A history of sociological analysis 9780465030231, 0465030238

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TOM BOTTOMORE ROBERT NISBET

A HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS TOM BOTTOMORE ROBERT NISBET EDITORS This magisterial volume represents a landmark contribution to the history of social thought that, in the breadth of its coverage, the authority of its presenta¬ tion, and above all, the intellectual ex¬ citement of its analysis, will not soon be equaled. Edited by Tom Bottomore and Robert Nisbet, two of the world's leading sociologists, and with specially commis¬ sioned contributions by seventeen inter¬ nationally renowned scholars, each an authority in the field with which he deals, it provides the most comprehen¬ sive account of the development of soci¬ ological analysis available. All the major sociological thinkers from the late eighteenth century to the pres¬ ent are discussed in detail, the influence of their theories considered, and the sub¬ sequent criticisms of their work re¬ viewed. While the authors give full at¬ tention to the contexts—intellectual, so¬ cial, and biographical—in which the principal ideas of sociology first emerged, their main concern is to show how these contexts relate to present-day trends. The result is an absolutely indispensable work for anyone interested in contemporary social thought. 1178

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A History of Sociological Analysis

*

A HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS Tom Bottomore 8c Robert Nisbet EDITORS

Basic Books, Inc., Publishers NEW YORK

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data M ain entry under title: A history of sociological analysis. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Sociology—History—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Bottomore, T. B. II. Nisbet, Robert A. HM19.H53 301'.09 77-20429 ISBN: 0-465-03023-8

Copyright © 1978 by Basic Books, Inc. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction

vii

TOM BOTTOMORE AND ROBERT NISBET 1

Sociological Thought in the Eighteenth Century

3

ROBERT BIERSTEDT

2

Theories of Progress, Development, Evolution

39

KENNETH BOCK

3

Conservatism

8o

ROBERT NISBET

4

Marxism and Sociology

ii8

TOM BOTTOMORE

5

German Sociology in the Time of Max Weber

149

JULIEN FREUND

6

Emile Durkheim

187

EDWARD A. TIRYAKIAN

7

Positivism and Its Critics

237

ANTHONY GIDDENS

8

American Trends

287

LEWIS A. COSER

9

Functionalism

321

WILBERT E. MOORE 10

Theories of Social Action

362

ALAN DAWE 11

Exchange Theory

418

HARRY C. BREDEMEIER

12

Inter actionism

457

BERENICE M. FISHER AND ANSELM L. STRAUSS

13

Phenomenology and Sociology

499

KURT H. WOLFF

14

Structuralism

557

TOM BOTTOMORE AND ROBERT NISBET

15

Social Stratification FRANK PARKIN

599

Contents

VI

16

Power and Authority

633

STEVEN LUKES

17

Sociological Analysis and Social Policy

677

JAMES COLEMAN

Name Index

704

Subject Index

yii

V

INTRODUCTION

TOM BOTTOMORE and ROBERT NISBET

THE IDEA of this book arose mainly from the long-standing interest of both editors in the diverse ways in which sociology has been shaped as an intellectual discipline, but it was inspired more immediately by reflection upon the contribution made to the history of economics by J. A. Schumpeter’s History of Economic Analysis. Contemplating the existing histories of sociology, we realized that despite many illuminating studies of particular thinkers or episodes, there was lacking a comprehensive work which would show, with the same wealth of detail as Schumpeter’s book, how sociological analysis has developed; how the various theoretical schemes have been elaborated and modified; what relation they bear to each other; how theoretical debates have arisen, been pursued, and eventually been resolved or put aside. When we came to consider how such a history might be written, it seemed evident that the exceptionally broad scope of sociological analysis—claiming as it does to comprehend social life “as a whole”—and the very great diversity of theoretical orientations, which if anything has increased in recent years, made desirable a collective work in which particular types of theory would be examined in a thorough fashion by scholars having a special interest and competence in each area. But we also thought it essential to complement these studies of what may be called “theoretical schools ” with two other major kinds of contributions: one concerned with the various methodological orientations of a very general character which have coexisted throughout the history of our discipline, found expression in diverse theoretical schemes, and given rise on occasion to important methodological debates; the other concerned with a number of broad theoretical issues—the significance of power and stratification, the relation between sociological analysis and practical social life—with which all the major schools of sociological theory have had to grapple. Einally, we considered it useful to include, as a type of case study, an account of some aspects of the history of sociological analysis in the United States, where sociology developed more rapidly and extensively than anywhere else and in consequence has had a major historical influence.

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This initial conception of the book rested also upon a fairly rigorous distinction between sociological analysis and social thought in a broader sense. Our intention was not to present, even very briefly, a historical panorama of the development of thought about society and to set sociology in this context, but rather to delineate the emergence and development of a “new science” which has been one major element in the history of the modern social sciences since the eighteenth century. Our contributors have not wholly ignored precursors, but they, like ourselves, have concentrated their attention firmly upon sociology as a theoretical and empirical science which has assumed a definite shape only during the past two centuries and more especially in the present century. This distinction, between social thought—the history of which is coterminous with the history of humanity—and sociological analysis, is examined in various ways in the early chapters of this book but requires at least a preliminary exposition here. Like Schumpeter in his discussion of economics, we have to pose the question of whether sociology is a science; and like him again, we have to recognize that the very idea of sociological analysis, of a sociological science, is in some respects obscure, partly hidden by the dust and smoke of many battles, some of which rage unabated to the present day. This is not the place to enter in detail upon controversies in the philosophy of science which concern the nature of science in general, its demarcation from nonscience, ^ and the particular character and problems of the social sciences, some of which are considered from various aspects in later chapters with reference to particular theoretical views and are dealt with more directly in the chapter on positivism. Here we can approach the question by noting some of the features which constitute sociological analysis as a systematic form of inquiry, possessing a distinctive, though varied, array of concepts and methods of research. The break in social thought which produced sociology may be interpreted in various ways, and it was certainly the product of many different influ¬ ences, but one of its most important features was undoubtedly the new and more precise conception of “society” as an object of study, clearly distin¬ guished from the state and the political realm in general,^ as well as from a vague universal history of mankind and from the particular histories of “peoples,” “states,” or “civilizations.” The idea of “society” was elaborated in analyses of social structure, social systems, and social institutions which formed the central eore of soeiological theory at least from Marx onward; and all the diverse schools of thought which are considered in this volume are so many attempts to define the fundamental elements of social structure—both those which are universal and those which have a particular historical character—and to provide some explanation or interpretation of the unity and persistence of societies, as well as of their inner tensions and their potentialities for change. Constituted as a scientific discipline by this definition of its object, sociology, however vast, unwieldy, and liable to extremely varied conceptual¬ izations, has developed in what may be regarded as a fairly normal way through the continued elaboration of alternative paradigms and theoretical

Introduction

IX

controversy among their advocates, through the accumulation of an ordered body of knowledge resulting from empirical research directed by one or another paradigm, and through the specialization of research. In this progress, comprising what claims to be a detached and critical construction and evaluation of theories and an objective collection and arrangement of empirical data, there are, to be sure, a number of unsatisfactory features. One is the coexistence over long periods of a multiplicity of paradigms, without any one of them being clearly predominant; hence it might be said, on one side, that no sociological theory ever properly dies but becomes “comatose” and is always capable of subsequent revival; and on the other side, that there are no real “scientific revolutions” in which a reigning paradigm is unmistak¬ ably deposed and another becomes sovereign. A second feature is the closeness of the scientific knowledge produced by sociology to ordinary common-sense knowledge, which is sometimes proclaimed in an extreme way by references to the “obviousness” of sociological theories and investigations when stripped of their protective layer of jargon.® These two characteristics account for much of the dissatisfaction that sociologists themselves sometimes feel about the state, and the progress, of their discipline. Nevertheless, they should not be exaggerated. The findings of sociological research are not always truisms; indeed, they may be opposed to common-sense everyday beliefs about a particular matter, or may support one “obvious” conclusion against another that is contradictory but equally “obvious” and widely believed, or may provide knowledge of phenomena that have not been properly noticed by common sense at all. More important for the subject matter of this book is the fact that sociological analysis, to whatever extent it has its original source in a common-sense understanding of human interaction, not only contributes a more systematic, comprehensive, and rigorous understanding, but transforms our knowledge of the social world by new conceptualizations of it. Marx’s analysis of commodity production. Max Weber’s study of the relation between the Protestant ethic and capital¬ ism, Durkheim’s conception of the bases of social solidarity, and the structural analysis of kinship, ail provide new knowledge which did not previously form part of the common-sense view of the world and some of which indeed, later became incorporated, in various ways, into everyday knowledge. The problems posed by the multiplicity of paradigms in sociology—amply revealed in the present volume—may be considered from several aspects. Obviously, various competing paradigms emerge within a definite intellectu¬ al arena, and to that extent at least they presuppose a broad, though implicit rather than distinctly formulated, agreement upon what constitutes the specific domain and problems of sociology. So far as this is not the case—and there are manifestly wide-ranging controversies about the nature and validity of sociology as such, or of any general social science—then we cannot claim that there is some universally accepted conception of the object of sociological analysis which provides the context for every theoretical dispute. This uncertainty, the lurking presence of radically opposed, or incommensurable, images of man and society in the background of diverse theoretical schemes.

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presents major difficulties with regard to resolving disagreements, moving from one paradigm to another, or evaluating scientific progress in sociology. Is it indeed possible to speak of progress at all? We would certainly want to claim that the initial development of sociology represented a distinct progress in the study of human society by its clearer definition of the object of study and its formulation of new themes and problems for analysis. And from the midnineteenth to the early twentieth century—in the works of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim—there appeared bold theoretical constructions, incisive state¬ ments of sociological method, and major studies of fundamental elements in the social structure which together established sociology as a rigorous mode of scientific inquiry and brought about a great expansion of empirical social investigations. There can be little doubt that these achievements represent a considerable advance beyond the more speculative constructions of SaintSimon and Comte, or of the conservative thinkers of the early nineteenth century, however important they may have been as precursors. Edward Tiryakian remarks that Durkheim’s life project was to establish sociology as a rigorous science, and the he “provided the discipline with its first comprehen¬ sive scientific paradigm,”'* but this might also be said in only slightly different terms about the work of Marx, which has long demonstrated—notwithstand¬ ing occasional periods of “dogmatic slumber” among Marxists themselves— that capacity to generate new research problems and to provoke scientific controversies which is one indication of the fruitfulness of a scientific paradigm. However, it may seem that a more important question to ask with respect to the progress of sociological analysis is whether there has occurred, since that brilliant age in which the foundations of the discipline were laid, any definitive advance in the construction either of a general theory or of more limited theories about particular social phenomena, and in the criticism and rejection of older theories. In our view, this question is one of great complexity and cannot be answered in any simple way. On one side it is quite evident that the kinds of sociological analysis embodied in the works of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim still possess authority and influence and are far from having been discarded. One aspect of this situation is that there has not yet emerged in the twentieth century any new paradigm which clearly advances beyond those which were produced in what has been called the “golden age” of sociology. The nearest approach to such a paradigm is probably the structural-functionalism of the 1940s and 1950s, but this did not accomplish a comprehensive reconstruction of sociological theory, for although it incorpo¬ rated (especially in the work of Talcott Parsons) some important theoretical concepts from Weber and Durkheim and attempted to go beyond them in formulating a new conceptual scheme, it did not confront directly either the Marxist theory or some other, less prominent types of sociological thought, or try to include them in its synthesis. This example does indicate, however, one of the ways in which sociological theories are constructed and reconstructed, for the rise and subsequent decline of structural-functionalism can be seen as

Introduction

XI

an oscillation between two contrasting emphases in the study of human society—upon structural continuity, interconnectedness, cultural unity; or upon discontinuity, propensity to change, conflicting interests and values—in the course of which, nevertheless, a greater conceptual clarity and systemati¬ zation may be achieved.^ As a whole, though, the process may appear to be cyclical rather than linear; and in the specific case of functionalism the difficulties and criticisms which led to its decline—but not demise—were closely associated with the revival of Marxism as a major sociological theory, not with the emergence of a novel theory or more general paradigm which would give an entirely new orientation to sociological analysis. Even if, as this discussion suggests, we cannot demonstrate the occurrence, at least in recent times, of any major paradigm changes which have transformed the whole field of inquiry, there remains the possibility that significant progress has taken place in the development of some particular theories. Undoubtedly, as many of the following chapters show, there have been advances in clarifying and reformulating fundamental concepts, in eliminating those which did not stand up to critical examination (for example, some organic analogies), and in revising propositions derived from specific theories. But there has also been a tendency for work within any particular theoretical framework to develop in much the same way as that which is concerned with more general paradigms; namely, to produce alternative conceptions which then coexist without any effective resolution of the differences among them. A good example is furnished by the development of Marxist thought in recent decades; characterized certainly by very intense theoretical debates, by some noteworthy reinterpretations of Marx’s method, and by much illuminating conceptual analysis, these studies have led to the formation of a number of sharply demarcated Marxist “schools” rather than to the consolida¬ tion of a single, scientifically more advanced Marxist theory. Similar difficulties in tracing a distinct line of advance appear if we move from the examination of specific theoretical schemes such as Marxism or functionalism to a study of the diverse, and successive, ways of analyzing particular social phenomena. As Frank Parkin observes with respect to social stratification, the theory of the subject “. . . has no history in the sense of a cumulative body of knowledge showing a pattern of development from a primitive to a more sophisticated state of affairs, ” and “. . . most of what counts today as class or stratification theory has its origins almost exclusively in the writings of Marx and Engels, Max Weber, and the Pareto-Mosca school.”® In this case, therefore—and this applies also to other fields of inquiry which are considered elsewhere in this volume—the contribution of later thinkers seems to have been limited to modifying in various ways the major theories formulated at an earlier time, and to introducing new elements which need to be taken into account, as for instance the significance of ethnicity and gender in social stratification. In the main, such progress as there has been has involved the refinement and amendment of existing

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theories without any notable theoretical innovations or the subsumption of rival theories in a broader conception. At the same time it can reasonably be claimed that some kinds of analysis have been shown to be unfruitful and have been largely discarded, so that as Parkin remarks, envisage

the

rise

of

any

new

equivalent

to

the

. . it is difficult to Warner

school

of

stratification.”’ But if, as the preceding discussion suggests, there have not been any successful scientific revolutions in sociology during the past half century, there have undoubtedly been quite pronounced variations in the ways of approaching the subject matter, and in the kinds of problems that are singled out for attention, as is indicated, for example, by the rise and fall of functionalism and by the growing influence in recent years of Marxism and phenomenology. We need to ask, therefore, how such variations occur, and in particular, to consider whether these movements of thought do not have their source at least as much in the changes taking place in the social and cultural environment as in the theoretical debates and discoveries within sociology as a scientific discipline. One way of posing this question is to ask whether the history of sociological analysis is not, after all, simply a history of ideologies, depicting the varied and changing attempts to express in a body of social thought, or a world view, the economic, political, and cultural interests of different social groups engaged in practical social struggles. Some such conception appears to be held implicitly or explicitly by a number of scholars engaged in studies of the history of sociology or the philosophy of the social sciences, but a proper consideration of this question requires in the first place some discussion of the concept of ideology, itself susceptible to diverse interpretations. In Marx’s theory ideology refers to those symbols and forms of thought, necessarily present in class-divided societies, which distort and conceal real social relationships and in this way help to maintain and reproduce the rule of a dominant class. Yet there are also countervailing forces, most particularly in the modern capitalist societies, one of them being the capacity of dominated classes to resist, in some measure at least, and through an understanding of their own everyday experience, the influence of the prevailing ideology; and another being the progress of science, including social science, which makes possible the disclosure of the real state of affairs that ideology conceals. The contrast between ideology and a universal human reason or understanding, especially the contrast between ideology and science (as the most developed form of reason), is an essential element of Marx’s theory. This is demonstrated most fully in his analysis of commodity production, the whole object of which is to show, by a scientific investigation, the real social relationships in capitalist society that lie behind the appearances expressed in ideology. From this standpoint a description of sociology—a presumptive science of society— as nothing but ideology makes no sense. All the sciences, and every other manifestation of intellectual and cultural life, may be influenced by ideology, but there is nonetheless a relatively autonomous and authentic growth of

Introduction

Xlll

scientific knowledge. Above all, it is the development of social science which enables us to distinguish what is ideological and to criticize it. There is, however, another conception of ideology, elaborated most fully by Karl Mannheim, according to which the social sciences are inescapably ideological. What they produce is not scientific theories which can be tested and rationally evaluated, even though they contain such elements as empiri¬ cal data and rational systematization, but doctrines, which formulate the interests and aspirations of various social groups, among them nations, ethnic groups, and cultural groups, as well as social classes. From this point of view, the movements of thought in sociology depend upon developments in society and culture, and the waxing and waning of sociological theories have to be accounted for by the varying fortunes of different social groups in their ceaseless competition and conflict. Such ideas are by no means alien to some kinds of Marxist thought: Gramsci and Lukacs both conceive Marxism as a world view, as the historically developing consciousness of the working class, not as a science of society; and the thinkers of the Frankfurt school, in a very different fashion, criticize sociology itself—in the form which it has assumed as one element in the growth of modern science—as a “positivist” ideology which has its source in the specific social relationships established in capitalist society, while taking their own stand upon a “critical theory” which involves not only a general criticism of ideologies but also the assertion of a distinct philosophical conception that relates all social inquiry to the aim of human emancipation.^ As this discussion has briefly indicated, the idea that sociological analysis is essentially ideological has been presented in quite diverse ways, ranging from a sociology of knowledge to a Hegelian-Marxist philosophy of history. But these conceptions are themselves problematic—thus, a sociology of knowl¬ edge presupposes a nonideological sociology, while a philosophical theory of history raises all the problems of teleology—and none of them has shown convincingly that a valid distinction cannot be drawn between ideological thought and a science of society. What they have undoubtedly achieved is to make us more clearly aware of the various ways in which ideology, in whatever manner it is conceived, may enter into sociological paradigms, and hence of the need to consider theories and paradigms not only from the point of view of their internal coherence and development, but also in relation to their wider social context. This view, applied to the history of science generally, has become more familiar since the work of Kuhn,® and it obviously has a special relevance for the social sciences because of the distinctive character of their connection with the interests and values that arise in practical social life. The history of any science is important in providing a better understanding of its theoretical development, and hence of current theories, in stimulating new ideas, and in conveying the sense of a continuing activity of inquiry through which there occurs a gradual, or occasionally sudden and dramatic, growth of knowledge. Quite often it is through a reexamination of earlier attempts to solve a

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particular problem that new advances are made. These considerations quite evidently apply to the history of sociological analysis, but in addition there are other benefits to be gained. First, a historical study that takes into account the social and cultural context in which a particular body of theoretical ideas has developed should enable us to discriminate more precisely between the evolution of the theoretieal eoneepts and propositions themselves, and the influenee upon them of various social and cultural interests—or in other words, to distinguish between the scientific and the ideological content of a system of sociological thought. Second, because the objects of sociological analysis include not only universal eharacteristics of human societies but also historical and changing phenomena, a history of the various approaches and theories reveals the extent to which many of them, at least in some aspects, have a restricted and specific scope inasmuch as they deal with the facts and problems of partieular historical periods. In this respect, however, there may be quite substantial differences between theories in different areas of soeiology. For instanee, it may be suggested that the continuing importance of nineteenth-eentury theories of class and stratification is due to the fact that there has been relatively little change, over a long period, in the phenomena with which they deal, whereas theories of development have gone through a number of transformations in the space of a few deeades, not only as a result of the controversies between Marxist and other theories, but also because the coneeptions of uninterrupted eeonomic growth prevalent in the 1940s and 1950s which influenced soeiologieal theorists have been strongly critieized and to some extent replaced by a preoccupation (whether well or ill founded) with the “limits to growth”; and in this way the facts and problems with which a sociological theory of development has to deal have themselves ehanged. In the following chapters our contributors examine particular theories and paradigms, broadly speaking in the manner outlined here, paying attention both to the inner development of theories as a result of criticism and innovation and to the impact of changing social and cultural circumstances. They also discuss, in some ehapters, the problems that emerge in trying to evaluate and decide among rival theoretical schemes; such discussion has been central to sociology sinee Comte. But there are two trends in the recent development of sociological analysis that merit preliminary attention at this stage. First, there is the growth and consolidation, during the past two or three decades, of an international scientific community within which, in spite of the diversity of viewpoints upon which we have insisted, the active exchange and criticism of ideas and research findings have the effeet of defining more clearly the boundaries of the discipline and the set of problems that constitute its subject matter. To this extent at least it may be claimed that there is now a single discipline, a realm of scientific discourse outside of which sociological analysis cannot properly be pursued at all; and this discipline—at once the product and the binding element of a community of scientists which sets itself distinct and specified aims—constitutes a relatively

Introduction

XV

autonomous sphere which is perhaps increasingly resistant to purely ideologi¬ cal influences. A second trend is closely associated with this development; namely, the movement away from “national” schools of sociology, and from the creation of highly individual sociological systems, which were characteristic of an earlier period. Of course, some elements of the previous conditions remain. Even though there are no longer any very distinctive “national” schools of sociology, there is still a “regional” preeminence of European and North American sociology in the discipline as a whole. But who can foresee with any confidence what further transformations of sociological analysis will occur as it develops in the context of different cultural traditions and other civiliza¬ tions? Equally, much sociological analysis still has its main source in the work of the founding fathers; that is to say, in particular, individual, intellectual creations. But there is today no Weberian or Durkheimian sociology, and even in the case of Marx a considerable gap exists between Marx’s own theory of society and the varied forms of present-day Marxist sociology, with the development of the latter, we would dare to suggest, embodying advances in “sociological ” rather than “Marxist ” thought. Our claim, then, is that sociological analysis can be seen to have attained a measure of scientific maturity, that its development exemplifies in a more general way those characteristics which are mentioned by Leszek Kolakowski in his discussion of the place of Marxism in the social sciences: “. . . the concept of Marxism as a separate school of thought will in time become blurred and ultimately disappear altogether, just as there is no ‘Newtonism’ in physics, no ‘Linnaeism’ in botany, no ‘Harveyism’ in physiology, and no ‘Gaussism’ in mathematics. What is permanent in Marx’s work will be assimilated in the natural course of scientific development.

But we

advance this view only tentatively, well aware that some of our contributors, and perhaps a larger proportion of our readers, would be disinclined to accept it, at any rate without numerous qualifications; and also aware that there are still large and difficult questions about the relation of sociology considered as a science to more philosophical forms of thought about society. In effect, there are two separate but interwoven strands of discussion in this volume, and also in our introduction: one concerned with the development of different theories and paradigms in a discipline whose location in the ensemble of human knowledge is largely taken for granted, and the other dealing with the very nature and foundations of the discipline, its title to a separate existence. What we have attempted to do is to present as comprehen¬ sive an account as possible of these debates, albeit with a stronger emphasis upon the first; and while we recognize that there are some gaps in this account—in particular, we have not been able to deal as fully as we wished with the sociological theories of culture and of knowledge—we nevertheless believe that this book does provide the necessary means for assessing and comparing different theoretical orientations, for considering how far and in what ways sociological analysis has advanced, and for understanding the

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historical development of major controversies about the basic concepts of sociology.

NOTES

1. Some of the general issues and disagreements are well conveyed in the volume edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 2. See the discussion of this distinction between the political and the social in W. G. Runciman, Social Science and Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963) chap. 2. 3. For example, A. R. Louch, Explanation and Human Action (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966) p. 12, discussing some aspects of Talcott Parsons’s “general theory,” comments: “. . . what’s the news? Parsons’s elaborate structure turns out to be a way of classifying the various interactions among individuals and groups, and any surprise arises only in that what we know already about human activities can be rephrased in this terminology and classificatory system. ” In more general terms, Isaiah Berlin, in an essay on Vico’s idea of social knowledge, refers to that knowledge “which participants in an activity claim to possess as against mere observers . . . the knowledge that is involved when a work of the imagination or of social diagnosis, or a work of criticism or scholarship or history is described not as correct or incorrect, skillful or inept, a success or a failure but as profound or shallow, realistic or unrealistic, perceptive or stupid, alive or dead.” Isaiah Berlin, “A Note on Vico’s Concept of Knowledge,” New York Review of Books, XII: 8 (1969). 4. See p. 188 herein. 5. See chapter 9, herein. 6. See p. 599 herein. 7. See p. 603 herein. 8. For further discussion of these ideas see chapter 4 herein. 9. See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). 10. Leszek Kolakowski, Marxism and Beyond (London: Pall Mall Press, 1969) p. 204.

A History of Sociological Analysis

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1

SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

ROBERT BIERSTEDT

THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, except in its hidden origins, always begins in

medias res. All ideas have ancestors, and no one can write of the rise of sociological ideas in the eighteenth century without folding a seamless tapestry and concealing most of the panorama it would otherwise display. There was no sociology as such in the eighteenth century because there was no such word. No one coined it until the nineteenth century, and Auguste Comte, who did so, thought of himself as making a sharp break with the past. He therefore adopted his curious doctrine of “cerebral hygiene,” reading only poetry during the composition of his Positive Philosophy, in an effort to prevent the ideas of his predecessors from contaminating his own. It was a futile effort. Sociology may have only a short history, but it has a very long past. One may be sure that ever since the dawn of reason the restless and inquisitive mind of man not only cast itself into the heavens and pried into the entrails of the earth (the expression belongs to George Berkeley), but also asked questions about man himself and his societies. For it is of the nature of man, as Aristotle observed, to live in groups, and only a beast or a god is fit to live alone. The nature of these groups, whether marital pairs or friends or rulers or slaves, thus became a concern of the philosophers of the West. No period of history, in fact, has been free of sociological speculation, and few periods have offered so much of it as the eighteenth century. Crane Brinton may exaggerate a bit, as he himself concedes, when he writes, “There seem to be good reasons for believing that in the latter part of the eighteenth century more intellectual energy was spent on the problems of man in society, in proportion to other possible concerns of the human mind, than at any other time in history.”^ Indeed, Brinton goes so far as to say that the word

ROBERT

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BIERSTEDT

philosophe, not translatable into modern French, might best be rendered as sociologue. Certainly the word cannot be translated as “philosopher” in the contemporary meaning of that word. The first Dictionary of the French Academy, which appeared at the end of the seventeenth century, gave it three definitions: “(1) a student of the sciences, (2) a wise man who lives a quiet life, and (3) a man who by free thought {libertinage d’esprit) puts himself above the ordinary duties and obligations of civil life.”^ Since most of the Philosophers were hostile to religion, especially established religion, the word philosophe came to carry the connotation of a man of letters who is a freethinker. Most of them were dedicated, if not to atheism, at least to deism.^ Atheism, as Robespierre explained, was aristocratic and not something one discussed before the servants.^ “Do you know,” wrote Horace Walpole from Paris in 1765, “who the philosophes are, or what the terms means here? In the first place it comprehends almost everybody, and in the next, means men who are avowing war against popery and who aim, many of them, at the subversion of religion.”^ From his vantage point in the twentieth century Robert Nisbet writes that the eighteenth century was one of a relentless attack upon Christianity and that that, in fact, was what the French Enlightenment was all about.® One does not expect the eighteenth century to show a differentiation of the social sciences into such separate disciplines as anthropology, sociology, social psychology, economics, political science, and jurisprudence.^ It is too early, in fact, to exhibit such a thing as social science. There is no article with that title in the great Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. Furthermore, the social thinkers of the century were to a large degree moral philosophers rather than social scientists, interested not in the study of society for its own sake but in the reformation of society for the benefit of mankind.® They were also political scientists rather than sociologists, interested in the origin and usages of government rather than in the structure of society. It is doubtful if the latter expression would have had much meaning for them. In any event, these Philosophers were men of reason and men of enlightment. Indeed, Enlighten¬ ment became the name of the age.^ The virtues they respected were skepticism, rationalism, naturalism, humanism, toleration, and freedom of thought. The vices they detested were ignorance, superstition, intolerance, and tyranny, and of course they all sought to expose the follies of their predecessors.^® Condorcet wrote of the age “when the human spirit moved in its chains, relaxed all and broke some; when all old opinions were examined and all errors attacked; when all old customs were subjected to discussion; and when all spirits took an unexpected flight towards liberty.” And Holbach used strong language to say “Now is the time for reason, guided by experience, to attack at their source the prejudices of which mankind has so long been the victim . . . Eor, to error is due the slavery into which most peoples have fallen ... To error are due the religious terrors that shrivel men up with fear or make them massacre each other for illusions. To error are due inveterate hatreds, barbarous persecutions, continued slaughter, and revolting trage-

Sociological Thought in the Eighteenth Century

5

dies.”“ The motto of these enlightened Philosophers was Sapere aude—dare to know. No one can do justice to the ideas of the Enlightenment, and no summary can suffice. But four propositions, perhaps, can capture the temper of the times better than others. There was first of all the replacement of the supernatural by the natural, of religion by science, of divine decree by natural law, and of priests by philosophers. Second was the exaltation of reason, guided by experience, as the instrument that would solve all problems, whether social, political, or even religious. Third was the belief in the perfectibility of man and society and, accordingly, the belief in the progress of the human race.^^ And finally there was a humane and humanitarian regard for the rights of man, and especially the right to be free from the oppression and corruption of governments—a right claimed in blood in the French Revolution. It should not be supposed, of course, that the Philosophers were unanimous in their views. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), for example, one of the earliest of their number, subtle enemy of the Church,^'^ and brave defender of tolerance against the Jesuits, entertained a redoubtable skepticism about the idea of progress and thought that reason could easily be as deceptive as the senses. Nevertheless, these four propositions by and large contain the principal themes of the Enlightenment.^^ The most important of these propositions, almost without question, is the first. It would be impossible to overemphasize the role of the scientific revolution in Western history. The spark that ignited it was struck in 1543 by the publication of Copernicus’s On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbsf^ and by 1687, with the publication of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, it was in full flame. In the 144 years between the world became a different place. It even changed its position in the cosmos, surrendering its location in the center and moving to an orbit around the sun. Surely this is the most spectacular period in the entire history of science—and the most spectacularly successful. Without it there would have been no Enlightenment. One would like to retell the story in detail but a rapid survey will have to serve. First, of course, was Copernicus, who was on his deathbed when a copy of his great book was brought to him. It contained the fraudulent preface by Osiander, a Lutheran divine who, fearful of the effect the book would have, suggested that the propositions in it were hypotheses only, set forth to facilitate calculation and not to be accepted as true. It was Kepler who exposed the fraud in 1597, but many continued to believe that Copernicus did not accept his own conclusions.^^ Then there was Tycho Brahe, who patiently watched and charted the stars from his observatory, Uraniborg, on the island of Hveen, between Denmark and Sweden. Then came Kepler himself, with his three laws, the first of which “corrected” the orbit of the earth from a circle to an ellipse, with the sun as one of the foci. It is Kepler who has been called the Wordsworth of astronomy because three-quarters of his work is rubbish and the remaining quarter priceless.^® Then there was Galileo, who discovered the law of the pendulum and the law of freely falling bodies, the

6

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first by watching a lamp swing in a little chapel in the cathedral at Pisa and the second by dropping light and heavy objects from the Leaning Tower next door.^^ As the world knows, he was summoned to the bar of the Inquisition first in 1616 and five times in 1633. He had been warned on the earlier occasion but nevertheless proceeded to publish, in 1632, his Dialogue on the Two Principal Systems of the Universe. In this Dialogue there are three speakers: the first, Salviati, defends the Copernican system; the second, Sagredo (actually a Copernican), poses as an impartial referee; and the third, whom Galileo could not refrain from calling Simplicio, supports the Ptolema¬ ic view. It was too much for the Church. He was required to recant, threatened with torture if he refused to do so, and sentenced to life imprisonment—a sentence that was enforced with some leniency in that he was permitted to receive foreign visitors, one of whom was John Milton. That he did not in fact change his mind is clear from his marginal notes in a book by the Jesuit Antonio Rocco (1633) in which he castigates the Ptolemaic author as “an ignoramus, an elephant, a fool, a dunce, a malignant, an ignorant eunuch, and a rascal. The Inquisition, as Preserved Smith wryly remarks, made many hypocrites but few converts. Galileo was neither. He was, as Condorcet said, the greatest genius Italy gave to science. We come finally to the man whom John Locke called “the incomparable Mr. Newton. ” The Principia Mathematica was the culmination of the science of the century and a half before, and seldom, if e'^er, has civilization been the beneficiary of so great a book. Edmund Halley said that of all mankind Newton was closest to God; Isaac Barrow, his mathematics teacher at Cambridge, called him an unparalleled genius; Leibniz, whose independent discovery of the calculus Newton acknowledged, said that his work in mathematics was equal in value to all previous work in that science; Hume praised him as the “greatest and rarest genius that ever rose for the ornament and instruction of the human species;” and Voltaire carried his fame to France,^^ where La Grange described the Principia as the greatest production of the human mind. It was La Grange too who regarded Newton not only as the greatest genius who ever lived but also the most fortunate. Why the most fortunate? Because there is only one universe and it can therefore be given to only one man to discover its laws! Later on Kant will pay Condorcet his highest compliment by calling him the Newton of the moral world and still later Saint-Simon will call his tricameral legislature “the Council of Newton.” It may be, as one historian complains, that tributes to Newton became monotonous, but one cannot end this story without quoting the lines Alex¬ ander Pope intended as his epitaph: Nature knd Nature’s laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light. Science was now on the ascent and religion on the decline. It was not only “fluxions” and inverse squares and the laws of motion and the law of gravitation but a discovery more potent by far than any of them—the

Sociological Thought in the Eighteenth Century

7

scientific method itself—which influenced the Enlightenment and which, in fact, created it. We are perhaps a little jaundiced by it now because it has not done justice to sociology in the twentieth century, but without it the human mind would still be mired in superstition, revelation, and authority. As Preserved Smith writes, in concluding his masterful treatment of the Copernicans: There has never been a greater revolution in the history of thought than that marked by the establishment of the Copernican astronomy. The abandonment of a geocentric universe of matter was logically followed by the relinquishment of an anthropocentric universe of thought. But the importance of the new idea lay less in the changed picture of the world, vast as that change was, than in the triumph of that great instrument for probing nature, science. To a reflecting mind—and there have been a few such in every generation—no victory could possibly have been more impressive than that of science in this battle with the senses, with common opinion, with inveterate and all but universal tradition, and with all authority, even that claiming to be divine revelation.

The victory had another effect. It turned inquiry off of divine things and on to human things. Pope’s couplet has become a cliche but it is indispensable nevertheless: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man.

The philosophers took him seriously. It is obviously impossible, even if one were equipped to do so, to treat the social thought of an entire century in the space of a single chapter. There are too many names and the discussion could easily degenerate into an annotated bibliography. Nor shall we treat the social sciences separately. As mentioned before, they were not differentiated in the eighteenth century and indeed did not emerge in that century. We shall make every effort to sift out those ideas that are sociological in character, and not economic or political or ethical or otherwise specialized in twentieth-century disciplines. The history of political theory, for example, has been competently and often brilliantly written. We shall thus avoid theories of the origin of the state, of the nature of govern¬ ment, and of various forms of government. Other social sciences, somewhat on the periphery, like geography and demography, will remain untreated. The great historians of the century will also be omitted, and thus there will be nothing of Gibbon and Turgot. Hume will appear not as historian, moralist, or epistemologist, but as sociologist. We shall be alert, in short, for ideas about society itself, including its manners and customs, and shall ignore govern¬ ment, law, the marketplace, and other institutions. We shall present a small and highly selective portrait gallery of those who wrote of society in the eighteenth century and whose works, accordingly, belong to the library of sociology. For reasons of convenience we shall discuss them country by country.

8

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France We may begin with Montesquieu, the subject of Durkheim’s Latin disserta¬ tion and almost without question the greatest sociologist of the eighteenth century. He was born Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brede et de Montesquieu, at La Brede, near Bordeaux, on January 18, 1689. The story is told that a beggar at the gate of the estate was brought in to serve as his godfather in the hope that the child would never forget the poor when he grew up. He was educated at a college near Paris, returned to Bordeaux at the age of sixteen in order to study law, and received his degree three years later, in 1708. After four more years in Paris he again returned to Bordeaux in 1713, the year of his father’s death. The following year, at the age of twentyfive, he was appointed a counselor at the Parliament of Bordeaux and two years later inherited from his uncle both a fortune and the presidency of the Parliament. The uncle had purchased the presidency, and it was a practice that Montesquieu, who later sold it, was to defend on the ground that it induced men of wealth and family to undertake tasks they would not otherwise perform. Montesquieu’s interests in the law, however, diminished as they grew in science. He joined the Academy of Bordeaux; indulged in laboratory experiments; wrote papers on physics, physiology, and geology; and planned a “geological history of the earth,” which, however, was never written. During the years 1720-31 he traveled in Austria, Hungary, Italy, Germany, and Holland and spent the last eighteen months of that period in England. He came to think of himself as a man first and a Frenchman second, and desired to view all peoples impartially. He was well known in the salons of Paris, was elected to the French Academy in 1728 and the Royal Society of London in 1730. He divided the remainder of his life between his estate at La Brede, where he built an English garden, and Paris. In Paris he became the victim of an epidemic and died there on February 10, 1755, at the age of sixty-six. The publication at the age of thirty-two of his Persian Letters brought him immediate fame. Indeed, eight editions were exhausted in its first year. In this book he utilized the device, not original with him, of viewing French life and French institutions through Oriental eyes. It gave him an opportunity to describe the customs of his own society as if they were exotic and extraordi¬ nary. His Persians, of course, were more European than Persian because he knew little of Persia except what he had gleaned from reading. One of the reasons for the book’s popularity was that he described seraglio life in Isfahan from the point of view of one of the women inhabitants, whose conception of paradise was a place where every woman had a harem of handsome men to serve her. In any event, in this guise Montesquieu’s two “Persian” interlocu¬ tors were able to comment with impunity on the manners and morals of the French; talk deceptively about the powers of a magician named Pope, who

Sociological Thought in the Eighteenth Century

9

persuades his followers that bread and wine can be turned into flesh and blood; profess a pained astonishment at the horrors of the Inquisition; and argue indirectly for religious toleration: “If unbiased discussion were possible, I am not sure, Mirza, that it would not be a good thing for a state to have several religions. . . . History is full of religious wars; but ... it is not the multiplicity of religions that has produced wars; it is the intolerant spirit animating that which believed itself in the ascendant.”^® In this book Montesquieu also wrote on the family, the only social institution that he did not condemn. He treated it also as the only one th