Getting Sociology Right: A Half-Century of Reflections

3. Some Personal Thoughts on the Pursuit of Sociological Problems (1969)

82 The editors have invited us to try our hands in the search for that elusive phantom, “The Craft of Sociology.” Even worse, they have given us complete freedom, except for suggesting that we might wish to venture both some biographical observations and some reflections on the state of the discipline. The invitation has proved both gratifying and frustrating. It is gratifying because it has provided the occasion for stepping back and reflecting calmly on the intellectual activity that has been so important a part of my professional life—an occasion that rarely presents itself in the rush of daily affairs. It is frustrating, however, because “the craft of sociology ” is clearly a multifaceted and perhaps not even a unified thing, because it can be approached from so many angles, and because it calls for an exploration into the subtle recesses of the mind where ignorance is abundant and self-deception is easy. After a somewhat painful period of contemplating the invitation, I decided it would be most fruitful for me to contribute to the search by addressing one question: What has determined my choice of sociological 3 Some Personal Thoughts on the Pursuit of Sociological Problems (1969) From Sociological Inquiry 39 (1969): 155–69. o n t h e p u r s u i t o f s o c i o l o g i c a l p r o b l e m s 83 problems? I shall take a piece of my intellectual biography and attempt to elucidate the major influences on my selection of sociological problems and to identify the ways I went about attacking them. In this paper I shall refrain from more general comment on the discipline of sociology, for during the past year or so I have had occasion to speculate both on the scope and future of sociology as a science (Smelser 1968a, 1969) and on some major intellectual, social, and political influences on sociological research. I do not know how much I could add to these statements at the moment. Following Merton (1959), I regard a “sociological problem” as including a number of ingredients: (1) a statement of what one wants to know, which involves ascertaining the existence of facts and perhaps relations among facts, and posing an explanatory question about them; (2) a statement of why the initial question is important, which involves ascertaining the theoretical or practical framework within which the question assumes significance ; and (3) a statement of specific questions, which, if answered properly , will provide answers for the initial question within the context of its rationale. The first poses the problem; the second identifies its theoretical context; and the third addresses ways—research design, techniques of gathering and analyzing data, et cetera—of solving the problem. In this essay I intend to retrace my steps along one path of my intellectual career—that path that links two books, Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (1959) and Theory of Collective Behavior (1962), and a number of recent articles and papers on sociological theory and psychological theory. In doing so, I shall attempt to identify the major questions that preoccupied me and to reflect on why I came to ask them. personal influences on the selection of problems In attempting to sort out the major influences on my choice of sociological problems, I shall resort to a device that I find congenial and helpful: to arrange these influences in a series extending from very general, predisposing influences that have steered my intellectual interests to very specific, immediate influences that have determined a particular strategy of analysis 84 e a r l y s e a r c h i n g in working on a sociological problem. The predisposing influences provide a circumscribing context within which the more particular ones operate. A General Predisposition toward Social Scientific Analysis My intellectual disposition toward the social sciences was established before I had any formal contact with them as an undergraduate at Harvard. My family environment was mainly responsible. My father was a junior college teacher who bridged many subjects, but his main interest was in political and moral philosophy. My mother was a secondary school teacher of language and literature; and, when I was in high school, my older brother developed strong interests in philosophy and psychology. The academic atmosphere...