Social-time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis

Abstract

No concept of motion is possible without the category of time. In mechanics, for example, time is considered the independent variable which is a continuous function of the three coordinates which determine the position of a particle. Time is likewise a necessary variable in social change. The adequacy of the concepts of astronomical- or calendrical-time in the study of the motion or change of social phenomena thus represents a problem of basic importance. Are periods of years, months, weeks, days the only, or even the most readily applicable, temporal measures in a system of social dynamics? Most social scientists have proceeded on the tacit assumption that no system of time other than those of astronomy or the imperfectly related calendar is possible or, if possible, useful. They have assumed a time, the parts of which are comparable, which is quantitative and possessed of no qualitative aspects, which is continuous and permits of no lacunae. It is the object of this … [study] to demonstrate that in the field of social dynamics such restriction to a single conception of time involves several fundamental shortcomings.

(From P. Sorokin and R. Merton, ‘Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 42, 1937, pp. 615–29.)