The Paradigamic Status of Sociology

Published in Social Science Review. Vol 1. Number 1,

December 1984. Pages 132-157. (Quote accordingly)

The Paradigmatic Status of Sociology

Nazrul Islam[1]

Sociologists have always been concerned with the diversity of opinions that exist among the members of the discipline. And though many regarded this as a kind of weakness, others like Martindale argue that it is in the nature of younger disciplines to centre around prominent scholars and form schools of thoughts.¹ Thus, until the late Nineteen-sixties, sociologists continued to identify themselves in terms of schools of thought and, I presume, that the state of affairs would have remained the same had it not been for another bright idea that has come to capture the imagination of the sociologists lately. This is the idea of paradigms, coined by Thomas Kuhn² to connote a meaning more attractive and challenging than the idea conveyed by the term school. And over the last few years more and more sociologists are talking in terms of paradigms.

It should not, however, be assumed that, for once at least, the sociologists are agreeing on the meaning of a concept. On the contrary, the term paradigm has given rise to the same amount of confusion and controversy as is true of any other concept that sociologists work with. While on the one hand many sociologists feel that sociology is devoid of paradigms, on the other hand some have identified multiple paradigms within it. This paper is an attempt to clarify the status of paradigms within sociology and shed some new light on the debate concerning ‘paradigms' in sociology.

The debate concerning paradigms centres around two basic questions. First, does sociology have paradigms or is it still in the 'pre-paradigmatic' stage? And second, if there are such things as paradigms in sociology, what are they? The questions seem simple enough but the sociologists are as divided on the answers to these as they were on, say, questions concerning alienation. While scholars like Friedrichs³ and Lehmann and Young⁴ feel that sociology has so far been dominated by one paradigm and it is time for a change to another, others like Ritzer⁵ find that there have so far been three paradigms. Again, others like Effrat⁶ find numerous paradigms in sociology, including one each for thinkers such as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Freud or Parsons. Yet others, like Urry^7, argue that "what Kuhn takes to be the nature of natural scientific development is not necessarily relevant to sociology.⁸ The position taken in this paper is that sociology, far from being in the pre-paradigmatic state, operates within the confines of a paradigm and that what is interpreted as multiple paradigm stage, is only the stage of crisis prior to a revolution in sociology. The paper thus assumes that with certain modifications, Kuhn's thesis could be effectively applied to understand the paradigmatic status of sociology.

These positions differ in a number of ways from the works of other scholars in that it rejects the status of multiple paradigms for sociology. Also that, unlike those who think that sociology was dominated by a functionalist or a systemic paradigm, this paper holds that, though for the most part we did not remain true to it, sociology continues to flourish within the limits of, what I like to identify as the 'Comtean paradigm'.

However, before we enter the debate regarding these issues, let us first take a brief look at Kuhn's conceptualization of the paradigm. Kuhn expounded his idea of paradigms in three different places. The first and the main body, titled, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was published in 1962. Second, the "Postscript-1969" was published as a response to his critiques as a part of the second edition to his original work⁹. The third is also a response to his critiques and is titled as “Reflections on My Critics”-and was published in Lakatos and Musgrave edited, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge in 1970. Unfortunate as it may seem, his defense of the criticisms has to a great extent minimised the role of paradigms in particular, and his thesis in general. Indeed, as Ritzer puts it, the later works have "worked to the detriment of Kuhn's perspective".¹⁰ W e shall also have occasion to examine this proposition later, but let it suffice for the present to say that his defenses have been weaker than his propositions and is at the root of a lot of confusions that have risen in sociology.

Yet, the basic theme of Kuhn's work is relatively simple to follow. He argues that unlike the popular beliefs and the notion presented through the textbooks, sciences do not evolve from simple to the complex, gradually building on the past achievements. Rather the process of development is typified by a succession of revolutions. Kuhn even goes to the extent of claiming that textbooks disguise the existence of revolutions and thereby present a picture of uniform development of the sciences.¹¹Ritzer feels that to some extent such deceptions are necessary since these books “need not expose the student to the blind alleys, dead ends, discoveries, and revolutions that led to its present state".¹² This, I feel, is highly debatable, because if the student is not exposed to the pitfalls or stories of successful endeavours he would not become aware of the intricacies involved in the development of scientific knowledge. And, though it may not appear practical, at some stage of his training the student needs to be told of the blind alleys and dead ends, at least, to guard him from entering one.

However, the fact remains that most of the science texts do not present the stories of failures or revolutionary successes. As such the history of the sciences appears to be one of cumulative progression. Kuhn feels that on the contrary the basic changes in the sciences are brought about by "revolutions" which are preceded by a stage of intense crisis within the disciplines. The story of the development of sciences may thus be seen as flowing from a stage where there is a perfect, or nearly perfect, consensus regarding the field, techniques and the problems to be solved followed by a stage of anomaly where this perfect consensus starts facing problems. The continued failure to answer the anomalies leads to a stage of crisis, when the basis of the consensus comes to be challenged. At this time various schools of thought start competing for the supremacy of their modes of inquiry. Then, due to some revolutionary contribution made in the ways of understanding the problems facing the discipline the crisis ends. This new mode of thinking is normally more effective in solving the problems than the previous ones and soon gathers adherence and ultimately remains as the only acceptable mode of inquiry. Thus, through the achievement of a new consensus, science moves to a new position from which it offers a new interpretation of the subject matter and techniques of inquiry and at the same time draws the boundary within which the members operate. Kuhn identifies this stage as the stage of a normal science. It is called normal since at this stage the members of the community engages in 'normal' scientific activities, being quite aware of what is expected of him and without having to bother to define every thing he does. All he does is basically a mop up work since both the puzzles and the ways to solve them have been defined for him by now. Thus, sciences move from one state of consensus to another through an intricate process of anomalies, crisis and revolutions.

In this, rather a quick summary of Kuhn, I have avoided the use of the word paradigm. It has been done consciously, since this is where the problems begin. Kuhn himself is not very comfortable with the use of the term and quite frankly admits that he uses the term in the absence of a more suitable word.¹³ He also admits that he does not use it in its day to day meaning, that of a paradigm being an accepted model or pattern.¹⁴However, it is extremely difficult to define what he really means by the word. He himself is aware of the confusion the term has led to. Masterman identified at least twenty-two different ways in which the word had been used by Kuhn.¹⁵ The latter, however, feels that the confusion is the result of 'stylistic inconsistencies' and argues that it can be eliminated with 'relative ease.¹⁶ He notes that even after editing the different usages the word has been put to, two different meanings remain attached to it. The word thus stands for the "entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a community", and on the other hand, "it denotes one sort of element in that constellation, the puzzle-solutions which employed as models or examples, can replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science".¹⁷ What these definitions suggest then is that paradigms carry a very general meaning which amounts to be the consensus among a community regarding their beliefs, values and techniques, that is, the field and method of inquiry for the discipline. On the other hand, paradigms carry a very specific meaning, which indicates this consensus regarding the field and method of inquiry through some exemplary works (such as works of Newton – to be more specific, for instance, f=ma). These works are exemplary in the very literal sense in that on the basis of these the student learns to solve the puzzles.

Of these two usages in which Kuhn thinks the term paradigm could be used, most scholars come to prefer the former. This has been labeled as the metaphysical paradigm by Masterman¹⁸ and represent "a total world view, gestalt or weltanschuung".¹⁹ This view is supported by other scholars such as Brown²⁰ who equates it with his idea of 'root metaphors' and shows that a number of other scholars had used different terms to convey a similar (to his root metaphors) meaning. Ritzer also shows that the metaphysical paradigm:

1. .... defines what entities are (and are not) the concern of a particular scientific community.

2. It tells the scientist where to look (and where not to look) in order to find entities of concern to him.

3. It tells the scientist what he can expect to discover when he finds and examines the entities of concern to his field.²¹

Thus, Ritzer echoes our definition of the paradigm as the universal consensus within a community regarding the field and method of inquiry. Such a definition is preferred to other more specific definition of a paradigm as an exemplar primarily because the latter is merely a constituent part of the more inclusive definition. Both Ritzer²² and Friedrichs²³ seem to agree to such a position. However, we also find a close parallel between our definition and that of Ritzer and Friedrichs. The latter defined it as “the fundamental image a discipline bas of its subject matter"²⁴ Ritzer qualifies this with the addition that "the paradigm is the broadest unit of consensus within a science and serves to differentiate one scientific community from another"²⁵. Ritzer also argues that the main thrust of Kuhn's original work also leads to a similar definition²⁶. We may therefore, conclude that our definition is quite in tune with the works of both Kuhn and other scholars working on paradigm.

Defining paradigms this way also helps us avoid the confusion regarding the exemplars in sociology. If paradigms are to be seen in relation to exemplars then we must first locate the exemplars in sociology. Friedrichs argued that in sociology, unlike the natural sciences, there are no 'stable' exemplars what we have is a 'steady stream' of exemplars provided by such journals as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology and Social Forces. It is obvious that the huge mass of articles that get published cannot all be treated as exemplars even in the most general sense of the term. They do not provide the kind of examples even close to the works such as Dalton's atomic theory or Boyle's law (not to talk of comparing these with exemplars provided by Newton or Einstein). Bryant²⁷ also seems to support our position. He says that there are no exemplars in sociology and what are proposed as exemplars lack the "imposing authority of exemplars in natural sciences"²⁸. Ritzer²⁹, in spite of his dislike for exemplars uses them to elucidate his paradigms. However, though he uses works of Durkheim and Weber as exemplars of a paradigm each, he notes at the end of his book that the works of these authors could also be seen as bridging two or more paradigms³⁰. This weakens the very basis of his exemplars and the paradigms in general since if the same exemplars could be applicable to two or more paradigms, there would remain no distinction among the paradigms and such as his exemplars cease to be exemplars. We, therefore, maintain that since there is a lack of exemplars, and consensus regarding them, it would be more fruitful to deal with paradigms on the more inclusive level of the definition.

It might then be argued that since we recognise the lack of exemplars, we are, in a way, recognising the absence of paradigms in sociology. That would be true if we restricted our definition of paradigm to the more specific usage suggested by Kuhn. This would, however, also mean a dead end in the search for paradigms. On the other hand our acceptance of the broader definition of the term leaves us enough room for the examination of numerous paradigms that have been proposed for sociology. This also suggests that most of the previous claims to paradigms do not rest on the issue of exemplars. Rather they, as we shall argue later, base the classification on an arbitrary mixture of schools of thought.

Thus, now that we have established our definition of a paradigm, we can move to other aspects of our arguments. But before we do so we have to answer Urry³¹ who argues that Kuhn's thesis is based on the study of the history of the natural sciences and therefore need not hold true for sociology. He also argues that the attraction of Kuhn's thesis to the sociologists lies in the latter's positivistic biases³². Bryant³³ feels that this does not hold, and then argues that the idea of paradigm is applicable to areas other than the natural sciences. Indeed, it should be noted that Kuhn first conceived of the idea when he found a lack of consensus among the social scientists regarding 'fundamentals'³⁴. Urry's argument can therefore be treated as offering an excuse for the assumed weaknesses (the lack of paradigms) of the social sciences. I am tempted to remark here that such arguments in defense of our weaknesses, in relation to the natural sciences, are not uncommon in sociology today. However, I say 'assumed weaknesses' because such 'paradigmless' state is not uncommon in the natural sciences either. And it has also been shown by Ritzer that Kuhn's idea of a paradigm is equally applicable to fields such as linguistics, where, Ritzer shows, a paradigmatic revolution was brought about by Chimsky's Syntatic Structures³⁵. Brown³⁶, similarly treats Picaso's work as revolutionary (in the paradigmatic sense) in the field of arts. Thus, there is no need to look at Kuhn's theory to be relevant only in the natural sciences. I rather feel that it can be seen as an ideal typical model for the understanding of historical development of ideas.

It was stated at the beginning of this essay that the major questions raised with regard to paradigms in sociology are two: whether sociology is in a paradigmatic stage or not, and if yes, what are the paradigms? I have already suggested that unlike what Kuhn argued, we are not at the pre-paradigmatic stage. I also suggested that sociology does not have multiple paradigms and the paradigm sociology has (or, as I shall presently argue, did have) is neither the systemic nor functionalist paradigm. I have also indicated, by way of criticising Ritzer, that sociology is not a multiple paradigm science.

To defend these arguments let us first look at the question whether sociology has paradigms or not. It is true that Kuhn thought the social sciences lacked paradigms, at least, of the nature he was interested in. Since he equated the stage of ‘normal science' with the status of a paradigmatic science, he would quite naturally fail to see paradigms in such disciplines as sociology. I maintain that when he was writing about paradigms, and to the present, sociology has not been in a stage of normal science. It is, on the contrary, as I shall show later, in a stage of 'crisis'. And as Kuhn would agree, there cannot be any consensus regarding any issue at that stage. Nor is there any in sociology.

However, Kuhn argued, in the first edition of his book, that sociology is in a pre-paradigmatic situation. This implies that there has been no consensus regarding its field and method of inquiry or, to take the more specific meaning of the term paradigm, there have not been any exemplars either. What then is the basis of our identification as sociologists? We all call ourselves sociologists and have been formally trained and been taught to think in terms of sociology. But what does sociology stand for? We definitely are a community and claim a field or subjects of inquiry and have developed methods of going about doing what we do. It is true that we do not have much consensus these days regarding what we do, or that, we did not have a consensus for a long time. Yet there must be some understanding of our field or method of doing things through which we identify ourselves. It is on the basis of such an understanding that we claim to be members of the discipline.

It is this claim to become members of a community that holds the key to a paradigm. By claiming to be sociologists, we draw our lineage from Comte, whom we recognize as the founder father of the discipline. What is it of Comte that we refer to as sociologists? Comte did not only give a name to the discipline but also carefully defined its subject matter, that is, the field and methods of inquiry. Indeed, he offered the first paradigm for the study of society. He founded the scientific-study of society.

There had been numerous efforts at studying society before Comte. Even during his lifetime such personalities as St. Simon or Marx were working towards the same ends but there was some thing new in Comte that separated his work from the rest. He not only claimed a new science but also showed that society could be studied in a different way – the scientific way. By scientific he meant the positive scientific way. The method, of inquiry corresponded to observation, experimentation and comparison and included the analysis of history as well. At the same time he argued that society could be understood through the study of its structure, (social statics) and the study of change (dynamics), these were placed in the historical and comparative perspectives. This claim to a new way of studying society and the identification of the field and the method of inquiry is what I call the "Comtean paradigm". If we were to talk in terms of exemplars we would identify them in Comte's static, dynamics and his resort to history. Such claims to new ways of looking at the subject matter is at, the root of the Kuhnian paradigm and is what Kuhn identifies as a paradigm. Such were the cases with Copernicus, Einstein, Roentgen or for that matter of fact Chomsky or Picasso.

To this it may be added that while every new discipline offers for its members a new way of looking at the phenomena, it defines for them the field of inquiry and indicates the methods of study. Hence, when individuals or groups of people claim to be members of any discipline they do it on the acceptance of that way of looking at the phenomena and with the recognition of the field and method of inquiry prescribed for it. Thus it might be argued that each discipline is a new paradigm for its members. In support of this argument Stephen's³⁷ statement could be quoted. He like wise says that "all scientific communities have a paradigm from the out set".³⁸ Thus we may conclude that sociology far from being at the pre-paradigmatic stage did start with a distinct paradigm.

What happened to that paradigm is an altogether a different issue, which will be the subject matter of the later part of this essay. But here I wish to point out that since the establishment of the Comtean paradigm, as is true of all paradigms, the previous studies of society were found inadequate and have collectively been termed as social philosophy to distinguish them from the scientific study of society under sociology. And even before the study of sociology came to be formalized in educational institutions, sociologists, sought to identify themselves from the other social scientists on the basis of their field and the method of inquiry.

Seeing sociology in relation to one or the other paradigm or even a number of paradigms is not uncommon. Urry³⁹ notes that sociologists responded to Kuhn in two different ways. Of these the non-radical way is to assume that there is no paradigm in sociology that it is in a pre-paradigmatic stage with a number of schools competing for the position of a paradigm. This group of thinkers, therefore, advocates an end to competition and the establishment of a single paradigm. The radical response on the other hand holds that sociology is already under the influence of a paradigm, namely the systemic or the structural functional paradigm, and that this has proved ineffective and must be replaced by a new paradigm, like conflict etc. Urry, however, dismissed these on the basis that such positions reflect the positivist bias among sociologists and this makes them equate the development in sociology with that of the development in the natural sciences.^4o We have already argued against this showing that Kuhn's theory has a much broader application than Urry assumes and, thus, even if we accept that the methods of the natural sciences do not hold in the field of sociology we could still examine the paradigmatic position of sociology. Moreover, Urry ignores those sociologists who see multiple paradigms in sociology. I feel there should be an adequate explanation to refute their arguments and not just ignore their works, which Urry seems to be doing.

However, Urry is right in showing that sociology has so far been dominated by one single paradigm, and that it is time to change it. The foremost among them is Friedrichs who holds that primarily due to the effort of Parsons, sociologists came to be organized under the system paradigm.⁴¹ He assumes that there was no paradigm in sociology up to the time of second World War and the systematic paradigm dominated sociology during the fifties. Housed in functionalism, the systemic paradigm was also reinforced by the advancement in computer technology and the commitment to status quo of the fifties.⁴² But Friedrichs also notes that this supremacy was not unchallenged. The “most popular pretender to the throne was conflict" school.⁴³ He also argues that by the beginning of the sixties the strength of conflict school was equal to that of system school and this would be confirmed by a simple 'headcount' too. At the same time, he notes, there were other schools of thought like action theorists, or behaviourists, whose opposition became more prominent as system paradigm declined in importance and for the sixties he identifies as a large number of contenders to the ‘throne', including the phenomenological sociology.⁴⁴

Sensitive, as he was to the question, Friedrichs did recognise that this was a stage of 'crisis' in the Kuhnian sense of the term. And he argued that the way out of this was through the dialectical paradigm, which he felt, was gaining prominence after the rediscovery of Marx in sociology. But, of course, he was not talking as a Marxist, he was rather asking for the dialectics proposed by the phenomenologists or the symbolic interactionists. We shall deal with this question a 1ittle later but for the present I shall side with Ritzer and say that Friedrichs came to equate paradigms with theories and as such found all theories as would be paradigms. Moreover, as we argued above, Friedrichs also failed to see that sociology did start with a paradigm and not discover one in the fifties.

While Friedrichs seems to be convinced that the future paradigm for sociology is the dialectical paradigm others are not, Friedrichs in another of his work⁴⁵ assumes that dialectics is the paradigm for the seventies. But other scholars like Lehmann and Young feel that it is not dialectics but conflict that is the new paradigm for sociology⁴⁶. They come to this conclusion after a historical study of the development of sociology in the U.S.A. They argue that, as in the past generations, sociology responded to the socio-political conditions of the sixties and began to study conflicts. Like Friedrichs, these authors also hold that sociology was in a pre-paradigmatic stage until the forties and then settled for the functionalist paradigm, which came to consolidate its position in the fifties. To resolve the problems of the sixties, sociology shifted to the conflict paradigm. But though their analysis is commendable, as is also true of Friedrichs, they seem to be limited to the socio-political history of the U.S. and hence their conflict paradigm seem destined to deal with the conflict arising within the U.S. society, for the study (or, do they mean solution?) of which the sociologists should resort to the lawyer's method including the 'adversary principle'. Sociologists are advised to work with the court documents and try to identify conflicts that arise out of the inter-action between big business and the public.⁴⁷I do not see how could this method of inquiry be applicable to sociology in general or how much of conflict is generated within this field. They not only neglect the immense varieties of conflict but they fail to understand the meaning of conflict in sociological literature. For them conflict amounts to an opposition of big corporations and the wage earners. Thus, though their analysis of the historical conditions that change sociology is appreciable, their misunderstanding of conflict is too gross, and fails badly.

An analysis of the history of sociology is found to be important in this essay as well. We showed how sociology acquired its first paradigm through Comte and hinted that this was lost to a great extent. As Friedrichs and Lehmann and Young showed, sociology remained more sensitive to the problems within its immediate surroundings. By immediate I refer to both time and space. And all through history, especially in the U.S.A., sociology sought to "solve problems." And this is why sociology was geared to social control in the twenties and the thirties, to solve the problems arising out of the First World War, mass immigration, urbanization, depression, and various types of crimes associated with these. In the forties sociology in the U.S. tried to understand the War, in the fifties, the aftermath of the War how to re-settle the populations of Europe (and the U.S.A.) and how to gain order in society. Order and stability became the major object of research. In the sixties, like the rest of the U.S., sociology was shocked to realize that there is conflict in the U.S. society as well, and all eyes were turned to Marx and neo-Marxists like Marcuse, Mills and Dahrendorf. The quest for order, of the functionalists or the system theorists faced a set back. In the seventies sociologists began to look back and question the past findings.

Be it the fifties or the thirties, sociology remained preoccupied with order and stability in society, since the days of Comte. The main field of research centred around the study of the social structure. Thus, the main stream of sociology did not deviate much from the Comtean concern with order and the study of the social statics. But, of course, though there was recognition of the need to understand social change, social dynamics remained a neglected field of study. Similarly, with some notable exceptions like Weber, comparative study of history failed to make headway. On the other hand a large number of sociologists in every generation continued to search for new ways of understanding society. This implies that the Comtean paradigm was not wholly successful and that anomalies developed soon after it was offered. Comte's dislike for conflict forced Marx and his later followers to a position of outsiders to sociology. But the strength of the Marxist arguments continued to haunt sociology, and as one author puts it, sociology developed through a debate with the ghost of Karl Marx.⁴⁸ Thus, Comte's study of social change remained incomplete. So was the case with most of the later sociologists. On the one hand they followed Comte in his demand for a positive science of society and searched for order and aimed at the study of the social structure, while on the other hand, since Comtean paradigm did not offer them a complete understanding of change beyond the commitment to order, the sociologists were forced to look to other disciplines for support. They never seemed sure about their own field and method of inquiry and borrowed heavily from fields such as biology, anthropology and psychology. Thus the sociologist may be visualized as a person with one foot locked in the quick sand and searching for a foothold out of it with the other.

This is true of sociology since the time of Spencer. From then on biology continued to influence sociology. It came in various forms, social Darwinism, organicism, structural-functionalism, and recently as socio-biology (or, bio-sociology?). Similarly, psychology seemed to have some of the answers to the questions sociologists were asking. Whether it is in the attitude study, symbolic interaction, social behaviourism, game theory or labeling theory, it is psychology in one form or the other. Even functionalism could not escape it. The study of deviance became an important aspect of functionalism. Along with these external influences could be added, anthropology, phenomenology and ever present Marxism and so on. Where is sociology then? Asked in another form, who is a sociologist to day?

Andreski seems to be correct in concluding that there has been no sociology since Spencer.⁴⁹ Sociology is lost among claims and counter claims of various schools of thought. There has not been, any consensus among sociologists regarding the field or method of inquiry other than their claims to a scientific study of society, and to some extent their concern over order in society. Even during the period, which is assumed to have been dominated by one (systemic? or structural-functional?) paradigm, a large number of sociologists remained either totally or partially out of it. Many of those who claimed they were doing systemic analysis and were being functional in their explanation were found to have greater commitments to other schools of thought.

Moreover, today some are even questioning our claims to the status of a science. In the previous generations the question came mainly from outside the discipline but now it is being asked by people who see themselves as sociologists. They hold that sociology is not a science like physics and chemistry are sciences. It cannot be since it has to deal with the subjective phenomena. This question and the claims of various schools of thought as offering the best understanding of society have gained importance since the beginning of sixties and the situation today can be defined as a stage of crisis in the Kuhnian sense of the term.

Crisis is a constituent part of the process of the development of the sciences. Every science faces this stage prior to a revolution in it. Crisis arises when the dominant paradigm fails to answer the anomalies that the discipline comes to face. The anomalies are unanswered questions that keep increasing. In the initial stage of anomalies, scientists seek to answer them on the basis of the dominant paradigm. But as the number of unanswered questions keeps increasing, the very basis of the paradigm is challenged. Various schools of thought start offering themselves as possessing solutions to the questions, the competition gradually becomes very intense as each school of thought begins questioning the basic assumptions of the other contending schools. And in the absence of a paradigm all schools may seem equally competent to “takeover" but none of these may have the solution and a totally different viewpoint may win over as the new paradigm. Such a takeover is seen by Kuhn as being closely parallel to what happens in a political revolution. The competition among schools presents itself as a political debate and after the resolution of which non-supporters and nonmembers are left out and ignored. Thus the stage of crisis is not only an indicator of immense anomalies but is also a guide to the succeeding paradigm.

Anomalies began to develop early in the history of sociology. Evolutionism, which was at the root of Comtean social dynamics declined in importance in the twentieth century, and being unable to accommodate conflict or dialectical change within its scheme of analysis sociology was forced to shift its emphasis to the study of social statics only. Organicism similarly faced challenges in other social sciences. Sociology’s answer to these was the development and acceptance of structural functionalism, which was quite consistent with the Comtean paradigm in the sense that it was a positivistic analysis of social statics. Other anomalies concern the Weberian question regarding understanding of the subjective, Pareto’s concern with the irrational, Mead’s question about the self and so on. These anomalies were never fully answered and their number kept on increasing. And though some like Davis emphasized that Functionalism was sociology⁵⁰, it was quite apparent by the beginning of the sixties that Functionalism left open more questions than it answered.

I pointed out earlier that believers in the old paradigm try to defend their beliefs within the framework provided by the paradigm. Structural-functionalism was such a defense erected by the believers of the Comtean tradition – belief in positivism, social order and sociology as the problem solver. But as these notions failed to defend themselves, sociology entered the stage of crisis. Not only was the basis of these assumptions, like the treatment of sociology as a natural science, challenged, but also various schools of thought began competing for supremacy in the field. The basic assumptions of these schools, their philosophies, methods and nature of problems are all being questioned. And as Kuhn Suggested, for the present it seems that study of philosophies have gained in importance. Each is claiming their schools of thought as the paradigm and criticising the claims of others to the same position.

This brings us to the question of multiple paradigms in sociology. If one is to look at sociology today, one may be convinced that the discipline abounds in paradigms. But unless one takes the history of the development of sociology into account, one would be not be able to see that these are only claims to being paradigms. It is interesting to note that though a number of sociologists have claimed multiplicity of paradigms in sociology, no two of them have come up with similar classifications. This in itself is enough to suggest the weaknesses of the claims. Paradigms are supposed to be distinct in the sense of being identifiable, and if there were more than one paradigm, (or even one) people could distinguish them. Then comes the question of the number of paradigms. Martin Albrow sees two, Categorical and Dialectical;⁵¹ Ritzer three, social fact, social definition and social behaviour;²² Eisenstadt and Curelaru see four, individualistic, sociologistic, culturalistic and environmental⁵³; Effrat, as noted above, see numerous paradigms⁵⁴. This again points to the lack of validity of their claims. And as may be expected, there is no uniformity of the basis of these classifications. The authors pick one or more characteristics from the various thinkers and on the basis of the uniformity of these characteristics they have been grouped together as forming this or that paradigm, though the thinkers may have differed on a host of other things. Thus, conflict theory, structural functionalism, system theory are all classed as forming the 'social facts' paradigm.⁵⁵ Effrat tries to band together the followers of certain individuals like Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Freud or Parsons as forming a paradigm each.⁵⁶ It may therefore be asked as to which system of classification is correct or whether such a classification is required since, as we have argued above, sociology is in the crisis stage. And at this stage there wi1l be numerous claims and counter claims, and in the lack of a paradigm all claims may appear equally acceptable. It is primarily for this reason that we should guard against taking final decision on the issue.

To a great extent the blames for such confusions rest on Kuhn himself. First, because by equating paradigms with the state of a normal science, he has associated certain prestige with the term. As if to have a paradigm is a honourable disposition for a discipline. At least, it is interpreted thus by scientists who are frantically trying to find paradigms in their discipline. Secondly, Kuhn argued in the second edition of his book that scientific communities could be as small as having a hundred or less members communicating through journals, unpublished works etc.⁵⁷ He also added that "paradigms are something shared by members of such groups"⁵⁸. This means that a faculty member of a university could have a paradigm of his own as he communicates with his students, who share the opinions of the former. This also recognises that any dissident group could also have its own paradigm. But this goes contrary to Kuhn's own arguments that in the event of a community converging on a paradigm, the dissident groups are left out of it. To accept the idea of any group consensus as forming a paradigm, thus, legitimizes the claims to multiplicity of paradigms, even to the extent of discovering numerous paradigms. And with the possibility of certain individuals, in Kuhn's words, “particularly the ablest" ones, to be members of more than one such group (representing one paradigm), "either simultaneously or in succession"⁵⁹ the number of paradigms would run into thousands. It is, therefore, obvious that Kuhn himself damages his own notion of the paradigm.

However, he still maintains that during the time of crisis or the pre-paradigmatic period, a number of schools compete “for the domination of a given field”.⁶⁰ But after some notable achievement (formation of a new paradigm) the number of schools is "greatly reduced, ordinarily to one".⁶¹ Thus, I assume, it depends largely upon the definition of the field that members hold. If the field were taken to be the whole of physics, the paradigm for it would require the consensus of all or most of the hundreds of thousands of its members. While if the field of study were defined as unraveling the properties of quark, the paradigm would probably be formed around a dozen or so scientists, for they ate the only ones who either understand what a quark is or are concerned with that knowledge. Therefore, if we are to talk of sociology as defining one field of study for all its members, we could have one paradigm only, though prior to the formation of that paradigm, a multiplicity of opinions and schools of thought could be expected to claim that status. Thus, if society is defined as the field of study, the paradigm that develops out of it must be acceptable to all or most of those who claim to be studying society whereas if within that field a sub-field exists that works, say, with urban society, the paradigm that grows there would require the consensus of the members of that sub-field but may or may not concern the other members of the field. In this sense, we could talk of multiplicity of paradigms as is also done by Kuhn. Kuhn identifies the Newtonian paradigm to have been dominant in physics since the seventeenth century and at the same time he also talks of paradigms such as Roentgen's discovery of X-rays.

But it is to be noted that when Ritzer and others are talking of multiple paradigms, they are not referring to such sub-paradigms either. They are simply misreading the claims and counter claims of the crisis period as being paradigms. Ritzer is even aware that the claims are political in nature and takes great pains to expose their nature.⁶² Yet, he too clearly misses the issue and fails to recognise that this is only a stage of crisis in sociology.

The claimants to the "throne" (to borrow a term from Friedrichs⁶³- which, incidentally, also shows the kind of prestige social scientists associate with the notion of paradigms) are numerous. Many have almost taken for granted that structural- functionalism, or systems theories are dead or have out-lived their purposes. Yet, the fact remains that the mainstream of sociology is still dominated by these and will continue to be so until some other paradigm replaces the remains of the Comtean paradigm that these theories are guarding.

The other contenders are conflict school including various shades of Marxism, social behaviourists, symbolic interactionists, whose claims have been reinforced by the addition, of the phenomenologists and ethno-methodologists into their ranks. These latter groups has come to identify themselves on the basis of what they call the qualitative methodology and are seriously, questioning the status of sociology as a science. Some members of this group like Berger and Luckmann⁶⁴ are proposing a merger of different schools of thought to form what they identify as the dialectic mode of inquiry. Such a shift to dialectics has also been advocated by Friedrichs⁶⁵ and Albrow.⁶⁶ Most of these schools of thought are also claimed to be some thing novel and revolutionary. Morris examined some of these claims in detail and showed that there is nothing in them that make these revolutionary.⁶⁷ She examines the claims made by Mullins, Collins and Makowsky, McNall and Johnson to the effect that all these schools are new and revolutionary paradigms.⁶⁸She shows that other sociologists consider these to be new versions of old themes, for example, Bauman points out that ethnomethodology is a consistent version of positivism and Andreski argues that Park, Burgess and Thomas were doing ethnomethodology and phenomenology without even suspecting it.⁶³ Similarly, she notes that, for Broadhead sociology of the absurd is both an antithesis and a duplicate of functionalism and so forth.⁷⁰ Moreover, basic to the dialectics of these schools is the assumption that the individual interacts on the society, which is an empirical question yet to be answered, for it should also be remembered that in most of the societies of the world there is no clear-cut conception of the individual and indeed, an individual does not even exist other than being a part of some groups like the family. These schools of thought also neglect the component of power in society and operate on a too micro level to be successful in offering a paradigm that cuts through time and space.

These schools of thought are the result of another decade of social and political change in the U.S.A. and reflect sociology's concern for the immediate only. Gellner found this to be true of ethnomethodology.⁷¹ The attraction of the conflict theory also lay in a similar need to understand the developments of the sixties. And contrary to the claims made by some authors, it too is not new to sociology, though the sociologists of the past were more eager to ignore than to confront or accommodate it into their scheme of analysis.

It therefore remains to be seen if any of these schools have any thing "revolutionary" to offer. Sociology is well aware of their arguments. What is identified as qualitative methodology is as old as sociology itself, the question of subjectivism was raised by Weber long ago; various shades of Marxism have been trying to get an entry from the very beginning of sociology; psychologism had been fought by Durkheim; biology was the first to influence sociology; mathematics and physics had been paid great attention to. In the substantive areas we have focused our interests on topics ranging from world systems to homosexuals, yet we do not know who we are, what we do or where we go from here. Textbooks are a bundle of confusion, we dot not agree on any thing while we disregard every thing that is offered to us. I feel Kuhn could hardly expected to find a better example of crisis than this.

Thus to conclude, we have seen that sociology is not at the pre-paradigmatic stage, on the contrary, I have argued that sociology like all new disciplines, began with a paradigm. This paradigm, I showed, was the new way of looking at the society proposed by Comte. This new way meant a positivistic interpretation of social order and change. Its method composed of techniques such as, experimentation, observation, comparison and the study of history. And in terms of exemplars could be suggested the study of Social statics and dynamics and the comparative study of history. It is the consensus regarding this field and method of inquiry that we have defined to be the Comtean paradigm.

I have also argued that structural-functional or the systemic paradigm proposed by others are not paradigms but are rather mechanisms erected by the believers of the Comtean paradigm as defenses against anomalies. But the anomalies kept on accumulating and by the sixties sociology entered the stage of crisis. This crisis can be identified in the competing claims of various schools of thought to the status of the paradigm in sociology. This, we noted, has been mistakenly interpreted as the indicator of multiple paradigms in sociology. I also showed that most of these schools have nothing new to offer and that sociology is familiar with their philosophies, fields and methods of inquiry. It is, therefore, difficult to see what lies ahead. The nature and content of the future revolution and the paradigm is hard to conceptualize.

This analysis followed Kuhn as closely as possible. But we saw that some of his ideas are misleading and have often weakened his own arguments. In such circumstances I proposed modifications and used the same in my analysis of the paradigmatic status of sociology. If one is to follow Kuhn's arguments, one would readily see that from the present stage of crisis in sociology would emerge a revolution, a paradigm, and sociology would attain the stage of a normal science. However, it is not at all clear as to when that will happen or whether it will happen at all. Perhaps, sociology needs to shift its focus from the very immediate time and space and look to a broader horizon of history and the comparative studies of societies.

[1] The author is an Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Dhaka University.