Summary
This paper presents an analysis of the structure of contemporary sociological knowledge in terms of a theory of scientific discourse. The concept of ‘discourse’ is introduced as a theoretical refinement of the concept of ‘paradigm’ and is applied to the classes of knowledge claims of the natural and social sciences. It is concluded that general modes of scientific discourse are definable in terms of their vertical differentiation from everyday discourse, while particular modes of sociological discourse are additionally definable in terms of their horizontal differentiation. A classification is then proposed which identifies three modes of sociological discourse: natural, technical and formal.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Albert, Hans, 1964: “Probleme der Theoriebildung. Entwicklung, Struktur und Anwendung sozialwissenschaftlicher Theorien”. Pp. 3–70 in Hans Albert (ed.), Theorie und Realität. Tuebingen: Mohr.
Apel, Karl Otto, 1977: “Types of social science in the light of human interests of knowledge”. Social Research 44:425–70.
Arrow, Kenneth J. 1968: “Mathematical Models in the Social Sciences”. Pp. 635–67 in May Brodbeck (ed.) Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. New York: Macmillan.
Badura, Bernhard, 1973: Sprachbarrieren. Zur Soziologie der Kommunikation. Stuttgart: Frommann Holzboog.
Barnes, Barry, 1974: Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Ben-David, Joseph, 1970: “Introduction”. International Social Science Journal 22:7–27.
Berstein, Basil, 1971: Class, Code and Control. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Blalock, Hubert M., 1973: “Thoughts on the Development of Sociology”. Footnotes 1:2.
Black, Max (ed.), 1961: The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons: A Critical Examination. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Boehme, Gernot, 1975a: “Die Ausdifferenzierung wissenschaftlicher Diskurse”. Pp. 231–253 in Nico Stehr and Rene König (eds.), Wissenschaftssoziologie. Studien und Materialien. Köln: Westdeutscher Verlag.
—— 1975b: “The Social Function of Cognitive Structures: A Concept of the Scientific Community Within a Theory of Action”. Pp. 205–25 in Karin D. Knorr et. al. (eds.), Determinants and Controls of Scientific Development, Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Boudon, Raymond, 1974: The Logic of Sociological Explanation. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Bourdieu, Pierre, 1975: “The specificity of the scientific field and the social conditions of the progress of reason”. Social science information 14:19–47.
Burger, Thomas, 1976: Max Weber's Theory of Concept Formation. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
Cicourel, Aaron V., 1964: Method and Measurement in Sociology. New York: Free Press.
Dixon, Keith, 1973: Sociological Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Doreian, Patrick, 1971: Mathematics and the Study of Social Relations. New York: Schocken Books.
Elias, Norbert, 1974: “The Sciences: toward a Theory”. Pp. 21–42 in Richard D. Whitley (ed), Social Processes of Scientific Development. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
—— 1971: “Sociology of knowledge: New Perspectives”. Sociology 5:149–168; 355–370.
—— 1956: “Problems of Involvement and Detachment”. British Journal of Sociology 7:226–52.
Ferdinand, Theodore N., 1969: “On the Impossibility of a Complete, General Theory of Behavior”. American Sociologist 4:330–332.
Feuer, Lewis, 1962: Review of Max Black (ed.), The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons. Journal of Philosophy 59:190.
Feyerabend, Paul, 1975: Against Method. London: New Left Books.
—— 1970: “Consolations for the Specialist”. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. A. Musgrave and I. Lakatos (eds.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Freese, Lee, 1972: “Cumulative Sociological Knowledge”. American Sociological Review 37:472–82.
Friedrichs, Robert W., 1970: A Sociology of Sociology. New York: Free Press.
Gadamer, Hans Georg, 1977: “Theory, Technology, Practice: The Task of the Science of Man”. Social Research 44:529–61.
German Sociological Society, 1931: Verhandlungen des Siebenten Deutschen Soziologentages. Tuebingen: Mohr.
Gitler, J. B., 1941: Social Thought among the Early Greeks. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Goudsblom Johan, 1977: Sociology in the Balance. Oxford: Blackwell.
Gouldner, Alvin W., 1976: The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology: The Origins, Grammar, and Future of Ideology. New York: The Seabury Press.
—— 1970: The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Basic Books.
Habermas, Juergen, 1971: Knowledge and Interest. Boston: Beacon Press.
—— 1970: Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Hagstrom, Warren, 1965: The Scientific Community. New York: Basic Books.
Handy, Rollo, 1964: Methodology of the Behavioral Sciences. Springfield, III.: Charles C. Thomas.
Hempel, Carl, 1965: Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: The Free Press.
—— 1952: Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Hesse, Mary, 1970: “Is there an independent observation language?” Pp. in R. G. Colodny (ed.) The Nature and Function of Scientific Theories. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Holzner, Burkart, 1968: Reality Construction in Society. Cambridge: Schenckman.
Hymes, Dell, 1973: “Speech and Language: On the Origins and Foundations of Inequality Among Speakers”. Daedalus 102:59–85.
Keat, Russel and John Urry, 1975: Social Theory as Science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Klima, Rolf, 1972: “Theoretical pluralism, methodological dissension and the role of the sociologist: the West German case”. Social Science Information 11:69–108.
Knorr, Karin, 1975a: “Konsensus, methodologische Verfahrensweisen und die Trivialisierbarkeit von Entscheidungen im Forschungsprozess”. Pp. 325–348 in Nico Stehr and René König (eds.), Wissenschaftssoziologie. Studien und Materialien. Koeln: Westdeutscher Verlag.
—— 1975b: “The Nature of Scientific Consensus and the Case of the Social Sciences.: Pp. 227–56 in Karin D. Knorr et al. (eds.) Determinants and Controls of Scientific Development. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Kreckel, Reinhard, 1975: Soziologisches Denken. Opladen: Leske.
Kuhn, Thomas, 1970: “Reflection on my critics”. Pp. in Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
—— 1962: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lachenmeyer, C., 1971: The Language of Sociology. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lammers, Cornelius, 1974: “Mono- and poly-paradigmatic developments in natural and social sciences”. Pp. 123–47 in Richard Whitley (ed.), Social Processes of Scientific Development London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and Morris Rosenberg (eds) 1955: The Language of Social Research: A Reader in the Methodology of Social Research. New York: The Free Press.
Lavine, T.Z., 1942: “Sociological Analysis of Cognitive Norms”. Journal of Philosophy. 39:342–56.
Merton, Robert K., 1975: “Structural analysis in sociology”. Pp. 21–52 in Peter Blau (ed.), Approaches to the Study of Social Structure. New York: Free Press.
—— 1971: “The Precarious Foundations of Detachment in Sociology”. Pp. 188–99 in Edward A. Tiryakian (ed.), The Phenomenon of Sociology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
—— 1968: “The Matthew Effect in Science”. Science 159:56–63.
—— 1967: On Theoretical Sociology. New York: Free Press.
Mills, C. Wright, 1959: The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
—— [1939] 1967: “Language, Logic and Culture,” Pp. in Irving L. Horowitz (ed.), Power, Politics and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills. London: Oxford University Press.
Naess, Arne, 1952: “Toward a Theory of Interpretation and Preciseness”. Pp. in L. Linsky (ed.), Semantics and the Philosophy of Language. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Nagel, Ernst, 1961: The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
—— 1952: “Problems of Concept and Theory Formation 1n the Social Sciences”. Pp. in Science, Language and Human Rights. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Association.
Niezing, Johan, 1967: Aufgaben und Funktionen der Soziologie Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Nowotny, Helga, 1975: “Zur gesellschaftlichen Irrelevanz der Sozialwissenschaften”. Pp. 445–456 in Nico Stehr and René König (eds.), Wissenschaftssoziologie. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Parsons, Talcott, 1968: “An Overview”. In: Talcott Parsons (ed.), American Sociology. New York: Basic Books.
Phillips, Derek L., 1973a: “Paradigms, Falsification, and Sociology”. Acta Sociologica 16:13–30.
—— 1973b: Abandoning Method. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Pitkin, Hanna F., 1972: Wittgenstein and Justice. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Quine, W.V. 1960: World and Object. New York: Wiley.
Rapoport, Anatol, 1959: “Uses and Limitations of Mathematical Models in Social Science”. Pp. 348–372 in Llewellyn Gross (ed.), Symposium on Sociological Theory. Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson.
Rickert, Heinrich, 1902: Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung. Tuebingen: Mohr.
Ritzer, Georg, 1975: Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Savory, Theodore H., 1967: The Language of Science. London: Andre Deutsch.
Scheler, Max, 1960: Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft. Bern: Francke.
Schutz, Alfred and Thomas Luckmann, 1974: The Structures of the Life-World. London: Heinemann.
Shils, Edward, 1970: “Tradition, Ecology, and Institution in the History of Sociology”. Daedalus 99: 760–825.
Skinner, B. F., 1957: Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Spector, M., 1966–1967: “Theory and observation”. British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 17: 1–20, 89–104.
Stegmueller, Wolfgang, 1973: Probleme und Resultate der Wissenschaftstheorie und analytischen Philosophie. Vol. II: Theorie und Erfahrung. Berlin: Springer.
Stehr, Nico, 1975: “Zur Soziologie der Wissenschaftssoziologie”. Pp. 9–18 in Nico Stehr and René König (eds.) Wissenschaftssoziologie. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Stehr, Nico and Lyle E. Larson, 1972: “The rise and decline of areas of specialization”. American Sociologist 7:3, 5–6.
Storer, Norman, 1968: “The sociology of science”. Pp. 199–213 in Talcott Parsons (ed.), American Sociology. New York: Basic Books.
Strasser, Helmut, 1975: The Normative Structure of Sociology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Tenbruck, Friedrich H., 1975: “Der Fortschritt der Wissenschaft als Trivialisierungsprozess”. Pp. 19–47 in Nico Stehr and René König (eds.), Wissenschaftssoziologie. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Toulmin, Stephen, 1972: Human Understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
—— 1967: “The evolutionary development of natural science”. American Scientist 55:456–471.
—— 1958: The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weber, Max, 1947: Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Glencoe: Free Press:
—— 1922: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. Tuebingen: Mohr.
Weingart, Peter, 1974: “On a sociological theory of scientific change”. Pp. 45–68 in Richard Whitley (ed.), Social Processes of Scientific Development. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Whitley, Richard, 1974: “Cognitive and social institutionalization of scientific specialities and research areas”. Pp. 69–95 in Richard Whitley (ed.), Social Processes of Scientific Development. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
-- 1972: “Black boxism and the sociology of science”. Pp. in Paul Halmos (ed.), The Sociology of Science. Keele: Sociological Review Monograph No. 18.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1958: Philosophical Investigations. Macmillan: New York.
Worsley, Peter M. 1974: “The state of theory and the status of theory”. Sociology 8:1–17.
Wisdom, J.O., 1970: “Observations as the building blocks of science in 20th century scientific thought.” In: Boston Studies in the philosophy of Science VIII: 212–22.
Ziegler, Rolf, 1972: Theorie und Modell. Der Beitrag der Formalisierung zur soziologischen Theoriebildung. München: Oldenburg.
Ziman, John, 1968: Public Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The authors greatly appreciated and benefitted from a critical reading of an earlier draft of the paper by Karin Knorr, Helga Nowotny and Peter Zernitz.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stehr, N., Simmons, A. The diversity of modes of discourse and the development of sociological knowledge. Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 10, 141–161 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01809032
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01809032