Floyd N. House

A Centenary Appreciation of Albion W. Small

Albion W. Small exercised great influence upon the development of sociology and other social sciences in the United States and elsewhere through his commanding position as head of the leading graduate department of sociology, the University of Chicago, and as editor of this Journal for over thirty years. He contributed to the formulation of several important concepts and to the literature of the history of social science. Perhaps the most outstanding thing in his writings is his insistence on the importance of social science for social action.

Viewpoints and Methods in the Study of Race Relations

The methods that have been used in the study of race relations have been determined in part by prevailing theories of points of view. At least five such points of view have existed. The naively ethnocentric viewpoint of the ancient Greeks implied practically no study of race or race relations, and the same was true of the religio-ethical viewpoint which prevailed in the Middle Ages. From the time of Linnaeus, the taxonomic viewpoint became prominent and gave rise first to efforts at the classification of races and then to the measurement of race differences. Within recent decades, there has been a trend toward a cultural point of view, and the corresponding method has been one of search for cultural facts. Most recently of all a distinctively sociological viewpoint has developed. It gives rise to methods of study which focus attention on race relations and interracial attitudes.

The Limitations of Economic Analysis

J. C. Cobb holds that all social problems may be analyzed into elementary sociological and economic problems, which in turn may be solved by quantitative analysis. The necessary calculations being made, the solution of political problems would be very simple. The analytical method.-Analysis is an important part of the method of social science, but in its use there is danger of losing of actual forces and processes. The analysis of political process.-The political process is a species of conflict. Political behavior is motivated by group loyalties and antagonism, generated and perpetuated in social interaction, and by love of the contest for its own sake, as well as by calculated economic interests. The sociological method.-It is the task of the sociologist to describe and to analyze that part of human social activity which cannot be explained in terms of calculated economic interests. Sociological analysis tends to become quantitative, but the processes in question must first be clearly described.

The Concept "Social Forces" in American Sociology: Section IX. Conclusion: Summary of Findings

The emergence and persistence of the social-forces concept in American sociology has been due fundamentally to a logical need for the concept, arising out of other phases of the development of sociology, rather than to the prestige of this or that writer who has used and emphasized the concept. The ultimate survival of the concept, and its form or forms if it does survive, will be similarly determined. The main drive in economic theory today appears to be in the direction of the survey and study of existing institutions and other culturefacts, which is in fact, if not in logical necessity, more or less opposed to the use and development of general categories of human motives. Those sociologists who adhere to some form of the social forces concept conceive of their classifications as (1) instruments of research, (2) tools of diagnosis in particular problem situations, and (3) bases of social evaluation.

The Concept "Social Forces" in American Sociology. Section III. Geographic Factors as Social Forces

Two methods of handling geographic and physical factors.-From the time of Spencer and Ward there have been two fundamentally different attitudes displayed toward the problem of geographic and material factors in social causation, each typical of one of these two men. Spencer treated psychic and physical factors as if they were of co-ordinate importance, the one balanced against the other. W. I. Thomas, in his earliest writings, and Blackmar and Gillin more recently, have followed Spencers lead. Ward, being a monist, believed the psychic factors were evolved out of the physical, but once evolved, were of primary importance. Small, Thomas, in his later writings, Ellwood, Hayes, Ross, and Giddings have followed approximately the lead of Ward, treating the geographic and material factors as conditioning forces, rather than as forces co-ordinate with the desires.