Comments on: Twilight of Sociology?

By: sozlog » Blog Archive » Twilight of sociology?

sozlog » Blog Archive » Twilight of sociology? — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:38:15 +0000

[...] Fabio at orgtheory and Peter Klein at organizations and markets comes Wilfred McClay’s pathbreaking article in the Wall Street Journal. The author observes [...]

By: Bruce’s Blog / links for 2007-02-13

Bruce’s Blog / links for 2007-02-13 — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:33:10 +0000

[...] Twilight of Sociology? « Organizations and Markets whether the discipline of sociology itself may now be ebbing away, as so many of its leading practitioners depart the scene without, it seems, anyone standing ready to replace them (tags: philosophy science social history sociology death) [...]

By: Donald Douglas

Donald Douglas — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 17:07:38 +0000

I blogged on this McClay’s piece as well. I had some similar concerns as Brayden’s above, though my feeling is that McClay sees constraints more on the political economy side (analyzed from a Marxian class perspective) rather than the individualist, cultural perspective of classically liberal norms and ideas. The piece is available free as well on the OpinionJournal.com web page, and you’ll find the link in my post:

http://burkeanreflections.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-happened-to-sociology.html

By: Jay Livingston

Jay Livingston — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:59:57 +0000

As with most golden eras, those of us who lived through it didn’t realize at the time that it was golden. So it’s possible that some McClay counterpart a half-century from now will tell us that 2007 was a golden era and name the Big Names whose like are no longer to be found now in 2057.

I also find it odd that McClay doesn’t follow his own advice and look fo the external constraints that lead to “scientism.” The structure of academics (hiring, promotion) and publishing probably have a lot more to do with it that does ideology. It’s not just a question of whether a book like “The End of Ideology” would get published today but whether it would get written. At my own university, the Provost, in his reappointmnet statement for a junior faculty member, cautioned that the faculty member was too much oriented towards writing a book.

By: David Hoopes

David Hoopes — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:23:17 +0000

Finding social theory in sociology.
It seems to me that sociological theories in the strategy neighborhood tend to be undersocialized. Population ecology is supposed to be sociology, but their is little social about it. Similarly, much of “network theory” is largely strcutural, with little to say about behavior. If the theories “worked” I don’t suppose being structural per se would matter. But, I rarely find such work insightful.
Certainly, a great deal of sociology is based on socialist political premises (a lot of the work on the sociology of knowledge). If you don’t agree with the political premises, then the work has little to offer.
Sociolgical work on cognition is another odd area. The work that passes itself as social psychology from a sociological perspective can be very rigid. “Everything is a social construction.”
Anthropology has divided into to two camps (or you can frame it that way). The neo-Gertzians have given up on traditional anthropology to focus on political commentary. The neo-Goodenough (one example is cognitive anthropoloyg: D’Andrade and others) still examining culture.

By: David Gordon

David Gordon — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:15:47 +0000

Friedrich Hayek once recommended an article by Robert Merton on functional explanation. He said, “Merton is one of the best of the sociologists. Of course, that isn’t saying very much.” This was in a course on Philosophy of the Social Sciences, given at UCLA in 1969.

By: the rumors of sociology’s demise have been greatly exaggerated « orgtheory.net

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 04:00:47 +0000

[...] old friend, Peter Klein of the evil twin Organizations and Markets blog, draws our attention to a recent Wall Street Journal article called “The Twilight of Sociology” by Wilfred [...]

By: brayden

brayden — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 03:07:41 +0000

You hadn’t heard from me about this because I had decided to ignore it as just another “the sky is falling” complaint about the modern state of academia. Sociology frequently is targeted in these rants. In part we deserve the criticism. Much of sociology is very scientistic, and some of it, especially that which is taught in classrooms, is overly-political. But I think McClay drastically overstates the argument. You only need to look as far as the business school to see how influential sociology has become in certain areas of scholarly and practical life, although sometimes the label of sociology is absent. His discussion about the avoidance of discussion about universal constraints and norms seems absolutely ludicrous. I don’t know which sociology journals he’s reading if he thinks we’re no longer interested in studying structural and normative constraints.