douglas goodman - what collins's the sociology of philosophies says about sociological theory

7/25/2019 Douglas Goodman - What Collins's the Sociology of Philosophies Says About Sociological Theory

1/11

What Collins's The Sociology of Philosophies Says about Sociological TheoryAuthor(s): Douglas GoodmanSource: Sociological Theory, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 92-101Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/223294.

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2/11

What Collins's The

Sociology

of Philosophies

Says

about

Sociological

Theory*

DOUGLAS GOODMAN

Wellesley

College

In Collins's

latest

book,

we

see an

attempt

to

apply

his

sociological

theories to

the

history of philosophy.

WhileCollins's

macrosociology of

knowledgeprovides

important

insights

into

the role

of

conflict

in an

intellectual

field,

his

microsociology

is

more

problematic.

In

particular,

Collins's

micro

theory ignores

the

fundamental

importance

of

social

interpretations.

This leads

him to use a

vague

and

unproductive

notion

of

emotions.

Nevertheless,

we can

usefully apply

Collins'sfindings

to

sociological

theory

itself.

As in

philosophy,

we see the same

competitiveappropriation

and elaboration

of

accumulated

intellectual

capital

and the

same

struggle

over the

limited resources

nec-

essary

to intellectual

production,

especially

over

what Collins

calls

the intellectual

attention

space.

Randall

Collins

has

always

been

interested

in what he calls

a non-obvious

sociology

(1982).

A

nonobvious

sociology

is one

that reveals

the hidden

processes

behind

what is

taken for

granted

and

that demonstrates

why

the obvious

questions

are not

necessarily

the

most central

ones.

His first

publication

(Ben-David

and Collins

1966)

revealed

the social

construction

of the

field of

psychology.

Instead

of

looking

at the

seminal

ideas

that led

to

the

founding

of

a scientific

psychology,

he looked

at the

less obvious

contribution

of the

creation

of

new roles.

His

influential book

Conflict

Sociology

(1975)

exposed

the under-

lying interactions that construct the taken-for-granted nature of social stratification. Instead

of

starting

with social

structures,

his

conflict

approach

examined

the micro

interactions

that

create

the

appearance

of

enduring

structures.

In his latest

book,

The

Sociology of

Philosophies

(1998),

he

is at it

again.

Here

he

argues

that

philosophical

ideas are

not the

products

of

individual

geniuses;

instead

they

emerge

from the

interaction

rituals

of

groups

and

the

conflicts

that structure

the intellectual

field.

Sociologies

of other

disciplines

tend to

strike

readers,

especially

those in

the

targeted

field,

as

attempts

to

expand

the

jurisdiction

of

sociology

and

to

fulfill Comte's

dream of

making

sociology

the ultimate

explanatory

foundation

for

all intellectual

pursuits.

Although

we

see

some

of this

in

Collins,

his

primary

goal

in this

latest

work is

not to

sociologically

explain

away philosophical truths. Instead Collins intends to use the history of philosophy to test his

ideas

about

the

relationship

between

concrete

human

interactions

and social

structures-

that

is,

the

relation

between

what

have

come

to be

called the

micro and

the macro.

Conse-

quently,

this

article

will be

less concerned

with what

sociological

theory

can

say

about

philosophy

than what

the

analysis

of

philosophy

can

say

about

sociological

theory.

In this

respect,

The

Sociology of

Philosophies

is both

important

and,

I will

argue,

ultimately

flawed.

Even the

flaws,

however,

say

something significant

about

sociological

theory.

This article

begins

with

an outline

of Collins's

micro-

and

macrosociological

theories.

These will

be familiar

to

any

who

have

read Collins's

previous

work,

but

what

we

see

in

The

Sociology

of

Philosophies

is a credible

application

of

the theories

to the

field

of

*I

thank

Richard

Harvey

Brown

for his

help

and

generosity.

Address

correspondence

o:

Douglas

Goodman,

Wellesley College,

2 Hazelmere

Road,

Roslindale,

MA

02131;

e-mail:

[email protected].

Sociological

Theory

19:1 March

2001

?

American

Sociological

Association.

1307 New

YorkAvenue

NW,

Washington,

DC

20005-4701

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/11

COLLINS'S

SOCIOLOGYOF PHILOSOPHIESAND SOCIOLOGICAL

THEORY

93

philosophy.

Whether he details of

the work are

ultimately convincing

is

beyond

the

scope

of

this

article,

but

no readercan

be

unimpressed

by

the

geographic

breadth

and

historical

depth

of

Collins's

attempt.

Following

the overview

of the

theory

is a

discussion both

of

what

I

find

unconvincing

in

the micro

theory

and also of

what

I

feel are

Collins's

important

new

contributions

to the

sociology

of

knowledge. Finally,

I

will

suggest

what

Collins's

sociology

of

knowledge

might say

about

sociological

theory

itself.

MICROAND

MACRO IN

COLLINS'S

THEORY

Collins's view

of the

micro-macro

relation is

inspired by

the

empirical

achievements

of

such

microsociological

approaches

as

ethnomethodology

and

conversational

nalysis.

These

microsociologies

do

not

wholly reject

macrosociological

concepts,

but

they

attempt

to

improve

on their

explanations

by

reconstituting

macroconcepts

n

radicallyempirical

micro-

foundations.Such

macrosociologicalphenomena

as

institutions

and

organizations

are

seen

simply

as

analytical

abstractions that

summarize

the

pattern

of

related

microbehaviors.

The

structure's

apparent

ontinuity

s

due to the

patterned

epetition

of

the

microbehaviors

over

time.

Whether

structures

change

or

persist

depends

entirely upon

whether the

under-

lying

microbehaviors

change

or

persist

(Collins

1981:989).

Collins

often

describes

structuresas

simple

aggregates

of

microevents and

has

sug-

gested

a rather

dubious

sampling

strategy

that

would

ignore

all

traditional

macrosociolog-

ical

variables

(Collins

1981:988).

This has

left him

open

to

the criticism

that he

is unable

to

deal with

macrostructures

uch as

those

social

wholes,

whose

parts

are

related hori-

zontally

and/or

vertically

in

specific ways

(Mouzelis

1995:21). However,

a closer

read-

ing

reveals that

Collins

is sensitive

to

macrorelationsbut

he

(1981:989)

believes that

they

can be

reduced

to three

pure

macrovariables:

1)

the

dispersion

of

individuals in

phys-

ical

space;

(2)

the

durationand

repetition

n

time

of

social

processes;

and

(3)

the

numbers

of

individuals

involved.

Besides

these

pure

macrovariables,

more

traditional

macroconcepts-such

as

states,

institutions,

organizations,

and

cultures-are

also

useful.

These

macroconcepts

allow

the

analyst

to

more

precisely

formulate the

temporal

and

spatial

relations

among

microphe-

nomena,

and

they

provide

a

framework

or

choosing

the

most

interesting

microphenomena

to

analyze.

Although

the

macroconcepts

are

useful

and

perhaps

even

necessary

to sociol-

ogy,

Collins

(1990a)

argues

that

they

must be

translatableback

into the

empirically

acces-

sible

interactions

that

such

macroconcepts

merely

summarize. This is

the

approach

that

Collins follows in his

sociological

study

of

philosophy.

Macroconcepts

such as

schools of

philosophy,

cultural

capital,

opportunity

structures,

and

the

like,

are

used but

always

with

the

understanding

hat

they

should be

translatable

nto

actual

interactions

between

people.

Collins's

microsociology

does

not

focus on

the

individual

subject;

rather,

or

Collins,

the

micro

is the

empirically

observable

interactions

between

individuals.

Therefore,

Col-

lins's

analytical

focus in

The

Sociology

of

Philosophies

is

not

the

individual

philosopher

but

the

small

social

circles that

met

regularly

and

that,

if

successful,

became

the

core of

influential

philosophical

schools. The

celebrated

individual

philosopher

is

nothing

but a

totemic

emblem for

that

social

group

and

its

spatial

and

temporal

network.

For

example,

the

imposing

figure

of

Hegel only

stands in

for

the

Jena-Weimar

creative

circle,

which

was made up of at least 30 individuals.

Even

intellectual

creativity

is

not

a

function

of

the

individual

but of

the

group

as it

builds

networks

of

interactions

that

spread

out in

both

time

and

space.

The

successful

group

draws in

new

recruits,

charges

them

with

creative

energy,

and

guides

them

into the

most

important

new

debates.

Prolific

philosophers

are

products

of

these

circles of

creativ-

ity

and of

chains of

significant

teachers

and

students.



4/11

SOCIOLOGICAL

THEORY

INTERACTIONRITUALS

AND EMOTIONS

According

to

Collins,

the main function

of these

groups

is

not

cognitive

but

emotional.

Emotions have a

physiological basis,

but

they

also

serve a social function.

They produce

moral

solidarity.

The

emotions associated

with ritualized

group

nteractions

onstitutemicro-

mechanisms that

explain

the

patterns

of actions

that make

up

social

structures.Collins

calls these

encounters nteraction

rituals

(IRs).

They generate

the central eatures

of social

organization-authority,

property,

and

group

membership-by

creating

and

reproducing

binding

cultural

symbols

and associated

emotional

energies.

In order o

clarify

the role

of emotions

in moral

solidarity,

Collins

distinguishes

between

three different

types

of emotions.

First

are the transient

emotions,

such as

anger,

oy,

fear,

and so

on,

that can become

the focus

of IRs.

Second,

there is emotional

energy,

the moti-

vational arousal

that

fuels the

creativity

and

drive of individuals

who

participate

n IRs.

Finally,

there

is the emotion

of

moral

solidarity

that

is

producedby

the

IR and that

is

usually

attached

to

group

symbols.

Collins

often does

not differentiate

between

these last

two since

they

are

the

subjective

and social

sides of the

same

experience,

the IR.

IRs build

on a shared

ransient

emotion

and focus the attention

of

a

group

on

a common

object

or action.

Individuals

who

participate

n IRs are filled

with emotional

energy.

This

is the attraction

of

IRs-they charge

individuals

up

like an electric

battery,giving

them

a

corresponding

degree

of enthusiasm

oward

ritually

created

symbolic

goals

when

they

are

out of

the

presence

of

the

group

(Collins

1998:23).

Through

IRs,

participants

begin

to

feel

a moral

obligation

to

one

another,

and

this

obligation

becomes

symbolized

by

what-

ever

they

focus on

during

the IR.

These

symbols

connect

the emotions

of

solidarity

to

social

structures.

The

term interaction

ritual

comes

from Goffman

(1967),

but

the use

to which Collins

puts

it

is

mainly

inspired by

Durkheim

([1912]

1965).

The

religious

rituals

that

Durkheim

described

are

archetypes

of

interactions

which

bind

members

into a

moral

community,

and

which

create

symbols

that

act as lenses

through

which members

view their

world,

and

as codes

by

which

they

communicate

Collins

1998:21).

Goffman's

contribution

was to

present

the

rituals as

both local

and

ubiquitous.

Collins

makes two

further

additions:

first,

that

IRs are

essentially

emotional

and,

second,

that

they generate

conflict

since

the resul-

tant solidarities

are

produced

variously

and

discontinuously

throughout

society.

Philosophers

participate

n such

IRs as

lectures,

conferences,

discussions,

and debates.

These

gather

the

intellectual

community,

focus

members'

attention

on a common

object

and transient

emotion,

produce

emotions

of

solidarity,

charge

the

participants

with emo-

tional

energy,

and

give

rise to

philosophical

schools.

Since

IRs

produce

solidarity

only

in

local

groups-rather

than

in

all

of

society

or

even

an entire

discipline-they

also

give

rise

to

the conflict

of

competing

schools.

According

to

Collins,

what

is

significant

about

these

IRs

is not the

manifest

subject

but

the fact

that it

serves

as a focus

for

attention

and

emotional

involvement.

Traditionally,

he

IRs of

philosophers

have

attempted

o

produce

ruth.

Whatever

ts

intrinsic

value,

this

truth

also

functions

as Durkheim's

([1912]

1965)

sacred

objects,

that

is,

as collective

symbols

that

appear

o transcend

ndividuals,

constrain

behavior,

and demand

respect.

The

partic-

ular

truth

represents

he

solidarity

of

the

group

and

energizes

those

who

participate

n

its

production.

The store

of collective

symbols

can

be understood

as a

type

of cultural

capital.

The most

important

cultural

capital

for

the

philosopher

s that which

facilitates

the creation

of novel

symbols

that become

candidates

for

new

collective

truths.

This

requires

a

knowledge

of

previous

collective

symbols

and

the

relationships

through

which

they

were

created

and

distributed.

Such

collective

symbols

also

facilitate

subsequent

IRs since

they

energize

a

94



5/11

COLLINS'S

SOCIOLOGYOF

PHILOSOPHIES

AND

SOCIOLOGICAL

THEORY

95

group

of

individuals who

value the

same

symbols.

IRs

may

reaffirm

previous

truths,

or

they

often create

new

ones, but,

whether

reverential or

iconoclastic,

IRs

create a chain

connecting previous

IRs to

future ones.

Because of their cumulative effect, Collins (1987) suggests that we should look at

interaction

ritual chains.

Through

their

history

of

ritual

participation,

people acquire

a

personal

repertoire

of cultural

capital

loaded with

significance

for the

group. They

also

acquire

a store of

emotional

energy

that

provides,

among

other

things,

a

motivation to

put

their

cultural

capital

to use.

Collins

(1998:24)

contends that the

meshing

of these inter-

action ritualchains

constitutes

everything

that s

social structure

n

all its

myriadshapes.

This

meshing

can be

analyzed

as a

network of interactionchains

crisscrossing

each

other

in

space

as

they

flow

along

in time

(Collins 1981:998).

The

concept

of IRs is

only

presented

n the

abstract

by

Collins,

and in

The

Sociology of

Philosophies,

he never offers a

single

concrete case taken from

memoirs or diaries of a

lecture,conference, discussion,

or

debate where

participantsdescribe the sort of emotional

content and

results that Collins's

theory

assumes.

Nevertheless,

Collins does

provide

us

with

many

examples

of

interactionritual

chains

in

philosophy,

and it is at this meso

level

and the macro level of the

intellectual field that

we

begin

to see the fruits of

Collins's

approach.

CONFLICT

AND THE LAW

OF

SMALL NUMBERS

Collins's

sociology

combines a micro

theory

of emotional

solidarity

with a macro

theory

based

on conflict.

Collins

believes

that the same

processes

that

produce solidarity

on the

micro level

produce

conflict on the

macro. The cultural

capital,

emotional

energy,

and

group

solidarities

produced

n

IRs allow

individuals to

dominate hierarchiesand encour-

age

groups

to

engage

in

concerted conflict.

IRs are both a site

where domination s

prac-

ticed and

a

supplier

of the

major

weapons

used

in

social conflict.

In

philosophy,

IRs

provide

for the

competitive

appropriation

nd elaborationof accu-

mulated intellectual

capital. Divergent

philosophical

schools

emerge

out of different sets

of IRs and

compete

for the

limited resources

necessary

to intellectual

production.

Accord-

ing

to

Collins,

the

structure

of

the

intellectual world allows

only

a limited number of

positions

to receive much

attention at

any

one time.

Once

a small number of niches

are

occupied,

it is

extremely

difficult for a new

philosophical

school

to

get

the

necessary

material

resources,

cultural

capital,

and

intellectual

attention,

especially

since there are

first-mover

advantages

(Collins

1998:532).

Collins's

study

suggests

that

only

three to six

active

philosophical

schools are able

to

reproduce

themselves for

more than one or two

generations.

He calls this the law of

small

numbers.

Although

the

actual values

for the law of small numbers are determined

through

his-

torical

research,

the

necessity

of

having

an

upper

and a lower

limit can be derived from

Collins's

conflict

theory.

The

upper

imit is a

functionof

competition

or material

esources,

cultural

capital,

intellectual

attention,

and the

need

to attracta critical

mass of followers.

The

lower limit is due to the

intimate link between conflict and intellectual

creativity.

According

to

Collins,

creativity

emerges

from conflict

and

so will not occur without

at

least two

positions,

and

wherever there are

two

positions,

a third s

always

available

since

a

plague

on bothhouses is

always

a viable intellectual

strategy

Collins

1998:81).

The law of small numbers

produces

a structural

ivalry

n the intellectual field. Creativ-

ity

appears

n twos

or threes as intellectual

movements

restructure he attention

space by

developing opposing positions.

The attention

space

divides

along

what

Collins

calls

deep

troubles,

hat

is,

those

incorrigibleproblems

that

shape

the

oppositional space

that rivals

can

occupy.

Conflict

under the law

of small

numbers

encourages creativity along exploit-



6/11

SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

able

lines of

opposition

in

two

different

ways:

First,

the

creativity

involved

in

creating

or

increasing

he distinctiveness

of a

philosophicalposition;

and

second,

the

creativity

nvolved

in

synthesis.

The

first

type

of

creativity

tends

to occur in

strong

intellectual

movements

and the second type

in

weak movements.

This

approach,

or

example,

allows Collins to

challenge

the

stereotypical

view of

slow

change

and

conservatism

in

the

religious philosophies

of

India. He

demonstrates, nstead,

often radical

philosophical

views

presented

in

the name of traditional

reinterpretations.

For

example,

as

the

Buddhist materialbase weakened in the seventh

and

eighth

centuries,

Hindu

philosophies

begin

to

produce

fertile rivalries structured

by

deep

troubles around

realism and monotheism. There was a

double revolution-first the Mimamsa

revolution,

which

in

the

name of a

conservative defense of ritualscreateda realist

atheism

focusing

on

mantric ounds.

Out

of the

Mimamasan etwork ame the Advaita

revolution,

whose

espousal

of transcendentalmonism

and

world

illusion

opposed

the Mimamsa

philosophy

and

struc-

tured

the

intellectual divisions for the next

generation. By establishing

monastic and

edu-

cational

institutions,

the Advaita movement

provided

the materialbase for these new

lines

of

opposition

to colonize

the

available

intellectual

attention

space.

On

the other

side,

we

see the

syncretism

of weak movements in the

non-Advaita

schools,

both

Hindu and

Bud-

dhist. All of

this, however,

has been

covered

over

by

the

movements' own

presentation

of

their

history

as a

development

of

traditions.

When

the

attention

space

in

a

given

field is

already

full,

there is

always

the

possibility

of a

segmental restructuring.

New

fields

can

emerge

with

their

separate

material

resources,

cultural

capital,

and attention

space.

This

possibility

depends,

at the

minimum,

upon

a

materialbase

that can

provide positions

for this new

field.

Philosophy,

and

indeed

all

intellectual

fields,

requires

a material

base,

although

we can

never

understand he field

simply

as a

superstructural

eflection of

that

material

base.

In

the modern

world,

the material

base of

philosophy

is

found

in

the

universities that are

practically

the

only place

of

employment

for

philosophers.

Before

that

philosophers

had to

rely

on

patronage. Certainly

the

different material

bases affected the

content of the

philosophies-attacks upon

the rich were much

less common under

he

patronage ystem-

but the more

important

and

pervasive

effect is how

the material

base affects the

structure

of rivalries.

Changes

in the material

base can cause

internal

realignments

hat

encourage creativity.

Some

changes

in the

material base

may

differentially

affect the

established factions. For

example,

the

migration

of

most natural

philosophers

to

the

greener

fields of the

natural

sciences

left the

philosophical

attention

space open

to

more varieties of

metaphysics.

Other

changes

have more

general

effects on the

field,

such as

allowing

for

unrestrained

egmen-

tal

restructuring,

which

makes it easier

to create a

new field

with

autonomous material

resources

than it is to

create a rival

position

in

the extant

field.

All

changes

in

the

materialbase are

mediated

through

the law

of small numbers.

This

explains why

political

and

economic

changes rarely

determine

intellectual

ideas,

which

have more

to do with

exploitable

lines

of

opposition.

First,

changes

occur in the

material

base that

supports

the

philosophical

field; second,

philosophical

positions

either

split

or

amalgamate

n

order

to

fill the

space

available to them

under

the

law

of small

numbers.

LIMITATIONSOF

COLLINS'S

MICROTHEORY

Despite

the

insights provided

by

Collins's conflict

theory

and

the

law of small

numbers,

there are

considerable

problems

with his

micro

theory

of

interactionrituals.

First,

his

theory

lacks

the

prime

advantage

that

Collins

sees

in

a

micro

approach,

ts

openness

to

empiricaltesting.

Increases in

emotional

energy

are no

more observable than

any

of the

96



7/11

COLLINS'S

SOCIOLOGYOF

PHILOSOPHIES

AND

SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

97

macrostructures hat

Collins labels

as

nonempirical

abstractions.

n

an earlier

article

Col-

lins

(1990b:50)

admits as much.

My

argument,

hat

EE

[emotional

energy]

builds

up

or

declines over

a series of

interaction

rituals

depending upon

the

ups

and downs of one's

experiences

of

power

and

status,

is

inferential.There is

little direct evidence

for it.

There

is,

of

course,

the

possibility

of

testimonial

evidence for

subjective

states such

as

emotions,

but

Collins

avoids

these

in his

researches nto

philosophy.

A

numberof

philos-

ophers

have written

abouttheir

emotions;

many

have

kept

diaries;

but

Collins

uses no

such

testimonies to

show,

for

example,

the

greater

emotional

energy

and

creativity

that some

philosophers

experienced

after

the

type

of

group experiences

that Collins

would call

an

interaction

ritual.

Instead,

his indirectevidence

is

his

theory's

ability

to

offer

causal

expla-

nations

for the

professional

successes and career

trajectories

of different

philosophers.

For

this,

he

couples

his

theory

of IRs

to

a

rationalchoice model.

Collins

(1993)

offers emotional

energy

and emotions of

solidarity

as the

primary goods

upon

which rational choice

explanations

can be made.

People predictably

move toward

experiences

that

provide

more

of

these

emotions.

Unfortunately,

we do not

see

in his

sociology

of

philosophies any

explanations

that could not be

made

upon

more obvious

grounds.

For

example,

we would

expect

the

disciples

of

productive

philosophers

to them-

selves

be

productive just

on

the

basis of

the transmission of

such cultural

capital

as

personal knowledge

of

the unwritten

history

of

philosophy

and a feel for the

emerging

issues,

as well as easier access to what is

publicly

available.

In

addition,

we

would

ex-

pect

the

brightest

students

to be attractedto the more

productive

and creative

philoso-

phers.

It is hard to see what

Collins's

theory

of interaction

rituals and

emotional

energy

adds to this.

What would

really support

Collins's

argument

are

examples

of minor

philosophers

with

mediocre

cultural

capital

attracting

average

studentswho were

nevertheless able to mentor

influential

philosophers simply by increasing

the number and

intensity

of

IRs. Unfortu-

nately,

thereis no

attempt

to

separate

the

more obvious influence of

cultural

capital

from

the effects of IRs on emotional

energy.

It is

possible

that

Collins

is not

able to

perform

such

a test because

of

the

vague way

in

which

he

defines emotions and IRs. For

Collins,

emotions are the

residual

category

for

what is not rational.

His

(1981:994)

argument

or the

necessity

of an emotional dimension

to

social order is

simply

that

social

order cannot

be

completely explained by

rational

decisions. He therefore

umps together

all tacit

knowledge, bodily

skills,

and

intuitions,

as

well as Foucault's

disciplines

(1979),

Bourdieu's habitus

(1977),

and Schutz's

lifeworld

(1967).

His

notion

of

an

IR

is

equally encompassing,

including

the

most

rudimentary

ct

of

speaking

Collins

1998:47).

And

just

as

any

interactioncan be called

a

ritual,

any topic

of conversationcan be considereda sacred

object.

Withthis he stretchesDurkheim's

nsight

beyond believability.

Collins's use of emotions is

part

of his

attempt

to establish a scientific

sociology

that

can minimize the role of

interpretivemeaning.

Emotions are described

as

separate

from

their

interpretation,

which is

merely

a

secondary

effect with

no

behavioral

consequences

(Collins 1981:1008).

We see this

throughout

Collins's

career,

from his

(1975:111)

decla-

ration

that

we must

challenge

the

sentimentalnotion

that social behavior

is

inherently

meaningful,

to his

(1986)

selective

appropriations

of

Weber without

any

discussion of

Verstehen,

o the avoidance,mentionedabove, of

using

testimonies as evidence to

support

his

sociology

of

philosophies.

Collins

gives

us no idea of what an

emotion

separate

rom its

interpretation

would be.

He

suggests

that

there is a

quantity

of

energy

that is

analytically

distinct from

any

inter-

pretation,

but

even if we found a

way

to reduce

qualitatively

different

emotions to their

quantitativeexchange

values,

this

is not

enough

to establish

the

autonomy

of the

emotion



8/11

SOCIOLOGICAL

THEORY

from

its

interpretation.

Far from

being

an

inconsequential

secondary

effect,

doesn't the

interpretation

rive the emotional

energy?

How else can we

explain

the diverse

effects that

an

IR

has on the various

participants?

In

fact,

philosophy

conferences

provide

a

fitting

example

of an

IR

from which

some would derive high emotional energy

while others

might

find boredom and

depression.

If

emotions

are

inextricably

bound

up

with

interpretations,

hen

only very

loose rational

choice

explanations

can

be based

upon

them. The

high

emotional

energy

derived from an

IR

could be transformed nto the low

energy

associated with

depression

by

a

postevent

reinterpretation

f the

meaning

of

the IR. We could not

simply

trace a

philosopher's

path

through

a series of

objectively

defined IRs without

trying

to understand he

meaning

that

the

IR

held

for

the

particular

philosopher

n that

particular

social context. The

category

of

emotions would retain an

important

role in

explaining

social

action,

but

it

would

not

be

fundamental.More

important

han the

quantity

of

emotional

energy

would be the

way

that

an

IR

and its

symbols

stabilize

the

meaning

of that emotional

energy.

COROLLARIES

FROM THE LAW

OF SMALL

NUMBERS AND THEIR

APPLICATIONTO

SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY

Despite

these

problems

with his

microsociology,

Collins's conflict

perspective

and his law

of small

numbers ead to a

numberof

important

nsights

for

the

sociology

of

an intellectual

field,

including

sociological

theory.

Collins,

showing

admirable

restraint,

ollows

only

a

few of

those

insights

into his own

terrain of

sociological theory.

Nevertheless,

there is

nothing

to

keep

those of us who have

never been

overly

burdened

by

restraint rom

this

endeavor.

Before we can

proceed

with

that,

however,

we need to look at the

emergence

of

what

Collins

(1994)

calls

high-consensus, rapid-discovery

science,

because

Collins's

macroanalyses

of

science and

philosophy

are distinct and it

is

not

quite

clear into

which

realm

sociological theory

would fit.

According

to

Collins,

high-consensus,

rapid-discovery

science has

escaped

the law of

small

numbers

o

which

philosophy

is in

thrall.This occurredbecause

competition

for

the

attention

space

in

scientific fields has

moved from conflict over basic

concepts

to

conflict

over a

fast-moving

research

front. Scientific fields achieve a

greater

consensus on

basic

concepts

because of an

ability

to build networks not

only

of

people

but also of

research

technologies.

Consensus is

achieved

through

the

authority

of

physical practices,

embod-

ied in

material

equipment

(Collins 1998:538).

The

progressive

chain

of

technical

inno-

vations makes

discoveries

repeatable

and

transportable,

nd

this,

along

with

the

equipment's

material

presence,

fosters a

consensus that

mere

ideas can never achieve. Because of this

consensus on

old

issues,

competition

for the attention

space

is focused on new

discoveries

using

the latest

equipment.

Hence we

have a

convincing

explanation

for the two

most

noticeable

characteristicsof

Western

science,

a

rapidlymoving

research

ront

eaving

in its

wake

a

high

consensus

about demonstrated acts and

fruitful theories.

Sociology

clearly

is not

now a

high-consensus,

rapid-discovery

science.

Collins

(1998:876)

sees

sociology

in a

kind

of

limbo between

philosophy

and science in that

it

encompasses empirical investigation

but

still

lacks

the

consensus

and

hence the

rapid

discovery

of a

field

that has

escaped

the

law of small numbers.He nevertheless believes

that

sociology

has the

potential

to be a

rapid-discovery

science, and,

in line with his

analysis,

he

places

his

hope

in

the

technicizing

of

sociology.

But Collins is unable to

explain why

the natural

sciences

developed

research

technologies

able to

produce high

consensus and

sociology

did not

except

as a historical accident.

Even

if

this were

a

satis-

factory

explanation,

it

appears

to

be

contrary

to

the historical

record.

Sociology,

in

fact,

has

developed

research

technologies,

but

high

consensus has not

developed

around

them.

98



9/11

COLLINS'S SOCIOLOGY

OF PHILOSOPHIES

AND

SOCIOLOGICALTHEORY 99

Most

notably, sociology

has

developed

mathematical

echniques

that,

in

another con-

text,

Collins

(1998:538-42)

himself

convincingly

argues

are a

type

of

research technol-

ogy.

However,

when

discussing sociology,

he

contends hatstatistics s

just

the

manipulation

of data rather

than

a

method of

producing new data. But this seems a rather strained

distinction. Doesn't

the

formula for a standard

deviation

produce

a new

datum,

or

are

we

to

assume

that the standarddeviation is

already lying

around

n

the Platonic

space

of the

data

set? In

addition,

how would Collins

explain

why

statistics

used

in

biological

infor-

matics is able

to

produce

a

high-consensus, rapid-discovery

science

but in

sociology

it is

not?

Again,

the

problem

in

Collins's

analysis

can be traced to the

missing

category

of inter-

pretation.

It

would

seem

that the

interpretive

nature of social

facts

makes

it difficult

to

stabilize

a consensus with a research

echnology

in

the same

way

as in

the

natural

ciences.

Collins

never

engages

the

powerful

arguments

e.g.,

Habermas

1988)

that

a

science whose

basic data are

irreducibly nterpretive

cannot be

technicized.

But

whatever our differences on the

potential

of

sociology,

Collins

and

I

both

agree

that

sociological theory today

is

structured

by

the

same

types

of

conflicts

that he

diagnoses

in

the

history

of

philosophy. Consequently,

hree corollaries from the law of small numbers

also

apply

to

sociological theory.

First,

since

structural

onflict drives

creativity,

we

would

expect

that

a

single orthodoxy

for

more than a

couple

of

generations

would stifle

creativity

(Collins 1998:380),

and,

indeed,

the

historical

record in

sociology

seems to bear this

out.

Certainly,

we

see

this

in

comparing

the

theoretically

sterile

enforced Marxism of the former

Soviet Union

to the

productiveness

of Marxismin the

West,

where it

has

been under

constant

challenge.

And

we

should note that

the

creativity

of American

sociology

has been marked

by

almost

constant theoreticalconflict. We are

so used to this conflict that it is

easy

to

forget

that

the

one case

of theoreticaldominancethatAmerican

sociology

has known-Talcott Parsons's

structural-functionalism-lasted less

than 20

years,

coming

to dominance afterWorld

War

II and

being subjected

to

withering

attack

by

the

early

1960s.

Second,

since

positions

are driven

by

conflict and need

to

differentiate

hemselves from

the

competition,

we would

expect

to see

a

great

deal of innovation in even the most

intellectually

conservative

movements

(Collins 1998:381).

As

in

philosophy,

we also see a

revolutionary

creativity

in

the return

to

traditional

ociology.

We

need

only

think of

Alexander's innovations under cover

of

a returnto

Parsons or Habermas'snovel

refor-

mulation

of the Frankfurtschool

against

the

postmodern

critique.

In

fact,

it is hard to

think of an innovative

sociological theory

that has not

involved,

at least

to some

degree,

a

returnto classical

sources. This would include Collins's

returnto

Weber

(Collins

1986)

and Durkheim

(Collins

1988).

Third,

we would

expect

the

exporting

and

importing

of

ideas,

either from other

cultures

or other

fields,

to have an effect

upon creativity

and the

availability

of niches

in the

attention

space

(Collins 1998:446-50).

The

importation

of ideas

from a

single

source,

especially

a

simple

translation

without

elaboration,

takes

up

a

segment

of the attention

space

that

could

have been used

by

novel movements.

However,

importing

ideas

from

multiple

sources and

elaborating

hem

to fit within the

structural ivalries

of the

receiving

field

encourages

creativity. Similarly, exporting

ideas

opens up

new areasin the attention

space

of

the

receiving

culture and

new sources of conflict.

In

the matterof

importing

and

exporting

ideas,

it seems

to me that

sociological

theory

has done much worse

than

philosophy.

Exchange theory

has

imported

from behavioral

psychology

in a creative

way,

Luhmann

rom

general systems

theory

and

rationalchoice

from

economics,

but,

for the most

part,

sociological theory

has

been

rather

nsular,

pre-



10/11

SOCIOLOGICAL

THEORY

ferring

to mine its own classics.

In

exporting,

it

has

done

even more

poorly.

Fields

that

have

recently

expressed

an interest

in

theorizing

society,

such

as

movements

in

literature

and

in

art,

have

practically gnored

the

sociological

work that

has

been

done

in

those areas.

Collins's own work demonstrates both of these deficits. One of the most influential

social

theories

outside

of

sociology

has been

postmodern

theory.

The

reception

in

main-

stream

sociological

theory

has tended to be defensive

(Ritzer

and Goodman

forthcoming).

Collins

(1992),

for

example,

wrote a

blistering

attackon

postmodernism

hat

never

quotes

or even

cites

a

postmodernist

and that

presents

only

the

broadest caricatureof the

post-

modern

position.

One

could not

imagine

such a cavalier dismissal

of

a

theoretical move-

ment

being

printed

f

the movement had

originated

within

sociology. Conversely,

Collins's

work has

been

received outside of

sociology

with

a

deafening

silence. For

example,

it has

been almost two

years

since the

publication

of The

Sociology

of

Philosophies,

and

it has

yet

to

receive a review

in

any

of the

mainstream

philosophy journals.1

Despite these similarities withphilosophy,there

are

some reservations

about

the

whole-

sale

application

of the law of small numbersto

sociology.

We should remember hat this

law

is,

in

fact,

a historical

observation

and that its

upper

limits in

particular

cannot be

derived

directly

from

the

theory.

In

this,

there

may

be an

important

difference

between

philosophy

and current

sociology.

In most of the

philosophical

movements that

Collins

studied,

the

focus was

upon

the

production

of a

single

truth,

and the idea of a

plurality

of

truths was a

marginal

position.

The

situation is

not

the same

in

sociology,

which has

moved

toward

valuing

and even

encouraging pluralism.

It is

quite

likely

that

such

a

field

can

function

with a

higher

upper

imit for

dividing

its attention

space,

and, indeed,

it

would

be difficult to

point

to

only

six

major sociological

schools.

CONCLUSION

The

Sociology

of

Philosophies

is an

important

but

flawed book.

That the flawed and the

important

should divide so

easily along

the

micro-macro

ine

is

disturbing

for one

who

believes

in

the

necessity

of

linking

micro

and macro

theories.

It

could

be that

there

is

something

in our

insular

disciplinarity

that makes it so difficult

to achieve this

synthesis.

Whether it is emotions

from

psychology,

rational choice from

economics,

or

the

frag-

mented self

from

postmodernism, sociological

theorists

are too inclined to

ignore

the

complexity

outside

our

discipline

and

to

borrow

overly simplistic

versions of

micro

theo-

ries from other

fields.

Whatever

the

micro

theory,

I

don't believe we will

be

able

to

simplify away

the

cat-

egory

of

interpretation.Despite

their scientific

messiness,

interpretations

are

an

irreduc-

ible

part

of

sociology.

Really,

though,

this

is not

the

point

about

which

an

argument

needs

to

be

made.

All

sociologists,

including

Collins,

already

engage

in

interpretations.

Collins's

analysis

of

philosophy,

for

example,

is full of

interpretations.

The

argument

that

appar-

ently

must be

made

is

that

interpretations

are

just

as fundamental or the social

actor

as

they

are

for

the

sociological

theorist.

In other

words,

the

micro-macro

ink must include a

link

between

the

macrointerpretations

f the

sociologist

and the

everyday microinterpre-

tations of

actors. This would have been a richer and more

satisfying

book had Collins

included an

empirical

examination

of the

interpretiveexperiences

of

philosophers.

Collins himself has

quite recently provided

a

counterexample

to the

anti-interpretive

approach

used in

The

Sociology

of

Philosophies.

His

(2000)

article,

Situational

Stratifi-

cation: A

Micro-Macro

Theory

of

Inequality, drops

the focus on an

objective

definition

of

'

Since this

review

was

written,

there has

been

a review

symposium

in

Philosophyof

the

Social Sciences

(30:2)

and an

insightful

review

essay

in Journal

of

the

History

of

the

BehavioralSciences

(36:2),

but,

despite

theirfine

work,

these

are

usually

not

seen

as

mainstream

philosophy

journals.

100



11/11

COLLINS'S SOCIOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHIES

AND SOCIOLOGICAL

THEORY 101

emotions

embedded

in

a rational choice

analysis

and does a sensitive

reading

of

the

rela-

tion between

everyday microinterpretations

of

hierarchy

and the

macrointerpretations

of

sociologists.

It is the mark of a

great

theorist that he

produces

his

own

critique.

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Emile.

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Michel.

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Erving.

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Jiirgen.

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douglas goodman - what collins's the sociology of philosophies says about sociological theory

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