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

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