goldthorpe - a revolution in sociology

REVIEW ARTICLEA REVOLUTION IN SOCIOLOGY?

JOHN H. GOLDTHORPE

Jack D. Douglas (ed.) Understanding Everyday Life: Toward the Reconstruction of Sociological Knowledge. London: Routledge, 1971, xii + 358 pp., £4.-20.

Paul Filmer, Michael Phillipson, David Silverman and David Walsh, New Directions in Sociological Theory. London: Collier-Macmillan, 1972, vii + 246 pp., £,3m5 o (£ i paperback).

I

The emergence within the last decade o f relatively well-defined schools o f ‘phenomenological’ sociology and, in particular, o f ethnomethodology has had an increasingly divisive effect within the sociological community at large. Initially, the typical reaction o f more ‘conventional* sociologists to these new movements o f thought could perhaps be best described as one o f somewhat bewildered doubt, and such hostility as was displayed was probably aroused more by the manner o f their presentation than by their actual content. The determinedly esoteric and often impenetrable language o f their exponents and their preference for privately circulated typescripts rather than for publication created the impression that they were more interested in forming a cult than in effective communication, and also the suspicion that obscurity and inaccessibility were being deliberately used as protection against critics from without. But at the same time it was in general the case that the more decisive the break with conventional sociology that was proposed, the less the concern with attacking, amending or directly competing with it. Most notably, Garfinkel and those associated w ith him maintained that from the theoretical position they had adopted the principle o f ‘ethnomethodological indifference* must apply to all questions o f the adequacy, value, importance or necessity o f conventional sociology— as o f all other ‘constructive accounts* o f social life.1 Thus, the possibility was present i f not exactly for peaceful co-existence, then at least for ‘separate development’ ; and so far as the great majority o f sociologists were concerned, no particular response to ethnomethodology, whether critical or otherwise, appeared to be called for.

Subsequently, however, this state o f affairs has been seriously disrupted by a new wave o f ethnomethodological writing, well represented by the items under review, which is distinctive in two important ways. First, it seeks to present the ethnomethodological approach to a relatively widely conceived audience (and to this end is happily somewhat more attentive to clarity o f thought and expression); and secondly, it is often taken up with explicit criticism o f— and indeed polemic against— conventional sociology o f a quite radical character. A lack o f interest in ‘remedying* the latter is still generally professed: but now only because the aim is in fact to bring about a revolutionary ‘paradigm shift’ whereby the proper concerns, problems and methods o f sociology will be entirely transformed. If, then, such an objective is to be taken at all seriously, ethnomethodology and conventional sociology must stand opposed to each other in a w ay that permits o f little indulgence: the intellectual credibility o f the one is directly threatened by that o f the other. Thus, not surprisingly, the ethnomethodological challenge has been met by counter-criticism o f a no less total kind, and also— which is yet more divisive— with a refusal to respond to it which is in bad faith; that is, which represents a calculated strategy o f attempting to minimize its significance, and thus perhaps its effect, b y systematically ignoring it.

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A crucial issue— and one on which the present discussion will concentrate— must therefore be that o f whether or not the ethnomethodologists’ claim to have made, or at least to have made imminent, a revolution in sociology is in fact a compelling one. I f it is, then a crisis does indeed confront sociology: i f it is not, the situation is presumably the less dramatic and more normal one in which the interest o f new thinking may be expected to lie as much in complementarities and developments as in oppositions and disjunctions. A n evaluation made on the basis o f the two volumes here considered must lead to the conclusion that it is the latter, apparently less exciting, prospect that is to be thought the more likely: in other words, to the conclusion that one need not accept that the objective o f a ‘paradigm shift’ in sociology has been achieved or even is in sight. However, provided one is not as captivated by fashionable discontinuiste philosophies o f science as are the ethnomethodologists themselves, such a conclusion in no way implies a rejection o f their position in toto. It is quite consistent with an appreciation o f the force o f certain methodological and theoretical arguments that are integral to this position, and o f the possibilities for a significant expansion o f the field o f sociological enquiry which these arguments would suggest. In what follows, an attempt is made to provide the grounds for this particular critical stance.

II

Ethnomethodological criticism o f conventional sociology has as its major focus what are taken to be the ‘positivistic’ assumptions and practices upon which the latter rests. In regard to such criticism, however, an important distinction needs to be made, and one which is in fact acknowledged at the outset o f a valuable contribution by Thomas P. Wilson to the Douglas collection (subsequently cited as D). That is, the distinction between (a) criticism o f methodological and technical shortcomings in particular pieces or styles o f research, or o f conceptual or logical weaknesses in particular theories— criticism, in fact, o f a kind which might well come from among conventional sociologists themselves; and (b) criticism o f a more fundamental character aimed at calling into question all forms o f conventional sociology, no matter how well, on their own terms, they may be conceived and executed. In the chapters in the Filmer volume (subsequently F) which have a primarily critical intent, this discrimination shown by Wilson, and in effect by most o f Douglas’s collaborators, is unfortunately absent. Thus, while the authors o f these chapters— David Walsh and Michael Phillipson— write in a highly polemical tone, much o f what they have to say is o f very uncertain relevance to their programmatic purposes. The main objection to which their contributions are open is not that some o f the criticisms they advance are ill-conceived (although this is the case2), but rather that many o f them could quite readily be accepted as valid— and without damaging consequences— by adherents o f various positions other than the ethnomethodological one. The point that Walsh and Phillipson seem not to appreciate is that i f ‘conventional sociology’ is to be treated as a residual category— as including everything apart from ethnomethodology— then in seeking to maintain the claim that they have accomplished a paradigm shift, it will not do for ethnomethodologists to concentrate their critical attention on what would be quite widely regarded as bad research practice, or on the writings o f Lundberg, Homans, the structural-functionalists and systems theorists. W hat, rather, is crucial is that they should demonstrate how in principle ethnomethodology differs radically from, and transcends, even those varieties o f conventional sociology which would appear prirna facie to have most in common with it.

Thus, in the Douglas collection it is not accidental that Don H. Zimmerman co-authors one paper (with D . Lawrence Wieder) which demurs at an attempt by Norman Denzin to represent ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism as convergent perspectives;3 and another (with Melvin Pollner) which seeks to establish one quite general, defining characteristic o f conventional sociology— and one by reference to which ethnomethodology may

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be clearly set apart— namely, the systematic confounding o f ‘topic’ and ‘resource’ . The thesis that Zimmerman and Pollner here advance is also utilized by Wilson and is at various points alluded to by Walsh and Phillipson and their colleagues. It may in fact be considered as one o f two lines o f argument which are o f a kind adequate to sustaining the revolutionary critique and programme that ethnomethodologists would wish to launch, and to which therefore one’s attention must be chiefly directed.

In its essentials, the argument in question is the following. The ways in which conventional sociologists define their problem areas (‘race relations’, ‘formal organization*, ‘juvenile delinquency’ etc.), collect their data (by interviews, use o f records, official statistics etc.) and seek to explain ‘what happens’ (through hypotheses and theories) all necessarily involve them, if only through their use o f language, in drawing on a vast array o f everyday commonsense meanings and understandings. These meanings and understandings, they assume, are ones which they largely share with others— their respondents, informants, collaborators, readers or whoever; and such an assumption is obviously fundamental to their entire enterprise— the crucial resource for the social activity which is ‘doing sociology*. Y et this resource remains quite unexplicated: it is simply ‘taken for granted’. Thus, the ironic situation arises that the conventional sociologist proceeds with, as it were, a most remarkable and fascinating social construction beneath his feet which alone sustains him yet which he does not notice or at least leaves unexamined. The consequence is, then, that conventional sociology fails to attain any significantly higher level o f theoretical awareness than that possessed by the lay members o f society themselves. W hile topic and resource remain so confounded, sociology can never be more than an eminently ‘ folk* discipline.

This analysis o f the predicament o f sociology as normally practised is, as will be seen, open to challenge in a number o f particular respects. Nonetheless, the most obvious response to it is not to seek to deny its basic validity but rather to raise a simple question: so what? Such a response is indeed one that Zimmerman and Pollner anticipate— but this only underlines their inability to produce replies which are adequate to their purposes. Although they imply that it is in some w ay untoward that professional and lay sociology should be ‘oriented to a common fact domain’, they appear to offer only one argument in direct support o f this v ie w : that in so far as sociology is a folk discipline, it must be ‘deprived o f any prospect or hope o f making fundamental structures o f folk activity a phenomenon’ (D p. 82)— which is true but hardly devastating. W hat they do not counter is the contention that, even accepting all they have said, one can still have good grounds for regarding conventional sociology as something clearly more than just one folk construction among others. For example, even i f the data collection activities in which the sociologist engages do not give him information that is qualitatively different from that available to the actor in everyday life, they can, and do, provide him with significantly more, and more reliable, information on the topics he investigates. And this in itself, as suggested below, may lead to greater theoretical awareness than is available to lay members. Further, even i f sociological theories are addressed to essentially the same sorts o f problems as are lay theories, there is still a far from trivial difference which remains: namely, that the former theories, unlike the latter, must, in order to perform their intended function, conform to certain standards o f logical consistency and exposure to empirical test. Thus, when sociologists place the results o f their enquiries and their explanations in competition with members’ accounts and seek to ‘remedy* these, the basis on which they may properly do so is not primarily— as Zimmerman and Pollner seem to think— a claim to greater objectivity and freedom from bias. It is, rather, that they are able in this w ay to open up possibilities for discussion o f a better grounded and more consequential character.

Moreover, one may also throw back at Zimmerman and Pollner the question o f whether any kind o f sociology can ever entirely escape dependence on commonsense meanings and understandings. They are in fact themselves silent on this issue, but one may remark that Douglas, in his introductory essay to his collection, offers the following crucial qualification


to the ‘phenomenological’ stance (D p. 22):

It is im portant to note, how ever, that no matter h o w far back one goes in further reducing (or bracketing)

one’s phenom enological ‘reductions’ , there inevitably comes a point at w h ich one either accepts total

solipsism and the im possibility o f ‘k n o w in g’ anything or grounds his thought in some (presupposed)

commonsensical experience.4

A similar acknowledgement, it may be added, is made by Silverman, although, curiously, accorded only the status o f a footnote (F p. 172, n. 15):

S o cio lo gy is necessarily a ‘fo lk ’ discipline inasmuch as its ‘discoveries’ are necessarily made from w ithin

society. In the act o f analysis, w e are forced to assume some features o f an order ‘out there’ and thus to

draw upon our commonsense know ledge o f social structure . . . . O n e objects to m uch sociology,

then, not because it draws upon commonsense know ledge, but because it fails to examine h o w com m on

sense practices are used as a resource b y participants and observer.

For the purposes o f the present discussion, statements such as the foregoing are highly significant. For what they imply is that the argument about the confounding o f topic and resource is far less decisive than it might at first appear. In effect, it comes down to the claim that hitherto sociologists have been unduly complacent and unenquiring about the extent o f what they ‘take for granted’ in the various practical activities in which they engage. Such a claim may be accepted as valid, as making a salutary critical point and as indicating an important new area for sociological investigation— but without being thereby taken as anything like a sufficient basis for promulgating a sociological revolution. The problem Douglas raises (D p. 22) o f just how far we are to ‘reduce’ our everyday experience revels clearly enough that one is here concerned with what is eminently a question o f degree, and with one which cannot be answered in general terms but only case by case, according to the nature o f the sociologist’s interest.

The second major argument whereby it is attempted to show that ethnomethodology represents a qualitative advance beyond conventional sociology is again one employed by several contributors to the books under review, but which is best set out by Wilson. Briefly, it is that the aspiration o f sociology to follow the deductive form o f explanation which is characteristic o f the natural sciences is in fact blocked by fundamental problems o f the description o f the phenomena with which sociology is concerned. The form o f explanation in question logically requires that any assertion entering into it is a ‘statement’ as opposed to an ‘indexical expression’ ; that is, is independent o f the occasions o f its use. It therefore follows that all descriptions that are involved must be ‘literal’ ones, having meanings that are context-free, stable and intersubjectively verifiable. However, in the study o f social interaction it is not at all apparent how such descriptions may be achieved.

In conventional sociology, it is held, the basic assumption is that in most contexts o f interaction there exists some shared, culturally-given set o f values and definitions, equally available to participants and observers; and it is this assumption which is then exploited for descriptive purposes. For example, the investigator identifies particular structures o f normative expectations and complexes o f subjective orientations, and then seeks to use these as ‘variables’ by which observed patterns o f social behaviour can be specified and, under given conditions, accounted for in terms o f action. But, the ethnomethodologist would want to add, in proceeding thus the conventional sociologist is forced to draw still further on his basic assumption, whether wittingly or not, in order to explain how in the first place actors actually recognize particular situations and actions— as, say, instances to which one set o f norms is appropriate rather than another. Where stable interaction occurs, it must be supposed that different participants discriminate situations and actions in much the same way, and that they do so because o f substantial cognitive consensus among them, which presumably also derives from their common socialization. Such a position is, however, a difficult one to support. It reduces actors to mere

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automata, ‘programmed* by their culture; it goes against evidence that the ‘same* norm or role may be construed in widely differing ways by different actors; and it cannot do justice to the fact that social interaction, even when sustained, is frequently experienced as highly precarious. In other words, there does not seem to be here a convincing answer, or even approach, to the fundamental question o f how social order comes about.

In contrast, the ethnomethodologists would themselves propose that social interaction should be treated as always and in principle problematic. Stable interaction should be viewed not as the more or less automatic product o f pre-existing, culturally established values and definitions, but rather as a practical accomplishment o f the actors involved: specifically, as being created through— or, more exactly, as being presented in— their interpretation and reinterpretation o f each other’s actions within a particular context, which is in turn understood to be what it is through these actions. Thus, shared meanings, rather than being cultural ‘givens’, are, as W ilson puts it (D p. 69), ‘formulated on particular occasions by the participants in the interaction and are subject to reformulation on subsequent occasions.* Correspondingly, norms and roles are not to be seen as regulating conduct from without, as external constraints, but as being o f significance only in so far as they are incorporated as elements in actors* typifying, accounting and other interpretive procedures.

The methodological implications o f this position are then taken by its adherents as being far reaching ones. I f social interaction is to be regarded as essentially an interpretive process, there is no w ay o f treating observed behaviour and ‘events’ as interaction and o f describing its features, other than by seeking in some way to go beyond ‘appearances* to the underlying pattern o f intended meanings within a given context. Whether the investigator begins with his own observations or with data from casual informants, interviewing programmes, written records or whatever, he is compelled to go through some process o f Verstehen before he is able to operate with notions o f action, interaction etc. In other words, the sociological analyst o f interaction is in basically the same position as the lay participant in interaction: no meanings are directly given to him but, rather, he must endow his ‘data* with meaning via his own interpretive practices. It follows, therefore, that the descriptions o f interaction which it is possible for the sociologist to make must always be understood as interpretive descriptions and not as literal ones. If the only w ay an observer can identify what actions have occurred is through some form o f Verstehen, then his descriptions cannot be independent o f context, nor stable, nor inter subjectively verifiable in any strong sense. T o quote Wilson again (p. 75):

. . . [T]he observer’s classification o f the behaviour o f an actor on a given occasion in the course o f

interaction as an instance o f a particular type o f action is not based on a lim ited set o f specifiable features

o f the behaviour and the occasion but, rather, depends on the indefinite context seen as relevant b y the

observer, a context that gets its m eaning partly through the very action it is being used to interpret.

Thus, as situations change, interpretations are subject to indefinite, possibly retroactive revision, and the interpretations o f different individuals will necessarily agree only in so far as they happen to succeed in negotiating a common social reality.

The upshot is, then, that in the ethnomethodological view, the tasks o f sociology cannot be undertaken through methods characteristic o f the natural sciences. Because literal descriptions are not possible, the study o f social interaction is not compatible with a commitment to pursue deductive explanations. Acceptance o f this point, it is held, distinguishes ethnomethodology from conventional sociology, and at the same time indicates the decisive break which the former has made with the established, ‘positivistic’ presuppositions o f current sociological work.

This argument may be regarded as a good deal more consequential than that relating to the confounding o f topic and resource. It is not, however, so novel as some o f its exponents would seem to think, being in fact but a modem variation on what is a very old theme.6 Moreover, because one is here on basically well-trodden ground, counter-arguments are


not difficult to see, and ones which again point to the conclusion that ethnomethodology is destined, willy-nilly, to be more a reformist than a revolutionary movement.

First, it may be pointed out that the strength o f the ethnomethodolgists* position depends crucially upon an empirical issue which they appear not to have treated very seriously and, perhaps, not always to have recognized. That is, the issue o f whether or not— or, better, how far— social actors are ‘programmed* by their culture, with the programme being then directly accessible to the investigator. The ethnomethodologists’ refusal to accept sociological theory which is viable only if actors are taken to be complete ‘cultural dopes* is empirically well justified; so too is their insistence on the crucial but neglected role o f cognitive processes in social interaction. Nevertheless, this is not to say that similarly good grounds exist for their contention that what Wilson labels the ‘normative*, as opposed to the ‘interpretative*, paradigm for the study o f interaction is totally and invariably inoperable. In particular, one may question the, largely implicit, claims: (i) that norms and roles are always and to an equal degree unspecific and subject to differential interpretation; and (ii) that in all situations alike an assumption o f basic consensus on meanings and definitions will be equally inappropriate. One has only to spell out such propositions for them to appear by no means self-evident but, on the contrary, empirically plausible only where some degree o f ethnocentrism prevails.6 Certainly, it would still seem open to suggest that in some situations the presuppositions o f the normative paradigm will, as a matter o f fact, give a more or less adequate basis for analyses o f action in terms o f ‘variables* and via deductive explanations. And in any event, it may be held, where such presuppositions are not valid, then, with a properly formulated explanation, this will be automatically shown up by its weakness or failure. Conversely, to the extent that explanations o f the kind in question are successful, the appropriateness o f the approach may be taken as confirmed. The ultimate proof o f the pudding must be in the eating.7

Such a rejoinder to the ethnomethodologica! argument, it should be stressed, does not lead one to deny that interpretive procedures are always involved in social interaction: it rejects only the contention that the sociological analyst may never, to any extent, take these procedures for granted. The force o f this point, one may add, is sufficient to again bring from Douglas a significant concession. In modification o f Garfinkel’s emphasis on the ‘awesome indexicality* which characterizes interaction, Douglas explicitly accepts (D p. 42) that variability in the contextual determination o f social meanings ‘is normal in everyday life*. And, as he also notes, recognition o f this variability is highly relevant to the debate over the use o f questionnaires and interviews as data collection techniques. The real issue can in this way be seen to be that o f the degree o f indexicality o f the questions asked and the answers given. In other words, there would seem no basis, even in the ethnomethodological position itself, for a total rejection o f such techniques. W hat is brought out is, rather, the importance o f the practical matter o f deciding when questions and answers are so dependent upon the situation o f their use that the data which are produced are too unreliable to be worth having.

A second counter-argument which may be deployed is o f a still more basic kind. The critique o f the ‘normative paradigm’ offered by Wilson and others (and, indeed, the ethnomethodological case as a whole) starts with the assertion that the specific concern o f sociology is with social action and interaction. It is possible, though, simply to rebuff this claim— on the grounds that it imposes limits on the subject to which it has never conformed in the past and to which it need not now restrict itself. Such a response might seem to turn the issue into the somewhat futile one o f what is, and is not, to be called sociology. But it must be noted that the ethnomethodologists would want to question whether, ultimately, sociology could be about anything other than social interaction; while, in opposition to them, it could be held that the study o f interaction in vacuo, as it were, is not a viable intellectual undertaking. Thus, instead o f the argument grinding to a halt, it is led into questions o f a quite fundamental— in the end, ontological— kind, which should not be burked but seem, rather, deserving o f consideration in their own right.


III

Undergirding the several specific criticisms o f the practices o f conventional sociology which ethnomethodologists advance, there is always, whether explicit or not, one quite general and basic objection which it is essential to recognize: namely, that conventional sociology proceeds on the unexamined assumption that a social world is there— as a ‘given’, available for study— in essentially the same w ay as is the world o f natural phenomena; hence, the aim o f sociological enquiry can be taken as that o f describing and explaining features o f this w orld, o f showing ‘what it is really like’. W hat is important for the ethnomethodologist is precisely that the assumption in question should not be made— that the idea o f an ‘independent’ social reality should be abandoned, or at least suspended, and social phenomena be treated as ‘real’ only in so far as individuals* actions and interpretations routinely confirm them as such. In other words, the social world is not to be regarded as a given, but as an everyday, practical contrivance. W hat is ‘there’ for the sociologist to study can thus be nothing else than the procedures o f typifying, accounting and o f ‘order construction* generally whereby this constitution o f social reality is actually brought off. And in turn, it is argued, this means that it is only at the level at which such procedures are in operation— the ‘micro’ level o f everyday interaction— that the sociologist can properly w ork; or, at all events, that there can be no other— ‘macro’— level at which sociological enquiry can be conducted independently o f an appreciation o f how, in everyday life, social reality is first produced.

It is in terms o f this argument that one must understand Walsh’s claim (F p. 34) that ‘sociological theory. . . must start from the bottom and build up’ ; or Douglas’s contention (D pp. 11-12) that, while macro-analysis should undoubtedly continue because o f its ‘great practical importance*, it should not as yet be regarded as scientific since it is not grounded in the systematic observation o f concrete phenomena— such observation being possible only at the level o f inter-action, from which level a scientifically acceptable macro-sociology (if it is ever achieved) will have to be developed. Moreover, equally dependent on this view o f social reality is the contention that the concepts which the sociologist uses in his analyses must always be derivable from those used by actors themselves; in other words, that there is no possibility o f the sociologist being able to achieve a perspective on the social world which, in relation to the standpoint o f the actors involved, might be radically corrective or revelatory. As Phillipson puts it (F p. 87):

I f m en act on the basis o f the meanings they give to their w orld and the project o f sociology is to

understand m en’s actions, then the m ost adequate sociological interpretations w ill be those that m inim ize

the rem edy o f those actions b y ensuring continuity betw een their descriptions and the m eaningful

actions to w h ich they relate.

Again, the ethnomethodological argument is not without force; but again too its shock would seem more likely to have a bracing than a fatal effect upon the body o f established sociology. This is so because the assumptions and arguments from which its further-reaching implications stem are, once more, by no means so unassailable as their proponents suppose.

Throughout ethnomethodological writings there runs an uncertainty on crucial questions o f ontology. A t some points as, say, when differences with symbolic interactionists are being stressed, ethnomethodologists write as i f they accept a straightforward dualism: the physical world is ‘out there* and real, the world o f mental states is ‘in here’ and real, but the social w orld has no such autonomous existence. It does not exist, to quote Walsh, ‘independently o f the social meanings that its members use to account it and, hence, constitute it’, and ‘social structure cannot refer to anything more than members’ everyday sense o f social structure since it has no identity which is independent o f that sense*. (F p. 49, 54; cf. Zimmerman and W ider, D pp. 293-4). h might appear, then, that a stricdy mentalist view is being adopted: society is entirely ‘in the mind’ and has to be understood as being what people think it is. A t other points, however, where perhaps the spectre o f solipsism looms up, an attempt is


clearly made to set out a rather more sophisticated position. For example, Walsh also tells us (F p. 18) that ‘Durkheim is not entirely mistaken in arguing for the objective (factual) character o f the social world . . . ’ but misconceives the source o f its facticity:

It is not that a real objective factual w orld exists out there to w hich the members o f society are subject

but that actors in the process o f apprehending this w orld (that is, explaining it, defining it, perceiving it)

externalize and objectify it through the available m ode b y w hich apprehension can be articulated.

Prim arily this m ode is that o f natural language. Language, b y virtue o f the categories w hich it makes

available for the interpretation o f the appearances o f the social w orld, objectifies and externalizes that

w orld for its members.

The confusion here displayed is recurrent in ethnomethodological work, even i f often better concealed. Its origin lies, one may suggest, in what Karl Popper has called ‘ontological parsimony*. If, as Walsh argues, language externalizes and objectifies actors* explanations, definitions and perceptions, and in this way ‘constitutes’ the social world, then one may ask w hy this world should not be regarded as being just as ‘real’, in its own fashion, as are the physical and mental worlds. What, apparently, prevents ethnomethodologists from unambiguously accepting it as such is that they do not see, perhaps do not wish to see, one important point: that it is quite possible to treat the social world as they would wish— as being produced by actors in their interaction and as being ‘factual’ for them only through their apprehension o f it— without being thereby constrained to hold that its reality can have no more than an intersubjective character. (Cf. the remarks by Silverman, F pp. 167-8 or Douglas, D p. 27.)

The position is, rather, as Popper has recently argued8, that one may recognize, in addition to the worlds o f physical and mental states, a ‘ third world’ o f the objective content of thought. This can be taken as comprising all such entities as theories (scientific and lay), works o f art, bodies o f law, established customs and convention— in fact, any kind o f statement describing anything or conveying any significant message or meaning; that is, one which entails another or agrees or clashes with another. This world o f ‘objective ideas’ or intelligibilia, is, Popper emphasizes, a human product; but, he shows, it is mistaken to suppose that the entities within it are no more than symbolic or linguistic expressions o f subjective mental states or o f dispositions to act— or, for that matter, means o f communication serving simply to evoke certain mental states or dispositions to act in others. For the objective content o f ideas exists quite independently o f anyone actually knowing it: as, say, in the case o f an unread book, an undeciphered inscription or a forgotten mathematical problem.9

Thus, one may suggest, the ethnomethodologists could clarify their ontology greatly by accepting that the study o f the social world, even when taken as defined in and through interaction, still involves entities which, while originating in mental states, have nonetheless their own autonomous domain. However, the difficulty is that to do so would also mean their accommodating certain other consequences o f the idea o f the ‘third world* which would not fit in so readily with their more polemical and ‘revolutionary’ concerns.

In mapping their social universe and in explaining and ‘accounting’ it, actors come into contact with others with different social maps, and consequently, as the ethnomethodologists rightly argue, a problem o f negotiating and ‘bringing o ff ’ some common definition o f social reality is inherent to interaction. However, what it would seem necessary to add here is, first, that the version o f reality which emerges from interaction— like the outcome o f any negotiation— may well be an unintended (and possibly an unwelcome) one for some at least o f the participants; and secondly, that, once produced, this negotiated version o f reality will, like any other, have objective content capable o f existing independently o f the actors w ho created it. ‘Constructed* social orders are not like dreams in that they necessarily vanish once they are no longer represented in individuals* mental states. In so far as they are ‘externalized’ in symbolic or linguistic form, they can live on autonomously. A law, a regulation, a customary practice, a point o f etiquette exists as an ‘ intelligible’ even when it is in no one’s mind. It is


there, for example, to be possibly invoked and appealed to— even i f variously construed— in precisely the processes o f accomplishing and demonstrating social order in which ethnomethodologists profess to be centrally interested. It must then follow that such ‘third world* entities may properly be objects o f enquiry in, as it were, their own right— apart, that is, from their actual interpretation in social action and rather as the conditions of such action. In other words, the claim that the subject matter o f sociology can be nothing other than social action is powerfully controverted.

Furthermore, ontological pluralism o f the kind Popper suggests directly prompts questions concerning the relationships between the different worlds o f reality that are distinguished. Popper himself has argued that the ‘second world*— that o f subjective experiences— interacts directly with both the ‘first world’ o f physical states and with his ‘third world’, while the first and third worlds are able to interact indirectly via the second. I f such a position is accepted, the implications for the analysis o f interaction are considerable. Most obviously, it means recognizing that as well as ‘third world* conditions o f action o f the kind just suggested, there are ‘first world’ ones also— ones deriving from the fact that actors have bodies upon which action is in various ways dependent, and are thus subject to limitations imposed by the physical environment. It is true that the physical world can directly influence the course o f social action only as it is mediated through perception and interpretation. Nevertheless, such issues as whether or not interaction is possible or actually occurs, w ho participates in it, and what its outcomes are (in relation, say, to actors’ purposes) are all ones to which physical aspects of, for example, ecological, demographic and technological conditions are highly relevant as either constraints or facilities. Such conditions must, o f course, themselves be seen as being at some juncture determined or determinable in some degree by social action. But this is not to say that their effects in relation to social action will then, any more than those o f ‘third w orld’ entities, be always intended ones. N or again need it be the case that those whose actions are thus conditioned will know how this happens, or even that it happens at all.

In short, the point is that processes o f interaction between different domains o f reality are typically complex, and will frequently be opaque to actors in their everyday lives: consider the processes involved in, for example, such phenomena as inflation, occupational mobility or residential segregation. But many problems which are thus posed have always been o f interest to sociologists and would still appear entirely legitimate. One may agree with W ilson (D p. 58) when he claims that the ‘central* concern o f sociology is with social action, but still observe that ‘central* is not the same as ‘total’, and further that issues such as those raised in the previous paragraph, while crucial to the study o f action, obviously cannot be understood simply in terms o f action. In treating such issues— ones o f the conditions o f action— the investigation, from a sociological standpoint, o f a variety o f ‘non-meaningful’ phenomena would seem very likely to be called for.10

Finally, it may be maintained that where series o f unintended consequences flow from the interplay between a multiplicity o f intended actions and their conditioning context, the opacity which results will be penetrated, i f at all, only by methods o f enquiry and conceptualization which go clearly beyond those o f lay members in everyday life. It is likely that information will need to be collected on a scale or over a time period which would simply not be practical possibilities in everyday life; and that concepts w ill need to be formed that have little or no connection with those embodied in everyday descriptions and accounts. For example, concepts such as those o f ‘demand pull* and ‘cost push’ inflation or o f ‘structural’ and ‘exchange* occupational mobility are not— as Walsh asserts all sociological constructs must necessarily be (F p. 18)— ‘second order’ constructs; that is, ‘constructs o f constructs made by the actors on the social scene*. Nonetheless, they are ones o f some demonstrable heuristic and explanatory value, and there seems no good reason w hy there should be any self-denying ordinance against their use.11 Moreover, it would appear evident that in certain contexts, that is, in regard to certain problems, such concepts could be corrective and revelatory


in relation to lay members’ understandings, and be accepted by members as such on rational grounds. One returns, thus, to the point previously made that sociology can claim to be more than merely one folk construction among others— while being also distinguished by the fact that its privileged position requires that whatever it offers as knowledge must be publicly available and always exposed to criticism, test and improvement.12

IV

In the foregoing, a number o f considerations have been advanced against the ‘militant’ ethnomethodological view that the procedures o f conventional sociology (understood as a residual category) are fundamentally flawed, and that ethnomethodology itself represents a ‘paradigm shift* whereby a more valid definition o f the proper concerns and objectives o f sociological enquiry has been achieved. In conclusion, however, the argument that ethnomethodology is unlikely to have a revolutionary impact may be taken into its exponents’ own camp by examining a crucial point o f division, or at least o f uncertainty, which their writings display but which they do not appear to have fully appreciated.

The point relates to the ‘basic’ or ‘interpretive’ rules o f everyday interaction which play a central part in the ethnomethodological approach as the criteria or principles by reference to which members present and consider accounts as being rational and coherent, and, to this end, invoke such ‘surface’ rules as formal regulations, customs, conventions and the like. Critics o f ethnomethodology, such as Dreitzel and Gouldner, have asked: ‘W hat are these rules?’ and ‘W here do they come from?’.13 T o the second question, the standard reply would seem to be that one is rather misguided to ask, but what is more relevant— and revealing— is that such a reply may be offered on two quite different bases, which in turn imply different answers to the first question. The crucial distinction is that between treating the basic rules as having substantive content or treating them as rules o f interpretive procedure. W hich alternative is adopted appears all-important for the nature o f ethnomethodological enquiry; but, it may be held, in either case problems arise for programmatic statements o f the kind earlier noted. If the former position is taken, then it is hard to see how ethnomethodology’s declaration o f independence from conventional sociology can be sustained; i f the latter, then serious contradictions become apparent within ethnomethodological writing on concept formation, appropriate explanatory paradigms and the like.

Filmer, for example, appears to understand the basic rules o f interaction as having substantive significance— as, in Cicourel’s phrase, providing ‘a sense o f social structure’ . Thus, Filmer remarks that from a Parsonian standpoint such rules ‘would have to be found in the deeply internalized, fundamental, common norms and values embodying the deterministic, limiting conditions within which ordered social interaction is possible.’ (F p. 228). However, in opposition to this view, he contends that these rules are only established as what they are by their actual ability in organizing the settings o f everyday actions— which ability is in turn demonstrated only by the rationality and coherence o f the accounts that members give. Thus, the rules ‘come from* nowhere other than the occasions o f their use. As Filmer puts it (F p. 227):

they are generated w ithin the activities w hich they organize. This is the ‘reflexive’ and ‘incarnate*

character o f the rules w h ich Garfinkel repeatedly emphasises as an awesome and remarkable phenom enon.

The most obvious difficulty with this reply lies in the fact that it raises another aspect o f the empirical question already noted: that o f just how far meanings and definitions in interaction are situationally determined and are thus only ‘analysable in context*. For to say as Filmer does (ibid.) that the argument he presents has been ‘demonstrated quite explicitly’ by Garfinkel simply will not do. As Garfinkel himself has— wisely— acknowledged, his ‘demonstrations’ in this connection are to be taken as no more than illustrative examples o f his thesis, and not as providing findings which can effectively substantiate it.14 Furthermore,

RE VI E W A R T I C L E 459

as already observed, Douglas, for one, is prepared to accept, in opposition to Garfinkel, the far more plausible view that situational determination is variable in its extent; and what must here be stressed is that in so doing he also accepts, willy-nilly, the dependence o f ethnomethodological concerns on what must be the outcome o f other forms o f sociological enquiry. Douglas argues (D p. 39) that

[A ] preponderant focus on contextual effects tends to distort the realities o f everyday life . . . . A fter

all, absolutist (non-situational or non-contextual) thought is not the creation o f some m ad scientist.

Absolutist thought is a fundamental part of Western thought— of moral thought and rational thought.

He then goes on to remark how both moral absolutism (‘It is a matter o f principle’, ‘I have no choice’) and rational absolutism (scientific method, technical rationality) can, and do, provide important rules o f action which are o f a clearly situation-transcending kind. Thus, it must follow from Douglas’es stance that ‘third world’ entities are integrally involved in the study o f social interaction. Rules o f action such as moral or zweckrational imperatives can serve to structure particular situations for participants while existing independently o f those situations; they are intelligible, and have to be understood, as cultural— that is, ‘third world’ phenomena quite apart from ‘the occasions o f their use’ .

Moreover, to the extent that the rules by reference to which reality-construction proceeds are taken as substantive but, to quote Dreitzel, as ‘not necessarily a free product o f the subjectivity o f members in search for meaning’,15 a further pertinent question can be posed: What, then, are the extra-situational influences that help determine what the rules ‘say’, and why, in a given situation, the reality which is negotiated comes out the w ay it does and not otherwise? To enquire thus is, o f course, to raise matters o f social advantage and power, and is in fact to pinpoint other major difficulties in any purely ‘situational’ approach to interaction. For instance, it is not simply that ethnomethodologists neglect questions o f how certain individuals come to be in certain situations in the first place; they also fail to enquire how, underlying the communicative behaviour that goes on, situations may also be structured by the differential control over resources, economic, political and symbolic, which participants bring to their interaction.16 And what is further remarkable is that they pay little attention either to the ways— now increasingly explored— in which language and associated cognitive processes may be themselves conditioned by existing social relations o f advantage and power, with important implications for just what ‘sense o f social structure’ the members o f different groups and strata come to acquire.17 Thus, the point is again underlined that ethnomethodological enquiry, understood in the manner in question, is incomplete in itself and not intellectually viable in isolation from other, more traditional, sociological concerns.

It is perhaps as a means o f avoiding this charge that the alternative position on basic rules o f interaction— that they are to be taken as ones o f interpretive procedure— gains its greatest attraction for ethnomethodologists. For example, in the two contributions to the Douglas collection co-authored by Zimmerman, the case for the separateness o f ethnomethodology from conventional sociology is closely linked with an insistence on the fact that ‘ instead o f an ethnography that inventories a setting’s distinctive, substantive features, the research vehicle envisioned here is a methodography. . . that searches for the practices through which those substantive features are made observable.’ (Zimmerman and Pollner, D p. 95). The key assumption is that these practices display ‘invariant properties’ {ibid.) or as least ones o f ‘immense generality’ (p. 99), and the discovery o f the ‘basic rules’ o f interaction understood in this sense is then seen as the chief objective o f ethnomethodology. Thus, its concerns and those o f conventional sociology may readily be represented as quite distinct, and, rather than the former having any dependence on the latter, the ethnomethodological perspective, it can be said, ‘demands treating as problematic what in lay and professional sociological investigations alike is treated as a stable and unquestioned point o f departure.’ (p. 103).


One not unreasonable reaction to this position would be to ask what empirical or theoretical grounds exist for believing that other than trivial features o f social interaction are invariant to culture and can then constitute a subject matter for ethnomethodology thus conceived. However, for present purposes, attention may be directed to another problem. I f ethnomethodological enquiry is to focus on interpretive practices o f the kind in question, then this would seem to undermine, or at least confuse, the critique o f the philosophy and procedures o f conventional sociology that ethnomethodologists have offered and the alternatives they have proposed. It should be evident, for example, that ethnomethodology, so oriented, could not itself utilise the ‘interpretive paradigm* as advanced, say, by Wilson. For as Zimmerman and Wieder make explicit (D p. 294), in their understanding o f ethnomethodology the interest in the ‘documentary method* o f interpretation— or, one could add, in any form o f Verstehen— ‘is not in it as our method, but as a method that members use in discovering and portraying orderly and connected events.* (italics added). In other words, they see, apparently more clearly than does W ilson himself (cf. D p. 78 and n. 32) that i f interpretive practices are to be opened up as a topic for investigation, then ‘interpretive’ methods can scarcely provide the appropriate means for so doing.

But what kind o f method, one might then ask, would be appropriate? O n this question one may find in ethnomethodological writing a frank recognition o f a problem still largely to be resolved. However, the important point is that there seems no reason at all w hy whatever method is ultimately developed should conform to precepts o f the kind that are, for example, reiterated throughout the Filmer volume— that actors* definitions o f the situation should be paramount, that the remedying o f actors’ accounts should be minimal, that the investigator’s constructs should be no more than constructs o f actors’ constructs, and so on. O n the contrary, it would seem most probable that any description and, especially, any explanation o f invariant features o f interaction w ill need to be through language other than that o f the everyday actor, and in terms which will be decidedly revelatory to him. Quite conceivably, too, the investigation could lead— if it led anywhere at all— not only out o f the field o f sociology itself but out o f that o f the social and human sciences generally and into, say, ethology or neuro-physio- logy. A t very least, one could say that i f ethnomethodology, understood in the manner in question, were to produce new foundations for sociology, these would appear far less likely to be o f a ‘phenomenological* than o f a quite strictly ‘positivistic* kind.

That divergent and seemingly conflicting positions should be found among those who call themselves ethnomethodologists would be o f little consequence were the latter more ready to acknowledge the still highly inchoate nature o f the ideas and arguments which they present. But such a lack o f consistency and clarity in viewpoint must make all talk o f a ‘paradigm shift’ seem quite absurdly pretentious. In any event, ethnomethodologists would do well to remember that revolutions o f this kind are best discerned after— indeed, long after— the fact o f their occurrence; to proclaim one in the making is in itself to incite disbelief.

Notes

1. See, for example, Harold Garfinkel and Harvey Sacks, ‘O n Formal Structures o f Practical Actions’ in John C . McKinney and Edward A. Tiryakian (eds.) Theoretical Sociology: Perspectives and Development, N ew York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970, pp. 345-6 esp. In contrast, the w ork o f Cicourel, which was less deliberately distanced from ‘conventional’ sociology, was explicitly intended to challenge, and revise, certain o f its basic presuppositions. See A. V. Cicourel, Method and Measurement in Sociology, Glencoe: Free Press, 1964.

2. For example, the discussions by Walsh o f ‘variable analysis’ (pp. 41-55) and by Phillipson o f quantification (pp. 97-100) are alike inadequate in that they are written without any attempt to take into account the contributions made by measurement theorists over the last half century or more.


3. In contrast, in the Filmer volume there is remarkably little discussion o f symbolic interactionism, and the attitude displayed towards it is uncertain (cf. pp. 20, 48-9, 127).

4. I have corrected Douglas’s mis-spelling here— as throughout— o f ‘solipsism’ . The error is worrying in that it suggests ignorance o f the w ord’s etym ology which happens, in this case, to be a good guide to its meaning.

5. Most obviously, o f course, on that central to the great debate in late nineteenth and earlier twentieth century Germany on the comparative methodologies o f Natur- and Geistes- wissenschqften.

6. As an example o f such ethnocentrism, see Cicourel’s discussion o f the situation o f the ‘new faculty member’ in his ‘Basic and Normative Rules in the Negotiation o f Status and Role’ in Hans Peter Dreitzel (ed.) Patterns of Communicative Behaviour, London: Collier-MacMillan, 1970, pp. 10-12. This actor’s dilemmas strike one as very American and contemporary: they would scarcely have arisen in, say, M ax W eber’s Heidelberg. It should, however, be added here that Cicourel’s w ork on the cognitive aspects o f social interaction and structure (continued in his paper in the Douglas collection) represents by far the most important contribution to sociological theory to have thus far emerged from the ethnomethodological ‘movement*.

7. It is, for example, possible to think o f such explanations as embodying, in addition to a sociological theory, a theory also o f the measurement o f meaning. I f the latter fails, then so too does the former; whereas to the extent that the latter holds up, then the former can be judged on, as it were, its own— sociological— merits. I am endebted to m y colleague Anthony Heath for drawing m y attention to this argument. Cf. Blalock’s discussion o f ‘auxiliary theories’ in his paper ‘The Measurement Problem: A Gap between the Languages o f Theory and Research’ in Hubert M . and Ann B. Blalock (eds.) Methodology in Social Research, N ew Y ork: McGraw-Hill, 1968, pp. 23-27 esp.

8. K. R. Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, chs. 3 and 4 esp. For a useful discussion o f some implications o f Popper’s ideas in this respect for the philosophy o f the social sciences, see I. C . Jarvie, Concepts and Society, London: Routledge, 1972, chs. 2, 5 and 6 esp. Jarvie’s indication o f the, in part, convergent perspectives o f Popper and Schiitz is o f particular interest.

9. Indeed, it may be asserted that only some fraction o f all that knowing subjects could potentially know about ‘third world’ entities will in fact ever be known, despite these entities being human constructions with no origins other than in human creativity. T o take Popper’s striking example, the system o f natural numbers may be regarded as a human invention; yet it can be shown that there are infinitely many problems in the arithmetic o f integers, and thus an indefinite number o f discoveries about the system to be made. See Objective Knowledge, pp. 118-9, 161.

10. It is in this connection, moreover, that quantitative data o f a relatively ‘macro* character may be especially important. Ethnomethodological criticism o f such data (cf. Douglas, D p. 6) fails because it is no more than an unjustified extension o f an argument that is cogent only in regard to ‘moral’ statistics or, more generally, the statistics o f social actions; i.e. data in the constitution o f which interpretive judgments about actors’ motives and intentions are necessarily involved, and the idea o f a ‘true’ rate thus becomes problematic.

11. It may be noted that Schiitz, whom Walsh and his colleagues obviously take as a major source o f inspiration, is quite explicit that much o f value may be achieved in the social sciences without introducing concepts that refer in any w ay to the actor and his subjective point o f view — provided that the investigator working in this w ay keeps in mind what he is about and does not ‘shift levels*. In other words, the important postulate is that o f the ‘purity o f method’ : ‘choose the problem you are interested in, consider its limits and possibilities, make its terms compatible and consistent with one another, and having

11—(12 pp.)


once accepted it, stick to i t !’ Alfred Schiitz, ‘The Social W orld and the Theory o f Social Action* in Collected Papers, vol. II, The Hague: Martinus NijhofF, 1964, pp. 6-8.

12. Cf. Jarvie, Concepts and Society, pp. 170-2.13. See Dreitzel’s ‘Introduction’ to the volume cited in n. 6, above, pp. x v et seq.; and A lvin

Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology, London: Heinemann, 1971, pp. 390-95.14. See his ‘Studies o f the Routine Grounds o f Everyday Activities’, Social Problems, vol.11,

no. 3, Winter, 1974.15. ‘Introduction’, p. xvii.16. Compare in this respect the far more sophisticated treatment o f the processes whereby

‘symbolic universes’ are maintained and controlled that is found in the ‘phenomenological’ sociology o f Berger and Luckmann. See Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, London: Allen Lane, 1967, Part T w o, ch. 2 esp. Note also the remarks by Dreitzel, ‘Introduction’, pp. xv-xv i.

17. For a useful, i f tendentious, review o f some o f the main issues, see Claus Mueller, ‘Notes on the Repression o f Communicative Behaviour’ in Dreitzel, Patterns of Communicative Behaviour. Especially relevant to this problem area, as Mueller recognizes, is the w ork o f Basil Bernstein and his associates (see the papers collected in his Class, Codes and Control, vol. I, London: Routledge, 1971 and vol. 2, 1973). Y et neither o f the volumes under review contains a single reference to Bernstein.

Biographical note: Jo h n H. G o l d t h o r p e , bom 1935. B .A . London 1956; M .A . Cambridgei960; Research Fellow, University o f Leicester 1957-60; Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge1960-69; Official Fellow, Nuffield College, O xford 1969-; Editor Sociology 1969-72.

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