45

p The change in the social functions of modern Western sociology and its more recent concentration on empirical studies have caused a certain crisis. In their preface to Modern Sociological Theory (1957) H. Becker and A. Boskoff write: “ ‘We don’t know where we are going, but we are on our way’ is a sentiment that spoken, or unspoken, describes many of our day-to-day activities.... Even when we extrapolate ’trends’, we may go sadly astray, as witness the American population forecasts made in the early 1940s. [21; V]. Pointing out that ahead there is a good deal that is unknown, they state: “... Since we are demonstrably on our way, we need give no attention to where we seem to be going" [21; V].

p Modern Western sociology is irrevocably split between empirical investigations and theory. Some Western sociologists conduct narrow empirical research in which they analyse social behaviour of personalities, and small social groups and collectives. Others invent extremely abstract and scholastic schemes of social development.

p At the outset the theory and empiricism of Western sociology were in a certain measure counterposed to one another. Boskoff writes: “Theory and research were largely strangers to one another simply because sociological problems were, in their first stages, understandably vague, and thus truly sociological data in the present-day sense were not yet available.. .. Furthermore, sociology had not yet matched the empirically varied manifestations of social phenomena with an adequate specialisation of effort, within the discipline of sociology" [21; 30–31).

p Subsequently empiricism, as Western sociologists admit, 46 came to dominate. At the Fifth World Congress of Sociology the Mexican sociologist L. Recasens-Siches said: “ Incontestable is the empirical (my italics—G. 0.) nature of sociology as a scientific study of social facts, human intercourse, relations among people and groups from the point of view of their actual reality. Sociology must accomplish its tasks by means of observation, analysis and, although this is possible only to a limited extent, by experiment" [22].

p Empiricism of Western sociology has gone through several stages. In the beginning, as the American sociologist B. Barber notes, sociology was conceived as a course of training in adjustment to life. Its chief purpose was to help the students to develop an ability to solve the daily practical social and personal problems. Sociology was invited to take part in courses on such problems as marriage, family, race, etc. [see 23; 17–18].

p In the 1920s and 1930s empirical research was conducted into various aspects of social life at the request of industry, army and government institutions. The following books were written on the basis of empirical studies: Technical Tendencies and National Policy (edited by W. F. Ogburn), The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (two volumes) by W. I. Thomas and F. Znaniecki, Middletown in Transition by R. H. and H. M. Lynd, Society on a Street Corner by W. Foot, An American Dilemma by G. Myrdal, The American Soldier (four volumes) edited by S. A. Stouffer, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (edited by A. S. Kinsey et al.) and the Authoritarian Personality (edited by T. W. Adorno).

p The range of social studies has since then greatly increased. In defining this range the American sociologists W. Ogburn and M. F. Nimkoff note that sociology deals with specific institutions, conditions and problems which are the concern of economics, political science and education. These problems include the family, local societies, population, crime, poverty, racial relations, sex, alcoholism, mental diseases, etc. There are also special sociological aspects of economic, political, educational and other sciences [see 24; 25–28].

p It should be of no surprise, as Stoetzel remarks, that such “research devoid of theoretical direction has formed without leading to noticeable progress (my italics—G. 0.) in 47 our knowledge. In it the technical means and the fact become their own ends. The difference between that which is strategic in scientific investigation and that which is not disappears" [25; II, 260].

p Similarly, Lazarsfeld wrote: “First, our times are beset by burning social issues, but the American sociological journals are filled with insignificant little studies about the dating patterns of college students or the popularity of radio programmes....

p “Now the question could be raised, aren’t there urgent social problems in the United States? The answer is, of course, yes. But they are of such complexity that empirical social research as it exists today can hardly cope with them [25; 227).

p Robert Merton is concerned about the blind alley into which empiricism has driven sociology. Sociologists seem to be concentrating on trivial problems, while the really significant problems of human society remain uninvestigated. He says, for example, that despite the fact that wars and exploitation, poverty and injustice and uncertainty poison the lives of people and society or threaten their very existence, many sociologists work on problems so far removed from these catastrophic phenomena that they are irresponsibly petty [see 26; 11).

p Merton concludes that Western sociology is at the stage which natural science reached in the 17th century. Sociology, he says, “would not have expected Einstein to follow hard on the heels of Kepler" [27; 6).

p Modern empirical sociology operates at two levels:

p 1) collection of data without corresponding analysis, and

p 2) collection of data and their empirical generalisation.

p By limiting social cognition to the first level, empirical sociology diverts understanding from the real social reasons for the exacerbating contradictions in modern society and reduces all its social conflicts and contradictions to personality conflicts. At the same time numerous data are assiduously gathered which colourfully characterise the ugly reality of modern society.

p On the second level sociologists may compare “ anomalous" personality behaviour in different societies and social groups and sometimes draw worthwhile conclusions about social motivation and causality. On the basis of extensive 48 data, the American sociologist S. Weinberg (28; 250) has calculated that from 60 to 75 million Americans over 15 years of age consume alcohol. Of these 17 per cent drink regularly and 48 per cent occasionally; 5,015,000 Americans drink excessively; 772,000 of the latter are women.

p However, on an analysis of the facts which characterise the anomalies of American society conclusions are drawn that, for example, the percentage of alcoholism is twice as high in towns of more than 10,000 people as in rural communities, that chronic alcoholism is most commonly encountered in large cities and least of all in rural communities, that the percentage of mental disease is twice as high in urban as in rural communities, etc.

p In most cases sociologists go no further than these generalisations. Their aim is to prove that all social problems centre on the personality and that they all deviate from the “norms” accepted by the majority of society; they are not normal aspects of capitalist development. Weinberg explains the different percentages of mental diseases in social classes by different types of personality development, different structural preferences whose obviousness is very inadequate [see 28; 320].

p Without a scientific analysis all these empirical data and generalisations resemble branches lopped off trees. The Soviet sociologists P. Fedoseyev and G. Frantsev write that “human society may be likened to a living, growing tree which in the course of its development branches out and grows a thick crown and dense foliage. Every branch and twig, every leaf of this tree of social life may be subjected to sociological description. But for the dense foliage many bourgeois scientists cannot see the tree as a whole organism, the description of the individual twigs (not infrequently one-sided) becomes an end in itself, and sociology as a science vanishes. And yet the life of the branches and twigs depends on the state of the tree as a whole. The tree of social life has its own laws of origin, growth and renewal. There is not, nor can there be any sociology without investigation of the laws of social development, of the new and old, of the tendencies and prospects for development" [29; 97).

p Being unable to cope with the numerous minute data, some Western sociologists are coming to recognise the 49 paramount importance of a general sociological theory. Analysing the state of Western sociology the West German sociologist Konig notes: “Sociology does exist notwithstanding many an open question in theory. It is research that has overflown the ’antichamber’ of sociology and has brought us nearer to the core of the problem. Due to the fact that research data of many kinds has accumulated in most of the different fields of sociology, we have no longer to develop our theories in empty space but rather with the help of research results which have been carefully checked" [30; I, 148].

p It is precisely such hopes that R. Merton cherishes in his idea of “the middle range" theories with their relative and transient role. One is reminded of Tennyson’s words:

p Our little systems have their days;
They have their day and cease to be [27; 10).

p Some sociologists query the complete rejection of regularities in social phenomena, the rejection of the possibility of generalising and forecasting. Thus the American sociologist J. G. McKinney writes: “It is agreed that sociology studies the general, regular, and recurrent aspects of phenomena and hence can generalise and predict within the limits of its substantiated theory. This makes it a nomothetic discipline despite the substitution of empirical generalisation for natural laws" [21; 237].

p Some American sociologists share the views of the German philosopher W. Windelband on the classification of sciences. He distinguishes two classes of sciences: those which are concerned with the general and proclaim natural laws (nomothetic) and those which deal with particularities in their historically determined configurations ( idiographic).

p So far these views are only shared by certain individuals. McKinney maintains that sociology has accumulated extensive descriptive data on people, places and events. There are random studies of transgressors of the law, surveys of groups, ecological descriptions of towns, observations of strikes, etc. He considers the value of these descriptions to be incontestable since they serve as the focal point from which empirical generalisations issue. But he doubts their value when they remain so specific and are not associated with 50 basic theory. A very promising, although modest system of empirical generalisations has been developed in the last few decades and it is natural to suppose, says McKinney, that this process will continue.

p McKinney has to admit, however, that “most theoretically oriented sociologists are seriously concerned with the paucity of generalisation as compared with the mass of particulars. Stated briefly, their concern has its basis in the fact that most sociologists affirm the desirability and necessity of formulating the general and recurrent and then in actual practice settle for the gathering of data and the amassing of descriptive particulars" [21; 204–05].

Empiricism has driven modern sociology into a blind alley and has transformed it into a descriptive discipline which is a collection of unco-ordinated data; it cannot solve any urgent social problems. Before mentioning the practical importance of a particular social process or phenomenon one must understand the objective natural connections or interconnections by which it is conditioned. But to understand this one must analyse specific material conditions and concrete life circumstances which are various forms of manifestation of the general laws of social development; thereby one gains an understanding of these laws. Knowledge of these laws and their consideration in specific sociological studies is the only scientific way of comprehending social reality in all its various connections and interconnections.