do not belong together but which seem
capable, on the researcher’s assessments, of moving in the same direction. That
is the case, for example, with the Kell-Hoeflin test for comparing families of the
traditional and of a more modern type: the methods of appraisal are such that
all the responses which indicate warmth, intimacy or understanding, and all
declarations expressing affection or satisfactory inter-family relationships are
related to the more modern type of family, while the replies indicating lack of
affection, coldness, absence of understanding and unsatisfactory relations inside
the family are classed as indicating a family of the traditional type. Thus families
which are very liberal but whose personal relationships are not very satisfactory
would be classified as traditional. It is not surprising that the method, conceived
in this way, merely coniirms what it was required to confirm.97
What of the multidisciplinary associations, the co-operation between specia-
lists in the sciences of man? Such co-operation does not occur solely in the
field of the sciences of man, but also in that of the natural sciences. It corresponds

Problem-focused research 637
to a general need for synthesis marked by a reaction against the excessesTand
inconveniences of specialization.
Bringing together the contributions of different disciplines gives a fuller and
richer knowledge of the object under investigation. We are much better off by
comparing the results obtained in one discipline with those offered by other
disciplines, by comparing points of view, even pushing collaboration further by
comparing basic assumptions of work and methods in order better to judge the
work accomplished. What results is not merely a mutual enrichment of the
researchers -if only by a keener perception of the relativity of their approaches -
but also a more complete knowledge of the phenomenon under study.
This reduces the drawbacks of excessive specialization and in the case of
problem-focused research work, the subject of which is always a complex social
problem, the advantages are sure. It has too often happened that different spe-
cialists have tackled the same problem, each from his own point of view, and
each in complete ignorance of what the others were doing. And every one
may consider himself competent in the matter. Thus the study of an industrial
strike may be carried on simultaneously by a sociologist, a social psychologist,
aneconomist, or even a jurist or historian, and each wil bring out different
factors - in some cases only apparently different - in terms of his theoretical
vocabulary and schemata and of centres of interest appropriate to his discipline.
Every monodisciplinary view being in a sense partial and limited - by the
definition it gives to a phenomenon, by the variables it considers, by the analysis
it chooses, and the conclusions it reaches - it is clearly important both in the
field of knowledge and in that of action to know the results reached by different
specialists. Let us take the study of prejudices. The sociologist may choose
manifestations of prejudices in the verbal field - stereotypes for example - and
analyse their distribution within a society. He wil try to give an account of this
distribution by a series of sociological variables which have some explanatory
value, e.g. social class, level of education, residential zone, etc. He wil use his
own techniques : observation by participation, interviews, questionnaires, anal-
ysis of the contents of written matter, films, etc. The social psychologist, making
use, in part, of the same techniques, wil facilitate a better knowledge of the
concrete processes by which prejudices gradually spread and take shape within
small groups, and he wil provide other explanatory elements from a knowledge
of attitudes. On the other hand, the psychologist will throw light on the role of
personality, and the influence of experiences in early life. Each point of view
complements and enriches the other and contributes its own recommendations
as to action.
It has sometimes been claimed that multidisciplinary research holds up the
acquisition of new knowledge, or is even an obstacle to creativity. Many
experiments show on the contrary the reality of cross-fertilization. Thus J. C.
Nunally’s monograph, starting from the fact that in many cases the mentally
sick remain so because they are so defined, finishes by preaching the value of
combined studies on attitudes, on public opinion and on certain knowledge
about the mentally sick with a view to reintegrating them in a community by
having them considered ‘cured’ and normal. cm

638 Pierre de Bie
From this account of the advantages of drawing closer together the disciplines
in the field of the sciences of man, it must not be concluded that we should like
to see the multidisciplinary approach or the integration of the social sciences as
a panacea against the ills of specialization. Some of our contemporaries see in
the terms ‘multidisciplinary’, ‘interdisciplinary’, ‘integration of the sciences of
man,’ and even ‘unification of knowledge’ a magical virtue which we are by no
means prepared to accord to them. Truly interdisciplinary work is extremely
arduous and its realization is rare. The surest multidisciplinary associations are
outlined on the frontier between two disciplines; even there the dialogue between
specialists remains difficult, and if it is ever to be more than merely superficial it
demands an entire education on both sides.
On the theoretical plane, meetings between disciplines present dangers, which
the ambition for a common language increases rather than suppresses. Meeting
must not mean confusion; points of view must be compared, concepts and
interpretations must be added, and they must be accumulated until there is an
exhaustive comprehension of the subject under study. In the process of knowing,
the distinction between points of view has an analytical value which we must be
able to preserve: in an analysis of reality, the distinction between a psychological,
a sociological and a political point of view represents a positive point and a
value. It is thanks to the distinction between the points of view of disciplines
that the analysis is refined and becomes sharp. If the human mind proceeds by
analysis and synthesis, the latter operation must not be carried out at the expense
of the former. It may make it possible to go beyond and to remove differences
which are only verbal, but the principle benefit it offers is a richer knowledge in
finer detail. Based on an awareness of the multiplicity of approaches, it may
favour certain convergences and, above all, the discovery of complementary
aspects.
These observations are not a judgement on the way in which knowledge is
organized in our days between a number of disciplines. It is obvious that these
arrangements of disciplines result from many historical circumstances and they
may as such prove to be temporary, and peculiar to our own period. Certain
disciplinary categories will no doubt be supplanted by others, of which little is
heard today, and which may result either from people becoming aware of new
points of view, or from the alignment of sectors of research which today belong
to different disciplinary fields.
The poles of growth
In a static world, tradition keeps things in their place: activities are regulated,
behaviours are establishished, institutions are what they should be; the various
categories of individuals conform to their roles, as determined by an ordinance
which appears to be eternal. What is rooted in immobility is sacred because what
exists has a unique character, based on a tradition whose origins seem to be
lost in the mists of time; what is established is untouchable, and with no other
model in sight no one dreams of changing it.
But in a changing world everything wavers; things become different, hence

Problem-focused research 639
might have been other than they are. No doubt they wil become what they
tend towards, and yet things may be different. Forecasting, control and short-
and long-term planning enter in. Change becomes fundamental, sacred, and
must be given all our care.
Changes affect even the most traditional sectors such as the family and religion.
In all sectors there is an awareness of change which is here, of the change which
is coming and of the change which might be.
Let us limit ourselves here to one striking example. Is not the religious mes-
sage, which for believers is eternal, itself a subject of profound study and research
dealing with ‘the presentation of the religious message’ in modern societies, a
presentation in which it is important to take account of the values, the standards
of behaviour, the representations and the conduct of modern man? Is not
that oecumenicity which aims at rethinking the religious message and the
methods of organizing religious groups - both of considerable concern to the
Christian church of today - an aspect of the way the peoples are drawing to-
gether, and of their growing material and social interdependence resulting from
our technologies? Here, too, in both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant
world, a great deal of research is being undertaken, for instance, contacts between
religious groups, between Christians and between Christians and non-Christians;
on methods of organizing the Church as a social institution; on the function of
the minister, the preacher, the pastor; on the meaning of worship as a basic
religious expression and a method of integrating religious groups, and on deci-
sion-making at the various levels of ecclesiastical organizations. Al these
researches are directed towards deliberate changes of structures and behaviours;
they are multidisciplinary, bringing together in collaboration sociologists,
psychologists, economists, theologians, and specialists in public administration.QQ
The greatest progress in social and political thought and study has been made
in periods of change, when men, perceiving the changes in the established order,
have been - so to speak- forced to apply their minds to it. At each period people
have used the tools available to them, reacting in relation to their values and to
new contexts. In the twentieth century they are adapting themselves to orga-
nized scientific research; the values of their civilization are driving them towards
forecasting, programming, plans for concerted research and action. Program-
ming is an open field for multidisciplinary collaboration, for exchanges, for con-
tacts which, as part of the values of mobile societies are, by definition, fruitful.
Are not the growing mobility and interdependence of minds a reflection of the
growing mobility and interdependence of social phenomena on the scale of the
modern world?
In present-day industrial societies, a whole series of factors are conducive to
multidisciplinary research.
In a society in which the function of education is growing to the point where
it absorbs a major part of the national budget, increasing the number of intel-
lectuals and high-grade technicians, in which research has an ever greater share
in ordinary, day-to-day activities, it is only natural to make use of the intellec-
tual and graduate potential available on the labour market for research in the
service of the undertaking.

640 Pierre de Bie
The most recent and doubtless one of the most dynamic elements is this urge
to forecast and programme, which is growing in intensity and scope in many
fields : physical development (town and country planning) ; education (reforms
and plans); demography (recognition of problems raised either by an imbalance
in the demographic structures (age) or by the development or underdevelop-
ment of certain categories (the young, the gainfully employed, the aged) ;
political democracy (association of sociology, social psychology and political
science in the study and analysis of electoral opinion and behaviour, forecasting
of voting, studies of the activities of pressure groups and party dynamics);
social and economic democracy (study of standards of living, either by social
strata or by family types, family budgets and cost-of-living indexes) ; problems
of communication and information; research on fertility, peace, social tensions
and leisure. And the developing countries, so called because change there is
more rapid and striking, offer an optimum field for problem-focused research
within development programmes that are more all-embracing and ambitious
than elsewhere.
We are swept along by our systems of values: this era of mass communica-
tion and exchange is conducive to team-work, which in certain respects appears
to be a necessity. Work in isolation, disciplinary teams working on their own,
are things of the past: exchange is the order of the day. Nor are we far from
believing that, merely because it exists, exchange must be creative, and here we
border upon dogma. Surely, recognition of the merits and advantages of team-
work and multidisciplinary associations does not require us to go quite so far.
The development of multidisciplinary problem-focused research needs to be
considered within the context of the development of scientific research as a
whole.
It is important that the various scientific fields should not remain fenced off
one from another. If they have been so in the past, there are many trends and
demands peculiar to contemporary research and thought that argue for opening
them up so as to permit exchanges. The structures and requirements of educa-
tion have been an important factor in the specialization of the various branches
of knowledge. This has been encouraged by the tendency of schools, faculties
and university professorships to increase departmentalization and to create
scientific ‘alveoli’ whose independence was guaranteed by their being able to
rejoice in the name of a particular discipline, to have a terminology of their
own or specific tools of research. Intellectuals have been trained in autonomous
institutions having no openings upon the outside world. Revolving on individual
training, by the mastery of a discipline, the method of teaching did not lead to a
dialogue nor to multidisciplinary curiosity. But the requirements of action and
research have led to a dawning awareness of fellow researchers, to the crossing
of frontiers and the creation of new ‘constellations’ of knowledge centred upon
a particular theme, project or subject. New disciplines have been born: social
psychology, psychiatric sociology, socio-linguistics, ethno-linguistics, socio-
economics, psychological anthropology, behavioural sciences and the science
of information.
The structure of scientific knowledge can undoubtedly be considered, as

Problem-focused research 641
P. G. Herbst has pointed out, in terms of interlinked disciplines, and this is
true equally of the natural and social sciences: on the one hand, for example,
physico-chemistry and biochemistry are emerging, on the other social psychol-
ogy and socio-economics. IO0 Moreover, these phenomena of interlinking and
interdependence are not restricted to the field of the pure sciences, but concern
equally the relations between the pure and the applied sciences: the history of
research bears witness to the fact that developments in one field have beneficial
consequences for others.
It is plain that new divisions and new groupings of knowledge are being outlined.
Alongside the traditional division by disciplines, we have the multidisciplinary
fields and the groupings of knowledge and of research by subjects, for
example development, the family or old age. Moreover there is also appearing
a division of researchers according to their techniques of investigation, so that
one wonders whether the new scientific structure is not tending towards grouping
technicians in very specialized research into teams which might be invited to
concentrate their efforts on specific subjects. Such teams would need a framework
of men whose duty it was to maintain a kind of permanent knowledge of
the subject as a whole, with an adequate comprehension of what the specialized
researchers might say about it and what it is possible to ask of them. Is not the
most suitable framework to take such a research structure offered by problemfocused
research which is so often multidisciplinary?IOI
If it is true that scientific research is costly and that society is generally more
inclined towards useful investments with visible returns on short or medium
term, the fields of problem-focused research and applied research are most
likely to be better subsidized. In this respect the situation may differ between
the field of natural sciences and that of the social and human sciences. The former
have furnished proof of their usefulness and there is confidence in them as a
whole and a priori. The latter still have a great struggle before them to acquire
comparable credence, and it is likely that they wil succeed in this more easily
through an emphasis on multidisciplinary problem-focused research, which
offers striking results, or by applied research which funishes techniques,
processes or information which can immediately be used again. The most important
developments, therefore, may be realized in these areas rather than
in theory, with the consequence that in the field of knowledge, intellectual drive
and stimulus would come mainly from the problem-focused or even the applied
sector and be directed towards the theoretical sector.
NOTES
I. P. F. LAZARSFELD, W. H. SEWELL, H. L. WILENSKI(edS.), The Uses oJSociology,
New York, 1967.
2. P. PAILLAT, ‘Gerontological Research: Present Situation and Prospects’, Inter-
national Social Science Journal 20 (z), 1968, p. 263.
3. H. KOTTER, ‘The Situation of Rural Sociology in Europe’, Sociologia Ruralis
7 (3), 1967, pp. 254-259. (Communication to the 2nd Session of the Working
Group on Problems of Rural Sociology, Maynooth, August 15-21, 1966.)

642 Pierre de Bie
4. Commissionnationale franqaisepourI’Unesco, Tendancesprincipalesde larecherche
dans le domaine des sciences sociales et humaines. France, mimeographed, 1966,
Section I, 7, p. 2.
5. Ibid., p. 3,
6. P. PAILLAT, op. cit., pp. 268-269. Cf. also The Nation and its Older People.
Report of The White House Conference on Aging, Washington, D.C., United
States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1961.
7. Social Research and a National Policy for Science, London, Tavistock Publications,
1964, p. 28.
8. Ibid. Cf. also infra E. TRIST, Chapter XI, ‘Organization and Financing of Research’,
p. 780.
9. J. GALTUNG, ‘Peace Research’, in: The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations,
The HagusParis, Mouton-Unesco, 1968, p. 195.
IO. H. F. ELLENBERGER and D. SZABO, ‘L’approche multidisciplinaire des problemes
de la criminologie’, in: The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp.
451-452.
11. Questionnaire on the Orientation and Organization of Research in Member States
of Unesco, Unesco document ss 41/3.244.1/f, pp. 4-5, question 7.
12. Ibid., p. 5.
13. See supra J. PIAGET, Introduction: ‘The Place of the Sciences of Man in the
System of Sciences’, pp. 54-55.
14. J. GALTUNG, op cit., pp. 194-195.
15. Orientation gdndrale de la recherche et sociologie. Rdponse de I’Acaddmie des sciences
de l‘U.R.S.S. au questionnaire d’enqutte sur les tendances de la recherche dans
les sciences de l’homme, Unesco document ss/3.241.1/f/13, p. I.
16. Institute of Sociology and Philosophy of the University of Ljubljana, Rdponses
au questionnaire d’enqulte de l‘Unesco sur les tendances de la recherche dans les
sciences de l’homme, unpublished, pp. 4 and 5.
17. National Council for Social Sciences, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences,
Rdponses au questionnaire d’enqugte de I‘ Unesco sur les tendances de la recherche
dans les sciences de l‘homme, unpublished, p. 3.
18. Polish Academy of Sciences, Replies to the Unesco Questionnaire Concerning the
Principal Trends of Research in the Sciences of Man (Z. Kowalewski, ed.), unpublished,
pp. 22-24.
19. Ibid., p. 24.
20. Ibid., p. 25.
21. Ibid., p. 26.
22. H. F. ELLENBERGER and D. SZABO, op. cit., p. 452.
23. M. B. SUSSMAN, ‘Current State and Perspectives of Research on the Family’,
Social Science Information 7 (3). 1968, p. 45.
24. H. KOTTER, op. cit., pp. 254 and 260.
25. Cf. H. T. CHRISTENSEN, ‘The Intrusion of Values’, in: H. T. CHRISTENSEN (ed.),
Handbook of Marriage and the Family, Chicago, 1964, pp. 969 ff.
26. Report on the Meeting of the Panel of Special Consultants, Unesco Headquarters,
26-29 April 1965, Unesco document ss 41/3.244.1/a, p. 6.
27. Commission nationale franqaise, op. cit., Section I, 7. p. 3.
28. J. GALTUNG, op cit., pp. 195-196.
29. Cf. A. EATON and S. M. HARRISON, A Bibliography of Social Surveys, New York,
Russell Sage Foundation, 1930.
30. B. F. HOSELITZ and W. E. MOORE (eds.), Industrialization and Society, Paris, Unesco-Mouton,
1963.
31. W. E. MOORE, ‘Sociology in Developing Areas’, in: P. F. LAZARSFELD, et al., op.
cit., pp. 647-650.
32. H. JANNE, ‘Les aspects non technologiques du developpement technique’, in :
The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit., pp. 69-70.
33. P. GOUROU, ‘Sur l’agriculture dans le monde tropical : quelques considerations

Problem-focused research 643
gkographiques’, in: The Social Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op. cit., p. 30.
34. Ibid., p. 31.
35. D. IATRADIS, ‘Social Scientists in Physical Development Planning: a Practitioner’s
Viewpoint’, International Social Science Journal 18 (4). 1966, pp. 473-474.
36. Ibid., p. 476.
37. H. F. ELLENBERGER and D. SZABO, op cif., pp. 451-452.
38. P. PAILLAT, op. cit., pp. 264-265.
39. Ibid., p. 267.
40. Cf. P. HANSEN (ed.), Age with a Future (Proceedings of the Sixth International
Congress of Gerontology, Copenhagen, 1963), Munksgaard, 1964, pp. 406-627.
41. J. ALDOUS and R. HILL, International Bibliography of Research on Marriage and
the Family, 1960-1964, Minneapolis, Minn., 1967, p. 8.
42. M. B. SUSSMAN, op cit., p. 43.
43. W. ROSTOW, The Process of Economic Growth, London, Oxford Univ. Press, 1952.
44. E. TRIST, Chapter XI, ‘Organization and Financing of Research’, p. 780.
45. W. J. M. MACKENZIE, Chapter 11, ‘Political Science’, pp. 168 ff.
46. Cf. B. LASSUDRIE-DUCHENE, ‘Economie politique et sociologie’, in : Congr2s des
dconomistes de langue franpzise, Paris, 1968, pp. 9-11.
47. J. VIET, Les sciences de l’homme en France, Paris-The Hague, Mouton, 1966, pp.
55 ff.
48. J. DUMAZEDIER, Le raisonnenient prdvisionnel dam la sociologie du loisir coopdrant
avec l’iconomie, Unesco document SHC/WS/Z, appendix ‘Sociologie active’, p. I.
49. D. IATRADIS, op. cit., pp. 477 ff.
50, Ibid., p. 479.
51. P. BOLLE and F. PERRIN, L’amdnagement dn terriloire, Unesco document SHcfwsl
19, P. 23.
52. P. F. LAZARSFELD, et al., op. cit., p. XXVII.
5 3. Ibid.
54. Cf. P. PAILLAT, op cit., p. 269.
55. J. W. RILEY, Jr., ‘The Sociologist in the Nonacademic Setting’, in: P. F. LAZARS-
FELD, et al., op. cit., p. 791.
56. P. M. BLAU and R. SCOTT, Formal Organizations, London, 1963, Chap. III.
57. Cf. W. H. WHYTE, Jr., The Organization Man, New York, Simon & Schuster,
1956.
58. P. BOLLE and F. PERRIN, op. cif., pp. 23-24.
59. Cf. supra pp. 582-583, 584, 610-611.
60. I. RBMY, ‘La recherche orientke et I’action pastorale et religieuse’, Unesco
document s~c/wS/22, pp. 7-9.
61. J. %MY, op cit., pp. 8 and 9.
62. R. C. ANGELL has given an excellent sketch of these ethical problems in relation
to problem-focused research in sociology. Cf. ‘The Ethical Problems of Applied
Sociology’, in: P. F. LAZARSFELD, et al., op. cit., pp. 725 ff.
63. J. GALTUNG, op. cit., p. 201.
64. R. BASTIDE, ‘Approche interdisciplinaire de la maladie mentale’, in: The Social
Sciences: Problems and Orientations, op cif.. pp. 437 E.
65. Ibid., pp. 437-438.
66. Ibid., p. 438.
67. Ibid., p. 439.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid., pp. 439-440.
71. J. RBMY, op. cit., p. 13.
72. C. A. FERGUSON, ‘Directions in Sociolinguistics: Report on an Interdisciplinary
Seminar’, in: Items 19 (I), March 1965, p. I.
73. R. BASTIDE, op. cit., p. 440.
74. Ibid., p. 441.

644 Pierre de Bie
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid., pp. 446-447.
77. J. REMY, op. cit., p. 11.
78. Ibid., p. 12.
79. A. M. ROSE, ‘Sociological Studies on Mental Health and Mental Disorder’,
International Social Science Journal 20 (z), 1968, pp. 273-281.
80. A. H. STANTON AND M. S. SCHWARTZ, The Mental Hospital: A Study of Instifutional
Participation in Psychiatric IlIness and Treatment, New York, 1954.
81. R. HILL, ‘Research on Human Fertility’, International Social Science Journal 20
(2), 1968, pp. 227-230.
82. Quoted by R. HILL, op. cit., p. 229.
83. N. LOWT, ‘Tableau des recherches sociologiques effectudes en France sur l’activit6
professionnelle et le rale des femmes’, Social Science Information 7 (4,
1968, p. 190.
84. Ibid., pp. 197-198.
85. Ibid., pp. 198-199.
86. Cf. L. ROSENMAYR, ‘Towards an Overview of Youth Sociology’, International Social
Science Journal 20 (z), 1968, pp. 319 ff.
87. M. W. BROWN, ‘Organizational Programs to Strengthen the Family’, in: H. T.
CHRISTENSEN (ed.), op. cit., pp. 832-880.
88. R. KERCKHOFF, ‘Family Life Education in America’, in: H. T. CHRISTENSEN (ed.),
op. cit., p. 884.
89. G. R. LESLIE, ‘The Field of Marriage Counseling’, in: H. T. CHRISTENSEN (ed.),
op. cit., pp. 912-943.
90. P. PAILLAT, op. cit., p. 266.
91. But the contrast between consciousness of how indispensable research is in rural
development and the very scanty staff and facilities there are in this field of
research shows clearly that this factor alone is not enough. Cf. H. KOTTER, op.
cit., pp. 254-257 and 259-262.
92. Cf. E. A. SUCHMAN, Evaluative Research, New York, 1966.
93. Cf. N. LOWT, op. cit., pp. 185-190; M. B. Sussman, op. cit.,pp. 37,41,43 and@;
H. KOTTER, op. cit., pp. 254 and 260-262.
94. P. PAILLAT, op. cit., p. 267.
95. Cf. J. PIAGET, supra, Introduction: ‘The Place of the Sciences of Man in the System
of Sciences,” pp. 54-56.
96. M. A. STRAUSS, ‘Measuring Families’, in: H. T. CHRISTENSEN (ed.), op. cit., p. 389.
97. Ibid.
98. J. C. NUNALLY, Popular Conceptions of Mental Illness: Their DeveIopment and
Change, New York, 1961.
99. Cf. the international symposium ‘La r6flexion et la recherche interdisciplinaire
comme modalit6 du dialogue Eglise-Monde’, LOWAIN, FERES, November 1967.
In Roman Catholic circles, this idea, launched by Fr. Lebret, was developed in
1957 at the first world congress of the lay apostolate, and has since been discussed
at several international conferences. The Pontifical Commission on Birth Control
brought together around theologians scientific personalities from several disciplines.
100. P. G. HERBST, ‘Developmental Trends and the Structure of Science’, in: Informasjon,
2, 1966, PP. 48, 53, 54.
101. We have borrowed this observation from Henri Janne, who suggests such collaboration,
in the study of specific subjects, between specialists and ‘generalists’,
the function of synthesis being either individual or collegiate.

CHAPTER X
Cr oss-cultur al, cross- societ a1 and
cross-national research
STEIN ROKKAN
This chapter seeks to chart a few salient trends in the efforts undertaken in the
twentieth century to internationalize the social sciences.
There are many ways of internationalizing a science : through the circulation
of papers and the exchange of scholars, through the organization of conferences
and congresses, through the sharing of observational and experimental data,
through the co-ordination of research, through cooperative institution-building
of one sort or another.. . This chapter wil not cover all such modes of interna-
tionalization, but will focus on one single movement in contemporary social
science : the efforts to advance cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national
research.
Historians of scientific development agree that a number of avenues of
internationalization should be differentiated. In the social sciences we can trace
the ups and downs in the international communication of papers, monographs
and treatises and we can map the spread of schools of thought, the diffusion of
concepts and theories and the exportation of techniques and styles of analysis.
But we can also point to a variety of efforts, some short-lived and erratic, others
continuous and systematic, to co-ordinate the gathering of information and the
analysis of data across a number of distinct cultures, societies or political enti-
ties. This chapter will concentrate on such efforts of comparative research: it
wil introduce a vocabulary for the discussion of important differentiations
within this realm of research activity, point to salient characteristics of the
contemporary developments in this direction, and consider questions of strategy
and organization in the further advancement of such international endeavours.
I. SOME ELEMENTARY DISTINCTIONS
Any proposition in the social sciences implies some form of comparison. You
state that children wil go through a series of stages in their intellectual develop-
ment: to test this you classify a number of subjects by age and rnmpare the
age groups on a series of variables. You state that men are more likely to

646 Stein Rokkan
defy social norms than women: you collect whatever data can be found to
establish indicators of conformity or deviance and proceed to compare scores
for the two sexes. You state that Frenchmen are less likely to submit to majority
pressure than Norwegians: you devise some appropriate test in samples of each
population and compare the data for the two.
In this trivial sense all social science is comparative. But most social science
endeavours are limited to comparisons within single cultural domains, single
societies, single nations. Most important advances in methodology, technique,
and the organization of research have been made within such single settings,
but the findings of such one-site studies have tended to frustrate the theoryoriented
social scientists : what sorts of invariances do they establish? what
would happen if the same procedure were used in a different culture, in a
different social structure, in a different political community ? what models can
be constructed to account for similarities or variations in the results of replications
across distinct research settings?
There are many ways of classifying attempts at cross-site replications, crosssetting
analyses, but there is as yet no established terminology for the mapping
of the many variations in the structure of research enterprises. Cross-site studies
can be organized within a cultural domain, society or politically organized
territory: the typical cross-sectional sample survey is a cross-site study to the
extent that it allows analyses of variations across distinct cultural-socialpolitical
contexts. But this is only the fust of many steps towards the universalization
of social science research operations: the greater the range of cultures,
societies or political systems covered, the greater the challenge to the methodologist,
and the greater the opportunities for theory development. Many social
scientists are reluctant to go all the way: they feel on safer ground within their
one culture, society or nation and favour the development of techniques and the
testing of propositions in that single setting. Others are tempted to go beyond
the one setting but restrict their comparisons to sets of structurally similar
cultures, societies, polities : the Melanesian cultures, feudal societies, the advanced
Western nations, the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ democracies. The most ambitious
(or the most foolhardy) comparativists look forward to a universal science of
variations in human institutions and social arrangements and seek to establish
bases for comparisons across all known units, whether elementary cultures,
transitional societies or complex empires and nation-states.
The terms for such attempts at systematic research across several settings
vary with the character of the unit of comparison: in some cases cross-cultural
is preferred, in others cross-societal, in yet others cross-national.
None of these terms has entered the standard vocabulary of the sciences of
man : it is noteworthy that there is no entry for any of them even in the UNESCOsponsored
Dictionary of the Social Sciences. The term cross-cultural gained
currency in the late thirties: it was fust used by the Yale team of anthropologists
in the reports on their endeavours to assemble and code available information
on a range of primitive societies and to analyse the statistical associations
among the attributes of these societies.’ The parallel terms cross-societal and
cross-national were coined later: they were used to describe similar sequences

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 647
of research procedures, but for different types of units. The term cross-societal,
still rare in the literature, was introduced to cover comparisons over a broad
range of territorially and culturally distinct collectivities, whether ‘primitive’,
‘transitional’ or fully developed.z The term cross-national has gained wider
acceptance, at least in the Anglo-American scholarly community: it is used to
describe comparisons across legally and politically distinct populations or systems
of interaction, typically developing or highly developed sovereign nationstates.
The current tendency is to reserve ‘cross-cultural’ for comparisons of
elementary societies of the type documented in such repositories as the Human
Relations Area Files, ‘cross-national’ for comparisons of societies at some higher
level of social, economic or political development, and ‘cross-societal’ for
comparisons across the entire range of human collectivities, whatever their
level of development.
These distinctions bear on only one of several dimensions to be taken into
account in the analysis of variations in research operations. It is not enough
merely to be told about the characteristics of the range of sites or units; there
are also important distinctions to be made in terms of the organization of each
study and the levels of the variables covered.
Cross-cultural, cross-societal or cross-national studies can clearly be organized
in a variety of ways: the study may be carried out on secondary materials
in one single centre or one single site, it may be initiated in one centre but
require data gathering by centres in the other cultures, societies or nations, or it
may be organized through close cooperation within a network of centres. A
study may be cross-national in character without being inter-national and international
without being cross-national.
RESEARCH
ORGANIZATION
SITES/UNITS OF STUDY
Within one nation Within several nations
I I1
In one The typical single- Typically secondary
nation nation study analysis of data al-
only ready available for
several nations
Ill Iv
6 1 Cooperative inter- The typical co-
several national research operative cross-
nations in one nation (e.g. national study
UNESCO in Germany)
In this terminology, the prefix cross- stresses the objects of comparison while the
prefix inter- relates to a characteristic of the research organization. This distinc-
tion has gained ground in Anglo-American discourse3 but is still difficult to
express in French: the difference between inter-national and international is not
yet widely accepted. ‘Transnational’ is a potential contender. A group of
psychologists currently engaged in the promotion of replications in a number
of countries prefer to describe their efforts as activities within transnational

648 Stein Rokkan
social psychology. This is essentially a matter of efficiency of communication:
if two terms are understood with equal ease and at the same level of precision,
the reasons for preferring one to the other are only aesthetic.
What counts is not the particular terminological convention, but the analytical
distinctions. In the terminology introduced in this chapter, a cross-national
study can clearly be international at several distinct levels of the research opera-
tion :
- at the design level (scholars from all or most of the countries covered are
consulted on the structure and details of the design, e.g., the common
variables to be tapped in a comparable sample survey and the specific
questions to be asked within each national population) ;
- in the collection of data (a cross-national study may have been designed for
scholars from one nation, but the data gathering is carried out by research
organizations located in each nation: the typical United States-based com-
parative survey operation);
- in the analysis of the data (the data may have been produced independently
in each nation, but the analysis is carried out jointly by an international
team: typically an OECD or UN analysis of national statistical data);
- in the interpretation of the data (even the analysis may have been carried out
within the one centre, but scholars from each of the countries are consulted
on the interpretation of the findings).
Not all these 24 modes of cross-national research are represented in the litera-
ture, but at least six of them are frequent enough to merit some comment:
DESIGN DATA ANAL- INTER-
GATHERING YSIS PRETATION
National N N N This is the most extreme mode of single
scholar, single-centre research across
several nations: there is no element of
international collaboration or commun-
ication at any stage of the research
process.
Typically, studies in this mode focus on
documents and data already collected.
Most cross-cultural studies carried out
on the basis of ethnographic reports
are of this type: the original data may
have been generated by scholars of d$
ferent nationalities but independently of
each other, and the low literacy of the
cultures compared will only rarely allow
direct consultations with nativesch olars
at the analysis or the interpretation
stage. Many of the increasingly so-
phisticated comparisons of oficial sta-
tistical data (demographic, social-struc-

N
N
Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 649
N N N tural, medical, economic, administra-
tive, political) tend to come close to the
same mode: the data are simply collated
from the available sources within one
single research centre and no serious
attempt is made at consulting ‘native’
scholars in the later stages of processing
and interpretation.
International N N This is the ‘imperialist’ mode: the design
is decided, and analysis and interpretation
pursued within one centre in
one ‘leader’ nation while the actual data
gathering is carried out by some international
network of field organizations.
Most cross-national sample surveys so
far carried out have been in this mode:
a scholar or a research centre in a
wealthy country ‘buys’ data from a
range of less fortunate countries.4
N Z
I I
Z
N
N This is the ‘replicative’ mode: a design
or research instrument developed in one
country is imported to another country
and the two sets of collected data are
compared in detail. Major examples in-
clude the series of replications of the
British studies of occupational rank and
intergenerational mobility under the
auspices of the first Research Com-
mittee of the International Sociological
Association;S the large set of replica-
tions of the ‘F (for Fascism) scale’
initially developed in California by the
authors of The Authoritarian Personal-
ity;6 the increasing number of cross-
national replications of the MCCLEL-
LAND %Achievement’ tests and of the
OSGOOD Semantic Differential tech-
niques.’
N These are cases of ‘regression to the
single-nation mode’ : initial internation-
al cooperation in design and data
gathering but disruption of communica-
tions at the later stages of processing. A

650 Stein Rokkan
Z I N N well-known example is the four-city
study of social mobility organized by
the Latin American Centre for Social
Science Research at Rio de Janeiro : the
instruments were jointly designed and
the data gathering operations carried
out roughly as agreed, but there was
hardly any international collaboration
in the further processing of the data.*
I Z I N This represents the next step toward full
internationalization of the research
process : collaboration at all stages
throughout the analysis but separate
presentations and interpretations of
findings. An interesting example is the
two parallel studies carried out during
the early fifties under the auspices of
the Organization for Comparative So-
cial Research: one set of group experi-
ments with adolescent boys, and one
sample survey of primary and secondary
school teachers in each of seven
countries.9 These studies were jointly
planned and executed and much of the
analysis was carried out within an
international team, but there was very
little opportunity for detailed consulta-
tions in the final preparation of the
interpretive reports.
I Z I I This mode represents the peak of inter-
nationalization: collaborative efforts
across all or most countries from the
earliest planning stage to the final stage
of publication. Perhaps the best ex-
ample is the twelve-nation study of
achievement in mathematics : this was
organized under the auspices of the
UNESCO Institute of Education in Ham-
burg. Financed from a variety of
national sources, the study proceeded
step by step through a series of detailed,
effective consultations of experts and
scholars from all the countries parti-
cipating in the venture.10

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 651
This is clearly a dimension of great practical importance in the conduct of
cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research. There is no single
optimal strategy. The 1-1-1-1 mode is possibly the ideal one, but it is costly,
sometimes very cumbersome and, at least in some fields and for some countries,
very hard on the nerves of the participants. The mushrooming of facilities for
direct access to data wil clearly simplify procedures but wil still leave a heavy
burden of responsibility on the scholar. He may be able to escape the strain of
cooperation and compromise at the level of the design and the data gathering
and do all the analysis on his own computer, but he wil fail miserably if he forgets
to consult his colleagues in the countries concerned at the final stage of the
research process: interpretation of the findings and presentation of the report.
The current rush of archival developments must not lull us into complacency
about the levels of international cooperation in the social sciences. However
cross-national their coverage, computerized data banks cannot in themselves
create the intellectual environments for effective advances in comparative re-
search. There is no easy substitute for the intensive interaction of individual
experts within organized international networks of the type built up in such
fields as economics, demography and education. In fact the rush to feed compu-
ters with unevaluated data from a variety of different countries may produce a
great deal of numerological nonsense. It wil be essential to build in safeguards
through close contacts with local informants and experts. In his recent warnings
against the ‘instant data’ schemes, Kingsley Davis pointed out the risk ‘of
progressive diffusion of misinformation’ and the danger of serious misinterpreta-
tion of analysis findings through ignorance of variations in the cultural, social
and political contexts.I1 This, obviously, is not an attempt to decry the archiving
of data, but a plea for the development of broader cross-national analysis
centres. It is not enough to make the data computer-readable; they have to
make empirical and analytical sense and they have to be evaluated in the light
of thorough contextual knowledge. The strict evaluation procedures established
for the data archives of the Inter-University Consortium at Ann Arbor,
Michigan, may be taken as a model for operations in other countries. The object
is not the accumulation of any prima facie comparable data, but the organiza-
tion of systematic files of information likely to offer clear analytical payofls.
So far we have touched on externals only: the choice of units or sites of
comparison, the mode of cooperation in the research process. But the bulk of
the current discussions of the potentialities and difficulties of comparative
research focus on the inner structure of study designs and analysis operations:
what sorts of variables are compared? at what levels of each population or sys-
tem? what sorts of hypotheses, what kinds of theories are or can be tested?
how much content is brought into each analysis and which contextual dimen-
sions are most likely to make a difference?
The level-of-analysis distinctions introduced by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and his
colleagues in their work on the logic of survey analysis in the fifties has had a
profound impact on current discussions of the rationale of comparative re-
search.
For simple two-level analyses the basic distinction can be set out as follows:12

652 Stein Rokkan
Primary personal
characteristics
An attribute or variable
characterizing an individ-
ual qua individual
An attribute or variable
characterizing an individ-
ual qua member of some
group or social category
Relational
characteristics
An attribute or variable
characterizing a relation-
ship of one individual to
other individuals
Contextual
characteristics
An attribute or variable
characterizing an individ-
ual through the charac-
teristics of the unit he is
part of or is exposed to
Examples
Sex
Weight
Pigmentation
Incidence of
some disease
Level of educa-
tion reached,
occupation, or-
ganizational
role
Frequency of
communication
between A and
B, sociometric
choice
Unit datum: a
national politi-
cal community
highly depen-
dent on foreign
trade
Personal datum:
a citizen of such
a nation
Derived unit
characteristics
A rate, an average, a
parameter of some distri-
bution within the unit
(e.g., the national popu-
lation)
A rate, an average, a
parameter
A rate, an average, a
parameter or a derived
structural attribute of
the unit (e.g., ‘cohesion’)
Primary unit
characteristics
An attribute or variable
characteristic of the unit
qua unit, not derivable
from the characteristics
of its individual members
This scheme posits only two levels] of variation: the individual and the nextlevel
unit. In cross-societal and cross-national research it wil often prove necessary
to link up variations at three or more levels: at the level of the individual,
at the level of his immediate neighbourhood or workplace (e.g., the number of
employees), at the level of his local community (e.g., peripheral or near the
national centre) and at the level of the nation itself (e.g., neutral or committed in
the cold war). The potentialities of such multi-level reasoning are exemplified in
a paradigm for the analysis of cross-national variations in the extent of political
participation : see Fig. I. I3
Such schemes could be multiplied for variable after variable. Perhaps the
clearest illustration of a multi-level, cross-national research design is the one
presented in the report on the International Study of Achievement in Mathematics.
In this twelve-country study, the dependent micro-variations, scores on a
mathematics test, are analysed as functions of variables on at least five levels: at
the level of the pupil (B and R in Fig. I), of the family (parents’ occupation and
education : a C-type variable in Fig. I), of the school (also a C-type variable),
of the locality (urban-rural, size: L in Fig. I) and of the national educational
system (Nin Fig. I : global attributes such as the number of years of compulsory

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 653

654 Stein Rokkan
schooling, aggregate variables such as the proportion of 16- or 20-year-olds
attending school).
But cross-national studies need not only proceed through such level-by-level
search for sources of variance in the behaviours of individuals; an equally
powerful case can be made for comparative macro-studies at the societal or the
national level.
In fact it has been argued that this is the essence of cross-national research,
that a comparative study can claim to be cross-national only if it serves to
test propositions about nation-states and national populations as units of
analysis in their own right.I4
In terms of the levels-of-variation terminology introduced by Lazarsfeld, this
would amount to a decision to reserve ‘cross-national‘ for analyses of variables
at the level of the independent national system, whether aggregate (derived from
statistical summaries of information on lower-level units such as localities,
households or individuals), structural (derived from information on predominant
forms of interaction among the constituent units), global (a primary
characteristic of the national entity, not derivable from any sub-unit characteristics),
or contextual (derived from information on a higher-level unit, e.g.,
membership in an international alliance of given characteristics).
This attempt at terminological legislation is clearly based on analogy with
the anthropologists’ use of ‘cross-cultural’. When Murdock and his followers
carry out statistical analyses on associations of the attributes of the cultures they
have sampled, they are not testing propositions concerning variations in the behaviours
of such constituent units as households, but are concentrating on
variations at the level of the entire society. To them this is the obvious procedure.
They deal with small units with minimal internal variance, and the reports
from which they code their attributes, rarely, if ever, dwell on sources of
statistical variations among localities, households or individuals. The situation
is fundamentally different for the comparative student of nations. He is faced
with a choice: he must either operate on the level of the elementary micro-units
and test propositions about the sources of variations at that level or at the
higher levels of contextuality, or he must carry out his analyses at the macrolevel
of the total nation and test out propositions on the sources of aggregate,
structural or global variations. It is a crucial characteristic of the nation-state
that it is a unit of statistical production: one might go so far as to say that part
of the definition of the modern bureaucratic nation is that it develops services for
the collection and analysis of data on its citizens and their transactions. But this
sets a dilemma for the comparativist : he can remain at the level of the lowerunit
data collected in country after country and test his propositions across nations,
or he can treat each nation as a global unit in its own right and use whatever
data he can find for each of them and test propositions as to the sources of
variations among nations. Comparative studies of the fist type take the form of
replication and contextual specification : data are gathered in several countriesIto
test such propositions as ‘the more years of formal education, the higher the level
of political participation’, and the comparative analysis of the differential outcomes
leads to the formulation of propositions on conditioning contextual fac-

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 655
tors such as ‘the class distinctiveness of the party system’ or ‘the openness of
recruitment channels’. I5 Comparative studies of the second type essentially take
the same form as the cross-cultural studies in the Murdock tradition. The
principal difference is in the character of the variables: most of the crosscultural
work consists in analyses of the degree of association among dichotomous
or trichotomous traits, I6 while the variables characteristic of crossnational
studies are much more frequently continuous and allow some sort of
correlational procedure. 17
These two types of procedure, the micro-oriented replication-cum-specification
operation and the macro-oriented analysis of associations and correlations
among aggregate, structural or global properties, are clearly very different sorts
of enterprises, and whether it is advisable to lump them together as ‘crossnational‘
remains questionable. In the first case, nations provide so many
distinctive sites for replications and contextual specifications; in the second they
constitute units for analysis in their own right.
Relying primarily on the analogy with the HRAF-type procedure, Hopkins
and Wallerstein suggest that the term cross-national be reserved for the second
type of study and the replication-cum-specification studies simply be labelled
multi-national.
There is every good reason for introducing terminology to distinguish between
the two types of inquiry, but it is probably too late at this stage to make
all practitioners in the field change their usage and reserve the term ‘crossnational’
for only one of the two types of procedure, and at that the one less
represented in the research literature.’*
To most practitioners the prefix cross suggests the testing of identical hypotheses
across a number of sites and ‘cross-national’ seems a quick and economic
term for expressing just this. I9 It would seem easier to introduce a differentiating
term for the second type of procedure : cross-national macro-comparisons, for
example. But this is a matter of little importance in the long run. As more social
scientists are drawn into research enterprises of this kind, terminology wil
gradually become differentiated to facilitate communication, and textbooks wil
finally decide among the competing conventions of discourse.
11. THREE TRADITIONS OF COMPARATIVE RESEARCH*
The history of international efforts in the social sciences offers a series of
paradoxes. The nineteenth century pioneers in the fields of statistics, sociology
and anthropology were, almost without exception, ardent advocates of the
comparative method and endeavoured to establish an internationally and
interculturally valid corpus of knowledge on variations and regularities in the
functioning and development of human societies. But this aim proved difficult to
* This section represents a heavily revised and updated revision of my Introduction to
R. L. MERRITT and S. ROKKAN (eds.), Comparing Nations, New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1966.

656 Stein Rokkan
reconcile with their other aims: to establish strict canons of evidence and infer-
ence in the social sciences and to ensure a high level of analytical precision. The
very efforts made by the early pioneers to gain academic recognition for the new
disciplines tended to force their disciples to abandon universal comparisons
and to focus their endeavours either on the local and the concrete, as in anthro-
pology and sociology, or on the abstract and the untestable, as in economics.
The social sciences had to establish their methodological status and win recogni-
tion in the academies of each nation. In this struggle it became more and more
difficult to maintain the initial world-wide perspective. Disciplines gained their
academic honours through increased attention to methodological rigour and
through deliberate concentration on well-delimited inquiries or on abstract
modelling. The very success of the new sciences discouraged cross-cultural and
cross-national generalization. The disciplines gained in methodological preci-
sion but in the process lost sight of the original aim: the development of system-
atic knowledge of the world‘s societies through comparisons.*o
As a result, the social sciences were largely unprepared for the onrush of
demands for concrete comparative research in the 1950s. The many efforts
toward international economic and political integration, the numerous pro-
grammes of aid to the poorer countries of the world, the campaigns to fight
illiteracy, to improve agriculture, to introduce basic industrial skills - all in-
creased the demand for knowledge of social, economic and cultural conditions
throughout the world and accentuated the need for systematic comparative
research. But the social sciences were not ready for these tasks. The theoretical
underpinnings of any attempt at cross-cultural or cross-national comparison
were poor and fragmentary. Very little, if anything, had been done within each
discipline to develop the tools of analysis and the testing procedures required
in handling data at such different levels of comparability and from such dif-
fering cultural contexts. Even more discouraging was the fact that only a few
scattered beginnings had been made to ensure adequate data bases for system-
atic comparisons across the societies of the world.
Three basic categories of data can be distinguished for comparisons across
human populations:
First, ‘process produced’ data, data generated through the very processes
of living, working, interacting in the societies to be compared, from plain
material evidence through all kinds of artifacts to the varieties of symbolic
representations of ideas, activities and events, whether drawings, tales, messages
or documents.
Secondly, the data of observations and descriptions, whether by historians or
lawyers, travellers or missionaries, academically trained linguists, ethnographers
or political scientists.
And thirdly, data from standardized enumerations, sample surveys, tests and
other efforts to elicit information about units within each territorial population,
whether communities, work places, households or individual subjects.
The ethnographic museums and historical archives of the world are replete
with ‘process produced’ data, but the items assembled in these repositories
rarely lend themselves to the analysis of regularities within and across societies.

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 657
Most are stored there because of their cultural or historical uniqueness, not
because of their potential use in social science comparisons. For such repositories
to be useful for testing generalizations in the social sciences, they would
have to ensure representative coverage of each category of data for each of the
societies and periods sampled and codify the items for systematic mass analysis.
Important steps in this direction have been taken through the application of
standardized procedures of textual analysis to such diverse 'process produced'
data as folktales, children's readers and newspaper editorials. A remarkable
rapprochement has occurred between the humanistic tranditions of qualitative
analysis in linguistic and folklore studies and the hard-headed frequency
counting pioneered by Harold Lasswell and his disciplesz1 in the study of political
communication and mass persuasion. A particularly promising example of
cross-national content analysis of cultural products is D. McClelland's The
Achieving Society.zz The recent development of electronic computer facilities
for content analysis of written doc~rnents~3 is certain to have a profound impact
on such research, and we can expect accelerated efforts in the near future for
the storing and codifying of data for such mass analysis.
Data from observations and descriptions of the institutions and pecularities
of different societies provide the basis for a rich literature of anecdotes and
idiosyncratic interpretations, but require detailed evaluation and codification
if they are to serve the needs of comparative social science.
The great pioneers in the study of primitive populations did much to standardize
the report-taking of travellers and missionaries and to ensure the
fullest possible coverage in each description. A number of attempts were made
to store and codify the materials from such descriptions. Decisive progress was
not achieved in this direction, however, until Peter Murdock and his colleagues
launched the Yale Cross-Cultural Survey in 1937, and later built up the Human
Relations Area Files,"4 This expanding repository of coded information on a
sample of the world's known societies25 has proved an essential tool in7the
development of designs and techniques for the analysis of cross-cultural variations.ZG
A large number of universities and research institutions subscribe to copies
of the Files, and increasingly in recent years scholars have tried their hand
at cross-cultural comparisons of this type. The Files aim at the fullest possible
coverage of a representative sample of all the world's societies and wil incorporate
information on societies at all levels of development, from pre-agricultural
tribes to highly industrialized nation-states. In practice, however, it has
proved very dificult to apply the traditional anthropological techniques of data
gathering and codification to advanced nation-states, and most of the crosscultural
comparisons have been limited to pre-literate units."'
The comparative study of industrializing nation-states grew out of a tradition
of systematic observation by tiavellers, journalists and itinerant scholars: the
pioneering analyses of Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Marx, Engels, Ostrogorski,
Michels, Bryce and Weber were all strongly influenced by experiences
of direct exposure to foreign manners and institutions. Weber's ambitious
attempt to build up a conceptual framework for the comparative study of the

658 Stein Rokkan
growth of centralized bureaucracies and mass democracies reflected more than
a century of discussion on contrasts and similarities between national develop-
ments in Europe and America and between the West and the East. The data for
suchventuresvaried enormously in reliability,precision and coverage, and ranged
from fairly well-researched historical and legal evidence, over unevaluated
bodies of crude official statistics, to impressionistic accounts of the workings
of particular institutions and the ‘psychology’ of different local populations.
Scholars following Weber’s path face a serious dilemma. If they decide to con-
tinue his work in theory-construction, they will either find it impossible to
establish an adequate data basis for their analyses or come under heavy and
justified attacks from historians and area specialists for ignorance and distortions
and for Procrustean classifications of institutions and processes. On the other
hand, if they concentrate their efforts on comparative data gathering and evalu-
tion they soon run into difficulties of conceptual integration and theoretical
interpretation.28
Shmuel Eisenstadt’s gigantic contribution to comparative analysis, The
Political System of Empires”9, exemplifies one possible research strategy. He
develops an elaborate model of processes of centralization, bureaucratization
and debureaucratization, and then seeks to test the consequences against evi-
dence for five pre-bureaucratic societies and twenty-seven historical bureaucratic
societies. The problems encountered in such attempts are two-fold: first, are
the categories precise enough for effective analysis and are they meaningful
across so many different areas of the world and, secondly, does the evidence
available allow some measure of consensus among experts on the categorization
of concrete instances ? To fit so many different cases, Eisenstadt’s categories
had to leave a considerable margin of imprecision, but this very imprecision
makes many of his one-man categorizations of concrete cases highly debatable,
despite an extraordinary display of detailed historical erudition.
Reinhard Bendix’s volume on Nation-Building and Citizensh@30 exemplifies a
more cautious approach: a number of theoretical distinctions first set out by
Tocqueville and Weber are worked out in greater detail and then illustrated
through the analysis of a number of concrete national developments. Barring-
ton Moore’s work on the conditions for the emergence of multi-party democra-
cies or mass dictatorships3I offers a detailed review of the comparative histories
of alliance formation among agricultural, commercial and bureaucratic elites
in England, France, the United States, China, Japan and India, and demonstrates
how it is possible to make use of a variety of concrete data from culturally very
different countries for purposes of systematic comparison. Seymour Martin
Lipset’s early work exemplified an empirical strategy:3e Political Man is essen-
tially the outgrowth of a series of efforts to assemble prima facie comparable
data on society and politics for a number of countries. His later contributions
seek to achieve a better balance between theory-construction and empirical
analysis. His work The First New Nation is essentially an attempt to bring
Tocqueville’s interpretation of the uniqueness of American society up to date
through the development of a new analytical framework and through the
collation of illustrative quantitative comparisons. Many future cornparativists

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 659
wil no doubt continue to pursue such ‘mixed‘ strategies, but substantial progress
in this field does not seem likely unless we reach a higher level of differentiation
and specialization in research roles: some social scientists wil no doubt
continue to pursue theoretical refinements, but to meet their demands for evidence
we must also encourage the formation of a broad phalanx of experts on
a wide range of empirical data across several countires.
To form a basis for detailed comparisons of rates of development within
new as well as established nation-states, it is essential to supplement information
from historical documents and observers’ reports with data from standardized
counts and other attempts at systematic social, cultural and political mapmaking.
Only in this way is it possible to approach reliable estimates of changes
over time and of within-unit variations in the conditions and sequences of
development.
The statisticians of the Western world can look back on more than a century
of cooperative efforts to standardize national bookkeeping and census-taking
procedures. The great Belgian pioneer, QuCtelet, established a network of contacts
throughout Europe and, in 1851, took a decisive initiative in launching the
International Statistical Congresses. The next generation went further and in
1887 set up the International Statistical Institute: this provided a basis for
contacts among experts and adrninistrators of many nations and prepared the
ground for the systematic work of comparison and standardization later taken
up at the governmental level by the League of Nations, the International
Labour Organisation and, during the last two decades, by the United Nations
and its Specialized Agencies33
It took a long time, however, before the impact of these developments was
felt throughout the social sciences. The demographers were the first to develop
the tools of analysis required in mastering these vast quantities of data, the
economists followed suit after the Second World War, but the sociologists have
only recently taken up the challenge of the increasing masses of cross-national
data. The early fascination with comparative statistics for suicide, homicide and
other items of Moralstatistik did not herald the advent of a comparative sociology
of national development: Durkheim’s work was of great methodological
significance but was not followed up through broader comparative investigations
of processes of change in industrializing and urbanizing nations. It is characteristic
that the pioneering comparisons of mobility data published by Pitirim
Sorokin in Ig2734 barely caused any reaction in the scholarly world at the time,
and was discovered to be a true classic of cross-national research only after the
establishment of the Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility
under the auspices of the International Sociological Association in 1951.35 The
decisive breakthrough toward quantitative comparisons did not in fact occur
until the 1950s: economists finally began to come seriously to grips with the
possibilities of precise analyses of rates and patterns of growth, sociologists
started concerning themselves with comparative measures of processes of
structural change, and even students of politics ceased to be exclusively absorbed
by single systems and began trying to work out schemes of comparison and
to devise ways of testing hypotheses quantitatively.

660 Stein Rokkan
Two technical developments proved crucial in accelerating these movements
toward greater boldness in tackling the problems of cross-national comparison :
first, the extraordinary improvements in machinery for the handling of huge
data masses and, secondly, the organization in more and more countries of
sample survey organizations gathering data on broader ranges of variables than
were normally covered in official statistical bookkeeping operations.
The development of the electronic computer has brought about a revolution
in comparative research. Tasks of calculation so far judged beyond the reach
of even the largest research institute can now be carried out quickly and at
moderate cost at a number of academic computer centres. The very existence
of these new machines has prompted a number of research organizations to
build up extensive data archives on punch-cards or on tape, and several of
these now cover data from large numbers of countries throughout the world.
The need for such data archives has proved most urgent in comparative studies
of economic growth, and an impressive number of attempts have been made in
recent years to apply complex techniques of computation to cross-national data
for a variety of indicators of resources, production, income, distribution, etc.36
The case for similar data archives has also been effectively demonstrated in a
study of world urbanization through the work of Kingsley Davis and his group
at the University of California at Berkeley,37 and more recently also in the study
of political modernization by Karl Deutsch and his associates at Yale and later
at Har~ard.3~
The sociologists and political scientists developing such plans have of neces-
sity been concerned with broader ranges of cross-national variables than the
demographers and the economists : they have not only assembled data from
censuses, national accounts, trade statistics, and other governmental book-
keeping operations, but have also tried to accumulate the best available es-
timates of variations in the spread of education and culture, in the sway of
religious, ideological and political movements, and in the exposure of the popu-
lation to the newer media of communication. UNESCO and such regional organi-
zations as the OECD are doing magnificent work on the evaluation of the com-
parative statistics of education, and in this field the sociologists and political
scientists attempting to build up data programmes can simply take over the
country-by-country estimates produced by these organizations. The situation is
less encouraging for mass media statistics: here UNESCO has been making valiant
efforts to accumulate information, but has had very little opportunity to carry
out detailed evaluations and analyses. On cultural, religious, and political
variables the international organizations can supply little or nothing: here the
social scientist is rather left to his own devices and must glean such data as
seem worthy of comparison from whatever national sources he can h d. Data
on religious memberships, electoral turnout, and party strength can be assem-
bled from official counts for a sizeable number of countries, but to evaluate and
interpret such data in any comparative analysis the social scientists will require
detailed knowledge of the working of each national system, and here the litera-
ture is often deficient.39 Data on levels of participation, whether cultural, reli-
gious or political, can only rarely be assembled from regular statistical sources.

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 661
Here, the principal possibilities are private counting operations (church atten-
dance, statistics of party and union memberships) and ad hoc sample surveys. So
far, very little has been done to make use of such data in computer programmes
for cross-national comparison, but efforts are at least under way to establish
a basis for such analyses through the development of archives of raw data from
sample surveys for different countries.
The practice of interviewing samples of populations can be traced to several
distinct historical roots. One line of development may be traced to the official
census: sampling procedures were developed to cut down the cost of censuses
of social conditions, particularly studies of poverty, unemployment and sub-
standard housing, and at the same time made it possible to gather information
in greater detail than in official data gathering operations. Another line of devel-
opment derives from the election, the public referendum, the plebiscite. 'Straw
polls' and opinion soundings served as short cuts to information on the inclina-
tions and preferences of the general public. At first, up to the middle I~~OS,
there were few points of contact between these two traditions of inquiry, but this
changed radically with the emergence of large-scale organizations for the con-
duct of interview studies, first under commercial auspices, later also within govern-
ment departments and universities. The mass interview was found to be a
flexible instrument of social inquiry and soon proved its usefulness in a wide
range of contexts. In fact, it combined at least six hitherto distinct models of
social and behavioural data gathering within one unified operation : the census
questionnaire, the standardized observation checklist, the informal reportorial
conversation, the referendum, the election, and the psychological test. This
flexibility proved the great strength of the interview as a research procedure, but
at least in the initial phases caused a good deal of confusion and contro~ersy.4~
The late thirties saw a great mushrooming of private organizations for the
conduct of interviews within samples of national populations, first in the United
States, then in Britain and in France. This movement continued at an accelerated
tempo during the years immediately following the end of hostilities in 1944-45.
By 1950, all the economically advanced countries of the West, and even some
'Third World' countries, had seen the establishment of at least one private
polling organization in its territory. Most of these were brought into one of the
two world networks of polling agencies: Gallup Affiliates or the initially Roper-
linked International Research Associates (INRA). These two networks served
crucial functions in the internationalization of the polling profession. They
spread techniques and standards from country to country, they accumulated
experiences in the use of equivalent question formulations and measurement tech-
niques across different countries, they offered facilities for conducting compara-
tive surveys by governmental agencies, business corporations, and even academic
scholars.
But this was only the first of three distinctive developments in this field of
data gathering : increasingly, governmental agencies developed staffs for con-
ducting sample surveys, and a number of academic institutions were able to set
up field organizations of some sort, whether separately or through various joint
arrangements.

662 Stein Rokkan
To get some perspective on these developments we shall have to go back to
our distinctions between alternative ‘models of data gathering’.
The commercial survey was essentially modelled on the election and the
referendum: the very name used to describe field operations of this type, polls,
rubbed in these origins in attempts at a miniaturization of officially established
consultations of the ‘people’. The great breakthrough in 1936 was the result of
a successful attempt to simulate elections ahead of time. There was sufficient
isomorphy between the situation in the interview and the situation in the polling
booth to make it safe to predict official results from the established frequencies
of responses to the interviewers. But the crucial development occurred after-
wards: the commercial surveyors shifted from the election model to the model
of the referendum, and claimed to be able to take the ‘people’s pulse’ not only
in matters of party strength or candidate choice, but even in matters of public
policy. The model of the referendum or the plebiscite was to have a profound
impact on the style of work in the commercial agencies, not only in their
reports to newspapers and radio networks on issues of public policy, but also
in their studies in the consumption market, of mass preferences among products.
In the early phase of commercial polling and market research the typical
report simply gave for each question the percent of responses one way or the
other: so many X, so many Y, so many Z, so many Don’t Know. The under-
lying model of the public was plebiscitarian and equalitarian. The ‘pollsters’
started out from the basic premise of full-suffrage democracy : ‘one citizen, one
vote, one value’. They equated votes and other expressions of opinion and
attributed the same numerical value to every such expression, whether actively
articulated independently of any interview, or elicited only in the interview
situation. The sum total of such unit expressions was presented as an estimate
of ‘public opinion’ on the given issue. The aim was clearly not merely elicita-
tion, classification, and enumeration: the essential aim was to establish the
‘will of the people’ through sample interviews instead of through elections
and referenda. To such pioneers as George Gallup and Elmo Roper, the
‘poll’ was essentially a new technique of democratic control: the interviews
helped to bring out the wil of the ‘inarticulate, unorganized majority of the
people’ as a countervailing power against the persuasive pressures of the many
minority interests.4’
For years this emphasis on the plebiscite as a model set the commercial
practitioners in opposition to the governmental and the academic survey pro-
fessionals.
A number of government agencies set up survey organizations from the late
1930s onwards to ensure quicker and cheaper data collection in areas that had
been poorly covered under the traditional systems of administrative bookkeep-
ing.
The best known and most far-ranging of these was probably the Social
Survey set up under the Central Office of Information in London. The operations
of these governmental agencies were modelled essentially on the census. They
were used to obtain inexpensive estimates of distributions within given popula-
tions and were geared to eminently practical tasks of policy guidance.

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 663
The academic survey organization also remained true to the census model,
but added two further elements:
- the fixed-category test battery,
- the informal reportorial conversation.
Historically, the test battery grew out of the standardized scholastic examination.
By contrast to the single-question approach of the plebiscite-modelled poll,
the test-type interview elicited responses to a wide range of items within the same
fields of variation, and offered the basis for a variety of summary measures of
tendencies, orientations, attitudes, personality syndromes. The techniques of
test administration had initially been developed in the classroom and in the
study of other ‘found‘ groups of subjects but was, after some experientation,
adjusted to the requirements of the ‘doorstep’ interview. This development
opened up a number of opportunities for innovation, not only in the range
and depth of data gathering, but also in the style of statistical refinement. The
commercial polls had typically limited themselves to elementary statistical
treatments of their data: most of the findings were presented in simple‘percentage
tables. With the introduction of multi-item test batteries, there was a
marked increase in the statistical sophistication of survey analysis: the responses
collected through interview surveys were not only subject to the typical correlation
and factor analytical treatments of the type known from the earlier phase
of differential and educational psychology, but also offered opportunities for
the development of powerful new techniques better adapted to the qualitative
character of the data, such as Guttman scaling, Lazarsfeld’s latent structure
analysis, and various forms of attribute space analysis.
A major characteristic of the full-blown academic survey operation is its
extreme flexibility: it allows the combination of elements from all the models of
‘bureaucratic’ data gathering and adds another, perhaps still more important,
model, the informal conversation among strangers. The Survey Research Center
at the University of Michigan made a pioneering contribution to the development
of the informal, ‘open-ended’ interview as a tool for data gathering: there
had been an increasing awareness of the artificiality of many of the response
categories in the fixed-alternative questions inherited from the census model,
and even more so, those taken from the plebiscite model, and more and more
elaborate attempts were made to approximate the flow of informal colloquial
conversation without jeopardizing the imperative controls of cross-interview
comparability. This linked up with a number of parallel developments in the
‘case-oriented’ behavioural sciences : the therapeutic conversation inherited from
the religious practice of confession and perfected in the various schools of
psychoanalysis, the counselling interview developed within social work traditions
and in educational psychology, the personnel interview developed within
management psychology, the informal questioning of informants practised for
decades by cultural and social anthropologists in their studies of preliterate
and traditional communities. These movements on the data elicitation front
were reinforced by concomitant developments on the data categorization - data
processing front. The efforts made in linguistics, folklore and communications
research to elaborate techniques for the statistical analysis of the style and

664 Stein Rokkan
content of oral or textual messages helped survey analysts to find ways of coping
with ‘open-ended‘ responses and to develop techniques for the extraction of
significant dimensions of variation in the flow of messages recorded by the
interviewers.
The rapid expansion of the international networks of interview organizations
did much to develop comparable procedures for opinion soundings and market
studies across several different countries at the time.4z Only a handful of academic
social scientists took an interest in these international developments
during the first decade or so, but at least a few imaginative beginnings were
made. A pioneer in the use of these new techniques of cross-national research
was the American psychologist Hadley Cantril. He showed how this machinery
of data gathering could be used to throw light on central problems in the study
of international communication : his msco-sponsored study, How Nations
See Each Other,43 was the first in a series of attempts to make systematic use of
national interview organizations in theory-oriented comparative research. He
also pointed out the possibilities of drawing on the rapidly increasing production
of interview data for comparative secondary analysis. His voluminous
compilation of 6ndings through 194644 paved the way for subsequent efforts to
assemble not only press releases and reports from the many interview organizations
of the world, but also the raw data of their studies as recorded on punched
cards or tapes.
The next great wave of internationalization occurred around the second half
of the 1950s. These years saw the beginning of the data archiving movement,45
and witnessed a marked increase of scholarly interest in the international
potentialities of the new techniques of data gathering. From the mid-fifties
onward, there was a continuous ferment of plans, designs and schemes for
cross-cultural and cross-national data gathering and data analysis, and a great
many of these generated important bodies of data and led to interesting analytical
innovations. The great majority of centrally coordinated projects were American
in origin. Until well into the ‘sixties it was possible to raise funds for such
costly academic research enterprises only from us agencies and foundations. Any
priority listing of such American projects will of necessity be arbitrary, but
these seem to me to be most important examples of academically oriented
data gathering operations across three or more countries since the early fifties:
The earliest of all co-ordinated survey studies in developing countries was
the study covering six Middle Eastern countries initiated by Lazarsfeld at the
Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research during 1949-51 :
this was at first presented only in a few internal reports, but was later analysed
within a broader theoretical framework by Daniel Lerner.6 Parallel survey
research efforts in the developing countries were pursued by Hadley Cantril,
the great pioneer of cross-national polling. He set up an Institute for International
Social Research at Princeton, N.J., and with his colleague, Lloyd Free, organized
a great number of studies on mass and elite attitudes across the world.
The most important of these detailed reports covered the administration of his
‘Self-Anchoring Striving Scale’ on five continents: in four highly developed
countries (USA, Federal Republic of Germany, Israel and Japan), in three very

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 665
different sorts of Socialist polities (Poland, Yugoslavia and, interestingly,
Castroite Cuba) and in seven typically ‘developing’ countries (Panama, the
Philippines, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Egypt, Nigeria and India).47
A number of comparative studies have centred on factors of change and
modernization in the developing countries. David M~Clelland4~ was able to
replicate his ‘n-Achievement’ test on different samples in Brazil, Germany,
India, Italy, Japan, Poland and Turkey, and developed an intriguing theory of
the personality syndromes most likely to produce entrepreneurial talents in
developing countries. Alex Inkeles administered a I rg-item test of ‘attitudinal
modernity’ to matched ‘common man’ samples in Argentina, Chile, India,
Israel and Nigeria,49 and Sidney Verba was able to finance a study of attitudes
to social and political changes in two of these countries, India and Nigeria, for a
comparative analysis with corresponding data for Japan and the United States
(Mexico had been included in the original scheme but had to be dropped in the
wake of project Camelot). A major comparative study of attitudes to economic
growth is currently (1970) in the planning stage at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology: this wil be directed by Frederick Frey.
A number of psychologists found it tempting to replicate their tests and techniques
in foreign countries. A pioneer in the field of psychological measurement,
Charles Osgood, succeeded in persuading colleagues in nearly twenty language
communities to use his Semantic Differential Te~hnique.5~ The Andersons were
able to replicate their ‘Incomplete Story’ test in some ten countries to explore
differences in student-teacher relations in democratic vs. authoritarian environments,
and Lambert and Klineberg sampled children of different ages in nine
countries to test hypotheses on the growth of stereotypes of foreign pe0ples.5~
Among anthropologists, the Whitings took the lead in the development of
standardized schedules for the recording of information about child-rearing
practices, and organized an important six-culture data gathering operation
much on the same lines as the typical cross-national survey.52
None of these efforts attracted quite as much scholarly attention as the
attempts made within political sociology and behavioural political science to
accumulate new data and generate new insights through cross-national survey
operations. The best known and in many ways the most controversial and
stimulating of these was the five-country study reported on by Gabriel Almond
and Sidney Verba in The Civic Culture, a comparative survey of cross-sections
of the adult populations of the United States, Great Britain, theFederal Republic
of Germany, Italy and Mexico.53 A number of political sociologists
devoted to cross-national comparisons preferred to work with secondary data
for a wider range of countries: Seymour Martin Lipset, William Kornhauser
and Robert Alford relied on data from independently conducted commercial
polls and surveys and tried to place the findings in broader perspectives of
history and theory.54 Sociologists such as Daniel Lerner55 and political scientists
such as Karl Deutschs6 were able to organize extensive studies of elite
attitudes in Western Europe and sought to link up evidence from such top-level
interviews with secondary evidence from mass surveys. The active team of electoral
analysts at the Survey Research Center moved into Europe country by

666 Stein Rokkan
country, and organized local as well as nationwide surveys on lines comparable
to the very successful ones carried out in the United States.57 Finally, Philip
and Betty Jacob were able to finance the organization of an elaborate four-
nation study of ‘values in local government’: this project covers the USA, Poland
Yugoslavia and India and has generated an impressive array of memoranda,
conference reports and initial analyses.
III. THE DECISIVE CHALLENGE: THE CONSTRUCTION OF TYPOLOGIES OF ‘MACRO’
SETTINGS FOR VARIATIONS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
It is easy to be overawed by this bustle of initiative, and it is equally tempting
to puncture the pretensions of some of these studies. There can be little doubt
of the value of these many projects as training exercises. They do help to widen
the horizons of social scientists and they serve essential heuristic functions in
generating new insights into new hypotheses about each of the societies
covered. Nor can there be much doubt as to the value of a number of these
projects as data gathering enterprises. Without such initiatives our stock of infor-
mation on each society would be appreciably poorer. But how about the pay-
off for social science theory? Have any of these projects of comparative inquiry
led to distinct advances in the formulation of coherent sets of propositions
concerning the sources of variations in social structures and human behaviours ?
Thus far in this account we have only incidentally touched upon issues of
social science theory: we have presented an outline of the hierarchies of varia-
tions studied through cross-cultural and cross-national comparisons, and have
described developments within three distinct traditions of comparative research.
The decision to treat these matters of methodology and research organization
at such length was essentially motivated by editorial considerations: our aim
was to add a cross-disciplinary perspective to the presentations in the longer
chapters devoted to the individual social sciences in the first part of this volume.
Our discussion of the hierarchies of variations and our account of the different
styles of comparative research cuts across most of the fields covered in this
volume: for this very reason there is very little overlap with any of the dis-
ciplinary chapters. There is bound to be much more overlap, however, in any
account of advances in social science theory. Several of the disciplinary
chapters deal extensively with styles of theorizing and analyze the impact of
comparative cross-cultural and cross-national studies on the development of
conceptual frameworks and the construction of models of explanation. Thus
Paul Lazarsfeld reviews developments in the field of macro-sociology and
stresses the importance of systematic comparisons for the codification of
propositions and ‘theory sketches’ at the level of entire national societies.
William Mackenzie in his chapter on trends in political science gives pride
of place to the tradition of systematic cross-polity comparison : the style
pioneered poetically by Herodotus and philosophically by Aristotle and renewed
with such vigour two millenia later by Montesquieu and Tocqueville. In the
context of this collective volume, it would therefore make little sense to at-
tempt a broad review of the implications of comparative research for the devel-

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 667
opment of social science theory. Instead, we propose to direct our attention to
one single, central set of issues in the development of a world-wide science of
Man and Society: the possibilities of translating ‘grand theory’ into empirically
workable typologies of ‘macro-settings’ for variations in human behaviour, and
the consequences of such typologies for decisions on the cultural and the geographical
range of comparisons at the level of communities, households and
individuals.
These issues cut across all the disciplines of the human and the social sciences:
they are of central importance in the disciplines devoted to the study of structures
of interaction among human beings. Much of the literature on comparative
anthropology focuses on the merits of alternative typologies and on the
possibilities of establishing regional ranges for cross-societal comparisons.59
The argument opposing anthropologists and economists over the analysis and
interpretation of data on production, manpower and barter in preliterate
societies bears on similar issues: how far is it meaningful to ‘stretch‘ models
developed at one end of the continuum to cover the twilight zones of partmonetized,
part-mobilized communities in developing countries ? Similar
controversies have arisen in the wake of the eager attempts of sociologists and
political scientists to introduce their techniques and styles of analysis into the
new nations of the ‘Third World’: anthropologists and other area specialists
have strenuously opposed such efforts to establish a data basis for comparisons
across societies differing so fundamentally in structure and in ethos. The
attacks against the universalist assumptions underlying Murdock’s statistical
correlations for samples of the world’s societies have their counterpart in the
criticisms levelled by anthropologists and historians against such attempts at
world-wide data archiving as Karl Deutsch’s, and at such universal models
of socio-cultural-political development as those sketched by Talcott Parsons
among sociologists and by Gabriel Almond, Lucian Pye and their partners
in the comparative politics movement.
The extremes in this controversy are easily stated: at the one pole of opposition,
all societies, past, present or future, constitute units of potential comparison
and ought eventually to be subjected to tests against unified models of
universal hypothetico-deductive explanation; at the other pole, all societies are
culturally and historically unique and defy understanding through comparisons
with others.
The Murdock school comes closest to the universalist extreme: they want
to make sure that all known variants get a chance to be represented in the
sample and see few if any direct barriers to meaningful comparisons across
the major regions of the world. To this school, the diffusion of cultural characteristics
and the sharing of historical experiences constitute so many disturbing
elements in the design of the sample of societies, and do not constitute
criteria for the limitation of comparisons. The protracted controversy over what
has come to be known as ‘Galton’s problem’ tells us a great deal about the
ways in which differences in intellectual styles affect the organization of comparative
research. The English anthropologist Edward Tylor presented the first
‘cross-cultural’ table of associated characteristics for a sample of societies in

668 Stein Rokkan
a famous lecture in 1889, and was attacked by the statistician Galton for failing
to consider possibilities of cultural diffusion. Tylor had set up a 2 x 2 table
to test the association between the traits ‘in-law avoidance’ and ‘patrilocal
residence’, but had included in his count of cases a number of societies which
were geographically and culturally closely related and might have derived the
given combination of traits from a common source.6o Tylor’s~ followers have
heeded this warning and have tried their best to weed out of their samples
societies likely to be interpreted as so many ‘duplicate copies of the same
original’, to use Galton’s phrase.61 But this is hardly a lasting strategy in a
world constantly shrinking through the diffusion of technologies and ideas
and through the accelerated sharing of historical experiences. The Murdock
strategy would be eminently applicable in a world of isolated societies and
local religions, but runs into a variety of technical, logical and statistical dif-
ficulties in a world of proselytizing religions and ideologies, of constantly
expanding networks of communication, exchange and organization.
Comparative sociologists such as Shmuel Eisenstadt, Reinhard Bendix,
Seymour Martin Lipset, Barrington Moore and Talcott Parsons, and compara-
tive political analysts such as Gabriel Almond, Karl Deutsch, Samuel Hunting-
ton, Robert Holt and John Turner have deliberately opted for the alternative
solution : to build the communication - diffusion - innovation variables directly
into their models and to focus their comparative analyses on units developed
through the merger of smaller societies of the type studied by anthropologists.
Jack Goody and Ian Watt have epigrammatically identified anthropology as the
science of man as a talking animal and sociology as the science of man as a
writing animal:62 this is the crux of the division between the comparisons of
isolated societies in the Tylor-Murdock style and comparisons of empires and
nation-states by the followers of Montesquieu, Tocqueville and Weber. The
introduction of written communication extends the possibilities of control over
space and time and alters the character of the social structure. Talcott Parsons
has stressed this ‘cybernetic’ interpretation in his recent statement on the com-
parative history of societies. His wide-ranging account runs from the socially-
culturally-politically least differentiated preliterate societies, over the ‘ideogra-
phically’ literate early empires and the alphabetized ‘seed-bed’ societies of
Israel and Greece, to the advanced nation-states of the modern age.63 Such
sweeping interpretive statements may at times take on the character of exercises
in the philosophy of history but do point to important tasks of detailed compari-
son.
The best documented historical comparisons have focused on limited ranges
of cases or on shorter spans of time: on the conditions for the formation of
centralized bureaucracies and differentiated national polities and on the stages
and sequences of integration and consolidation, stagnation and decline.
These studies differ markedly in their strategies. We may conveniently
distinguish three styles :
- analyses focused on the identification of one type of polity and on the con-
struction of a paradigm for the comparison of all historical cases close to this
type, wherever they may have occurred in time or space;

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 669
- comparisons of pairs or multiples of leading or innovating polities across all
world regions over roughly the same span of time;
- comparisons of all polities within one culturally-historically homogeneous region
of the world.
Shmuel Eisenstadt’s gigantic work on the emergence and decline of bureau-
cratic empires64 offers an excellent example of comparisons of the first type.
Nothing of similar scope and analytical depth has as yet been attempted for the
other major type of cross-community organization for resource mobilization and
territorial control: the nation-state.
Karl Deutsch has given us a suggestive cybernetic model of nation-building
processes but has applied it to only a few empirical cases. His pioneering work
on Nationalism and Social Comnzunication limited its quantitative comparisons
to four countries,65 and the data bank built up by him for analyses of varia-
tions among nation-states does not cover sufficiently long spans of time to
allow the testing of developmental models.66 Perhaps his greatest contribution
lies in his effort to codify procedures for the establishment of indicators of
variation in the rates of mobilization within the actual or potential territories
of nation-states :67 this work has inspired a variety of attempts at empirical
testing and has acted as a springboard for further theorizing.68
The Deutsch models fired the imagination of a number of scholars, but they
were limited to only one of the many sets of processes inherent in the formation
of national political communities : they focused on variables explaining the rates
of incorporation of underlying local populations at different physical and/or
cultural distances from the national centre, and gave much less attention to
variations over time in the political or administrative measures of national
standardization and consolidation taken at the territorial centres, or to the
dimensions of elite conflicts over such policies. In Deutsch’s work with Wei!en-
mann on the formation of the Swiss polity,@ there are intriguing pointers toward
the construction of a model of variations in the processes of alliance formation
at the national centre, but the implications of this style of analysis remain to
be worked out for other cases of multicultural nation-building such as the
Dutch, Belgian, Canadian, and Lebanese.
The paradigm developed in successive steps within the Almond-Pye Commit-
tee on Comparative Politics7O offers a better balance between ‘state formation’
variables describing processes at the centre of each system, and ‘nation-building’
variables accounting for processes of change in the underlying territorial popula-
tions. The Almond-Pye scheme posits six crises of development. These define
sets of challenges, decision points or policy tasks in the path of any central
elite or counter-elite endeavouring to consolidate a national territorial communi-
ty. This amounts to a proposal to study all historically given nation-states within
one conceptual grid, whether old-established OK newly constituted, whether in
Europe, European settler areas overseas, in Asia or in Africa. The aim is world-
wide comparative analysis: the paradigm is a tool in the ordering of data on
the sequences of decisions and reactions leading to the formation of nation-
states at different levels of cultural consolidation, political mobilization and
organizational capacity.

670 Stein Rokkan
Three of the six crises arise out of conflicts in the extension and differentia-
tion of the administrative apparatus of the nation-state:
- the penetration crisis - the crucial initial challenge of the establishment of a
co-ordinated network of territorial administrative agents independent of local
power resources and responsive to directives from the central decision-
making organs;
- the integration crisis - clashes over the establishment of allocation rules for
the equalization of the shares of administrative offices, benefits and resources
among all the culturally-territorially-politically distinct segments and sectors
of the national community;
- the distribution crisis - conflicts over the expansion of the administrative
apparatus of the nation-state through the organisation of services and the
imposition of control measures for the equalization of economic conditions
between the different strata of the population and between localities dif-
fering in their resources and levels of production.
The other three crises arise out of conflicts between elites and counter-elites
in the definition and differentiation of the territorial population:
- the identity crisis - the crucial initial challenge in the establishment and
extension of a common culture and the development of media and agencies
for the socialization of future citizens into this community of shared codes,
values, memories and symbols;
- the legitimacy crisis - clashes over the establishment of central structures of
political communication, consultation and representation commanding the
loyalty and confidence of significant sections of the national population and
ensuring regular conformity to rules and regulations issued by the agencies
authorized by the system;
- the participation crisis - the conflict over the extension of rights of consulta-
tion and representation to all strata of the territorial population and over
the protection of rights of association, demonstration and opposition.
The paradigm does not posit any fixed sequence in the solution of the six
crises; on the contrary, the purpose of the scheme is to pinpoint variations in
the sequences of challenges, policy conflicts and full-scale crises among histori-
cally given polities and to generate hypotheses concerning the conditions for
the emergence of such varations in processes of nation-building. Unfortunately,
little concrete work has been done on the operationalization of this set of
general concepts or on the classification of historical sequences of conflicts and
decisions within this framework. Characteristically, most of the examples used
in the presentation and discussion of the scheme have been taken from the
brief historiesofthe nation-states emerging from colonial status following World
War II.
Indeed, the decisive intellectual motivation for the development of the scheme
was the urge for some ordering and codification of the insights accumulated
in the initial study of these new states. There was no similar attempt to bring
order into the wealth of historical information at hand on the already func-
tioning nation-states in Europe and the European settler areas. There is little
doubt that the scheme can prove useful in the comparative study of these older

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 67 I
nation-states, but the concrete experience of operationalization, classification
and interpretation has not yet been made.”
Whatever the results of such concrete tests, it is clear that this paradigm of
crises does not in itself constituteamodel for the explanation of variationsin the
outcomes of nation-building processes. The paradigm helps to order the information
about each bundle of processes but has not been built into a body of propositions
concerning the consequences of varying sequences of crises and of varying
alignments of elites and underlying populations in the solution of the crises.
This has been a field of great intellectual excitement during recent years. A
number of sociologists and political scientists have tried to develop models for
the explanation of variations in the choice of elite strategies in the building of national
communities and have sought to derive propositions concerning the
consequences of different alliance strategies for the further development of each
system.
We may conveniently distinguish two styles of macro-comparisons along
these lines:
- large-nation comparisons across contrasting cultural areas ;
- comparisons of all units, smaller as well as larger, within one cultural area.
Reinhard Bendix focuses his work on Nation-Building and Citizenship on the
growth of territorial systems of public authority in four contrasting national
communities : Germany and Russia, India and Japan. Samuel Huntington seeks
to define the ‘fusion of functions’ and ‘division of powers’ characteristic of the
United States through an analysis of the contrasting developments in England
and France.72 In both cases the explanatory variables are sought in the processes
of interaction, alliance and conflict among the elites controlling the principal
resources of social, economic and/or cultural power in each population; the
dependent variables are characteristics of the resultant structures of administrative
and political institutions. In another set of ‘leader-nation’ comparisons, by
the political scientists Robert Holt and John Turner,73 these administrativepolitical
variables in their turn offer a basis for the explanation of contrasts
in the timing of the take-off to economic growth: the early industrializers in
each cultural context, England and Japan, are systematically compared and
contrasted with the two later industrializers, France and China, in an effort
to test propositions concerning the consequences of political centralization for
the initiation and spread of economic innovations.
This theme, the interlinkages between processes of economic growth and
processes of political-constitutional change, is equally central in Barrington
Moore’s pioneering analysis of the conditions for the rise of democratic opposition
politics vs. monolithic dictatorships in the leading states of the modern
world.74
Moore distinguishes three ‘paths to the modern age’: the democratic and
capitalist, the fascist and the communist, and seeks to compare the histories
of the leading nations which followed each of these paths in Europe, America
and Asia. He compares the three highly divergent cases of capitalist democracy
in the West, England, France and the United States of America, with
the one nation which may still follow this path in Asia: India. He then com-

672 Stein Rokkan
pares two nations which, at least for a period in their history, chose the fascist
route to modernization: Germany in Europe and Japan in Asia. Finally,
he compares the two giant leaders of the communist nations: Russia and China.
These comparisons are linked through a unifying model of alliances and opposi-
tions among four sets of actors: the central bureaucracy, the commercial and
the industrial bourgeoisie, the larger landowners and the underlying peasant
population. The logic of this analysis is very simple but its implications far-
reaching: once an alliance or an opposition has established itself through a
revolution or through a slower process of interaction, the total political system
tends to assume a definite style which will limit options for future decision-
makers. This emphasis on irreversibilities in the ‘typing’ of nation-states
through early alliances and oppositions has significant consequences for com-
parative cross-national research: we shall spell this out further below in our
discussion of the Lipset-Rokkan model for the explanation of variations among
party systems. The great strength of Moore’s analysis lies in its discussion of
the consequences of alternative alliances and oppositions among the controllers
of different types of power resources: the alliance of the landed aristocracy and
the urban bourgeoisie against the monarchy in England, through the monarchy
in France, the alliance of Northern capitalists and Western farmers against
Southern plantation owners in the United States, the alliance of landowners and
royal administrators in Prussia and in Japan, the weaknesses of all alliances
between economic power-holders and ‘agrarian bureaucracies’ in Russia and
China. The emphasis throughout is on strategies for the acquiring of maximum
power resources and for the organization of countervailing checks. At least
in the core model of explanation, there is very little concern for cultural
variables influencing strategies and outcomes: no discussion of the role of
linguistic loyalties as a factor in decisions on alliance or opposition, no mention
of churches and sects as possible resources for the mobilization of support
or protest. This may well be justified in a parsimonious model of explanation
for just those eight countries, but surely limits the scope of the analysis too
rigidly. Moore argues that his model does not require testing beyond these
leading countries : the crucial political innovations occurred in these larger
units and any further comparison of developments in the smaller countries
would help to account for processes of diffusion and adaptation only:
This study concentrates on certain important stages in a prolonged social process which
has worked itself out in several countries. As part of this process new social arrange-
ments have grown up by violence or in other ways which have made certain countries
political leaders at different points in time during the first half of the twentieth century.
The focus of interest is on innovation that has led to political power, not on the spread
and reception of institutions that have been hammered out elsewhere, except where
they have led to significant power in world politics. The fact that smaller countries
depend economically and politically on big and powerful ones means that the decisive
causes of their politics lie outside their own boundaries. It also means that their political
problems are not really comparable to those of larger countries. Therefore a general
statement about the historical preconditions of democracy or authoritarianism covering
small countries as well as large would very likely be so broad as to be abstractly plati-
tudinous.75

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 673
These arguments for the concentration of analytical efforts on leader nations,
on systems wielding ‘significant power in world politics’, raise intriguing issues
of research strategy. First of all, what intellectual reasons are there for restricting
the endeavours of comparativists to the analysis of conflict and innovation in
the major power centres? It would not seem difficult to make as good a case
for concerted research on processes of diffusion and reception: after all, most of
the units open to comparative study are ‘follower’ nations rather than leaders.
Secondly, political innovation surely cannot be treated as a function of size
alone. Two small polities, Greece and Israel, generated the greatest innovations
of the ancient world. In the modern world, small polities such as Iceland,
Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden have fostered institutional innovations
without any direct counterpart in the larger leader units. Talcott Parsons, in his
theoretical statement on differentiations among modern societies, has gone so
far as to assert that innovations have been more likely to occur in isolated units
at the peripheries of major power systems: the Italian city states, the Dutch
provinces and the English monarchy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
offered ‘sanctuaries in which new developments could mature before having to
encounter the more severe tests of broader institutionali~ation’.7~
Whatever the merits of this argument, the smaller nations constitute worthy
objects of comparative study: they have managed to survive a world dominated
by larger and stronger units; they have developed their own distinctive institu-
tions; there are enough of them to allow detailed studies of variations along
several different dimensions. Whether it wil prove fruitful to apply the models
used for the larger nations and world powers to all these smaller units remains
doubtful, even if we disregard the ‘micro-states’ currently studied by the
United Nations Institute for Training and Research.66 In our comparative
analysis of the development of party systems, Seymour Martin Lipset and I
have fitted sixteen European systems, eleven smaller and five larger ones, into
the same core model of explanation,7* but this does not necessarily succeed for
other dependent variables.
In fact, we have become convinced that a good case can be made for Moore’s
rejection of small-polity comparisons if they cut across major cultural areas of
the world: ‘leader’ nations can be meaningfully compared independently of the
larger cultural contexts, but smaller units tend to be so heavily dependent on
their surroundings that it wil be more fruitful to compare them area by area
rather than indiscriminately across continents. This certainly goes for com-
parisons of political and religious institutions, organizations and behaviours,
but would also seem to be true for other elements of social structure: ecological
configurations, social and economic stratification, educational institutions and
achievements. Our comparisons of democratization processes and party-politi-
cal development in Western Europe suggest that the smaller units are more
likely to become structured along cultural dimensions than the larger ones :
linguistic/ethnic boundaries cut across Belgium, Switzerland and Finland and
have deeply affected the internal politics of Ireland, Denmark and Norway;
conflicts over religious identities have found distinctive institutional expressions
in the Low Countries, in Switzerland and in Austria. Similar lines of cleavage

674 Stein Rokkan
can of course be traced within the larger countries as well, but they have notlso
heavily influenced the structuring of institutions and organizations within the
national community. One of the hypotheses we hope to substantiate in our
current study of the Smaller European Democracies79 is that the larger nations
have commanded greater resources for coping with such forces of cultural
divisiveness : the weight of the centralizing standardization machineries has
tended to be heavier and the willingness to accept and to institutionalize cultural
distinctiveness has been less pronounced than in the smaller units.
This would argue strongly for limiting comparisons of the inner structure
of smaller units to clusters of national communities grown out of the same
historical experiences of cultural conflict and integration : the polities which
emerged out of the Western Roman Empire and the clashes between secular
rulers and the Roman Catholic Church, the polities which emerged from the
Eastern Roman Empire and the Orthodox Church, the polities of the Moslem
world, the polities which grew out the partition of the Spanish and thePortuguese
Empires in the Americas, and so on. This would be tantamount to acceptance
of Galton’s point in his critique of Tylor: the smaller units should not
enter the statistical tables indiscriminately but be grouped by areas of cultural
communality. This is the third of the strategies distinguished at the beginning of
this section : the comparative analysis of dimensions of variation among polities
within one culturally-historically homogeneous region. We shall conclude
our review of styles of macro-comparison by a brief account of one such attempt
at within-region analysis.
The Lipset-Rokkan model of variations in party systemss0 is strictly limited
to the set of polities that grew out of the cultural clashes of the Renaissance
and Reformation and established their structural characteristics under the joint
impact of the Democratic Revolution in France and the Industrial Revolution
in England. The task set for the model is also strictly limited. Its purpose is
to specify, with a maximum of parsimony, the variables needed to account
for the observed variations in full suffrage party systems among the countries
initially delimited.
The purpose is not to explain the emergence of one or the other national
party system, but to identify the crucial dimensions of cross-polity variation
that account for the presence or absence of different party-political alternatives
during the elections following the introduction of universal manhood suffrage.
This is done in three steps:
- fist a set of fundamental dimensions of nation-building are identified and
the corresponding sequences of elite options are spelt out;
- secondly, a set of propositions is generated concerning the consequences of
the decisions at each option point for the formation of lasting electoral
party fronts;
- thirdly, these propositions are tested against the historically given party
alternatives and each deviant case is discussed in some detail.
The model posits four initial dimensions of nation-building and four corres-
ponding ‘critical option points’ for the national elites’ :

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 675
Cultural dimensions: Corresponding option points:
I. Centre - periphery One standardized national language or several ?
11. State - Church Establishment of national Church
vs. alliance with a supranational Church
vs. establishment of competing secular agencies
Economic dimensions:
III. Urban - rural
Protection of urban vs. rural products against
foreign competition: the tariff issue.
IV. Owner - worker Protection of rights of property vs. equalization
of economic conditions through union and/or
state action.
This listing of dimensions and options could of course be used in studies of any
nation-state, whether European, American, Asian or African, but this would
not of itself make for theoretically fruitful comparisons: just as in the case of
the Almond-Pye paradigm the initially posited dimensions of variability must
be linked up with each other and with an explicitly stated set of dependent
variables in a series of potentially testable propositions. Thus far we have been
able to formulate such a set of propositions for one set of dependent variables
for sixteen countries of Western Europe. Qther scholars are at work on similar
exercises in model-building for Latin America, but this work has not yet ad-
vanced far enough to yield definite results.*' One very good reason is that the
range of dependent variables in the model is much broader and the variables
themselves are not as easy to operationalize.
These attempts at codification and empirical testing not only promise further
advances in the comparative study of nation-building processes, but are bound to
have an impact on further work with data at the micro-level of each political
system. In fact, we were directly motivated to develop our model for the
explanation of the European party systems by the difficulties encountered in
attempts to interpret cross-national data on mass reactions to politics in
different countries of the West. Seymour Martin Lipset and his colleague
Juan Linz had made a major effort in the mid-fifties to collate data from many
countries on the political preferences of a variety of occupations and profes-
sions, but found it extremely difficult to compare information at this level be-
cause of the variations in the political alternatives offered the voters in the
different countries.82 The Lipset-Rokkan model represented a response to the
challenge of this earlier effort: it served to specify the dimensions of the de-
pendent variables in comparative studies of voting behaviour, and made it
possible to group countries by the extent of similarity of alternatives and to
order parties by their degree of national distinctivencss. What makes this opera-
tion so intriguing is that it has opened up a new perspective on the interaction
of micro- and macro-variations in political systems. By focusing with such de-
termination on the macro-level, the Party Systems volume has in fact helped

676 Stein Rokkan
to bring about a reversal in the strategies of comparison. Instead of proceeding
as though socio-cultural distinctions determined political behaviour through
some process of direct translation, the new emphasis is on the parties as agen-
cies of mass mobilization and on the socio-cultural divisions within the elect-
orates as so many openings for or barriers against efforts of mobilization. In
this model the null hypothesis would be that each party succeeds equally well
in all divisions of the electorate: the structure of departures from these average
mobilization successes would then define the given party system. This implies a
fundamental change in the direction of analysis. Instead of seeking to establish
more and more multivariate regularities in the determination of micro-be-
haviours, we resolutely start out with the parties and use the micro-data to
characterize the macro-alternatives in each system. This strategy was elucidated
in some detail at a recent conference organized by the Committee on Political
Sociology of the International Sociological Association. Richard Rose and
Derek Urwin presented a plan for the use of data from sample surveys from
12-15 countries in a comparative analysis of the cohesion and distinctiveness
of party electorates:s3 they did not want to use micro-data to test propositions
at the level of individual voters, but to generate typologies of macro-alternatives
as a step in the formulation and testing of higher-order hypotheses.
Such shuttling between different levels of comparative analysis is likely to
become common in most fields of social science inquiry. It is of course no acci-
dent that the examples of such procedures so far given have come from compa-
rative politics. Anyone concerned with nations as units of analysis must of
necessity consider dimensions of political decision-making - not only because
nations defme areas of homogeneous practices in data gathering and data
evaluation, but also because so much of what happens and is registered within
a nation reflects conflicts and compromises among political elites and within
the populations they have been able to mobilize. In this sense, all cross-national
comparisons confront the social scientist with tasks of political analysis: no
body of social science data, even purely demographic or linguistic, can be
compared without some consideration of the political contexts in which they
were generated.
IV. THE ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
We have reviewed a great variety of cross-cultural and cross-national studies
and tried to account for the principal differences in methodological style and
theoretical orientation. We have touched upon questions of research organiza-
tion only incidentally. In this final section we shall endeavour to spell out in
some detail what is known about the organizational basis for the internation-
alization of the social sciences and shall focus particular attention on the
functions of UNESCO and its satellite bodies in the advancement of comparative
social science research.
The current generation of social scientists has, at least in the nations of the
West, been caught in the cross-fire of two conflicting sets of demands: on one

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 677
hand they have felt impelled to concentrate their efforts at data gathering and
analysis in the many neglected fields of inquiry within their own nations; on
the other hand they have felt increasingly convinced of the methodological
rationale and the theoretical advantages of cross-community, cross-national
and cross-cultural research. Market conditions for decisions in one direction
or in the other vary enormously from region to region. In the United States
resources in funds and personnel have been large enough to allow a small but
expanding phalanx of comparativists to concentrate their work on crossnational
and cross-cultural studies. In Latin America national resources have
been meagre and the decisive thrust toward the establishment of regular research
services has frequently come from abroad, through the organization of crossnational
studies.*h In Europe there has been a continuous increase in the flow of
funds for social science research but a marked concentration on distinctly
national tasks. Europe offers a remarkable range of opportunities for detailed
cross-national research: there is a wealth of data still to be tapped, there are
broad bodies of national experts to draw on for advice, there is increasing interest
among policy-makes in studies cutting across the national and regional
units.85 Curiously, little has as yet been done to exploit these opportunities.
Significantly, some of the first initiatives came from American scholars and were
backed by American funds. Europe-initiated and Europe-financed studies have
so far been few and far between. An early example of joint European research
was the two sets of parallel group experiments and sample surveys carried out in
1953 under the auspices of the Oslo-based Organization for Comparative Social
Research.86 Perhaps the happiest example of a jointly financed and cooperatively
planned international study was the twelve-country survey of achievement
in mathematics,87 planned at the UNESCO Institute of Education in Hamburg,
and financed by the us Office of Education (for the international costs of
the project) and by national funding agencies in the twelve countries (for field
operations). This project constitutes a model of international academic cooperation,
and shows that it is possible to achieve solid results through the sharing
of responsibilities among many national teams. It further illustrates how UNESCO
and other international bodies can perform an important brokerage function
in linking up American and European initiatives.
The Research Committees set up by the International Sociological Association
have prepared the ground for a similar linking of initiatives but so far the
plans for concerted action can be counted on one hand. The Committee on
Social Stratification and Social Mobility pioneered the organization of a series
of cross-national replications and offered a fruitful forum for methodological
and substantive discussions. The current three-country project Metropolit is a
direct outcome of discussions within the Committee!8 Europe is clearly ripe for
a variety of cross-national initiatives. What has been lacking has been an
organizational focus, a concrete institutional basis for concerted action. Alexander
Szalai’s spectacular success in inducing research workers in a dozen countries
to join the cross-national time budget study must be understood against this
backgro~nd.~g The UNESCO decision to set up a European Co-ordination Centre
for Documentation and Research in the Social Sciences at Vienna came just

678 Stein Rokkan
at the right time: communications between sociologists in the East and West
had reached a point where cooperation on concrete tasks of empirical research
was possible, and the regional organizations of the West were concentrating
their efforts on purely economic studies and could not offer a minimum of
infrastructure for cross-national research in central fields of sociology.
The successes of the Vienna Centre and the UNESCO Institute of Education in
Hamburg hold important lessons for the future. Cross-national research re-
quires an institutional framework, an organizational basis. Great plans and im-
portant pilot studies may be born of haphazard encounters between enthusiasts,
but a cumulative tradition of cross-national research can develop only within
a clear-cut organizational setting.
Demographers, economists and to some extent educational scientists have
been able to build up broad international professions within the framework of
large-scale intergovernmental organizations : the UN, the Regional Economic
Commissions, the World Bank, the OECD, the EEC and UNESCO’s Sector of
Education all offer continuous opportunities for experience in the handling
and evaluation of data masses from wide ranges of countries and help to foster
genuine cross-national expertise.
There is no such firm basis for cross-national endeavours in the other social
sciences: in anthropology, sociology, or political science. There is some move-
ment in the fields closest to demography, economics and education. It is
interesting to observe that the two Research Committees of the International
Sociological Association which have come closest to the development of a
cumulative programme of cross-national studies are those focused on the
Family and on Mobility, both centring on variables close to the concerns of
demographers and both relying heavily on data from enumerations or from
surveys close to the model of the census. It is also significant that the ISA has
SO far been unable to mount an active Research Committee for the Sociology
of Education. There is already a basis for cooperative work on educational
statistics in UNESCO and the OECD and therefore not the same need for an
institutionalization of personal communication networks.
In other fields of sociology it has proved much more difficult to develop
continuous programmes: there have been no institutional frameworks for
long-term commitments to cross-national inquiries and, worse, hardly anything
has been done to evaluate or standardize the production of data across any
two or more nations.
What can be done to strengthen the foundations for the internationalization of
these underprivileged fields within sociology and the other social sciences ?
The UNESCO Department of Social Sciences has explored several strategies in
its efforts to foster an explicitly international orientation within these disci-
plines.
In its first attempts in this direction UNESCO focused attention on a few sub-
stantive fields of direct interest within its over-all programme: studies of the
sources of tensions among nations and races, studies of stereotypes and preju-
dices, studies of opinions on international issues. The principal product of
these early efforts of comparative research was the Cantril sample survey in

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 679
nine countries in 1949, the study reported on in the volume How Nations See
Each Other.
These early efforts did not generate a long-term programme. Large-scale
survey research across a number of countries demanded a complex administra-
tive apparatus, and the studies themselves came under criticism for their ten-
dency to pursue abstract comparisons without consideration of the historical
contexts and the structural conditions of particular response constellations. By
the mid-fifties, the UNESCO Social Sciences Department was becoming more and
more involved in promoting training and research in the developing countries,
and found it increasingly difficult to pursue explicitly comparative studies.
An attempt was made in 1956 to launch a programme of comparative
surveys, but this proved difficult to get under way. A small four-nation study
was in fact organized but it was soon realized that this was the wrong tack.90
In a sense the current efforts to advance cross-national research grew out of
this realization of failure. It became increasingly obvious that UNESCO could
use its limited funds much more effectively if, instead of organizing fresh
comparative studies from zero, it concentrated its efforts on what might be
called the infrastructure of comparative research: if it took on as a long-term
task the establishment of better facilities for research workers interested in
cross-cultural or cross-national analysis of one type or another. This, at least
in the initial stage, meant a concentration on methods, on sources of informa-
tion, on access to data for analysis. This new line found its first expression
in the UNESCO programme for 1961-1962. All scholars interested in the ad-
vancement of comparative research have reason to be grateful to T. €I. Marshall,
to the late AndrC Bertrand and to Samy Friedman for their efforts to make
this new departure administratively acceptable within the UNESCO framework.
The International Social Science Council was given a central role in the devel-
opment and execution of the new programme. The Council decided to devote
the first set of conferences under the programme mainly to quantitative methods
of comparison. The conference held at La Napoule on the C6te d'Azur in June,
1962, developed ideas on comparative survey researchg', and the conference at
Yale University in September, 1963, focused on aggregate national statistics
and the possibilities of correlational analyses using nations as ~nits.9~
Both these lines have been pursued in subsequent conferences and publica-
tions. Work in the field of comparative survey data has concentrated on prob-
lems of data access, data archives, data retrieval.93 Work on aggregate corn-
parisons has been pursued in two directions.The Yale Conference recommended
that the approach developed in the Russett, et al. World Handbook of Political
and Social Indicators be discussed in detail within each major region of the
world in order to ensure broader coverage, better evaluations and more realistic
analyses of the data at hand. A first regional conference under the programme
was organized at Buenos Aires in September, 1964,94 and a second in March,
1967, in New Delhi. The Yale Conference also recommended that data pro-
grammes of the type developed by Deutsch and Russett should be supplemented
by within-nation ecological archives to allow studies of the sources of variations
between different types of localities and between advanced and backward

680 Stein Rokkan
areas of each country.95 A fist discussion of the development of such ecological
archives took place at the Second Conference on Data Archives in September,
1964.9~ and a technical conference on quantitative ecological analysis took place
at Evian in September, 1966.97
The ISSC has for some time made efforts to move beyond the exploration
of such strictly quantitative methods and to take up other approaches to
systematic comparisons among cultural and political units. At an international
conference in Paris in 1965 an attempt was made to map out a strategy for
comparativc research within three further fields.98
Thefirst theme to be taken up was the Cross-Cultural Method: the qualitative
alternative to the aggregate comparisons espoused by Karl Deutsch and his
team. Bruce Russett and his collaborators chose as their units of analysis the
politically and territorially defined entities termed nations and assembled the
available quantitative data on their properties. George Peter Murdock and
his co-workers chose as their units a sample of culturally dehed societies and
developed a system of qualitative codes for characterizing each such unit.
Robert Textor went further and tried to organize, on the basis of such codings, a
computer-produced Cross-Cultural Summary for a sample of 400 cultures. This
great effort in data processing, at the time still only in the form of direct printouts,
formed the basis for the discussion of the first theme of the conference.
The second and the third themes of the conference were closely related to each
other: the discussion of Comparative Analysis of Historical Change focused on
the building of nation-states in Europe and the West, and the discussion of Comparative
Analysis of Processes of Modernization concentrated on the possibilities
and limitations of generalized developmental models in the study of social and
political change in any part of the world, whether in the older naiions of
Europe and the West or in the emerging units of post-colonial Africa or Asia.
Notions of development, directional change, and modernization had already
been extensively discussed within the ISSC programme, but thus far mainly in
terms of the availability of codable and quantifiable data for systematic processing:
data on levels and rates of growth, on differences between advanced
and backward areas, on the spread of material and cultural innovations, on the
speed of economic, social and political mobilization. But such data must be
analysed and interpreted in a broader context of historical knowledge. The
social sciences can become ‘developmental‘ only through close cooperation
with the students of the time dimensions of social life, the historians. For the
first time within the ISSC programme, steps were taken to bring historians and
social scientists together to explore how they could be mutually useful in
comparative studies of nation-building and processes of modernization.
The discussion at the conference brought out a broad consensus on priorities
in the development of cross-cultural and cross-national research. There appeared
to be general agreement that the International Social Science Council is in a
position to exert an important brokerage function in the advancement of comparative
research across political, ideological and cultural boundaries. It was
equally clear that the Council could not make much headway on its own: it
has to base its action on initiatives taken at the centres of intellectual innovation

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 68 I
in the advanced countries and to invest its resources in the development of
facilities for cross-communication and cooperation among the most active research
groups in the different countries. Great advances, it is true, have been
made and can still be made through single-nation initiatives : as we have seen,
the bulk of comparative data gathering operations have to this day in fact been
planned in the United States and executed under some form of contract in the
other countries of comparison. The International Social Science Council can
contribute decisively to the development of world-wide cooperation among
social scientists by opening up channels for initiatives from a wider range of
research groups and by facilitating the matching of research interests across
the boundaries. This is essentially the operational strategy of the European
Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation in the Social Sciences : 99
this was set up by the Council in 1963 and has already established itself as
a useful facility for a wide range of research groups anxious to initiate crossnational
comparisons within Europe.
The experts assembled at the Paris Conference agreed to recommend further
action within each of the five fields so far outlined within the ISSC programme.
UNESCO and a number of national funding agencies have proved able to help the
programme forward on a number of points. Work on the co-ordination of archival
developments has been pursued and an international Standing Committee
set up to ensure the fullest cooperation among archive builders, data management
experts and social science users. A Standing Committee has also been
set up for the planning and execution of activities in comparative cross-national
and cross-cultural research. This Committee hopes to organize a series of
symposia, training courses and ‘data confrontation seminars’ to familiarize a
widening circle of social scientists with problems in the logic of comparative
analysis. The Committee wil invest a great deal of energy in the exploration
of new avenues for linking up national analyses in a cross-national framework.
With the arrival of the new generation of computers it wil be technically possible
to organize joint analysis sessions through systematic man-machine interaction:
data from n countries for roughly the same range of variables wil be
brought together at one computing centre, reformatted to the requirements of
the given machine, and subjected to a large battery of analysis procedures.
Scholars from the same n countries wil then come together to discuss alternative
interpretations of the computer output and have the machine carry out a
variety of re-analyses to increase comparability or to clarify cross-country
differences while the scholars are still together. The idea, of course, is to avoid
the besetting sin of most of the comparative analyses so far produced: the
freezing of the analysis designs in advance of any consultations with country
experts. There are obvious dangers in any such attempts at generating ‘instant’
comparisons, but the presence of scholars steeped in each national context
should make it possible to reach workable solutions. A first experiment in this
direction took place under the auspices of the Inter-University Consortium
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1969 and focused on data for localities within
some IO advanced countries. It is hoped that similar experiments can be
financed for other types of data in the years to come: data from sample surveys,

682 Stein Rokkan
elite biographies, aggregate ‘nation-building statistics’ for provinces and entire
countries, Hw-type data. This movement is still only in its infancy and is
bound to encounter teething troubles, but there is good reason to believe that
seminars of this type will increase in frequency: the computer and the data
archive cannot fail to change fundamentally the conditions for the advancement
of comparative cross-culturaI and cross-national research.
On all of these points, UNESCO, the International Social Science Council and
its sister organizations depend heavily on the enthusiasm of devoted research
workers in the national centres and on the good will of the officers of national
councils and foundations. There is no cheap short-cut to the goal. The social
sciences cannot be internationalized by fiat or from above: we must encourage
the ‘grass-roots’ of the research community to take an active part in international
work and this can only be done through conscious and continuous efforts to
mobilize young recruits who will acquaint themselves with conditions and data
in countries other than their own. Without a committed phalanx of enthusiasts
steeped in a variety of cultural contexts, the computers and the data archives
will not move us forward toward the goal of a world-wide science of Man and
Society.
REFERENCES FOR FIG. I*
a) H. GOSNELL, Why Europe Votes, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1930, Chap.
VILI; cf. S. ROKKAN and A. CAMPBELL, ‘Citizen Participation in Political Life:
Norway and the United States of America’, International Social Science Journal
I2 (I), 1960, pp. 71-72.
b) H. GOSNELL, op. cit., pp. 185-187.
c) E. ALLARDT, Social struktur och politisk aktivitet, Helsingfors, Soderstrom, 1956,
pp. 30-33. The alternative proposition (that turnout will be highest in closely contested
districts) was documented by GOSNELL, op. cit., tables 11 (Britain), v (France),
VII (German Reich), andpp. 199-201 (USA). Tabulations for Britain indicate that the
highest turnouts will be found either in closely contested constituencies or in
heavily labour-dominated ones : cf. H. G. NICHOLAS, The British General Election
of 1950, London, Macmillan, 1951, p. 318.
d) E. ALLARDT, op. cit., pp. 56-59.
e) H. TINGSTEN, Political Behaviour, London, P. S. King, 1937; M . DOGAN and J.
NARBONNE, Les frangaises face d lapolitique, Paris, Colin, 1955, Chap. VI; E. ALLARDT,
op. cit.. pp. 124-130.
f) S. ROKKAN and H. VALEN, ‘Parties, Elections and Political Behaviour in the Northern
Countries’, in: 0. STAMMER (ed.), Politische Forschung, Cologne, Westdeutscher
Verlag, 1960, pp. 117-118.
g) Implications of findings in S. ROKKAN and A. CAMPBELL, op. cit., not documented.
h) S. ROKKAN and A. CAMPBELL, op. cit., pp. 84-89 and 93-96.
i) Not documented.
j) Not documented: derivable from P. H. ROSSI, ‘Theory and Method in the Study of
Power in the Local Community’, Paper, Conference on Metropolitan Leadership,
Northwestern University, 1960, pp. 37-42.
k) This is TINGSTEN’S ‘law of the social centre of gravity’, op. cit., pp. 170-172; cf. E.
ALLARDT and K. BRUUN, ‘Characteristics of the Finnish Non-Voter’, Transactions
of the Westermarck Society 3, 1956, pp. 55-76.
* See Fig. I. A typology of ‘orders’of comparison: exemplified by propositions on electoral
turnout rates, p. 653.

NOTES
Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 683
I. See G. P. MURDOCK, ‘The Cross-Cultural Survey’, American Sociological Review
5 (3), 1940, pp. 361-370; A. J. KOBBEN, ‘New Ways of Presenting an Old Idea: The
Statistical Method in Social Anthropology’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute 82 (z), 1952, pp. 129-146.
2. For a detailed discussion see R. M. MARSH, Comparative Sociology: A Codification
of Cross-Societal Analysis, New York, Harcourt, 1967. Chap. I.
3. For an early discussion of such distinctions see H. C. J. DUIJKER and S. ROKKAN,
‘Organizational Aspects of Cross-National Social Research‘, Journal of Social
Issues IO (4, 1954, pp. 8-24.
4. For listings of such studies see S. ROKKAN, S. VERBA, J. VIET and E. ALMASY,
Comparative Survey Analysis: A Trend Report and Bibliography, Paris, Mouton,
1969.
5. For a summary of the findings see S. M. MILLER, ‘Comparative Social Mobility’,
Current Sociology 9, 1960, pp. 1-89. For a further listing of the literature see S.
ROKKAN et al., op. cit.
6. See S. ROKKAN et al., op. cit., Sect. III. 22.
7. See C. OSGOOD, ‘On the Strategy of Cross-National Research into Subjective
Culture’, Social Science Information 6 (I), Feb. 1967, pp. 6-37.
8. For details see G. GERMAN, ‘Social Stratification and Social Mobility in Four
Latin American Cities: A Note on the Research Design’, Amirica Latina 6 (3), 1963,
pp. 91-93, and the various studies listed in S. ROKKAN et al., op. cit., Sect. III. 43.
9. See H. DUIJKER and S. ROKKAN, op cit.
IO. T. HUSBN (ed.), International Study of Achievement in Mathematics, Stockholm,
Almqvist & Wiksell; New York, Wiley, 1967, 2 vols.: see especially the timetable
of the project, pp. 62-63.
I I. K. DAVIS, ‘Problems and Solutions in International Comparison for Social Science
Purposes’, paper for the International Conference on Comparative Social Research
in Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, Sept. 1964. The arguments for the archiving
of cross-country data have been marshalled in B. RUSSETT et al., World
Halidbook of Political and Social Indicators, New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1964,
and in P. ALKER, Jr., ‘Research Possibilities Using Aggregate Political and Social
Data’, in: S. ROKKAN (ed.), Comparative Research across Cultures and Nations,
Paris, Mouton, 1968.
This is a synthesis of several formulations in the writings of LAZARSFELD and his
collaborators: see especially P. KENDALL and P. F. LAZARSFELD, ‘Problems of
Survey Analysis’, in: R. K. MERTON and P. F. LAZARSFELD (eds.), Continuities in
Social Research: Studies in the Scope and Method of ‘The American Soldier’,
Glencoe, Free Press, 1950, pp. 133-196; E. A. SUCHMAN, The Comparative Method
in Social Research, Ithaca (N.Y.), Cornel1 University, 1955, 88 pp., mimeo; P. F.
LAZARSFELD and M. ROSENBERG (eds.), The Language of Social Research, Glencoe,
Free Press, 1955,especiallySect. IV, ‘Formal Aspects ofResearch onHumanGroups’,
pp. 290-384; P. F. LAZARSFELD and H. MENZEL, ‘On the Relationships between
Individual and Collective Properties’, in : A. ETZIONI (ed.), Complex Organizations,
New York, Holt, 1961, pp. 422-440.
Adapted from S. ROKKAN, ‘The Comparative Study of Political Participation’, in :
A. RANNEY (ed.), Essays on the Behavioral Study of Politics, Urbana (Ill.), Univ.
of Illinois Press, 1962, pp. 58-59.
T. K. HOPKINS and I. WALLERSTEIN.
‘The Comparative Study of National Societies’,
Social Science Information 6 (5), 1967, pp. 25-58.
This particular example is taken from S. ROKKAN and A. CAMPBELL, ‘Citizen Participation
in Political Life: Norway and the United States of America’, International
Social Science Journal 12 (4, 1960, pp. 69-99.
For convenient collections of such cross-classifications see I. D. COULT and R. W.
HABENSTEIN, Cross-Tabulations of Murdock‘s World Ethnographic Sample, Colum-

684 Stein Rokkan
bia (MO.), Univ. of Missouri Press, 1965, and R. B. TEXTOR. A Cross-Cultural
Summary, New Haven, HRAF Press, 1969.
17. A typically ‘Murdockian’ treatment of polities = nation-states is presented in the
largely computer-produced collection by A. S. BANKS and R. B. TEXTOR, A Cross-
Polity Survey, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1963. A useful collection of examples of continuous
cross-national variable rankings is B. RUSSETT et al., World Handbook of
Political and Social Indicators, op. cit.
18. A check on usage in the titles collected in S. ROKKAN et al., Comparative Survey
Analysis, op. cit., and in R. M. MARSH, Comparative Sociology, op. cit., reveals
widespread acceptance of the usage of ‘cross-national’ for replicative studies.
19. An early definition of ‘cross-national research’ runs: ‘research undertaken for
comparative purposes on the same categories of data across several different
national populations or equivalent sections of different national populations,’ H.
DUIJKER and S. ROKKAN, Journal of Social Issues IO (4, 1954, p. 9.
20. There is no comprehensive history of the vicissitudes of the comparative method
in the social sciences. Among the most discerning are F. J. TEGGART, Theory of
History, New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1925; A. KOBBEN, ‘New Ways of Presenting
and Old Idea: The Statistical Method in Social Anthropology’, Journalof the Royal
Anthropological Institute 82 (z), 1952, pp. 129-146; E. H. ACKERKNECHT, ‘On the
Comparative Method in Anthropology’, pp. 117-125 in: R. F. SPENCER (ed.),
Method and Perspective in Anthropology, Minneapolis, Univ. of Minnesota Press,
1954; S. TAX, ‘From Lafitau to Radcliffe-Brown, a Short History of the Study of
Social Organization’, pp. 443-480 in: F. EGGAN (ed.), Social Anthropology of
North American Tribes, enl. ed., Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1955; K. E.
BOCK, The Acceptance of Histories, Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1956.
21. The basic texts are H. D. LASSWELL et al., Language of Politics, New York, G. W.
Stewart, 1949; H. D. LASSWELL, D. LERNER and I. de Sola POOL, The Comparative
Study of Symbols, Stanford, Hoover Institute Series, 1952; B. BERELSON, Content
Analysis in Communication Research, Glencoe, Free Press, 1952; R. NORTH et al.,
Handbook of Content Analysis, Evanston, Northwestern Univ. Press, 1963. The
single most important volume on the trends toward a convergence of textual analysis
techniques in linguistics, folklore, anthropology and mass communications
research is the one edited by 1. de Sola POOL on Trends in Content Analysis, Urbana,
Univ. of Illinois Press, 1959.
22. D. MCCLELLAND, The Achieving Society, Princeton, Van Nostrand, 1961. A
curious example of the use of cross-cultural content analysis (jokes, cartoons) in
the study of modal personality characteristics is H. HENDIN’S Suicide and Scandinavia.
A Psychoanalytic Study of Culture and Character, London, Grune and Stratton,
1964.
23. See P. J. STONE et al., ‘The General Inquirer: A Computer System of Content
Analysis and Retrieval Based on the Sentence as a Unit of Information’, Behavioral
Science 7 (4), Oct. 1962, pp. 484-498, and the chapters in P. J. STONE et al., The
General Inquirer, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1967.
24. G. P. MURDOCK, ‘The Cross-Cultural Survey’, American Sociological Review 5 (3).
June 1940, pp. 361-370; cf. F. W. MOORE (ed.), Readings in Cross-Cultural Methodology,
New Haven, HRAP Press, 1961.
25. The codes used in classifying information are given in G. P. MURDOCK et al.,
An Outline of Cultural Materials, New Haven, HRAF Press, 4th rev. ed., 1961. An
up-to-date listing of the universe and the samples of the world‘s societies is given
in G. P. MURDOCK, An Outline of World Cultures, New Haven, HRAF Press, 3rd ed.,
1963. Extending the sample and adding a variety of new codings, Robert TEXTOR
has subsequently assembled a basic handbook of information on 400 societies: see
his A Cross-Cultural Summary, op. cit. Karl DEUTSCH and Carl-Joachim FRIEDRICH
have recently launched a collective exploration of the possibilities of using HRAF
data and HRAF techniques in the comparative study of political systems.
26. See G. P. MURDOCK, Social Structure, New York, Macmillan, 1949, and a host of

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 685
subsequent analyses: cf. 0. LEWIS, ‘Comparisons in Cultural Anthropology’, pp.
259-292 in: W. L. THOMAS, Jr., Current Anthropology, Chicago, Univ. of Chicago
Press, 1956, and W. J. MCEWEN, ‘Forms and Problems of Validation in Social
Anthropology’, Current Anthropology 4 (2), 1963, pp. 155-183.
27. A pioneering attempt to apply HRaF-type techniques to national polities rather than
societies is A. BANKS and R. TEXTOR, A Cross-Polity Survey, op. cit.
28. For discussions of the potentialities and the problems of comparative history see
M. BLOCH, ‘Pour une histoire comparke des soci&s europkennes’, orig. published
in 1928, repr. in Mdlanges historiques, Paris, s.E.v.P.E.N., 1968, vol. I, pp. 16-40;
S. THRUPP, ‘The Role of Comparison in the Development of Economic History,’
Journal of Economic History 17 (4, Dec. 1957; F. REDLICH, ‘Toward Comparative
Historiography’, Kyklos 11, 1958, pp. 362-389; and D. GERHARD, AIte und nene
Wege der vergleichenden Geschichtsbetrachtung, Gottingen, Vanderhoeck, 1960.
S. THRUPP has made a pioneering effort to develop regular exchanges among
historians and social scientists interested in cross-national analyses through the
organization of the important international journal Comparative Studies in Society
and History.
29. S. N. EISENSTADT, The Political Systems of Empires, New York, Free Press, 1963.
30. R. BENDIX, Nation-Building and Citizenship, New York, Wiley, 1964.
31. B. MOORE, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Boston, Beacon Press,
1966.
32. S. M. LIPSET, Political Man, Garden City, Doubleday, 1960, and The First
New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective,
New York, Basic Books, 1963 ; cf. also the historically oriented comparisons
in S. M. LIPSET and S. ROKKAN, ‘Cleavage Structure, Party Systems and
Voter Alignments: An Introduction’, in: S. M. LIPSET and S. ROKKAN (eds.),
Party System and Voter Alignments, New York, Free Press, 1967.
33. The sheer mass of documentation produced by these efforts is overwhelming. A
basic list of references to proposed standards is given in: Statistical Office of the
UN., Directory of International Standards for Statistics, New York, United Nations,
Stat. Ser. M. No. 22, Rev. I, 1960. This, however, gives little or no information on
the concrete contents of the standards or on problems of applications. For further
details on UN statistical efforts see the chapter by D. N. MCGRANAHAN in: R. L.
MERRITT and S. ROKKAN, (eds.), Comparing Nations, op. cit.
34. P. A. SOROKIN, Social Mobility, London, Harper, 1927, reprinted at Glencoe, The
Free Press, 1959.
35. S. M. MILLER, ‘Comparative Social Mobility’, Current Sociology 9 (I), 1961, pp.
1-89; D. V. GLASS and R. KONIG, Soziale Schichtung undsoziale Mobilitat, Cologne,
Westdeutscher Verlag, 1961 ; and the literature listed in S. ROKKAN et al., Comparafive
Survey Analysis, op. cif. For a full bibliography of efforts of comparative
analysis in other fields of sociology see D. C. MARSH, Comparative Sociology, op. cit.
36. An excellent source book on such indicators is N. GINSBURG’S Atlas of Economic
Development, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1961 ; this also includes an
example (by B. J. C. BERRY) of one type of correlational analysis now made possible
on the basis of such data.
37. The International Population and Urban Research Program at Berkeley has developed
a systematic file of information on all of the world’s cities and metropolitan
areas of IOO,OOO inhabitants or more; cf. International Urban Research, The World‘s
Metropolitan Areas, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1959.
38. See K. DEUTSCH, ‘Toward an Inventory of Basic Trends and Patterns in Comparative
and International Politics’, American Political Science Review 54 (I), 1960,
pp. 34-57; B. RUSSETT et al., World Handbook, op. cit.; and R. L. MERRITT and
S. ROKKAN (eds.), Comparing Nations, op. cit.
39. This is the essential rationale for the plan now under consideration within UNESCO
for a series of International Guides to Data for Comparative Research. The first of
these, the International Guide to Electoral Statistics, is already far advanced: the

686 Stein Rokkan
first volume was published in 1969 by the International Committee for Social
Sciences Documentation in cooperation with the International Social Science
Council. In the USA, the Social Science Research Council has supported an exploratory
study by Walter D. BURNHAM on the possibilities of assembling a central file
of historical election data by country for computer processing. The Inter-University
Consortium for Political Research at Ann Arbor, Michigan, is currently
following up this effort and is building up a large file of census and election data
by county to allow ecological trend analyses. For a general discussion of the potentialities
of such approaches to the comparative study of political ecology see S.
ROKKAN, ‘Electoral Mobilization, Party Competition and Territorial Integration’,
in: J. LaPALomAu and M. WEINER (eds.), Political Parties and Political Development,
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1966, and his Introduction to S.
ROKKAN and J. MEYRIAT (eds.), International Guide to Electoral Statistics, Vol. I:
National Elections in W. Europe, Paris, Mouton, 1969; cf. also M. DOG AN^^^
S. ROKKAN (eds.), Quantitative Ecological Analysis in the SocialSciences, Cambridge
(Mass.), MIT Press, 1969.
40. The sizeable body of literature generated by these developments has never been
systematically analyzed. Among the hundreds of articles and chapters produced in
the course of the controversy, these have perhaps proved the more significant: T.
HARRISON, ‘What is Public Opinion?’, Political Quarterly 2, 1940. pp. 368-383; H.
BLUMER, ‘Public Opinion and Public Opinion Polling’, American Sociological
Review 13, 1948, pp. 542-565; H. ARBUTHNOT, ‘Democracy by Snap Judgment’,
Listener, March 4,1948, pp. 367-368; L. ROGERS, The Pollsters, New York, Knopf,
1949; H. SPEIER, ‘The Historical Development of Public Opinion’, in his: Social
Order and the Risk of War, New York, Steward, 1952; H. HYMAN, Survey Design
anddnalysis, Glencoe, Free Press, 1955, Chap. VIU; P. LAZARSFELD, ‘Public Opinion
and the Classical Tradition’, Public Opinion Quarterly 21, 1957, pp. 39-53.
41. The plebiscitarian assumptions of commercial polling have been analysed with
great critical skill by the German philosopher Wilhelm HENNIS in Meinungsforschung
und reprasentative Demokratie, Tubingen, Mohr, 1957. This work is of particular
interest as an attempt to bridge the gap between the political theory of representation
and democracy and the current controversies about the assumptions underlying
the practice of mass interviews. This theme is discussed in a broader perspective
of historical sociology in 3. HABERMAS, Strukturwandel der dfentlichkeit,
Neuwied, Luchterhand, 1961. The position of the ‘pollsters’ has been ably defended
by G. SCHMIDTCHEN, Die befragte Nation, Freiburg, Rombach, 1959, and M.
KOHN, Umfragen und Demokratie, Allensbach, Verlag fiir Demoskopie, 1999.
42. For a bibliography of these developments see S. ROKKAN et al., Comparative
Survey Analysis, op. cit.
43. W. BUCHANAN and H. CANTRIL, How Nations See Each Other, Urbana, Univ. of
Illinois Press, 1953.
44. H. CANTRIL, M. STRUNK (eds.), Public Opinion 1935-46, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 1951. The Public Opinion Quarterly listed ‘poll’ results from I940
to 1951 and again from 1961, but thecoverage ofthese listingswasnotverysystematic.
The Steinmetz Institute at the University of Amsterdam has collected an important
archive af releases and reports from polling organizations, and from 1965
to 1969 published a journal, Polls, for the registration of questions and total
response distributions from studies carried out all over the world.
45. The first systematic report was by Y. LUCCI and S. ROKKAN, A Library Center for
Survey Research Data, New York, Columbia Univ. School of Library Services,
1957; cf. the further reports in the special issue on ‘Data in Comparative Research’,
International Social Science Journal 16 (I), 1964 and m: S. ROKKAN (ed.), Data
Archives for the Social Sciences, Paris, Mouton, 1968.
46. D. LERNER, The Passing of Traditional Society, Glencoe, Free Press, 1958.
47. H. CANTRIL, The Pattern of Human Concerns, New Brunswick, Rutgers Univ.
Press, 1965.

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 687
48, D. C. MCCLELLAND, The Achieving Society, op. cit.
49. First report: D. H. SMITH and A. INKELES, ‘The OM Scale: A Comparative Social
Psychological Measure of Individual Modernity’, Sociometry 25 (4), Dec. 1966,
PP. 353-377.
50. See C. OSGOOD, ‘On the Strategy of Cross-National Research into Subjective Culture’,
Social Science Information 6 (I), Feb. 1967, pp. 6-37.
51. See H. H. and G. L. ANDERSON, ‘Image of the Teacher by Adolescent Children in
Seven Countries’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, July 1961, pp. 481-482; W.
E. LAMBERT and 0. KLINEBERG, Children’s Views of Foreign Peoples: A Cross-
National Study, New York, Appleton, 1966.
52. B. B. WHITING (ed.), Six Cultures: Studiesof ChildRearing, New York, Wiley, 1963;
J. W. M. WHITING et al., Field Guide for the Study of Socialization, New York,
Wiley, 1966.
53. G. A. ALMOND and S. VERBA, The Civic Culture, Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press,
1963.
54. S. M. LIPSET, Political Man, op. cif. ; W. KORNHAUSER, The Politics of Mass Society,
New York, Free Press, 1959; R. ALFORD, Party and Society, Chicago, Rand
McNally, 1963.
55. D. LERNER, ‘Interviewing European Elites’, Polls 2 (I), 1966, pp. 1-7.
56. K. W. DEUTSCH, France, Germany and the Western Alliance. A Study of Elite
Attitudes on European Integration and World Politics, New York, Scribners, 1967 ;
R. L. MERRITT and D. J. PUCHALA (eds.), Western European Perspectives on International
Affairs: Public Opinion Studies and Evaluations, New York, Praeger, 1968.
57. S. ROKKAN and A. CAMPBELL, ‘Citizen Participation ...’, op. cit.; A. CAMPBELL
and H. VALEN, ‘Party Identification in Norway and the United States’, Public
Opinion Quarterly 25, 1961, pp. 505-525; P. E. CONVERSE and G. DLJPEUX, ‘De
Gaulle et Eisenhower’, Revue franGaise de science politique 12 (I), March 1962,
PP. 54-92.
58. A. PRZEWORSKI and H. TEUNE, ‘Equivalence in Cross-National Research’, Public
Opinion Quarterly 30 (4, 1966, pp. 551-568.
59. See 0. LEWIS, ‘Comparisons in Cultural Anthropology’, op. cit.
60. E. B. TYLOR, ‘On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions’,
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 28, 1889, pp. 245-280.
61. See R. NAROLL, ‘Two Solutions to Galton’s Problem’, in: F. W. MOORE (ed.),
Readings in Cross-Cultural Methodology, New Haven, HRAF Press, 1961, and Data
Quality Control: A New Research Technique, Glencoe, Free Press, 1962.
62. J. GOODY and I. WATT, ‘The Consequences of Literacy’, Comparative Studies in
Society and History 5, 1963, pp. 304-345.
63. T. PARSONS, Societies: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, Englewood Cliffs,
Prentice-Hall, 1967, and The System of Modern Societies, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall,
1970.
64. S. N. EISENSTADT, The Political Systems of Empires, op. cit.
65. K. W. DEUTSCH, Nationalism and Social Communication, Cambridge, MIT Press,
1953, rev. ed. 1966.
66. The revised edition of the RUSSETT et al., World Handbook wil however include
several 2 ~ 3 year 0 time series for the advanced countries: this is scheduled to be
published in 1971.
67. K. W. DEUTSCH, ‘Social Mobilization and Political Development’, American
Political Science Review 65 (3), Sept. 1961, pp. 493-514.
68. See S. ROKKAN and H. VALEN, ‘The MobiIization of the Periphery’, in: S. ROKKAN
(ed.), Approaches to the Study of Political Participation, Bergen, Michelsen Institute,
I 962 ; S. ROKKAN, ‘Electoral Mobilization, Party Competition and National
Integration’, in: J. La PALOMBARA and M. WEINER (eds.), Political Parties and
Political Development, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1966; P. NETTL,
Political Mobilization, London, Faber, 1967; and S. M. LIPSET and S. ROKKAN
(eds.), Party Systems and Voter Alignments, op. cit.

688 Stein Rokkan
69. See K. W. DEUTSCH and H. WEILENMANN, ‘The Swiss City Canton: A Political
Invention’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 7 (4). 1965, pp. 393-408,
and the forthcoming volume by the same authors, United for Diversity: The Political
Integration of Switzerland.
70. The initial formulations appeared in G. ALMOND and J. COLEMAN (eds.), The
Politics of the Developing Areas, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1960. For
subsequent stages in the elaboration see the six volumes of the series Studies in
Political Development, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1963-1966, and the
following theoretical presentations: G. ALMOND, ‘A Developmental Approach to
Political Systems’, World Politics 17, 1965, pp. 183-214; L. W . PYE, ‘The Concept
of Political Development’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science 358,1965, pp. 1-114; G. ALMOND and L. B. POWELL, Comparative Politics:
A Developmental Approach, Boston, Little Brown, 1966; and L. W. PYE, ‘Political
Systems and Political Development’, in: S. ROKKAN (ed.), Comparative Research
across Cultures and Nations, Paris, Mouton, 1968. Manuscripts of five draft chapters
toward the forthcoming collective volume on Crises of Political Development
were in circulation in 1966; the volume is due to be published in 1970.
71. For an initial discussion of a scheme of operationalization see S. ROKKAN, ‘Models
and Methods in the Comparative Study of Nation-Building’, Acta Sociologica
12 (2), 1969, PP. 53-73.
72. S. HUNTINGTON, ‘Political Modernization : America vs. Europe’, World Politics
18 (3). 1966, PP. 378-414.
73. R. HOLT and J. TURNER, The Political Basis of Economic Development, Princeton,
Van Nostrand, 1966.
74. B. MOORE, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, op. cit.
75. B. MOORE, op cit., pp. NI-XIII.
76. T. PARSONS, The System of Modern Societies, op. cit.
77. UNITAR, The Status and Problems of Very Small States and Territories, New York,
UNITAR, 1967, mimeo.
78. S. M. LIPSET and S. ROKKAN, ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter
Alignments : An Introduction’, in: Party System and Voter Alignments, op. cit.
For further amplification see S. ROKKAN, ‘The Structuring of Mass Politics in the
Smaller European Democracies’, Comparative Studies in Society and History IO
(2), 1968, pp. 173-210, and Citizens, Elections,Parties, New York, D. McKay,:1970.
79. On this project, see V. R. LORWIN, ‘Historians and Other Social Scientists: The
Comparative Analysis of Nation-Building in Western Societies,’ in: S. ROKKAN
(ed.), Comparative Research across Cultures and Nations, op. cit. The ‘SED’ project
covers the five Nordic countries, the three Benelux countries, Ireland, Switzerland
and Austria. Most of the analyses undertaken compare these countries among
each other, but on occasion attempts are made to compare the ‘smaller’ ones (of
which two are ‘micro’ states, Iceland and Luxembourg, while two are medium sized
by European standards: Belgium and the Netherlands) with the four larger
democracies, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and sometimes even with
‘polycephalic’ Spain.
80. S. M. LIPSET and S. ROKKAN, op. cit.
81. 0. CORNBLIT et al., ‘A Model for Political Change in Latin America’, Social
Science Information 7 (z), 1968, pp. 13-48.
82. S. M. LIPSET and J. J. LINZ, The Social Bases of PoliticalDiversity, Stanford, Center
for Advanced Study, 1956, mimeo. Only a small part of the information gathered
in this collection was later presented in LIPSET’S work Political Man, op. cit.
83. R. ROSE and D. URWIN, ‘The Cohesion of Political Parties: A Comparative
Analysis,’ Paper, International Voting Conference, Loch Lomond, July 1968, later
published as ‘Social Cohesion, Political Parties and Strains in Regimes,’ Comparative
Political Studies 2, (1)April 1969, pp. 7-67.
84. For details see the report by G. GERMANI on the ISSC Conference in Buenos Aires
in 1964, Social Science Information 4 (2), 1965, pp. 150-172.

Cross-cultural, cross-societal and cross-national research 689
85. See the recent OECD report The Social Sciences and the Policies of Governments,
Paris, OECD, 1966, especially pp. 79-80.
86. H. DUIJKER and S. ROKKAN, op. cit.; see also the special number of the International
Social Science Bulletin 7 (I) 1956; cf. S. ROKKAN et al., Comparative Survey Analysis,
op. cit.
87. T. HUSBN, op. cit.
88. C. G. JANSON, ‘Project Metropolitan’, Acta Sociologica 9 (I-2), 1965, pp. 110-1 15.
89. A. SZALAI, ‘Trends in Comparative Time-Budget Research’, American Behavioral
Scientist 9 (9), May 1966, pp. 3-8; ‘The Multinational Comparative Time Budget
Research Project’, American Behavioral Scientist IO (4). Dec. 1966, pp. 1-31.
90. See S. ROKKAN, ‘Sample Surveys of Common Ideas about Foreign Countries’,
International Social Science Bulletin 9 (I), i957, pp. 121-128; E. REICROTSKI and
N. ANDERSON, ‘National Stereotypes and Foreign Contacts’, Public Opinion
Quarterly, Winter 1959-60, pp. 515-528; and M. BROUWER, ‘International Contacts
and Integration-Mindedness : A Secondary Analysis of a Study in Western Europe’,
Polls, Summer 1965, pp. 1-11.
91. A first brief report on this Conference was printed in Social Science Information
I (3), 1962, pp. 32-38. A fuller report and a selection of the papers were printed in
a special issue on ‘Data in Comparative Research’, International Social Science
Journal 16 (I), 1964, pp. 2-97.
92. The papers of this Conference have been published in R. MERRITT and S. ROKKAN
(eds.), Comparing Nations, op. cit.
93. A report of the first Conference on Social Science Data Archives (Cologne, June
1963) was printed in Social Science Information 2 (4,1963, pp. 109-1 14. The papers
of the second Conference (Paris, Sept. 1964) have been printed in: S. ROKKAN
(ed.), Data Archives for the Social Sciences, Paris, Mouton, 1966. For a report on
further developments see R. BISCO, ‘Social Science Data Archives: Progress and
Prospects,’ SociaI Science Informution 6 (I), 1967, pp. 39-74.
94. See reports in Social Science Information 4 (2), 1965, pp. 156-172, and in Revista
Latino-americana de Sociologia I, 1965, pp. 39-151.
95. See report in Social Science Information 2 (4), 1963, pp. 98-103, and the chapters by
E. ALLARDT, S. ROKKAN and H. VALEN in: Comparing Nations, op. cit.
96. See Introduction to S. ROKKAN (ed.), Data Archives for the Social Sciences, op. cit.
97. See the volume by M. DOGAN and S. ROKKAN (eds.), Quantitative Ecological
Analysis in the Social Sciences, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1969.
98. The papers from this Conference have been printed in S. ROKKAN (ed.), Comparative
Research across Cultures and Nations, Paris, Mouton, 1968.
99. See reports in Social Science Iilformation 2 (3). 1963, pp. 90-123; 3 (3), 1964, pp.
70-76; and 4 (2), 1965, pp. 128-155.

3. Science policy and development of
research in the social sciences

CHAPTER XI
The organization and financing of
research
ERIC TRIST
Part one: Nature and scope of the inquiry
I. SOCIAL RESEARCH AS A POLICY CONCERN
The emergence of a new field of inquiry
I. Interest in science policy and in the organization and financing of research as
an area meriting systematic study is, in the case of the social sciences, of very
recent origin. It is a phenomenon of the sixties, just as interest in systematic
study in this area, as regards the natural sciences, emerged as a phenomenon of
the fifties - when it became recognized that ‘big science’, in physics especially,
had come to stay, bringing in its wake new problems of ‘scientific choice’ and
resource allocation.
2. In asking for questions of science policy, organization and financial
support to be included in its study of the Main Trends of Research in the Social
and Human Sciences, UNESCO was under no illusions that the result at the
present time could be other than fragmentary and tentative. The difficulties
likely to be encountered had come to light in the OECD report to the Second
Ministerial Meeting of Ministers of Science, 1966, The Social Sciences and the
Policies of Governments.168 This concluded that ‘at the moment very little of the
type of statistical material needed to back up (such a study) exists; not only are
internationally comparable statistics non-existent, but few Member countries
have made any serious attempts to compile reliable data at national level’.
3. The most detailed survey then available at the national level was the Report
of the Committee on Social Studies made to the British Government in 1965
under the Chairmanship of Lord Heyworth.55 This was based on oral and
written evidence given by a large number of organizations and individuals
representing both the practitioners and users of the social sciences; on special
seminars and discussions conducted with critically relevant interest groups
(academic and non-academic) ; on whatever statistics could be obtained from
all sources; and on the answers to a comprehensive questionnaire. In spite of

694 Eric Tiist
the trouble taken, immense difficulty was encountered in obtaining the required
facts, let alone in interpreting them, simply because in many of the most im-
portant areas they had never been collected.
4. Nevertheless, the Heyworth and the OECD reports represent major advances
in the recognition of the social sciences. They constitute a signal that societies
in the last third of the 20th century are coming to recognize that the social
sciences are capable of making a serious contribution to understanding and
solving the types of complex problem now being experienced with increasing
intensity and on an increasing scale by nations at all stages of development.
Until this present decade only a very few countries had begun to think seriously
about using the social sciences, apart from economics, as a policy-making re-
source - and on that account the more worthy of development for their own sake.
5. Since 1960 the Science Policy Division in the Science Sector of UNESCO
has been carrying out studies of science policy in a number of coun-
tries.'*g Having been brought into existence by the increasing concern of
governments with the natural sciences, it has spread its interest to include the
social sciences. This development represents another step forward in the inter-
national recognition of the social sciences. Concern with the implications of
science and technology for social and economic development was the factor,
emphasized at sessions of the General Conference, which caused UNESCO to act
in this way.
6. The questionnaire sent out on behalf of the present study could be couched
only in the broadest terms. Whether the response would permit even a trial anal-
ysis was a matter of doubt. In the event, some IOO replies were received from
regional and national bodies and from a variety of scientific and professional
associations. These returns included a number of accounts containing not only
whatever statistical data were available but descriptive material and critical
commentary. Others provided factual data of a miscellaneous kind but little
in the way of evaluation. Most of the replies were fragmentary. Nothing at all
could be reported for many of the newer and less developed countries, or
indeed for some of the older and more developed countries, where the
organization of scientific activities has remained so rudimentary that no overall
picture could be offered without a prior enquiry.
7. UNESCO's regional centres in the developing countries made as complete an
appreciation as they were able, beyond what was required in the questionnaire,
of the situation and prospects of the social sciences in their territories. SO also
did several of the National Commissions in Eastern European countries, where
very different systems of organization of science prevail from those which have
characterized the West. A not inconsiderable literature, directly or indirectly
relevant to our topic was scattered among a large number of sources, most of
which were accessible at UNESCO Headquarters through materials held in the
Social Sciences Clearing House. A systematic search of this literature was
carried out.
8. This has drawn attention to two matters. The first is the scope of the
academic research now being done not only on the history of science, but on
the process of science, on the settings and forms of organization that foster or

The organization and financing of research 695
inhibit its growth, on problems of scientific manpower and scientific expenditure,
and on the efficacy and ethics of the various options that are developing for
relating science to policy-making and to using it generally for social and eco-
nomic benefit. A new discipline, sometimes called the ‘science of science’, has
been created which transcends the ‘sociology of knowledge.’I73 An organization
entitled the Foundation for the Science of Science conducts a wide range of
activities in London. Chairs have been created at Yale and at Brandeis in the
US. A centre with a long-range programme has been established in Sweden at
Lund; another at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Though focussing
on the natural sciences, the new discipline is extending its horizon to include
the social sciences. Academic research is necessary for two reasons: I. without
it, more powerful concepts and methods wil not develop to improve the quality
of the material collected by official agencies; 2. this material wil not be subject-
ed to sufficiently critical examination. The central issues of science policy and
organization are controversial as they impinge on the political sphere, so much
the greater is the need for independent research.
9. The second main point is the rapid rise in studies of ‘the future’. One may
note the establishment of Groupe ’85 in France by the Commissariat du Plan
and of a Commission on the Year 2000 in the us by the American Academy of
Sciences. In Britain the recently established Social Science Research Council has
set up a Committee on the next 30 years. Meanwhile increased attention is being
paid to long-range planning of 20 or more years in the countries of Eastern
Europe. According to the CIBA Foundation, institutes concerned with studies of
the future have sprung up all over the world. An international congress, held in
Norway in 1967, brought into being an international society. Study of the
future now constitutes a recognized field as much as the study of science. The
two are inter-connected. For the growth of science, in accelerating the change-
rate, has created an awareness that the future is unlikely to resemble the past as
closely as it has up to the present.
IO. This awareness has led to a spread of a planning orientation through all
types of society at all stages of development. This is apart from ideological
tenets. Interest in planning has risen as a response to the increased level of
uncertainty experienced in the contemporary world as .a result of the accelerat-
ing change rate. Once the planning orientation exists and the future time per-
spective becomes salient increased demand is placed on the social sciences for
more information about men and their societies in all their aspects; for method-
ologies and techniques of forecasting and prediction; and for logics and values
on which to construct models of ‘alternative futures’.
Country groupings
I I. In view of the unevenness of the available data attention was concentrated
on nine target countries representing different types of society, stages of develop-
ment and regions of the world. Intensive reports* were prepared and compared
with material more readily available on other countries to bring out trends and
* The author is indebted to David Armstrong of the Tavistock Institute for collating
the material for most of these.

696 Eric Trist
patterns. The country groupings adopted, together with the target countries
selected, are given below.
12. The US had to be regarded as a group in itself since the volume and diver-
sity of social science activities for which it accounts is greater than that in the
rest of the world. Moreover, the slowing down of development of the social
sciences in Europe in the inter-war period combined with the emigration to the
us of most of the leading German and Austrian social scientists, caused by the
rise of Nazism, has made American developments for some thirty years the
main technical influence on social scientists in other countries. It is only in the
present decade that a noticeable beginning has been made towards redressing
this imbalance.
13. The larger advanced countries of Western Europe, where the pioneering of
the social sciences had been carried out, constituted the next group. Germany-
from which so many of the greatest progenitive ideas have come - was selected
as the target country, as much less was known about the current situation of the
social sciences there than in France and Britain for which detailed reports were
already available. It was also a country where little had so far happened in the
way of science policy or planning. It displayed in an acute form the tendency of
research in the social sciences to separate itself from the universities. It showed
the effects on their unchanged structures of teaching overload caused by an
explosion in the student population.
14. The smaller advanced countries of Western Europe exhibit a somewhat
different pattern characterized by a trend towards a national science policy and
a higher evaluation of the social sciences - though this is now spreading to the
larger countries. They are also characterized by a dispersion of research and
persisting inflexibility in university systems. This again is present in varying
degrees in the larger countries. While Belgium was the selected country, it
would have been desirable also to include a depth study of a Scandinavian
country since a larger share of overall scientific resources is now allocated to the
social sciences in countries such as Sweden than elsewhere in Europe. Fortu-
nately, such a study was available on the Netherlands where proportional allo-
cation is ~imilar.3~
15. The socialist countries of Eastern Europe constituted another major
grouping, where the Academies of Sciences, which include the social along with
the natural sciences, represent a novel system of research organization. We
can expect considerable increases in the resources allocated to the social
sciences in these countries. Czechoslovakia was selected as representing most
of the problems and illustrating the recent growth of empirical studies. Multiple
reports on Poland and Yugoslavia were also available, which exhibit similar
trends, especially in sociology. Only rather formal information was obtained
from the Soviet Union, though detailed as regards manpower and finance.
16. From the standpoint of the level of science, the ‘developing countries’
must include the more traditional and less industrialized countries of Western
Europe. This group still exhibits little differentiation of the social sciences from
the humanities. Recent pressure from the applied area, however, is leading to
more empirical work. Spain has been taken as typical. It was chosen also be-

The organization and financing of research 697
cause (along with Portugal) it has contributed the ‘culture of origin’ to Latin
America.
17. Very small developing countries pose special problems as regards ‘scien-
tific choice’. Ireland was selected as a comparatively well documented case
within a Western context. This selection was made because a process is in
evidence there which is actively involving the social sciences in problems of
national development. It was made also because social science problems in such
a country would provide a useful comparison with those of small developing
countries in other parts of the world, where regional, historical, linguistic and
cultural contexts are entirely different and at a greater distance from the
societies which have hitherto provided the centres of scientific advance.
18. The developing countries in other parts of the world could be treated
only in very broad groups such as South East Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In most of these countries internal resources available to the social sciences are
meagre. In some they are non-existent. This had to be borne in mind in con-
sidering reports which reflected aspiration rather than feasibility. Moreover,
relations between these countries and external sources of social science support
have often had unintended effects in inhibiting local developments. They pose
problems which have still to be confronted. India was selected as the target
country for Asia. As an exceptionally large developing country bearing one of
the great historical civilizations, India must be regarded as a major source of
scientific talent at some time in the future. Yet barriers exist in the values and
structure of the traditional society and in language differences. As Britain was
the former colonial power, the development of the sciences has reflected British
institutions and predelictions.
19. Little material was received from Africa, especially fom the Arab states
where in the next few decades a good deal of African scientific potential may
well lie. As many emergent African countries are small, advantage followed
from choosing a small country; and, moreover, one which reflected French
rather than British influence, the latter having been exemplified in India. The
best documentation was on the former French area, through organizations in
Paris which have maintained close educational links with former French terri-
tories. Senegal was chosen as the target country to examine the problems of
those parts of Africa for which French provides the ‘scientific access language’.
20. Latin America expresses a unique configuration. Unusual linguistic and
cultural homogeneity has been established through several centuries of Spanish
and Portuguese colonization. The values of this tradition did not encourage the
growth of science when the Latin American countries gained independence in
the 19th century. There has supervened a ‘special relationship’ - of scientific
dependence - with the United States, which requires assessment. In addition
to country reports and personal communications, the Centro Latinoamericano
de Investigaciones en Ciencias Sociales at Rio de Janeiro provided material on
a regional basis.
Analytical ,framework
21. In order to analyse the material it was necessary to develop a general

698 Eric Trist
framework.'"3 This is based on the view that the theoretical development and
practical utilization of science is a function of three broadly inter-acting fac-
tors:
a. the internal characteristics and state of scientific fields and disciplines;
b. the organizational structure of scientific activities and their resource base;
c. the cultural and socio-economic features of their environmental contexts.
The concern of this chapter centres on the organizational structure of scientific
activities and their resource base. Yet this cannot be considered entirely apart
from the other two. For it is the end result - the effective development and
utilization of the social sciences -which provides the criterion against which
particular organizational patterns and policies must be appraised.
22. Questions of internal characteristics and environmental context have
special importance for the social sciences in view of their undeveloped state as
compared with the physical sciences, This is not to deny the cumulation of
solid achievement in some fields. It does mean, however, that considerable
uncertainty surrounds the outcome of many projects. This derives from the
absence of established general principles capable of relating large bodies of
unequivocally tested facts - in the newer areas especially. What forms of or-
ganization - and training - are most likely to foster research progress under
conditions of a high level of uncertainty regarding the soundness of the under-
lying knowledge base? Not those, one might essay, which would encourage
either doctrinaire attitudes, untestable speculation and over-preoccupation
with ambitious model-making in matters of theory; or an exclusive retreat to
what may be narrowly manageable from the point of view of method and
measurement, but peripherical as regards any wider interest. What types of
society are likely to allocate more than marginal resources to disciplines in this
state? Scarcely those most addicted to orthodoxy and traditionalism. This prob-
lem has not been made easier by the fact that the academic mores and univer-
sity structures to which people have become accustomed have grown up to meet
the needs of the natural sciences. Moreover, the public image of science remains
that of the natural sciences, particularly in such matters as the relation of
theory to practice.
23. It may be suggested that societies will support the social sciences on a
substantial scale only when they come to feel a pressing need for the type of
knowledge that the social sciences are likely to provide and some conviction
that it can be put to practical use. The accelerating and uneven change rate
now being everywhere experienced and the greater complexity of existence and
uncertainty about the future that this has brought with it is rapidly bringing into
being this willingness to give support. Paradoxically, changes in technology and
population made possible by advances in the physical and biological sciences
are the factors responsible for this situation. It is they which are compelling the
development and utilization of the social sciences.
24. This situation raises major questions concerning the policies and patterns
of organization which will best enable the social sciences to develop in response
to social needs. Wil the academic traditions of training and research which have
nurtured them in an earlier period be the most suitable to ensure their progress

The organization and financing of research 699
in the future? Evidence is accruing that these traditions are being forced out of
their accustomed moulds to meet the demands being placed on the social
sciences to contribute to the understanding and solution of major social prob-
lems. This situation creates great opportunities and great dangeis. A radical
re-appraisal is required. The present chapter wil examine the organization of
the social sciences from the point of view of capability to meet the increasing
demand for their use - but on the hypothesis that greater acceptance of a ‘field
determination’ of problems -especially when these are of a generic kind - wil
provide the most likely means of speeding up their intrinsic growth and theoret-
ical devolopment.
Part two: Survey of country groupings
11. CURRENT TRENDS IN THE UNITED STATES*
Social science becomes big science
I. In view of its size this review of trends in the United States wil begin by
considering the resource base. Compared with any other country, the resources
expended on the social sciences in the us are enormous: whether in terms of
money; in number of research workers, teachers and students; in the volume,
variety and scale of projects; or of equipment and other facilities. Costs also
far exceed those elsewhere which increases the difficulty of international com-
parison.
2. No estimate of the total resources employed has been published. For
research alone a much disputed estimate (for all as distinct from simply government
sources) was made by the American Behavioral Scientist for 1961.‘~ This,
recently superseded by the BASS Survey,z3 was regarded as having been too high
(see footnote below**). From an analysis of current trends and from information
* The author is much indebted to Dr. Henry Riecken of the Behavioral Science Sur-
vey 23.28 for commenting on the American material and for allowing him to seeprovisional
statistics not yet for publication.
** UNITED STATES. Estimated support for scientific research by source of support and
jield of science (1961) (in $ millions)
(Provisional figures compiled by the American Behavioral Scientist.)
Source of Total % Natural % Social %
support science science
Government
Federal 9,000 57 8,790 58 210 32
Other 580 4 500 3 80 I2
Business 4,400 28 4,250 28 150 23
Universities
and colleges
Foundations
1,800
45
I1
-
1,600
33
I1
-
200
I2
31
2
Total 15,825 IO0 15,173 IO0 652 IO0
These figures include large sums (I) for routine data collection in the contributions

700 Eric Trist
recently put at his disposal the author’s own conclusion is that annual expen-
diture on social research in the us may reach a figure of the order of one billion
dollars by the end of the decade.
3. Such allocations of research and development (R & D) funds to the social
sciences may seem small when compared with those made to the biological and
physical sciences. Yet in absolute terms they have reached dimensions where
social science has for the first time anywhere in the world become ‘big science’.
In the biological and physical sciences, the transition from small to big science
raised new problems for the scientific community and for society at large.*
The problems of ‘big social science’ are likely to be even more novel and com-
plex.
4. For 1961 overall national R & D expenditure was $15.8 billion, roughly
3 % of GNP. Since 1961 Federal R & D alone has increased to equal the then out-
lay from all sources - $15.9 billion for fiscal years 1966 and 67. What might
not be expected is this statement by the National Science Foundation (NSF):~~
Between 1956 and 1966 funds for the psychological and social sciences have shown a
faster average growth rate (27 % p.a.) than that for the other sciences combined (20 %).
Starting from a smaller base, their rate naturally tends to be higher but the direction of
the trend is clearly established.
By 1964 Federal obligations for research in the social sciences stood at $230
million; for 1967 at $380 million.
5. Development accounted for 65 % of Federal R & D in 1967. Very little is
recorded under this heading for the social sciences. When basic and applied
research only are considered proportional expenditures of 6.3 % for the social
sciences in basic and 5.7 % for applied research are obtained - levels between
two and three times higher than those (2.0-2.5 %) quoted in the international
literature on scientific expenditure, which has accepted overall R & D figures as
the basis of comparison.Ia The exclusion of one or two high cost areas of the
natui-a1 sciences, such as high energy physics, would disclose still further the
shift during the sixties towards increased support of the social sciences in the
world‘s economically most advanced nation.
6. If ‘scientific choice’ were regulated exclusively by ripeness and promise of
discipline molecular biology and other salient areas of the life sciences would
have claimed even more support than they have enjoyed. 199 Other pressures
have been forcing upward investment in the social sciences. These relate to the
principally of government but to some extent of business; cf. OECD, The Social Sciences
and the Policies of Governments, Appendix I, for a discussion of the relevance of
‘research related activities’ to research in the social as contrasted with the natural
sciences; and VIII, 2 of this chapter regarding their separate recording; (2) for the indi-
rect contributions of colleges and universities. Neither ‘organized research’ as used by
the us Office of Education nor ‘separately budgeted research’ as used by the National
Science Foundation includes these indirect costs. But between 1953 and 1965 the
Federal share of academic R & D as a whole increased from 56 % to 69 % while that
of universities and colleges themselves decreased from 33 % to 25 %. Cf. 11, 39 of this
chapter.
* These are examined in a series of articles in Minerva, 1963-4.x35”57.188.199

The organization and financing of research 701
fact that America now stands at the threshold of what Daniel Bell (1964,
1967), 129,130 following Reisman (1958),’7~ has called the ‘post-industrial society’.
American experience suggests that the advent of post-industrialism wil increase
the degree to which problems concerning ‘quality of life’ - in all its
aspects - must be confronted. I3I
7. One indication of the implications for the social sciences is the large sum
being spent on ‘general purpose scientific data collection’ for economic and
social phenomena, even though that for natural phenomena remains much
larger. Since 1962 NSF has separated Federal obligations in these two respects.
Some 30% of total funds (increased from $220 million in 1962 to $381 million
in 1967) have been expended on the collection of economic and social data.25
This is IO times greater than the social science share in overall R & D. For 1967
the social science share of expenditure on general purpose data collection
stood at $103 million - equal to more than a quarter of its allocation under the
R & D heading. Though only some of these data were generated primarily for
research purposes the figures underline the importance for the utilization of the
social sciences of what in France is referred to as ‘information de As
far as possible such data need to be collected so that they can be used for
research purposes.4 Substantial progress has been made in this regard in the
us over a wide range of Federal statistical programmes.*
8. All this and the ferment over social accounting,23 which is related, can only
be understood against the background of developments in the field of computer
archiving of social science data. This movement got under way in the mid-50s
and led in the first round to the establishment of repositories for the raw data
from commercial polls and academic sample surveys. The most important of
these organizations grew out of the Survey Research Center at the University
of Michigan. This was the Inter-University Consortium, an organization currently
financed by contributions from some 120 universities and by grants from the
National Science Foundation. This organization not only places survey data
at the disposal of graduate students and research workers but has also taken
steps to organize a large archive of historical statistics for computer retrieval and
analysis. During the rg60s, economists took similar steps to secure computer
access to the vast masses of federal statistics. They launched plans for a Federal
Data Center but ran into political difficulties over the privacy of individual
records.** The invasion of the privacy of the individual and the threat to his
liberty if the comprehensive centralized data banks are established which the
computer now makes possible have raised great fears. Yet the benefits which
could follow from the analysis of such data are immense. Finding a solution to
this issue is likely to become a central issue of social science p01icy.~3,~~
* Vide: The Behavioral Sciences and the Federal Government, pp. 23-31.’
** For similar developments at the international level, see the chapter by S. Rokkan
above and such collections as R. C. MERRITT and S. ROKKAN (eds.), Comparing Nutions.’gO

702 Eric Trist
Teaching - service - research discrepancies
9. Universities in the United States exist in large numbers, in a great variety of
sizes and at many levels of excellence. Some are private, others are public, the
latter being supported either by one of the States or by a municipality. Alongside
them are several other types of higher educational institution, such as liberal
arts colleges, teachers colleges and technological institutions, which award
bachelor’s and master’s degrees and are teaching rather than research organiza-
tions with doctoral programmes. In 1966 there were 1,582 four-year institutions
of higher education of which 157 were classed as universities. They awarded
94% of the Ph.D.s.31
IO. As regards numbers of students, about three-fourths of the 17-18 year
old age group now complete secondary school.
Nearly half of this total group (about one-third of the females and half of the males)
enter institutions of higher education. Of this proportion, a little more than half receive
a baccalaureate degree. In short, more than 15 percent of the youth (about 25 % of the
males) in the United States now obtain a higher education degree.31
Only small proportions of those completing 6rst degrees proceed to graduate
schools. Nevertheless, these constitute a very large potential ‘research force’
compared with those entering graduate studies in any other country. In 1964-5
no less than 538,900 men and women were in some stage of graduate work;
16,500 obtained Ph.D.s. As the table on p. 703 indicates, some 3,000 of these
were in the social sciences.*
UNITED STATES. Degrees awarded by institutions of higher education: selected years
1869-1870 to 1964-1965
Years Baccalaureate Master’s Doctorates
and first profes-
sional degrees
1869-1870 9,400
1899-1900 27,400
1929-1930 122,500
1939-1 940 186,500
1949-1950 432,100
1959-1960 392,400
1964-1965 535,000
SOURCE: us Office of Education.
0
1,600
15.000
26,700
58,200
74,400
IIZ,IOO
I
382
2,299
3,290
6,420
9,829
16,467
11. The social sciences can be said to have attained full recognition in the
us for purposes of general education. In this context they are treated like one of
the humanities (c.f. the number of bachelors). As a basis for preparing for
social professions they have attained considerable but incomplete recognition.
In some of these professions they are still treated as desirable rather than neces-
sary; in others they play an increasing part in the integral requirements. As
fields recognized as requiring intense research concentration they are farther
* If a number of historians should be subtracted from this figure, a number of applied
social scientists, included under education, should be added.

The organization and financing of research 703
UNITED STATES. Baccalaureate and doctorate degrees, by field of study, 1954-1955,
1964-1965, and projected to 1974-1975 (in thousands)
Bachelor's and
rst professional degrees
Physical sciences"
Biological sciences
Engineering
Agricultureb
Health professions"
Social sciencesd
Education
All other
Total
I8
9
23
7
23
40
53
114
287
40
25
37
8
28
IO0
96
205
539
~ ~ ~~ ~~
Doctorates
Physical sciences" 1.97 3.53 7.64
Biological sciences .99 1.92 3.78
Engineering .60 2.12 6.88
Agricultureb .5I .55 I .oo
Health professions" .I9 .I7 .I7
Social sciencesd 1.76 3.03 6.03
Education 1.47 2,37 4.35
All other 1.36 2.75 5.95
Total 8.84 16.47 35.80
a Also includes mathematics, statistics, and science, general program.
Includes forestry.
Includes medicine, dentistry, nursing, and other health professions.
Includes anthropology, economics, history, political science, sociology, psychology,
and others.
SOURCE: National Science Foundation, based on us Office of Education data.
behind - despite the fact that social science has become 'big science' and that
3,000 Ph.D.s are turned out annually.
12. The faculty position is illustrated in the table below, which gives
for universities and four-year colleges in 1962 the numbers of faculty* in: basic
social science disciplines (anthropology, economics, political science, psychol-
ogy, sociology) ; related professional and applied disciplines (business and
administrative studies, social work, education, law, agricultural economics
and some parts of the health field); basic natural science disciplines (physical
and biological) ; related professional and applied disciplines (engineering, the
health sciences and professions, and agriculture). The last line of figures, cal-
culated on a different basis, contrasts all those engaged in research in the social
and natural sciences (including engineering) in universities and four-year
* Tenure faculty in American universities are sometimes estimated as giving on the
average a third of their time to research, though the proportion is much lower for four-
year colleges. There are, in addition, many junior personnel combining teaching and
research without tenure, part-timers and others whole time in research at various
levels.31

704 Eric Trist
colleges in 1960. The table brings out points which remain generally true at the
present time but are not commonly recognized:
a. the substantial numbers of faculty in the basic social science disciplines -just
over half of those in the natural sciences;
b. that faculty in professional and applied fields deriving from the social scien-
ces exceed those in professional and applied fields deriving from the natural
sciences;
c. that, as compared with the natural sciences, the academic research strength
of the social sciences is of altogether a lower order of magnitude.
UNITED STATES. Number of faculty in basic social and naturalscience and relatedprofes-
sional and applied disciplines (196.2)’ and those engaged in research in academic institu-
tions (1960)~
Discipline Social Natural S.S.
sciences sciences -% N.S.
Basic
Professional and applied
12.920 22,450 58.0
25,690 22,390 115.0
38,610 44.840 86.0
Numbers engaged in research 8,000 47.000 17.0
a The source used for these computations is R. E. DUNHAM and P. S. WRIOHT,
Teaching Faculty in Higher Education 1962-3.11
From NSP data for 1960 quoted in Annex 25 of National Science Policies of the
U.S.A.3‘ The data refer to total numbers engaged in research in higher education
(physical and life scientists and engineers v. social scientists - technicians, assistants,
etc. excluded). They provide the closest comparison with the OE data that could be
found. The figures should be compared with those under ‘Higher Education’ in the
Table for Employment of Scientists by Sector (p. 705).
13. The growing salience of the professions deriving from the social sciences is a
pointer to the needs of the post-industrial society. The discrepancy between
professional and basic faculty in the social as compared with the natural scien-
ces suggests that the social professions have remained split to too great an
extent from their underlying sciences. If many of these cannot yet supply the
equivalent underpinning, much of what is available is not being effectively used.
The discrepancy between the research and teaching position shows that even a
society such as the United States, while accepting services dependent on the
social sciences, has not yet recognized that their improvement can result only
from a research effort on another scale from anything yet attempted. The
position at the end of the decade wil undoubtedly be better than it was at the
beginning, yet it is unlikely that the ‘phase change’ required wil have occurred.
Though the discrepancy in manpower terms looks less than it does in financial
terms, because of the exorbitant costs of research in some areas especially of
the physical sciences, it nevertheless represents an anachronism.*
* To the question recently put by Kenneth Boulding,6 ‘Do we take the social sciences
seriously? the answer might be: from the standpoints of service and education, ‘yes’;
from the standpoint of research, ‘no’.

The organization and financing of research 705
14. This situation may be further examined by comparing the employment of
social scientists and other scientists in government, industry, non-profit organi-
zations, and higher education. The IOO,OOO social scientists listed in the Table
for 1960 were 8 % of all scientists and engineers employed and 6 % of those
engaged in research in all sectors. Proportionately the largest number of social
scientists were in the non-profit sector, where also by far the largest proportion
were engaged in research. The contrast with higher education is to be noted
(29 %, 45 % and 24 %, I 5 %). By comparison both government and industry
employed very low proportions of social scientists, though the government level
was nearly three times that of industry. In numbers the largest concentration of
'non-social' scientists was in industry, of social scientists in higher education,
but the poportion of the latter engaged in research was no greater than in the
former. If engineers are separated from natural scientists (physical and biologi-
cal) the proportions of each engaged in research in all sectors become: natural
scientists -44 %; engineers -30 %; and social scientists -27 %. Non-research
activities in higher education are mainly teaching but include a considerable
administrative load; in other sectors they include a variety of service functions
along with administration.
UNITED STATES. Employment of scientists by sector, type of activity and type of scientirtt
1960 (in thousands)
Public Industry Higher
education
Non-profit Total
A R % A R % A R % A R % A R %
CODE: A = All activities; R = Research; N = Natural: includes physical and bio-
logical scientists and engineers; S = Social: includes all disciplines; T 7 Total.
t Based on Annex 25, National Science Policies of the U.S.A.3' Primary source: NSF.
I 5. As regards scientific employment in government, trend data are available
for 1954-64.
UNITED STATES. Scientists and engineers in the Federal Government by occupational
group, selected years, 1954 to 1964
Occupational Group 1954 1958 1960 1962 I 964
Scientific
40,878
Physical sciences
13,301
Mathematics and statistics 3,366
Biological sciences 16,359
Social sciences
3,197
Other sciences
4.655
50,910
15,750
4,627
21,198
4,469
4,866
53,264
17,984
4,664
21,636
4,672
4,308
61,982
23,043
5,163
23,666
5,479
4,631
68,122
26,218
5,912
24,883
5,680
5,429
Engineering
47.385 57,122 60,978 67,500 74,869
Total
88,263 108,032 114,242 129,482 142,991
SOURCE : us Civil Service Commission and National Science Foundation.

706 Eric Trist
More recent data, which cover a somewhat broader range of social scientists,
give 7,248 for 1964 and 9,533 for 1966. The Civil Service Commission projects
a 19.2% increase in these categories by 1970 as compared with an 8.4% in-
crease in total Federal employment and 15.9 % in all professional categories. I
16. There is also some information on the weight of various social science
disciplines among those in Federal emp1oyment.I
UNITED STATES. Social scientists in the Federal Government (selected disciplines) t
1964
F.G. N.R.
1966
F.G. N.R.
Economists 1,274 12,143 1,348 13,450
Statisticians 568 2,843 614 3,042
Psychologists 1.378 16,804 1.379 19,027
Sociologists
Anthropologists
I37
-
2,703
-
163
41
3.640
919
Total 3.357 349493 39545 40,078
~~
CODE: F.G. = Federal Government; N.R. = Number listed in the National Register
of Scientific and Technical Manpower, NSF.
t Vide: Behavioral Sciences and the Federal Government', footnote on p. 47.
The report on Behavioral Sciences and the Federal Government comments as
follows:
There are marked differences in the employment pattern of behavioral scientists in the
Federal Government. For example, the first reports of the National Register of Scientific
and Technical Personnel that included selected behavioral science fields (for 1964 and
1966) showed a substantially smaller proportion of sociologists and anthropologists
employed by the Federal Government than economists, statisticians, and psychologists.
These differences undoubtedly reflect the earlier acceptance of expertise in economic
analysis, statistical services, psychological testing, and mental health activities. The
demands for information and knowledge for new social programs at home and for
programs of assistance to developing nations abroad require new kinds of expertise, as
well. They depend heavily on the field studied by sociologists, social psychologists,
anthropologists, and political scientists.
Three types of institution in the university pattern
17. The position of the social sciences in any American university of good
standing is illustrated in the table below, taken from the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA). Other universities could show longer lists of organizational
units and larger numbers of faculty members. Each campus would have ideo-
matic features. Nevertheless, the underlying pattern would be the same.
18. The first feature is the existence of large departments with multiple chairs
supported by sizeable groups of associate and assistant professors in all the
basic social science disciplines. There are often more than IOO doctoral candi-
dates in a given discipline. The large number of chairs enables all the main
components of a major discipline to be pursued. If this has led to narrowness of
specialization the growing influence of general systems theory is beginning to
correct it. The advantage of having the social sciences based on such main
components is that they can interact more flexibly with the main components of

The organization and financing of research 707
UNITED STATES. The social sciences in an American university as illustrated by the
University of California - Los Angeles (1966)
Basic social science departments
Anthropology
Economics
Linguistics
Political Science
Psychology
Sociology
Total
Professional schools
Business administration
Education
Psychiatry
Public health
Social welfare
Total
Full Other Total
professors faculty faculty
I2
I2
IO
I1
20
IO
75
30
33
6
24
4
22
25
20
29
75
30
20 I
59
41
76
98
24
34
37
30
40
95
40
276
89
74
82
I22
28
97 298 395
Speciul research facilities
Institute of Industrial Relations
Western Management Sciences Institute
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
The Law Science Research Center
African Studies Center
Center for Latin American Studies
The Near East Center
Center for Russian and East European Studies
Center for Research in Languages and Linguistics
Center for Comparative Folklore and Mythology
Western Data Processing Center
other disciplines than can ‘total disciplines’. The boundaries between such vast
fields as economics, psychology and sociology are arbitrary. There is vested
interest in maintaining them but this is becoming less. Nevertheless, the basic
academic disciplines remain the areas of the highest prestige. They tend to
retain a ‘pure’ orientation and to look down on applied work. They have also
tended to be method-centred and to over-value quantitative approaches.
19. For some years psychology in all its many branches has been the dominating
academic discipline with economics a close second.* This is possibly
because parts of it overlap with biology, while others are susceptible to sophisticated
research design, laboratory methods and refined statistical treatment.
The following table gives the number of faculty in each of the basic
disciplines together with the number in the corresponding professional associations.**
* Economics is, of course, in the us as elsewhere, far ahead of any other 2ocial science
in its impact on policy.
** The vast majority of these are Ph.D.s, though there is a marginal category in some

708 Eric Trist
UNITED STATES. Members of social science facultiesa (1965) and professional associa-
tionsb (1967)
Faculty
Full-time Part-time Graduate Association
students
teaching
Anthropology 1,000 250 200 6,634
Economics
Political science
Psychology
Sociology
6,395
4,882
6,963
4,840
1,537
1,037
2,486
1.42 I
1,228
913
1,757
869
23,305
14,685
25,800
12,000
Total 24,080 6,731 4,967 82,424
a Faculty data are for universities and four-yew colleges.
Estimated.
SOURCE: Science Activities in Universities and Colleges (NSF 68-22), National Science
Foundation, Washington, D. C., 1969.
20. Professional schools related to the social sciences have also become established
in all leading universities. This is the second feature of the pattern.
These schools are graduate establishments carrying out extensive research
which tends to be multi-disciplinary. In this they have provided a corrective
to the academic departments, though relations with them leave a lot to be desired.
If psychiatry and public health are combined, the table for UCLA illustrates
the dominance of the health field - a characteristic of problem-oriented social
science in the us Schools of Business Administration are another American
innovation which has spread to most countries and in which the social sciences
have established themselves, not only in business economics but in the application
of psychology and sociology to organizational studies. The business schools
have also fostered developments in operational research and systems analysis.
Subjects such as education and social welfare not only train practitioners but
undertake research programmes. More recently, the professional schools have
begun to extend the domain of the social sciences into engineering, architecture
and urban planning.
21. The third element in the pattern is represented by university-wide institutes
exclusively concerned with research. While research in the basic departments
and even in the professional schools tends to be individual, much of it
being concerned with the preparation of doctoral candidates, projects in the
institutes tend to be based on organized programmes involving collaborative
work. Institutes are often quite small, though there are exceptions such as the
Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan. They draw on the
part-time services of interested faculty from any department and also employ
full-time research workers not on departmental staffs. They :tend to be interdisciplinary
and are often also problem-oriented, though there are conspicuous
exceptions.* In UCLA the first group listed has developed out of the professional
-
of the societies of associates - masters usually completing doctoral studies.
* The pattern seems to be very different in many branches of the biological and
physical sciences where ‘interfaces’ can more easily develop on theoretical premises.

The organization and financing of research 709
schools. The second represents the cluster which has become known as Area
Studies. The third links the humanities with anthropology and linguistics. All
these institutes and, indeed, all departments and schools of the university are
served by a data processing centre which is itself a focus of computational
research. Despite these facilities, institutes represent the least developed aspect
of American universities in social research.
Dissatisfaction and innovation in the universities
22. One way to strengthen research capability is to improve doctoral education.
A seven-year programme in ten graduate schools is being financed with 41
million dollars from the Ford Foundation and 160 million dollars in university
matching funds to provide conditions for full-time study including research and
apprentice teaching in four-year courses.34 Some 10,500 Ph.D. candidates wil
be affected. The participating deans note that:
The major current weakness in doctoral education is its profligate wastage of the
nation’s finest talent. This is particularly evident in the humanities and social sciences.
Even in leading institutions fewer than half of the students embarking on doctoral
studies complete their degree. Those who succeed take a disproportionately long time.
The median Ph.D. now takes seven and a half years, compared with five years in the
natural sciences. Fewer than 15 % complete in four years. These figures reflect patterns
no longer commensurate with the needs of the latter half of the twentieth century.
The ten universities award 30 % of all Ph.D.s in the humanities and the social
sciences.
23. A further set of changes is related to the growing realization that dispersed
resources of the highest calibre must be brought together under whatever heading
to advance work in critical areas.3’ Consortia arrangements are beginning
to grow. An example is the programme in ‘institution-building’ joint between
the Schools of Public Administration in Pittsburgh, Indiana and Michigan
State Universities and the Maxwell School of Government at Syracuse.
14z Other
examples could be quoted from the basic as well as the problem-oriented area,
but the belief dies hard that in order to collaborate people must belong to the
same institution.
24. A more recent concern is over the urban crisis and related problems of
poverty and racial discrimination. The urban crisis is likely to redefine the
relations of the social sciences to society in the United States as no other issue
has done since ‘the great depression’ of the thirties - more permanently perhaps
than both World Wars though these led to developments in psychological
testing and psychological medicine among other fields. As the result of that
depression the idea of informed management of the economy began to take
hold. The foundations for national economic accounting were laid. If this set
economics in a problem-oriented direction it gave a new impetus to theory. The
urban crisis is having the same effect on sociology and social psychology,
driving them to relate themselves to urban planning. A movement has begun to
create ‘urban universities’ ‘to help untangle the mass of physical and social
problems plaguing the nation’s largest cities.’ At a conference held in May
1967 attended by representatives of 40 universities the following proposals were
made :

710 Eric Trist
U. urban universities must be designed or reconstructed to assume their long neglected
role as society’s instrument for continuing self-criticism and social change. The
university has to become a laboratory but we are still thinking in terms of the 18th
and 19th centuries (Dr. M. Tarcher, University of California Medical Center, San
Francisco).
b. what the universities are searching for is avehicle similar to the agricultural experi-
mental stations established many years ago. Urban experimental stations could do
for the city what the agricultural stations have done for the rural areas (Dr. L. B.
Mayhew, Professor of Education, Stanford University).
Since then an Urban Institute has been established in Washington. A joint
Center for Urban Studies has been created by Harvard and M.I.T. In Detroit
business, labour and community interests have collaborated with the university
to bring into being a new Center for Urban Studies with an action- as well as a
research-orientation. Set up at Wayne State University, it will have the collaboration
of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, the
other two universities in the State’s university system.
25. If the social sciences in American universities are to become engaged with
problems of the society, critical changes will have to take place in the academic
value, system. The traditional values are ‘publish or perish’. Moreover, work is
preferably individual. These values have become dysfunctional. They encourage
the pursuit of competent, short-term, low-risk research as a career safeguard.
The physical sciences have got further ahead in overcoming these problems than
the social sciences.zO1
Types of independent research organization
26. Given the dysfunctional state of some types of university research, it is
scarcely surprising that independent research organizations of the non-profit
type have been increasing. Many of them came into existence to undertake
assignments of a specific character, but the orientation of others is to strategic
problems. Many of these engage in fundamental work. Their advantage is that
staff can engage whole-time in research and can commit themselves in teams
to long-range problems. The disadvantages are that, as they are contract or-
ganizations, worry about financial stability tends to make them client-dominated.
27. Some us independent institutes have been in existence for several decades,
are of substantial size and have attained international reputations. The oldest
are based on economics, such as the Brookings Institution in Washington and
the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York. Organizations such
as these provide independent analyses of economic and social trends. The Nation-
al Bureau of Economic Research pioneered national economic accounting.
In collaboration with private foundations, perceptive congressional leaders,
and key members of the Administration such bodies have reset in more pertinent
directions a great deal of effort in social research. An example is the leadership
recently given to the development of social accounting and social indicators.
28. Another innovation has been federal contract centres.* As when the us
* The official name is Federally Funded Research and Development Centers. They
may be associated with universities as well as with non-profit organizations. They
include a wide variety of ~ndertakings.3~

The organization andfinancing of research 71 I
Air Force set up Rand, these centres may be established on a considerable scale,
for the problems to be solved are of a complexity which compel the bringing
together of a critical mass of the highest talent under conditions where they can
work co-operatively. It may be deplored that Rand owed its existence to the
cold war. It is necessary, however, to distinguish etiology from system properties
and the relevance of these to entirely different sets of conditions. Before long
birth was given to a civilian counterpart in Systems Development Corporation.
In the beginning such organizations were based on the physical and mathematical
sciences. They developed advanced techniques in systems engineering. But
from the beginning they involved the social sciences. Econometrics and operational
research led at Rand to the development of the Planning-Programming-
Budgeting System (P.P.B.s.). After its success in the Pentagon this is being tried
out in all agencies of the Federal go~ernment.3~ Current interest speaks to the
need for improved methods of programme evaluation and cost-benefit analysis
in the public sector;’ current criticism to the need for the social sciences to
make further headway with research into problems of ‘multi-valued choice’.I97
29. How far can such organizations apply their capabilities in systems analysis
to large-scale problems of medical and educational planning and of urban
renewal, especially if they increase their understanding of the psychological
and sociological variables? A recent set of essays on the requirements of a
‘great society’ suggested the creation of at least seven organizations of the Rand-
type to undertake strategic R & D in the civilian field.I43 The kind of many-sided
problem which confronts a large modern society undergoing rapid change is
sometimes referred to as a meta-pr0blem.~37 Its multiple aspects are not only
connected but are perceived to be connected, so that social demand rises for
comprehensive solutions. These entail the massing of large-scale scientific
resources. The physical sciences in conjunction with such organizations as the
National Aeronautics and Space Agency have become used to this, as have
leading firms in the science-based industries. To such resources not only Federal
agencies but State and municipal governments have recently been turning for
assistance. At present some universities, through collaborative arrangements
between their professional schools and university-wide institutes, are attempting
to offer an alternative and differently patterned capability. They can also join
in with the large independent institutes, and, given certain conditions, with
advanced firms in comprehensive efforts to meet the gigantic problems now
facing American society. Unless they do so on an extensive scale leadership in
several areas of social science wil pass to technologically based institutes and
advanced industrial firms. Some of these latter are experimenting in building
new towns. They employ large numbers of social scientists to assist them. There
is health in pluralism when resources are plentiful, but there is danger if those
who have a fundamental commitment to the advance of knowledge lose control
beyond a certain limit over the development of any area of the social sciences.
This they wil do so far as they remain tied to academic isolationism and individualism,
and to the pursuit of vested interests in particular disciplines.
30. Another type of independent institute which has recently appeared is
concerned with studies of the future. Examples are the Hudson Institute and

712 Eric Trist
Resources for the Future. These organizations not only write ‘scenarios’ but
improve concepts and methods of long-range planning, which has been neglected
in the United States outside business corporations. Without the participation
of the universities the danger is that these institutes also will remain too narrowly
technological. However, a new collaborative venture conceived on an ambitious
scale began operations in Middletown, Connecticut in September 1968: the
Institute for the Future. Though independent, it is associated with Wesleyan
University. The Board of Trustees includes prominent representatives of several
major universities, other institutes, the National Academy of Sciences, the
National Industrial Conference Board, industry, the trade unions and communi-
ty affairs. Initial grants were made by Rand and several foundations such as
Russell Sage and Ford. There is an initial high level staff of ten. The plan
is to build this up to several hundred in a few years with a multi-million dollar
annual budget for a mix of fundamental and problem-oriented work in all social
domains. Opportunities will be provided for advanced research training and for
secondment to and from many differnt types of institution, academic, govern-
mental and private. How this venture progresses will be closely followed by a
large variety of interests.
3 I. Still another type of independent organization is represented by the Nation-
al Training Laboratories for Group Development (NTL) which has established
an Institute of Applied Behavioral Science with seven divisions connecting a
network of university and non-university groups and individuals across the
United States. This organization develops expertise in bringing about organiza-
tional change, which depends not a little on changing the attitudes and values
of the people involved. A rapidly changing society needs to build new and to
remake old institutions. An immense amount of such work requires to de done.
Concepts and methods are only in an elementary stage and are surrounded by
controversy. They involve action research and trial and error at the socio-
clinical level. Universities are inclined to turn their back on such endeavouis.
N.T.L. has mediated between the academic research worker and many client
systems who would otherwise have been served simply by consultants with no
obligation to advance knowledge. It has recently embarked on a strategically
conceived five-year plan.
32. Some of this work borders on psychotherapy. It intrudes into the preserves
of medicine. The question of professional boundaries in relation to social
change is another of the critical issues before social scientists in the United
States. During the 1950s a rapid expansion took place in the field of mental
health but the ‘psychiatric world view’ has to some extent been succeeded by a
‘sociological world view’. The immense number of those who in one way or
another have to be considered casualties is now more widely realized. They
cannot be coped with by therapeutic measures at the level of the individual.
Professional, no less than academic, ‘establishments’ may prevent innovative
research and the testing out of pilot schemes perceived as trespassing on their
fields. Research in social medicine is nevertheless beginning to increase rapidly
on the basis of a systems approach which is drawing in a wide variety of non-
medical scientists.

The organization andfinancing of research 713
33. An independent organization which represents a unique development is
the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences established in 1955
by Ralph Tyler with the assistance of a grant from the Ford Foundation. It
asserts a value which runs counter to the prevailing ‘productivity’ values of
American universities. It provides for 50 Fellows (some of whom are from
overseas) to go into residence every year under conditions where they are free
to do what they want - which includes nothing. There is no direction and no-one
has to write a book or even attend a seminar. The disciplinary range covers all
the social sciences. There is a mix of ages as well as disciplines. Promising
scholars at an early stage of their careers mingle with outstanding senior
people on an equal footing. The absence of more conventional pressures, boun-
daries and values has provided the enabling condi’lions for a great deal of origi-
nal (as distinct from merely ‘productive’) work, sometimes to be started and
sometimes to be completed. A number of gifted social scientists have undergone
profound changes in orientation and career. There are signs that other centres
of a similar kind may come into existence. The idea is spreading to other
countries.*
Federal agencies as supporters of the social sciences
34. There is little co-ordination in the United States either within or between the
main sectors providing funds for social research. The sectors in order of
amount contributed are government, university internal funds, business and
foundations. As regards government, grants are distributed through a large
number of special agencies according to their own needs and predilections. The
National Science Foundation is the only central agency in the United States
government with responsibility for all the sciences and their nurturance. Brought
into existence in 1950 to support fundamental research in the natural sciences,
its concern now extends to the social sciences and encompasses certain areas
also of applied research.’ Nevertheless, the social sciences have so far had to
look for their main support to operating departments of government. The
table below (p. 714) shows the extent to which the various federal agencies
gave support in 1967.25 The balance is 2-1 in favour of applied as against basic
projects. Applied in this context includes some long-range problem-oriented
studies but rather more short-term contracts. The distribution is J-shaped,
twelve agencies contributing less than $I million, six 81-10 million, six $610-
100 million, and one more than $100 million.
35. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) has been the
main supporter, accounting for half of total Federal funds distributed to social
sciences (1967). Among the many activities of this multiple agency attention
may be drawn to the Institutes of Health, which cover all specialisms of medi-
cine, the body more particularly concerned with the social sciences being the
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Like the other institutes, it runs a
large internal programme with a research hospital, several specialist sections
* e.g. the establishment in Britain of the Centre for Developmental Sciences at Minster
Lowell near Oxford.

714 Eric Trist
UNITED STATES. Federal obligations for research in the social sciences (1967) (in f
thousands)
Agency Basic Applied Total
research research
Health, Education and Welfare
Office of Economic Opportunity
Agriculture
National Science Foundation
Commerce
Defense
Labor
Interior
Smithsonian Institution
State Department
Aeronautics and Space Administration
Army Control and Disarmament
Peace Corps
Tennessee Valley Authority
Small Business Administration
Federal Trade Commission
Veterans’ Administration
Federal Home Loan Bank Board
Housing and Urban Development
Civil Service Commission
Civil Aeronautics Board
Inter-Governmental Relations
Post Office
Office of Emergency Planning
Federal Aviation Agency
Total
54,042
1,200
6,448
20,235
3,239
8,531
2,187
2,587
2,953
1,044
527
96
32
103,121
177,130
35,000
27,953
21,052
18,565
15,958
12,201
3,643
2,953
2,925
1,961
1,900
1,400
727
659
310
297
270
233
200
I53
I45
50
40
16
325,741
~~~
SOURCE: Federal Funds for Research Development and Other Activities (NSP xv, 66-25),
National Science Foundation.*5
and a number of laboratories. It also conducts a massive external programme,
awarding fellowships as well as grants, some of which are made overseas. Its
Career Investigatorships provide one of the few means through which senior
social scientists can, over a number of years, devote themselves wholly to
research. Many of the projects supported have been in fundamental research
with only indirect bearing on medical problems. Others have been clinically
oriented: some in the socio-environmental, others in the psychological, others
again in the neuro-physiological field. Though the recent concern of NSF with
the social sciences has begun to relieve the necessity, an agency such as NIMH
has, faute de mieux, taken on in a partial way the role of a social science research
council. A similar partial role has also been carried by the Office of Naval
Research (ONR) which throughout the post-war period has fostered fundamental
and long-range problem-oriented research in the social sciences. Some of the
most significant basic projects in psychology in particular would never have
come to fruition without its support.

The organization andfinancing of research 715
36. On the educational side of HEW, a network of 23 educational laboratories
and development centres has recently been set up to carry on basic research in
close contact with state and local school systerns.3’ These educational laboratories
are an analogue of agricultural experimental stations. On the welfare side,
programme evaluation has come to the fore as an area requiring systematic
research. The expansion of statistical series has made available nation-wide
data for new types of ecological and demographic inquiry.I
37. Among the six agencies which distributed $10-100 million in 1967 the
newcomer is the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), one of the principal
administrative organs of the ‘Poverty Program’. Its move up to second place is
an indication of the incipient engagement of American social science with the
internal crisis of the society. OEO has already established an Institute for Poverty
Research at the University of Wisconsin. Housing and Urban Development
(HUD), which appears in the group of agencies contributing less than $I million
in 1967, is already moving up to a much higher position, being estimated
to fund projects totalling close on $11 million in 1968.’ The establishment of
‘urban laboratories’ in major cities is being considered. The old stager in this
group of agencies is the Department of Agriculture whose use over several
decades of economics and sociology has stimulated developments in many
countries.
38. A domain requiring special comment is ‘foreign area research’. A few
years ago ‘Project Camelot’ created a scandal over the use by the Army of
social research for what was construed as political purposes in Chile. Since then
CIA involvement as a funding source in various projects has been made public.
The ensuing debate has led to positive changes. In 1964 the State Department
set up a Foreign Area Coordination Research Group (FAR). By 1966 there were
22 participating agencies spending $36,000,000 a year. A conference was arranged
by the Behavioral Sciences Division of the National Academy of Sciences/
National Research Council which issued a report in January 1967.~4 This
conference established a mechanism through which an open dialogue could
take place between agency officials, social scientists and foundation executives
to establish principles which would unambiguously distinguish the proper and
improper use of social research in relation to foreign policy. The learning process
set under way may in time lead to the possibility of carrying out responsible
social research in controversial areas. Such endeavours are beginning to be
made under international auspices such as those carried out by the UNESCOsponsored
European Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation in
Social Sciences at Vienna.*
* Mention may be made in this context of the Centre for the Analysis of Conflict at
University College, London, which contributed analyses to a seminar of diplomats
from both sides which played a part, however small, in the de-escalation of the
Indonesian-Malaysian confrontation and also led to some new concepts for social
science.

716 Eric Trist
Private sources of research support
39. A unique source of research support outside the Federal Government is
provided by the internal funds of universities. State universities, even when large
and prominent such as the University of California, are badly placed in this re-
spect compared with older private universities. Through endowments, gifts,
alumni subscriptions, the patronage of founders and ownership of land as well
as overheads claimed on contract work (especially from the Government), the
more eminent of these institutions have built up through the years considerable
funds which enable them to take independent initiatives in social research,
among their many fields of interest. The largest proportion of these funds
provides ‘enabling conditions’ - buildings, equipment, computer time, research
assistants and secretaries. They permit additional faculty appointments includ-
ing research chairs. They support doctoral candidates. Internal funds are
also used to foster exploratory work and sometimes to launch a substantial
endeavour in a new field. Whatever is ‘separately budgeted’ amounted to $47 M.
for social research in 1967.23 But adding the conventional ‘113’ from ordinary
departmental expenditures including faculty time, then $200 M. or even $300 M.
might rather represent the combined value of direct and indirect contributions.
40. Business enterprises belonging to the science-based industries support
social research on a considerable scale, estimated at $289 M. for 1967.23 Apart
from in-house facilities they commission projects with independent institutes
and universities. Most of these tend to be of the specifically applied kind but
some endeavours have been broadly innovative. A great deal of the work in
organizational development which has changed the face of organization theory
has been initiated by pioneer firms in collaboration with behavioural scientists
in business schools. Long-range planning as a field of study has been developed
in the United States at the prompting of business. The broad social philosophy
spreading among leading enterprises as their activities become increasingly
enmeshed with the other sectors of society and with other countries is inclining
them to regard many fields of social research other than the economic as
pertinent to their interests.
41. Private foundations represent another independent influence in American
education, welfare, science and culture. As the first table on p. 717 shows,
science comes towards the lower end of the list which describes their fields of
interest. Nevertheless, the relation of foundations to social research is complex.
All their major fields of interest touch upon it. Their influence is greater than
their financial contribution ($24 M. for 196723).
42. Within their scientific list, as the next table indicates, the life sciences
come first, because of a persisting concern with medical research. The social
sciences come second. The physical sciences receive little support, the belief
being current that their needs are met from other sources. Among the social
sciences the order of preference is different from either the university or the
federal order. The emphasis on law and government is recent. It represents an
effort to foster work in neglected fields.
43. American foundations have played a critical role in promoting social
research outside the United States, in Europe and in the developing world.

The organization andfinancing of research 717
UNITED STATES. Grants of foundations by major fields and size of foundation (1966) (in
$ millions -percentages given in brackets)
Fields Number of foundations
237 1,227 5,339 I0,500 17,303
large inter- small very total
mediate small
Education 282 (37) 77 (33)
Welfare
International
76 (10) 54 (23)
activities 160 (21) 5 (2)
Health 84 (11) 42 (18)
Sciences 99 (13) 16 (7)
Religion 23 (3) 21 (9)
Humanities 38 (5) 19 (8)
Total 762 (61) 234 (19)
ASSETS: Large - $IO million or more
lntermediate - $1-10 million
Based on the Foundation Directory.”
UNITED STATES. Foundation grants for sciences (1966) (in 8 thousands)
Category No. of No. of Amount Per cent
foundations grants of
sciences
Life sciences
Medical research
Cons er v a t i o n
Biology
Agriculture
Social sciences
Law
Government
Economics
Sociology
Business and labour
Psychology
Anthropology
Physical sciences
General
Chemistry
Engineering
Astronomy and space
Physics
Mathematics
Earth sciences
Total
68
22
28
22
- 124 t
33
30
I4
IO
33
9
I
- IO1 t
20
9
8
4
8
6
3
- 43 t
229
1- Nonduplicating total.
Based on the Foundation Directory.”
I33
37
35
26
- 231
42
53
33
17
52
17
I 215
-
27
19
15
6
I1
6
- 87
533
29,551
39759
3,055
2,074 38,439
8,549
6,828
3,414
2,562
2,48 I
1,549
170 259553
1,579
928
916
521
495
379
38 4,856
68,848
43
6
4
3
- 56
I2
IO
5
4
4
2
- 37
-
2
I
I
I
I
I
- 7
-
IO0

718 Eric Trist
Foundations in other countries have not been conspicuous though their number
and resources are growing in Western Europe.
44. The oldest American foundations such as Rockefeller have acquired
immense experience in discerning innovations meriting support in the social
sciences. Russell Sage, Carnegie, Field, 20th Century Fund, Foundations Fund
for Psychiatry are other classical names. Such foundations are selective. They
also tend to change fields when lines of work they have been supporting are
taken over by universities or federal agencies. Sometimes they do this too
quickly.
45. The advent of the Ford Foundation with resources on another scale
from any of the others has changed the character of the foundation world. It
and certain other foundations have recently been tending to see themselves as
an independent force for the promotion of change in American society, whether
in relation to current crises or the longer-term future.27
Multiple investigations of policy issues
46. With the gathering internal crisis and the increasing visibility of the social
sciences, concern over their policy implications and more effective utilization
is rising in the Congress and in the scientific community. The social sciences
have become big science, yet even if sums in the neighbourhood of a billion
dollars a year are about to be spent, few genuinely large-scale programmes have
emerged. American social research exhibits what the British economist Peter
Wiles has called ‘investment scatter’* - which, carried beyond a point, arrests
growth. A plethora of investigations may proceed but few are pushed through
to the limit of what is conceptually, methodologically and empirically possi-
ble. Tactical resource allocation by uncoordinated means has reached the
point of diminishing returns.
47. If this can no longer continue, what best to do raises issues of immense
complexity. To reach sufficient agreement among the many scientific and
public interests concerned on how to fashion better and more coordinated
policies for the social sciences in a country so vast and many-sided as the United
States is likely to prove a difficult and lengthy process. It has, nevertheless, be-
gun and in a way which is characteristic of the American pluralistic tradition.**
48. A number of inquiries are proceeding which in one way or another involve
the Congress and the President’s Office. Three relate to bills brought before the
Senate in 1967 concerning the establishment of:
a. ‘A Select Committee on Technology and Human Environment’- introduced
by Senator Edmund Muskie (Maine) with the co-sponsorship of 19 senators.
b. ‘A National Foundation for the Social Sciences’ - introduced by Senator
Fred Harris (Oklahoma) with the co-sponsorship of 20 senators.
* i.e. there is too much ‘work in progress’ proceeding simultaneously in too many pla-
ces in too many directions; too little gets completed and there is too little ‘cumula-
tion.’I42
** An account of how American science as a whole has developed in terms of this
tradition is given in the study of National Science Policies of the U.S.A. prepared for
UNESCO by NSF.31

The organization and financing of research 719
c. ‘The Full Opportunity and Social Accounting Act’ - introduced by Senator
Walter Mondale (Minnesota) with the co-sponsorship of IO senators.
Extensive public hearings have been held, many of the most eminent American
social scientists giving evidence. The establishment of the Committee on
Technology and Human Environment has already been authorized.
49. In April 1967 Representative Henry Reuss (Wisconsin), Chairman of the
Research and Technical Sub-Committee, Committee on Government Operations
(House of Representatives), realeased a four volume staff report entitled
The Use of Social Research in Federal Domestic Prograiiis,44 which examines the
following issues :
a. What is the scope and quality of social research now financed by the Federal
Government ?
b. Is the social research now undertaken useful - and is it in fact used?
c. Are waste and duplication avoided through administrative coordination and
prompt dissemination of research findings?
d. Is there adequate knowledge within Government of the limits and potentialities
of the social research resources which it can call upon in connection
with Federal domestic programmes?
In reviewing this report Albert Cherns, who was Secretary of the Heyworth
Committee on Social Studies in Britain, observes that few agencies could offer a
true evaluation of the use they had made of the research they had sponsored.
This he believes to be impossible unless a strategy for utilization is built into
the design of the research project iself.8 The Human Resources Research Office,
an Army Contract Center, managed by George Washington University, has
given leadership in this regard, having since its inception developed procedures
to ensure ntilization of its research on military training by the training commands
of the Army.’ Problems of evaluation are becoming a central research
theme.*
50. An inquiry leading to extensive recommendations has been that of the
Advisory Committee on Government Programs (Behavioral Sciences) of the
National Academy of Science/National Research Council whose report was
issued in September 1968.’ Created to give special attention to ‘sensitive areas’
in the international field its mandate was broadened to include the relations
between social sciences and government as a whole. The most discussed recommendation
is that ‘the President and the Congress create and independently
endow a National Institute for Advanced Research and PublicPolicy in Washington,
D.C.’. In some respects this concept resembles that of the Institute for
the Future.** The report proposes that each agency work out a long-range
social science strategy appropriate to its needs; equip itself with an adequate
* In Canada substantial provisions for evaluation by social scientists have been built
into the Federal-Provincial agreements for socio-economic development programmes
for backward areas.
** The argument for establishing institutes of this type is given in pages 102-107 of the
Report and may be compared with that given in VI, 10-18 of the present chapter
which distinguishes different basic types of research organization in relation to different
types of ‘output mix’.

720 Eric Trist
internal social science staff (as well as external advisers); and ensure that its
administrators, especially those at top level, are given special training to enable
them to appreciate the contribution of the social sciences. It also advocates
considerable strengthening of the top science policy-making bodies around the
President. A specially important line of recommendation is that the National
Science Foundation ‘should give increased emphasis to institutional and depart-
mental grants and to support of centres organized to develop cumulative know-
ledge’. NSF has, in fact, already begun to do this, reflecting a general change in
us science policy. We may note that the study prepared by NSF for UNESCO~I
states:
The Federal support flowing to institutions of higher education has been principally
centered upon the support of scientific research and education activities. Until the
early 1960s, the principal support was for specific research and development projects or
facilities. However, from 1963 to 1966 a shift became evident, with increased emphasis
towards institutional scientific education rather than specific R & D activities. For
example, while direct federal obligations for academic R & D purposes grew in total,
their proportionate relationship to the total of Federal support for academic science
(research and science education) was 58 % in 1963 but only 42 % in 1966. The current
estimates of Federal agencies indicate a continuation of this trend.
The study also notes a Presidential directive of 1965 that ‘agencies take the
overall development of institutions of scientific excellence throughout the coun-
try into account in their decisions for supporting academic science or research’.
51. The most recent committeeis the Survey Committee on the Behavioral
and Social Sciences (BASS). This is jointly sponsored by the National Research
Council and the Social Science Research Council acting through the Committee
on Science and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences.23 Since
1962, the Committee on Science and Public Policy (COSPUP) has commissioned
reports on the sciences and technologies to enable the President’s Council of
Scientific Advisers to give him clear and informed advice on priorities in re-
search. That on Behavioral and Social Sciences is the most recent. It is a
massive undertaking planned to last two and a half years and be completed
during 1969. Earnest Hilgard of Stanford University is Chairman of the Central
Planning Committee. Henry Riecken of the Social Science Research Council is
Co-chairman on full-time assignment.z8 The following statement was issued :
The Committee on Science and Public Policy has urged a survey of the behavioral and
social sciences. A similar recommendation was made by Donald Hornig, Science
Advisor to the President, on the occasion of the dedication of the new building of the
American Psychological Association in Washington. The present proposal arises not
only in direct response to these invitations and the interest in Congress, but also in
response to a need expressed by the behavioral and social scientists themselves for a
survey of their fields. It is appropriate that a serious and considered response be made
by the community of social and behavioral scientists to these evidences of interest and
to the various hopes and expectations contained in them. Such self-evaluation would
have a number of important outcomes:
a. It would provide an inventory of gaps and strengths in these fields as the basis
for an informed and effective national policy for strengthening and developing the
behavioral and social sciences. Priorities could be suggested not only for general
research needs but in support of certain special requirements, such as: data banks,
special field installations, computational equipment, central or national laboratory

The organization andfinancing of research 721
facilities, etc. These recommendations might guide program agency directors and
university chairmen and deans by making available an informed judgment of those
measures most likely to have a major favorable impact on behavioral and social science.
b. It would direct attention to common or related methods, problems, concepts and
approaches within or across disciplines which might suggest new and unifying concepts.
This is an intellectually challenging prospect.
c. It would provide an indication of those aspects of behavioral and social sciences
which are best established in theory, content and techniques and thus are most ready
for exploitation in the solution of social concerns. The limits of achievement, given the
present state of knowledge, would permit a more realistic assessment of how behavioral
and social sciences might contribute to the national welfare.
d. It would clarify the inter-relation of basic and applied research particularly in
relation to action programs either governmentally or privately supported and, in
particular, show how basic research might be fostered within an applied setting to the
benefit of both basic and applied work.
e. It would provide a basis for evaluating the optimal interplay between the private
sector and governmental programs in support of behavioral and social sciences in
research, education and action programs.
f. It would evaluate the educational and manpower needs in these fields for teaching,
research and application. Included in this analysis might be some consideration and
recommendation of optimal training programs and curricula for the behavioral and
social scientists of tomorrow. This selection might also discuss how supporting curricula
in the behavioral and social sciences could be introduced into educational programs
for business, law, medicine, the clergy, etc.
g. It would provide an over-all source of information and explanation of the nature
and character of behavioral and social sciences not only for educators, government
administrators, Congressmen, etc., but for the intelligent layman, thus contributing to
general appreciation and understanding of these fields.
Recommendations in a first report (December, 1969) include that of establishing
multi-disciplinary graduate schools of applied behavioural science.
52. To understand the import of these inquiries a picture is required of the
organs of science policy in the us Government and of the place in them which
the social sciences have achieved. This is given in the statement made by Herbert
Simon at the Senate Hearings on the Establishment of a National Foundation
for the Social Sciences.zg
With the growth of science in the past generation and its increased relevance to public
policy, a number of institutions have grown up to give the Government more adaquate
access to competent scientific counsel. Perhaps the most important institutions of this
kind today at the level of Congress and the President are:
a. the complex consisting of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), the Treasury
Department, and the Federal Research Board;
b. the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) and the Federal Council for
Science and Technology (FCST); and
c. the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (NAS/NRC) complex.
The present arrangements do not provide entirely satisfactory channels for bringing
the best scientific knowledge and advice to bear on public problems. The CEA and its
related organizations are perhaps the least unsatisfactory, since the area of their concern
is relatively well-defined and primarily economic in nature. Nevertheless, the question
of how full full employment should be in our society is becoming more and more a
question with important sociological and other non-economic aspects. It would be
desirable to achieve some broadening of social science participation beyond technical
economics in these organizations.

722 Eric Trist
The exclusion of social scientists from PSAC is perhaps the most serious defect in
the present arrangements.* The supersonic plane and usage of drugs are examples of
two problems what would come to PSAC from time to time and in various guises. They
clearly are problems with technical components -in physics, biology, chemistry. They
are equally clearly problems of economics, sociology, psychology, and even internation-
al relations.
Social scientists are, frankly, rather tired of being handed problems whose physical,
biological, and engineering aspects have been ‘solved‘ without any particular expert
attention to the human aspects, and then being asked to take care of unwanted social
and psychological consequences. Unless social scientists are brought in in the early
stages - at the stages of formulating a problem and outlining the procedures for tack-
ling it - we will continue to live indefinitely in a world where there are plenty of auto-
mobiles but no parking places, lots of leisure and only drugs to fill it.
A small, but significant, step toward changing this state of affairs is to provide for
significant social science membership in PSAC and participation in its associated or-
ganizations.
The situation in the NAS/NRC complex is less critical since the relevant division of the
NRC has been broadened to include all of the behavioral or social sciences. However,
as long as Congress vests the controlling power over the NRC in the National Academy
of Sciences, the present inadequate and unbalanced representation of the social sciences
in the membership of the Academy creates a serious problem.
The following chart summarizes the structure which is described for the
international reader in the study prepared for UNESCO’s Science Policy Division.”
53. The idea of a National Foundation for Social Re~earch3~ has met with an
ambivalent response from American social scientists. An alternative proposal
is to expand the Division of Social Sciences in the NSF which has set up its own
Commission to inquire into this aspect of its work with special reference to the
problems of society.** The role of a National Foundation for the Social
Sciences would be to develop fundamental research. Sponsors of the Bill
maintain that mission-oriented agencies have become too dominant, and that
social research has been a Cinderella in the NSF despite recent developments. At
the Hearings Senator Harris emphasized the need to protect basic work from
political interference and to encourage ‘maverick’ projects : 15
If the social sciences are going to be innovative and creative and original, as I think
they must be in order to meet the problems of our day on the level of magnitude the
problems demand, they are going to have to, by definition, be controversial. And, I
think if the Foundation starts out with the kind of legislative history we have made
during these hearings, there is a better chance that they may do the kind of thing that
you and I hope they can do.
Gardner Murphy expressed a type of thinking which is growing among Ameri-
can social scientists when he said:
It seems unrealistic to me to believe that any Federal Agency could do much about
basic social science research unless it is explicitly set up on a large scale, with full
* Social science representation on the PSAC has now been agreed - Simon himself be-
coming a member.
** The NSF Special Commission on the Social Sciences is directed by Orville G. Brim
and has the task of ‘preparing analyses and recommendations that will implement the
application of social science knowledge to significant social problems’. Established in
January, 1968, the Commission has now published its report (September, 1969).

UNITED STATES. Federal Science Organization
1 I
The organization andJinancing of research 723
Director
Special Assistant for Science
- Bureau of and Technology
the Budget
[serves as Chairman, Federal
Council for Science and
Technology.
Director, Office of Science
and Technology.
Chairman, President’s Science
Advisory Committee]
Federal Council
for Science and
- Technology
I Interagency
Committees
Office of
Science and
Technology
----
Departments and Agencies of the Executive Branch
SOURCE: Office of Science and Technology.
Science
Advisory
Scientific an
Engineering
Academy of

724 Eric Trist
Congressional support, and with the intent and understanding, on the part of the public,
that we mean business ... If we are serious about the social sciences in modern life it
will be something very big indeed that we will undertake.
And Robert Sears when he said:
Little if any research support is presently available for truly long-term studies. The longi-
tudinal study of children from birth to late adolescence may well be one of the most
important methods of research developed during the next half century. There appears
to be no substitute for longitudinal studies when one is dealing with the very complex
elements that enter into the determination of motivation, social adjustment, and intel-
lectual growth.
Those who oppose the idea of a National Foundation for the Social Sciences
fear that it would draw off other sources of support, while concentration in a
single agency would increase rather than decrease the vulnerability to political
criticism, especially as regards unpopular projects. Disadvantages would also
follow from separation from the other sciences. The objectives stated in the
quoted testimony are commonly supported. Many American social scientists
believe that initiatives taken by existing influential bodies such as the National
Research Council, the Social Science Research Council, along with leading
institutions such as Brookings and one or two experienced foundations wil
lead to a concentration of work in strategic areas more effectively and more
quickly than new institutional arrangements which depend on the passing of
new legislation.
54. The intention of the Social Accounting Act is to parallel economic indica-
tors with social indicators, the Council of Economic Advisers with a Council of
Social Advisers and the President's annual Economic Report with a Social
Report.33 Senator Mondale summarized his objectives as follows :zz
The structure proposed in the Full Opportunity and Social Accounting Act can help
public officials appreciate, understand and supervise change, and facilitate the appli-
cation of social information to the pressing problems of our society.
Social accounting efforts have been under way on a limited basis in Government agen-
cies and scattered universityresearch centers for the past several years. The facts which
indicated violent disorder in Watts and Hough and Newark were plainly present long
before riots brought well-intended if short-lived attention to the grinding problems of
human beings imprisoned in those ghettos.
One of the social sciences, economics, has demonstrated its ability to head off economic
downturns and potential disasters by carefully developing and studiously observing
such indicators as retail sales volume, amount of new investment, inventory levels, and
levels of gross national product. We now have no comparable system that will alert
us to social disaster - a system of social indicators, widely broadcast, by which we could
keep watch in a general way on the social processes in our nation and plan for society's
orderly development. W e need not seek comparable sophistication -we simply need
more than we have.
John Gardner, former Secretary of HEW, now Chairman of the National Urban
Coalition, favours social accounts. The Russell Sage Foundation is studying
social indicators under Wilbert Moore and Eleanor Sheldon. The Twentieth
Century Fund has Bertram Gross directing research on change in America.
These studies are linked to studies of the future. The Project on the Year 2000
of the National Academy of Sciences is chaired by Daniel Be11.'3'. The BASS

The organization and financing of research 725
Committee proposes ‘a privately developed annual social report’ and ‘a national
data system with protection for an0nymity’.~3
55. The surge of interest in the policy implications of the social sciences has
led a number of leading American social scientists to think with a breadth of
vision little in evidence ten years ago. The Presidential Address of Kenneth
Boulding to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1966,
‘Dare We Take the Social Sciences Seriously ?, exemplifies this trend :6
We are still left with two further questions: One, could we take the social sciences
seriously, and two, should we do so. Iwould answer both these questions with a cautious
affirmative. There certainly seems to be no reason why our theoretical structure, our
inferences, and our perceptual apparatus should prove intractable to improvement, if
we set our best minds on the problem and if we were prepared to devote economic
resources to the kind of instrumentation which, say, the nuclear physicist now demands.
The network of social data stations which I suggested above would probably not cost
more than a billion dollars a year and the return for this investment might be enormous
in terms of disasters avoided, stable peace established, and development fostered. By
and large, the social sciences have not been ambitious enough to want to study the
sociosphere as a totality. They have been content with the kind of professional advance-
ment which comes from the adequate processing of small pieces of information. They
have not had the larger vision of the study of the sociosphere as a totality.
Next steps in an American policy for the social sciences are likely to await the
maturing of this larger vision in a wider cross-section of its political, industrial
and academic leaders. Whatever the form and rate of implementation, the
new ‘appreciation~’I9~ have already been made or are under way. It cannot be
long before the distance travelled from the decade of the fifties wil become
generally apparent.
111. TRANSITION IN WESTERN EUROPE
The state of the universities
I. The sixties represents a decade of transition for the social sciences in Wes-
tern Europe during which they began to receive all-round recognition for the
first time. Just as it seemed appropriate to approach American social science
by considering the scale and character of the resource base, so is it appropriate
to approach Western Europe by considering the structure and state of the uni-
versities. Universities in Western Europe are state institutions or, if independent,
financed primarily by the state. Most governments are committed to policies of
expanding higher education. Yet by and large universities have not expanded
their teaching staffs (or indeed their other facilities such as libraries, equipment
premises or ancillary services) to keep pace with the rising demand for higher
education.
2. Since World War 11 student populations in Western Europe have increased
several fold. In Belgium and Norway the increase is more than three tirne~.~4’~~
In France and the Federal Republic of Germany where teaching overloads are
most severe it is six or seven times.49~39 This overload has been more serious for
the social than for the physical and biological disciplines; available faculty have

726 Eric Trist
been fewer. Comprehensive data on faculty-student ratios were not obtainable.
The table below for psychology in the Federal Republic in 1963 may serve to
illustrate.39 If part-time faculty are counted at a half, the ratio is 1-70. Ratios of
over 1-100 have been quoted for several disciplines in some countries. Britain
is an exception. From 1938-1963 students and faculty in the social sciences
both increased fivefold;55 but until the recent expansion of the universities, the
British student population was small even by Western European standards.
Countries such as the Netherlands have managed a continuous expansion of
university facilities and the student body with uncommon ~ki11.3~
GERMANY (F.R.). Faculty-student ratio in psychology (1963)
Faculty full-time
Faculty part-time
1st degree and diploma students
Ph.D. candidates
3. The proportion of social science students to the total student body is also
increasing. In Belgium from 1957-8 to 1964-5 the percentage of law students
fell from 12.2 to 5.9, while that for economics, political science and administra-
tive studies rose from 18 to 26.K64 In France social science students are expected
to double between 1965 and 1970.48 In Britain the numbers graduating with an
‘honours degree’ in social science subjects increased from 2,835 in 1963 to
4,276 in 1966. In the technical colleges which form a reserve system of higher
education there were 9,784 students in social science disciplines in 1965 - 36 %
of first degree enrollments in economics and 42 % in sociology.6o A decade ago
most of these students would have been in technological subjects where uni-
versity places are not now always filled. These data reflect a change of interest in
the contemporary student generation.
4. An obstacle to the development of the social sciences in Western Europe
has been the retention of obsolete forms of faculty organization, often unchang-
ed since the 19th century. Social science disciplines are split up in Faculties of
Letters, Law or Philosophy, though Faculties of Political Economy are relative-
ly common and sometimes include Sociology. Sociology and political science
have not everywhere been recognized as independent disciplines, especially for
a first degree. Anthropology often appears in Faculties of Science - through a
historical basis in physical anthropology. Faculties of Science sometimes provide
the exclusive context for psychology. As a first degree must be taken within a
faculty many desirable combinations are impossible.
5. In the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands a first degree is a long
process - five or even six years. In France the elite passing through the ‘Grandes
Ecoles’ must be distinguished from the general student body for whom a first
degree in the social sciences of not too high a standard can be a chaotic experien-
ce. In Germany (F.R.) in 1963 50% of social science candidates for a first degree
failed the comprehensive examination.39 Within their faculty they could choose
any combination of subjects, but obtained little guidance. Opposite is the in-
tensive teaching of undergraduates in Britain where, however, until recently

The organization and financing of research 727
early specialization prevented exploration. Newer British universities have created
broadly based schools of the social sciences which permit flexibility in
component subjects, for which there are chairs but not departments. Several
colleges of university standing specializing in branches of the social sciences
have come into existence in the Federal Republic. New multi-disciplinary
experiments are under way at Constance and Wilhelmshaven. 51
6. The importance of a first degree to research capability can be judged only
in relation to graduate education. Large graduate schools with systematic
teaching programmes such as are found in the United States scarcely exist. The
French ‘Grands Etablissements’ represent an exclusive mode1.67 The 19th
century type of Doctorate persists in most countries. In Italy there is no statutory
first degree - only the Doctorate.@ Despite the chaos created now that large
numbers of students attend universities, parliamentary legislation would be
required to change the situation. In several countries (e.g. Belgium) legislative
action is required before any regulations concerning university degrees can be
changed.38 Only gradually is the Ph.D. in Britain becoming the passport it is
elsewhere. When only those with outstanding performance in first ‘honours’
degrees were allowed a trial at research this did not matter. With the increased
demand for social scientists and with undergraduate education becoming more
general, the absence of organized graduate programmes has had negative
effects.
7. Since World War 11 a significant proportion of Western European social
scientists have acquired the intensive training necessary to equip them for
research in the graduate schools of the United States. The era is at an end
when Western Europe can depend on graduate education in the United States.
It now faces the task of bringing into existence organized graduate schools of
its own on a substantial scale, whatever the models evolved. Disquiet was
expressed over these issues in reports from France and the Federal Republic of
Germany.480 51 The British Social Science Research Council has decided to
concentrate its post-graduate studentships in selected centres rather than spread
them over 300 ‘Master’s’ courses now on offer among British universities.60
Two large multi-disciplinary Graduate Schools of Business Studies, intended
to combine extensive research with various types of graduate training have
been established,s2 though smaller centres have been set up in many universities.
Research in university teaching departments
8. Apart from exceptions, such as Britain and the Netherlands, social research
in Western Europe has become dissociated from university teaching departments
based on single disciplines. Two sets of factors, one structural, the other atti-
tudinal, have produced this disssociation. The structural factors are: excessive
teaching overload; the absence of internally provided research funds; the per-
sistence of small single professor departments; and lack of supporting services,
both administrative and technical. The attitudinal factors are: a too exclusive
preference for fundamental research ; a disinclination to engage in inter-disci-
plinary projects; and an insistence on individual scholarship. These factors have

728 Eric Trist
combined to produce the severe dissociation of research and teaching typically
found in German and French universities.
9. In Britain an association between social research and teaching departments
persists, partly because staff and students have increased in step and partly
because certain research funds and support facilities have been provided, even
if on a limited scale, by the University Grants Committee, an autonomous body
which mediates bulk government funds to universities.55 Yet the British
pattern has clung to the small single professor department and continued to
prefer fundamental research on an individual and uni-disciplinary basis. There
are well over 40 universities in Britain and several hundred social science departments,
340 of which applied in 1967 for post-graduate awards to the Social
Science Research Council.60 Most of these departments consist of less than ten
faculty members combining teaching and research along with handful of graduate
students with a research orientation.
IO. In the Netherlands the best is made of both worlds by departments setting
up institutes attached to themselves with interchange of ~taff.3~ A splitting of
fundamental research and contract work on applied problems is prevented.
Part-time multiple chairs are an accepted pattern. University departments
represent a third of all research institutes in the social sciences. The head of the
department is also head of the institute, which engages not only most of the
departmental teaching staff on a part-time basis but a number of junior research
workers, contracted for specific projects, who comprise the graduate students
and senior undergraduates for whom the department is academically responsible.
The department’s regular expenses are covered by government or by
founding organizations. Grants for special purposes are obtained from a variety
of sources. The Nederlandse Organisatie voor Zuiver-Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
(Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research)
(a government body) finances fundamental work leading to dissertations. The
department negotiates contracts with public and private bodies. Effective
functioning and expansion depend less on material conditions than on organizational
substructure and quality of staff.
I I. Most professors assume non-academic responsibilities in voluntary
associations, political and religious movements, and other sectors of public
life, including government committees. These engagements constitute a considerable
proportion of their regular activities. Much of the work is done on an
honorary basis. This ‘cumulation of functions’ is regarded in the Netherlands
as a structural characteristic of the social sciences - a manifestation of an intensive
interaction between social research and public policy. Cumulation of
teaching, research, and organizational functions of university professors is
founded on a limited teaching obligation: six teaching hours a week is considered
heavy load. This is rendered possible by regular integration into the academic
structure of persons working part-time in industry, government or other organizations.
They become ‘extraordinary professors’.

The organization and jinancing of research 729
Institutes in or associated with universities
12. Organized research units in or associated with universities, though distinct
from teaching departments, are found in all Western European countries.
In Italy almost every teaching department in the social sciences has a parallel
research institute financed either by the university or by public or private
organizations.69 The Consiglio Nationale della Ricerche (CNR) has been giving
kancial aid in growing measure. Sometimes a research project is conducted by
a single institute, at others by various institutes in collaboration. The CNR
accepts programmes submitted both by institutes and by individuals. The
Comitato per le Scienze Economiche, Sociologiche e Statistiche (CSESS) does the
screening. The Ministry of Public Education also makes financial contributions.
Though fundamental research predominates in the universities and nonacademic
units concentrate on applied research, the universities, too, conduct
problem-oriented research, while theoretical themes are studied in the other
centres. In a system of higher education not differentiating between a first and a
second degree some form of protection for research would be essential. Notable
features are that 54% of the funds allocated by the CSESS in 1965 were for ‘collective’
research, 66% going to university institutes; 44% were for projects of
an interdisciplinary nature as well as being group enterprises.
13. In France we must separate the university and the Grands Etablissements
and such related bodies as the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(cNRs).~~ Though social research goes on at all French universities, the 1964
report of the DClCgation GCnCrale i la Recherche Scientifique et Technique
(DGRST) brings out its small scale and precarious nature.47 For the University
of Paris only 12 research centres were listed for all branches of the social sciences.
Of these only three had IO or more full-time research workers and only two
between 5 and 9. Among the fourteen provincial universities there were 56
centres, of which only two had IO or more and only five between 5 and g full-time
research workers. Of the remaining 49 quite a number were operating with only
part-time personnel. Auxiliary staff were even more scarce than research workers.
Some progress has since been made in improving the university situation.
14. Since 1960 a major effort has been put under way to expand the capability
for advanced study and research in the Grands Etablissements/cNRs. The Third
Section (natural sciences) of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE) now
includes three psychological laboratories and a centre for anthropological
research which relates physical to social anthropology. The Sixth Section
(economic and social sciences) has developed four Divisions: economic and
social history (3 centres); sociology, social anthropology and social psychology
(13 centres); economics (4 centres) and area studies (IO centres.)50 The Centre
de MathCmatique Sociale et de Statistique and the Laboratoire de Cartographie
are common to all Divisions. In addition to the EPHE, social research proceeds at
other Grands Etablissements such as the Conservatoire National des Arts et
MCtiers (4 centres) ; the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (3 centres);
the Centre International $Etudes Pedagogiques de Sevres (I centre); and the
Institut PCdagogique National (2 centres). Although a Chair of Anthropology
was established in 1958 at the Collkge de France, held by Claude LCvi-Strauss,

730 Eric Trist
the associated research centre which he also directs is in the EPHE. A unique
service is provided by the Maison des Sciences de 1'Homme through its Centre
de Calcul and Service d'Echange d'hformations Scientifiques. This latter reviews
the state and organizational development of the sciences and undertakes
research into questions of science policy.
Expansion of the Grands Etablissements has taken place in conjunction with
the CNRS which, in addition to having 3 social research centres of its own in the
Paris region, has established g associated centres, several of which are within
the EPHE. Meanwhile, the various anthropological sections of the MusBe de
l'Homme have been unified.
15. The DGRST listed 51 research units in the Grands Etabhsements/cms
system in 1964. By 1966 there were 56. While also having greater resources in
professorial direction and other part-time faculty participation, they employed
324 full-time research workers, compared with 176 employed by the 80 university
centres, in 1964. Half had 5 or more full-time scientific staff; fourteen
IO or more; and four 25 or more. These last included the Centre #Etudes
Sociologiques, the Centre #Etudes des Relations Internationales, the Institut
PBdagogique National and the Centre #Etude du DBveloppement Economique.
Though many of the centres remain small there were II with more than 25
scientific staff by 1966.5~ Centres of the Grands Etabhsements/cNRs had three
times as many auxiliaries as university centres.
16. In the Federal Republic of Germany two kinds of institutes have grown
up in university ~ettings.3~ The first belong to the university, which employs the
staff; in addition, they may receive funds from 'promotional associations'
(Forderergesellschaft) either for general support or individual projects. The
second are not part of the university, though associated with it. Constitutionally,
they are registered associations belonging to a promotional association. Some
of these institutes confine themselves to research; others also engage in teaching.
Though the promotional association employs the staff, the lectures and exercises
are credited as university courses. University institutes wholly dependent
on government support have limited resources and tend to confine themselves
to theoretical topics. Empirical research is almost entirely dependent on external
funds provided by promotional associations and other bodies.
17. In legal status the Institut fiir Siedlungs- und Wohnungswesen at the
University of Munster is a university institute, but it is also 'recognized as a
service of public utility' concentrating on problems of housing policy, the
Institut fiir empirische Soziologie at the University of Mannheim is financed
partly by the Land and partly by the George-Washington-Stiftung. The
Institut fur Sozialforschung at the University of Frankfurt is financed by the
Land of Hesse and the town of Frankfurt; it accepts research contracts and
collaborates with the Sigmund-Freud-Insiitut, an interdisciplinary centre for
clinical research also set up by the provincial government. The Sozialforschungsstelle
of the University of Munster, the largest of the university-linked institutes,
is a registered association attached by contract to the University of Munster and
sponsored by the Gesellschaft fur Sozialforschung an der Universitat Munster,
which includes public bodies, private associations and individuals. It services a

The organization andjnancing of research 73 I
consortium of universities.37 Focusing on industrial sociology, it is divided
into various sections, each of which is directed by a university professor. It is
linked with other institutes working in the same field through its membership
of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialwissenschaftlicher Institute (Working Group
of Social Science Institutes) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Soziologie.
Another example is the Institut fur Weltwirtschaft at Kiel, linked by statute
to the Christian Albrechts University. The director must be a titular professor
in the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences, but the institute itself is supported
by its own promotional association.
18. The smaller countries of north-west Europe reflect the dispersion of
effort idde and outside the universities which characterizes the larger coun-
tries.36 In most of them, however, one or two complex large-scale institutes
have been set up as national centres. These institutions undertake a wide range
of interdisciplinary research (fundamental, problem-oriented and applied).
They carry out graduate training in special areas. They may be associated with
a particular university or with several - abroad as well as at home. An example
is the Nederlands Instituut voor Praeventieve Geneeskunde (Netherlands
Institute of Preventive Medicine) at Leiden. Established by government, most
of its senior staff hold part-time chairs throughout the universities of the Nether-
lands. Another Dutch example is the Economisch Instituut at Rotterdam which
has created a Graduate School of Business Administration linked through a
joint appointment with the Tavistock Institute in London and also with the
Business School and Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan.
19. In Norway a country with a strong tradition in econometrics (Frisch,
Haavelmo), the decisive thrust toward the development of an active research
environment in social psychology, sociology and political science was made at
the margins of the university, through the organization of the privately financed
Institutt for Samfunnsforskning (Institute for Social Research) in Oslo. This
institute has offered graduate training opportunities for scores of young social
scientists. It has proliferated a number of centres for applied research: the
government-financed Institute for Applied Social Research and the publicly
supported International Peace Research Institute. With the need for a ‘safety
valve’ for the overloaded University, the Institutt for Samfunnsforskning is
increasing its role in graduate training; it receives support from the Norges
Almenvitensltapelige Forskningsrid (Norwegian Research Council for Science
and Humanities) for this purpose. Industrial interests have sponsored the Ar-
beidsforskningsinstituttene (Work Research Institutes). Sweden has the Stiftel-
sen Foretagsadministrativ Forskning (Institute for Administrative Research),
Denmark the Dansk Socialforskningsinstituttet (Danish Institute of Social Re-
search). All these have done innovative work of international importance.
Thought is being given to linkage throughout Scandinavia.
20. In Britain social science research centres, as distinct from teaching depart-
ments, tend to be concerned with problem areas and are sometimes but not
always inter-disciplinary. They cluster in the larger universities where they can
draw on established teaching departments. Examples are the Institute of Applied
Economics and the Applied Psychology Unit at Cambridge; the Institute of

732 Eric Frist
Agricultural Economics and the Institute of Race Relations at Oxford. A social
science ‘university’ such as the London School of Economics and Political
Science offers a comprehensive setting in which specialized centres can exist
which would be too small and precarious to survive independently. An attempt
is being made to place more of them outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge
orbit.
Institutes outside universities
21. Research institutions exist in large numbers outside the universities in most
Western European countries. The function of one broad class is to collect,
analyze and develop ‘information de base’, that of a second to bring about
system improvement and organizational change.
22. In France49 there has grown up in relation to the planning system the
largest social research organization in the country, the Institut National de la
Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE). It exemplifies the first type.
Established by the Ministry of Finance, it is inside government. In 1966 it had
3,769 full-time employees; 246 were scientific profes~iona1s.s~ There were 18
regional centres. INSEE performs the functions of a central statistical office together
with those of a social survey organization. At the same time it carries
out fundamental and problem-oriented research in statistical theory, econometrics
and national accounting. It co-ordinates the statistics of government departments
and assists in preparing annual budgets and five year plans. Its
recruits are drawn from a specialized training school - the Ecole Nationale
de la Statistique et de 1’Administration Economique (ENSAE). Its own activities
contribute to their graduate training. It also issues a number of publications,
some at the highest scientific level, others more confined to facts. A parallel
organization is the Institut National #Etudes DBmographiques (INED) established
by the Ministry of Health, which is outside government. It also participates
in graduate training and conducts research, pure and applied, in other
countries as well as in France. There were 37 research workers among a staff of
76 in 1966.
23. A clearing house (CLERES) has been established to coordinate the work of
four key research organizations of substantial size and wide scope concerned
with economic and social development: the Bureau d’hformation et de PrBvisions
Economiques (BIPE) ; the Centre de Recherches et de Documentation sur
la Consommation (CREDOC) ; the SociBtB #Etudes pour le DBveloppement Eco-
Scientific Auxiliaries Total
staff
BIPE 51 (48) 30 81
CREDOC
SEDES
47 (37)
126 (115)
55
83
I02
209
SODIC 36 (32) 42 78
IFOP I9 (16) 51 I7
Bracketed numbers refer to full-time research staff. The figures for auxiliaries refer
only to full-time employees. IFOP had, in addition, a field interviewing staff of 300, of
whom 50 were full-time.

The organization and financing of research 733
nomique et Sociale (SEDES); and the Socikik pour la Conversion et Dkveloppe-
ment Industrielle (SODIC). These are semi-public bodies (whether established by
the Planning Commission, banks, or industrial enterprises) and function like
INSEE and INED, participating in graduate training. An independent body in a
key role is the Institut FranGais $Opinion Publique (IFOP). The personnel
strengths of these organizations for 1966 were given by the DGRST~O as above.
24. Such organizations are more concentrated and coordinated in France
than in other Western European countries. In the Federal Republic of Ger-
manyS9 similar needs have been met by promotional associations which have
founded a series of independent institutes to analyse economic, industrialjand
social trends. They are situated in regional ‘capitals’ : the Deutsches Institut
fur Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin; the Ifo-Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung,
Munich; the Rheinisch-Westfalisches Institut fiir Wirtschaftsforschung, Essen ;
the Deutsches Industrieinstitut, Cologne; the Wirtschaftswissenschaftsliches
Institut der Gewerkschaften is one of the few social research organizations in
Western Europe sponsored by trade unions, though they exist also in the Nether-
lands and Sweden. The Institut fiir Demoskopie and the Dwo-Institut are
concerned with public opinion. Industrial rather than governmental interests
have been the driving force.
25. In Britain the National Institute for Social and Economic Research
(NISER) performs some of the functions of INSEE. As well as conducting a variety
of research projects it provides analyses of the economy independent of those
made inside government by the Department of Economic Affairs and the Treas-
ury. It works in liaison with university bodies such as the Institute of Applied
Economics (Cambridge). The main British social survey organization is inside
government, though another has been created at the University of Strathclyde.
The Central Statistical Office (also inside government) has been technically
strengthened.60 The Social Science Research Council is presently setting up a
survey research unit.
26. The function of a second main class of research institution outside uni-
versities is that of appraising and improving the performance of the existing
operating systems of society, industrial and non-industrial, local and regional,
or of enabling new systems to be brought into existence in these domains. This
is complementary to the intelligence function and implies an action orientation.
It represents the strategy of operational research but a far wider range of dis-
ciplines is implicated, since all aspects of organizational change, including the
psychological and sociological, and all types of system are involved. It also
represents the idea of institution-building and of environmental design.
27. France49 again is the country with the largest independent organizations
of this kind. They are closer to consulting than research organizations as con-
ventionally understood, since the type of work they undertake directly involves
them with clientele. Examples given by the DGRST include:
a. SEMA (SociCtk d’Economie et de MathCmatiques AppliquCes) undertakes
projects in operational research, the industrial application of mathematics,
applied statistics, the economics of the firm, urban development, and market
studies. It ranges from specific ‘user’ projects through generic problem-orient-

734 Eric Trist
ed to fundamental research. There were 125 research workers in France in
1964 - and others in other countries. It belongs to an international group of
eight organizations (mTR.4-International) which shares a common ‘Direc-
tion Scientifque’ with 21 research workers and publishes the journal METRA
as well as monographs.
b. CEGOS (Commission GknBrale #Organisation Scientifique) works on prob-
lems of plan evaluation, cost and efficiency criteria, the recruitment and
training of management, salary systems, etc. There were some 75 research
workers in 1964.
c. Groupe CFRO~SEDRE (Centre Franqais de Recherche Op6rationnelle et SociBt6
d’Etude du Dkeloppement et Rationalisation des Entreprises) works primarily
in applications of operational research and had 40 research workers
and 204 auxiliaries in 1966.
Though there are independent institutes which draw on psychology and sociology
rather than economics and operational research they are small and have
not made the same impact. The danger of ‘tunnel vision’ through over-emphasis
on econometrics, operational research and physical planning has been recognized
by DGRST which has begun to correct it. There is, however, no organization
in France or elsewhere in continental Europe corresponding to the Tavistock
Institute in London which emphasizes the psychological and sociological
aspects and has a psychiatric as well as an operational research unit in addition
to those centred on organizational studies.
28. Though all these developments in France have been within an ‘applied’
frame of reference, the level of work has not remained specific. If service has
been provided scientific knowledge has been advanced in econometrics, operational
research and the methodology of prediction. These innovations have been
taken up by more ‘academic’ institutions. Yet how quickly ‘development studies
as the cutting edge of applied social science in France can influence the structure
and orientation of university teaching remains problematic.
Financial support
29. For some countries no financial data were available on the level of support
for social research. For others figures were incomplete. It may be surmised that
support for the social sciences has been small compared with that for the natural
sciences, though the largest part of this latter is for technological development.164
In most countries of Western Europe R & D expenditure is rising faster
than ~ ~ p . ~ ~ 3 . ~ 6 5
Expenditure on the social sciences is also rising.16* During the
present decade, as compared with the fifties, it has been rising rapidly. Whether
it is rising more rapidly than that for the natural sciences when development is
screened out, as in the United States, cannot be ascertained, Given the even
narrower base from which they have started the likelihood is that a similar
acceleration is taking place at least in the countries where the social sciences are
most established.
30. These are the smaller countries of north-western Europe, such as the
Netherlands and Sweden, where the Riksbankfond supports long-range pro-
jects to the extent of $4 million a year. In the early sixties Sweden was spending

The organization and financing of research 735
from government funds almost as much on the social sciences as Britain,
though the latter has seven times the population.16* In the Netherlands the
sources of social science support are more varied than in any other country,
since so many local government bodies and voluntary agencies commission
projects in addition to enterprises and departments of g0vernment.3~ Some 80 %
of this work is by contract. As much as IO% of overall scientific expenditure
in Holland and Sweden may now go to the social sciences. This is five times the
proportion common in the more supportive of the larger countries.
31. In the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964 R & D accounted for I .6 %
of GNP.~' The share in this of the humanities and the social sciences combined
was 5 %,
and of the social sciences themselves 2 %.
Industrial and other interest
groups provided a substantial proportion of these funds. Provincial governments
have been more active then the central government. In France for 1963 R & D
was 1.7% of GNP, of which the share of the humanities and social sciences
together was 2. I %49 This becomes 3 % if public funds alone are counted. These
are provided almost entirely from central sources. In Britain for 1963 R & D
was 2.4 % of GNP, of which the share of the social sciences (with the humanities
excluded) was rather less than I X.55 Some 70 % of these funds were channelled
through government but this estimate neglects an unascertainable contribution
from business. No estimate is available for Italy. Other Scandinavian countries
(N0rway,~5 1963, social sciences 4.6%, humanities 5.5 %), and Belgium64
(3.4 % social sciences, 5.2 % humanities, 1963), stand between the Netherlands
and Sweden16* and Germany (F.R.) and France.
32. To ascertain the relation between sectors of financial support and sectors
of research performance, international conventions have been followed. Within
the public sector higher education is distinguished from other government
departments. Within the private sector non-profit organizations, foundations,
etc., are distinguished from private enterprises and commercial agencies. Funds
raised and spent abroad are kept separate from domestic funds and expenditures.
The following table for Britain 1962-3 is adapted from data compiled for the
Heyworth Committee.55
UNITED KINGDOM. Social research expenditure (1962-63) (in f thousands)
Sector Sector performing research
providing Higher Govern- Business Non- Abroad Total
funds education ment profit
Higher education 1,655
Government 560 1,000 I 26
Business 85 NA I54
(1,000)
Non-profit 47 I 457
Abroad 248 140
Total 3,019 1,000 NA 877
NA = Not available.
t Unofficial estimate.
t
(I,OOO)t

736 Eric Trist
For France the DGRST compiled a similar table for 1963 with a breakdown of
sources within government.49 The figures for higher education include the CNRS.
The expenditure of the Ministry of Finance is for INSEE. Outlays made by
business within its own internal units and to nonprofit organizations must be
as great as in Britain. The French include expenditures made by nationalized
industries in the 'private' sector.
FRANCE. Use of public funds for social research (1963) (in F millions)
Sector
Sector performing research
providing
funds
Higher
education
Govern- Busiment
ness
Nonprofit
Abroad Total
Higher education
Government
Prime Minister
92 Is7
(DGRST)
Ministry of
Agriculture
Ministry of
Finance
Other ministries
Business"
Non-profit
Abroad
Total
3
0*5
NA = Not available.
t Includes nationalized industry.
33. Lack of information about the private sector lends interest to the following
data from Belgium.44 They show the number of social research workers (in
full-time equivalents) in 135 enterprises - all who said they were conducting
social research - and the expenditure incurred. This represents 3% of R & D
expenditure for 1963 in the private sector. It covers applied economics, psychol-
ogy and sociology, organizational studies and operational research.
BELGIUM. Social research in the private sector (1963)
Industry No. of No. of Expenditure
firms researchers Fs Boo0
Food, drink and tobacco
Chemical, rubber and
pharmaceuticals
Structural metals
Textiles and clothing
Metallurgy
Other manufacturing
Transport, building
and public works
Total
IO
IO
28
40
8
30
9
I35
IO
33
51
46
16
53
9
218
353
29 I59
1,860
1,166
435
2,025
235
8,233

The organization and financing of research 737
34. So far figures have referred to the past. As regards the future, an expansion
of 44% in support for social research from government funds was sanctioned
under the ve Plan in France, which runs until 1970. Financing is considered
under two headings : ‘investments’ which represent priorities for strengthening
certain general directions of research; and ‘actions concertkes’ which represent
‘booster’ funds to enable headway to be made with immediate problems of
economic and social development.
FRANCE. Social sciences and humanities: summary of provisions under Ve Plan (1965-70)
Allocations by government departments
Education
CNRS 21,80
Higher education 37910
~-
Finance
Justice
Health
Inter-departmental
‘Actions concertkes’
Allocations by sector
Development
Education
Communications
Fundamental research
‘Actions concertkes’
F million
35. Some information regarding the period 1965-70 is also available for Britain.
On the assumption that overall expenditure on social research for the year 1965
(apart from the unknown sums internally spent in industry) would be EM 6.5,
the Heyworth Committee recommended that the new Social Science Research
Council should increase its annual expenditure as follows :
1st year E 600,000
2nd year E 1,000,000
4th year E 2,225,000
These sums include commitments taken over from the Department of Scientific
and Industrial Research but nevertheless represent a ‘phase change’ in level of
support. Additional to the Council‘s own would be expenditures of the Medical
and Agricultural Research Councils, which are supporting social research on a
rising scale. The Science Research Council, concerned with the physical and
biological sciences, continues to support physiological and experimental psy-
chology. Operating departments of government were to increase their utiliza-
tion of the social sciences on their own budgets. General funds allocated to the

738 Eric Trist
universities through the University Grants Committee were to be used to improve
departmental facilities and to increase the teaching strength of the social
sciences. The straitjacket in which the British economy has been placed
has retarded these developments; but not changed their direction.
36. The smaller countries already in advance of Britain and France are known
to be increasing their social science expenditure substantially between 1965 and
1970.168 By that date it is virtually certain that the CNR in Italy will have made
systematic arrangements for the social s~iences,~9 as it already has done for the
natural sciences, and that financial arrangements in the Federal Republic of
Germany will also have achieved co-ordination at a higher level of support. 51
Manpower
37. Data on social science manpower are even more meagre than on sources of
financial support. Yet in almost all Western European countries a social science
manpower crisis is either said to exist now or to be imminent. In face of the
rising demand for the services of social scientists the Netherlands would seem
to be by far the most advantageously placed nation - the only one with the
potentiality of exporting social scientists to its neighb0urs.3~
38. The most complete data were for Belgium. 404 For 1962 total research
manpower employed in 'scientific units', including teaching establishments in
higher education, is given in the table below which separates those professionally
qualified (all those with a first degree) from technicians and auxiliaries. Among
the professionals, in some disciplines as many as a half and in the others at
least in third were too junior to take responsibility for independent projects.
BELGIUM. I. Research manpower (1962)
Scientists % All personnel %
only including
technicians and
auxiliaries
Physical 3,604 53.8 15,723 69.9
Biological 21.3
5,433 - 27*3 81.1 4,797 20,520 - 91.2
Social 880 12.1 1,262 5.1
Humanities 6.8
390 1,270 ~ 18.9 - 623 1,885 - 3'7 8.8
Total 6,703 100.0 22,405 100.0
39. The second table distinguishes scientists and support staff by disciplines and
sector. 168
The third table" gives the disciplines in greater detail. It offers an estimate of
time spent on research or 'in favour of research' as against teaching and other
activities. The allowances are generous. The picture for social research in
Belgium in the early sixties is one in which some 800 people, a substantial
proportion of whom are very junior (and with not more than 70% of their

BELGIUM. 11. Social research manpower (1962)
Higher education
Scientists
Auxiliaries
Total
Government
Scientists
Auxiliaries
Total
Business
Scientists
Auxiliaries
Total
Non-pro&
Scientists
Auxiliaries
Total
All sectors
Scientists
Auxiliaries
Total
The organization and financing of research 739
Eco- Sociol- Psychol- Politics, Law Other Total
nomics ogy ogy admin., etc.
I 69
39
208
51
81
132
I7
16
33
6
6
I2
243
142
385
I5 55
I1 27
26 82
7 0
I3 0
20 0
20 6
I4 2
34 8
I55 I 66
63 52
218 218
BELGIUM. III. Social research workers (1963)
I4 56
I 2
15 58
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 29
0 5
0 34
I9 85
7 7
26 92
I 461
0 90
I 551
6 127
I3 132
19 259
186 212
-
35
186 247
26 87
I1 38
37 125
219 887
24 295
243 1,182
Discipline Higher Public Private Total
education sector sector
No. Time No. Time No. Time No. Time
% % % %
Economics
Sociology
Psychology/
Pedagogy
Political science
Law
Demography
Criminology
Land use
(Amhiagement
dii territoire)
Human geography
Total
70
88
77
75
73
86
75
53
77
62 57 20 51 267
20 25 I8 NA 161
I2 IO 150
3 40 33
91
6 99 IO
5
3 48 40 66 43
17
I03 55 81 Go 777
-
69
82
67
70
73
90
75
63
53
70
time) have to do the work of all disciplines -pure, problem-oriented and applied
- in the universities and in the public and private sectors.
40. There were in 1964-5, 16,807 students in the social sciences and the humanities
in Belgian universities, 45% of the entire student body.6' Of these
10,000, perhaps as many as 12,000, followed some undergraduate courses in

740 Eric Trist
social science disciplines. If they had no other teachers than the 593 listed, who
also engage in research, the faculty-student ratio would be 1-200. In 1962 only
48 Ph.D.s were awarded in the social sciences and humanities combined -
compared with 450 dissertations listed in the Register van Lopend Onderzoek
in de Sociale Wetenschappen (Register of Social Science Research) in the Nether-
lands, a country with roughly the same population. The Belgian data point to a
major difficulty in most Western European countries. There is a reasonable
supply of 1st degree graduates with some social science training but thereafter a
drastic fallout. This may be traced in part to the absence of graduate programmes
and in part to an absence of employment opportunities. Careers in social
science still belong to the future, albeit that this future is imminent and that its
demands may be unsatisfied.
41. In France for 1963 the DGRST investigated research manpower (in full-
time equivalents) in higher education and the public sector.49 The humanities
and the social sciences were not separated. Together they accounted for 7 % of
all research personnel. The universities were very poorly off in auxiliaries.
A higher proportion of the natural scientists were in the public sector. There
were 820 CNRS workers in the social sciences full-time. The other 870 full-time
equivalents in higher education comprised the part-time services of 3,480 indivi-
duals combining teaching with some research.
FRANCE. Research workers in higher education and the public sector (1963)
Higher education Public sector Total
Social sciences and humanities
Researchers
Support staff
All sciences
1,690
3,180
260
1,660
1,950
2y890 4,840
Researchers 10,940 5.870 16,810
Support staff
3 1,450
13’240 24,180 37,320 - 449690 61,500
42. A subsequent incomplete inquiry in 1966 into social research in the
private sector obtained manpower data from 38 non-profit organizations (services
d‘ktudes and sociktks d’ktudes) who employed between them the full-time
equivalents of 55 I research staff and 455 a~xiliaries.5~ Six organizations ‘related
to the public sector’ account for 223 of the research workers and 195 of the
auxiliaries. A count made of the organizations which gave personnel data listed
in 1964 in the Re‘pepertoire National des Laboratoires (with the exclusion of those
responsible to the Ministry of Education) showed research staff (full-time
equivalents) as :
Ministries (other than Higher Education) 527
Associations, etc. 378
‘SociBtBs d‘Entreprises’ 130
‘Services d’Etudes’ 699
Total 1,734

' The organization andfinancing of research 741
There were more research workers in the social sciences outside the universities,
the CNRS, and the Grands Etablissements, than inside them. This reflects the
dissociation not only between research and teaching but between research and
higher education.
43. For the large research-operating organizations to take over - perforce - a
training role represents the main pattern of graduate training in applied social
science in France during the sixties. Such organizations play a similar role in
Italy and also in the Federal Republic of Germany where institutes sponsored
by promotional associations continue to fill the gap. In Britain much has been
left to what can be picked up on the job. The danger in these methods is that the
training provided becomes too technique-centred and too circumscribed by the
requirements of the organization.
44. In France under theV" Plan@ first degrees are being introduced in eco-
nomics in faculties of law and in sociology in faculties of letters. These courses
include mathematics and statistics. Better arrangements are being sought for
Ph.D.s. The Chairman of the British Social Science Research Council has asked
the heads of secondary schools to encourage students specializing in the humani-
ties to continue mathematics, since so many of them read a first degree in the
social sciences.60 In Britain accelerated graduate training has been provided in a
number of universities including intensive conversion courses for those with no
previous social science background. Graduate awards for two year courses have
been doubled, with opportunities for extension if a Ph.D. is undertaken. But the
demand exceeds the supply. For 813 such awards offered through the Social
Science Research Council in 1967 there were 2,930 bids. In Italy the number of
awards, many of which are provided through industry, exceeded the number of
candidates because the chaos over the doctorate reduced the numbers eligible.@
The recommendations of the Wissenschaftsrat (Scientific C0unci1)~~.5" for the
development of German universities up to 1970 contain proposals for 'retrain-
ing' junior staff in the social sciences, special preparation for research and
the 'institutionalization' of graduate studies. There is agreement in most coun-
tries that university reform is essential to build up social science manpower.
Coordination and planning
45. In face of the manpower crisis, the dispersion of research, the teaching
overload and the rigidity of universities, strong tendencies have appeared in
Western Europe toward greater co-ordination of the social sciences. I 68 Central
planning bodies of various kinds already exist in some countries and are mooted
in others. Issues of science policy are increasingly discussed. There is anxiety
that research workers wil lose freedom of scientific choice. There is concern that
the state of knowlege in many disciplines is not far enough advanced to permit
the applications expected. The power of social science 'establishments' is feared.
Yet there is general acceptance of the fact that things cannot go on as they have
been. A realization is growing that better ways to develop and utilize the social
sciences can be found only through a complex and protracted process of social
learning in which the scientists and the community both take part and in which
governments play an active role.

742 Erie Trist
46. In examining what has happened so far we shall begin with the Federal
Republic of Germany as a country where formal government action has been
small.39 Nevertheless, an extensive infrastructure has come into existence. There
is, for example, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research
Association) which gives grants either to institutes or to individuals. It is a pri-
vate association supported by the Federal Government, Lander Governments
and private donations. Its members include representatives of the various
institutions of higher education, the academies of science and scientific associa-
tions. It works in conjunction with private foundations such as the Stiftung
Volkswagenverk and the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung which dispose of large funds.
It has a master programme. This defines ‘important programme areas’ which
influence the directions in which research is undertaken.
47. Important also are the ‘working groups’ of research institutes. Both the
Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Forschungsinsti-
tute(Working Group of GermanEconomic Research Institutes) and the Arbeits-
gemeinschaft sozialwissenschaftlicher Institute (Working Group of Social
Science Institutes) co-ordinate the research of their many constituent bodies.
The Forschungsgesellschaft fur Agrarpolitik und Agrarsoziologie (Research
Society for Agrarian Policy and Rural Sociology), run by a council of fifty
members including representatives of various ministerial departments, has
secured the participation of thirteen specialized institutes, The aims of the
Working Group of German Economic Research Institutes are defined by its
constitution as follows:
a. members to keep one another informed of their current activities and un-
published results;
b. to help one another through the exchange of information and the provision
of material;
c. research projects to be co-ordinated insofar as they impinge on one another
or appear to call for mutual supplementation;
d. certain subjects or projects to be discussed and possibly pursued jointly or
according to a division of tasks;
e. members to advice jointly upon, or undertake, work arising out of given
economic problems or tasks which the Federal Government or other official
bodies are called upon to undertake.
48. A Wissenschaftsrat (Science Council)s3 was set up by theFederal Government
in I957
to develop a comprehensive plan for the promotion of science; to bring into harmony
the plans of the States and Federal Government; to recommend emphases and priori-
ties ; to make recommendations regarding the allocation of resources made available
from the budgets of the Federal Government and States.
The Council has also made recommendations about the pattern of new univer-
sities.54 It has expressed concern about isolation and particularism.
There should, therefore, be founded a number of over-arching institutes to promote
joint work which will sustain the coherence of larger groups of disciplines now endanger-
ed by specialisation, and which will even expand beyond the boundaries of particular
faculties. Such broad, central institutes might bring together the methods and results of

The organization and financing of research 743
various disciplines for the solution of common problems which transcend particular
specialities.
The Council has gone on to suggest a development plan for the social sciences.
The report to UNESCO advocates the foundation of a German Council for the
Social Sciences which would not only coordinate financial resources and estab-
lish a central documentation centre, but, with the participation of leading
bodies, would:
a. work out a framework of programmes for specially difficult research projects
and
b. delegate the handling of detailed questions to member organizations.
If, as seems likely, such an organization comes into being, it wil represent a
further development of the pattern already evolving.
49. In Britain a Social Science Research Council, established as a result of
the report of the Heyworth Committee, has been functioning for three years. It
belongs to the system of autonomous research councils evolving in Britain since
before World War I. These councils are the principal means through which
government funds for scientific as distinct from technological research are ad-
ministered. Though appointed by the Minister of Education and Science and
provided with a civil service secretariat, they are independent bodies consisting
largely, though not entirely, of scientists, key user-interests being included. They
comprise in addition to the Social Science Research Council, the Science Council
(for the physical and biological sciences), the Medical Research Council, the
Agricultural Research Council and the Natural Resources Research Council.
The Council on Scientific Policy, linked to a wider committee which includes
technology, advises on overall allocation of resourses. The research councils
work in collaboration with the University Grants Committee and are repre-
sented on the Council on Scientific Policy. Individual government departments
have separate research budgets for work in their own fields of interest.
50. The Social Science Research Council was brought into existence by the
need of government to review the contribution of the social sciences to the life
of the society, the performance of the economy and the process of government.
Its establishment marked a phase change in the relation of the social sciences to
society. The main recommendations of the Heyworth Committee (apart from
the financial aspects already noted) will serve to bring out the comprehensive
character of its mandate:
Our chief recommendation is for the establishment of a Social Science Research
Council, to provide support for research, to keep under review the state of research,
to advise the Government on the needs of social science research, to keep under review
the supply of trained research workers, to disseminate information and to give advice
on research in the social sciences and its application.
We have considered proposals for separate Research Councils for Education and
the ‘Built Environment’; we consider that these needs wil best be met in the case of
education by special organizational arrangements within the Social Science Research
Council and, in the case of the ‘Built Environment’, through a joint board of the Re-
search Councils concerned.
The Council should consist of an independent chairman and about ten ”or twelve
members appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science, of whom the
majority should be social scientists. Some members should be men of practical expe-

744 Eric Trist
rience in industry or other ‘user organizations’. Central Government should berepresented
on the Council and its Committees by assessors as with the established Research
Councils.
If the Social Science Research Council is to be brought within the system under which
the Council on Scientific Policy advises on the allocation of resources among the
Research Councils, the Council on Scientific Policy should have in its membership one
or more persons with an up-to-date knowledge of the needs of the social sciences.
The Council should have powers to make postgraduate awards and fellowships in the
social sciences. Arrangements should be made to utilise the capacity for research
training of research institutes outside universities, the Social Survey and research units
in Government departments and other organizations.
There should be a range of research posts in the universities, government, local government
and industry. Interchange of staff should be encouraged. A period of research
should be possible for people whose main career is in the Civil Service, Local Government,
Teaching, Industry, etc. Universities should examine the organization of teaching
and research duties in social science departments, the method of allocating funds for
auxiliary staff and facilities for research. Local authorities and governing bodies of
technical colleges should accept the principle that teaching staff should have the opportunity
to be associated with research.
The application of social science research requires social scientists to work at points
where problems first emerge and to help identify and deal with them. Although social
scientists of all kinds are needed for work on practical problems of great importance
in government, only economists and statisticians are used to any great extent. We
recommend that departments review their needs and see where social scientists of all
disciplines can be of most help. Government departments should have a senior person
trained in the social sciences to act as a ‘listening post’, to bring developments in research
to the attention of administrators, to keep in touch with research elsewhere, to
see that relevant research information is disseminated, and to supervise the research
contracts placed by the department. Departments in planning and in reviewing their
research requirements should consider whether they need research units operating
within their department in the light of the criteria we have set out.
The Treasury should employ social scientists so as to be able to include advice on the
use of the social sciences in their management service to departments and in their
training programmes. They should widen the range of social science in the syllabus of
the Centre for Administrative Studies. They should review the conditions of employment
of social scientists in Government, and should undertake a central scrutiny of
departmental budgets for research for their own purposes. Consultation with the Social
Science Research Council would usefully supplement discussions with departments.
There is a need for better, fuller, more co-ordinated and earlier government social statistics.
Their value as a basis for research needs to be improved. The Central Statistical
Office should take the lead in co-operation with the appropriate branches of Government
through a new interdepartmental Committee. The link between Government and
social scientists outside should be forged through the Social Science Research Council.
Better use should be made of the Socialsurvey which is wrongly situated within Government.
We recommend that the treasury should take responsibility for it and that its
programme should be determined by a Committee, under Treasury chairmanship, of
representatives of the main user departments and of the Social Science Research
Council.
Many of our recommendations to Government apply in principle to industrial and
commercial organisations, local authorities, statutory and other bodies. In particular
they should review their need to employ social scientists at high executive level so as to
bring the results of research into the making of policy. Special grants should be made
available to the co-operative Industrial Research Associations to extend their range of
services to include the social sciences.

The organization and financing of research 745
51. The Council has set up twelve basic committees, six of which are uni-disciplinary
and six inter-disciplinary. The first are : economics; political science;
psychology; social anthropology; sociology; and statistics. The second are:
economics and social history; management and industrial relations; human
geography and planning; social science and government; the educational
research board; and ‘the next thirty years’. TheseCommittees have been conducting
orientational reviews of their fields as well as recommending on grants. In
addition there is beginning a series of special committees concerned with problem
areas such as poverty, urban questions, etc. A proposal has recently been
made to set up an Institute of Forecasting Studies. Collaboration with other
research councils has begun. Steps have been taken to increase the utilization of
social science in government departments and to improve statistical services.
A national data bank has been set up in collaboration with a University. A
newsletter is published. The Council has made British social scientists aware
of each other as members of a common scientific community. It has begun an
open dialogue with them on policy issues. The first critical tests wil come when,
with limited funds, it begins to support some directions of research and some
institutions, decisively, in preference to others. So far it has remained projectrather
than programme-oriented. A safeguard is that though the Council wil
play a leading role, there are other bodies, government, university and private,
which support social research.
52. Though the structure of co-ordination and support may be more evolved
in Britain, a more explicit social science policy has been in operation in France
since theVe Plan thanelsewherein Western E~rope.4~Theobjective, priorities and
instrumentalities of a strategic programme for accelerating the development
and application of the social sciences have been systematically worked out and
implementation begun. The overriding objective is to build up a comprehensive
understanding of the totality of factors affecting economic and social development
- psychological, sociological and biological as well as economic and
technological. The posture is multidisciplinary and problem-oriented. The aim
is to provide a social science capability which wil influence national policy.
This cannot be done, as the planners see it, by narrowly conceived short-term
projects but by thematically conceived and broadly coordinated long-range programmes.
The priorities can only be established in the action frame of reference.
53. Four principal ‘orientational’ themes have been selected and several
programme areas identified in each:
a. Under processes of economic and social development one programme wil
examine the conditions and consequences of technical innovation and another
wil consider the relation of standards of living to ways of life. A third will
be concerned with the administrative capabilities which facilitate development,
and a fourth with urban and regional problems.
b. The development of human resources includes one broad programme area
in manpower studies and another on psycho-social aspects.
c. Education is given major emphasis with programmes in learning and motivation;
new teaching methods; curriculum content in relation to the obsolescence
of knowledge; and the training of future teachers.

746 Eric Trist
d. The mutual understanding of societies is concerned with problems of communication
by all methods and media and at all levels of human interaction;
also with the conditions of socio-cultural ‘equilibrium’ and ‘dis-equilibrium’.
54. To balance this total programme in another concerned with ‘free’ fundamental
research. This is centred on the humanities rather than the social
sciences though logic and mathematics are singled out. Additional are the
‘actions concertkes’. The first of these is an intensive study of R & D establishments.
Others are on programmed learning and the use of space in cities. Finally,
there is a scheme for examining neglected aspects of communication and adaptation
in groups undergoing changes in life-style through technical and economic
development.
55. In recommending how all this is to be put into effect, the DGRST laid stress
on bringing into being special centres in user-organizations, particularly government
departments, with the double function of coordinating the projects undertaken
and relating the research workers to the executive. The key centre would
be set up in the office of the Prime Minister, at the elbow of the Commissariat
Gknkral du Plan, under the title of the Centre de Coordination &Orientation
des Recherches sur le DBveloppement Economique et Social (CCORDES).
IV. NEW PATTERNS IN EASTERN EUROPE
Academies of sciences
I. The socialist countries of Eastern Europe have a common pattern in the
organization of their scientific activities, the central feature being the Academies
of Sciences. Though outside government, academies play a key role in the
network of Science Policy making bodies. They carry out the greater share of
fundamental and problem-oriented research. Since ‘scientific problem councils’
were introduced in the Soviet Union in 1959 the academies have undergone a
development with far-reaching implications for the social sciences.87 Against a
different organizational and cultural background, it parallels the trend towards
multidisciplinary work on generic field-determined problems in Western Eu-
rope and the United States.
2. An error must be corrected, commonly made in other parts of the world -
that the academies exercise a research monopoly. First there are special acade-
mies not included in the general academy system. In the Soviet Union there is a
USSR Academy of Medical Sciences and a USSR Academy of Agricultural Scien-
ces. Within Russia itself there is the RFSR Academy of Urban Economy. In the
universities, research institutes exist in considerable numbers even if not on
the scale of academy establishments. Their growth may be related to growth
in graduate education. Departments of government also undertake a good
deal of applied research. This spills over into ‘the hinterland of technical and
scientific services.’ Applied research also goes on in a variety of other user-organi-
zations, particularly, but not only, industrial enterprises. A growing amount
of work in applied economics, operational research and planning is carried out
by user-organizations in Eastern European countries.

The organization and financing of research 747
3. The most distinctive feature, nevertheless, is the academy system. An
Academy of Sciences is a combination of a ‘corporation’ of elected academicians;
of research institutes; and of bodies responsible for the co-ordination and plan-
ning of scientific development on a national academicians are among the
most distinguished scientists. They are elected by secret ballot by existing mem-
bers meeting in general assembly. The size of the academies varies with the
size of the country and the degree of its scientific development, those of the
Soviet Union being the largest. In July 1966 the USSR Academy (there are many
others in the Union Republics) had 223 regular members, 433 corresponding
members and 36 foreign member^.^' In January, 1967 the Czechoslovakian Aca-
demy had 57 regular members and 135 corresponding members. Total scientific
personnel working in academy establishments are much more numerous than
the academicians, some I 1,000 in Czechoslovakia and over 20,000 in the USSR
(plus more than 30,000 working in the establishments of the 14 Academies of
Science of the Union Republics which are independent bodies not affiliated
to the USSR Academy).
4. Academicians elect their governing body (Presidium) for periods of four
years. OEce holders are accountable to the general assembly which meets once
or twice a year. Apart from internal adminstration, they deal with overall
questions of policy and planning, in relation to government and other bodies.
Additional to the presidium are two bodies with complementary functions -
departments and institutes. Departments represent broad fields of science, in
some ways resembling university faculties, in others research councils. * Insti-
tutes organize and execute programmes and projects. Developments which have
been taking place since 1959 have given the departments in a number of Eastern
European countries ‘scientific committees’, ‘problem councils’ or ‘collegia’
which include not only prominent scientists from the universities (as well as
from their own ranks) but key members of government and other user-organiza-
tions. It is they who propose new members for election. They represent the most
recent form of collaboration between academies, universities and user-organiza-
tions in identifying the problem-areas to which major resources should be allo-
cated.
5. Institutes publish journals, organize conferences and hold continuing
seminars. They conduct research projects which may be carried out by several
establishments both inside and outside the Academy. These, together with the
seminars, give opportunities for post-graduate training. Their directors are
elected by the general assembly or, as in Poland, named by the Secretary General
of the Academy, for periods of four years and provided with supporting staff.
Institutes also have scientific councils with both advisory and decision-making
functions including the final say in approving research plans. They examine
candidates for higher degrees (doctor and candidate of science).
* In the USSR in 1960 another level was introduced into the organizational structure, so
that besides the Presidium and the departments and institutes there exist sections which
group interrelated sciences ; for example, humanities and social sciences, though
belonging to different departments, now form the Section of the Sciences of Society.
Each of these sections is headed by a Vice President of the Academy.

748 Eric Trist
6. The academies are organized on three principles which in Eastern Europe
apply to scientific activities in general:
a. the planned character of the work of scientific research and development;
b. the collective character both of research activity and of the appraisal of its
progress ;
c. the active participation of the largest possible number of those concerned -
both the research workers themselves and those in other relevant organizations
- in the direction of projects.86
What these principles entail will become clearer from examples of projects under
way in Poland and Czechoslovakia. To reach consensus on what is to be done
in face of the many options to be considered and the many opinions likely to be
held pose formidable problems in scientific decision-making. They are more
difficult in the social sciences with their relatively open situation than in the
natural sciences. The individualistic traditions of Western Europe and North
America create one set of dilemmas, the collectivistic traditions of the socialist
countries of Eastern Europe another. Their resolution would seem to require
something of each and something that awaits still to be found, if the largescale
but innovative projects on which the development of the social sciences
depends are to be conceived and carried through.
7. In all the academies the social sciences and the humanities are included
along with the biological and physical sciences. The unity of the sciences is a
postulate of an underlying philosophy which also sees no meaning in separating
the historical disciplines (the humanities) from the ‘nomothetic’ sciences of
man (the social sciences). Nevertheless organizational categories are similar to
traditional faculties of Western European universities. In the USSR for the humanities
there are departments of history and of literature and lang~age.~’ For
the social sciences there is a composite department of philosophy and law which
includes political science and sociology - all seen as related. There is a separate
department of economics.*
8. In Czechoslovakia the social sciences have separate collegia for philosophy
(which includes sociology); history; economics; the sciences of state and law,
theory of arts; linguistics. Pedagogics and psychology are administered by a
special commission dependent on both the Academy and the Ministry of
Education. In Poland all the social sciences and humanities are grouped in one
department, but this has seventeen ‘scientific committees’ which include nonacademicians.78
In addition to committees with a discipline-orientation, such as
those for demography, or psychology and pedagogy, others have a problemorientation,
such as the Committee for Research on Contemporary Culture.
This has several commissions promoting research on mass culture, Polish
settlements abroad, and the ‘human aspects’ of town planning and architecture.
Another committee is that for research on the social problems of People’s
Poland, which has sponsored long-range studies of the real income of different
class groups and change in social stratification. The Economics Committee
cooperates with the Economic Commission of the State Committee for Science
and Technology and with the Planning Commission.
* These departments are now grouped in the Section of the Sciences of Society.

The organization and financing of research 749
9. As regards institutes, the way in which sociological activities were organized
in the Polish Academy in 1965 may serve as an illustration.78 First of all came
the sociological division of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology with 60
research workers in four sections dealing respectively with urban, rural and
labour sociology and with basic sociological research. Next were two multi-
disciplinary research centre’s one on the Industrialized Regions, with ZI socio-
logists and another on Cultural Problems of Contemporary Africa with 7
sociologists. In addition the Institute for the History of Science and Technology,
also multi-disciplinary, with 4 sociologists, engaged in research in the planning
and organization of science. This illustration may serve to show the mix of
fundamental and problem-oriented research. The Polish Academy is among the
most developed outside the Soviet Union. Sociology is more prominent there
than elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In 1968 a reorganization of the Institute of
Philosophy and Sociology took place. In the sociological division four sections
were created to deal with the theory of socialist society, research on social
change, and research on social structures, while the fourth section was to be put
in charge of the actual carrying out of the studies. Their goal is to prepare a
plan for joint research on the socialist socio-political system, the changing social
structure under the influence of technological progress in industrial and
agricultural production, and the organization of social and cultural life.*
Social science planning at the national level
IO. In all countries of Eastern Europe science planning, in which the social
sciences are included, is part of the central planning characteristic of these
societies. A complex process of collaboration and discussion takes place with
respect to plan formulation and plan implementation. A large number of bodies
and many levels of decision are involved. An account has been given (by Adam
Schaff) of how a five-year plan was made in the sociology division of the Insti-
tute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy.82 The theme had to be
broad enough to embrace individual research plans and the orientations of its
four sectors; attractive to those concerned; of practical utility; and capable of
providing material for international scientific cooperation. Following consulta-
tions both inside Poland and with other countries, the choice fell on the social
implications of industrialization and technical progress. Agreement was obtained
from the Scientific Council. The various sectors then drew up their own plans in
conformity with broad topics which were set. An example was social change in
the Polish countryside as the result of industrialization. Since the project had
national importance, ‘analytical studies’ were conducted involving the Presi-
dium of the Academy as well as the Directorate and Scientific Council of the
Institute. A large industrial centre was being constructed in an agricultural
area. An ad hoc Scientific Committee composed of those practically concerned
as well as research personnel inside and outside the Academy was set up to
consider the social, economic, demographic and cultural implications. The
Committee then worked out with the Institute’s sociological division how a sys-
tematic study of the area could be made part of the long-range research plan.
* Communication to UNESCO from the Polish Academy of Sciences, 1969.

750 Eric Trist
I I. In the more advanced of the Eastern European countries the present dec-
ade has seen the introduction of a long-term planning horizon of twenty years in
addition to medium-term five-year and short-term annual plans. First attempts
are being made to develop long-range plans for science and to fit the social
sciences into this scheme. The planning of science as a social as well as a techni-
cal process is under study in several of the Academies. A more rigorous working
out of alternatives for the longer-run is held to improve the quality of medium-
term plans, which are becoming much more precise even in the field of science.
In Czechoslovakia a state plan for scientific research 1961-5 was worked out
by the Academy of Sciences, the State Commission for the Development and
Coordination of Science and Technology (SCDCST), the State Planning Commis-
sion and the Ministry of Finance.73 The plan was presented in terms of sixteen
‘Complex projects’, some of which represent directions of basic research, while
others are problem-oriented. Each complex project was divided into a number
of ‘fundamental projects’, of which there were 95 - in turn, divided into ‘main
problems’, of which there were 370. These constitute the basic planning units.
Work on a main problem is shared by several research establishments, each of
which tackles a ‘partial problem’. For each complex project a ‘collegium’ of
8-10 members is appointed, which is the appropriate collegium of the Academy
if the project is in an area of basic research. Otherwise, a new collegium is
created. If the project is more technological than scientific, the collegium will be
responsible to the SCDCS, though it may still be headed by an academician. Its
members include chairmen of its fundamental projects and others drawn from
appropriate academic, administrative and political fields. The collegium sees
that the political, economic and cultural objectives of the plan are attained and
appraises overall performance. For each fundamental project there is a more
expert body to evaluate and improve the quality of solution of the main prob-
lems comprising the fundamental project. It endeavours to keep these in step.
For each main problem a coordinator links the establishments concerned with
its execution and the council of the fundamental project.
12. Of the sixteen complex projects in the 1961-5 plan three are centred on
the social sciences:7’
a. The role of schools and education in the transition from socialism to com-
munism: - fundamental research in the psychology of learning and the
sociology of education ; a philosophical and sociological analysis of educa-
tional theory; problem-oriented research into methods of instruction and
curricula design, and on the relationship education, training and occupa-
tions, including studies of the biological and physiological aspects of work.
b. Conditions affecting the performance of the economy during the transition
from socialism to communism: - a variety of projects in theoretical, institu-
tional and applied economics; work in industrial sociology and organization
theory; a component concerned with the social function of science.
c. Social change and the cultural revolution during the gradual transition to
communism: - a mix of sociological, political and philosophical studies with
contributions from history and ethnology.

The organization and financing of research 75 I
13. In addition, several of the other complex projects involve the social
sciences in collaboration with the biological or physical sciences :
a. The healthy development of new generations: - ecological and social factors
in physical and mental development, with attention to the pscyhiatric aspects.
b. Nature conservation and a healthy natural environment : - a co-operative
effort between urbanists, technologists, biologists, sociologists and economists.
c. Improved material and cultural standards through the greater social effectiveness
of capital investment: - studies in building economics, town planning,
etc.; and an analysis of cost-benefit criteria.
d. The automation of complex systems: - fundamental work on information
theory and its application to the social sciences, as well as the social and
psychological consequences of automation.
The generic field-determined nature of these projects compels interdisciplinary
collaboration first among the social sciences and then between them and the
biological and physical sciences.
14. The same trend has appeared in Poland where two types of research plans
are distinguished : those affecting only the academy centres and national research
plans which draw in wider resources through the scientific committees. The
following national programmes were reported to be under way in 1966~*.*~:
a. Study of the economic effects of investment and technical progress.
b. Identification and elaboration of rational principles for wage structures, production
costs and price-fixing.
c. Study of the creation of new forms of social life and new social attitudes in
People’s Poland.
d. Study of the introduction, in the socio-economic system of new principles
for the scientific organization of labour.
e. Study of the legal problems relating to the administration of the socialist
economy.
f. Formulation of basic principles for reform of the educational system.
g. Study of peaceful coexistence between States with different social and economic
systems.
h. Preparation of text books and monographs for training scientific workers
and popularizing science.
15. This trend towards interdisciplinary problem-oriented research of a strategic
character gathered force as the result of a special scientific council set up by the
Presidium of the USSR Academy in 1957 on the economic effectiveness of
capital investments and modern techniques.87 By 1961 a major report had been
distributed to all bodies concerned with the economy. Altogether 38 economists
and engineers were drawn into the project from Academy establishments, the
State Planning Commission, the State Economic Council and other bodies.
By 1961, the number of special problem councils had grown to 70. Among new
institutes recently created by the USSR Academy is one on the Application of
Mathematical Methods in Economic Research and Planning. A main theme in
the current five year plan for science is to extend research likely to improve the
practical management of the economy.

752 Eric Trist
16. Explicit policies are followed in most Eastern European countries of
placing a restriction on the amount of available research time committed to
projects belonging to the state plan, though the amount of committed time is
much higher in the academies than in university research institutes. In Czecho-
slovakia some 10-20 % of academy time is reserved for internal use; in univer-
sities it is 50 %. In Poland mention is made of ‘independent research workers’
in addition to those engaged on academy or national projects; but how far their
projects are self-chosen is unclear.78 For the Soviet Union, and also for most of
the smaller countries, no accounts were available of the size of the margins
left for individually initiated projects. The outsider must ask whether these
margins are enough and seek information concerning them. Considering the
high level of uncertainty which surrounds so much research in the social sci-
ences, a need persists to explore different and unorthodox avenues.
Financial support
17. For the Soviet Union the following general statement concerning overall
amounts and the rate of their increase was made:*’
From 1959-1966 overall expenditure on scientific research and capital construction of
laboratories and experimental bases increased from 3.3 to 7.7 billion roubles. This is
an increase of 2.3 times. Expenditure on research projects increased from 2.8 to 6.5
billion roubles and on the construction of facilities from 0.5 to 1.2 billion roubles. The
annual rate of increase of expenditure during these years was roughly 15 %.
In absolute terms, these sums represent a very considerable resource - approxi-
mately one quarter of R & D expenditure in the US from all sources at UN
exchange rates whatever these may signify in real terms. The Soviet figures
however do not include the R & D expenditures of enterprises, which are sep-
arately accounted. Comparison with us federal expenditure would yield a
higher proportion. One may assume that, as in the United Sates, only a small
part of these funds is allocated to the social sciences. Even so, this would repre-
sent a not inconsiderable resource when compared with larger proportional
amounts allocated in smaller countries.
I 8. For Czechoslovakia, a breakdown of research expenditure financed
from the State Budget is available for types of research institution.86 This may
be compared with the overall expenditure of the State Budget. Another source
of research financing is the Technical Development Fund from which enter-
prises can borrow to finance research which they undertake for themselves (B
in the same table). In a country such as Czechoslovakia R & D expenditure is
weighted, as in Western countries, towards technological development. At
the more fundamental end of the R & D spectrum the Academy, as compared
with the universities, is favoured. The Academy share in countries such as
Poland and Hungary is smaller.
19. The distribution of funds according to fields of science is available for
the Czechoslovakian State Budget for 1961 (subventions for development pro-
jects of individual enterprises excluded).
The overall percentage figure for the social sciences and humanities is identical
with that for Poland when the Academy budget alone is considered. It is likely

The organization and financing of research 753
CZECHOSLOVAKIA. I. Expenditure on scientific research from the State Budget (A) and the
Technical Development Fund (B) (in million Cz. Crowns)
State Budget - total expenditure
A. State Budget
Total scientific expenditure
Per cent
I. Tasks of national and
sectoral character
Academy of Sciences
Scientific research at institutions
of higher learning
Research institutes of
manufacturing sectors
Research institutes of non-
manufacturing sectors
2. Centralized funds for technical
development administered by
central organs
3. Research and development pro-
jects in enterprises - special
purpose subventions
B. Technical Deveiopment Fund
Total expenditure
Total Of (A) and (B)
1960"
103,406
1,407
505
62
673
167
116
640
1967b
4, I 65.6
(2.9)
3,682.5
728.4
169.0
29394.3
390.8
419.8
63.3
3,178.8
73344.4
a UNESCO, Science Policy and Organization of Scientific Research in the Czechoslovak
Socialist Republic ('Science Policy Studies and Documents', No. z), Paris, 1965.
Statistical Iiformation on Development of Science and Technology in Czechoslavakia,
Ministry of Technology, 1968.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA. 11. Expenditure for scientific research according to j?elds of science
(1961) (in million Cz. Crowns)
Amount %
Physical, mathematical, chemical and
technical sciences
Biological sciences (including agricul-
1,297 62.3
tural and medical sciences)
Social sciences (including the humanities)
598
I 87
28.7
9.0
Total 2,082 100.0
that somewhat more than half comprises expenditure on the empirical social
sciences.
20. The Ministry of Finance gave Polish expenditure on scientific research
for 1965 in a form similar to that for Czechoslovakia (See below).7*
The budget for the year 1964 of the Polish Academy of Sciences amounted in
current expenditure to 549,795,000 zlotys. Of this approximately 46 million
zlotys was spent on the social sciences and humanities.

754 Eric Trist
POLAND. Expenditure on scientific research (1965) (in million Zlotys)
A. Central Budget
Scientific research institutions
Secretariat of the Polish Academy of
Sciences
Expenditure for development of
‘technics and economic progress’
Research work of the chairs
Training of scientific staffs
Other expenditure on science
Total current expenditure
B. Technical and Economic Progress Fund
Total of (A) and (B)
1,393
I20
357
206
86
55
232 17
4,687
6,904
21. The ratio between total expenditure on scientific research in Poland and
GNP, according to the Planning Commission, amounted in 1964 to about I %.
For Hungary in 1963 overall research expenditure was 1.5% of annual net
national income.86 These figures may be roughly comparable with 2.9 % given for
the Czechoslovak State Budget for 1967 and are suggestive of the general
level of R & D expenditure in Eastern European countries in the mid sixties.
The USSR level may be higher.
22. For the Slovenian Republic of Yugoslavia 0.6% of GNP for 1964 was
attributed to the social and human sciences.75 For Yugoslavia as a whole for
the same year 8.0 % of overall research funds were so allocated (6.6 % in Slo-
venia) - a higher level than in Poland and Czechoslovakia when total R & D,
as distinct from Academy, expenditure is taken. This may not indicate that
more social research is being done; rather that comparatively little is yet being
attempted in technological R & D. Similarly, that the Rumanian Academy
(1963) should allocate a third of its budget to social and humanistic studies 81
suggests that advanced work in the physical sciences with the large costs in-
curred awaits development.
23. For Hungary (1963) a comparison is possible between the amounts of
money received respectively by the Academy, the universities and other institu-
tions for social and humanistic research and the proportions of their total
budgets which they spend on it.
HUNGARY. Expenditure on social and humanistic research (1963) (in million Forints)
Funds Percentage of
received budget spent
Academy institutes 60.4 4.9
Universities 23.8 10.4
Other places of research 6.1 1.6
Total 90.3 24.9
The figures suggest that the more advanced and costly work not only in the
physical and biological sciences but also in the social sciences is concentrated

The organization and financing of research 755
in the Academy, while humanistic studies are diffused throughout the universities.
The Academy provides grants to university institutions for research on
subjects for which the Academy has no specialized body of its own, or for
assisting research in progress at the universities, or when its own institutes are
overworked. Special grants for these purposes are frequently made in the social
sciences, more than 50 bodies receiving subventions in 1964.~~ Likewise, research
workers are seconded. To concentrate capability and funds in one central
research institution, but then to have it support a developing university system,
represents a type of science policy likely to be favoured in countries where the
scientific resource base is narrow.
24. Additional data for Hungary (1966) show the breakdown of research
funds among the main disciplines recognised in the social sciences and humanities.
HUNGARY. Distribution of research funds among social science and humanistic disciplines
(1966) (in million Forints)
Philosophy
Economics
History
Law and political science
Pedagogy
Languages and letters
Geography
Arts
Others
Amount %
7.4
73.8
10.2
5.0
8.2
15.0
4.8
5.2
5.3
5.5
54.7
7.6
3.7
6. I
11.1
3.6
3.8
3.9
Total 134.9 100.0
SOURCE: ‘A magyar tudomiinyos kutatas helyzete az orszagos kutatasi statisztika 1966.
&vi adatai tukrkben,’ Tudomrinyszervezisi Trij6koztatd 8 (I), January, 1968, p. 33.
Over half the available funds were allocated to economics, and most of the
rest to the humanities. The share of the social sciences other than economics is
an unidentifiable proportion of the allocations to philosophy, law and political
science, and pedagogy. Between them these account for no more than 15.3 %,
HUNGARY. Distribution of research funds among major scientific groupings (1966)
(in million Forints)
Amount %
Technology 1731.1 62.2
Natural (physical and biological) 395.9 14.2
Agricultural
Medical
333.9
189.5
12.0
6.8
Social sciences and humanities 134.9 4.8
Total 2785.3 100.0
SOURCE: ‘A magyar tudomanyos kutatas helyzete az orszagos kutatasi statisztika 1966.
evi adatai tiikrkben,’ Tudornbnyszervezisi Tcijikoztatd 8 (I), January, I 968, p. 33.

756 Eric Trist
suggesting that little has yet been attempted in fields such as psychology and
sociology. Yet the overall allocation to the social sciences and humanities has
grown from 90.3 million florints in 1963 to 134.9 million in 1966. The relation
of this to allocations for other major scientific groupings is given above.
The share of the social sciences and the humanities would appear to be less than
in some other Eastern European countries, if the figures are based on (A) type
budgets similar to those used in Czechoslovakia and Poland. Nevertheless, there
is a thorough-going development of economics.
Manpower
25. Data on numbers and types of scientific worker were available for four coun-
tries - the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. To begin with the USSR,
Total manpower, including auxiliaries, occupied in science and related services
was 1,338,000 for 1958 and 2,850,000 for 1967. As regards graduates,* the
table below compares the same years.
USSR. Overall graduate scientific manpower by level of degree and grade (in thousands)?
Scientists
Holding the academic degree of:
284.0 770.0
Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) 10.3 18.3
Candidate of Science (Ph.D.)
Holding the scientific grade of:
90.0 169.3
Academician, corresponding member, professor
Docent
9.6
32.1
14.7
56.9
Senior research worker
Junior research worker and assistant
17.2
23.6
32.4
46.3
? Diplomas are the equivalent of first degrees in the West, Candidates of Science or
Ph.D.s; Doctors of Science represent distinguished research awards, attained usually
not earlier than IO years after the Ph.D. The British D.Sc. is not dissimilar.
SOURCE: Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR V 1963, Moscow, Statistika, 1965, p. 476;
Narodnoe Khoziaisfvo SSSR V 1967, Moscow, Statistika, 1968, p. 809.
The overall reserves of trained manpower are considerable, the gains substan-
tial, though the destination of those not holding one of the two higher degrees is
uncertain. Moreover, within these massive totals it is not easy to identify those
whose qualifications are most relevant to the social sciences, as may be seen
from the following table. The categories are unsatisfactory, being either mixed
or of unclear relevance to the conduct of empirical social research as distinct
from the humanities. The only category both clear and relevant is economics.
This discloses for 1967 a substantial research force of Ph.D.s and D.Sc.s. An
* The distribution of graduate scientists between research institutes and higher educa-
tional establishmentss' was:
1958 I954
In research institutes I 41,000 356,700
In higher educational establishments I 35,700 206,300
Later figures making this distinction were not available.
~

The organization and financing of research
USSR. Graduate scientific workers in social science and the humanities by degrees
757
I958 1967
Total Doctors Candidates Total Doctors Candidates
(Graduates) (D.Sc.s) (Ph.D.s) (Graduates) (D.Sc.s) (Ph.D.s)
Economics
Geography
History and
I I ,614
3,799
243
160
4,475
1,440
429475
6,344
651
288
10,485
2,194
philosophy 17,088 359 8,311 32,257 1,150 12,726
Law
Pedagogy
1,934
12,765
102
80
1,230
2,192
39759
26,639
239
168
1,917
3,895
Philology 19,715 299 47936 42,191 641 79938
Total 66,915 1,243 22,584 153,665 3,137 39,155
SOURCE: Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR V 1963, Moscow, Statistika, 1965, p. 589;
Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR V 1967, Moscow, Statistika, 1968, p. 810.
unknown proportion of those classified under pedagogy wil be psychologists ;
some sociologists wil be among those under philosophy and history; and some
political scientists among those under law. Comparatively, their numbers are
likely to be small. On this assumption a certain doubt begins to exist that the
Ph.D.s in these disciplines wil be sufficient, in contrast to economics, to under-
take the senior roles in more than a limited number of complex projects. A sub-
stantial group of well qualified but more junior research workers is available at
the diploma level. Given the existing scale of graduate studies and the extent to
which Academy institutes participate in advanced post-graduate training, addi-
tional numbers in considerable supply could be brought on within a period of a
relatively few years. They may be presumed to exist among diplomates com-
pleting their two years as probationary research workers.
26. In Czechoslovakia there is now a large student body and a low faculty-
student ratio, given as 1-8.8 (for 1967) when teaching assistants are counted
among staff. Yet economists apart, shortages of research personnel in the
empirical social science disciplines are acute when the number of Ph.D.s is
CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Scientific workers? by social science disciplines (1963)
Discipline Number of scientific workers
Economics 478
Psychology 49
Pedagogy (Psychology) 186
Philosophy (Sociology) I95
Law (Political Science) 114
History 454
Philology 399
Total 1,875
7 In the group of scientific workers there are included the holders of scientific titles
(C.Sc., D.Sc.) and associated professors as well as professors at universities.
SOURCE: Statistical Yearbook of the CSSR, p. 430.

758 Eric Trist
considered. As with the USSR it is difficult to estimate how many empirically
experienced and methodologically well trained psychologists exist among those
included under pedagogy; similarly with sociologists under philosophy and
political scientists under law. If one assumes that a third among these belong to
the ‘nomothetic’ disciplines, this would amount to 165 people. These, together
with the 49 listed separately under Psychology, making 214 all told, represent
the entire fully qualified research force at present available in psychology,
sociology and political science. The figures are given in the table above.
27. Adequate numbers of fully trained research workers are likely to take
longer to build up than in the USSR, it being easier for a much larger country to
reach a fist threshold which represents ‘critical mass’. As regards top leader-
ship for present efforts, apart from humanists, there were only five regular
members of the Academy in social science disciplines in 1964. These did not in-
clude an economist or a psychologist. There were only 18 among corresponding
members - three economists and no psychologists. Doubt must be cast on the
feasibility under these conditions of those aspects of complex projects depend-
ing on empirical social science disciplines other than economics.
28. Manpower figures available for Hungary (1966) permit a comparison
between the institutes belonging to or associated with the Academy and the
universities. *
HUNGARY. Number of workers in research institutes (1966)
Philosophy
Economics
History
Law and political science
Pedagogy
Languages and letters
Geography
Arts
Others
Total
Natural (physical and biological)
Medical
Agricultural
Technological
Total
All Research Auxiliaries
employees workers per IOO research
workers
3,051
2,284
2,315
13,001
22,523
28
505
64
30
38
98
35
24
24
846
1,020
367
787
3.269
6,289
SOURCE: ‘A magyar tudomlnyos kutatls helyzete az orszlgos kutathi statisztika 1966.
&vi adatai tiikrkben,’ Tudomdnyszervezisi Tdjikoztatd 8 (I), January, 1968, p. 31.
* Special attention has been paid to science statistics in Hungary; cf. A. SZALAI,
‘Statistics, Sociology and Economics of Research in Hungary,’ Social Science Znforma-
tion 5 (4), 1966, PP. 57-69.
-
65
16
70
22
4
26
9
9
45

The organization and financing of research 759
HUNGARY. Number of university teachers in relation to their research time and supporting
staff (1966)
Philosophy
Economics
History
Law and political
science
Pedagogy
Languages and
letters
Geography
Arts
Others
Total
Natural (physical and
biological)
Medical
Agricultural
Technological
Total
No. of Research Supporting Auxiliaries
university worker research per IOO
teachers equivalents staff research workers
397
64
83
20
1,584
1,571
1,947
574
1,270
6,946
~~
50
47
24
32
29
96
I2
15
4
309
390
456
128
245
1,528
I
IO
3
2
IO
16
-
I3
3
58
231
90
I 28
94
601
2
5
-
2
5
3
19
2
-
4
57
32
80
47
39
SOURCE: ‘A magyar tudomanyos kutatis helyzete az orszagos kutatisi statisztika 1966.
6vi adatai tukrkben,’ Tudomdnyszervez6si Tdj6koztatd 8 (I), January, 1968, p. 32.
The research time in the social sciences and humanities available in the universities
is equivalent to less than half the number of research workers in the institutes.
Auxiliaries are almost non-existent. Even in the institutes the number of
auxiliaries and other employees is small compared with those available to the
other scientific groupings. Economists are concentrated in the institutes and
constitute the only research force of any magnitude in the social sciences. The
largest group in the humanities (languages and letters) is equally divided
between the universities and the institutes. The overall teaching strength of the
social sciences and humanities is comparable to that of the other scientific
groupings. Research is concentrated in the institutes except in medicine.
29. A special report gave results of a survey of social science manpower in
Poland in 1965.7~ Some 140,000 adults were estimated as in employment whose
tertiary education had been based on the humanities or social sciences. The
courses of studies of 50% of these had been predominantly in economics. A
large number of them were now engaged in various kinds of applied research
or ‘service d’etudes’ in the ‘technico-scientific hinterland’ of industry and government.
They worked in 1,346 different institutions and 6,895 organizational units.
The following table gives an overall picture of ‘hinterland’ workers in 1965. The
‘engineer-technicians’ are non-graduates. The ‘other workers in the basic activities’
are apparently graduates with a bachelor’s degree* or equivalent diploma.
* Bachelor’s degrees have since been discontinued.

760 Eric Trist
They represent a mix of engineers and economists. Of those with higher quali-
fications the majority are economists; the rest are engineers, though there are a
few sociologists and psychologists. The long-term plan for 1980 intends to
increase by IOO,OOO the number of those coming out of higher education with
an economic training. This trend seems to be general in Eastern Europe, where
building up ‘information de base’ in and around economics has been made a
priority.
POLAND. Technico-scientific hinterland of government and industry: number and level of
workers (1965)
Ph.D.s
Master’s?
Other graduate workers in
the basic activities
Part-time
809
25,069 25,878
22,796
1,518 24,314
Engineer-technicians 34,953
Others - 18,285
53,238
Total 103,430
? Takes at least five years.
30. Passing from the ‘technico-scientific hinterland’ of operating organiza-
tions to the Academy and institutions of higher education, we were able to
separate those working in the empirical social sciences (including general
linguistics) from others with backgrounds in law, philosophy, history and lan-
guages. The table below shows their distribution between the Academy and
higher education. The majority are Ph.D.s, though a number of masters is
included who hold junior research or teaching appointments. While Academy
POLAND. Number of establishments and qualified (Ph.D. or near equivalent) staff in the
academy and in higher education (1965)
Demography
Linguistics
Social anthropology
Psychology
Sociology
Economics
Academy
Estab- Staff
lishment
-
2 21
I 2ot
3
I2
3 87
2 34
University and Total
higher schools -
Estab- Staff Establishment
lishment
~
8 29 8
6 24 8
15 29 16
20 119 23
I5 J 52 18
106 600 I08
Staff
29
45
49
131
239
634
Total I1 I74 170 953 181 1,127
t Excludes a large number of ethnographers not regarded as social anthropologists.

The organization and jnancing of research 761
staff are full-time on research those in teaching establishments for the most part
do not give more than 20 % of their time to research (though this is not so true
in specialized higher schools such as the Higher School of Economics at Poz-
nan).
31. Poland appears to be exceptional in Eastern Europe in the comparative
strength of sociology. Psychology may be said to have made a first appearance,
though its representation in the Academy is weak. The small scale of specialized
fields such as linguistics and social anthropology is understandable; but surpris-
ing is the fragile state of demography. A first Academy Centre was only in
process of organization in 1965. It wil be difficult to develop adequate ‘informa-
tion de base’ without it. Political science does not appear as an independent
discipline, remaining, as is usual in Eastern Europe, a part of legal studies.
Nevertheless, the overall capability to undertake complex projects of the type
sponsored by the Departznent of Social Sciences of the Academy is greater in
the immediate future than in a country such as Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless,
it is limited, and the psychological input can be no more than marginal.
32. There is detailed information for 1965 on the various Academy establish-
ment concerned with the social sciences. This is given in the following table.
Only four units had 20 or more research workers, all in the sociology - social
anthropology - economics area. These facts may serve to correct the impression
that all Academy Institutes in Eastern European countries are large. Outside
the Soviet Union most of them are not, at least in the social sciences, though
they do coordinate the work of other establishments in complex projects.
POLAND. Academy social science establishments (1965)
Discipline Description No. of workers
Demography
Linguistics
Psychology
Social anthropology
Sociology
Economics
Total
A first centre being organized
Warsaw Institute
Cracow Institute
Psychometry Laboratory
Social Psychology Laboratory
Institute of Hygiene
Institute of Material Culture
Sociological Section of Institute
of Philosophy and Sociology
Laboratory on Industrial Regions
Laboratory on Social and Cultural
Problems of Contemporary Africa
Institute for Economic Research
Laboratory for General Problems of
Organization of Work (Praxiology)
-
IO
I1
7
3
2
20
60
21
6
21
I
I74
33. In Poland the scatter of research effort was still in 1965 very great. The
600 economists in the universities and other higher schools were in 106 different
establishments. The dispersion in Yugoslavia was on a similar s~ale.~g In

762 Eric Trist
Hungary in 1962 1,444 staff were spread among 227 university centres, while
554 were in 20 Academy establishments (social sciences and humanities combin-
ed).79 By 1966 the situation as between Academy institutes and university depart-
ments had become as follows.
HUNGARY. Number of research institutes and university departments (1966)
~ ~
Philosophy
Economics
History
Law and political science
Pedagogy
Languages and letters
Geography
Arts
Others
Total
Research University Other
institutes departments establishments
I
9
2
I
I
2
2
2
2
22
30
28
21
31
16
59
13
IO
4
218
3
2
-
I
3
-
Natural (physical and biological) 20 I 63 4
Medical 15 I22 2
Agricultural 22 103 5
Technological 48 I02 69
SOURCE: 'A magyar tudomknyos kutatds helyzete az orszkgos kutatksi statisztika
1966. Bvi adatai tukrkben,' Tudomhnyszervezhi Thjikoztatd 8 (I), January, 1968, p. 29.
The picture is one of concentration in the institutes and dispersion in the uni-
versities. There are now 505 institute economists in 9 establishments - a formid-
able concentration - whereas the 277 teachers of economics (who contribute
only 47 full-time equivalents in research time and have only IO other research
staff between them) are spread throughout 28 departments. For the social scien-
ces and humanities as a whole 846 research workers are in 22 institutes, whereas
1,584 teachers (contributing only 309 full-time equivalents in research time with
the support of 58 others) are in 218 departments. The departmental scatter is
larger than that in any of the other scientific groupings.
34. In many respects the social science situation in Poland resembles that in
France. The cNRs/Grands Etablissements complex in some ways parallels the
Academy as an elite institution. There is a similar attempt to build up the
universities yet to counter dispersion with greater concentration. Similar also
are the extensive developments in applied economics and the building up of
sociology. Social science planning is proceeding in the same direction in the
two countries with an emphasis on increasing the number of research workers
and a focus on broad problem-oriented themes related to social and economic
development. France reflects trends general in Western Europe as Poland does
in Eastern Europe. The differences lie in the different overall social structures
of the two types of country, their value systems and different patterns of free-
dom and constraints as these affect social research.
5
4
18

The organization and financing of research 763
V. DEVELOPING THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Latin America - A regional perspective
I. The situation of social research in Latin America is best approached from a
regional standpoint. The Centro Latinoamericano de Investigaciones en Cien-
cias Sociales at Rio de Janeiro, supported by governments of Latin American
countries and until very recently by UNESCO, acts as a co-ordinating body.1°7 It is
the counterpart of the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLASCO),
at Santiago, also supported by UNESCO (through 1969). Not all Latin American
governments support these agencies financially, which indicates a lack of ap-
preciation of the relationship between social science and problems of develop-
ment.
2. There are ten regional agencies of some standing which promote the devel-
opment and application of the social sciences throughout South and Central
America. Their names and locations are given in the accompanying table. Most
of them draw liberally on international resources. A many-sided and high level
regional capability has been brought into existence. Communication between
Latin American countries is poor in social science as in many other matters.
These regional organizations offset this by providing sharable expertise under
conditions where such resources are scarce.
LATIN AMERICAN. Social science institutions of regional standing
Institution City Country
Instituto Universitario Centroamericano de
Investigaciones Sociales
Centro para el Desarrollo Econbmico
y Social de America Latina
Instituto Latinoamericano de Planificaci6n
Econbmica y Social (United Nations)
Consejo Economico para America Latina
Centro de Sociologia Comparada del
Instituto Torcuato Di Tella
Instituto Panamericano de Geografia
e Historia
Instituto para la Integracih de
America Latina
Centro Interamericano de Vivienda y
Planeamiento
Instituto de Derecho Comparado
Centro Latinoamericano de Demografia
San Jose
Santiago
Santiago
Mexico City and
Santiago
Buenos Aires
Mexico City
Buenos Aires
Bogota
Mexico City
Santiago
Costa Rica
Chile
Chile
Mexico
Chile
Argentina
Mexico
Argentina
Colombia
Mexico
Chile
3. Nevertheless, regional bodies cannot be effective unless active centres
which carry out needed projects exist in the various countries. During 1965 the
Rio Unesco Centre contacted all the research organizations of which it knew
in South and Central America. There were 125 of these, of which 58 replied.
Their distribution by country, projects undertaken, and size, is given below.

764 Eric Trist
LATIN AMERICA. Principal social research centres (1965)
Country Centres Centres No. of Centres with
circulated replying projects IO or more
research workers
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Mexico
Venezuela
8 other countries
Total
28
29
17
IO
16
- 5
105
20
125
9
29
4
3
6
2 -
53
5
58
81
92
39
23
35
18
288
I4
302
-
4
2
3
2
2
I -
14
All but 20 of the centres are in the six countries which have made most headway
in social and economic development. In the other countries social research
scarcely exists. Apart from Peru, these are countries with very small popula-
tions - less than 5 million and sometimes less than 3 million, indigenous and
mestizo elements predominating, and illiteracy being high. In addition to eight
countries of this kind which were circulated, there were four others with which
the Centre had no contact. The larger and more advanced countries in which
social research has begun to develop are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Mexico and Venezuela, each of which possesses at least one centre with ten
or more active research workers and one or two others in which this number is
approached. These centres have links with world science in the setting of inter-
national cities. Provincial centres are out of touch with their own metropolitan
institutes as well as the outside world.
4. The greatest concentration of work is in Argentina and Chile, in which are
located some half of the centres carrying out two-thirds of the projects. Yet the
combined populations of these countries is only a third of that of Brazil - by far
the largest country with the widest diversity of resources and the greatest poten-
tial for industrial development. Somehow - perhaps because of the magnitude
of inter-regional disparity and persisting political instability - the social sciences
have not advanced as rapidly there as might be expected. In Mexico, though the
scale is small, roots are firmer. Developments in Colombia and Venezuela are
recent. Political stabilization has contributed.
5. As regards qualification and experience, information was obtained for
1965 from 38 centres in which were located almost all the more experienced
workers - 180 for the whole of Latin America. For 31 centres the disciplines of
the staff could be identified, sociologists being the outstanding category. The
overall range is wide. Most larger centres are interdisciplinary.
6. The preponderance of sociologists is surprising, except that the inquiry of
the Rio Centre did not include government or private organizations opera-
tionally involved in economic planning, regional development or industrial
modernization. These are user-organizations rather than research centres,
but a number of them employ investigatory staffs trained in applied eco-
-
I4

The organization and financing of research 765
LATIN AMERICA. Number and level of research workers in 38 social research centres
(1965)
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
El Salvador
Mexico
Peru
Uruguay
Venezuela
Total
Centres Senior
research
workers
9
I1
4
3
I
6
I
I
2
38
61
33
24
IO
I
35
I
3
I2
I80
Junior
research
workers
68
36
59
29
2
23
I
I
I1
230
Total
research
workers
129
69
83
39
3
58
2
4
23
LATIN AMERICA. Disciplines of research workers in 31 social research centres (1965)
Sociologists
Planners, ecologists, engineers, etc.
Economists
Social anthropologists
Ethnographers
Psychologists
Statisticians
Historians
Demographers
Physical anthropologists
Legal specialists
Political scientists
Folklore specialists
Archaeologists
Total
410
104
51
38
I7
IO
8
6
6
5
5
3
3
2
I
nomics and related disciplines. It is also common for people whose main
training has been in engineering and who have sometimes extended their skills
into operational research and various types of planning to play a prominent
part in this work in countries such as Mexico. Had these organizations been
included, the miscellaneous category which covers them in the above table would
have ranked first. The following report from Venezuela will serve to illustrate
this side of the picture:IoO
Research is conducted on a permanent basis in sectors directly relevant to the country’s
economic policy, such as agricultural production, petroleum production, international
trade, money and banking. At the present time, regional research programmes for
planning purposes are in hand such as those prosecuted by the Corporacibn de Desar-
rollo de 10s Andes and the Consejo Zuliano de Planificacibn. These two bodies which
both commission research and conduct it themselves, were established at the instance
of the national government to promote the development of their respective regions. At
national level, the Oficina Central de Coordinacibn y Planificacibn de la Presidencia
de la RBpublica (CORDIPLAN) and the Banco Central de Venezuela, have permanent
diagnostic research programmes - for the orientation in the first case of the National
259

766 Eric Trist
Development Plan, and in the second, of the Bank's monetary policies. The Corpora-
ci6n Vcnezolana de Guayana, which is responsible for the development of the region
of that name, also has research programmes at various levels intended for direct appli-
cation in its regional development programmes. The State and private universities
maintain economic research institutes pursuing programmes relating mainly to educa-
tional needs. There are also firms engaged in limited economic research in connexion
more especially with production and distribution for manufacturing or trading con-
cerns. Finally, there are private economic research institutes which execute specific
programmes; in the case of the Fundaci6n La Salle, its Instituto Caribe de Antro-
pologia y Sociologia regularly includes economic research in its social research program-
mes at sub-regional or small group level, generally on behalf of welfare institutions such
as the Instituto Venezolano de Acci6n Comunitaria or the Instituto de Servicios Rura-
les and for the orientation of programmes of community development or local socio-
economic improvement. For all these researches, the method generally used is that of
the survey varying in scope and elaboration according to the case and of course always
preceded by the fullest possible consultation of the available statistical and documen-
tary information. Other bodies which it is important to mention among the economic
research institutes in Venezuela are the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock with
its permanent statistics and surveys, and the Centro de Estudios Nacionales para el
Desarrollo Econ6mico y Social (CENDES) which is carrying out a number of highly
technical research programmes in close cooperation with the government's planning
bodies for the guidance of government economic policy.
7. Of the 14 largest research centres, six are supported entirely or substan-
tially (more than 50%) by international or foreign funds; five are supported
entirely or substantially by government funds; four undertake a certain amount
of contract work and two have the character of national private foundations.
Great difficulty has been experienced in securing sufficient funds either from
governments of from private sources. Government funds are usually restricted
to salaries and organizational maintenance. The absence of funds earmarked for
research induces a neglect of empirical work, especially in the universities.
Grants are rare but are sometimes made by the banks, the Bank of Mexico
having taken a lead in this regard, as has the International Bank for Reconstruc-
tion and Development. Such bodies confine their support to research and training
at an advanced post-graduate level in key institutions. In the opinion of the Rio
Centre no serious exploration of internal sources of support has been attempted
in most Latin American countries.
8. External sources have at times imposed not only theories and methods but
the problems to be studied. These policies were judged at the Seventh Congress
of the Asociaci6n Latinoamericana de Sociologia (1964) to be disastrous. Social
science in Latin America should be developed, it was stated, on the one hand,
from funds from inside the region, and, on the other, by international organiza-
tions free of political interest. However there are exceptions. European Catholic
Foundations, such as Misereor, have given untied funds to selected organiza-
tions. Valuable support of an indirect kind has been obtained from the technical
assistance programmes of France and the Netherlands, and from the Congress
of Cultural Freedom in Paris. Ford and Rockefeller Foundations have sup-
ported projects designed to develop local academic resources through collab-
orative research, teaching programmes and general institutional support.
9. Much favoured is the idea of joint programmes, some of which are already

The organization and financing of research 767
under way, with foreign university institutions and research bodies to combine
the knowledge and technique of other countries with personal acquaintance
with Latin American conditions. Mention may be made of the institutional
relations maintained by North American universities with the Fundaci6n La
Salle and other Venezuelan bodies, or the work of the French institution,
Economie et Humanisme, with the assistance of Venezuelan personnel. The
Management Sciences Center of the University of Pennsylvania has set up
interchangeable adjunct professorships with the National University of Mexico.
It was suggested that wider currency might advantageously be given to the idea
at present being considered by the Centro Latinoamericano de Venezuela
(CLAVE) of organizing, with the cooperation of the University of California in
Los Angeles and the Instituto Caribe de Antropologia y Sociologia in Venezue-
la, summer courses on Latin American social problems and on research method-
ology. These courses, which serve as specialist training for researchers, differ
from the ordinary type. Instructors go to where the students are. As these
courses take place when the instructors have no classroom commitments, more
students can be handled and the cost is appreciably lower.
IO. Few Latin American social scientists are research-minded in the empirical
sense. They are ‘professors’. In the prevailing pattern research is too closely
tied to university teaching of a didactic kind. The concept of the social research
worker has not taken root. His status remains that of a poor relation. He is
without a recognized career. Though this results in part from the absence of
equipment and funds it also expresses a deeper cultural attitude which has
inhibited the testing of hypotheses by empirical means.
11. The universities require to come to terms with the possible sources of
support in their societies. To do so they must undertake applied research.
This will free them from being simply passive critics of the existing social order and
enable them to become contributors to the efforts being made by government bodies
and private enterprises to facilitate change and establish the conditions for social and
economic development. This would at one and the same time enrich research and social
action.
This is underscored in the Venezuelan report: IOo
Basic research is obviously essential for the increase of human knowledge and as the
starting point for all applied research. However, as the problems grow more acute, it
becomes increasingly necessary to arrive at practical solutions and hence to direct the
research effort towards securing those solutions. This does not always mean that we
must persist in recourse to applied research as the only kind of research. Basic research
needs to be made ‘operational’, i.e. to be pursued in the context of the requirements of
a particular problem. The most important thing, in fact, is not to abandon basic
research in favour of applied research - a course which, as was mentioned to begin
with, would be neither rational not desirable-but, firstly, to develop new methodologies
which will allow of more time-efficient research, both basic and applied, and secondly,
to pursue both types in the context of an operational object.
Another report”’ emphasizes the need to develop motivations for undertaking
research careers :
As a general rule, the developing countries have potential ‘researcher’ resources which
are being inadequately exploited. It is felt that the provision of motivations for research

768 Eric Trist
careers and the strengthening of the methods and systems of educational and financial
assistance towards the achievement of research careers, moreover, can overcome this
deficiency in the developing countries, which will never be able to arrive at satisfactory
solutions of their own problems without the services of their own researchers, despite
all the refinements of research technique, indigenous researchers are the only ones able
to apprehend many of the essential aspects of a situation, more particularly in the
domain of the sciences of man.
12. The situation in the very small countries in which social researchis virtually
non-existent was brought out in a report from the Instituto Ecuatoriano de
Sociologia y TCcnica in Quito.105 The absenceofempirical studies €rad hampered
the work of those concerned with planning the execution of the Alliance for
Progress Programme. It had led to serious misconceptions and mistakes on
questions such as land reform. The creation of a central social research institute
is proposed which would be autonomous, though supported by a regular income
from the state budget. It would orientate its programme along lines correspond-
ing to the real needs of the country.
13. The sense of what is required is well illustrated by the Venezuelan report:
Venezuela’s most urgent lines for economic research, which should be problem-focused
in every case, are:
a. amplilication and diversification of diagnostic research on the economic structure
with a view, not only to supplementing the studies now proceeding but also to apply-
ing research to a sufficiently low level of group sizes to secure the most objective
notion of actual structures which very often are rather different from the statistical
averages yielded by diagnosis at national, regional or sub-regional levels;
b. operational studies of feasibility directed to designing production microstructures
adapted to the resources available to small groups and offering possibilities of larger-
scale integrations;
c. comprehensive fact-finding studies of nation-wide economic macrostructures such
as markets, credit, etc.
However, broadly speaking, the country’s greatest lack is of specialists trained in
research, financial resources being generally adequate.
14. One of the main difficulties in Latin America has been the absence of a
model in the countries which provided their culture of origin, Spain and Por-
tugal.93 During the last 10-15 years, however, the social sciences have begun to
develop in Spain in relation to economic and industrial expansion. Though the
established ‘faculties’ remain much as they were a number of university insti-
tutes have grown up outside them. Independent bodies have also appeared. In
1956 a School of Business Administration was founded at the new private
University of Guipuzcoa at San Sebastih. It conducts five-year courses which
include psychology and sociology which cannot be taken as a first degree in state
universities. It has a programme of post-graduate studies with international
connections. Schools of psychology, sociology and social studies open to those
who have taken a first degree have become affiliated to a number of the smaller
universities and to the Universities of Madrid and Barcelona.
15. A considerable part in these developments has been takenby the Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas. Set up by the government as long ago
as 1940 its function is to
develop, direct and co-ordinate research in fields covered by the universities, the various

The organization and financing of research 769
research institutes, schools and scientific bodies throughout the country and to sponsor
systematic investigation in new branches of learning or where work has been neglected
by lack of financial support.
The CSIC is a federation of research institutes which has developed some of the
attributes of the Academies of Eastern Europe. The independent institutes
include such bodies as the Instituto Nacional de Psicologia Aplicada y Psico-
tecnia. The Planning Commission and the National Council for Productivity
now sponsor social research of various kinds as do a number of industrial
undertakings.
16. Overall R & D expenditure in Spain is 0.9% of the net state budget and
0.02 % of GNP. The CSIC has a qualified research staff of 775 in the sciences of
man. How many of these are employed in empirical social research as distinct
from humanistic studies is unknown but the proportion is likely to be consider-
able. Overlapping elites concerned with industrial expansion and economic
growth and aware that these have social implications have provided the leader-
ship for these developments in spite of political restrictions. Perhaps the fact
that old Spain is on the move wil do something to assist the Spanish speaking
countries of the new world to lose the image of their ‘reference culture’ as being
inherently pre-industrial and semi-feudal, change-avoidant and averse to the
scientific spirit.
India as a large reference country for Asia
17. No material at all was received from a number of Asian countries. That
received from others was fragmentary except for India. For India several reports
were available including one specially prepared for the present study by the
former UNESCO Research Centre on Social and Economic Development in
Southern Asia. I Io From these documents and personal communications made
by both Indian and foreign social scientists it has been possible to construct an
outline picture of the organization and financing of social research in the sub-
continent.9’ India is developing a role as a scientific ‘reference country’ for
Asia. Apart from Japan, it is likely to be the first major society outside Europe
and North America to achieve extensive capability in the social sciences.
18. There were 55 universities in India in 1963 with over a million students
and 63,000 teachers, of whom 14% were professors. Universities are statutory
bodies empowered to award nationally recognized degrees. Most of them are
of the ‘teaching and affiliating’ type, comprising central departments responsible
for post-graduate training and research and affiliated ‘colleges’ responsible for
undergraduate preparation. The central departments are responsible for exami-
nations. Between them and the affiliated colleges there is little interchange of
staff. Some 90% of Indian undergraduates study in roughly 1,000 affiliated
colleges scattered throughout the country.
19. University funds are provided by annual grants from either the central
or the state governments. Central funds are distributed through the agency of a
University Grants Committee modelled after the British body. About a fifth
of total public expenditure on higher education in India is provided by the
UGC (1960-61). Of this over one third goes to four ‘central’ universities. Many

770 Eric Trist
of the ‘affiliated’
colleges obtain financial assistance from charitable foundations,
public and private subscriptions or ‘founding’ bodies.
20. The separation of undergraduate teaching and post-graduate studies in
conjunction with the dispersion and rapid growth of undergraduate colleges has
been criticised both in India and by foreign commentators. The continuing
expansion of colleges and ‘universities’ within the various Indian States since
independence is seen as an expression of the aspirations of the ‘lower’ castes to
improve their social and economic position. This they attempt to accomplish
by obtaining the ‘pass’ to government, professional and semi-professional
employment - a statutorily recognized degree. In doing so they imitate the
traditional pattern of upper caste careers under British rule. The university
comes to be perceived in a vocational context as a degree-giving body. This leads
to increasing demands for more ‘universal’ higher education as a matter of
social right and to over-concentration on the preparation and teaching of
examination programmes capable of being standardised across a large number
of quasi-independent units - the ‘colleges’. Post-graduate teaching and research
cease to be regarded as required in a university. Even where they are carried on,
their physical and administrative separation from the colleges and their limited
scale reduce their impact.
21. But, if a system of mass higher education has to be rapidly developed, is
the Indian solution so different from the American, where state colleges and
liberal arts colleges have been brought into existence alongside universities ?
Even the British have a reserve system of higher education in their technical
colleges. The Eastern European countries could only simultaneously develop a
system of tertiary education and a research capability by keeping them sharply
distinct in the early stages.
22. Among suggestions for improvement it is notable that the proposal of the
UGC gives priority to ensuring the best conditions for the few while allowing the
expansion of the colleges to proceed. It advocates setting up centres of advanced
study in selected departments or attached institutes embodying a mix of post-
graduate training and research. Such centres should be limited in number to
enable them to be staffed by a sufficient body of eminent scholars. They would
become ‘centres of excellence’. By 1965 twenty-six had been set up.
23. At the post-graduate level a considerable amount of training and research
is carried out in semi-autonomous bodies. Examples in the social sciences are:
the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics at Poona; the Tata Institute of
Social Sciences at Bombay; the Institute of Social Sciences at Agra, Benares
and Lucknow; and a number of agro-economic research centres. They are
linked to the university system at the post-graduate level. Their members may
hold chairs in university departments and offer courses leading to higher degrees.
Such institutes draw support from a variety of sources, public and private.
A proportion of their work is on contract for user-organizations. None are of
any great size. In 1963 the Gokhale Institute had a scientific staff of 26 and an
administrative staff of 8; the Tata Institute, a full-time scientific staff of 9, a
part-time staff of 4. Both the Tata Institute and the Gokhale Institute were
private foundations set up during the period of colonial rule. The latter now

The organization andjinancing of research 771
includes one of the new centres of advanced study - in agricultural economics.
24. A number of research institutes in the social sciences also exist outside the
university system, which are administratively independent of government or
any particular user. Examples are:
Institute of Economic Growth at Delhi
Indian Institute of Economics
National Institute of Community Development
Indian Institute of Asian Studies
National Council of Applied Economic Research
Indian Institute of Public Administration
Al Indian Institute of Local Self-Government
Demographic Training and Research Centre, Bombay
Indian Institute for Population Studies
Indian Statistical Institute
Indian Institute of Public Opinion
The Demographic Training and Research Centre at Bombay was set up in
1956 under the joint sponsorship of the Indian Government, the Dorabji Tata
Trust and the United Nations, to conduct research on population problems
in Asia and the Far East, and to train local personnel in demography. It awards
its own diplomas but for teaching purposes draws on the post-graduate depart-
ments of the University of Bombay. Courses comprise a mix of social sciences,
statistics and research methods, genetics and the physiology of human repro-
duction, and family planning. Training is financed largely through government,
United Nations and Population Council Fellowships. Candidates include
foreign nationals from the ECAFE region. Grants for research are not tied to
specific projects. Many of the programmes undertaken are in co-operation with
Indian state governments or with regional organizations such as ECAFE.
25. All these bodies, with the exception of the Institute of Public Opinion,
carry out training in methodology and research techniques. Some - the Indian
Institute of Public Administration, for example - also perform certain of the
functions of learned societies. In respect of research most of them rely on grants
and contracts from the central government or from state governments, from
private organizations, and from foreign and international foundations. The
Indian Institute of Public Opinion does contract work for commercial firms
and the Indian Statistical Institute for government. Only the Institute of Sta-
tistics is of major size - employing about 2,000 part-time or full-time workers,
of whom 500 are interviewers. Its work in the field of social statistics is consid-
erable. Amongst fields recently covered have been surveys of the living condi-
tions of different social classes, a quinquennial national survey, and studies of
social mobility. It may be compared with INSEE.
26. A relatively recent development has been the creation of two graduate
schools of management conducted in cooperation with American universities
and aided by the Ford Foundation. One at Calcutta is linked to the Sloan
School of Management at MTT, the other at Ahmedabad, is linked to Marvard
Business School. American faculty go to India on regular tours of duty. The
aim is to develop research as well as teaching. The Administrative Staff College

772 Eric Trisl
at Delhi reflects the influence of British models. Other management schools
combining research and post-graduate teaching, such as that in Bombay, have
been established entirely by Indian interests. In view of the crucial importance
of making more rapid progress with industrialization the need is great to obtain
through research a better understanding of its requirements under Indian conditions.
27. There are a number of research centres directly under the control either
of the Central Government or State Governments - notably in anthropology
and agricultural economics. In anthropology, the Department of Anthropology
of the Central Government is responsible for conducting surveys of population
trends (internal migrations, living conditions of refugees, new settlements, community
development) and of social structure (with particular attention to the
distribution and organization of tribes). State Governments have their ‘tribal
research institutes’, for example, in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal,
Bihar. The focus of this research is on the development, dispersal and integration
of the tribes which, since independence and before, have posed major problems
for social policy, both centrally and locally. Policy considerations also led to
priority being given to the creation of agro-economic research centres in East,
North-East and Western India, or Madhya Pradesh, etc.
28. A number of economists are employed in Government Departments in
economic planning, while social scientists from other fields assist in the preparation
of welfare policies. Such personnel are also to be found in public corporations
and in private enterprises and associations. Much of the social research
activities of the latter, however, are carried out on a contract basis by external
institutes. Despite these activities there has been considerable criticism of the
attitudes of user-organizations. This criticism has centred on the view that even
where research and development (notably in the natural sciences and technology)
are encoyraged government and industry alike have been reluctant to
make use of the results achieved. Initiatives in the posing of problems, etc. are
left to scientific institutions. Little attempt is made to form effective links between
researchers and users. The consequence has been characterized :by S.
Dedijer as the tendency for ‘applied’ research to become ‘pure’ for the want of
applicati0n.9~ Behind this tendency lie pervasive attitudes stemming from the
traditional culture.
29. Estimates given by S. Dedijer for total expenditure (public and private)
on all research and development (including the social sciences) show an overall
figure for India of 0. I % of GNP. In respect of manpower the Unesco Research
Centre gave the following breakdown for 1963 :
Research workers
Economics
Social statistics
Anthropology (social and cultural)
‘Social sciences’
Political science
Sociology
Demography
Psychology

The organization and financing of research 773
These figures are out of date and incomplete. Some more recent estimates for
1965 are:
Psychology
Sociology
Demography
150-200
100-1 20
50- 70
‘Research workers’ refers to professional staff employed in the research insti-
tutes and centres contacted. Excluded are considerable numbers of teachers in
the social sciences at the affiliated colleges.
30. The emphasis on economics shows the preoccupation with development.
It may also reflect the extent to which economics has been the most established
of the social sciences in British institutions serving as a model for Indian uni-
versities - Oxford and Cambridge and the London School of Economics and
Political Science. Both from the viewpoint of national problem-solving and of
the longer-term development of the social sciences, this emphasis may be a
wasting asset. Problems of development are unlikely to be fully understood or
resolved simply through the application of economic models.
31. The development of social statistics reflects the demands of ‘user-organiza-
tions’. They are drawn on in taking policy decisions. But lopsided growth in this
area as compared with others, such as sociology, may be dysfunctional, produc-
ing masses of facts divorced from concepts capable of serving as frameworks for
analysis and explanation.
32. The influence of the social and cultural situation of India is apparent in
the strength of anthropology as compared with sociology ahd psychology and
in the weight given to demography as a separate discipline.
33. There is no central body in India concerned with the planning and co-ordi-
nation of the social sciences. However, a committee has recently been appointed
to survey the field, rather as the Heyworth Committee did for Britain.
34. In the more general field of science policy, there are several consultative
bodies at central government level which bring together scientists, members of
Government and representatives of public and private enterprises or associa-
tions. Science policy has become a focus of controversy. This takes its point-of
departure from a dissatisfaction with the performance of Indian science, es-
pecially its impact on technological development. Demands have been made
in some quarters for a more co-ordinated system along Eastern European lines.
Progress has since been made with a co-ordinating council.
Senegal as a small reference country for Africa
35. As in Asia and Latin America, very little is going on in a number of coun-
tries, especially those which are politically disturbed. Nevertheless, more pro-
gress has been made than might be expected. Data from the special study which
was made of Senegal wil serve to bring this out.*Is Senegal is a regional base
for social science teaching and research in those parts of West Africa previously
under French colonial rule. The University of Dakar and its affiliated institu-
tions play a major role in this development. Dakar is also the location of a
United Nations body concerned with African economic development and plan-
ning.

774 Eric Trist
36. Research and teaching organizations interpenetrate, but the best way of
presenting what is happening is to describe them separately, beginning with the
teaching establishments. These are of five kinds: faculties of the University of
Dakar; faculty institutes; institutes affiliated to the University; government
schools; and international organizations. Their roles in teaching the social
sciences are described below.
e. Faculties of the University (Arts and Human Sciences, Law and Economics)
concentrate on full-time graduate and undergraduate teaching. The organiza-
tion of courses follows the French pattern : a certificate of general literary
studies for a pre-university (propaedeutic) year; certificates of advanced
studies; doctorat du 3eme cycle.
6. Two faculty institutes teaching social science are the IEI (Institut #Etudes
Isiamiques) which runs courses on Arabic language and culture in Dakar,
Saint-Louis and Thibs, and the IEAA (Institut #Etudes Administratives Afri-
caines) which conducts correspondence courses for government officials in
public law, finance, political economy, etc. Students are prepared for the
competitive examinations of 1’Institut des Hautes Etudes #Outre-Mer, Paris,
and the Ecoles Nationales d’administration.
c. One of the affiliated institutes - IPESAN (Institut de Promotion Economique
et Sociale de 1’Afrique Noire) - has statistical and economic sections. The
teaching is done by professors of the Faculty of Law and economics, and
takes place during the evening. There is an examination at the end of the
year’s course leading to a certificate in statistics or economics.
d. The State of Senegal runs two schools for training government officials.
L‘Ecole Nationale #Administration du Sknkgal (ENAS) recruits by competi-
tion from licenciks and government officials of grade B, aged thirty or over.
The programme includes courses in law, sociology, ethnology, human geog-
raphy, social psychology, etc. The certificate of the ENAS provides an entree
to various branches of the civil services. L’Ecole Nationale d’Economie Ap-
pliquke (ENEA) runs a three-year course designed to train ‘les cadres moyens
du developpement’. The course incorporates theory, practical experience and
exercises in applied research.
e. The international organization in Senegal concerned with teaching is the
UN African Institute for Economic Development and Planning which runs
special courses and seminars, and a nine-month training programme for
licenciis sponsored by their respective governments and intending to become
economic planners.
37. On the research side there is a large number of small undertakings. In
contrast to a number of countries there is an emphasis on psychological and
sociological factors. Projects being undertaken and the organizations respon-
sible are described below.
a. The Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences of the University of Dakar has a
department of sociology and a department of psychology and social psychol-
ogy which maintain extensive contacts with neighbouring faculties, research
workers in institutes or government departments, and teachers in secondary
or technical schools. They work with other universities - African, American

The organization and financing of research 775
and European. Research includes publications by professors, work under
their direction and doctoral theses.
b. The Institut des Sciences Psychologiques et Sociales, affiliated to the Uni-
versity, comprises a Centre de Recherches Psycho-sociales and a Centre de
Recherches Psychopathologiques ; it conducts surveys of current social
change and its effect on individuals and also studies methods of teaching.
c. Several government departments carry out sociological surveys; the Secre-
tariat of Information on the tourist industry and the use of mass media; the
Ministry of Rural Economy on health, leisure rural migration, economic
information and agricultural activity. Urbanization studies have been under-
taken under the auspices of the Ministry of Planning and Development. The
Statistical Service investigates family budgeting in rural and urban settings, of
nutrition, and of childbirth.
d. IFAN (Institut Fondamental de 1’Afrique Noire) has a Sociological Section
which had four research workers in 1964 - a sociologist, a psychologist, a
demographer and a planner - working on problems arising from the urban-
ization and industrialization of West Africa.
e. The Fann Hospital Centre conducts problem-oriented research on the adap-
tation of psychological knowledge and theory to the African situation: schi-
zophrenia in the African environment; the African mother and school at-
tendance; the relationship of a mentally ill person to his family; the hospital
as a psychotherapeutic institution; the use of projective techniques in an
African context.
f. The Fraternit6 Saint-Dominique had one research worker carrying out a
socio-demographic study of the African Christian population of Dakar.
g. Some of the research undertaken by the Faculty of Medecine and Pharmacy
has a social science interest : the evolution of the eating habits of mothers and
young children; public health education in urban communities. The Institut
de P6diatrie Sociale studies the social aspects of pediatrics; the life of an
African child in an urban community; the effects of social environment on
health.
h. The Centre de Linguistique AppliquBe, Dakar, investigates psycholinguistic
aspects of acculturation, and the Fraternit6 de Saint-Dominique problems
of translating Christian texts into African languages.
38. The second broad area in which research is undertaken is that of demog-
raphy, statistics and economics in relation to the problems of development.
This reflects the patterning which has evolved in France.
a. The Government Statistical Service, attached to the Ministry of Planning
and Development, undertakes demographic and socio-economic studies. It
co-ordinates statistics produced by government departments and publishes a
periodical on economic activity. The section ‘Sciences Humaines’ of ORSTOM
(Office de Recherche Scientifique et Technique #Outre-Mer), the Senegal
section of the Paris organization, works with it on studies of vital statistics
and of migration in urban and rural communities.
b. ORSTOM also conducts research in economics. The section ‘Sciences Humai-
nes’ has been looking at regional accounting systems to discover rapid indica-

776 Eric Trist
tors for controlling the execution of regional plans. It also appraises projects
proposed by regions.
c. The principal institution concerned with economic research in Senegal - and
indeed in the whole of West Africa - is the ISEA (Institut de Science Economique
Appliquke de Dakar). Its main themes are : industrialiation (mathematical
treatment of location of industry, criteria for selecting industries,
application of modern technology to underdeveloped countries, cost-benefit
aspects of establishing basic industries) ; agricultural economics; international
economics as they affect African countries. Not surprisingly, statistics
in Senegal have not yet been sufficient either in quantity or quality to justify
the use of mathematical techniques and econometrics. ISEA has stressed the
need for a multidisciplinary approach to problems of development. Unable
itself to support multidisciplinary research teams it works with other institutions.
d. SATEC (Sociktt d'Aide Technique et de Coophation) endeavours to increase
productivity in foodstuffs, especially peanuts. Its work is complementary to
that of organizations attached to the Ministries of Rural Economy and Planning.
It requires research in economics, psychology and ethnology; a study
of Senegalese culture and the constraints it imposes.
e. CINAM (Compagnie d'Etudes Industrielles de d'Amknagement du Territoire)
is concerned with perfecting methods of decentralized planning and setting
them into operation; with work-organization and methods of training officers
of the Centres d'Expansion Rurale; and with methodology for conducting
small projects of interest to rural communities and training the civil servants
responsible for executing and controlling them.
J SCET-COOpk~atiOn is a French organization undertaking action research for
the Senegalese Government in urbanization, rural economy and fishing. It
has been involved in setting up a factory complex at Dakar for canning
tunny fish.
g. CASHA (Centre Africain des Sciences Humaines Appliquks, Aix-en-Provence)
chose Senegal in 1962 as the site for investigating 'la nature des exigences
telles que le dkveloppement tconomique et social impose A une administration
de pays sous-developpts et a en rechercher les conskquences sur le plan
politique, Bconomique et social'.
39. The third broad research domain is that of African Studies to which increasing
attention is being paid as the role of traditional cultures in the development
process has become better appreciated and as the problems posed by their
immense variety - whether as regards language, social structure, or custom -
have begun to be confronted with greater realism. The organizations listed are
working in this field.
a. IFAN studies West African man - his history, civilization, language and arts;
and the evolution of the traditional structure of West African society.
b. CRDS (Centre de Recherches et de Documentation du SBnBgal) studies the
climate, folklore, arts and literature of Senegal. Through its museum it seeks
to popularize Senegalese culture. It provides a documentation/research service
for the Government.

The organization and financing of research 777
c. CREDILA (Centre de Recherches, #Etudes et de Documentation sur les Institutions
et la Ugislation Africaines) documents and synthesizes material
designed to assist the study of African problems in the fields of law, legislation
and administration. It is attached to the Faculty of Law and Economics.
d. Some research is also undertaken by the DBpartment d‘Arabe et de Civilisation
Musulmane of the University and by the Fraternit6 de Saint-Dominique.
40. A division of labour has grown up between international bodies, such
as the United Nations Institute and the organizations with counterparts in
France and those which have been promoted by African interests. The former
play the predominant role in studies of social and economic development, the
latter in studies of African culture, languages and problems of changing from
the traditional ways of life. Africans have a need to realize their heritage for
themselves and to be able to bring this into effective contact with the international
resources which can help them to develop the many forms of technical
competence required for the development of their societies.
41. Though the scale of the activities described, both in teaching and research,
is small they have a certain completeness. They compose an outline configuration
of what is required. The criticism of undue dispersion should be reconsidered
against this criterion. How could any part of what is being attempted be
left out ? The whole process is in a chrysalis stage. As resources become more
plentiful the experience gained from the many lines of exploration which have
been followed wil enable decisive investments to be made in selected directions.
These directions wil not always be the same for other African countries which
yet can learn from what has been going on in Senegal.
The Republic of Ireland as a bridge country
42. Senegal experience suggests that ‘learning posts’ which exist among the
developing countries themselves may have an exceedingly important role as
media through which other such countries can learn. Close to their own experi-
ence, they are easy to identify with. They are non-threatening and non-suspect
Former colonial powers are the object of complex ambivalences. The super-
powers overwhelm. UN agencies, while being trusted, are often difficult to
reach as the channels are official and there is little control over the selection of
experts. In many cases, the developing countries do not know what to ask for.
All this suggests that there may be a role among the smaller and less developed
countries of Europe as ‘bridge countries’ particularly acceptable to developing
countries. Being relatively undeveloped, they are felt to belong to the develop-
ing world. Their situation in Europe, however, gives them a footing in the other
camp. They can act as bridges. Moreover, they can be approached informally.
Networks of contact can grow up through people who meet and get to know
each other at internationaI conferences, on missions, and in a variety of special
settings.
43. A country such as the Republic of Ireland has great potentiality in this
regard.g2 It is experienced as an independent country. A small one as well as a

778 Eric Trist
poor one, it now has a record of considerable success in pursuing its develop-
ment by means very much its own, though these have not impaired its capability
to use foreign and international resources. While reflecting the influence of
British institutions, it has the advantage of being Catholic, which increases its
acceptability to Latin America and Catholic parts of Africa and Asia. Yet it
does not proselytize.
44. Ireland is a country where the social sciences have undergone a substan-
tial development in the last decade. These developments have been promoted by
a modernizing elite, members of which are to be found in all sections of the
society : the political parties, the Civil Service, the Church, industry, the trade
unions, the professions and the universities. Though they are few in number and
have much opposition to face - and more apathy - they know each other and in
Dublin they have a world city as their capital.
45. The two trends to be described are complementary. The first is informal
and is the result of one or two leading Irish social scientists having got to know
colleagues whom they found to be of like mind in institutes in Britain, such as
the Tavistock, and organizations in the Netherlands and Norway with which
they had become associated. All these organizations were interested in generic
problem-oriented research. Very soon their representatives were introduced to
innovative individuals in Irish industry and government. On this background a
series of projects arose in management-labour relations, regional development
and the building of new industries which involved all concerned in a common
learning process. The projects had an international colouring and members of
the client organizations as well as of the social research institutes visited devel-
opment sites in different countries. In certain projects the sites inside Ireland
were the most advanced, so that the least developed country became the
demonstrator and teacher. This is something which can happen in any part of
the world. For example, some original and sophisticated attempts in the use of
group methods in training civil servants have been carried out in West and
East Africa with the assistance of a consultant sponsored by the Ford Founda-
tion, and more recently in the UAR and other Arab states with the assistance of
the European Institute for Transnational Studies in Group and Organizational
Development.
46. The informal developments in Ireland which have been described became
related to a more formal set of initiatives taken by the Irish Institute for Public
Administration which led to the setting up of a Social Research Committee
with the objective of getting more empirical studies under way and preparing
the ground for an autonomous social research council. This committee was
widely representative of both governmental and non-governmental interests.
It led to a request to the United Nations to send an expert to review the Irish
situation and to make recommendations on the use of the social sciences in
national development. It is not without significance that the expert chosen, Dr.
Henning Friis, was himself from a small country - Denmark.99 His recommenda-
tion was that an existing institution, the Economic Research Institute, should
be enlarged and extended to become an all-purpose social research institute
which would bring together sociology and psychology as well as economics

The organization and financing of research 779
and statistics and that it should set up a survey research centre. This expanded
institute would be outside both the universities and government but functionally
related to both. Its focus would be on broad problem-oriented work, program-
matic rather than simply project in character, generating fundamental work in
the universities but related to the most salient needs of the country. The diag-
nosis of these would be made by the representatives of the many interest groups
forming the council in interaction with the scientific staff. Friis felt that it was
too soon to go all the way in setting up a fully-fledged social science research
council aiming to produce a comprehensive policy for the social sciences. What
he did was to advocate that the next incremental step should be taken. This has
prevented dispersion without creating monopoly. A ‘leading part’ has been
provided which can have a cohering effect while leaving open other roads.
47. The most important features of the Irish development are that it has been
led by the forward-looking elite within the country and that members of this
elite belong to so many different sections of the society. Given this degree of
internal coherence and enterprise a natural engagement is likely to follow with
the type of social scientist interested in making a contribution to the problems
to be solved and believing that to do so wil further his own scientific under-
standing. It is also more possible under these conditions to ensure that foreign
research workers contribute to the growth of the country’s own social science
capability. One of the conditions which makes this most likely is when the type
of work undertaken is of a kind which cannot so easily be undertaken in the
home countries of the foreign specialists. Different countries with their different
traditions, social structures and current problems offer varying opportunities
for advancing knowledge in a number of critical areas of the social sciences.
Some of the smaller countries of the developing world offer unique opportunities
of this kind, as do the bridge countries such as Ireland. They have a front role
to play in the development of social science as well as being the recipients
of ‘help’.
Part three: Analysis and commentary
VI. BUILDING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITY
Changing the university context
I. In most countries the major disciplines of the social sciences have long since
separated themselves as domains of empirical inquiry from their hinterlands of
origin in philosophy, law or the humanities. Yet scientific separation has not
been paralleled by organizational separation as regards position in university
faculties. Persistence of inappropriate organizational contexts has kept them
away from real life, apart from each other, and, furthermore, diminished in
size. The newer trend is to set up broad schools of social science where all the
various disciplines are grouped together. This opens them up to each other and
to the outside world. It also enables them to grow more quickly to the size their
activities require. Their comparison groups now become’ the life sciences as a
whole, the physical sciences as a whole, or, indeed, the humanities as a whole.

$30 Eric Trist
They can then perceive themselves and be perceived as an associated complex
of a higher order of magnitude related to the social environment as a whole.
As dissociated single entities of a lower order of magnitude they can relate only
to parts of this environment. University structures are difficult to change, more
in some countries than in others. Yet the need has become pressing for the
capability of the social sciences to develop rapidly. The refashioning of their
academic organizational context wherever this has remained inappropriate is a
priority.
2. A number of professional schools have become established, deriving direct-
ly from or depending to an increasing degree on the social sciences. Examples
of the first are education, administration in its many forms, and social welfare;
of the second, medicine, engineering, architecture and environmental planning.
There now exist socialprofessions as well as social sciences, and social technol-
ogies as well as a widening base of fundamental knowledge. The two may be
expected to reinforce each other as have technology and fundamental know-
ledge in the physical and biological sciences. The establishment of social pro-
fessions and technologies is having the effect of breaking down the boundaries
between disciplines. Because of the nature of their tasks university professional
schools, in contrast to social science departments, tend to be multidisciplinary.
Their growth is facilitating the establishment of comprehensive social science
faculties.
The emergence of problem-oriented research
3. A third trend is the emergence of ‘problem-oriented‘ research where the
objective is not so much to equip professional practitioners as to provide new
types of information, the clarification of alternatives and widened perspectives
for the guidance of decision-makers in government, in industry, and indeed in all
domains of the life of a society. This type ofwork was first thought of in terms of
a misleading notion of the relationship of pure to applied science in which the
second was supposed to succeed the first. The inference was made that social
scientists should hold off from problem-oriented research until they had widened
their knowledge base. It is now being recognized that the reverse is true. To
engage in problem-oriented research represents a major strategy for advancing
fundamental knowledge. This is because so much of the data required by the
social scientist cannot be ‘extracted’ from its setting in real life. He must gain
access to it. For this he requires permission. This wil not be granted unless
those concerned share with the social scientist a joint commitment to a common
overriding objective which allows them to regard each other as members of a
wider system which includes them both.I3* This is the basis of what has been
termed the ‘collaborative relationship.’’39
4. The collaborative relationship as a research method allows a process of
mutual learning to take place between ‘researchers’ and ‘researched‘. A diffusion
into society of social science understanding can begin to take place at the same
time as it is being created as knowledge. This means that the ‘clientele’ with
which social scientists work at all system levels - from the individual to the
multi-organization - are an integral part of the overall task force concerned

The organization andfinancing of research 78 I
with the development of the social sciences. They constitute the third arm of the
service - the academic disciplines and the related professions being the other
two.
Social science in general education
5. The case for increasing social science as part of general education may be
made by extending what was said about clientele. The faster the change-rate
and the more complex the environment the greater the need of the individual to
understand himself and his society. The greater the need, therefore, of society to
have a large part of its population possessed of greater understanding of this
kind. The growing tendency merits encouragement to include broad based
social science courses in the curricula of the first undergraduate years and of
extending thein to the later years of secondary education.5
6. Such courses should:
a. be conceptual foundation courses introducing a multidisciplinary approach
from the beginning and making use of general systems concepts. Pursuit in
greater depth of a selected area can follow later.
b. aim to establish a preliminary mathematical and statistical competence,
again of the most generalized kind.
c. include direct exposure to the process of social investigation through partici-
pation in field observation, data collection and case work, or group work of
some kind which permits ‘experiential learning’.
While generally raising the level of social science understanding in the educated
population of the future, effective courses of this kind would encourage not only
more, but more of the most able, students to undertake intensive later prepara-
tion to qualify for one of the social professions or to undertake research. An
oversupply of top talent is required in view of the complexity of the problems
and the unmapped nature of so much of the terrain.
7. Another critical aspect of social science is its role in continuing education.
This is becoming as important as initial education with the growing need to
offset obsolescence. The policy implications of the social sciences can be more
readily grasped when some experience of life has been obtained and of decision-
taking r0les.~*5
Some effects of social professions
8. With regard to preparation for the social professions’the key deficiency has
been the extent to which training in the principles and procedures of various
forms of social practice has been divorced from basic training in the social
sciences. Both have suffered as a result. Many attempts are now being made
to effect a more far-reaching integration of theory and practice. So far as they
succeed many areas of work wil be up-graded from sub- to full professions and
many more social scientists wil gain professional experience. This wil permit
a greater interchangeability between research, teaching and practitioner roles,
with the greater flexibility in career patterning this wil allow. There is widespread
recognition that absence of this flexibility constitutes one of the main barriers
to a more rapid advance of the social sciences.

782 Eric Trist
9. The firmer establishment of social professions will create the possibility
of a more scientific approach to ‘social development’ - as contrasted with
social research. Little ‘social-science-informed’ social development has taken
place because of the lack of social science professionals in operating organizations.
Yet it has become a necessity when intervention by government in the
operations of society has reached a scale never previously experienced. Large
scale programmes are launched without continuous monitoring of their performance
during their early phases. New institutions are brought on to the
stage without ‘piloting up’. There is little systematic search into sources of
unexpected ‘social’ error. A lack of vigilance is common regarding unintended
consequences for those not directly implicated. Practicable modifications are
apt to be made only very late. Sometimes so much has been invested that it is
impossible to retreat even when it becomes obvious that the direction is wrong.
The presence of social science professionals in operating organizations will make
true development work feasible in the social field. As soon as they begin to
make their influence felt, they will immensely sharpen the foci of social research,
enabling it to concentrate on more pertinent issues.
Basic types of research organization
IO. As regards research organizations themselves, three main types may be
distinguished, each of which has a distinctive pattern.* These wil be referred
to as Types A, B and c, respectively:
Type A. Centres of professional social science activity, with associated research
and development establishments to undertake work on immediate
practical problems.
These centres are located within user-organizations (such as the
Home Office Social Research Unit in Britain), or constitute consulting
groups under contract to them (such as the Societe d‘Economie et de
Mathematique Appliquks in France). Lacking them, user-organiza-
tions remain without agents able to identify areas of social science
knowledge relevant to their problems. They are also without social
science professionals in continuous contact with administrators.
Research problems are determined by client needs, though real and
apparent needs are often difficult to distinguish and what is most
deeply required is far from always what is most urgently requested.
Such work expresses a research/service ‘mix’.
Type B. Centres of basic research associated with major teaching facilities.
Centres of Type B are the opposite of, and complementary to, those of
Type A.
They are located within universities, as autonomous departments
based on particular disciplines (such as psychology and sociology).
They undertake both undergraduate and graduate training. Research
problems are determined by the needs of theory and method or may
* Based on the scheme developed in Social Research and a National Policyfor Science,
pp. 7-15.13’

The organization and financing of research 783
represent attempts to explore and establish new fields of scholarly
enquiry. They express a researchlteaching ‘mix’.
Type c. Centres of applied research associated with advanced research training.
Centres of Type c may be regarded as a resultant of Types A and B.
They supply the necessary link between them, being intermediate
bodies between user-organizations and orthodox university depart-
ments.
They may be located within the boundaries of universities and
related to several Type B departments (such as the Institute of Social
Research of the University of Michigan); or outside them as independ-
ent institutes (such as the Netherlands Institute of Preventive Medi-
cine in Leiden). They are problem-centred and interdisciplinary, but
focus on generic rather than specific problems. They accept professional
as well as scientific responsibility for the projects they undertake. They
contribute both to theoretical development and to the improvement
of practice. Their work expresses a research/application ‘mix’.
The criteria that differentiate the three types are summarized in the following
table.
Characteristics of main types of research organization
Type of work Type of setting
User-organ- University Spec i a 1
izations departments institutes
Source of problem Specific client Needs of theory General ‘field‘
needs and method needs
Level of problem Concrete Abstract Generic
Activity mix Research/ Research/ Research/
Service Teaching Application
Disciplinary mix Multiple Single Interrelated
I I. The three types form an inter-dependent system. No one can be effective
alone, since the feedback of each into the others is critical for the development
of the whole. The boundaries of A and B extend into c, and those of c into
either A or B. Overlap is desirable, as regards both activities and staff. Many
existing research organizations show idiomatic combinations of the basic types:
A & B; A & C; B & c; A, B & c. Examples which include all would be profes-
sional schools associated with universities. Such schools are inherently inter-
and multidisciplinary, combining teaching with both basic and applied research
and with demonstration practice. Yet schools of administration, medicine,
engineering, architecture and planning, education, etc. often experience conflict
through failing completely to recognize the presence of the different mixes. They
do not always place equal value on their distinctive contributions, or organize
themselves appropriately for their different requirements.

784 Eric Trist
12. Several varieties of research unit occur in each of the main types. These
are set out in the following table. Though most of the terms are self-explana-
tory, one or two need brief comment. By internal agencies, Type AI, are meant
headquarters research and development groups close to centres of policy-
making. These are concerned with identifying problems rather than with carry-
ing out investigations. They may initiate exploratory or pilot schemes them-
selves and undertake urgent, short-run inquiries. Anything more massive, basic,
or longer-range would be handed over - to one of their own directly controlled
research establishments or to an outside consulting organization, Types
AZ and A3; to a post-doctoral contract programme in a university, Type ~ 3 ;
or to a Type c organization. National and trans-national institutes, Type c3
(shared costly facility), have existed for the natural sciences for some time - for
example, institutes for nuclear physics. The computer appears to be bringing
them into existence for the social sciences - for example, national data banks
are beginning to be established and collections of computer programmes to be
made. National organizations of Type c4 (shared routine facility) came into
existence in the social sciences to collect and analyze statistical data, e.g. the
census, social surveys, etc. International facilities of these types are appearing.
Varieties of research unit in relation of main types
Main type Varieties
Centres concerned with
user-organizations
Type A
Centres interwoven with
university departments
Type B
Centres comprising
special institutes
Type c
I Internal agencies
2 Directly controlled establishments
3 Consulting organizations
I Pre-doctoral programmes
2 Post-doctoral programmes (basic)
3 Post-doctoral programmes
(contract)
I University-based organizations
2 Independent organizations
3 National organizations
(shared costly facility)
4 National organizations
(shared routine facility)
13. It is the Type c characteristics which express the institutional embodiment
of capability to undertake interdisciplinary problem-oriented research of a
generic kind. Type c institutes require special capabilities in:
a. Securing the commitment of technical resources, including senior personnel,
to follow the course of selected, emergent social processes over long periods
of time - five to ten years, and indeed much longer durations, sometimes
involving more than one scientific generation.
b. Extending the character of their interdisciplinary mix as the problem requires-
to include, for example, on the one hand, political scientists and economists
along with psychologists and sociologists, and, on the other, engineers
and operational research workers, or biologists and ecologists.

The organization and financing of research 785
c. Being able to enter into consortia arrangements with other organizations in
their own and other countries - for rarely wil all the resources required be
found within the boundaries of one organization.
14. Institutes with some Type c properties exist in all countries where the
social sciences are at all developed. They are being asked for in countries where
they are not (such as Equador). Yet nowhere are they fully developed. Some of
the social science sections of the Academies of Sciences in Eastern Europe
would appear to constitute one of the most advanced versions. They express a
C-B combination, which may be an innovation of wide import. Rand-type
centres in the us constitute another innovation, with a C-A combination.
Organizations such as INSEE and INED in France are centred on c but include B
as well as A. They have been learning how to manage this range. The main
institutes in India and some of those in Latin America are similar in form. An
independent Type c institute in Britain, such as the Tavistock, finds itself pulled
too far in the A direction. This is not simply for financial reasons. lt is fre-
quently difficult to know beforehand how far Type A projects may develop Type
c properties more critical for the advance of social science than conventional
projects which start as Type c activities. University institutes are apt to be
pulled too far in the B direction. An incompatibility exists between the research/
teaching and the research/application mix unless teaching can he integrated
into on-going programmes. Commitment to long-range, high risk, scientific
missions and complying with regulations surrounding degrees do not harmonize
unless special provisions are instituted.
15. Yet when it comes to adding to a basic academic competence effective
training not only in research operations but in taking responsibility in the field,
a large number of research workers in their immediate post-doctoral years and
a proportion of those also in pre-doctoral programmes need to pursue their
studies in centres of this type (especially CI and cz). A minimum number of
such centres is necessary for developing a country’s social science capability.
16. Customarily, Type c institutes undertake a mixture of contract and grant-
aided work supported by a variety of public and private sources. To be effec-
tive, they require financial stability. They need a measure of basic support over
and above that provided by ordinary research grants or contract fees. Because
of their innovative character and their responsibility for advanced training they
incur high costs. They pose awkward problems to grant-giving bodies. Private
universities can nourish them from their internal funds. Research councils and
foundations are apt, at times mistakenly, to stop short of providing institutional
support. Recognition of the need to provide such support is growing.3’
17. To use their ‘requisite variety’, Type c institutes need to be of consider-
able, though not necessarily vast, size. A research staff of thirty-five would
appear to constitute a balanced number for a small institute. Another critical
point is reached with a staff level of sixty to seventy. This enables a number of
project teams of varying sizes and complexions simultaneously to pursue a
range of problems each of which has bearings on the others. Under such condi-
tions sufficient resources are available to concentrate forces on critical issues ;
to re-deploy as new avenues open up without undoing ongoing work; and to

786 Eric Trist
carry, without undue strain, the high level of waste and uncertainty associated
with complex research undertakings.*
18. The overall pattern of basic institutional forms which has been described
is a general model. These basic forms and their combinations appear in the
context of widely differing educational systems and in relation to scientific
‘infra-structures’ of widely differing efficacy. Nevertheless, development of the
social sciences requires certain underlying structural conditions and the recognition
of certain key relations. It is these which the model attempts to represent.
W. CHANGING THE SCIENTIFIC VALUE SYSTEM
Dysfunctional persistence of academic individualism
I. The total set of conditions postulated as ‘requisite’ for the most favourable
overall development of the social sciences are not yet in being anywhere in the
world. Considering the scale and rate of the rising demand, one may ask why
things are not further advanced. One factor to which the questionnaire material
and other sources consulted during the inquiry have drawn attention is the
belief that a serious mis-match exists between certain features of the Western
academic tradition and the needs of contemporary societies to develop a higher
level of social science capability. Yet it was this very tradition which enabled
universities in the wake of the Renaissance to establish the right, without inter-
ference from Church or State, to conduct free inquiry in all fields of scholarship.
Without the establishment of this right first the physical and then the biological
sciences could never have developed. Indeed, the foundation of the social
sciences themselves would never have been laid.
2. Three features require examination:
a. The privilege of free enquiry was granted to scholars and embodied in the
autonomy of their universities at a price - their dissociation from the larger
society. What might be safely investigated in the ‘ivory tower’ might be most
unsafe if it appeared on ‘main street’. Knowledge could remain free so long
as it remained ‘pure’.
b. Within the autonomous but segregated university the privilege of free en-
quiry was vested in the right of the individual scholar to pursue his subject
in his own way. His colleagues were expected to dispute with him - if
necessary, to disprove his findings - but not to prevent him from working
on what he should choose. To him solely belonged the privilege and the risk
of scientific choice. So, was it believed, would knowledge progress. So was
founded the tradition of academic individualism in relation to the pursuit of
pure knowledge.
c. The right to pursue one’s subject in one’s own way was not lightly to be
* Where much higher levels of staff are contemplated, the alternative should be con-
sidered of creating more than one establishment rather than a single organization so
big that innovative capability would be endangered by bureaucratization - unless in
special circumstances.

The organization and financing of research 787
granted - only to those who could prove themselves in the eyes of established
scholars. Hence thcrite de passage’ of the doctorate, the individual character
of the thesis being sacrosanct, even though the theme required professorial
approval. So was the tradition of academic individualism maintained through
a sanction internal to the scientific community.
3. So long as the advancement of knowledge depended on the separation of
pure science from its possible applications and on the personal contributions of
a relatively small number of outstanding scholars, the tradition of academic
individualism represented an adaptive value on which to found the organization
of science. This phase - to use a term of Sartre’s - has now been ‘depassed‘. New
values must be sought which have yet to be identified.
4. This situation is more extensively recognized in the natural than in the
social sciences. In the former the inter-penetration of science and technology
has long been taken for granted, as has the need for group as well as individual
effort, and for large-scale as well as small-scale research, continued over long
time periods. In the social sciences the tradition of academic individualism
dies hard.
5. Its dysfunctional effects may be demonstrated in those Western European
countries where it has remained least changed during the post-war period :
a. The reluctance of universities to recognize any form of research other than
the fundamental has forced applied research, whether generically or con-
cretely focused, to seek expression in outside organizations.
b. Because the tradition of academic individualism has persisted in these bodies
also, they have, while becoming exceedingly numerous, tended to remain
exceedingly small. The result has been a dispersion of effort.
c. Meanwhile, the pressure of expanding student populations on small depart-
mental staffs has created teaching overloads which have restricted the amount
of fundamental research carried out in the universities.
d. Traumatic career choices have confronted younger social scientists. To stay
in the university meant to do little else but teach. To depart meant to do
little else but short-term research in organizations too small and unstable
to provide career continuity.
The inappropriate persistence of this pattern has accounted in substantial
measure for a lack of originality in post-war social science in many countries -
despite an increase in the quantity of activity. In contrast is the interwar
period when the tradition of academic individualism was still functional and
when originality was of a high order.
The nature of the required changes
6. What is the nature of the changes required? They would seem to involve a
fundamental shift :
a. The right of the individual scholar freely to pursue what he elects to pursue
wil remain, wherever access to the social field is not a critical issue. It can
remain also so long as the complexity and scale of the problem are such that
they can be encompassed by a single mind. An increasing number of the key
problems, however, in many of the areas with which the social sciences are

788 Eric Trist
becoming concerned raise critical issues both of access and of pluralistic
contribution.
b. This means that the tradition of academic individualism can no longer play
the role of ‘the leading part’* in a philosophy of the social sciences. It cannot
for this reason provide the basic criterion on which the organizations neces-
sary for their development can be built. It can play the role only of a sub-
ordinate part.
To accept this is a difficult shift in perspective and values for the present body
of social scientists.
7. Several corollaries follow :
a. If engagement in applied research of the generic kind represents a fundamen-
tal strategy for advancing the knowledge base, then the social science ‘uni-
versity’ must find a way of becoming re-associated with the larger society. As
this comes about it will alter existing systems of relations between A, B and c
Type centres.
b. It will entail some sharing of the problems of scientific choice with represent-
atives of the various clientele with whom social scientists become collabora-
tively engaged. This will bring into being a new set of criteria for ‘co-deter-
mination’ of research themes and priorities.
c. The research worker now becomes accountable not only to his scientific
colleagues but also to his participating clientele. This means extending the
concept of taking professional responsibility from the service to the research
area.
d. As regards complexity, significant innovations may be expected to arise from
group as distinct from individual creativeness. This will alter existing systems
of status and reward, which have remained individual.
e. As regards scale, aggregations of resources require to be created so that
large scale problems can be investigated not only with due regard to their
scope, which will frequently be trans-national, but to their duration, which
will frequently transcend the work life of a given scientific generation.
Re-associating the university with society
8. The process of re-associating the university with its larger society is in some
respects further advanced in other parts of the world than in Western Europe.
In the United States, universities, especially those which are pre-eminent, have
come to be regarded as part of the ‘government-industry-education complex’.
The implicit disparagement signals the danger inherent in the re-association
process. Nevertheless, any suggestion that this is merely a temporary aberration
shows a lack of understanding of the underlying change. Yet even in the United
States there is still no general recognition of problem-oriented research as an
inherent strategy for advancing the knowledge base. Nor has enough been done
to relate the basic disciplines in comprehensive schools of social science. In this
last regard some of the most promising developments are those taking place in
the newer universities in Britain.
* For an account of the development of the concept of the leading part in biology and its
extension to the social sciences, see A. ANGYAL, Foundations for a Science of Personality.124

The organization and financing of research 789
9. In the countries of Eastern Europe the split has been between the universi-
ties as carriers of the researchlteaching mix and the Academies of Sciences as
carriers of the research/application mix. Such a separation represents the type of
science policy to be expected in countries requiring simultaneously to develop,
from a narrow base, an extensive system of tertiary education and an advanced
research capability. The danger of maintaining the separation at the level
hitherto obtaining now that the bases themselves are widening has been recog-
nized.
IO. In the developing countries the social sciences are becoming perceived
as a critical resource for understanding and advancing the process of develop-
ment. Until recently problems of development had been approached too
exclusively in economic and technological terms. Repeated disappointment
with the results of programmes of technical and economic aid, and indeed of
internally sponsored plans, is creating a new climate. This is characterized by a
greater willingness to consider the complex interrelations which exist between
cultural, psychological and social-structural factors an4 economic and techno-
logical aspects. The ensuing situation is confronting the social sciences with
intensified demands to undertake ‘action concertke’ - through a route which
would give priority first to A, next to c, and thence to B type activities. In the
decades ahead the social rather than the natural sciences may take the role of
the leading part in the scientific affairs of developing countries.
Joint responsibility
I I. Questions of sharing scientific choice and taking professional responsibility
have been discussed in relation to problems of ‘gaining access’ to the heavily
defended areas of human activity and experience and of working with collaborating
clientele to achieve super-ordinate goals. Unless this is done matters
of central importance to human beings wil not be brought to the attention of
social scientists whose researches wil be restricted to matters on which little
‘value’ is placed. For central issues involve questions of values. All questions of
social (or personal) change, for example, involve questions of value. Either the
social scientist must abstain from their study or join with others in their pursuit.
They wil never be handed over to him for independent experimentation.
12. Acceptance of joint responsibility by the social scientist and his clientele
is the key. By actively participating in the research effort themselves the representatives
of the client systems can allow the social scientist also to take an active
role. This may alter the ‘appreciation’* of the problem. Consequent action
decisions remain with the client; consequent implications for theory with the
social scientist.
13. In this model the social scientist takes his place along with the other actors
in the starting conditions. By accepting the constraints of being ‘included’ he
gains the requisite degree of freedom to study processes of value-laden social
change while they are occurring. If he elects to stay out, he is forced back on
retrospective evidence. History by itself is not enough.
* For the concept of ‘appreciation’ see Sir G. VICKERS, The Art of Judgment - a
Study of Policy Making.166

790 Eric Trist
14. Though there are many areas of social science which do not require this
strategy it is not yet realized how many there are which do. The basic organiza-
tional form pertinent to this type of study is the jointlyengaged group of ‘research-
ers’ and ‘researched‘.
Group creativeness
15. That group, in addition, to individual creativeness may be required in face
of higher orders of complexity poses organizational problems of a novel charac-
ter. For the belief is ingrained that scientific innovation is the product of an
exceptional but individual mind. The apparent evidence would support this
belief which belongs to the tradition of academic individualism. Yet there is
another aspect. Exceptional minds tend to exist in networks of mutual influence
extended over space and time. This was so, even in the 17th and 18th centuries,
when the natural sciences arose. 160 Under contemporary conditions, these net-
works have increased in number, in density, in degree of overlap, and in fre-
quency and immediacy of encounter. They represent systems of inter-personal
choices in which the individuals concerned become selectively inter-dependent.*
Such groups tend to be shifting and temporary. They are rarely bound by formal
relations, though their members recognize them as a necessary condition of
their capacity to innovate.
16. The increasing importance of problem-oriented research as a means of
advancing fundamental knowledge is strengthening the trend among selectively
inter-dependent groups to form more permanent organizations (i.e. Type c
institutes). This arises because problem-oriented research requires operational
commitment to a common group task as the means by which a shared direction
in scientific ideas can be empirically realized. Since this realization must be
accomplished under real life conditions, relations with various kinds of clien-
tele are involved. Their trust can be secured only if they experience stability in
the research organization.
17. To achieve this stability such organizations must create a value system
based on a co-operative pooling of resources:
a. This is facilitated by the sharing of a common status among senior members,
as by the fellows of a college.
b. It is reinforced by the experience of group products being superior to in-
dividual products.
c. Yet when some members contribute more than others this requires recogni-
tion.
d. Members of such organizations tend to deploy themselves in loosely coupled
overlapping sub-sets - or assemblies. Recent neuro-physiological research
has shown that this is how the brain would appear to work.** An analogue
of the brain at a higher system level is what one is seeking to discover.
This total configuration is the opposite of academic individualism. It makes a
poor match with the fixed roles and statuses of university departments, especial-
* This term is due to F. E. EMERY.
** Cf. S. TOMKINS, Affect, Imagery and Consciousness, Vol. l.IE6

The organization and financing of research 791
ly those of the single professor variety, which this tradition has tended to perpetuate.
18. In this regard the larger departments common in American universities
with multiple chairs and in which associate and assistant professors have a
voicein decision-making afford a better match to what is required. On the other
hand, American universities maintain the tradition of academic individualism
by forcing the individual scholar to conform to the rule of ‘publish or perish’.
In the West R & D laboratories in some of the large industrial concerns are
organized more in keeping with a group value system than are many universities.
Empirical studies are required on what the climate is like and how decisions
are made in the Institutes of the Academies of Sciences of Eastern Europe.*
19. In some universities the tendency is growing not only to form centres of
selectively inter-dependent individuals, drawn from a number of teaching departments,
but for these centres to form research consortia with other organizations
in different universities and in other countries. Nor are such associations confined
to university bodies. The probability is low that the key resources for
critical programmes wil be found in one place. Nevertheless, these resources
need dependable bases if they are to join together in high-risk research expeditions
of a temporary though often protracted character. An inter-dependent
system of stability and mobility requires to be evolved.
Longitudinal capability
20. Another direction of the search for an alternative to academic individualism
is the creation of institutional capabilities which would permit the undertaking
of large-scale investigations over long periods of time. The basic issue has al-
ready been touched on. The increasing rate of change and the degree of uncer-
tainty and of environmental complexity characteristic of the contemporary
world is forcing societies to collect more accurate information about their
populations, institutions and individual members, the trends and levels of their
economic and social performance, and to seek to know more also about other
societies. The collection of social and economic facts has, however, tended to be
left to governmental bureaucracies slow to make use of the latest techniques and
resistant to widening for scientific purposes categories of information designed
to meet limited administrative requirements.
21. The first problem is to close the gap between existing practice and avail-
able concepts and methods. This means either changing the relation between
official bodies and sources of social science competence in universities and spe-
cial institutes or bringing new and more appropriate organizations into existence.
While progress is being made in several countries it is too slow to meet society’s
requirements under conditions of accelerating change.
22. The second problem concerns the extent to which general purpose social
and economic data are made public. Wil they be presented in a form which
* Micro-studies have been made of a number of research institutes in Hungary. AR
account of these is given by Dr. A. SZALAI, ‘National Research Planning and Research
Statistics,’ in A. de REUCK, et al. (eds.), Decision Making in National Science Policy,
London, J. & A. Churchill Ltd., 1968.

792 Eric Trist
makes possible independent appraisal by members of the social science com-
munity ? Only genuine reasons of security should prevent scientifically account-
able publication. The obverse of this problem is that concerning the privacy of
the individual.
23. The function of collecting and analysing social and economic data can be
most effectively executed and most rapidly developed if made the responsibility
of Type c3 and c4 Institutes under the control of social scientists appointed by
joint agreement between government, the universities and the professional
associations. Government departments would be the principal, but by no
means the only, clientele of such Institutes. They would have their own internal
specialists to interpret findings and carry out special purpose analyses. But such
institutes also would have the power of initiating inquiries - to assist in building
up the corpus of knowledge required to provide a public basis for taking in-
formed social action in all domains of a society.
24. Some of the technical problems in this field are formidable. Data are
required over ever longer time periods, but concepts and methods are continu-
ously improving and the foci of investigation continuously shifting. To obtain
desired comparisons often proves impossible. A strategically planned attack
on such difficulties on a scientific rather than an administrative basis would
obtain solutions improved far beyond what is at present deemed feasible.
25. One of the most exciting prospects before the social sciences at the present
time is the gradual unification of the disciplines depending on historical and on
contemporary sources of evidence. Improved collection of basic social and
economic data is the best method of obtaining what might be termed the ex-
tension of the present. The more man must prepare to meet an uncertain future
and to construct alternative models of what it might be, the greater is his need
for information which will yield an extension of the present.
26. Here the continuing development of the computer technology for the
organization of large-scale files of mass data for quick retrieval and analysis is
bound to prove of decisive importance. The organization of data archives for
historical as well as contemporary information will change fundamentally the
conditions for cumulative collective research in the social sciences : the data
archives will not only create a broader basis for collective efforts of analysis,
interpretation and the planning of fresh research but will also ensure linkage
over time from one project to another, since the results of new analysis will be
incorporated with the old in the machine-accessible storage media. The data
archives will add a new dimension to the social science libraries and will
change the character of social science teaching and training. *
* Vide: S. ROKKAN (ed.), Data Archives in the Social SciencesIso, and the current section
on data sources of the journal Social Science Information of the International Social
Science Council.

Vm. DESCRIBING THE RESOURCE BASE
The organization andfinancing of research 793
General international comparison
I. The Guide-lines for the Elaboration of National Science Policy Studies,
published by the Science Policy Division of UNESCO in 1965,189 set out an overall
model for the systematic collection of information about the scientific activities
of a country as a whole. Unfortunately, it does not distinguish between the
humanities and the social sciences, nor does it ask for a breakdown of the data
on the various disciplines and interdisciplinary mixes of the social sciences. To
make a distinction between the social sciences and the humanities is essential if
international statistics are to be comparable. Within the humanities the histori-
cal sciences should be separated from the ‘arts’, By the arts is meant the crea-
tion and rendering of artistic products in all media and their critical apprecia-
tion in terms of aesthetic judgment and values. The historical sciences can be
combined with the social sciences or kept apart as the task in hand requires.
2. OECD in The Social Sciences and the Policies of Governments168 raised the
question of how far a model (not dissimilar to that developed by UNESCO’s
Science Policy Division) which it had used for collecting information on the
natural sciences could be used also for the social sciences. It pinpointed a key
issue :
The Manual covers only details of the collection of research and development statis-
tics and excludes ‘related scientific activities.’ These related scientific activities are, how-
ever, particularly important and closely linked to research in the social sciences, as
they provide and disseminate a great deal of the raw material for the researchers, partic-
ularly in economics and sociology. Lack of reliable census data or trade statistics
can, for instance, be as much of a drag on economists as lack of research funds.
The inclusion of general purpose economic and social statistics (information de
base) is essential in any comprehensive account of the social science activities of
a country. They need, of course, to be separately recorded from other types of
research expenditure.
3. Another issue is the fact that as yet an analogue to ‘development work‘ as
opposed to basic and applied research scarcely exists in the social sciences. It
has become conventional to compare the amount spent on the social sciences
(with the collection of basic economic and statistical data excluded) and the
total R & D expenditure of a country. This yields a grotesquely low proportion
for the social sciences, as technological costs of development projects based in
the physical sciences account for the overwhelming proportion of the total R &
D figure. International science statistics would be better made up with develop-
ment expenditure separately shown.
4. A general upwards trend would appear to exist in social science expendi-
ture, however wide the variations between countries. National science statistics
require to be kept so that systematic trend comparisons are possible. From the
imperfect evidence available expenditure on the social sciences seems to be
increasing most rapidly in those countries where is it already the greatest.
5. Another commonly followed international convention is to express overall
R & D expenditures as a percentage of GNP or some equivalent statistic repre-

794 Eric Trist
senting the national income. Valuable as this may be for investigating such
problems as the relation of investment in research to the rate of economic
growth, it does not contribute to the solution of another problem which bedevils
the international comparison of scientific endeavours. This is the relative cost of
research in one country as compared with another. It has been suggested that a
beginning might be made in the social sciences by comparing the mean salaries
of various grades of scientific worker at international exchange rates. This,
however, would not give their meaning in terms of prevailing standards of
living - or comparative status. Account would also have to be taken of the
total educational cost of producing a social scientist. The costs of capital con-
struction items, equipment and supporting services would raise further com-
plications. Opportunity costs, especially in smaller and less developed coun-
tries, would also have to be considered. It is suggested that a special study be
undertaken of this problem.
The method of comparing key institutions
6. Offered below is a table prepared by the Science Policy Division of UNESCO
based on a particular key institution in each of the countries represented. In
view of the difficulties encountered in compiling overall statistics this method
has much to recommend it. Overall country R & D comparisons would show the
social science share as much less. In the table quoted, however, the function of
the various institutions is not the same. Though all undertake fundamental
work, some have responsibilities or applied work, others have none. Many
include the humanities, a few do not. The method of comparing key institutions
requires the functional equivalence of these institutions to be investigated.
Annual expenditure of key research organizations in different countries (1965)
Organizations Physical and Social
biological sciences sciences and
(inc. technology) humanities
% %
~~ ~
Fonds national de la recherche scientifique
(Belgium)
Academy of Sciences (Czechoslovakia)
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
(France)
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(Federal Republic of Germany)
Royal Foundation for Scientific Research
(Greece)
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Zuiver
Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (zwo)
(Netherlands)
Academy of Sciences (Hungary)
Academy of Sciences (Poland)
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cien-
tificas (Spain)
National Science Foundation (USA)
Academy of Sciences (USSR)
72
88
92
83
94
89
83
83
92
92
88
18
I2
8
I7
6
I1
17
I7
8
8
I2

The organization and financing of research 795
A general model for the analysis of expenditure
7. With respect to sources of funds a central issue is how far they emanate from
government. The trend in all countries is for governments to provide an increasing
proportion of internally generated funds for scientific activities. Governments
may be involved in three ways:
a. as suppliers of general purpose research funds, granted through research
councils, academies of sciences and similar bodies ;
b. as suppliers of funds to the system of higher education which relays them
into research activities associated with teaching;
c. as a user-organization, through the many departments and agencies of
government which require social research. These may be at the national,
regional or local levels.
All these features require careful distinction if statistics are to be internationally
comparable.
8. ‘The private sector’ is a term without meaning in completely socialist
countries. On the other hand, the concept of the user-organization is valid for
all forms of society. Similarly, though ‘private foundations’ may not legally
exist in many countries, any interest group or user-organization which contributes
funds within its disposal for general scientific purposes is performing a
foundation-life function. A further consideration is the extent to which resources
emanate from within a particular country or from outside, which has
salient importance for the developing countries. It would seem that the functions
of resource provision remain constant, though the forms vary. Similarly, as
regards resource consumption, the functions of the three basic output mixes -
researchlteaching, research/ application and researchlservice - remain constant,
though the forms vary. It should, therefore, be possible to construct a general
model of resource allocation for the social sciences which would permit international
comparisons.
9. Within such a framework attention requires to be focused on the decisionmaking
processes prevailing among the bodies concerned. This would entail
identifying the values, needs, preferences, prejudices, priorities, etc., which
come into play when grant-giving decisions are made.
IO. One would wish to know something also about the composition of these
bodies :
a. their degrees of independence, inter-dependence and sub- and super-ordination;
b. their number, variety and relative weight;
c. their relations with their ‘consumers’ - the bodies and people who perform
research projects in the various output mixes.
Studies which would illuminate such topics are entirely feasible with present
social science knowledge and methodology. What is doubtful is how far they
would be sanctioned. Yet the value of purely fact-finding studies is limited.
The method of principal components for analyzing disciplines
I I. Much attention was given in the answers to the UNESCO questionnaire and
in the target country studies to the distribution of effort among the various

796 Eric Trist
disciplines. Differences in meaning and nomenclature were so great that inter-
country, and very often intra-country, comparisons were not practicable. The
major disciplines of the social sciences, such as those recognized for the UNESCO
study, refer to very large domains of human inquiry, variously constituted and
with changing boundaries. A suitable unit for analytical purposes may rather
be a principal component of a major discipline, such as child psychology, rural
sociology, organizational theory, psycho-linguistics, econometrics, pro-
grammed learning, etc. The method has the advantage of being general in that it
can be used equally well with pure or applied disciplines or in interdisciplinary
combinations.
I 2. Attempts could then be made to trace the frequency with which a principal
component occurred in different types of institution and across countries. It
could be asked what the other principal components might be with which a
given component appeared to be most commonly associated. In what might the
main content variations consist? Special studies are required to answer such
questions.
Fields of application
13. A complementary task is that of breaking down total expenditure by field of
application. What are the major domains, or sectors, of a society to which
various forms of social research become related? The Science Policy Division of
UNESCO has suggested a standard list of sectors for the natural sciences.Is9 This
would not appear altogether suitable for the social sciences, for which the
Heyworth Committee suggested the list in the following table.55
UNITED KINGDOM. Percentage of cost of all social science research going to each jield of
application (1962-1963)
Health and welfare
Industry
Education
Agriculture
British economy (general)
Developing countries, international and race relations, etc.
Urban and rural, transport and regional studies
Justice
Child care, youth services and old age
Housing
Population
Administration
Others
Total
16
14
I1
IO
9
9
7
5
3
3
3
14. Such descriptive lists could be improved by more rigorous conceptualiza-
tion of their rationale. The aim would be to establish an internationally applic-
able set of research domains. Such a set would assist in defining and comparing
the activity patterns of emerging professional schools and of interdisciplinary
centres for field-determined research. Greater coherence in the social sciences
2
8
IO0

The organization and financing of research 797
is more likely to arise from a strategic ordering of problem-oriented work than
from attempts to re-arrange academic disciplines.
15. What Seems to be required is a matrix which would relate individuals and
supra-individual entities to the main dimensions or sections of a society. An
‘entities’ list might read as follows:
Individuals
Families
Formal organizations
Communities
Regions
Countries
Supra-national institutions
A dimensions list would comprise the social systems belonging to such sectors
as :
Education
Government
Health
Industry
Law
Welfare
Such a scheme would permit, for example, the examination of how far re-
search on health questions was at the individual or the community level, or how
far questions of industry and employment were being looked at country-wide
or regionally. More than one matrix of this type would be required.
Aspects of manpower
16. To obtain data on social science manpower proved more difficult than to
obtain data on any other aspect of the social sciences with which this inquiry
has been concerned. Yet more anxiety was expressed about shortfalls in re-
search personnel and their unsatisfactory preparation than about any other
topic. Conventions for collecting statistics and concepts for analyzing the key
problems varied to an even greater extent than they did for expenditure. It is
suggested that four aspects are fundamental :
a. the character and quality of educational preparation;
b. the types and level of employment;
c. the degree of professionalization and its status;
d. career opportunities and patterns.
Special studies of these aspects are needed to draw attention to salient issues and
to suggest lines along which cross-national comparisons could be made.
17. Regarding the educational aspect, two issues may be pinpointed. The
first is the character and quality of undergraduate preparation. The numbers
completing a first degree in subjects belonging to, or related to, the social
sciences make up the stock of ‘raw material’. The second is the character and
quality of graduate preparation. The numbers completing Ph.D.s make up the
stock of ‘processed goods’. Only in the United States is the educational system
well developed in all disciplines of the social sciences at both levels. Yet even

798 Eric Trist
there the immediately available work force is regarded as insufficient. Methods
by which the ‘reserves’ with first degrees can be most effectively and most
rapidly brought forward merit inquiry, as do new interdisciplinary profiles
which are emerging and new sources from which potential social scientists are
being gathered.
I 8. The employment distribution of social scientists needs an initial mapping
in three broad categories: those belonging to the faculties of higher educational
establishments; those in research institutes, whether university-linked or inde-
pendent; and those in user-organizations. Thereafter, a great deal of detail
would need filling in concerning discipline and role. Overlap through cross-
appointments should also be noted. In a number of countries there are many
more social scientists in user-organizations than is commonly supposed but
very few in positions of influence. What evidence is there that the latter are
increasing ?
19. Professional associations belonging to the basic disciplines tend to be of
the learned society type. An exception is psychology, particularly in the United
States and Britain. This is because in such branches as clinical psychology pro-
fessional as well as academic credentials are required. The more social scientists
from all disciplines come to regard the practical activities in which they engage
as ‘professions’ the greater is the likelihood that their learned societies will
become professional associations. Fully developed, such associations would
exercise considerable power on behalf of their members concerning salary
levels and conditions of employment. They would also begin to lay down codes of
ethics the social implications of which could be more far-reaching than is
easily realized at present. If their status became high they would exert great
influence on policy and on the direction of research through their corporate
values. Their evolution in these directions requires tracking as would any tend-
ency towards the adoption of a wider common identity with federated arrange-
ments in relation to inter-disciplinary endeavour.
20. Research careers in the social sciences are a recent phenomenon, even in
the United States. In the past jobs in social research were seen as transitional to
senior appointments in teaching or administration. The many avenues now open-
ing up require documentation. What are the preferred routes? What are the
persisting barriers? Many branches of social research require maturity of ex-
perience as well as brilliance of intellect. The critical roles which relate the social
sciences across the boundaries of universities and special institutes to the key
institutions of the wider society can be filled only by those whose credentials
are high in both worlds. How many such individuals have so far appeared?
Are the career patterns which are evolving of a kind likely to produce more?
M. THE SEARCH FOR A POLICY FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
The need for planning
I. The right of the social, along with the biological and physical, sciences to a
place among ‘the sciences’ is no longer disputed. Neither is their utility. These

The organization and Jinancing of research 799
are no longer real questions. The real question is: that the demand for the devel-
opment and utilization of the social sciences is rising at so rapid a rate that there
is doubt whether it can be effectively met. Given the present state of some of the
disciplines, present patterns of organization and training, and present levels of
financial support and manpower resources, the chances of effectively meeting
it are non-existent - unless efforts are made to introduce planned change on a
substantial scale.
2. Concern over this has led to a search in a growing number of countries for
a policy for the social sciences. In several Western European countries bodies
at the national level have come into existence concerned in one way or another
with co-ordination and planning. In other countries, including the United
States, surveys of the situation are under way to appraise national social
science capability. In Eastern Europe policy-planning bodies which include the
social along with the other sciences have been in existence for some time. Not
until recently, however, have they been faced with the prospect of allocating
resources on a substantial scale.
3. In the advanced countries the search for a policy for the social sciences is
becoming intensified, since the resources they consume are now large enough
to become publicly visible - however small they may be in comparison with
those allocated to the natural sciences, or however short they may fall with
respect to need. Moreover, expenditure on the social sciences is rising faster
in some countries than expenditure on all other sciences combined. Social
science expenditure has, however, started from an incomparably smaller base.
4. In addition, governments, directly or indirectly, supply the bulk of the
funds. The social sciences have become politically accountable. In the United
States social science has become ‘big science’. Tactical deployment of resources
on such a scale by unco-ordinated means shows diminishing returns. For the
sake alike of their development as sciences and the realization of their value
as resources strategic planning of social science activities has become necessary.
The difficulties and dangers of attempting this without doing more harm than
good are immense. Very little experience is yet available; and any planning
process is liable to serious error. The number of alternatives is considerable. It
will take some time to discover which are to be preferred in different societies.
Some dangers of planning
5. Multiple sources of funds and multiple centres of decision-making should be
retained, however ‘co-ordinated‘. Otherwise there would be cause for serious
alarm. Toleration of different viewpoints is a ‘must’ for the development of the
social sciences. So many questions of theory and method remain unsettled that
openness of mind is an overriding requirement. The fashioning of effective
policies depends on an open dialogue, continuously maintained, between social
scientists in all disciplines and all types of social science organization and policy-
makers both inside and outside government in all major domains of social
action. A cluster* of inter-related and inter-acting bodies with complementary
* For the idea of a cluster of organizations rather than a single organization being

800 Eric Trist
roles, rather than one organ, seems to be what is emerging in countries attempt-
ing science planning in any field.
6. There is danger that too great a proportion of available resources will be
invested in projects limited to present concerns (both theoretical and practical)
rather than be anticipative of future needs. If the social sciences are to take an
active role in permitting better choices to be made among alternative futures,
how to discern future needs becomes a central issue. Though this is beginning
to receive attention, a number of difficult conceptual and methodological prob-
lems will require solution before much progress can be made.*
Institution building
7. The three output mixes which have been distinguished merit study by policy/
planning bodies for the purpose of building the most adaptive types of social
science institution:
a. the research/application mix in which research - usually but not necessarily
of an interdisciplinary kind - on generic field-determined problems is under-
taken with students taking junior roles in on-going programmes involving
clientele systems;
b. the researchlteaching mix in which basic research - usually but not necessari-
ly within one discipline - can proceed in areas not involving engagement
with clientele systems and where students can make original contributions at
an earlier stage;
c. the research/service mix, where the focus is on more concrete problems but
where there is scope for students to gain experience as 'internes'.
Basic university departments are appropriately centred on b with some a and a
little c; professional schools on c with some a and a little b; special institutes
(whether within or outside universities) on a with some b and a little c. All
three patterns are necessary; but unless their objectives are kept distinct, dys-
functional interference occurs, and findings, students and clients all suffer. A
good deal of such interference goes on at the present time. One objective of
social science policy would be to develop a balanced system of complementary
institutions which would remove this.
8. Decision-making structures are likely to be, and should be, different for the
research/application, the researchlteaching and the research/service mixes. In
the research/application mix the most effective choices are likely to be the
outcome of complex 'appreciations' which grow up between groups of social
scientists, client organizations and representatives of broader sections of the
society. Such processes could lead to the establishment of a number of applied
research councils (titles will vary) concerned with developing strategic relations
between the social sciences and major sections of a society. The research/
teaching mix would be handled by bodies responsible for continuously reviewing
the most promising avenues of fundamental research. Paradoxically, unfashion-
involved in planning processes even when these are highly centralized, vide B. M. GROSS
(ed.), Action Under Pl~nning,'4~ and The State of the Nation, by the same author.I4'
* Cf. F. E. EMERY, The Next Thirty Years: Concepts, Methods and Anti~ipations.~4~

The organization and financing of research 8oz
able innovations may be most effectively nurtured by user-interests concerned
with the research/service mix. Some of the most promising new ideas arise in
this area. They do not consume much in the way of special resources in their
early stages and may go on quietly as an adjunct of service until enough head-
way has been made for support to be sought in terms of one of the other two
mixes. This is the common way in clinical research.
9. Developments have been held back by the confusion which has persisted
concerning the relations of pure and applied research. These are different in the
social and the natural sciences. In the latter the required data can be ab-
stracted from their natural settings to a far greater extent than in the social
sciences. Moreover, their ‘permission’ does not have to be asked before they
can be used. Except in special areas the social scientist must gain access to his
material in its natural setting in ways which are acceptable to those concerned.
This means that engagement in problem-oriented research represents a major
strategy for advancing the knowledge base in the social sciences.
IO. The effective development of the social sciences towards the needs of the
future requires the establishment of genuinely programmatic research sustained
over long time periods on carefully selected themes by institutes with the stability,
scale and ‘requisite variety’ of resources to enable them to commit their mem-
bers to such objectives. For reasons alike of the state of the social sciences and
the needs of societies a good proportion of these programmes should be in
areas of generic field-determined problem-oriented research. At present there
is too great a dispersion of research effort in small and unstable organizations.
This has caused a random accumulation of projects rather than an evolving
cumulation of findings. Amongst other reasons this has been caused by the
persistence of a tradition of academic individualism among research workers.
Echoing this grant-giving bodies have tended to prefer the apparently reduced
risk of backing a large number of small projects to the apparently increased risk
of giving support to a limited number of large but strategically selected pro-
grammes. A main task of social science policy would be to put this situation
right and to create the ‘enabling conditions’ for strategic programmes to be
undertaken.
Problems of manpower
I I. Overall arrangements in a country’s total ‘social science system’ require to
be planned so that maximum free movement of scientific personnel becomes
possible between organizations centred on any of the three mixes. Scientific
personnel should also be able to circulate freely between organizations which
primarily form part of the academic world and user-organizations which em-
ploy social scientists but belong primarily to the operational world. Otherwise,
the requisite variety of career paths will not be available to permit a body of so-
cial scientists to come into existence large enough or flexible enough to meet
the rising demand. There wil be a dysfunctional separation between teaching
and research ; and a similar dysfunctional separation between the types of
research going on outside and inside universities. There wil also be severe
splitting between the academic world and the user-organizations which contain

802 Eric Trist
the clientele systems critical for the development of the knowledge base. Adverse
effects of these kinds exist in most countries at the present time, quite often to
a serious degree.
12. A shortage in social science manpower must be anticipated, both with
respect to quantity and quality. Universities should be encouraged to expand
their teaching facilities in the social sciences and governments and other spon-
sors to provide the funds. The best results may be expected from the establish-
ment of comprehensive schools of social science, including the full range of the
basic disciplines, at both undergraduate and graduate level. Multi-professor, as
opposed to single professor, departments are to be preferred. A central objective
would be to establish a minimum number of centres of excellence which could
attain ‘critical mass’. The highest priority in many countries would be to intro-
duce accelerated forms of graduate training.
I 3. Professional as distinct from basic education requires parallel accelera-
tion. Only through the extension and enlargement of the social professions will
the social sciences be effectively applied in user-organizations. These profes-
sions are of two kinds: those directly deriving from the social sciences, such as
administration and education; those depending on a substantial ingredient of
the social sciences, such as engineering, medicine, law, architecture, urban and
other forms of planning. Many of the key decisions concerning the future will
be made by members of these professions. It is essential that social science un-
derstanding be built into their education.
Small countries
14. The smaller the country the more severe become the problems of scientific
choice. It is not practicable in small countries for social research to develop in
more than a limited number of directions. Countries with less than 5 million
inhabitants represent the extreme case; but any country with less than 20 mil-
lion inhabitants faces serious dilemmas. Even considerably larger countries
cannot ‘do everything.’ These dilemmas persist even when the country concerned
is among the more advanced. If more complex and sophisticated resources are
now available the problem still remains of using them to achieve ‘critical mass’
in more than a limited number of areas.
15. One direction of solution would be to establish regional linkages between
a group of countries with close affinities in culture, language and geographical
setting. The number of centres of excellence available to the region as a whole
could then be maximized. Given their traditions, small countries often display a
‘distinctive competence’ in particular research areas. These are the foundation
on which to build ‘comparative advantage’. Small countries may offer the best
environmental opportunities for the pursuit of certain classes of problem.
With respect to these they may become wosld centres.
16. Small countries may offer greater leeway for innovation once the break
with academic traditionalism has been made. The enormous professional ma-
chines characteristic of large countries may hamper innovation. It is noteworthy
that a country such as Norway has become conspicuous in peace research, cross-
cultural studies in political science and action research in industrial democracy.

The organization and financing of research 803
The ecology of such developments merits systematic study. What socio-environ-
mental conditions produce the greatest amount of social science originality per
capita?
Developing countries
17. In the decades immediately ahead the social, rather than the natural sciences
are to be envisaged as playing ‘the leading part’ in increasing the overall scien-
tific capability of the developing countries. Progress in the physical and biolo-
gical sciences can for the time being left to the more advanced countries.
Resulting technological benefits can to a great extent be ‘bought in’. What
developing countries must achieve for themselves is a fundamental understand-
ing of all aspects of the ‘development process’. For this the social sciences
represent the critical resource. Moreover, professional personnel must be trained
in sufficient numbers to implement what is learnt in change programmes which
are self-determined. On this background greater natural science capability can
be more effectively utilized.
18. The role of the more advanced countries is to assist in building up the
required social science and plan-implementation capability of the developing
countries. At the present time, too many of the most promising social scientists
and professionals from these countries stay too long in the universities of the
more advanced countries. Quite a number remain permanently. Too much of
the social research being done in the developing countries is being carried out
by research workers from the developed countries. This trend needs to be re-
versed through international co-operation, along lines such as were proposed a t
the recent Round Table on Social Research Policy and Organization held under
the auspices of the Danish Board of Technical Co-operation with Developing
Countries in collaboration with UNESCO and the Danish National Institute of
Social Research. These proposals, to appear in the first 1970 issue of the
International Social Science Journal, voice the needs of the developing countries
as perceived by their own social scientists. They show what may be accomplish-
ed if all collaborate in the Second Development Decade.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Section II - United States
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Research Council, The Behavioral Sciences and the Federal Government,
Washington (D.C.), National Academy of Sciences, 1968.
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of Social Science Research in Federal Domestic Programs, Staff Study for the Sub-
Committee on Research and Technical Programs of the Committee on Government
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5. Behavioral Sciences Sub-panel, President’s Scientific Advisory Committee,
Strengthening the Behavioral Sciences, Washington (D.C.), u.s.G.P.o., 1962.

804 Eric Trist
6. BOULDING, K., ‘Dare We Take the Social Sciences Seriously?’, American Psychologist
22 (11), 1967.
7. BRAYFIELD, A. H., ‘Inquiry on Federally Sponsored Research’, American Psychologist
22 (11), 1967.
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27. PIFER, A., The Non-Government Organization at Bay, New York, Carnegie Corporation,
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33. United States Senate, Ninetieth Congress, Full Opportunity and Social Accounting
Act (S. 8431, Washington (D.C.), u.s.G.P.o., 1967.

The organization andjinancing of research 805
34. University of California, ‘Doctoral Reform Program’, University Bulletin 15 (34).
1967.
NOTE. The study prepared in 1968 for the Science Policy Division of UNESCO under
contract with the National Science Foundation as No. IO in the series ‘Science
Policy Studies and Documents’ and entitled National Science Policies of the
U.S.A. gives an extensive bibliography of official publications covering all aspects
of us scientific activitie~.~~
Section III - Western Europe
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1965-66‘, Journal of Psychology 63 (2), 1966.
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situation dans la R.F. d’dllemagne, Paris, UNESCO, 1965.
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of Chapter on the Organization and Financing of Research, UNESCO, document
SHC/WS/18, 28 June 1967, p. 27.
39. ARMSTRONG, D., ‘Target Country Study: Federal Republic of Germany’, in
Annex to Provisional Version of Chapter on the Organization and Financing of
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806 Eric Trist
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The organization andfinancing of research 81 I
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gives full references classified under a large number of headings.

Subject index
Abstract models, 263-269
Algebra, XLII, 544
and economics, 481
and linguistics, 481
matrix, 538
Analysis
causal, XXXI, 6, 24, 46-51, 233, 266,
483
comparative, XXXII, XLIV-XLVII,
8-10, 22, 24, 33, 246, 286, 422, 434,
645-689
content, 657,663
cross-cultural, XXXII, XLIV, 645-689
cross-national, XLIV, 645-689
cross-societal, XLIV, 645-689
data, XXXIX, 384, 543; see also
Secondary analysis
dialectic, XXXIII, 94
dimensional, 566
ecological, 680
factor, 213, 286, 400, 537, 538, 544,565
functional, 33
historical, 4, 24, 32, 42
input-output, XXXVII, XLIT, 230,232,
30.5, 400, 544
latent structure, 81, 86, 212-214, 544,
565, 663
macro-micro, 205, 303-305, 315, 326,
398, 400
mathematical, 32, 400. 454
model, see Models
multivariate, XLIV
principal components, 538
qualitative, XXXII, 551
quantitative, XXXII, 551, 680
regression, 538
secondary, 664
semantic, 459
sequential, 86
static-dynamic, 326-33 I
statistical, 12, 28, 320; see also
Statistics
structural, 32, 83-88, 428-429, 432,
4549 540. 555
survey, XXXIV, XXXIX, 64-75, 538
662
systems, 55s
topological, 547; see also Graph theory
typological, XXXII
variance, 538
variate, 66, 78-81
Anthropology, see Social and cultural
anthropology
Applied psychology, 274-280
Applied research, 588, 589, 713
Archeology, IX
Associationism, 230, 232
Attitude measurement, 23, 65, 72; see
also Attitude scales
Attitude scales, 29, 33, 74-75. 95-96, 663
Automata, 543, 547; see also Cybernetics
Axiomatization, 557 ; see also Formalization;
Models; Mathematical models
Behaviour, 18
Behaviour patterns, 72
Behaviourism, 52, 227-228
Biology, XXXVI, XXXIX, XL, 39, 545
and demography, 352, 354-355,
356-3689 395-396. 39% 531, 535
and economics, 309
and linguistics, XXXIX, 433-447
and psychology, XXXVI, 6, 235, 237,
255-256

8 14 Subject index
and sociology, 61
Causal analysis, XXXI, 6,24,46-51, 233,
266,483
Change of scale, see Micro-macro analysis
Code theory, 562
Cognitive dissonance, 142, 540
Cognitive organization, 540
Commercial poll, 662, 663
Communication theory, XXXIX, 516
Comparative analysis, XXXII,
XLIV-XLVII, 8-10, 22, 24, 33, 246,
286,422, 434, 645-689
Computers, XXXIX, 320, 337. 339. 384,
404, 548, 549. 568, 573. 651, 657.
660, 661, 681, 682
Constructivism, 22, 36, 248-252
Content analysis, 657, 663
Contextual survey, 538, 573
Counselling interview, 663
Criminology, XXIX, XLIII
and demography, 355
problem-focused research, 601-602
Cross-cultural analysis, XXXII, XLIV-
XLVI, 645-689, 717
Cross-national analysis, XXXV, XLIV-
XLVI, 645-689
Cross-societal analysis, XLIV-XLVI,
645-689
Cultural anthropology, see Social and
cultural anthropology
Cybernetic models, 31, 504-507
Cybernetics, XXXVIII, 41-43, 321, 442,
472, 481, 516,547,555-556.573.
574; see also Automata; Cybernetic
models
and economics, 312, 504-507
and logic, 488
Data analysis, XXXIX, 384, 543; see also
Secondary analysis
Data archives, 651, 660, 661, 664, 669,
680, 682, 745. 792
Decentration, 8-10, 16, 17
Decision-making, XXXV, 218, 573
Decision process, 85, 381 ; see also Decision
theory; Stochastic models
Decision theory, XXXVIII, XLII, 29,
242, 321, 472
Deductive method, I5
Demography, IX, XXIX, XXXVIII,
XLII, XLIII, 2, 22,28, 351-418
and biology, 352, 354-355, 356-368,
395-3969 398, 531, 535
and criminology, 355
and ecology, 355. 378
and economics, XXXVIII, 355, 365,
368-378, 398-401
and ethics, 355
and geography, 8, 355
and history, 354-355, 386-387
and legal sciences, 355
and mathematics, 355, 530, 536, 548
and medicine, 355, 394
and pedagogy, 355
and philosophy, 355
and physiology, 395-396. 398
and political science, 355. 386
and psychology, 352-353, 355, 365,
397
and social and cultural anthropology,
355
and sociology, XXXVIII, 352, 355,
3749 381-3839 386,397
and statistics, 355
and technology, 355
and theology, 355
comparative research, 659, 678
problem-focused research, 627
Determinism, I I, 46; see also Causal analysis
Deterministic models, 545, 546
Dialectic analysis, XXXIII, 94
Dialectic explanation, 85
Dialectics, 35, I I 1-1 16
Differential calculus, 320
Dimensional analysis, 67, 566
Direct observation, 17, 353
Dynamic programming, 542
Dynamic-static analysis, 326-33 I
Ecological analysis, 680
Ecological archives, 679
Ecology, 294
and demography, 355. 378
Econometrics, XXXVII, IO, 24, 294,
481, 543, 572
Economic cycles, 560, 564
Economics, IX, XXIX, XXXI, XXXIV,
XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLII,
2, 8, IO, 22-24, 30-31, 283-350, 425
and algebra, 481
and biology, 309
and cybernetics, 312, 504-507
and demography, XXXVIII, 355, 364,
365, 368-378, 398-401
and history, 285-287, 299, 317-318,
319,472, 508
and linguistics, 427, 498
and logic, 488
and marxism, 287-289,293

and mathematics, 320-322, 530, 542,
544, 5489 5499 550, 560, 564. 572;
see also Econometrics
and political science, XXXV, XXXVIII,
19% 205
and praxeology, 291, 298-302
and psychology, XXXVIII, 242, 290,
309, 317-3189 467
and social and cultural anthropology,
XXXVIII, 3 17-3 I 8
and sociology, XXXVIII, I 32, 3 I 7-3 I 8,
573, 574
comparative research, 659, 678
problem-focused research, 580, 589,
604
Education, 276, 355
Empirical research, XXXIII, XL; see also
Empiricism; Experimentation; Observation;
Survey
Empiricism, XXXIII, 34-35, 229-239
and structuralism, 231
Epistemology, 5,16, 42,521, 523, 550-556
genetic, 7. 525, 568, 512
Ethics and demography, 355
Ethnology, see Social and cultural an-
thropology
Ethology, 258-260, 436, 525
Evolutionism, I I
Experimental method, XXXI, XLII, 15
Experimentation, XXXIX, I, 15, 25-33,
540, 565, 568-572
quasi, 542; see also Simulation
Explanation
causal, see Causal analysis
dialectic, 85
sketch, 84, 85; see also Models
Factor analysis, 213, 286, 400, 401. 537,
538, 544, 565; see also Principal components
analysis
Finalism, 41, 501-504
Forecasting, XLII; see also Probabilities;
Stochastic processes
Formal logic, 486-489
Formalization, 344, 487, 540, 554, 562;
see also Axiomatization; Models
Functional analysis, 33
Functionalism, XXXIII, 63, 103-11 I,
230, 494-495
Fundamental research, 584-587, 713,
114, 190
Futurology, XXX; see also Forecasting
Game theory, see Theory of games
General systems theory, 556, 574
Genetic epistemoIogy, 7, 525, 568, 572
Subject index 815
Genetic psychology, I I, 522, 525
Genetism, 228
Geography, XXIX
and demography, 8, 355
human, XXIX
Gerontology, XLIII, 584
problem-focused research, 581-584,
602-603
Grammar theory, 543,549,555,560-562,
573
Graph theory, XLIL 310, 538, 540, 547,
549, 563. 564
Group dynamics, 33, 245; see also Small
groups
Growth models, 312
Historical analysis, 4, 24, 32, 42
Historical method, 24,45; see also Analysis,
historical
History, IX,XXXI, 3, 9, 20
and demography, 354-355, 386-387
and economics, 285-287, 299, 317-3123,
3199 472, 508
and legal sciences, 5
and linguistics, 10, 472, 491-493, 518
521
and mathematics, 5
and nomothetic sciences, 2
and philosophy, XXXII
and political science, 204-205
and social and cultural anthropology,
8, 521
and social sciences, 680
and sociology, 493
Human geography, XXIX
Induction, 552, 567
Inductive logic, 552
Information theory, XLV, 40, 242, 516,
547,562,574
Input-output analysis, XXXVII, XLII,
230, 232, 3059 40% 544
Intelligence theory, 262
Interdisciplinary research, 597-610,
626-641, 751. 784
Interview
counselling, 663
non-directive, 663
panel, 538,573
personnel, 663
Introspection, 18-19
Keynesianism, 292-2516, 323
Latent structure analysis, 81, 86,
212-2149 544, 565, 663

816 Subject index
Law, scientific, 2, 5; see also Nomothe- Mathematical analysis, 32, 399-400, 454,
tic sciences
529-577; see also Mathematical
Learning theory, 253-258, 540-542,
method; Mathematical models;
568-5723 574
Mathematics
Legal sciences, IX, XXXI, 5
Mathematical logic, 20, 30
and demography, 355
Mathematical method, XXXVIII, XLII,
and history, 5
529-577; see also Mathematical analand
political science, 205, 211-212
ysis; Mathematical models; Matheand
sociology, 5
matics
Linear programming, 317, 321, 542 Mathematical models, 529-577
Linguistics, IX, XXIX, XXXIV, XXXV, Mathematical statistics, 384, 533, 534,
XXXIX, XLII, 2, 8, IO, 22, 31,
419-4639 425
and algebra, 481
and biology, XXXIX, 433-447
and economics, 427, 498
537
Mathematics, XXX, XXXIII, XXXIX,
XLII, 5. 15, 40, 394
and demography, 355, 530, 536, 548
and economics, 320-322, 530, 542, 544,
and history, IO, 472, 491-493, 518,
521
and logic, 422-423, 51 3
548,549, 550. 560, 564. 572; see also
Econometrics
and history, 5
and mathematics, 423, 536, 539, 543, and linguistics, 423, 536, 539, 543, 547,
547, 549, 550, 560-5629 5649 568, 549, 550, 560-562, 564, 568, 572
572
and philosophy, 547
and philosophy, 419, 454
and psychology, 264, 271, 535, 536,
and physics, 446-447
541, 542, 544, 547, 549, 550, 565;
and ~s~chology,419,431-433,456,542; see also Psychometrics
see also Psycholinguistics
and semiotics, 548
and social and cultural anthropology, and social and cultural anthropology,
419,4283 430, 5139 574
and social psychology, 246
and sociology, 81, 419, 428, 430, 514;
see also Sociolinguistics
Logic, XXXL 2, 7, 13, 15, 42, 44
and cybernetics, 488
532, 536, 539, 543, 544, 547, 568
and social psychology, 542, 544, 547,
564, 565
and sociology, 530, 531, 536, 542, 544,
547, 548, 550, 551, 564, 572, 573
Matrix algebra, 538
and economics, 488
Measurement theory, XLII, 66, 542, 565,
and linguistics, 422-423, 513
and psychology, 269, 488
566
Mechanical models, 30
and sociology, 547
Medicine, XXXIX
formal, 486-489
inductive, 552
and demography, 355, 394
Mental pathology and psychology,
mathematical, 20, 30
Logical positivism, 54
277-278
Method
comparative, see Comparative analysis
Macro-micro analysis, 205, 303-305, 315. experimental, XXXI, XLII; see also
326, 398, 400
Experimenta tion
Macroeconomics, IO
forecasting, XLII, see also Probabili-
Macrosociology, XXXII, XXXV, 63, ties; Stochastic processes
7 6-8 9
Marginalism, 290-292
historical, 24, 43; see also Analysis
mathematical, XXXVIII, XLII,
Market research, 662, 664; see also Com- 529-577; see also Mathematicalanalmercial,
poll
ysis; Mathematical models; Mathe-
Markov chains, XLII, 544, 546, 563;
matics
see also Stochastic processes
model, see Models
Marxism, XXXIII, 9, IO, 36, 63, 94-103, observation, see Observation
318, 3319 372, 518
simulation, see Simulation
and economics, 287-289, 293
sociogenetic, 24
Materialism, 227
test, 12, 542, 663

verification, see Verification
Methodology, 16, 27-33; see also Analysis;
Method; Research
Micro-macro analysis, IO, 205, 303-305,
315, 326, 398, 400
Microeconomics, IO
Microsociology, XXXV, 32; see also
Group dynamics; Sociometry
Middle range theory, 91-94
Models, XLI, XLII, II, 49, 234, 263-269,
315, 341-342, 398
abstract, 263-269
cybernetic, 31, 504-507
deterministic, 545, 546
growth, 312
mathematical, 529-577
mechanical, 30
stochastic, 30, 310, 481, 545, 546
Multidisciplinary research, 597-610,
626-641
Multivariate analysis, XLIV
Neuro-psychology, XXXVI
Nomothetic sciences, 2-3
and history, 2
and philosophy 6-7
Non-directive interview, 663
Objectivity, XXXT, I, 17,
Observation, XXXI, XXXIX, I, 565,572;
see also Decentration; Survey
Operations research, XXXVIr, XLII, 31,
219,294, 3947 532
Optimization, 315, 321
Organicism, XXXVI
Organization theory, 3 17
Panel survey, 538, 573
Pedagogy
and demography, 355
and psychology, 276
Personnel interview, 663
Phenomenology, XL, 36, 455
Philology, 459
Philosophy,IX, XXXI, XLVI, 6-7,12,13,
34. 36
and demography, 355
and history, XXXII
and linguistics, 419, 454
and mathematics, 547
and nomothetic sciences, 6-7
and political science, XXXII, 203, 214
and psychology, XXXV-XXXVI
and sociology, 61
Physics
and linguistics, 446-447
Subject index 817
and psychology, 242,272
Physiology
and demography, 395-396, 398
and psychology, 235
Political anthropology, XXX
Political economy, see Economics
Political philosophy, XXXII
Political science, IX, XXIX, XXXIV,
XXXV, XLIII, XLV, 166-224
and demography, 355, 386
and economics, XXXV, XXXVIII,
192, 205
and history, z04-zog
and legal sciences, 205, 211-212
and philosophy, 203, 214
and psychology, XXXV, 215
and social and cultural anthropology,
XXX, 205
and sociology, XXX, XXXV, XLII,
133, 194-196, 198-201, 209, 214-215
comparative research, 660, 665, 667-
669, 670, 671-673, 676, 678
problem-focused research, 589, 626
Political sociology, XXX, XXXV, XLII
Poll, 661, 662, 664
commercial, 662, 663
Positivism, 12-13, 37, 44, 46, 230-231,
265
logical, 54
Praxeology, 497, 499, 607
and economics, 291, 298-302
Prehistory, IX
Principal components analysis, 538
Probabilities, 320, 531, 544; see also Decision
theory; Operations research;
Stochastic processes; Theory of
games
Problem-focused research, XLIII,
578-644,607-609,7I4,7519 782, 784,
790
Programmed teaching, 23 I
Programming theory, 294; see also Dynamic
programming; Linear programming
Psychiatric sociology, 63 I
Psychoanalysis, 19, 52, 250-252, 517
Psychogenesis, 7
Psycholinguistics, XXXVI, 515, 525
Psychological anthropology, 631
Psychology, IX, XXIX, XXXI, XXXIV,
XXXV1, 5,7, 8, 1% 13. 17-20> 23,25,
28-29, 38, 42, 45. 52, 55. 225-282
and biology, XXXVI, 6, 235, 237,
255-256
and demography, 352-353, 355, 365.
397

818 Subject index
and economics, XXXVIII, 242, 290,
309. 317-3183 467
and linguistics, 419, 431-433,456, 542;
see also Psycholinguistics
and logic, 269, 488
and mathematics, 264, 271, 531, 535,
536, 541, 5429 5443 5473 549, 550,
565; see also Psychometrics
and mental pathology, 277-278
and pedagogy, 276
and philosophy, XXXV, XXXVI
and political science, XXXV, 215
and physics, 242, 272
and physiology, 235
and social and cultural anthropology,
631
and sociology, 133, 242-248, 382, 522
comparative research, 665
genetic, 11, 522, 525
neuro-, XXXVI
problem-focused research, 589
Psychometrics, 531, 543, 546, 565
Psychophysics, 565
Psychophysiology, see Psychology and
physiology
Public opinion poll, 661, 662, 664
Qualitative analysis, XXXII, 551
Quantification, 5, 320; see also Quantitative
analysis
Quantitative analysis, XXXII, 551, 680
Quasi-experimentation, 542 ; see also Simulation
Reason analysis, 134
Reductionism, 46, 236-237, 248-252
Regression analysis, 538
Research
applied, 588, 589, 713
comparative, see Comparative analysis
cross-cultural, XXXII, XLIV-XLVI,
645-689, 717
cross-national, XXXV, XLIV-XLVI,
645-689
cross-societal, XLIV-XLVI, 645-689
empirical, XXXIII, XL; see also Empi-
ricism; Experimentation;
Observation ; Survey
fundamental, 584-587, 713, 714, 790
interdisciplinary, 597-610, 626-641,
751, 784
market, 662, 664; see also Commercial
poll
multidisciplinary, 597-610, 626-641
operations, XXXVII, XLII, 31, 219,
294, 394, 532
problem-focused, XLIII, 578-644,
607-6093 714, 751, 782, 7849 790
Sampling, 65, 72, 74, 81, 353, 383. 395,
538,661
Science policy, XLV-XLVI
Scientific law, 2, 5; see also Nomothetic
sciences
Secondary analysis, 664
Semantic analysis, 459; see also Content
analysis
Semiology, 421, 516-518
Semiotics, XXXIX, 421-424, 425, 512,
513, 515, 548; see also Code theory
Sequential analysis, 86
Set theory, 424
Simulation, XXXIX, 404, 547, 548, 549,
573
Small groups, 72, 87, 98, 245; see also
Group dynamics
Social and cultural anthropology, IX,
XXIX, XXXIV, xxxv, XXXIX,
XLII, XLV, 2, 22, 32, 42, 425
and demography, 355
and economics, XXXVIII, 317-318
and history, 8, 521
and linguistics, 419, 428, 430, 513, 574
and mathematics, 532, 536, 539, 543,
5449 547, 568
and political science, XXX, 205
and psychology, 631
and sociology, I32
comparative research, 655, 665, 667,
678
problem-focused research, 604
Social psychology, XXXVI, XLII, 53,
136-140, 245-246, 525
and linguistics, 246
and mathematics, 542, 544, 547, 564,
565
and sociology, 135
problem-focused research, 589, 626,
631
Social sciences and history, 680
Social survey, see Survey
Social theory, 90
Socioeconomics, 631
Sociogenetic method, 24
Sociogram, 538, 544, 547
Sociolinguistics, 631
Sociology, IX, XXIX, XXX,
XXXII-XXXIV, XXXIX, XLII,
XLIII, XLV, 5, 7-9, IO, 12-13,
20-22, 24, 32, 42, 45, 61-165, 394
426
and biology, 61

and demography, XXXVIII, 352, 355,
374, 381-3839 386, 397
and economics, XXXVIII, 132,
317-3189 5739 574
and history, 493
and legal sciences, 5
and linguistics, 81, 419, 428, 430, 514;
see also Sociolinguistics
and logic, 547
and mathematics, 530, 531, 536, 542,
5443 5473 548, 550. 551, 564, 572,
573
and philosophy, 61
and political science, XXX, XXXV,
XLII, 133, 194-196, 198-201, 209,
2 14-2 I5
and psychology, 133, 242-248, 382,
5-22
and social and cultural anthropology,
132
and social psychology, 135
comparative research, 655, 659, 660,
665, 667, 670, 676-678
problem-focused research, 586, 589,
626, 629-631
Sociometry, 245, 538, 544, 547
Static-dynamic analysis, 326-33 I
Statistical analysis, 12, 28, 320; see also
Statistics
Statistics, 40, 212, 395-396, 404, 543, 574
and demography, 355
mathematical, 384, 533, 534, 537
Stochastic models, 30, 310, 481, 545, 546
Stochastic processes, 541, 544, 546, 573;
see also Markov chains
Structural analysis, 32, 83-88, 428-429,
432. 454, 5409 555
Structural linguistics, 455-460
Structuralism, XXXIV, XXXVI, XL, 5,
22, 33, 118, 228, 240-243, 247-250,
262-2633 264, 267-269, 453-455,
479-484, 494-495, 515, 518, 555
and empiricism, 231
Structure, 23, 29, 551, 554-555
Subjectivity, 19
Survey
analysis, XXXIV, XXXIX, 64-76, 662
contextual, 538, 573
data analysis, see Data analysis;
Secondary analysis
panel, 538, 573
sampling, see Poll; Sampling
Systems analysis, 555, 556
Technology and demography, 355
Test method, 12, 542, 663
Subject index 819
Theology and demography, 355
Theory, 552-554
automata, 543, 547; see also Cybernet-
ics
code, 562
cognitive dissonance, 142, 540
communication, XXXIX, 516; see also
Cybernetics
decision, XXXVIII, XLII, 29, 242,
321, 472
economic cycles, 560, 564,
general systems, 556, 574
graph, XLIL 310, 538, 540, 547. 549,
563, 564
imitation, 533
information, XLV, 40, 242, 516, 547,
562, 574
intelligence, 262
learning, 253-258, 540-542, 568-572,
574
measurement, XLII, 66, 542, 565, 566;
see also Quantification
middle range, 91-94
of games, XLII, 4, IO, 29, 31, 41, 242,
310,321,467,472,481,503,524,533,
543,547. 5499 552.557-559,563,573,
574
of grammars, 543, 549, 555. 560-562,
573
of programming, 294; see also Dynam-
ic programming; Linear program-
ming
of value, 290, 291; see also Margina-
lism
organization, 3 17
probabilities, 320, 531, 544; see also
Decision theory; Operations re-
search; Stochastic processes; Theory
of games
social, 90
Therapeutic interview, 663
Topological analysis, 547; see also Graph
theory
Topology, 547; see also Graph theory
Town-planning, XLIII
Typological analysis, XXXII
Value theory, 290, 291; see also Marginalism
Variance analysis, 81-89, 538
Variate analysis, 66, 78-81
Variate language, 68-69, 72
Verification, XXXIII
Vitalism, 555
Zoopsychology, 525