Contemporary sociological theories - The MarkFoster.NETwork

1124 Pages·2016·3.75 MB·English

Contemporary sociological
theories
Sorokin, Pitirim Aleksandrovich, 1889-1968
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Book
To My Wife
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
For friendly criticism and stimulation the author is indebted to
Professor F. Stuart Chapin. For encouragement, to the
distinguished sociologists, Professors Franklin H. Giddings and
Edward A. Ross. For help in the preparation of the manuscript he
is obliged to Professors Ross L. Finney and Carl C. Zimmerman.
For an effort to bring out a German edition of the book, to a
prominent professor of the University of Berlin, Dr. R. Thurnwald,
and Dr. H. Kasspohl. A readiness to render help requested on the
part of the distinguished scholars of Europe and Russia, L. von
Wiese in Germany, Gaston Richard in France, Corrado Gini in
Italy, Adolfo Posada in Spain, Ivan Pavlov and E. V. Spectorsky in
Russia, is gratefully acknowledged. The author offers his sincere
thanks to the International Institute of Sociology, the International
Institute of Sociology and Social Reforms, to the German and
Ukrainian Sociological Societies, and to the Czecho-Slovakian
Academy of Agriculture for the honor of membership granted to
him. The Staff of the Library of the University of Minnesota, by its
unfailing service, has greatly helped the composition of the book.
Finally, and last but not least, to the students of the author's
classes and seminars he is indebted for many a happy moment in
mutual scientific work. Minneapolis, October, 1927
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
Students of sociological theory are prone to fall into two
contrasting types of error; either they accept speculative
explanations of social phenomena with credulity, or they dismiss
all theorizing as unscientific escapes from the hard reality of
laborious research. Professor Sorokin's book is a sound antidote
for both extremes.
By assembling quantitative data on social phenomena from an
amazing variety of reputable sources, he confronts unfounded
speculation w^ith cold facts, and provides the student with
tangible criteria for evaluating theory. By exhibiting time and again
the recurrence of type theories, he shows how necessary it is for
the research student to take pains to inform himself about the
works of other students before plunging into fact-gathering and
then drawing inferences which he naively considers are original
with himself. In these two respects the present book is a
substantial corrective for these most egregious forms of'error
often found in the works of contemporary social scientists.
The book is quite unique among works on social theory because
of the enormous amount of factual and quantitative data
assembled as the test of theories that various writers have
expounded, and which so often are content to rest their validity on
distinctions of a purely verbal sort. Professor Sorokin has no
patience with what may be termed ''substitute speech reactions."
If young students of sociology will read this book with care they
will save themselves much wasted time in following theories that
are mere "painful elaborations of the obvious," and incidentally
discover how pure speculative theorizing leads unerringly to
logical contradiction and fallacy.
Aside from the characteristics just mentioned, this book is a
contribution to the scientific literature of sociology in that it deals
primarily with contemporary theories. Earlier theoretical