Sociology: Science or Belief?: The Status of This Discipline in Colleges and Universities Today
T | NHE course offerings of sociology departments in American college catalogues make interesting reading. There are courses labeled Social Stratification, Bureaucratic Organization, and Sociology of Knowledge, and others called Principles of Boy Scouting, Effective Community Living, and Preparation for Marriage. To sociologists, the variety is fascinating; to non-sociologists, it may merely be confusing. Is sociology a learned discipline, or does the rich diversity of subjectmatter under a single heading indicate that it is undisciplined? As an aid in this discussion, let us classify the major orientations of the sociological discipline along two dimensions: (i) research or proof and (2) theory or conceptualization (see Fig. I). The research dimension concerns the basis of proof of assertions. At one pole, proof is largely a matter of persuasive acceptance; that is, the listener accepts the truth of a statement because of an emotional involvement, be it with the speaker, with his own needs, or with the subjectmatter of the assertion. At the other extreme, proof is largely a matter of empirical verification, in which the more systematic the fact-finding and data-analysis procedures are, the less emotionality is a factor in determining the truth of an hypothesis. (The systematization of methodology functions to remove the observer, with all his affectivity and consequent perceptual biases, from that which is being observed. The procedure becomes more objective; that is, it is the nature of the object that is being observed and analyzed, and the nature of the particular subject doing the observation and analysis does not interfere with the work at hand.) One pole is affectively laden, the other affectively neutral, and there is shading in between. The theoretical dimension concerns the level of conceptual development employed to order and explain observations or experience. At one end, conceptualization is largely a matter of ad hoc categorizations, involving "the use of more or less arbitrary classes for the sake of making summary statements about the subject matter. . . . The classes are quite independent of one another and any relations which may be discovered