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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