History of Thought as Ceremonial Genealogy: The Neglected Influence of Herbert Spencer on Thorstein Veblen

Abstract

Most academic disciplines lay claim to a few seminal thinkers whose works are regarded as In a 1981 article, Donald N. Levine noted the intense scrutiny and concern devoted by sociologists to sociological classics (Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and Georg Simmel) and contrasted this intense concern with the relative indifference of economists to the economic classics. Levine argues that this focus on seminal works results from the relatively greater fragmentation of sociology into specialized sub-fields: lacking the group cohesion imparted to economics by its subject matter (markets), sociology creates group cohesion by tracing the descent of each subfield to the canon of sociological ancestors [Levine 1981, p. 63]. Thus, history of thought serves a function in sociology; it serves to integrate the various specialized sociological schools into a common discipline. The use of common ancestors to create group cohesion is one of the major functions of a genealogy in societies organized primarily along lines of affinal and consanguineal relationships. The first part of this article looks briefly at some features of genealogy in kin-based societies,