Durkheim's Response to Spencer: An Essay Toward Historicism in the Historiography of Sociology

Abstract

Merton has made an important distinction between the “history” any “systematics” of sociological theory, and outlined the valuable functions of the former. Most histories of sociology, however, have been “presetist” or “Whiggish” in perspective; we propose an “historicist” alternative. Within this perspective, Durkheim's response to Spencer is analyzed in three areas: (1) the relation between “individual” and “society;” (2) evolution and social change; and (3) the scope and method of sociology. In these areas, Durkheim's critical style reveals a repetitive theme which is termed “inversion.” The essay concludes by re‐affirming Merton's distinction and urging that the “historicist” perspective is the most valid and useful approach to the history of sociology.

Reflections on the concept of ‘precursor’: Juan de Vilanova and the discovery of Altamira

“…Peel (1971: 274) claimed that, when dealing with precursors, historians 'have to grapple with a different reality, the answers to different problems, the upshot of different purposes'. As these and other examples illustrate (Jones, 1974;Sandler, 1979), the 1960s and the 1970s marked a veritable watershed in the historiography of precursors in the English-speaking world.…”

Título por confirmar-entrega en dos semanas

“…en 2004, Arnaud Hurel, jurista e historiador de formación, defendía su tesis doctoral sobre la institucionalización de la prehistoria en Francia desde la Revolución hasta 1941 (Hurel 2007). Como estos ejemplos demuestran, la mayoría de los especialistas en lengua francesa son histo-en realidad, el programa de la nueva historia de la arqueología es muy similar al que adoptó la historia de la ciencia durante los años sesenta y al que, inspirados por thomas Kuhn, desarrollaron otras disciplinas como la historia de las ideas (dunn 1968;Skinner 1969), de la antropología (Stocking 1965) o de la sociología (Jones 1974;Seidman 1983). Dicha renovación historiográfica se basó en una serie de principios fundamentales, tales como la afirmación del condicionamiento social de la ciencia, el énfasis en la noción de 'paradigma', la crítica de la 'whig history' y la adopción de un 'historicismo' que establecía que, en la medida de lo posible, los historiadores tenían que entender a los científicos del pasado en su propio contexto.…”

Charles Tilly, German Historicism, and the Critical Realist Philosophy of Science

“…This is a view of the past as having "vital urgency for us"-an urgency that distinguishes the historicist stance "from that of simple antiquarianism" (Jameson 1979: 51). Historicism is used "as an appropriate expression for the commitment to understand the past in its own terms, and to analyze the unique social, historical, and intellectual foundations of ideas" (Jones 1974: 343: note 4; my emphasis). Historicism is also an anti-naturalistic doctrine.…”