Showing papers in "The Sociological Review in 1977"

Marxism and Literature

Abstract: Marxism is a body ofideas which sees all human history as the history of class struggle. In particular, it is concerned to analyse the dynamics and contradictions of the capitalist system, and to show how the working class has the historical potential to overthrow capitalism and establish a classless, socialist society. Marxism stands or falls by its ability to interpret existing society, and to mobilise men and women to change it. A Marxist theory ofliterature or, for that matter, ofmusic, sexuality or carpet-weaving is conceivable only if situated within such a framework. At first sight, it might not appear that the consideration of so-called 'creative literature' has very much importance for Marxism. If it had nothing to say on the matter, its validity as a revolutionary theory would scarcely be challenged thereby. In fact, Marxism has always had a great deal to say about literature and to its practitioners. The major figures of Marxism from Marx and Engels to Gramsci and Trotsky all wrote at length, if fragmentarily, about literary questions. And many of the most important figures of twentieth century literature Sartre, Brecht, Gorky, Breton, Neruda, Hikmet, to name only a handful have been influenced by Marxism and attempted to absorb its insights into their creative practice. Many reasons have been given for this close interplay between Marxism and literature. Meszaros attributes it to Marxism's preoccupation with the question of alienation (Meszaros 1970: 190); while Lukacs sees literature as a particularly suitable area for the 'ideological clarification' that precedes a 'great crisis in social relations' (Lukacs 1972: 107). Yet to many people the attempt to integrate a theory of literature within a theory of politics seems to pose a threat to the integrity of literature, indeed to its very essence. Most readers with anything like a conventional literary education will suffer a momentary shock on reading statements such as: 'No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition' (Orwell 1970: 92) or 'No one could imagine lor a moment that it is possible to write a good novel in praise of antiSemitism' (Sartre 1964: 80). It is not that empirical refutations spring immediately to mind (they are, indeed, remarkably hard to think of) ; it is rather that the apparently self-evident autonomy of literary values has been called into question. But the problem of the relation between literature and politics is not something that has existed unchanged from all eternity. Nobody

Nation and community: a landscape and its morality

Abstract: A landscape is the most solid appearance in which a history can declare itself. It is not a background, nor is it a stage. It is a history made manifest and, because this is so, the study of landscape resolves many of the old difficulties of method. There it is, the past in the present, constantly changing and renewing itself as the present rewrites its past and makes it new on behalf of the future. We read upon the face of the landscape the pasts which it has borne in order to create our present. We select from these pasts new ones which answer our sense of our own present needs. We choose, that is, a memory which will help us to accommodate the present, the dense, intractable present and the insane possibilities of its future. The reassuring fact is that such a first paragraph is, in a quite technical sense, thoroughly materialist. The history of the landscape is there for the most empirical eye to see, and to speak of that evidence as embodying and directing the dialectical processes is to fasten historical Marxism with unusual purchase on to its central and dynamic ideas. Landscape, then, stands at the intersection of concepts a social scientist would strain to hold apart: 'institution', 'product', 'process', and 'ideology'. Its moral and political economy will only give up structures and meanings if these terms, and the field of force which they generate, remain in high tension with one another, and are not broken up into the dead taxonomies which are the dry bones of western sociology's waste land.

A critique of the kerr-siegel hypothesis of strikes and the isolated mass: a study of the falsification of sociological knowledge*

Abstract: Since the publication in 1954 of 'The Interindustry Propensity to Strike', the 'isolated mass' hypothesis advanced by Clark Kerr and Abraham Siegel has become accepted as a classic study in the sociology of industrial conflict.' It has been cited many times by later writers and has sometimes been treated as if it were established fact;^ it has even been used as an example of 'correct' method in social research.' It is the purpiose of this paper to suggest that this acceptance of the Kerr-Siegel argument is misguided. Although Kerr and Siegel made important new steps in the analysis of industrial conflict and in theorising about the causes of the patterns of activity thus revealed, their work contains several flaws which make it a very weak basis for the conclusions which have been drawn from it. The methodological, logical and empirical weaknesses of the KerrSiegel hypothesis are considered in the following sections, but I begin by reminding the reader of the main points of the hypothesis. Kerr and Siegel considered the industrial distribution of days lost in strikes and of employment in eleven countries. They compared the ranking of industries on days lost and employment within each country to produce a five-fold classification of strike-proneness; at one extreme, an industry with a days-lost rank significantly higher

Working without a net: the bachelor as a social problem*

Abstract: There seem to be four main vrays in which new groups can be entered into the but^eoning corpus of literature dealing with sodal problems. First, by behaviours which can commonsensically be defined as a problem of sodal control for someone, such as crime, mental illness, dnig addiction, and suicide. Secondly, by identification of a major sodal institution that is showing signs of malftmctioning or change, for example the family and sex roles, work, and community. Thirdly, by characterisation of a group of persons facing problems through tmmotivated deviance due to circumstances of birdi or accident, for instance, ethtiic groups, the disabled, and the ill. A fourth method of entering the lists, and one which has received less substantive treatment, is in the form of a variable which makes sense of some other probietnatic bdtaviour, such as ^ e , sex, creed, marital status, birth weight, sodal class, or IQ. These are the kinds of variables that are included in any competent sodologist's armotiry and are held to make sense of problematic objects of study. However, although they are in cotimion use it is often not clear qtiite why they are used, and jtist what their meaning is. Marital status is just such a variable and the category of people to whom we want to pay special attention in this essay are those who fall under the heading of 'single' and more particularly, since there are many variations within this, the never-married male (or to be less legalistic and more predse, the bachelor). Our choice of this latter group as worthy of sodal problem-status trades initially on a variety d sodal constructs which typify such people as, at the least, 'odd'. Turner, for example, in a recent book on the family, argues diat marriage is highly valtied in our ctdture and discusses as evidence for ihis, various stereotypes <̂ tho% who retnain single: 'die older bachelor is depiaed in a mildly tinfavotirable light',^ 'each person's duty [is] to marry and those who do not are shirkers . . .

Progressivism and Pupil Autonomy

Abstract: In recent months, the rationale and practices of progressive state education have been the target for mounting criticismSuch criticism, taking many forms and emanating from diverse sources, in no sense constitutes a unified coherent critiqueThe differing value positions and practical involvements of the critical parties have engendered a lack of consensus both in the characterisation of the progressive movement as a whole and in the identification of its central problems. Educational pundits of the political right have vehemently pointed out the connection between progressive classroom practices and falling standards of literacy, numeracy and general attainment.^ The events of William Tyndale and the subsequent inquiry/ along with the timely issue of the much-publicised survey by Bennett,* provided considerable ammimition for the friends of the Black Paper lobby. In the recent pronouncement by Mr. Callaghan on education, and in the memorandum he received from the D.E.Swhich provided the basis for that speech, there is evidence that anxiety about progressive forms of education is no longer the sole prerogative of the political right.

The Development of Specialties in Industrialised Science

Abstract: M odem developments in the sociology of sdentific knowledge, refieaed by the collections of papers presented at recent conferences,'' can be viewed as a reaction to the Mertonian tradition of research.' Whereas the latter concentrates on the development and operation of social institutions within sdence, the former seeks to unite this within an analysis of the cognitive structures produced by them. Thus cognitive developments within science are no longer viewed as being generated by an inevitable process of cumulative discovery guided by the application of 'the scientific method', but are seen as linked to social processes of conflict and consensus amongst working scientists. Conversely, the internal organisation of sdence and the behaviour of sdentists are no longer to be ejtplained simply in terms of the operation of social factors. Cognitive structures, be they 'paradigms'* or 'research programmes'^ must be viewed as sources of authority' which influence both the evaluation and control of what is to be accepted as scientific knowle(ige and the internal organisation of sdence in terms of the growth and decay of areas of research. It is apparent that most of the research in the early st^es of what m^ht be termed the 'neo-Kuhnian' sodology of science has sought to explain processes of sdentific change in terms of interrelated social and cognitive pr(x:esses internal to the sdentific enterprise. By contrast, work in related areas of the 'sdence and society' field has frequently emphasised the inadmissibility of considering sdence as an autonomous sub-(nilture withio sodety. The Marxist tradition in the history of sdence, exhibited in its most radical form in Hessen's work on Newton's Prindpia,'' has consistendy rejected the separation of sdentific culture from the 'material basis' of sodety. From a historical viewpoint it has been argued that the low degree of articulation of 'sdentific' cognitive structures in the early era of modern sdence renders meaningless attempts to differentiate between sdentific and non-sdentific culture.

Culture of poverty: the rise and fall of a concept

Abstract: What impact does poverty have upon a people's way of life? Does it influence and shape values, attitudes, and aspirations? Can we transcend national boundaries in portraying the impact of poverty upon cultural and social organisation? No one disputes the relevance of these questions, but there is considerable debate about the appropriate answers. And there is also some debate about whether poverty has suflBcient impact upon social and cultural forms to try to encapsulate this impact by such terms as 'culture of poverty' or 'subculture of poverty'. In recent years the 'culture of poverty' concept has fallen into disrepute. I shall briefly trace the reasons for the concept's disrepute and suggest that it can still be useful. There are fads and fashions among social scientists, as among others. Physicians, for example, may quickly adopt and overuse a new technique or drug, which subsequently falls into disuse as a result of strong criticism. It is my contention that the 'culture of poverty' concept was too quickly adopted, too carelessly used, too harshly criticized and too quickly abandoned. This is a fate shared by other scientific concepts, and the process involved in adopting and abandoning concepts (as well as methods) merits far more attention than it has received. I shall briefly outline my position on the waxing and waning rf the 'culture of poverty' concept, on the exaggerated criticisms that have been made of the concept and on the advantages of continuing to use the concept—or some similar term—in order to focus upon the adaptive aspects of the social and cultural forms that are related to poverty.

Toward a Concept of Non-Career

Abstract: T he study of careers can be a useful focus for relating the sociology of work to certain sociological concerns that are not intrinsically work-based—status and prestige, home life, leisure and so on. Careers can thus be seen at the same time as part of and adjacent to the work experience. In this article I am concerned with ways in which the career experience can be understood through the elucidation of the concept of career. In the study of work and career, as in social science generally, conceptual development and clarification are essential operations, neglected by the practitioner at his peril. They are the building blocks, without which both theorizing and empiricism flounder. Inappropriate concepts, insensitively used, can pre-determine and pre-empt the form of analysis and the results, so that social science can become little more than elaborate tautology. It is on such occasions as these that the claim that '. . . sociolc^ must be treated as another commonsense account of the social world\" rings most true. In this context, we may appreciate all the more Bauman's statement that '. . . an idea . . . may act as a social science concept—i.e. a device which helps us to articulate and to give account of our experience . . . only if it is consonant and broadly commensurate with the experience itself.'̂ It is this sentiment that underlies the present examination of the concept of career. This may help to avoid the worst consequences of ignoring actors' meanings in explanation,'' but it will of course not necessarily lead to simplification. Whereas much social science seems to be concerned with making social reality, which is ambiguous, into unambiguous accounts,' the clarification of the concept of career in the manner described will parado2ucally lead us closer to the ambiguity of the career experience itself.

A police authority—the denial of conflict

Abstract: ‘I'm sorry you're not satisfied. We like to co-operate, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll call an early meeting of the Watch Committee and put you on the agenda.’‘That would be kind of you.’Matlock had halted as he left. ‘Do you remember a time, Chief Constable, when Watch Committees gave instructions to the police?’(Dick Morland: Heart Clock, N.E.L. Science Fiction, 1973)

A re‐examination of durkheim's theory of human nature

Abstract: Analyse du contenu et de la fonction methodologique de la theorie de la nature humaine chez Durkheim.

Roles, role formats and medical encounters: a cross‐cultural analysis of staff‐client relationships in children's clinics*

Abstract: The concept of role has almost disappeared from large areas of current sociological inquiry along with all the various subcategories that it spawned in such profusion. However, although some of the heirs to the old concepts are far more satisfactory, other places have been left entirely vacant or only partially filled. Although we have much greater understanding of interaction, or at least of the work which it involvesj our knowledge of how it relates to social structures is still scanty. Roles served to mediate between the two and they have had no successor. The new sociology of interaction has largely ignored the problems that role was used to solve; the new sociology of structure has largely ignored the new sociology of interaction. The situation is nicely summed up in a recent article by Stokes and Hewitt:'

A theory of literature and society

Abstract: What is wanted is a formula which will cover every form of literary expression and can be used as the key to its place and function in every form of society. It is unlikely, however, that such a formula can be found; and certainly we may say that it never will be found by empirical quantitative methods: we will never have all the data on every type, let alone every example, ofliterature; and we must believe Weber when he insists that we can never really know all the data about society either, or so much as a single phenomenon within it for

The Growth of Trade Union Consciousness among General Hospital Nurses Viewed as a Response to ‘Proletarianisation’:

Abstract: This paper is preliminary to the task of analysing trade unionism among nurses in one district general hospital. It is not unusual to treat growing unionism among the 'new middle classes' as a response to 'proletarianisation'. However, the term is not always defined and is frequently torn out of its primary context in changing relations of production. 'Proletarianisation' refers to the formation of a class. Much is lost if, as the Parrys advocate, 'proletarianisation' is conceived as the antithesis to 'embourgeoisement', that is as downward mobility within a given system of stratification.^ With Carchedi, we wish to view it as based upon control over the means of production.The two poles of this process are represented by the independent producer and the collective labourer. Under capitalism, control over the means of production is only secondarily a relation between man and machine, a technical relation. It is first of all a social relation between those engaged in production as capital and as labour.^ Once the labour process (labour, the means of production and the object of production) is subordinated to capital, technology becomes an instrument of capital not a deterministic force in its own right. A distinctive feature of the 'new middle class' occupations is that they share in varying degrees in the functions of both capital and labour (i.e. in the expropriation of surplus created in the labour process and in the labour process itself). At the same time the social relations of production are not directly reproduced as class relations. In the formation of class, other levels of practice—the

Controversy in scientific research and tactics of communication.

Abstract: R ecent studies in the sociology of science^ have provided new insights into the actual processes involved in scientific behaviour. For example, H. M. Collinshas analysed the ways in which knowledge is communicated between scientists; M. J. Mulkay^ has argued that the Mertonian 'ethos' of science' should rather be interpreted as an ideology; and G. N. Gilbert^ has drawn our attention to the rhetorical nature of scientific papers. This paper provides further evidence to support these views of the scientific process by examining a controversial area of biochemical research. It is an empirical study which analyses the formal and informal communications between eminent scientists in terms of the utilisation of various 'tactics of criticism, persuasion, and justification'.

The Place of ‘Professional Ideology’ in the Analysis of ‘Social Policy’: Some Theoretical Conclusions from a Pilot Study of the Children's Panels

Abstract: This paper discusses the concept of 'professional ideology'. I shall argue that in studying the nature of social welfare policy and the attitudes of social workers and other professionals upon whom the effective implementation of that policy so often depends, a formulation of this concept is useful which allows the social scientist to cope with policy ambiguity, inconsistency and apparent incoherence, rather than a formulation which diverts his attention from such features or leads him to regard them as theoretically embarrassing. I came to this conclusion during the course of a piece of research on some aspects of the Children's Panel system in Scotland.' This present paper, however, is intended not so much as a report on that research per se but rather as a reflection of the uncomfortable process of moving continually between theory and data and back again in the attempt to 'make sense' of empirical material.^ The paper mirrors the conceptual problems of a research investigation. I shall report some difficulties encoimtered while trying to use the idea of 'professional ideology' and conclude by drawing distinctions between several quite different kinds of phenomena which are sometimes grouped together and loosely termed 'ideology' to confusing effect.

Marxist Literary Criticism

Abstract: Marxist criticism begins, naturally, with the work of Marx and Engels themselves. Yet what their critical writing actually consists in is not a simple question to answer. There is a familiar corpus ofexplicit literary comment to be extracted from their work fragmentary, eminently anthologisable comments on form, realism, 'typicality', commitment, to be culled from texts treating largely of other matters. l Yet it is questionable whether it is at this relatively obvious level that Marx's own most substantial contributions to an aesthetics are to be found. For it was inevitable, given Marx's running debate with German idealism, that the concept of the 'aesthetic' would never be far beneath the surface of his scientific pre-occupations, infiltrating apparently quite different forms ofdiscourse. It is not simply overt critical comment, but art as a category within some putative anthropology, which we find in the early Marx; it is less the scrutiny of particular literary texts (of the kind Marx undertakes at excessive length in The Holy Family) than the relevance of aesthetic production to some general 'theory of superstructures', which is most suggestive. The literary fragments have been duly canonised and ritually reproduced: two letters of Engels to indifferent novelists have become (Jaute de mieux) as memorable as whole treatises in bourgeois aesthetics. Yet as Mikhail Lifshitz has shown, the question of the aesthetic is active within a whole range of Marx's theoretical positions. (Lifshitz: 1973). It appears, for example, as a subordinate but significant factor in his analyses ofmaterial production, the division of labour and the product as commodity; its submerged influence can be detected in the concepts of value, fetishism, sensuousness, abstraction. If Marx's letter to Ferdinand Lasalle or his dissection of Eugene Sue's Mysteres de Paris are clearly 'literary' texts, it could equally be claimed that the richly suggestive remarks on the political uses ofsymbolism and mythology which open The 18th Brumaire ojLouis Bonaparte are even more pertinent. It is not easy merely to point to the 'aesthetic' in Marx; the extraction and cataloguing of isolated 'literary' comments is itself an ideological displacement of its true significance. Granted that Marx and Engels had rather more important tasks on their hands than the construction of a complete aesthetics, it is still remarkable how many of the issues now central to the development of a Marxist criticism emerge in embyronic form in their oeuvre. The material basis of cultural practices; the relations between aesthetic

Professionalism and unionism: aspects of class conflict in the National Health Service.

Abstract: Medical sociology has until recently been predominantly characterised by a micro-sociological or psycho-sociological approach. For example, it has focused on such issues as the doctorpatient relationship or that between the difFering professional roles associated together in the delivery of health care to the patient. The language and concepts of role theory have often defined and bounded the field of inquiry. There are, however, now some signs that having established itself as a respectable sub-discipline within sociology there is more willingness to be concerned with issues at a macro level which enable a reintegration with the central problems of main-stream sociology. The increasing signs of crisis and political conflict in the health care systems of contemporary societies have also created an opportunity for the sociologist to apply a wider conception of his sociological tasks and to raise issues of power and conflict which were formerly tacitly excluded from much of the literature in medical sociology. In this paper we are concerned with the study of the changing balance of power in the health care services between professionalism, unionism and the state within the British National Health Service. Our approach is macro-sociological and historical. Ours is a structural analysis in which we explore the importance of class and sexual divisions in relation to the formation of occupational associations and to modes of occupational control: specifically, professionalism and unionism.

The development of an occupational self-concept and commitment to an occupation in a group of skilled manual workers*

Abstract: In the past few years there has been a great deal of discussion concerning the factors which afiect occupational choices and the medianisms which operatt as such dioices are made. There has not, however, been the same regard for the consequence cess as an example of 'tertiary sodalisadon'—the learning and pracdce of roles applicable to limited situations—and the bulk of the work which has been carried out in this field has cemcoitrated on the processes by which individuals are induaed into the prcrfessions or exxupadons of similar status. American studies have looked dosely at this aspect of socialisation and two interesting factors emerge frcMn the findings. The first is, that as the individual progresses through his training course, he becomes more likely to identify himself as a full member of his occupadonal group. In Musgrave's terms this is 'anddpatcay socialisadcm' since the trainee is antidpadng the full pracddemer role before he is qualified to carry it out. Kadushin' studied music students at American music schex>ls and found that 37 per cent d freshmen, ccHiq)ared with 62 per c«nt. erf seniors, had high/n^dium self-conoepts of themselves as musicians. The development erf this occupadcmal self-conoept was enhanced by opportunities to play music prcrfessionally as well as by the length erf time spent

SOME EPISTEMOLOGiCAL CONSIDERATIONS OF PARADIGM SHIFTS: BASIC STEPS TOWARDS A FORMULATED MODEL OF ALTERNATION*

Abstract: A considerable amoimt of work has been done over the century' on the nature of 'disentanglement' from one pattern of identity and the adoption of another, often dissimilar and contrasted. Such a process by which an individual's identity is changed, either gradually or suddenly, has been variously described by terms such as 'conversion', 'brain-washing' or 'alternation'.It is thfe last term which I shall use in this paper to denote a process of transformation from one world view to another, because such a term is neutral and not confined to religious tnmsformation systems. Consequently the dramaturgy of alternation can be found in both the transcendental and the secular areas of human activity. Attempts to formulate models of analysis for alternation and affiliation to vaiue-oriented belief systems and movements have tended to be psychological and psychoanalytical rather than sociological.' The former begin usually with a descriptive case-book account of the precipitating crisis of the convert, usually a religious convert, and work through the experience and antecendent biographies of childhood, adolescence, relationship to father, and so on. Various thematic discussion points centre generally around aggression, Oedipean indmadons, tension points and bonding. The inherent weakness of such an approach is intinjately bound up with the weaknesses of psychoanalysis in general.* Furthermore, psychoanalysis 'in all its fonns, can be imderstood as an institutionalised mechanism of conversion, in which the individual changes not only his view erf himself but of the world in general.'' Freud himself wrote ' . . . a psychoanalysis is not an impartial sdentific investigation, but a therapeutic measure.

Ideology and the sociological utopias

Abstract: Iike many other things—television, jet passenger planes, nuclear .weapons—sociology prior to 1945 was somewhat esoteric, a matter for academics and some other odd people only rarely penetrating to the wider public. In the decades after World War n , stimulated by much government and private foundadon money in the United States, and by small sums elsewhere, sodological research blossomed into a small industry. The two dominant tendencies, sometimes connected but more ctften not, were the Funcdonalism of Parsons and then Merton; and the more or less sophisdcated empiddsm of those driven by a desire to discover how many people thought or were or did somethii^ and how this correlated with others who thought or were or did something else.

The Interpretation of Literature in Society: The Hermeneutic Approach

Abstract: In the social sciences in general, though there are no doubt arguments 'still to be heard in the debate about Verstehen, the simple confrontation between naive radical positivism and extreme anti-positivism, which argues that there is a crucial epistemological division between the natural sciences and the cultural sciences, has certainly been superceded. Conceptions of natural science itself have been radically modified with advances both in science and in the philosophy and sociology of natural science. Contemporary sociologists and historians, similarly, recognise that a subject matter of human behaviour, meanings and intentions does not necessarily mean that a systematising theory is impossible or that generalisations cannot be made or causes ascertained. l In other words, there has been a degree ofconvergence on a notion of social science as 'scientific' according to an altered conception of science.2 With the exception of particular writers and schools ofthought, the role ofinterpretation and Verstehen in sociology is no longer felt to be an impediment to social theory and social investigation. 3 This is less true in the case of the sociology ofliterature, partly because the study itself is still new enough to be entangled in a variety of problems of method, of the status of its theory, and of the definition of its proper object,4 and partly because the question of interpretation is necessarily central to a discipline whose object is a text, of one sort or another. The sociological study ofliterature presupposes an understanding ofthe literature studied. Ifits objective is to propose a theory ofliterature and society, or to perceive a relationship between them, it must start from a comprehension, explicit or implicit, of the works of literature themselves. The problematic nature of this preliminary understanding is the subject of this article. It is, I suppose, possible to study literature positivistically. One might undertake a survey of a given group of authors and their social background, or of a group of novels or plays and their conditions of production and reception. Sociological studies of the effects of developments in printing and book production on readership would also come into this category.· Such studies are often extremely useful and informative, but they take for granted two fundamental points: that the literature itself is unproblematic, and that therefore what is generally referred to as 'literature' in everyday life may be the subjectmatter ofa sociology ofliterature. This cannot simply be assumed.6 Nor

Legal definition of the family: an historical and sociological exploration

Abstract: During the past decade and a half there has been a vast outpouring rf sociological literattire on the topic of kinship in western societies. It is f)ossible to distinguish at least two broad lines of inquiry in this research. First there have been nutnerous empirical studies which have attempted to show that the extended family exists in tn-ban, industrial societies, and have pointed out what they took to be the various functions of these extended fatniUes in mutual aid, social activities and so on. Most protninent in this field have been Sussman,' Burchinal^ and Litroik' in America, and in England Young and Wilmott*-' at the Institute of Cotmnunity Studies. Much of this empirical work has come in for severe criticism in recent years, for example Gibson\" and Rosenburg' who attacked it for its lack of 'analytically precise concepts'. A second line of inquiry has taken a tnore historical stance, being very

Are Serendipitous Discoveries a Part of Normal Science? The Case of the Pulsars:

Abstract: 'One difficulty with Kuhn's analysis is that it is based on a misleading and narrow conception of ciiscovery. Kuhn recognises two main types of scientific discovery. On the one hand there are the small scale innovations ot normal science where \"everything but the most esoteric detail of the result [tends to be] known in advance\". On the other hand there are major innovations, typically involving a drastic reconceptualisation of an existing area of study. Now I am sure that Kuhn is right in arguing that highly predictable results are regularly produced in science and that radical iterations of perspective do occur. But the important issue is not whether \"normal\" and \"revolutionary\" science occur, but whether they are typical and whether there are other types of discovery which contribute significantly to scientific development One kind of discovery not mcluded in Kuhn's analysis takes place when observations or theoretical inferences are made wMch are unexpected but which are not incompatible with existing scientific assumptions. Such discoveries reveal \"new areas of ignorance\" to be explained, in many cases by means of the extension and gradual modification of established ccmceptual and technical apparatus. In Kuhn's scheme this type of discovery is dismissed as unimportant'^

Preserving a primitive society: reflections on post-wittgensteinian social philosophy

Abstract: The attempt to formalise Wittgenstein's philosophical insights into an orthodoxy concerning the correct understanding of society was pioneered by Peter Winch in the late 'fifties and and early 'sixties^ The task of philosophy, according to this strand of Wittgensteinianism, is to clarify and remove conceptual confusion. Philosophy, it is claimed, is a politically neutral activity, advancing no thesis and having no partisan axe to grind. In reality. Winch and his cohorts project into their philosophical texts a form of conservatism which rests on little more than instinct and a romantic picture of a society characterised by a unity of purpose. Throughout this paper it will be maintained that the arguments, according to which Winch attributes confusion to critical social science, rest on little more than a sentimental idealisation masked by bad metaphysics.

Occupational Transition in Advanced Industrial Societies—A Reply:

Abstract: I n his paper \"Occupational Transition in Advanced Industrial Societies', Geoff Payne sets out to test and to clarify what he describes as 'grand theories' of occupational change over time. This he does by bringing into play data on the occupational structuie of Great Britain over a fifty-year span of the present century. Though the attempt might be r^^rded as a brave if not heroic one, I believe tiiat, in fact, it fails from the outset; Payne is confronting theories relating to modernization with data from an inappropriate period. And in any case there are difficulties inherent in the manner in which Payne has approached the industrialisation literature, some of which I take up in the first section (rf this paper, 1 shall not address in detail Payne's claim that be is 'testing', in some way, the version of modernization theory which he presents, since I think his data are inappropriate. However, it should be apparent that—on the surface at least—the data he presents ought to shed light on the occupational dynamics of an advanced industrial society—that is Britain since 1921, In die second section erf the paper, therefore, I look at the adequacy of Payne's figures for such a task, and at the same time examine the stance he takes towards the 'convergence thesis','