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In this vital new study, Andrew Abbott presents a fresh and daring analysis of the evolution and development of the social sciences. Chaos of Disciplines reconsiders how knowledge actually changes and advances. Challenging the accepted belief that social sciences are in a perpetual state of progress, Abbott contends that disciplines instead cycle around an inevitable pattern of core principles. New schools of thought, then, are less a reaction to an established order than they are a reinvention of fundamental concepts. Chaos of Disciplines uses fractals to explain the pa

Contents -- Preface -- Prologue -- 1. The Historiography of the Chicago School -- 2. Transition and Tradition in the Second Chicago School, With Emanuel Gaziano -- 3. Albion Small's AJS -- 4. The AJS of the Chicago Schools -- 5. The AJS in Transition to Professionalism -- 6. The AJS in Modern Form -- 7. The Continuing Relevance of the Chicago School -- Epilogue -- Sources and Acknowledgments -- References -- Index

This article investigates the relation between a theorist's theories and his daily life practices, using Émile Durkheim as an example. That theory and practice should be consistent seems not only scientifically proper but also morally right. Yet the concept of consistency conceals several different standards: consistency with one's own theoretical arguments, consistency with outsiders' judgments of oneself, and consistency within one's arguments (and actions) across time and social space. Analysis of 750 pages of Durkheim's letters shows that Durkheim lived a life consistent with and informed by his theories for most of his career. In his professional relations, his personal relations, and his political positions, Durkheim's moral activity usually proceeds from his theoretical commitments. However, the death of his son in combat could not be theorized within the Durkheimian system, and it broke up this long stable pattern. The analysis concludes that under modern conditions, the issue of moral consistency relates closely to the general problem of solidarity and invites more complex theorization.

This article takes a processualist position to identify the current forces conducive to rapid change in the social sciences, of which the most important is the divergence between their empirical and normative dimensions. It argues that this gap between the many and various empirical ontologies we typically use and the much more restricted normative ontology on which we base our moral judgments is problematic. In fact, the majority of social science depends on a "normative contractarianism." While this ontology is the most widely used basis for normative judgments in the social sciences, it is not really effective when it comes to capturing the normative problems raised by the particularity and historicity of the social process, nor the astonishing diversity of values in the world. The article closes with a call to establish a truly processual foundation for our analysis of the social world, which must move away from contractualism and imagine new ways of founding the human normative project.

Résumé
Ce texte prend appui sur la tradition processualiste afin d'identifier les facteurs susceptibles de produire rapidement un changement dans les sciences sociales. Le plus important est le décalage qui existe entre les dimensions empirique et normative des sciences sociales. L'article défend l'idée qu'un tel décalage entre la diversité des ontologies empiriques à notre disposition et l'éventail plus réduit des ontologies normatives sur lesquelles nous nous appuyons est problématique. De fait, la plupart des sciences sociales ont recours à un « contractualisme normatif ». Ontologie normative la plus courante dans les sciences sociales, ce dernier n'est cependant pas en mesure d'appréhender correctement les problèmes normatifs soulevés par les notions de « particularité », d'« historicité » et de « diversité des valeurs ». Pour conclure, ce texte appelle de ses voeux une analyse normative du monde social qui se démarque du contractualisme et pose les jalons d'une approche proprement processualiste.

This article argues for a new branch of theory based not on presumptions of scarcity—which are the foundational presumptions of most existing social theory—but on those of excess. The article first discusses the emergence of scarcity's dominance in social theory. It then considers and rejects the idea that excess of one thing is simply scarcity of another. It discusses the mechanisms by which excess creates problems, noting three such mechanisms at the individual level (paralysis, habituation, and value contextuality) and two further mechanisms (disruption and misinheritance) at the social level. The article then considers four types of strategies with which we address excess: two reduction strategies (defensive and reactive) and two rescaling strategies (adaptive and creative). It closes with some brief illustrations of how familiar questions can be recast from terms of scarcity into terms of excess.

This article examines whether published keyword indexes to 22 British poets had any measurable effect on scholarly production related to those poets, mainly using quantitative output measures, since these are all that is available. It also draws on archival information about the individual concordances and their origins. The article tests whether concordances facilitated scholarship, or were a by-product/correlative of scholarship, or were unrelated to scholarship. The preponderance of the evidence leans toward the by-product hypothesis. More important, given the centrality of keyword indexing today, the evidence is mostly inconsistent with the facilitation argument. It is most likely that concordances emerged as a by-product and adjunct to scholarship and that their main use was by undergraduates, amateurs, and others below the elite level. Implications for the present are briefly discussed.

This article examines the public sphere in early-twentieth-century America via a study of Charles Richmond Henderson, Chicago reformer and sociology professor. It discusses Henderson's broad visibility, from religious and university venues, through the club and voluntary association world, and into the professions and government. It examines the relations between this archipelago of reform venues and the intimate sphere of family and religion as well as the separation of the world of Protestant reform from both the Catholic and the immigrant publics. Finally, it examines Henderson's own experience of his public role, showing how his religious understanding yoked objectivity and advocacy into a single concept of reform knowledge-driven reform.