The Persistence of the Particular

Definitions of human beings as "symbolic animals" emphasize our capacity to form symbols, theories, and general laws that can be applied to common social experience both in the present and across historical periods. This capacity is balanced by an equally strong will to define events and conditions that are not replicated and are particular to specific times, places, and individuals. In this volume, the distinguished sociologist Dennis H. Wrong argues that the scientific standard of universal laws and propositions has only limited relevance to human historical and biographical phenomena. He argues, that unique events, personalities, and conditions are the main determinants of social life. Although "theory" is popularly viewed with suspicion in contrast to the hard, concrete realm of facts, humans have sought general orientations with which to confront new experiences. Wrong identifies the essential questions for social science as the place of nature and nurture in forming personality, the sources of variation in human conduct and culture, the causes of deviations from social norms, how human motivations are socially shaped and controlled to make society possible, and, finally, the causes of social change. Because successive generations of thinkers have given varying answers to these questions, no cumulative progress, which is the hallmark of science, can be said to have occurred. Wrong argues that the unity of theory and research sought by American sociologists cannot be obtained in social theory. In terms of sociological practice, this has created a disparity between the canonical theories of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber on the one hand, and the empirically oriented methodologies of current social research on the other; especially questionnaires, fieldwork, and statistical research. Wrong attributes this disparity to postmodern skepticism about the potential of the social sciences to create a body of knowledge that might positively reshape human society. Wrong argues for a historically oriented approach emphasizing unforeseen, accidental agents as a foundation for modestly conceived theories.