
Preface to the First (G erman) Edition In the middle of the twentieth century, the sociologist finds himself in an awkward position. While he is just beginning to lay and secure the foundations of his discipline, an impatient public demands with increasing urgency both immediately applicable and comprehensive solutions from him. Following almost every sociological conference, confident journalists...
Paperback: 360 pages
Publisher: Forgotten Books (August 7, 2012)
Language: English
ASIN: B00937UDH6
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
Amazon Rank: 5929470
Format: PDF ePub fb2 djvu book
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It appears that the folks at General Books have scanned this book and somehow dumped the words into a single document with NO FORMATTING WHATSOEVER!!!!!! I have never seen anything like this. Here is how my book begins, at the start of the first and ...
iologists with being either ignorant of practical problems or incapable of solving them. Like an angry creditor, the public pursues the sociologists every move in order to lay its hands on every penny he may produce. Is it surprising that under these conditions many a sociologist has begun to forge currency.? The public deserves no better jbut unfortunately the false currency, the overly rapid as well as the all-embracing solutions harm the progress of sociology as well. They remove sociological discussion from the sphere of scholarly criticism which inspires ever new efforts to that of a sterile quarrel of opinions. It is therefore necessary to make a decision. The sociologist certainly is a debtor of the society in which he lives in a way unparalleled in most other disciplines of scholarship. But this debt merely forces him to choose the subjects of his research in such a way that its results if any might contribute to informing society about itself. This is all. In developing his theories, methods, and techniques, the sociologist is bound exclusively by the rules of all scholarship, which demand from him accuracy and adherence to that pedestrian path of science which nobody else can take for him and which no magic force can abridge. I nevitably, this path involves byways and detours jit is a long way, and its destination may disappoint his and others expectations jperhaps somebody else soon shows that the path chosen was altogether wrong. But if an ill(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)