American Prospectors and the Simmel Lode

Abstract

fungible quality of its own. Merton's notion of the "middle range" in sociology (and social policy) provided the great symbol of these efforts. Long before Mills' critique of "grand theory" and "abstract empiricism," Merton had formulated this distinction, but resolved the problems it raised in a fashion quite at odds with Mills' solution. Mills counseled the historical and comparative study of social structures, cultures, and biographical ex periences through a method which emphasized individual intellectual craftsmanship (Mills, 1959). Merton increasingly displaced the larger his torical and even philosophical themes which characterized his early writings (see Nielsen, 1996: 405) and turned toward the identification of a general method of analysis which could be put to use in all settings. His combined emphasis on functional analyses of the middle range, the mutual blindness and sterility of theory and research, and the ambiguous relationship of a science to its founders formed a perfect foil for any and every sort of "ex tremism," whether in sociology or in social policy. First, it created the grand illusion of a social science based on the "cumulation and continuity" of knowledge, a phrase which also appears at the opening of Coser's book on social conflict (Coser, 1956: 7). This image of its calling continues to haunt sociology. Second, its coquetry with Whitehead's dictum about a sci ence 's relationship to its founders allowed wholesale stripping of classical sociology's treasures, with a good intellectual conscience and without any fuller confrontation with the past. Third, functionalism of the middle range allowed the absorption of all other ideas as theoretical fragments into the melting pot of "theory building," while at the same time divorcing them from their wider philosophical, historical, critical and other bearings. Mer ton's demonstration that even Marx was a functionalist was just one of the many coups in this professional cooptation of the past. Fourth, it gave so ciologists an intriguing new pastime: to find functions and dysfunctions, latent and manifest, everywhere they could and, in the process, seek out This content downloaded from 207.46.13.51 on Mon, 20 Jun 2016 07:32:20 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms