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

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