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Breakthroughs, Fashions and Continuity in Developing Sociological Knowledge

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Advances in Sociological Knowledge

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Abstract

The first lines of Talcott Parsons’ The Structure of Social Action (1937) are indicative of perennial problems in sociology. They concern the relationship between innovation and continuity in the development of sociological knowledge. Parsons’ rhetorical question, “Who now reads Spencer?” was borrowed from Crane Brinton to signal a disciplinary paradigm shift. The message was that Spencer’s sociological evolutionism had become scientifically worthless. More precisely, Parsons believed that it had been made worthless because of the appearance of the modern theory of social action. It consisted mostly in elaborations on the ideas of Max Weber. Thus, the answer was obvious for Parsons: nobody used to read Spencer at the end of the thirties of the last century. Parsons’ background assumption was that sociological evolutionism was dead forever. Sociologists used to read or had to read the new theory of social action.

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Authors
  1. Nikolai Genov
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Free University, Berlin, Germany

    Nikolai Genov (Professor of Sociology) (Professor of Sociology)

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Genov, N. (2004). Breakthroughs, Fashions and Continuity in Developing Sociological Knowledge. In: Genov, N. (eds) Advances in Sociological Knowledge. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-09215-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-09215-5_1

  • Publisher Name: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-8100-4012-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-663-09215-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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