Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

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-