SOCIOLOGY IS NO CINDERELLA

In the on-going succession of convenient, even if slightly shallow, one-word characterizations of sections (Economics, Religion, Judaica, or later, Philosophy, History, Americana, Russica, and such), this particular section, otherwise known as Collective Guilt And Glory, receives the keyword Sociology, at least by virtue of its tackling the question of Society.

It is another matter, however, whether what I have chosen to call Sociology is exactly what the established scientific (remember this word!) authorities call Sociology. But then, what on earth is their Sociology? My Webster’s Dictionary gives me the following curious definition:

“Sociology [is] the study of the history, development, organization, and problems of people living together as social groups; social science.”

Earlier on, however, Webster’s provides two definitions of social science, the first one equating it with the above-stated definition of sociology, while the second one reads:

“Social science [is] any of several studies, as history, economics, civics, etc., dealing with the structure of society and the activity of its members.”

In other words, history and economics are viewed here as branches of social science. Are we to understand that sociology includes the studies of history and economics too? If these are merely branches of sociology, or social science, then social science as such does not have a distinctive face of its own.

It is quite clear that in this case Webster’s Dictionary offers no satisfactory answer to our first expedition into the mystery of Auguste Comte’s wonder-brainchild for a meaningful explanation as to what scientific sociology means, who needs it, and why. The misleading nature of the Webster’s take on sociology is that, aside from a classic vicious circle (sociology is defined as social science, and social science, as sociology), I see a rather meaningless use of the word study in both its “non-vicious” definitions, leading us astray from the crucial point here, that, according to the established scientific authorities, sociology is a science (in the specific sense, as physics, chemistry, and biology are sciences, whereas philosophy, for instance, is not!).

With this in mind, Britannica’s definition of sociology is more to the point:

“Sociology is a branch of the science of human behavior, that seeks to discover the causes and effects that arise in social relations among persons and groups.”

Good news: It turns out that Karl Marx was a consummate sociologist! Why is nobody giving him this well deserved credit?

But let us go back to the father of sociology as a term. After all, he was before Marx, and therefore could not benefit from Marx’s Dasein and Bewußtsein.

…Apparently, Comte’s rationale for creating the new term sociology was to distinguish it, as a “positivist” science, from everything similar, but by no means identical, in his view, from anything ventured to date by the greatest of human minds. Comte’s six-volume Course de Philosophie Positive, 1830-1842, introducing the term sociology, sees it as the single across-the-board “science of society,” perched on the very top of the pyramid of sciences (Comte sees all “positive knowledge” distributed within a “hierarchy of sciences” with sociology serving as the unifying super-science), with astronomy at the bottom (how ironic to assign such a lowly place for the science of the heavens!), then followed, in an upward accession, by physics, chemistry, and biology. He supports his creature’s claim to superiority by means of a “law of three stages,” uncannily smacking of Hegel’s spiral, and Marx’s progressive socio-economic formations. According to his thinking, all human intellectual development had been moving diachronically from an early theological stage-- where the world had been explained through the means of gods and spirits,--- to a transitional metaphysical stage, where abstract concepts, such as essences and final causes, took the center stage, to the ultimate “positive” stage, where Comte was ready to take over.

In his next and last major work, the four-volume System of Positive Polity, a further improvement is made in distinguishing between social statics, the nature of society, and social dynamics, the history of change.

Needless to say, this scientific treatment of sociology depends in large part on the acceptance of the theory of positivism as a perennial gospel, which, apparently, has been a pretty grand claim to make, considering that today, almost two centuries later, the position of sociology (as a science, mind you!) among the other, universally accepted sciences, is essentially that of a poor sister shied by her more accomplished and more creditable kin. With behaviorism, only fairly recently wildly popular and madly profitable, as a science of the now and beyond, yet these days downgraded (correct me if I am wrong) somewhere between astrology and scientology, the fate of sociology itself leaves little hope for a Prince Charming. In other words, there is no Cinderella hiding among the cinders here.

Postscript: My take on sociology.

With regard to my idiosyncratic understanding of sociology, it boils down for me to the struggle between two opposing tendencies within any given society: a will to freedom and a will to totalitarianism. (See my several posted “totalitarian” entries, for my treatment of this much-abused term.) This to me is the most intriguing sociological question, and the present Collective section reflects my preoccupation with it.