Abstract
The notion of context should not be understood as descriptive but as analytical, in the sense that the package of features characterizing a context is dependent on the question the sociologist wants to solve. Also, the features evoked in a context should be empirically observable. This excludes introducing unobservable dispositional features in the context: a principle Weber, Durkheim and many of their modern followers endorse. The fathers of sociology have practiced since long contextual analysis in this sense. Examples drawn from their work illustrate the powerfulness of their explanation of numerous macroscopic puzzles. They illustrate how to solve the micro-macro link question. They suggest that the solution of this question is dependent on the nature of the macroscopic facts to be explained. The paper discusses the question indirectly through the accumulation of examples illustrating the powerfulness of contextual analysis. A major point of the article is also that social action includes always beliefs. Except in the cases where explaining the beliefs raises no question, it is a challenging point for social analysts. Rational Choice Theory is efficient in the cases where beliefs raise no question. If they do, Rational Choice Theory is doomed to introduce controversial notions as frame or bias that do not correspond to any observable reality. Because of its instrumental view on rationality, Rational Choice Theory is also unable to explain the goals different categories of individuals follow, while contextual analysis can, thanks to its broader conception of rationality.
Zusammenfassung
Der Begriff des Kontextes sollte nicht deskriptiv, sondern analytisch verstanden werden, und zwar in dem Sinne, dass das Bündel von Merkmalen, das einen Kontext kennzeichnet, von der Frage abhängt, die ein Soziologe untersuchen will. Auch sollten die Merkmale des Kontextes empirisch untersuchbar sein. Damit schließen wir Dispositions-Merkmale des Kontextes aus – ein Prinzip, das Weber, Durkheim und viele ihrer modernen Nachfolger betonen. Die Väter der Soziologie haben schon lange Kontextanalysen in diesem Sinne betrieben. Ich verwende Beispiele aus ihren Werken, um die Erklärungskraft für zahlreiche makroskopische Puzzles zu demonstrieren; sie zeigen, wie sich die Mikro-Makro-Beziehung lösen lässt. Die Lösung dieser Frage hängt von der Art der makroskopischen Sachverhalte ab, die erklärt werden sollen. Der Beitrag erörtert diese Frage indirekt, indem mehrere Beispiele vorgestellt werden, die die Stärke kontextueller Analysen belegen. Ein wichtiger Aspekt in dem Beitrag ist, dass soziales Handeln immer Glaubenssätze einschließt. Dies stellt eine Herausforderung für soziale Analysen dar, ausgenommen jene Fälle, in denen die Erklärung von Glaubenssätzen unproblematisch ist. Die Rational-Choice-Theorie ist wirkungsvoll in solchen Fällen, in denen Glaubensüberzeugungen keine Probleme aufwerfen. Wenn sie es jedoch tun, ist die Rational-Choice-Theorie gezwungen, kontroverse Begriffe wie „frame“ oder „bias“ einzuführen, die keiner beobachtbaren Realität entsprechen. Aufgrund ihres instrumentellen Verständnisses von Rationalität ist die Rational-Choice-Theorie auch unfähig, die Ziele unterschiedlicher Kategorien von Individuen zu erklären, was hingegen die Kontextanalyse vermag, da sie auf einer breiteren Konzeption von Rationalität beruht.
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Notes
The view on context proposed here is close to Reynaud (2006). I have proposed in Le Rouet de Montaigne, Paris, Hermann, 2013, an extended version of this article.
According to Popper (1976), dispositional parameters that, by difference with Durkheim’s dispositional parameters (as: early Australians do not know Western biology), are unempirical, are a lasting plague to the social sciences: they are remindful of Molière’s sarcasm: opium makes a sleep because of its virtusdormitiva. As they spoke latin, the patients of 17th century physicians believed they mastered a science inaccessible to the common man. Classical sociologists as Durkheim or Weber as well as prominent contemporary sociologists, as Alter (2013) or Cusson (2006) on the French-speaking sociological stage, never use unempirical dispositional parameters.
Since the probability of winning when using the simple answer is: 0.8 times 0.8 + 0.2 times 0.2 = 0.68, while the probability of predicting rightly a toss is 1 times 0.8 + 0 times 0.2 = 0.8, when choosing head at each toss.
Pareto’s theory of derivations is a systematic exploration of the arguments that are logically wrong, although they display a certain power of conviction.
Today, “analytical sociology” is presented as an alternative to RCT (Hedström 2005). It is nothing else though than Merton’s “middle range” theory. That it incorporates modern technical tools does not change the fact that the Mertonian paradigm underlies analytical sociology, a paradigm Weber actually already identified when he states that social phenomena should be explained by their genuine causes: the actions of the “atoms” of sociology, i.e. the individual social actors (Weber 1920). These “atoms” are of course “idealtypical” rather than concrete individuals. On the various names of “analytical sociology”, see Pawson (2009).
In my preface to the French translation of Olson’s book, I have shown that his argument can be presented, as he does, in the classical language of economic theory, but also in the more transdisciplinary language of gametheory. At any rate, instrumental rationality is a basic postulate of gametheory as of classical economics.
Kojève was immensely popular in France among the young social scientists of that time, among them Raymond Aron.
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Boudon†, R. What is Context?. Köln Z Soziol 66 (Suppl 1), 17–45 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-014-0269-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-014-0269-2