Durkheim, following Comte, thought that sociology should be established as
a science in its own right, related to and coordinated with the other
sciences, and with its own specific field of study.
"Durkheim found this in
social facts. These are collective phenomena that are
irreducible to any one individual. As shared beliefs and patterns of
behaviour, they can be treated as things to be studied in an objective,
detached fashion. These things appear to individuals as a reality that is
tough, stubborn and independent of their will" (
Bauman and May 2001,
p. 171)
Strategy 2:
reflection and modification
Associated with
Max Weber
By "reflection and modification" Bauman and May may mean that human beings
think about the world and alter it as a result of our thoughts.
The second perspective is what they call
hermeneutics. To a large
extent, this is Bauman and May's way of thinking sociologically. If you
have understood what they have
already said about sociology, you will have begun to understand
hermeneutics.
In 1978, not long after he settled in England, Bauman published a book
called Hermeneutics and Social Theory - Approaches to understanding
in which he wrote:
"The life-long methodological preoccupations of Weber, centred
around the categories of understanding and interpretation..."
((Bauman, Z.
1978) p. 68)
Understanding and
interpretation are the two words that help
most to
explain in English what
hermeneutics is.
In German, understanding is Verstehen. The
word hermeneutics is based on an ancient Greek word for interpreter, and
means the scientific (or scholarly) study of interpretations.
Some things in the world we can explain in terms of causes and effects.
Physics, for example, thinks of planetary bodies as exerting a pull on one
another that results in the planet's path curving. As a result, planets
circulate around the sun.
Human beings are subject to the same laws of cause and effect. If you fall
over, the earth will pull you towards it and you will hit the ground. But
we need something other than the laws of cause and effect to explain human
actions. This is what
Max Weber's way of thinking sociologically focuses on.
"
In action is included all human behaviour when and in so far as the acting
individual attaches a subjective meaning to it."
(Weber, M.
1947 p.88)
"That human actions are meaningful is the foundation of
hermeneutics"
(Bauman and May 2001, p. 172)
Imagine that you are reading an historic document, a letter for example. We
will call this "the text". What should you be doing in order to explain it?
Hermeneutics argues that you should first be trying to imagine what the
author meant by it, and then that you should relate his or her meaning to
the social circumstances of the time.
"In order to understand its
meaning, the interpreters of the text must put themselves in the author's
'place'; that is, to see the text through the author's eyes and think the
author's thoughts. They should then link the author's actions to the
historical situation in which they find themselves"
(Bauman and May 2001,
p. 172)
An example of Weber doing this is provided by his famous book The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber, M.
1930). In
this, Weber related his interpretation of the way different religious
groups understood their actions to the effects of their actions on economic
development.
Strategy 3:
demonstration by effect:
By "demonstration by effect", Bauman and May are referring to the American
theory called pragmatism. (Bauman and May 2001,
p. 173), or instrumentalism. This is their third
strategy.
Bauman and May name
William James (p. 175) and Robert Park (p. 175) as part of the American
pragmatic school.
John Dewey at the
University of Chicago developed pragmatism as
a formal philosophy and his colleague,
George Herbert Mead is the main
member of this school discussed in Thinking Sociology.
See below
Bauman and May are critical of pragmatism's theory of truth. This is an
aspect of pragmatism that is stressed by William James. But if what
pragmatism says about truth is it weakness, the theory of human action
developed by George Herbert Mead, may be its strong point.
The pragmatic theory of truth
William James described pragmatism, as taught by John Dewey and others at
Chicago University, as "the instrumental view of truth.
"'truth' means... that ideas .. Become true just in so
far as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other
parts of our experience, to summarize them and get about among them
by conceptual short-cuts instead of following the interminable
succession of particular phenomena. Any idea upon which we can ride,
so to speak; any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one
part of our experience to any other part, linking things
satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving labor; is true
for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally. "
James, W.
1907 p.
58)
Mead's theory of human action
Strategy 1: replication of the scientific enterprise