Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/158

 146 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

still other facts were set off into specialized fields of research. Thus one outstanding achievement of the century has been the division of a confused tradition into a number of fairly well- defined social sciences. But there has also been a persistent effort to resist this dissolution into parts, to restore to their larger rela- tionships the abstracted elements; i. e., to preserve the unity of social theory as a whole. Such is the secular antithesis between analysis and synthesis, between science and philosophy.

The term " sociology " is used in at least four different senses, two of which are directly related to the present discussion : ( i ) as a vague general term to include the entire field of social fact and theory; (2) as a social philosophy which aims at a unifying con- ception of society as a whole ; (3) " pure " or " general " sociology seeks recognition as a science, classifying facts and discovering the laws which underlie association as such ; (4) " practical " soci- ology describes the scientific treatment of the problems of social organization and welfare. 2 To the development of sociology as philosophy and as science this survey must be confined.

As to method of treatment, several ways lie open. Each has certain advantages. The division of sociologies into (i) classi- ficational, 3 (2) biological, (3) organic, and (4) psychological, affords seemingly definite criteria and a natural developmental sertes. Traditional philosophic dualism displays itself also in social theories, which may be classified as objective or naturalistic on the one hand, and subjective or idealistic on the other. Again, the division into individualistic and collectivistic has a certain significance. So also the chronological treatment of men and theories is of unquestioned value. In the present case, however, no one of these methods seems sufficiently flexible or compre- hensive. While, therefore, reference will be made, as occasion may demand, to one or another of these classifications, this survey will select certain typical problems of social science and philosophy, and will attempt to show ( i ) what kind of problems have engaged the attention of sociologists, and (2) what develop-

2 This should be not an isolated art, but organically related to "general ociology."

EARTH, Die Philosophie der Gtschichte als Sociologie, p. 58.