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International
Journal
of
Politics, Culture
an d
Society, Vol.
13, No. 4,
2000
II.
Discourses
on the
American Academy
The Department of Social Relations and
Systems Theory at Harvard: 1948-50
Arthur
J.
Vidich
INTRODUCTION
In Madison, where I studied in 1946-48, MA students thoughtof
the
Department
of
Sociology
and
Anthropology
as a
take
off
point
for
bigger andbetterthings elsewhere. Harvard and Columbia were believed
to be the
places where
one
could find
all the
answers
and the
fundamental
truths about the social sciences. Students attracted to Robert Lynd,
Robert MacIver, Robert Merton and C. Wright Mills (who was already
knownat Wisconsin as HansGerth'sstudent) went to Columbia. Talcott
Parsons had established a new Department of Social Relations at Harvard.
The center of gravityin the social scienceswas no longerin theMiddle
West. The once-prominent Chicago school had lost its luster. Edward
Shils,
who had
just published
a
little pamphlet entitled
The Present State
of American
Sociology (an early
Free
Pressimprint), was still a graduate
student. Berkeley was an
unknown
entity: it would not become a magnet
until
1952 when Herbert Blumerleft Chicago to head its new Department
of Sociology. Madison looked like
a way
station.
The
real thing
was in
the
east.
The idea of going to Harvard was given to me by W.W. Howells,
not so much because he knew anything about the Department of Social
Relations,butbecausehe hadintroducedhisstudentstoClyde Kluckhohn
when he came to Madison to lecture. Kluckhohn had been a 1928
graduate of the University of Wisconsin and was now regarded as a
major
figure
in the
field:
he was also a
collaborator with
Parsons in the
creation of the Department of Social Relations. The point was not to
hear Kluckhohn's lecture, but to be introduced to him. Kluckhohn's visit
had
more than
one
purpose.
He was
recruiting applicants
for the
607
2000 umanSciences Press, Inc.
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Department of Social Relations and Howells served as a link in the
recruitment network.
When
I
left
for
Harvard, Gerth
and
Howells suggested
I
extend
greetings respectively
to
Talcott Parsons
and
Ernest Hooton, Howells's
former professor of physical anthropology. Gerth had met Parsons when
he first arrived in the United States in 1937. Carl Friedrich had given
him
one of his first academic appointments that included tutoring in
German some of Parsons's gradua te students including Robert K. Merton
and Logan Wilson. I knew none of this at the time, bu t discovering it
later helped to clarify my own relationship with Parsons. In his work
as a tutor, Gerth had used as his texts some of Max Weber's essays
on The M ethodology of the Social
Sciences.
Gerth was a student of
Weber's work before coming to the United States: as he once recounted
in an
interview,
he had
read Politics
as a
Vocation when
he was a
gymnasium
student in Kassel and determined then and there to study
with
Weber, bu t only to discover whenhe arrived in Heidelberg in 1927
that Weber had already been dead for seven years. Gerth was regarded
by Parsons
as a competitor in
what
later became the Weber industry
in
the United States.
My
first priority in Cam bridge was to make ap pointm ents to see Ernest
Hooton, Talcott
Parsons
an d
Clyde Kluckhoh n. Getting appointments
to
see these famous professors was much easier than I had anticipated. This
was
1948 when there was
still
some social distance between professors and
students, sustained by a degree of form ality and the reluctance of students
to go imm ediately on a first name basis. The easy accessibility of professors
surprised me. Given the large number of new students wanting appoint-
ments, these professors must have devotedall oftheir time duringthe first
few
w eeks of the semester to student interviews. I had not yet learned th at
even at Harvard professors needed their students as much as students
needed them.
Hooton,who had hisoffice in thePeabody Museumand was not associ-
ated w ith social relations, sensed that I ha d no interest in physical anthropo l-
ogyand treated meaccordingly, accepting mygreetingsfrom Howells and
sendingme on myway.The museumwasfull of skeletons, precious stones
and archeological artifacts, the latter representing the plund er of years and
years of Harvardian expeditions. M y reaction to the Peabody M useum was
thatit did not fit my image of the kind of anthropologist I wan ted to be and
I
never
saw
Hootonagain. Clearly,
the old
anthropology departme nt
did not
mix easily with thatportionofanthropologyaffiliated withtheDepartment
of
Social Relations.It wasapparent even then thatthesplitofanthropology
into two programs was an a dministrative recognition th at physical and social
anthropology had almost nothing in common.
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609
CLYDEKLUCKHOHN AND HIS
RESEARCH
ON
NAVAHO VALUES
Clyde Kluckhohn's office waslocated in the
newly
created Russian
Research Center
of
which
he was
director:
his
receptionist-secretary
was
Helen Parsons, Parsons's
wife.
ThoughtheCenterwaslocated onlyashort
distancefrom thePeabody, inspiritit wasworlds apart.Itsconcerns were
theColdWar and Sovietology; ithoused specialists inEastern European,
Russian and Soviet affairs. Its raison d'etre was the application of the
knowledgeof the social sciences to the formationofsocial and political
policy in
what
w as
then
the new
cold-war, nuclear age:
it
owed
its
existence
toformer membersof theOfficeofStrategic Services(O.S.S.).Itspersonnel
wasmade
up in
part
of
academics
who had
moved fromwartime service
toacademia. Many anthropologists, including Kluckhohn,hadseen service
inwartime intelligence activities
and it was on the
strength
of
these services
thathe wasmade director of the Center. UnlikethePeabody, the Center
exudedan air ofcrisp, business-like
efficiency:
important visitors cameand
went,each
wanting
to consult a staff ofspecialists. It is here that I met
Kluckhohnfor thesecond time.
Though tense
and
highstrung,
as he
usually was,
and
overburdened
with administrative work, Kluckhohnhad prepared for our meeting. He
grilled
me
about
my
long-term academic plans
and
wanted
to
know what
kind
of ananthropologist Iwantedto b e.Thiswas abusiness-like conference
which left me
with
thefeeling that mycareer was notentirelyin my own
hands. Kluckhohnhad notonly passed on myadmission toHarvard, he
hadalso secured
for me the
Thayer Fellowship, providing
m e
withseveral
thousand
dollars
of
support
in
addition
to the
funding
I
received
from
the
GI Bill:he supported hisstudents generously. Despite hisintense work
scheduleand theexcessive demands madeonhim,he wassolicitousof his
students and regarded anthropology as his central professional concern.
Among other things,
he
directed
the
Navaho Values Study, known
as the
RamahProject,and fielded acorpsofgraduate studentsforresearch among
the
Indian tribes
of the
Southwest.
He
attempted
to be
knowledgeable
in
whatwere then considered to be the four sub-fields of theprofession
physical, archeological,
linguistic, and socio-culturaland attempted to
write
articles ineacho fthem.He hadhoped toinheritthestatusinanthro-
pology previously assumedbyFranz BoasandAlfred Kroeber. Aspartof
thisplan,hestakedhisclaimtoinheritKroeber'smantlebyediting together
withKroeber
the
book entitledDefinitions of Culture.Even then, viewing
him
as I did
from
thelimited perspectiveof agraduate student,hisambitions
appeared
to be
excessive,
if
only because
the field of
anthropology
was
alreadybecoming fragmented into various specializations. That hechose
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towriteonsubjectsfor thepurposeo festablishingareputation rather than
the
other
way
aroundwriting
on
subjects
he
regarded
as
important
and
basing hisreputation on themleft me with the impression that he was
less interested
in the
pursuit
of
truth than
the
management
of his
career
and theachievementof fame.
Kluckhohn's
study
of
Navajo values
had
been underway even before
thecreationof theDepartmentofSocial Relations.TheRockefeller Foun-
dation sponsored it and supported the field research of a multitudeof
investigators, so many, in
fact,
that the joking answer to the question,
Whatis thecompositiono f aNavajo family? was a husband,
wife,
two
children
and oneanthropologist. TheIndiansofAmerica's Southwesthad
longbeenasubjectofintensive studybyanthropologistsand archeologists,
andmany monographs hadbeen written about them. Kluckhohn's study
was
to bedistinguished fromearlier studiesby itsfocusonNavajo values,
1
atopic thatwasthen alsoofcentral
interest
toTalcott
Parsons
bothin his
work on hissocial system, action frame of reference and in his research
onsuburban middle-class families. Parsonsan dKluckhohn were collaborat-
ing
in
their research
on
values
at the
same time that Edward Shils
was in
residencein the
Department
ofSocial Relations
working with
Parsonson
whatwould become their jointly edited book,
Toward
a
General Theory
of
Action.
2Theassociation ofKluckhohn's value studies
with
theworkof
Parsons isindicated both by hiscontribution to that book and hisclaim,
inhis
report
to the
Rockefeller Foundation
on the first
three years
of his
project, that Toward
a
General
Theory of
Actionwas amajor publication
resulting
from
hisstudies.3
Appointed
by
Kluckhohn
as a
data analyst
on the
values study,
I
read
through the
entries
in theNavajo
research
files,which
contained cross-filed
entries excerpted fromfield
researchers'
notes, reports andmonographs.
Each excerpt
from
such sources was aparagraph inlengthandclassified
underacategory pertainingto agiven subject.Thecategories were,inpart,
the
same
as
those originally formulated
by
George
P.
Murdock
for his
HumanRelations AreaFilesatYale University.Acategory suchas eco-
nomics would contain numerous sub-categories classified according to
type
ofwork, usesofmoney, trading, welfare, construction ofhouses, etc.
Sub-categories such
as
uses
of
money would
be
sub-sub-categorized into
entries suchaslending, stealingand so on.Most paragraph length entries
contained references to more that one subject and would be cross-filed
underanothersub orsub-sub category:aparagraphonstealing,forexample,
would
also
be
cross-filed under
crime, interpersonal
conflict, morals,
and
so
forth.
Asmore data were gathered andcross-referenced, thenumberof
categories wasexpanded tomeet thedifferencesinnuances of data pro-
duced by different researchers. Even atthis relatively early stage of the
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research, the sub-categorization ofdataand thecross-referencingof it had
produced
a
substantial
file.
Iread through
all of the
entries under each major category
and
pro-
videdasummaryof itscontents. Sincethedata were alreadytooextensive
for anysingle individualto absorb, the method ofproducing summaries
had the purpose ofregaining some control over it. Kluckhohn needed a
shorthand versionof thecontentsof the filesbecause he did nothavethe
time toread them himself.My job was todescribe thegeneral contentof
a
category and gave an estimateofthose areasinwhichthe data were
deficient. I then attempted topoint out the relation of the data to the
problemofvaluesandsuggest some linesofanalysisinrelation tovalues.
Forexample,one set ofcategories Iexaminedwas Inheritance, After-
life
and Attitudetowardthe
Dead.
Although deathand thedead are
importantareasof
Navajo
lifewhich initself says nothingandaresur-
rounded bymany fears, anxieties, prohibitionsandsanctions,no one had
madesystematic observations
on
this aspect
o f
Navajo culture.
My
summary
of the content of thecategories wasmade underfivepointsdescription
of
burialsforboth infants andadults,the relationship between death and
witchcraft,
death statistics, problems that occur when
a
Navajo dies
in a
hospital and the
Navajo
fear of the dead. This summary, like others I
did, didn'tgoanywhere. Althoughone cantalk about death, architecture,
women,
and
children
and
summarize
the
contents
of
categories
as I
did,
the
result
is the
same data
in a
different form. Despite
the
fact that
the
fielddata were richincontent and
covered
vast
areas
ofNavajolife,they
could be
mademeaningfulonly
if
they were focused
on a
specificproblem
that
would provide
an
organizing principle
for
interpreting
the
data.
Nowhere
in the
data
I
encountered
was
there
a
reference
to the
central
institutional fact
of Navajo tribal life, namely, that the Navajo were a
legally
dependent tribal group underthejurisdictionof theUnited States
government
and the
Bureau
of
IndianAffairs. They could
not rightfully
becalled colonized, butwere subjectto asystemofindirect rule.Notthat
allresearchable problems couldbeexplainedintermsofthis relationship,
bu tfrom
the
beginning
the
institution
of the reservation had
transformed
theinternalorderofindigenous Navajo institutionsan dvalues.TheNavajo
had been deeply penetrated by the dominant society formore than100
yearsand the residuesofthis penetration remainto the present.
4
Kluckhohnapproached thestudyofvalues
from
the point ofviewof
their definition and classification, but not
from
their historical settingor
institutionalcontext. Whiletheterms
value
or
values
arebasic concepts
in
the field of the social sciences, to givea
precise
definition
to eitherof
them
can
only lead
to an
empirically unworkable definition. However,
if
on esetsup aproblemforinvestigationfor example, asking 'whatare the
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fundamental conflicts in
values among
the
Navajo people
an d
what
are
their institutional causes?' thenitwouldbepossible to
specify
whoholds
which
values
and how conflicts
arise when
the
values
are
expressed
in
action. Some values held by youth are distinct from those held by their
elders,
bu t
even
the
values held
by
youth
are not
necessarily held
by all
youth: some of these youth might have been returne d World War II veteran s
whose slant
on life may
have been influenced
by
the ir activities
as
Marine
Corps com munication specialists, a group rec ruited fo r their service because
the
Japanese were unable
to
crack
the
code
of the Navajo
language.
If
individuals,
status groups, classes
or
descent groups
are
specified,
it is
possible to examine what ideas, beliefs or values they hold and, if then,
one
asks what
is the
result
of
these conflicts
in
values
for the
organization
ofN avajo society, one h as a problem. However, the a ttempt to stu dy values
as
such led to the accumulation of data housed in files in the Peabody
Museum, but not to the definition of a problem.
Ironically, anthropological investigators
are
themselves part
of
this
penetration.Bytheirpresenceand the questions they ask, they alter the
social milieu in which they work and contribute to chan ging the character
of
thesocietythey study.At the timeof the values study, anthropological
investigators did not acknowledge thisfactbecause they
failed
to recognize
the
implications
and
consequences
of
their
ow n
role
as
members
of the
dominant society. In point of fact, research on the Navajoas
well
as
other Southwest Indian tribeshad become an academic industry whose
products were dissertations and advanced academic degrees.Itcannotbe
said th at this industry was simply a ma tter of the exploitation of a dependent
people.Th e
investigators also added
to the
local economy
by
paying
fo r
interviews and consuming native goods and services. In exchange for the
data given them
by the
Navajo,
the
anthropologists became
a
part
of
their
social world
and
helped
to
connect them with
the
larger external world.
Because anthropology
had
become
an
academic profession, research-
ers' field trips were fre que ntly of short du ration carried out dur ing sum mer
breaks, academic intersessions, sabbaticals, or leavesof a semester or an
academic year. Since research in the Southwest required no foreign travel,
researchers could make repeated trips
to the
same sites, visiting
and
revis-
itingthesam e info rma nts. Anthropologists no tonlyhad aneconomicpres-
ence in Navajo tribal
life,
but also a social one, forming lasting friendships
and emotional bonds with Navajo informants. I do no t know if any Harvard
anthropologist went native
an d
married into
the
tribe,
bu t
this cannot
bediscounted as apossibility. Fromasocialpointofview,anthropologists
were integrated into Nav ajo tribal networks , status systems, economyand
authoritative relations.
As a
result,
the
data
in th e files had
been collected
by
many different investigators
at
different times,
by different
methods,
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613
from different angles
of
perception
and for
different purposes, leaving
an
analystwith out clues to researchers' biases.
When
I was
analyzing this data
in the
summer
of
1949,
in an office
shared with Ann Parsons, a co-worker, the data had not been
identified
by
reference
to who had
obtained
it,
when
it was
gathered,
and
where
i t
had
been
collected. It had the same disembodied qualityas the data that
Murdock
had
deposited
in his
Human Relations Area Files
which he had
used to write
Our Primitive Contemporaries.
Murdock had not collected
his owndata,andKluckhohnhad notcollectedthe dataI wasanalyzing.
However, Murdock,
wh o
cast
his
data
in an
evolutionary
and
com parative
framework,
was able to presen t images (stories) of imag inary societies as
if
theyhad existed at ap articular point in time:h is book served a useful
pedagogical purpose
for
instructors
who
taugh t college courses
in
introduc-
tory anthropology from the perspective ofcultur al evolution.The Ramah
Navajo
files could not be used for such purposes because there was not a
mass market
for a
synthetic ethnography
of the
Navajo.
The
purpose
of
the Navajo values project had a higher aim: making a contribution to a
theory of values.
Earlier
in his
career,
Kluckhohnhad
researched
and
written
two
mono-
graphs
on the
NavajoNavajo Witchcraft
and
Children
of
the
People
(with
Dorothea Leighton). He was an experienced field worker and probably
knew
more than anyone
in his
time about
the
Navajo,
but he did not
producea final volume for the values study. It is worth speculating on why
this was the
case.
Ioffer two explanations: he had lost a 'feel' for the d ata,
and he had become an academic adm inistrator at both the Ru ssian Research
Center
and the V alues Project. The organ izational app aratu s of the Center
and the Project required
fundraising,
periodic reports to sponsors, and
management of a large bureaucratic machine: the apparatus of research
became
an end in
itself
and
took
its own
course.
As a
result,
he had
little
time
to devote to understanding the data collected for the values study.
Large-scale interdisciplinary projects generate more data th an
can be
digested
by a
single individual,
or for
that matter
by any
collection
of
researchers. Despitethis problem, areportmust be written if only to satisfy
sponsors and author a book that leaves a mark on the field. In short, the
project needed a writer, who should havebeenKluckhoh n. But Kluckhohn
was too far
removed
from the
spirit
of the
project
and the
research
of his
subordinates to be able to immerse himself in the specifics of empirical
data. Digests andsynthesesofdata suchas I wassupposed to dowereno
substitute for first hand knowledge of the field data. As a result, the
Navajo
values study produced innumerable
reports,
monographs
and
special stud-
ies, but not a single report on its primary goal. It did not have a writer
who could pick andchoosedata and find a perspective from
which
a report
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could
be
written. This
was and
remains
the
fundamental deficiency
of
organized group research. When
thepersonwho
frames
the
research prob-
lembecomes an administrator, the project can only be completed with the
help
of a
ghost. Talcott Parsons
did not
make Kluckhohn's mistake.
He
kept his independence and wrote his own books.
TALCOTT PARSONS AND THE DEPARTMENT
OF SOCIAL RELATIONS
Parsons's office was located in Harvard Yard on the second floor of
Emerson Hall, the former headquarters of Harvard's social gospelers and
now the hub of the Department of Social Relations. On arrivingfor my
appointment,
I was
received with
an
unhurried graciousness,
as if
Parsons
had nothing to do but see me. Inasmuch as I was to study anthropology, my
excuse for requesting the interview was to extend Hans Gerth's greetings. I
started by saying something like I studied withGerth at Wisconsin and
he
asked
me to
send
you his
regards. Parsons's abrupt response
was
Gerth
should learn how to writeEnglish. I had not expected the sharp retort
an d
pursued
the
matter
no
further.This
was m y first
encounter with
the
competitiveness among Weberians
in the
United States.
I
learnedfromthis
incident and many subsequent occasions as well that the competition to
claim priority
in the
translation
of
Weber's work
was
intense.
In
1946,
Gerth and C. Wright Millshad published From Max
Weber:
Essays in
Sociology,
the first English edition of Weber's sociological writings, an
event that
had
apparently annoyed Parsons.5
In
1930, Parsons
had
translated
The
Protestant Ethic
and the
Spirit
of Capitalism
and,
in
1937,
had
published
The
Structureof SocialAction,a book claiming to supercede Weber's
soci-
ology.
Despite
Parsons's
irritation at the mention of Gerth's name, he did
not hold my association withGerth against me. On the contrary, he invited
mywife
and me toSunday afternoontea in hishomean dremembered me
byname whenever
we met in or out of the
classroom. Making
it a
point
to know his students,
Parsons
brought them into his intellectual foldwith
an indulgent, paternal embrace that wasdifficult to resist. He showed no
animus toward students who criticized hiswriting style or rejected Th e
Structure
o fSocial Action, bu t tolerated theman dengaged themindiscus-
sions
to
convince them
of
theirerrors.
For
example, most
first-year
students
found
Th e
Structure
of
Social Action no t only ponderous in style, bu t
excessive
in its
pretensions.
As
graduate students
we
found
it
easy
to
criticize
his
book.
The
best illustration that comes
to
mind
is
Jesse Pitts's
performance
at the first
student-faculty party. Pitts took
the
occasion
to
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The
Department
of
Social Relations
and
Systems Theory
at
Harvard
1948-50
615
spoof The Structure of SocialAction.Providingthe entertainment for the
evening,
he
entered
the
stage
with
an
elaborately constructed tinker toy,
announcing
in atone ofmock solemnity, Thisis
The
Structure
of
Social
Action.
The
most critical among
us,
Pitts walked directly
to
Parsons
to
present him
with
his creation. Though
Pitts's
irreverence was excessive,
Parsons treated the performance as a joke and laughed, relievingwhatwas
otherwise a tense moment and allowing the rest of us to laugh too. Beginning
as Parsons's severest critic, Pitts later became a disciple and one of Parsons's
co-editorsof the
multi-volume
collection
ofsociological
essays,
Theories
of Society. I've digressed onthis point because, as Ishall show later, the
case of Pitts helps to explain why so many of Parsons's students, despite
their initial negative reactions, eventually became Parsonians.
The Social Relations Department was created in 1946 as an administra-
tivemechanism to support
Parsons's
main intellectual
projectframing
a
theory for ademocratic social system. Itscurriculum included courses in
sociology, anthropology, social psychology and clinical psychology, but not
political science or economics, the latter a peculiar omission in lightof
Parsons's
original education as an economist. The range of courses spread
over all these disciplines distinguished the Department of Social Relations
from
Harvard's sociology department
of the
late thirties
and
early forties.
Before and
during
the
war,
the
departmental stage
was
shared
by
Pitirim
Sorokin and Parsons. Students during that period included Kingsley Davis,
Robert Merton, Wilbert Moore, Arthur Davis, Nicholas Demerath, Robin
Williams,
Edward Devereaux, and Logan Wilson. Their readings would
have includedParsons'seconomic essays, TheStructureof SocialAction,
and
also the works of Sorokin and Carl Zimmerman. In the
1930's,
Parsons
was
still a disciple of Joseph Schumpeter, Thomas Nixon Carver and Frank
William
Taussig
and
wrote articles
on
capitalism while working
on
The
Structure
o f
SocialAction.6He had not yetformulatedhistheoretical con-
ception of thesocialsystem. Duringthewar, Parsons submittedproposals
to the Research and Analysis branch of theO.S.S.and concerned himself
withtheproblems posedbyGerman fascism.Hisworkonfascism reinforced
his
fears
for the future of
democracy
and
civil order
in the
United States.
Later he developed the idea of formulating a social relations curriculum
andframed a comprehensive theory of the social system. During the years
that the class of 1948 was in residence, the social relations curriculum was
still
not sharply focused.
Later,
the theory of the social system would provide a liberal image
of
whatasocialordershouldbe.When Parsons wrote about substantive
issues such as racial equality, the
family,
responsibility and obligations, the
power structure (his critique of C.Wright Mills's, ThePowerElite), the
functions
of the
executive,
and the
other dimensions
of
American society,
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hespokefromhissoul, almostas anEmersonianandcertainlyas aChristian
ethicist concerned about the moral order of society. At the time I was at
Harvard, he was not yet the full-fledged formal social theorist he would
becomelater whenfour-fold tables and the harmonics of the system became
almost ends
in
themselves, more like
a
sociological metaphysics.
In 1948, the social relations curriculumfloatedideas in alldirections.
It was
full
of
intellectual confusions
and
contradictions
and
attracted
a
remarkable collection of professors, instructors and graduate students,
whom
Parsons organized into
a
loosely knit adm inistrative unit.
It
included
parts of the older pre war department of sociology in the professorships
ofSorokin and Zimmerman. Parsons did not then have the dominance that
he achieved later. Moreover, he was striving to revive interest in Th e
Structureo fSocial
Action
(1937), the reception ofwhichhad been delayed
by
the war. Some ten yearsafter its publication, Parsons rehabilitated the
book bymakingit the focusof the department's proseminar.
However,
in
1948 stud ents could
respondto
professors
of
theirchoice,
not
onlyParsons, Sorokin
and
Zimmerman,
bu t
George Homans, Freed
Bales, Kluckhohn, Henry Murray, Richard Solomon,Gordon Allport and
SamuelStouffer. Moreover, these professors were housed in a number of
separate buildings: some anthropologists were in the Peabody; Kluc kho hn,
Alex Inkeles and Barrington Moore, Jr. were in the Russian Research
Center; and Stouffer, Homans and Parsons were in Emerson Hall. The
psychologists Gordon Allport, Richard Solomon andJeromeBruner were
in
Emerson Hall, while
the
psychoanalysts were
in
still other buildings:
E.G. Boring, B.F. Skinner and George Miller were in the basement of
Mem orial Hall, and though they had noaffiliations
with
the Social Rela tions
program weream eaning ful presence fo rpsychology students. H enry Mu r-
ray had his own
headquarters m ade famous
in the
book,Love'sStory Told:
A Life, Henry A. Murray.
7 The
dispersion
of
facultyoffices lent
a
sense
of
freedom and lightness to academiclife:one didn't feel under surveillance.
The Depa rtmen t was composed of too m any divisive elements to be brou ght
unde r an ything like systems of culture, personality, economics and society.
In
this hybrid department,the mix ofstudents included aspiring sociol-
ogists, anthropologists, psychologists and clinicians. Each subset oriented
itself to adifferent groupo f
faculty.
Because ofthis multiplicityofintellec-
tual orientations, every first-year student was required to enroll in the
Dep artmen t's proseminar, a kind of collective baptismal ceremony designed
tocertify us as mem bers of a common congregation. The seminar consisted
ofw eekly lectures givenby senior professors on the
staff.
Parsons, Kluck-
hohn,Murray, Allport, Sorokin and Robert White are the names I remem-
ber as lecturers. I don't remember Stouffer lecturing, but if he was not
included it was because he was then ru nning his IBM cards for the multi-
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volumestudy,TheAmericanSoldier.Theseminar served as adisplay case
for
senior professors. Junior professors not included were Alex Inkeles,
BarringtonMoore Jr., Freed Bales, Florence Kluckhohn, Frederick Mos-
teller,
L.
Postman, M.B. Smith, Benjamin Paul, Jerome Bruner,
E.
Hanf-
mann, not to mention the then lesser lights, David Aberle, Evon Vogt,
John Roberts andGardner Lindzey. Noticeably missingfrom theseminar
roster
of
lecturers were
th e
traditional anthropologists located
in the
Pea-
bodyMuseum.
Theseminar leftonewitha
lopsided
imageof the
total
Social
Relations
faculty.
It was
heavily weighted
on the
side
of
Parsons, Kluckhohn
and
Murray. However, Murray used someof histimeto ridicule the idea of a
systematic
sociology: hewouldsaythings like
Speech
ishealthier than
silence, even though
one
knowsthat
what
one
says
is
vague
and
inconclu-
sive. 8
Or :
Every
ma n
knows something about himself
which
he's willing
to tell,andsomething about himself that he's not willingto tell.There's
also something about himself thathe
doesn't
knowandcan't
tell.
9Murray
inhabited
the
worlds
of
Herman Melville
and
Jungian psychology
and
provided anantidote to anyclaimsfor arational, objective interpretation
of thesocial world,not tomentiontheideaof asocial system.Hisviewof
thesocial scienceswasquixoticandgave couragetothoseo f us whorejected
the ideaofclosed systems.
Parsons dominated
the
seminar, giving Kluckhohn
a
supporting role
and allowing Sorokin a single appearance. To the students, it wasclear
that
Parsons
was the
leadingfigure:
he
held
the key
that would open
the
door to a future career. To underscore this point, Parsons distributed to
the class hispaper, Towards aCommon Language for the Area of the
Social
Sciences,
which proposed
the
development
of a
common vocabulary
designed totranscend disciplinary differencesandprovide mutual under-
standingbetween them. This paper left adeep impressionon me notonly
because
it
claimed that there could
be
such
a
thing
as a
common language
through which social analysis mightbereported, but also because George
Orwell hadjust published
1984
in
which
hedescribed
processes
ofthought
control
by
linguistic means.
Not
that Parsons would have
had any
such
intention.Hiscommon languagewasthatof aconvinced believerinsocial
science,more like that
of a
founder
of a
secular sect.
The
purpose
of the
proseminarwas to lay out thedistinctive intellectual line that
Parsons
was
then
formulating
for his
version
of
sociology.
THE
PROSEMINAR:1948-49
Because the Social Relations curriculum included four disciplines,
the proseminar would be the means for their cross-fertilization. Each
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lecturer introduced us to the vocab ulary of his (there were no women
lecturers) discipline and its subject matter as he saw it.
There
could
even
be
cross-fertilization
within
disciplines,
fo r
example, when there
were
two or
more lecturers from
the
same discipline
as was the
case
for sociology (Parsons and Sorokin) and psychology (Murray, White and
Allport). Exposure to am ultiplicityof vocabularies did not lead inevitably
to cross-fertilization or to an interdisciplinary perspective. Add ing to
the centrifugality of disciplinary vocabularies, each of the lecturers
recommended the works of
authors
whom they regarded as significant
figures
in
their fields. The names of Max and Alfred Weber, Emile
Durkheim, Sigmund Freud,
Alfred
Kroeber, Franz Boas, Gregory Bate-
son, Susanne Langer, G.H. Mead, Leslie White, McDougall, Watson,
Jung
and many others were added as crucial authors. Notably absent
from the lists were the works of Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and
Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
It
soon became
evident to us that no one could grasp the substance or the vocabularies
of all the disciplines or read all the books in a semester or even a year.
Yet we
confronted
an
examination that would include questions
involving
interdisciplinary knowledge. The prospect of this examination led us to
our own solution to this graduate student problem.
Approaching our anxieties rationally, we formed interdisciplinary
study
groups.Each member of a group consisting of
four
or five students
was
assigned responsibility to provide digests ofbooksand summaries of
lecture notes. For example, one of us wouldreport on Durkheim's The
Rules of
Sociological Method,
another
on Suicide, and a
third
on
The
Division
of
Labor
in
Society. Reports were duplicated, distributed, and
discussed
with
members of the group, and in
some cases
exchanged
with
other groups. In our graduate student argot, these digests were known as
hamburgers. We had put intopractice a division of labor.
By this method,
it was
possible
to
acquire second-hand knowledge
of dozens of major works prior to the examination. One could appear
knowledgeable about books
one had
never read
andcoursesone had
never
taken. For m e it led to a certain vagueness regarding whichcoursesI actually
took
at
Harvard
and
which books
I
actually
read.A
furtherconsequence
of
this approach to scholarship was that it was not until years later tha t I had
the occasion to read some of the classic texts, although my second-hand
knowledge of them enabled me to pass the ex amin ation. The class of 1948
wasresourceful, and gave its own pragm atic meaning to cross-fertilization
and inter-disciplinary studies.
The best hamburgers I
possess
were written as proseminar reports by
committees composed of four or five students.10 An extensive exegesis
would
serve no purpose, scholarly or otherwise; however, the reports are
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1948-50
619
useful
as
illustrations
of the
aims
of the
Social Relations curriculum
and
help explain
the
intellectual orientation
of the
department.
The proseminar was a one year course, designated Social Relations
201 (Fall 1948) and 201A (Spring 1949). Students were organized into study
teams. Each team
was
assigned
a
topic
on
which
a
collective report would
be subm itted. There were eighteen teams and twelve topics so that in some
cases more than one team was assigned the same topic. The titles of the
proseminar syllabus topics follow:
1.
Science-making: Reality
and Scientific
Language; determ inants
and
consequences
of different
conceptual schemes; criteria
of
worth;
differences between physicalandsocial science,
2.
Assumptions
of
Basic Social
Science,
3. Fundamental Concepts
Defined
(six teams),
4. Fundamental Propositions and Hypotheses (two teams),
5. Analysis and Evaluation of Current Theories (three teams),
6. Strategic Problems (two teams),
7.
Social Science
and the
Realm
of
Value,
8.
Applications
of
Social Science (two teams).
Each team was assigned Parsons, K luckhohn, or M urray as its
faculty
super-
visor.
The course began on October 4with an introductory lecture on the
subject,
Historical
Survey: Constituents
of
Basic Social Science. Social
Science
and the
WorldCrisis. Since
the
proseminar
was
essentially Par-
sons's creation, I assume he gave this lecture. Subsequent lectures were
given byvarious membersof theSocial RelationsstaffwhomIhave already
identified.
I do not
remember whether
the
topics
of the
lecturers corres-
ponded withtheteamtopics.Probably, theydidnot, because the purpose
ofthe lectures w as to expose students to the senior m embers of the
faculty;
certainly
Sorokin's lecture couldnot be madeto fitinto either theSocial
Relations
or
proseminar mold.
The
procedure
of
establishing teams und er
professorial supervision was a feature of the proseminar that stood apart
from
the
w eekly lectures
and
insured that Parsons, Kluckhohn,
and
Murray
would supervise and guide student teams.
Attached
to the
syllabus
of
topics
was the
following reading list:
READING LIST
To bereadbyOctober11:
Conant,
J. B.,
On
Understanding
Science
Kluckhohn, F.,
A Consideration of Method
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Northrop,F. S. C, Th eLogic of theSciencesand theHumanities,
(Ch.
I-VIII;
XIV-XXI)
To be
read
by
October
18:
Parsons,
T., etal., Toward a Common Language for the Area of the
Social Sciences
To bereadin anyorder,allthree before December 13:
Kluckhohn,
C., &
Murray,
H. A.,
Personalityin
Nature, Society,
and
Culture
Murphy,G.,Personality.
A
Biosocial Approach, (Omit Part III)
Parsons,T.,
The
Structure
of
Social Action
(Omit Part III)
Thereadingsonthis list were intendedtoprovide studentswithacore
of
common understanding
and a
basis
for the
evaluation
of the
works
o f
other authors.Inadditiontothis reading list, eachof theteamswasprovided
with additional listsofbooks fromwhicha
report
was to be
produced.
We
wereadisparate groupofstudentswithspecific interestsin theconventional
disciplines.Theproseminar aimedto put all of us on thesame wavelength.
Itwasbecauseofthesemultiple reading listsand ourneedto getontothe
right
wavelength that students were
led to
interdisciplinary cooperation
and thecreationof thehamburger method.
ThebesthamburgerreportsIpossesswere written underthecategory
Analysis
and
Evaluation
of
Current
Theories. Three
groups were
as-
signed this category,
one
group each under
the
supervision respectively
of
Parsons,
KluckhohnandMurray.Ineach case current theories wereto be
evaluated
from
the point of view in the books of our professors. The
reports Ipossess
were written
by
Parsons's committee. Parsons assigned
the committee four
books: Parsons's
TheStructureof Social Action, G.H.
Mead's
Mind, Self and Society,
Pitirim Sorokin's Society,
CultureandPer-
sonality, and MaxWeber's
Theory
of
Social
and
Economic Organization.
Each of the reports is four or five single-spaced pages inlength and was
duplicated fo rcirculationon amimeograph machine, thenthe
state
of the
art
in
copying.
The
reports
are not
signed
and
hence
are
anonymous works.
One
committee
was
asked
to
summarize
the key
themes
inTheStructure
of Social Action, and the others were to evaluate Mead's, Sorokin's and
Weber's
books
in light of their relevance to Parsons's action frame of
reference
and
voluntaristic theory
of
action.
A
summary
of the
four reports
reveals something
of the
intellectual orientation
of the
proseminar.
In the
followingexcerpts
I
presentonly
the first and
last paragraphs
of
eachreport.
Ihave corrected a few of theauthors' typographical errorsandmisspellings.
Th e central point of each report isclear: Th e Structureo f Social Action
wasto betakenas astandard. Other books wereto beevaluated
from
the
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point of view of Parsonian truths.
Hence,
the committee begins its report
with
a
review
of The Structure of Social
Action.
Parsons:
The Structure
of
Social
ction(1937)
Sincethepointof
departure.
. .fortheanalysisof. . .
significant
worksinsociologi-
caltheoryi sProfessor Parsons's TheStructure
of
SocialAction, theprimary purpose
ofthis paperis tooutlinebriefly the action frame ofreferenceand thevoluntaristic
theory
of
action
as
found
in
that book.
An d
secondarily
our
purpose
is to
show
the
emergence
of
vo luntaristic theory
of
action from
a
critical analysis
of the
work
of four
recent European social scientists-Marshall, Pareto, Durk heim and Weber.
Thus our interest is not in the
theories
of
these
men, but in the single body of
systematic
theoretical reasoning which
can be
traced through
a
critical analysis
of
the
writings
of
this group.
This paper concludes that Positivism has been seen to break down whe n applied
to the phenomenon of action because it eliminates the creative, voluntaristic
character of action by dispensing with the analytic significance of values and
other normative elements. The idealistic system of thought, on the other hand,
while
stressing the imp ortance of the subjective, value-oriented eleme nts in action
eliminates the obstacles to the realization of values. According to thinkers in this
tradition, man is not subject to law in the physical sense, but is free. Comprehension
of his
action
may be
grasped only
by the
intuition
of
total wholes which
it is
illegitimate to break down into elements for casual analysis.The work of Max
Weber shows that this tradition also tends to break down towards a voluntaristic
system of action. While demonstrating the soundness of the subjective reference
of the
idealistic theories,
the
work
o f
Weber breaks
from
this tradition
by
placing
the role of value elements in the context of a voluntaristic system rather than
that of idealistic emanationism. Further Weber rejects the premises ofidealism
in
subsuming facts under general
concepts
of analytical significance . . . the
generalized structural elements of the voluntaristic system of action emergent
from
the works of these four men
fall
into three groups ... I. Hered ity and
environment
... II.
Intermediate intrinsic means-end
sector . . .
III. Ultimate
value system
. . .
with
a
fourth element binding them
all
together (pp. 718-719).
IV. Effort: The voluntaristic element, which is the relating factor between norma-
tive
and conditiona l elem ents of action, is necessitated by the
fact
that norms do
not
realize themselves,
but are
realized only through action.
The
analyses
of the
works
of
Mead, Sorokin
and
Weber were
to be
used as
tools
to confirm
Parsons's
conclusions in
The Structure of Social
Action.The
point
of
each analysis, except
for
that
of
Sorokin,
is to
give
duecreditto Mead's andWeber'scontributions to the
advancement
of the
theory of action.
Mead:
Mind Self
and
Society
(1934)
George Mead , a pragm atic social psychologist, is not prim arily concerned in Mind,
Self and Society
with
the
problems
of the
specific delimitation
and
delineation
of
a
generalized theory of social systems. Rath er, he focuses his attention arou nd on e
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ofthecrucialandcentral considerationsofsuchageneralized theoryandinevitably
entwines
muchofsuchageneralized theory. Mead's primary problemcan belooked
at,
using
the
terms
of
Professor Parsons,
as the
nature
of
role,
the
link between
the
sub-system of the
actor,
as a
psychological behaving entity,
and
social structure,
as
apatterned systemofsocial relationships . . .
Finally
it may be
said that Mead's approach
was
that
of an
analytical realist,
for the
scientific
concepts withwhichhedealtdid notcorrespond toconcretephenomena,
but to
elements
in
themwhich
he
analytically separated
from
other elements.
Al-
though
Mead did notelaboratea generalized theory of action, his penetratingtreat-
ment of anecessary constructinsuchatheoryhasbeenamonumental contribution.
Sorokin:Society,Culture and Personality:TheirStructureand
Dynamics. A SystemofGeneralSociology
(1947)
(Note: Sorokin
was
still
a
major figure
in
American
and
international sociology,
but
this
work could
not
easily
be
absorbed into
an
action
frame
of
reference.
In
the year 1948, he had already been administratively relegated to the margins of
the department and it was to be understood by students in this class that he need
not be taken seriously. Hence, the irreverent tone of Sorokin's hamburger.)
To an
infidel,thispetitum
opus* of
Sorokin
has a
curious resemblance
to the
Bible.
Both works are characterized by a wealth of information, often esoteric;
by manifest zeal, hortatory injunctions
and
jeremiads;
by
great concern
for the
chosen race and censure for outlanders; and, I might add, a certain amountof
confusion
for the uninitiated. Ostensibly, however, in contrast to the moral concern
of
the
Bible, Sorokin
is
concerned with
the
objective analysis
of
sociocultural
phenomena, which is distinguished
from
other
fields
by . . . the presence of mind
orthought.
Since Sorokinis . . .anidealist, regard ing sociocultural phenomenaasemanations
of
theWeltanschauungof anepoch, undertheactionframeofreferencetheindivid-
ual
is
left
with no choice. The situation is determined in terms of values, norms
and meanings, and to the same source can his perception and
selection
of ends and
means be attributed. The escape clause indicates either biological factors or the
mysteriousX, forwhich there is noexplanation. Inclosing, Iwould like to note
that
it is
only limitations
of
carbon paper that precludes systematic criticism
of
Sorokin'sposition. But perhaps theaboveanalysis suggests points of attack.
Max
Weber. The
Theory
of SocialandEconomic Organization,
Trans.
by
A. M.Hendersonand T.Parsons,
Edited
withan Introduction
byT.
Parsons
(1947)
The
development
of
Weber's theory
and
methodology stands
in
sharp opposition
to
that branch
of
German idealistic philosophy
which
denied
the
possibility
of
empirically or scientifically validatinggeneralized conceptual schemesastheyap-
plied to the human or cultural areas. He emphasizes the
need
for such general
*The mere 723pages of this work compared with the fourequally long volumesof
Social
and
Cultural Dynamics.
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theoretical conceptual categories
in any
adequate causal explanation and,proceed-
ing from
theframeofreferenceof
action,
he attempts toestablish a systematic
conceptualization, hischief methodological toolbeing thatof the ideal type.The
latter refers essentiallyto alogicalandnon-normative constructionofthoseelements
ofreality conceived
in a
pattern. Insofar
as
action
is in
conformity with
the
rational
ideal type,
it is
rational
and
insofar
as it
deviates fromthis ideal type,
it is
irrational.
There
is a
tendency notable here, upon whichParsons
has
commented, namely
a
tendency todichotomize action into rational andirrational categories andthen to
treat those
categoriesasantithetical even where on an empirical level theymay
wellbeactinginconcertasintegrated elements . . .
This position has been criticized by
Parsons
asresulting from Weber's
failure
to
distinguishhishypothetically concrete typeconceptsandtheir empirical generaliza-
tion
on the one
hand, from
the
categories
of a
generalized theoretical system
on
the other . . . Although Weber did not formulate anexplicit theory of a total
functioning
social system of action, he did, by the clarity of his developed, logically
interrelated scheme
of
idealtypes
of
socialaction,
as
well
as by the
breadth
of his
scientific vision and the consistency and insight of his empirical applications make
a
contribution that places
him in the
front rank
ofsocial science theorists.
My
purposeinpresenting these somewhat pretentiousand attimes irrev-
erentsummariesis togiveanimpressionof the
weltanshauung
wesharedin
1948. Evidentin thetreatmentweaccorded other thinkers,TheStructureof
Social
Action
was to be the
base
from whichour
education should proceed.
SinceKluckhohn'sandMurray's books wereto be thestandardsforevaluat-
ing
anthropological and psychological works, our professors seemed to be-
lieve
that the truth was substantially in place at Harvard University. It is not
too hardto see in allthisa
form
ofmegalomaniaandnaivete.
While
constructinghissystem, Parsons turnedhisstudents into collabo-
rators. Parsons wasworking throughhis ownintellectual transition
from
The Structure of SocialAction to hisstructural-functional theory in The
Social System.
Drawing
on
terminologies
of
cultural anthropology, depth
psychology,
social psychology,
and
sociology,
he
appropriated various social
science vocabularies intohis ownoverarching theory.If, for example,the
workof Mead or Weber was distorted in carrying out his project, this was
beside the point. Parsons wasless interested inWeber or Mead thanin
borrowing fromthem categories andconcepts useful for hispurposes. We
were not so
much guinea pigs
as
potential Parsonians. Nowhere
is
this more
explicitlystated thaninParsons's preface to
Toward
a General Theory of
Action,
where he describes how he created discussion groups to help
... in
clarifying
the problems we
faced individually
in our teaching and
research aswell as in our
corporate
capacity
as a
department (emphasis
added). The discussion groups included not only a
core
group of professors,
but
also
what
Parsons calls
a
larger, younger group
of
junior
staff and
students.
11
This
form
of
collective intellectual work
was a
method
for
propa-
gating his
perspective
and
achieving consensus among
the
participants
in
the proseminar. The Parsonianinfluencewas impossible to ignore because
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he had set the
agenda:
not
only
for the
proseminar
bu t
also
for the
inter-
locking committees subsumed und er
his
m anagement
in a
corporate depart-
ment. This administrative structure of committees is a
fact
that helps to
explain the propagation of so many Parsonians.
The proseminar stressed abstract social
scientific
categories and con-
ceptsthat aspiring social scientists would need
in
qualifying
to
practice
the
craft.Its syllabus covered the n atu re of science,differencesb etween physical
and social sciences, the basic assumptions of social science, fundamental
concepts, propositions
and
hypotheses,analysis
and
evaluation
of
theories,
strategic problems, the rea lm of values and , lastly, problem s connected with
applications of social science. Thefocusof our readings was on propositions,
theories,
the
nature
of
science
an d
concepts. However, concepts were
no t
understood
as
theoretical terms packed with
a
specific conte nt.
In
contrast
to the
predom inantly abstract theme s
of the
proseminar syllabus,
tw o
topics,
strategicproblems and the applicationsofsocialscience, were meant
to bridge the gapbetween conceptsand empirical realities. According to
the logic of the proseminar, the content of concepts would be found by
identifying problems
to
which they could
be
applied.
The
application
of
conceptstostrategic problems w ould providetheraison d'etrefor thesocial
utility
of the
social sciences.
Th e
means
for
applyingconcepts would
be
provided
by
something called Basic Social Science.
BASIC SOCIAL SCIENCE IN THE M AKING
The concept
Basic
SocialScience isdefinedin the faculty guidelines
given to
students
in
Social Relations. These guidelinesone
for
each pro-
seminar topic areaprovided the perspective
from
which we were to frame
ou r
reports. Their detail
an d
comprehensivenessand even grandeur
reveal the depth of the faculty's commitment to itseffort to build a found a-
tion for the social sciences. I havecopies of two such guidelines, one for
ScienceMaking
and the
other
for
Fundamental Psychological Concepts
Defined, whichare listed as topics 1 and 3 on the proseminar syllabus
(the gu idelines, likethestudent reports, were authored anonymously).The
guideline on Science Maki ng is two pages in length. I reproduce it in
full inorder to show the faculty's intentions and ambitions. It contains
sectionsA, B and C(suggested readings) unde rtheheading
Social
Science
in the
Making :
SOCIAL SCIENCE
IN THE
MAKING
A. Scientific
methodology
is
commonly expounded under such headings
as:
observation and descriptionofsense-dataa nd their relations; abstraction, analysis
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Department
of
Social Relations
and
Systems Theory
at Harvard
1948-50
625
and
identification
ofcomponent processes orvariables; concept; definition;
classifi-
cation
and
construction
of tentative
conceptual schemes; representation
of
relational
uniformities,
speculative manipulation
of
variables,
and
making
of
hypotheses
by
supposition;
verificationof
predictions (hypotheses)
by
observation
and
experiment;
constructionofpostulatesandtheorems; makingofhypothesesbylogical deduction,
etc.
Assuming a general knowledge of these mental
operations
as performed by
physical
scientists
and biological
scientists,
let us social
scientists
consider these ques-
tions(emphasis added):
Which of
these
(or
other not-above-mentioned) procedures
are
particularly
relevant to the
peculiar aims
and
tasks
of
basic social scientists and, therefore,
should be more fully
understood
by them? What
special points
should be
stressed
in describingthe methodologyof social science?
In
what
significant
respects
does the
subject matter
(and thepresent
stage
of
development) of basic
social
science
differ
from
that
of the
physical
and
biological
sciences?
(emphasis added).
What
modifications
of
strategy
and
tactics,
if
any,
and
what
modifications of
ideal theoretical forms,
if
any,
are
required
of
social scientists
as a consequence of these differences.
B.
Among
the
topics
whichmay
require consideration
are the following:
1.
Differences
infacts
collected
and
theories constructed
as the
result
of: a)
differentbasis assumptionsas to thenatureof
reality;
b)differentconcepts
and
terminologies;c)differentstagesin thedevelopmentofscientifictheory;
d)
different (practical) purposes motivating scientists;
e)
different social
problemsortasks requiring attention; f)different techniquesand gadgets;
etc.
2. The
inclusion
of
inner,
or
subjective,
processes
(reports
of
introspection)
associal science data.
3. Operational (or criterial definition of
concepts).
4.
Phenomenal concepts
as
compared with explanatory concepts (concepts
bypostulation).
5. The
problem
of
causation: single cause
vs.
mutual dependence
of
determi-
nants.
6.Problems createdby theuniquenessofsocial science entities (personalities,
socialgroups,cultural patterns)
and by the
uniqueness (emergent
novelty)
of all
social events,
and by the
irreversibility
of
developmental
processes.
7. Theimportanceinsocial scienceofqualitative
differences
(differentpatterns
orforms)ascomparedto quantitative
differences
(basicin thephysical sci-
ences).
8. The Baconian method
(fact
collecting and induction) as compared to the
Newtonian
method (postulation, deduction, and verification) for social
science.
9. Comparisonof theassumptionsofAristotleandGalileo (cf.
Kurt
Lewin's
article)as
applicable
to
social science.
C. Suggested Readings:
Conant, F.,Kluckhohn, Northrop,&Parsonset al.
Cohen, Morris,R.,A Preface to Logic
Hull, C. I., Principles
of
Behavior
(Chapter
1)
Langer,
S.,Philosophy in a New Key
(Penguin)
Lewin,
K.,
A Dynamic
Theory
of
Personality
Kauffman,
Felix,
Methodology in the Social Sciences
Urban, W. M.,
Language
and Reality
(relevant
sections)
Whyte, L. I.,
The
Next Development
of
Man.
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In
the first paragraph u nde r A, a general knowledge of the mental
operations
as
performed
by
physical scientists
and
biological scientists
is
assumed
for
describing
the
methodology
of
social science.
In the
third
paragraph,
the
statement asks:
In
whatsignificantrespects does
the
subject
matter (and
the
present stage
of
development)
of
Basic Social Science
differ
from
thatof thephysicaland biological
sciences?
In other words,
the aim of
Basic Social Science
is to be a
science like physics
and
biology,
but at
this stage
of its
developm ent certain modifications
of
strategy
and
tactics
. . . [and] of ideal
theoretical
forms . . . are required of social
scientists
before achievingfull status
as a
science. W hile
the
physical
and
biological sciences are intended to serve as an ideal for the socialsciences,
the latter for various important reasons as listed under paragraph B are
qualitatively different from thefo rmer. Still,thepointofdeparture for the
making ofBasic Social Scienceare theproceduresofinvestigation utilized
by physics
and
biology: though they
may be
qualitativelydifferent, there
is
the suggestion that physics and biology set the standard that ultimately
may
be
achieved
by
Basic Social Science. Though
not yet
fully established,
Basic Social Science was still being made.
The scientific methodology propou nded for Basic Social Sciencethat
is,
concern
for
inner
or
subjective
processes,
single cause versus mutual
dependence
of
determinants, qualitative compared
to
quantitative differ-
ences, the Baconian as compared to the Newtonian method, etc.ran
counter
to the
mundane practical realities
of
research.
The
fact that
a gap
existed between
an
idealized image
of
research
methods and research in action is illustrated by the student team that
worked on Fund amen tal Psychological Concepts Defined. Definitiona l
clarity
of concepts w as stressed in assignments given to students.
Parsons's
essay
Towarda
Common Language
for the
Area
of the
Social
Sciences
had set
this requirement
as a
standard.
The
facultyguideline
for the
defini-
tion
of
psychological concepts reads:
Compare definitions as given by various authors of the following fund amental
concepts. Attempt to
resolve
differences and to construct an
adequate
criterial
(and
if
necessary operational) definition
ofeach: Field
(total situation,
life
space),
ExternalSituation (structure of environment, stimuluspattern),Sign,
Press,
Need,
Drive, Action pattern
(action and
effect), Agency
(instrument),
Pathway, Barrier,
Goal
(also goal object,goal place), Cathexis, Valence,Sentiment, Attitude, Trait,
Unconsciouspsychicprocesses,Ego, Id, Superego, Ego Ideal,Repression,Projec-
tion, Differentiation (of personality), Integration (of personality),
Socialization,
Sublimation,Regression,Functional Autonomy.
The
guideline asks
for a
comparison
of
definitions
by
different authors,
a
resolution
of differences in
definition
and
construction
of
criterial
and
operational definitionsof each of the listed concepts. Two separate teams
produced reports on
definitions
of
fundamental
concepts. Both
reports,
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627
one ofeighteen and theotherof
thirty-five
single-spaced pages listdefini-
tions culled
from
psychological texts. In a preamble to the
thirty-five-page
report, theauthors state the purpose of their work
differently from
that
given in theguideline:
The purpose of this paper is to
clarify
certainconceptsbasic to the study of personal-
ity. Wehave borrowed freely fromfirst oneauthor then another, always selecting,
modifying and editingwith less concern that a certain author's case be presented
than that
the
resulting concepts might serve
as
workable tools
for the
student
sharing the dynamical, organismalview point.Thisapproach is committed to the
studyofsubmerged and elusive
processes
which
often
are approachable onlyby
inferences
from
other manifestations.
It
follows that definitive constructs
are on
theone hand difficult and on the other indispensable to progress in the field.
It
isfrom the
assumption that increased precision
in
conceptual definitionswill
result in less confusing inferences that wehave taken the first few modest steps
necessary in formulating criterial definitions for certain key constructs.
The
enterprise
was a
hodge podge
of
terms
and definitions, a free
borrowingofdefinitions from
psychology that
had
little
or no
relation
to
each
other.The
enterprise,
in
short,
was a
distillation
of
definitions taken
fromthe
extant psychological
literature.
Presumably,
theresearch
method
employed
was one of
scanning book indexes, locating page numbers,
and
copyingdefinitions. However, since the meaningof aconcept is
given
by
the context in which it is used, this assignment led only to a new list of
definitions. The report seems to acknowledge this consequence by its
opaque statement that this approach is committed to the study of sub-
merged
and
elusive processes
which are
approachable only
by
inferences
from
other manifestations, a statement which seems to have very little
meaning,
if
any.
Faculty aspirations
for
training recruits
in its new
social science
ex-
ceededby a
large margin
the
capacities
of the raw
materials
with whichit
wasworking. From the point of view of the recruits who were to be molded,
the
experience
was
primarily
one of
learning
new
vocabularies that
we
understood were essential
to our
educationafter all, eminent Harvard
scholars were our guides. Eager to learn, we could
justify
our intellectual
effort
on the grounds that we would become interdisciplinary social scien-
tists. However, these team assignments had the peculiar quality of bearing
no
relationship
to any
specific empirical problem
in the
study
of
society,
culture,
or
personality. They were designed instead
to
showthat
the
con-
cepts used by social science investigators could have fixed meanings. The
apparatus
of
concepts
replaced
a
concern
for
specifying
a
research problem.
Hence
the
concern
for finding
definitions
offundamental
concepts,
funda-
mentalpropositions
and
hypotheses,
and the
evaluation
of
theories
from
the point of view ofdistilling
from
them their common elements. The
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objectiveofcreating Basic Social Science was tocreatethemethodological
apparatus that would establish
the
social sciences
as
science.
TH EAIMSOFBASIC SOCIAL SCIENCE
Th e
clearest statement
of the
aims
of
Basic Social Science
is
contained
in
apaperheaded 'Social Relations 201A' anddated January3,1949.It is
a six-page,single-spaced faculty guideline called SomeAssumptions of
Basic Social
Science.
Itlistsitsassumptions under
four
headings:A. The
Operations andAimsofSocial Scientists, B.Constitutional Assumptions,
C.Psychological Assumptions,D.Socio-Cultural Assumptions.Forpresent
purposes, adiscussionofpointAaloneand the twopoints subsumed under
it
are
sufficient
to describe itsaims. In abbreviated form, point A runs
asfollows:
A. TheOperationsandAimsof Social Scientists.
1. If science is both nomothetic an d idiographic then anything which exists is
amenabletoscientificstudy.. . It isassumed tha t thereare no apriorilimitations
tounderstanding human behavior.
2.
The
methods
of
sciences
are
multiple
. . .
Observation
of
objects
of
sense
. . .
Descriptions of
objects
of sense . . .
Ordering
of
facts
by
classes
and
con-
cepts . . .Formation of conceptual schemes according to principles of
utility
an d parsimony with th esequential deduction of hypotheses.
3.
Theaimsofscience aremultiple. . . Prediction ofevents. . .Explanationof
events
. . .
Control
of
events.
Theseaimsandtheir concomitant methods promiseacapacitytopre-
dict, explainandcontrol events.Thequestionof whowould control events
is
not specifiedin this document. Perhaps social scientists would exercise
such
control in astyle similarto that ofphysicists when workingintheir
laboratories. As I
will
indicate below, suchanassumption couldbeunder-
stoodonlyon the basis ofsocial scientists' work during their World War
IIgovernmental service.
Point 4underAdistinguishes between
basic
andnon-basic social sci-
ences. Basic Social Sciencesarethose already withinthefoldof the Depart-
ment
of
Social Relations. Non-basic social sciences
are
history, economics
andpolitical science:
4. Basic social science is thestudyof the speciesman, the cultureh ebuilds, an d
of
man as anindividual.Itincludes clinicalandsocial psychology, sociologyan d
social anthropology. The term basic differentiates itself from the other social
sciences; history, economics an d political science, an d implies that these latter
assume
the
conclusions
of
basicsocial science
(emphasis added).
Point
5
cautions that cross-fertilization
of the
Basic Social Sciences
is
not yet accomplished:
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629
5. Basic Social Science is not an accomp lished entity. W e recognize that the sciences
included in the
genus
each
have
their own conceptual
schemes
whichat present
are not completely translatable one
into
another. Basic
Social
Science
strictly
speaking
implies
a
goal
the
formation
of a
common
theoretical system
from
whichthe
theoretical schemes
of the subsumed can be deduced
(emphasis added).
BasicSocial Science strictly speaking implies agoal, the formation
of
a common theoretical system. Its objective was to establish a set of
propositions common to the fields embraced in the Department. Once a
common theoretical system wasframed, it would be ava ilable to historians,
economists and political scientists whose workwouldbe premised upon it.
Point 4 has a decided imperial ring to it. However, Point 5 concedes that
atthe time of our studies, a Basic Social Science had not yet accomplished
its goal. There is here the suggestion that our mentors had not yet come
to anagreementon howmuchofeach discipline wouldbe included in the
final
formulation
of Basic Social Science: territorial agreements had not yet
been adjudicated . Howev er, deliberations were to proceed in an ecum enical
spirit by the representatives of the disciplines. The enterprise as a whole
rested
on a comm itment to finding a comm on theoretical system
fromwhich
the theoretical schemes of the subsumed [clinical and social psychology,
sociology and anthropology] can be
deduced.
Once
fully
completed, Basic
Social Science theo ry would
define
theinv ariant elementsin anoverarching
and
universally applicable theoretical construct. Ecumenicism was to be
social scientificallybenevolent, but not universal. The Basic Social Science
project was extraordina rily ambitious and promised no less than a m ethod
or a
foundation
from which all
research could
be
conducted.
It is not
clear
how the
goal
of
creating
a
common theoretical system
would
provide
a
foundation
for the
scientific
aim of
Prediction
of
events
. . .
Explanation
of
events
. . .
Control
of
events.
That
is, how
can
specific claims be derived
from
a general theory? And, on the other
hand,
how can a
general theory
be
used
to
predict
and
control events? This
was
the problem of
linking
the theoretical scheme to action in historically
specific
situations, institutions and events. This task was assigned to prosem -
inar
team 6, Strategic Problems, and team 8, Applications of Social
Science. Since the common theoretical system for Basic Social Science
was
not yet in place, the student teams
found
themselves in uncharted
territory. Yet, according
to the
logic
of the
proseminar syllabus,
if
Basic
Social Science was to provide the theoretical foundation for the rational
application of the social sciences, then its applied potential would need
dem onstration. It was not inten ded t hat social science should be a d isinter-
ested intellectual activity, but that it should provide gu idance to other
non-basic social sciences as
well
as to enter the world and guide it in its
transformations. But finding the
method
by which the
nomothetic could
byapplied to the idiographic and vice-versa proved to be an insu rmo untab le
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and
embarrassing problem
for the
proseminar teams given these assign-
ments.
Writers of thereport on Strategic AreasofResearch inBasic Social
Science noted
in
their preamble that they encountered difficulties
in
car-
rying
ou t their assignment and could not find a criteria for defining a
strategicproblem:
Speech
is
healthierthan
silence,
even though
one
knows that what
one
says
is
vague
and
inconclusive
(Murray).
In accordancewiththe idiosyncrasies of itswriters,this reportpresentsdiscussions
ofseven problems in which research isneeded.Itsintent is toraise
questions,
not
to
provide
or
summarize answers.
The problems
discussed
are not
thought
to
exhaust
a list of
important
areasofresearch.Whether they were strategicproblemswas
itselfa problem to the group.
Left to their ow nresources, the team came upwith seven problem
areas
and an
eighth item listing research then being conducted
by the
membersof t
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