Journal of Classical Sociology http://jcs.sagepub.com/ This is social science: A 'patterned activity' oriented to attaining objective knowledge of human society Eric Malczewski Journal of Classical Sociology 2014 14: 341 originally published online 22 August 2013 DOI: 10.1177/1468795X13495124 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jcs.sagepub.com/content/14/4/341 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Journal of Classical Sociology can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jcs.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jcs.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://jcs.sagepub.com/content/14/4/341.refs.html >> Version of Record - Oct 21, 2014 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Aug 22, 2013 What is This? Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by guest on October 21, 2014 JCS14410.1177/1468795X13495124Journal of Classical SociologyMalczewski 4951242013 Article Journal of Classical Sociology 2014, Vol. 14(4) 341 –362 This is social science: © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: A ‘patterned activity’ sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1468795X13495124 oriented to attaining objective jcs.sagepub.com knowledge of human society Eric Malczewski Harvard University, USA Abstract The aim of this article is to demonstrate that approaching social science as a ‘patterned activity’ draws attention both to the distinctive nature of social science and to its central subject matter – meaningful (symbolically oriented) behavior and theoretical entities based on it – enabling therefore a constructive perspective on the major debate regarding social science’s organizing principles. A patterned activity is defined as a cluster of behavior oriented to a basic (that is, characteristic or defining) goal or aim accorded value; the goal or aim, by which the norms of the patterned activity are bounded, is the satisfaction of a certain appetite, desire, or need. The concept of a patterned activity is rooted in and developed from elements of Max Weber’s methodological writings. This concept is evaluated against Clifford Geertz’s ‘cultural systems’ approach and Robert K. Merton’s view of the norms of science, and the article then addresses the legacy of Talcott Parsons more generally. Lastly, Émile Durkheim’s and Weber’s respective approaches to social science are assessed so as to illuminate their views regarding its central subject matter and to demonstrate a convergence of their views. Keywords Durkheim, Geertz, epistemology, meaning, Merton, methodology, Parsons, patterned activity, Science, social science, theory, Weber The debate concerning social science’s organizing principles and central subject matter has endured for almost two centuries. In the beginning (which is as early as 1813), Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Count of Saint-Simon, offered in his nascent science de l’homme a perspective on this matter that he hoped would not only constitute a coherent approach Corresponding author: Eric Malczewski, Lecturer on Social Studies, The Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, Harvard University, 59 Shepard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Email: [email protected] Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by guest on October 21, 2014 342 Journal of Classical Sociology 14(4) to distinctively human (or ‘social’) phenomena but would also bridge science with the approach of speculative philosophy, resulting in objective knowledge of man and societies (Garnham, 2007; Gouldner, 1958; Saint-Simon, 1952). Saint-Simon’s perspective entailed approaching ideas as positive phenomena – that is, as observed and examined facts – and this approach, in his view, would unify the activities of science and philosophy by sub- jecting systems of ideas to empirical scrutiny and would put an end to what appeared to be science’s and speculative philosophy’s apparently irreconcilable epistemological differ- ences. The intellectual purchase obtained by Saint-Simon’s positively grounded approach entailed the possibility of progress, distinguishing his science de l’homme from the non- constructive modes of thought that he attributed to the philosophes (Harris, 2001: 59; also see Marcuse, 1960 [1941]: 327). Remarking on the thought of this key figure in the history of social science, Émile Durkheim argued that for Saint-Simon it is the idea, or knowledge, that is the positive source of all social life and that is the motive force behind all progress or social change (1958: 90-91; also see 1928): that is to say that positively grounded (that is, empirically established and, therefore, observable) ideas are the characteristic basic set of facts that distinguish Saint-Simon’s science of man and societies from the early nineteenth century’s established sciences of chemistry, astronomy, and physics. This contribution is signal: Saint-Simon sought to define the empirical field of human distinctiveness and to bring to bear on it an approach to explanation capable of producing objective knowledge. Saint-Simon’s approach, as is well known, did not meet with success – and two centuries later the definition of the field of human distinctiveness remains contested (see Abbott, 2004: 41–79; Alexander, 1988; Alexander and Seidman, 1990; Alexander and Smith, 2010; Bunge, 1998; Friedman, 2004; Malczewski, 2013; Pascale, 2010; Sewell, 2005a; Tilly, 2005), leading the sociologist Liah Greenfeld to argue that the paradigm of the social sciences does not focus on humanity (Greenfeld, 2004, 2005b; also see Friedman, 2004: 144) and the historian William H. Sewell, Jr to ask seriously the elementary question ‘What do we mean by the “social” in “social science”?’ (2005a: 318). Contributing to this major debate, the late sociologist Charles Tilly (2005) argued that three types of approaches or metatheories – systemic, dispositional, and transactional (or relational) – account for the several ways in which what is gener- ally recognized as social science has developed (2005; also see Bunge, 1996, 1998, whose individualism–holism–systemism trilemma echoes this in certain ways).1 Tilly sees these three approaches to explanation as contradictory, as building on differing ontological grounds with differing analytical tools: the nature and causes of social processes hence are seen to differ essentially (2005: especially 14–15 and 25–27) – and the definition of social science’s central subject matter and explanatory framework remains in abeyance. Jeffrey Alexander’s extensive analysis (1982, 1987) reveals, moreover, that postwar sociological debate largely does not illuminate the basic pre- suppositions informing theoretical logic in sociology (1982: 1–64), and it suggests that reliance on residual categories masks fundamental problems (such as the lack of a general framework) that derive from a lack of engagement with the level of basic pre- suppositions. What these views demonstrate most strikingly is that what we know as ‘social science’ is a fractured entity, and, what is also striking, the scope of empirical evidence is restricted to such an extent that it is fair to claim that social scientific the- ory in its generality rests on an ad hoc use of evidence. Downloaded from jcs.sagepub.com by guest on October 21, 2014 Malczewski 343 The key to addressing the problem concerning the central subject matter of social sci- ence is discovering an approach that permits a move from proliferating isolated metathe- ories to a general theory that explains the central subject matter of the social sciences. This subject matter, emphatically, first must be defined. I agree with Talcott Parsons (1990: 326) – and Durkheim before him (1937 [1895], 1978b [1909]) – that a definition is at least the prolegomenon of a theory. The elementary condition for a theory that resolves the anomalies manifest in our fractured social science is the specification of the basic or elemental set of facts – for facts never proclaim themselves – that distinguishes ‘social’ science from the other special sciences. My aim here is to take a step forward in the direction of defining the central subject matter of the social sciences by helping to make salient the importance of circumscribing the elemental phenomena against which we can test competing theories: to this end, this article examines social science from the standpoint of a ‘patterned activity’ in order to highlight the essential connection between the aims of social science and the definition of its central empirical phenomena. Understanding the organizing principles of social science from the perspective of a patterned activity can help us to simplify the structures of theories that currently pass under the term ‘social science’ by making clear social sci- ence’s central subject matter, thereby offering a solution to the crisis of identity that has plagued the social sciences. Social science, in this way, can rise unitarily from the same ontological ground. The next section begins with a discussion of the concept of a patterned activity. The difference between this concept and Clifford Geertz’s ‘cultural systems’ is discussed, before the article segues to an assessment of the improvement that the concept of a pat- terned activity offers over Robert K. Merton’s view of the norms of science. The legacy of Parsons is then addressed more generally. A discussion on the necessity of establishing complementarity between scientific claims and their objects follows. Then, I present my argument that social