Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:50:11.239Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Unique and The General: Toward a Philosophy of Sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Kurt H. Wolff
Kurt H. Wolff*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

1. Philosophy of Science. The term “philosophy of science” is used here to refer to the study of the approaches and methodologies of the sciences. By “approach” is understood the totality of the presuppositions of a given science (or body of sciences, or scientific product): more precisely, both philosophical and scientific presuppositions—that is, categories, postulates, and premises as conditions—and “existential” presuppositions (organic, geographic, socio-cultural). By “methodology” is understood the intellectual-emotional structure of a given science—that is, its categories, postulates, and premises as characteristics, as well as its concepts, methods, and techniques. Further, I advocate understanding a given science (or body of sciences, or scientific product) through a study of its approach and of its methodology. Finally, I submit that the best understanding of either of the two is impossible without the study of the other. More specifically, I advocate the consideration of a particular science (or body of sciences, e.g., the “social sciences,” or scientific product) as a given, and the interpretation of its intellectual structure or methodology (“immanent interpretation”); and then the study of its presuppositions or underlying approach (“transcendent interpretation”).

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 1948 , pp. 192 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1948

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

∗

A first draft of this paper was presented early in 1947 in a Methodology of Science seminar conducted at Ohio State University by Dr. Virgil G. Hinshaw, Jr., to whom I am indebted for many stimulating and clarifying discussions. The revision of this essay (and its incorporation into a forthcoming monograph—cf. n. 41 below) was made possible by a grant from The Viking Fund, Inc., which is herewith gratefully acknowledged.

References

(1) Becker, Howard. Constructive Typology in the Social Sciences. In Harry Elmer Barnes, Howard Becker, and Frances Bennett Becker, eds., Contemporary Social Theory. New York and London: Appleton-Century, 1940, pp. 17–46.Google Scholar
(2) Becker, Howard. Processes of Secularisation, An Ideal-Typical Analysis with Special Reference to Personality Change as Affected by Population Movement. Sociological Review, 24:138–154, 266–286, April–July, October, 1932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(3) Becker, Howard. and Myers, Robert C.. Sacred and Secular Aspects of Human Sociation. Sociometry, 5: 207–229, 355–370, August, November, 1942.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(4) Cassirer, Ernst. An Essay on Man. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944.Google Scholar
(5) Cassirer, Ernst. Language and Myth. New York and London: Harper, 1946.Google Scholar
(6) Child, Arthur. The Problems of the Sociology of Knowledge. Berkeley; University of California (unpublished Ph.D. thesis), 1938.Google Scholar
(7) Child, Arthur. On the Theory of the Categories. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 7: 316–335, December, 1946.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(8) Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: 1912:. Transl. by Swain, Joseph Ward. London: Allen and Unwin; New York: Macmillan, 1915.Google Scholar
(9) Durkheim, Emile. Jugements de valeur et jugements de réalité (1911). Reprinted in his Sociologie et philosophie. Paris: Alcan, 1924, pp. 117–142.Google Scholar
(10) Durkheim, Emile. Préface to Année sociologique, Vol. 2 (Paris: Alcan, 1899).Google Scholar
(11) Hinshaw, Virgil G. Jr. Epistemological Relativism and the Sociology of Knowledge. Philosophy of Science, 15: 4–10, January, 1948.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(12) Hinshaw, Virgil G. Jr. The Epistemological Relevance of Mannheim's Sociology of Knowledge. Journal of Philosophy, 40: 57–72, February 4, 1943.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(13) Hodges, H. A.. Wilhelm Dilthey: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1944.Google Scholar
(14) Lavine, Thelma Z.. Naturalism and the Sociological Analysis of Knowledge. In Yervant H. Krikorian, ed., Naturalism and the Human Spirit. New York: Columbia University Press, 1944, pp. 183–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(15) Lavine, Thelma Z.. Sociological Analysis of Cognitive Norms. Journal of Philosophy, 39: 342–356, June 18, 1942.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(16) Lewis, Clarence Irving. Mind and the World-Order. New York: Scribner, 1929.Google Scholar
(17) Lundberg, George A.. The Proximate Future of American Sociology: The Growth of Scientific Method. Ameri an Journal of Sociology, 50: 502–513, May, 1945.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(18) MacIver, R. M.. Society: A Textbook of Sociology. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1937.Google Scholar
(19) Appendix. Clerk Maxwell on Determinism and Free Will [1873]. In Henderson, Lawrence J., The Order of Nature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(20) Merton, Robert K.. Civilization and Culture. Sociology and Social Research, 21: 103–113, November–December, 1936.Google Scholar
(21) Merton, Robert K.. The Sociology of Knowledge. In Georges Gurvitch and Wilbert E. Moore, eds., Twentieth Century Sociology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1945, pp. 366–405.Google Scholar
(22) Pareto, Vilfredo. The Mind and Society. Transl. by Andrew Bongiorno and Arthur Livingston. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935 (4 vols.).Google Scholar
(23) Parsons, Talcott. Introduction to his and A. M. Henderson's translation of Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.Google Scholar
(24) Parsons, Talcott. The Structure of Social Action. New York and London: McGraw-Hill, 1937.Google Scholar
(25) Redfield, Robert. The Folk Society. American Journal of Sociology, 52: 293–308, January, 1947.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(26) von Schelting, Alexander. Zum Streit um die Wissenssoziologie. Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 57: esp. 31–32, 1929.Google Scholar
(27) Tönnies, Ferdinand. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, Abhandlung des Communismus und des Socialismus als empirischer Culturformen [1887]. Translated and supplemented by Charles P. Loomis. Fundamental Concepts of Sociology (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft) by Ferdinand Tönnies, New York, etc.: American Book Company, 1940.Google Scholar
(28) Weber, Alfred. Ideen zur Staats-und Kultursoziologie. Karlsruhe: Braun, 1927.Google Scholar
(29) Wolff, Kurt H.. A Methodological Note on the Empirical Establishment of Culture Patterns. American Sociological Review, 10: 176–184, April, 1945.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(30) Wolff, Kurt H.. Notes Toward a Sociocultural Interpretation of American Sociology. American Sociological Review, 11: 545–553, October, 1946.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(31) Wolff, Kurt H.. A Partial Analysis of Student Reactions to President Roosevelt's Death. Journal of Social Psychology, 26: 35–53, August, 1947.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(32) Wolff, Kurt H.. The Sociology of Knowledge: Emphasis on an Empirical Attitude. Philosophy of Science, 10: 104–123, April, 1943.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(33) Znaniecki, Florian. The Method of Sociology. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1934.Google Scholar
(34) Znaniecki, Florian. The Proximate Future of Sociology: Controversies in Doctrine and Method. American Journal of Sociology, 50: 514–521, May, 1945.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(35) Znaniecki, Florian. Social Organization and Institutions. In Georges Gurvitch and Wilbert E. Moore, eds., Twentieth Century Sociology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1945, pp. 172–217.Google Scholar