Abstract
A scientific discipline represents a body of knowledge about the related classes of phenomena valid at a given moment of time. It consists of noncontradictory propositions, a part of which, at least, has been corroborated. These definitions imply a dynamic aspect of science. The latter is constantly changing in so far as new propositions are being corroborated or for other reasons added to the system either replacing the old ones or not. What also is implied (by the terms of ‘noncontradictory’ and ‘corroboration’) is the fact that the system is changing according to certain rules, established practices and logical norms. The latter are usually referred to by ‘method’. Thus we may redefine: science is a body of knowledge arrived at by scientific method.
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References
See J.M. Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, London, 1936; J.A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, New York, 1942.
John Madge gives a good survey in his The Origins of Scientific Sociology, New York, 1962.
James S. Coleman, A. Etzioni, and John Porter’s Macrosociology: Research and Theory, Boston, 1970, may be of a rather programmatic significance. There also appeared H.M. Blalock’s Theory Construction. From Verbal to Mathematical Formulations, New Jersey, 1969, enabling sociologists to make acquaintance with econometricians’ model constructions. Encouraging also are the contributions of the econometricians H. Theil and A.S. Goldberger to sociological reviews and some other initiatives as reviewed in the closing section of this paper.
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This proved, however, not very fruitful in research practice; no example of application is known to me. For its description see Pitirim A. Sorokin, Society, Culture, and Personality, Harper & Brothers, 1947.
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Wout Ultee, ‘The practice of sociology and the abandonment of content as a regulative idea’, in Zeitschrift f. Soziologie, Jg. 4, 1975, pp. 132–145.
Ibid.
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Gadourek, I. (1976). Convergence and diversification in the methodologies of economics and sociology. In: Huppes, T. (eds) Economics and Sociology: Towards an Integration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1368-9_5
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