What is theory?
Sociology as a discipline emerged out of a series of debates begun during the period of the Enlightenment1 between philosophers, scientists and other intellectuals about the origins and nature of human societies (Skidmore, 1979: 1). The important thing for us to grasp here is that sociological thinking emerged out of a series of debates. Questions began to be asked during the period of the Enlightenment about what societies are and how they function; about the relationship between individuals and societies, and about social change. However, these questions did not immediately lead to a single set of conclusions. Rather, different perspectives and different ideas emerged in response to these questions and these were often vigorously debated between people holding competing views.
This remains the case today and it is important to grasp this point as it allows us to recognise that the systematic attempt to answer complex questions is bound to lead to different solutions, in other words to different theories of what societies are and how they work. Sociological theory is closely related to other forms of social theory. As we will see, sociology as an academic discipline emerged in the later part of the nineteenth century. From the beginning, it attempted to define itself against other forms of explanation, including other types of social theory. However, sociological theory has been and continues to be influenced by the numerous strands of thought in other social and human sciences. It responds, as it always has done, to profound, ongoing transformation in the social, political and economic arrangements of the world.
Theory in the natural sciences
So, what is a ‘theory’? I have already provided something of an answer to this question when it was stated that: the asking of fundamental questions about the nature of the social world led different thinkers to attempt to find systematic answers. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, the discoveries of natural scientists about the properties of the physical and the biological realms had revolutionised the way that people understood the world around them. Like natural scientists, the early social scientists set about developing theories through which they could describe the phenomena they encountered and understand the processes that gave rise to these phenomena. The natural sciences were held in such high regard during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that it was thought that they could provide explicit methodological models for the social sciences. The adoption of a ‘scientific’ approach implied that society was something that was in effect unknowable in ordinary or ‘commonsense’ terms and that specialist methods were required in order to understand what it was and how it worked. The development of theoretical models of what societies are and how they function is central to the production of sociological as opposed to commonsense understandings of the social world.
Now, by ‘theory’ the (natural and social) scientist does not mean (as in everyday usage) vague guesses or imprecise conjectures (as in ‘well, my theory would be…’). For scientists, a theory usually emerges out of a long period of careful observation of phenomena and represents a serious attempt at a systematic and logically consistent framework of explanation based on the accumulation of empirical evidence. A theory, or a theoretical model, is a series of propositions about the possible nature of an object or phenomenon. We use the word possible because a theory is not a final statement of truth but a series of plausible conjectures, based on available evidence, which appears to most accurately describe that phenomenon, account for how it functions and how it relates to other phenomena. Theory is important because it makes generalisations about observations and consists of an interrelated, coherent set of ideas and models. Typically, theories are both descriptive and explanatory. That is, a theory should have the capacity to describe a set of observed phenomena and to explain their occurrence, usually causally. In our usual understanding of science, a theory continues to be worked on and tested and is thus always open-ended and provisional rather than dogmatically held to represent the ‘truth’. So theory for the scientist is always work in progress and the scientist may well end up having to revise their ideas if sufficient evidence emerges that contradicts an existing theory.
Theory and ‘commonsense’
There is another important point here too. The ‘Ptolemaic’ or ‘geocentric’ theory of the cosmos and the place of the earth in it appeared to correspond to the immediate evidence of the senses. It was only when a different kind of evidence was presented (careful observation of planetary motion using a telescope) that what had previously appeared as a commonsense ‘truth’ was shown to be false. For the sociologist, commonsense understanding is typically problematic. As members of the social world we all have an immediate, everyday and commonsense understanding of, for example, the family and our place within it, or of our experience of the education system, or of the culture of our respective societies and so forth. However, such commonsense understanding is not a sociological theory of the society that we live in. Instead, sociological theory, like theory in the natural sciences, proposes a much broader framework that attempts to both describe and explain specific phenomena (such as ‘the family’).
Sociological theory emerged out of questions and debates about the nature of human societies that began to be asked seriously from the eighteenth century onwards. One of the important outcomes of this was the development of sociology as an academic discipline. In the first instance, this meant that approaches to the serious study of society were influenced by and largely derived from the methodologies of the natural sciences.
Out of this process, many different sociological traditions emerged and developed. They offered often radically different approaches, ideas and conclusions. However, one thing that most of them had in common was the commitment to the development of explanatory frameworks within which specific social phenomena (for example, social class, suicide and so forth) could be understood as part of much larger social, cultural or economic processes. It is through the development of such frameworks that sociologists are able to account for the phenomena that they study.
It is also through these frameworks that sociologists can challenge the commonsense and often very limited accounts of the social world that most of us have. Thus, when we read sociological theory we can expect to find aspects of the social world with which we thought we were familiar placed in different and sometimes surprising contexts, often giving us radically different and new perspectives on them.
What is sociological theory?
Sociological theory emerges out of attempts to provide explanatory frameworks that link specific aspects of the social world to larger processes, thus helping us to contextualise them and to understand them. William Skidmore (1979: 4) suggests that most sociological theories are developed out of a desire to find solutions to ‘theoretical problems’. For Skidmore, ‘theoretical problems’ are questions about how we might understand problematic aspects of the social world. For example, how do we explain social disintegration or the maintenance of social stability, the persistence of poverty, the rise and fall of the suicide rate or the birth rate, for example? Skidmore argues that the ‘solutions’ to these problems usually involve the creation of ‘additional related concepts’ through which the first problem can be understood.
Let us take as an example Durkheim’s solution to the ‘problem’ of the fluctuation of the suicide rate. Durkheim found that in Europe the suicide rate in predominantly Protestant areas was significantly higher than that in Catholic ones. Durkheim’s solution to this ‘problem’ was to generate additional concepts (such as ‘anomie’, or the feeling of being without a social ‘role’). These new concepts were related by Durkheim to the key notion of social solidarity and its relationship to human well-being. So while Durkheim’s interest in suicide began as a theoretical problem centred on a question (‘how do we account for the relatively higher rates of suicide in the suicide rate?’), its solution involved the construction of a theory of society that stressed the importance of solidarity and integration. When various factors cause solidarity and meaningful integration to break down, increased rates of suicide follow as a consequence. Durkheim’s theory also states that it is these social rather than more individual psychological factors that determine changes in the suicide rate. As we can see, the original question is answered when Durkheim relates the phenomenon of suicide to a number of causal factors which, when taken together, provide an overall theory of the way that society works and which stresses the danger posed by possible forms of social breakdown.
The theory is also directly ‘counter-intuitive’ in that it turns on its head our commonsense understanding of suicide (we tend to think of it as a purely personal, individual act).
Theory and ‘proof’: testing a hypothesis
Another key point to note here is how Durkheim’s general theory of the primacy of society over the individual generates a concrete hypothesis in relation to the problem of suicide. A hypothesis is a testable statement,which sometimes takes the form of a prediction, about a relationship between two or more ideas or classes of phenomena. In Durkheim’s case, we can see that the purpose of his study of suicide is to demonstrate a relationship between social solidarity and individual behaviour. We have already seen how in the natural sciences, theory is often (although not always) developed through empirical observation and study, experimentation and so on through a process of generalisation from particular examples. This process is known as induction. When we come to think about hypotheses we can see this process in reverse; this is called deduction. Here, reasoning is from the general to the particular. That is, from a general statement or rule we move to down to a specific example. The specific example is then demonstrated to be an example of the workings of the general rule. The two are thus directly related to one another.For example, Durkheim’s general theory, developed over a number of studies, maintains that the individual is entirely dependent on society for all aspects of life. The collective entity that we refer to as ‘society’ gives us our identity and a sense of belonging. If the social bonds are sufficiently robust, social solidarity will be relatively highly developed and the individual will be integrated into the social order. In order for Durkheim to demonstrate this general theoretical proposition, he needed to prove a definite relationship between social solidarity and individual behaviour.
In order to do this, Durkheim needed ‘concrete indications’ of both social solidarity and individual behaviour. Durkheim had collected statistical data about an apparently supremely individual act (suicide). He also noted that stronger forms of social solidarity were provided by the Catholic faith and weaker ones by the Protestant, which is a much more individualistic religious tradition.
Durkheim’s hypothesis therefore was ‘that in areas of Europe where Catholicism was strong, suicide rates would be lower than in areas where Protestantism was predominant’ (Skidmore: 8). Durkheim expected a relationship to exist between suicide rates and religious affiliation precisely because he had derived his hypothesis from a general theoretical understanding of the relationship between social solidarity and individuality. As Skidmore argues, ‘[t]he fact that Durkheim’s concrete prediction (his hypothesis) was by and large confirmed suggested that the theoretical scheme from which it derived also was valid.’ The apparent fact that suicide rates are higher in Protestant countries appeared3 to provide empirical evidence proving the validity of the general theory. In this case, therefore, we can see that a very important aspect of theoretical work is that it makes general propositions about the nature of the social world that we inhabit and it also attempts to validate these propositions through use of specific, empirically verifiable examples. The testing of hypotheses is one part of this process.
Explaining the bigger picture
We have seen how theories tend to make strong general propositions. We have also seen how theorists develop hypotheses that test the validity of these propositions by attempting to demonstrate significant (possibly causal) relationships between particular aspects of the social world. Many sociological theories are however highly complex in character and they suggest that in order for us to understand a specific phenomenon, a complex set of related concepts are required. Skidmore (1979:3) argues that one of the characteristics of sociological theories is that they ‘generate additional ideas in the course of solving a theoretical problem.’ These ideas might involve creating new concepts. As we have seen in looking at the example of Durkheim, a theoretical problem or question is usually only answered once it can be located in a coherent (theoretical) framework within which it can be explained as part of a larger process. Skidmore uses the example of social class to demonstrate how this works. According to Skidmore, social class is a ‘single concept’ and while it might be ‘felt or experienced’ at an individual level it cannot be explained or understood without additional concepts and ideas.
Skidmore states that Only when the concept of social class is put together with additional ideas does it begin to be explained and accounted for. Understanding social class has altogether to do with the meaning of social structure, social relations, power, privilege, obligation, authority, and many other ideas. In practical terms, this suggests that to understand social class, one is obliged to develop clear ideas of these related factors.The important point that Skidmore makes here is that of the relationship between a single concept and additional ideas. In order for the concept of social class to be made meaningful it has to be related to other ideas that can explain it and its importance.
Conclusion
This introduction has shown you how sociological theory is a central element of the work of sociology as an academic discipline. We looked at the critical differences between sociological theory and one’s commonsense views, opinions and prejudices. In other words, we made a distinction between the formal nature of sociological theorising and its claims to objectivity and one’s subjective view of the world. We also saw how sociological theory emerges from a system of thinking that links concepts, often new concepts, with evidence or data to create a broader understanding and explanation of the social world. We saw how concept formation is essential to sociological theorising.
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