SOCIOLOGY. — The term was first used by A. COMTE (Cours de philos. posit., IV, lez. 47, Paris 1839, p. 252) to denote the positive study of the laws of social phenomena.
I. EMPIRICAL OR DESCRIPTIVE SOCIOLOGY
The study of social phenomena is already present among Greek and Roman historians and philosophers, not only as a comparative observation of human customs, but also as the identification of constant phenomena and of social conditioning in human activity.Though Herodotus, still entangled in mythical considerations, did not arrive—despite his valuable ethological observations—at the concept of social laws, these were identified by Thucydides, who, in light of the general law of power, attempted an explanation of the origin and development of the Peloponnesian War (cf. W. JAEGER, Paideia, trans. by L. Emery, 2nd ed., Florence 1943, pp. 559 ff.). In Plato one can also observe “an effort to treat economic and social facts scientifically” (L. ROBIN, Platon et la science sociale, in La pensée hellén. des orig. à Epicure, Paris 1942, p. 229); but it is Aristotle who makes the positive study of social material an essential element of his philosophical-political conception: not only did he compile a collection of 158 Greek constitutions, but in the Politics he studied the morphology (Politics II. IV, VI), the dynamism, and the pathology (Politics I. V) of constitutions in light of social determinants of an ethical, psychological, economic, and environmental nature (cf. W. D. ROSS, Aristotle, trans. by A. Spinelli, Bari 1946, pp. 390 ff.).
In the modern era, the impetus for the study of social phenomena came from the great geographical discoveries, which aroused interest in the problem of civilization and allowed the scientific use of the comparative method. Above all, the rapid demographic, economic, and scientific development of the 19th century generated a vast and complex social problematic, and consequently the autonomous rise of numerous social sciences, as well as the need for a science that would study social facts in their essential unity. This social science was called by the Saint-Simonians the “new science” and by Comte “social physics” first, and then “sociology.” However, the positivistic and naturalistic mentality that underlay the emergence of sociology long prevented it from asserting its scientific value as inductive research into the laws of social facts as such, even though by the first half of the 19th century the methodology of such research had already been identified—namely, in addition to the application of the comparative method, the statistical method (J. QUÉTELET, Sur l’homme et le développement de ses facultés ou Essai de physique sociale, Paris 1835) and the method of monographs and surveys (F. LE PLAY, Les ouvriers européens, 1835). For Comte, sociology is the general and supreme science, having as its object social phenomena as an indivisible whole, with the aim of establishing the laws of specific human nature as expressed in society (Système de polit. posit., ibid. 1851–54): he denies any scientific value to the particular social sciences, since they dissect an indivisible whole, and therefore he wants them to be completely absorbed by sociology (Cours de philos. posit., V, ibid. 1852, p. 271). Spencer, on the other hand, upholds the necessity of the social sciences in order to arrive, through them, at a higher synthesis, namely sociology, which in itself “assimilates integrally the vast heterogeneous aggregate” and gives it a unitary meaning (Principles of Sociology, I, New York 1882, p. 462). Small shares this view, defining sociology as “an attempt to integrate and generalize all knowledge, referring to the various influences acting upon human associations” (General Sociology, Chicago 1905, p. 7). F. H. GIDDINGS, however, makes of sociology a basic science whose specific aim is to study “the nature of the socius, its habits and activities” (Elements of Sociology, New York 1898, p. 10). All these conceptions lead to a sociological absolutism, in which sociology, as a positive science, comes to replace philosophical interpretation and to represent the explanatory meaning of all human phenomena: one thus arrives at a veritable sociologism, which finds its fullest expression in the sociological school of E. DURKHEIM (Division du travail, Paris 1893; Les règles de la méthode sociologique, 1895).
In opposition to this exaggerated preeminence of sociology, J. STUART MILL (q.v.) denies the necessity and even the possibility of sociology as a special science (A System of Logic, New York 1934, pp. 547 ff.), and many moderns adopt a purely empirical position, considering sociology more as a research method or “sociological spirit” than as a true and distinct science separate from the many social sciences (cf. J. LECLERCQ, Introduction à la sociologie, Louvain 1948, p. 199). Certainly empirical sociology, like every science concerning human activity, cannot be considered a perfect science, since it cannot attain an interpretation of social phenomena and a certainty comparable to that of the natural sciences. But the question arises whether sociology has a subject matter of its own that distinguishes it from other social sciences: most contemporary sociologists, especially in the United States, affirm this, without claiming for it any particular preeminence over the others (H. E. BARNES–H. BECKER, Social Thought from Lore to Science, I, New York 1938, p. x). The Dictionary of Sociology (ibid. 1944, p. 302) considers as its proper object “the phenomena arising from group relations of human beings” or also “man and his human environment in their reciprocal relations.” What seems less evident is the study of that complex social conditioning in which all human activity must be concretely situated, whether in its totality or in its particular aspects. In this way it makes use of all the data of the various social sciences, and at the same time reconsiders them all from its own point of view, determining an intimate interdependence of the highest value for the adequate knowledge of all social phenomena. Avoiding every philosophical postulate and every attempt to arrive at unscientific interpretations or generalizations, empirical sociology must remain on the level of systematic observations and methodical verifications of phenomenal hypotheses, in order to establish the laws of social conditioning.
II. RATIONAL SOCIOLOGY
The interpretation of social concreteness cannot be founded except on hypotheses drawn from philosophy, which alone, by establishing the nature of man and of his activity, can comprehend all social phenomena in their inner human meaning. Positivism (q.v.), which claimed to replace philosophy with empirical sociology as the positive science interpreting society and all human life, merely applied philosophical presuppositions to a more or less valid scientific inquiry.The rise of rational sociology is closely connected with the formation in the 18th century of the philosophy of history (v.) and the problematic of the origin of civilization and progress. G. B. Vico (v.), who may be considered its first representative, indicated its nature by observing that “both philosophers have failed to half their mark, those who did not confirm their reasoning with the authority of philologists, and the philologists who did not verify their authorities with the reasoning of philosophers” (Scienza nuova seconda, I, sec. 2, ch. 140, Bari 1942, p. 77). While Hegelian idealism denied any possibility of sociology, reducing all socio-stoic reality to a moment in the rational dialectic of the Idea, Marxism, with its theories of the preponderance of the economic factor, of ideal superstructures, and of class struggle, laid the foundations for a true sociological doctrine interpreting all social and historical facts in the light of historical and dialectical materialism (cf. F. Engels, Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats, Zurich 1884).
Naturalistic sociological theories start from a twofold philosophical premise: human activity bound by natural determinism; and society conceived either atomistically as the result of individual energies, or realistically as a totality prior to individuals. Naturalistic conceptions, whether founded on nominalist atomism or totalitarian realism, seek to determine the predominant natural factors by which to explain the entire social phenomenon, not only on the morphological plane but also on the dynamic one. In conformity with the philosophers of history in the 19th and early 20th centuries, naturalist sociologists sought to establish the laws of an evolutionary progress that is linear, constant, uniform, and universal (cf. P. T. Sorokin, Social and cultural dynamics, I, New York 1937, ch. 4); in the course of the 20th century, however, rejecting the linear theory, they have increasingly focused on studying social transformation processes to establish the laws of their constants, varieties, and cyclical repetitions. The representatives of the physico-mechanical or dynamic school (E. Solvay, W. Ostwald, W. Bekhterev) and of the geographical school (W. S. Jevons, H. L. Moore) start from cosmological factors; those of the biological schools (E. G. Conklin, F. Galton, K. Pearson, H. S. Chamberlain, C. Lombroso) resort to physiological laws of evolution (v.), natural selection or adaptation, heredity, and race to establish the bio-social determining factor; those of the innumerable psychological schools (v. society) explain the psycho-social factor through various theories of instincts, sentiments, desires, attitudes, behaviors, reactions, limitations, etc.; finally, those of the properly sociological school (Durkheim) aim to establish the specifically and exclusively social factor in the laws of solidarity (v.) and in the mechanism of collective consciousness.
W. Dilthey rightly opposed positivist sociology (Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, Leipzig 1883), affirming that the sciences of the spirit cannot be treated like the natural sciences. To this end, he resorted to inner experience (Erlebnis), rejecting any abstraction derived from crude factual analysis, since only vital intuition can give the intimate sense of historical-social reality: the study of history and society must be carried out through categories by which the individual is interpreted by the reality vitally united to him (Lebenseinheit). From these principles there developed, in opposition to naturalism but often in hybrid confusion with it, German sociology. F. Tönnies (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, 1887) attempted to found a “pure sociology,” having as its object social bonds (Verbandenheit), according to the two fundamental categories (op. cit., 2nd ed., ibid. 1912) of “community” and “society,” derived from the psychological experience of the forms of human volition, spontaneous or vital and reflected or rational (cf. J. Leif, La s. de Tönnies, Paris 1946). G. Simmel is the initiator of purely “formal” sociology (Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, Leipzig 1908); leaving to the social sciences and empirical sociology the study of social “content,” he intends solely to devote himself to social “forms,” resulting from possible interindividual relations, determined by psychological analysis (Le problème de la s., in Rev. métaph., 2 [1894], p. 497). Max Weber, more closely connecting with Dilthey and Rickert, conceives the social fact as essentially historical, and therefore comprehensible only through subjective intuition: he founds “comprehensive sociology” (verstehende Soziologie), whose task is to detect the Idealtypus, establishing a “Zweckrationales Schema” that allows one to grasp the subjectively intended meaning of social forms, and thus the inner motive of all social acts (Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgesch., Tübingen 1924). In O. Spann (Gesellschaftslehre, Leipzig 1914; Der wahre Staat, ibid. 1921) rational sociology rises to a true metaphysics of Platonic type. Even O. Spengler (Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Munich 1918-22) seems to give to society, understood as culture, a metaphysical meaning, strangely linking it to that of a living body with its vital parabola, making of sociology a metaphysical novel with a pessimistic backdrop. Historicity is developed above all by A. Weber (Kulturgesch. und Kultursoziologie, Leyden 1935), who views the entire historical-social process according to the fundamental concepts of society, civilization, and culture; and by K. Mannheim (Mensch und Gesellschaft im Zeitalter des Umbaus, ibid. 1935).
Far more important is phenomenological sociology, whose leading representatives are Max Scheler (Versuche zu einer Soz. des Wissens, Munich 1924; Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft, Leipzig 1926), A. Vierkandt (Gesellschaftslehre, 2nd ed., Stuttgart 1928), and Th. Litt (Individuum und Gemeinschaft, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1926). To exclude the danger of totalitarianism into which many representatives of German sociology have fallen, G. Gurvitch elaborates the doctrine of “social pluralism,” considering sociology as the expression of various fixed and immutable social forms, which, variously connecting, form the social complex amalgamated in the unity of “social control” (various authors, Le contrôle social, in La sociologie au XXe siècle, I, Paris 1947, pp. 271 ff.).
All these sociological theories, founded on formal categories, on abstract forms of relations, on a phenomenological analysis of consciousness, cannot interpret the concrete reality of society, but can only construct arbitrary hypotheses. Rational sociology can only be founded on hypotheses derived from the metaphysics of the human person. For Christian sociologists, therefore, it must be based on the consideration that all social activity, even that proper to the social complex, is essentially a perennial expression of individual rationality and freedom, which, though conditioned by biological, physical, psychological, and sociological natural laws, asserts itself in social “collaboration” for the realization of its eternal end through the attainment of finite goods.
The object of rational sociology is the positive study of society in concreto, in its immanent significance as historical process, with the aim of establishing the laws that determine its formation and development. Its purpose is not to render value judgments but to interpret historical-social concreteness. Nevertheless, it permits, through the verification of hypotheses and the determination of social laws, a full understanding of man’s social nature and, consequently, the subsequent formulation of value judgments, which will become criteria for practical activity through social philosophy and politics.
L. Sturzo, connecting this position to Vico’s (G. Marchello, Storicismo e spiritualismo, in Riv. intern. di scienze sociali, 22 [1950], fasc. 1), attempts to establish on these principles a historical science, applying to the positive study of society in concreto the historical-critical method (La società: sua natura e suoi leggi, Bergamo 1949, p. 28).
He also defends the necessity of a sociology of the supernatural, inasmuch as only with theological hypotheses can an adequate interpretation be given to the social concreteness in which the supernatural life of individuals and of the Church operates (cf. La vera vita, Rome 1947).
Contemporary thought, despite the negative stance of idealism and relativism and the justified distrust of most spiritualist philosophers, feels the need to arrive at an exact formulation of rational sociology as a positive science distinct from descriptive sociology and social philosophy.