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OBJECTIVITY VS. PRAXIS:
ON THE
EPISTE'MOLOGY OF SOCIOLOGY

Alice Li‘Pllottl
Master's Thesis
Fall, 1970

(59700]

Karl Mannheim once described psychologists as having a
"trained incapacity to deal with problems of the mind."1 In
like manner, sociologists might be described as possessing a
trained incapacity to understand social reality. The epistem-
ological assumptions underlying sociology, like those of too
many disciplines, are taken for granted; rarely are they
articulated, let alone analyzed. The result is a situation in
which one may be trained in the method without having understood
its basis. Indeed, as Mannheim argues, he may have been trained
to overlook the essence of the reality which he is studying.
Since the question of the source of knowledge is so often
ignored, we have a situation today in which sociologists exert
every effort in studying social reality without asking whether
the method they use is fruitful, or merely adequate, or in fact
a hindrance.

In this paper I intend to examine what the general epistem-
ological assumptions of sociology consist of, and whence they
stem. Then I will discuss Marx's concept of praxis as a method
for understanding social reality. The comparison of these two
methods, with their radically differing assumptions concerning
not only what reality is, but how we know what it is, leads to
a number of questions which need to be considered by any student
of society.

To begin, it seems appropriate to look at the sociological
method as described by the two thinkers who did most to shape
its beginnings, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Both of these

men are important for the work which they did in understanding

society, and for the impact which each of their methods was to
have on later generations of sociologists. Particularly impor-
tant for our present purposes is that each of them attempted to
articulate Just what the methodology of the social sciences
ought to be. This gives us the opportunity to examine some of
the traditional assumptions of current sociology by going back
to the somewhat more explicitly stated views of the originators
of these traditions.2

Durkheim in many ways represents a radical break with the
assumptions of social thinkers from Plato through Hegel. Like
many thinkers of the late 19th century, he was concerned with
the material, rather than ideal, aspects of reality; but he
went farther than any of them in positing that society has a
real, objective existence apart from the individuals of which
it is comprised. "It consists of ways of acting, thinking, and
feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power
of coercion, by reason of which they control him."3 The indi-
vidual at birth is confronted with a world which he did not
create; this is as true of the social realm as of the natural
one. It is something that exists in itself and stands alone,
opposed to him. And, to understand this realm, "the first and
most fundamental rule is: Consider social facts as things."4

The description of reality as consisting of "social facts"
which should be treated as real and objective (if not material)
things is central to Durkheim's method--in fact, it is the key
to an understanding of it. He is arguing against the traditional

attempt to understand society through analyzing and interpreting
ideas and concepts about reality. For him, a concept is a mere
substitution for a real thing. It represents the thing, but

not necessarily faithfully. Consequently, by theoretically

' without reference to the

analyzing a concept like "suicide,'
social fact which the concept represents, the theorist is
looking at what is probably an incorrect reflection of what he
is really interested in. A good demonstration of the failings
of this approach and the appropriateness of going to the objec-
tive reality rather than the concept occurs in Suicide. First,
he describes the traditional approach of the social theorist

(in this case, Montesquieu) to suicide:

If, without reference to (social facts) one were to try to

foretell logically what season should be most favorable to

suicide, one might easily assume the season when the sky

is darkest, and the temperature lowest or most humid. Does

not the desolate appearance of nature at such times tend to

incline men to revery, awaken unhappy passions, provoke
melancholy?5
However, as Durkheim goes on to show, when the social facts are
examined (in this case, suicide statistics from all over Europe),
it is obvious that a significantly higher proportion of suicides
occur during the warmer months, and during the daytime.

Durkheim believes that there is a kind of reality inherent
in the facts themselves. Values and interpretations do not
enter into the matter. All who look at the social facts will
come to the same conclusions; only those who look at concepts

will get into difficulty over interpretations. He believes
that, eventually, we will find "an objective criterion, inherent

-4-

in the facts themselves, which enables us to distinguish

"6 between the normal and pathologicalo (In

scientifically
general, he uses "normal" to refer to those social conditions
which are statistically the most common; the rest are "morbid"

or "pathological.")

Social reality is as "knowable," for Durkheim, as the
physical world. By starting with an examination of those aspects
of it which are the most easily accessible (readily quantifiable
aspects, for example, especially those about which there are
already statistics available), social science can build a
base from which to expand into the less easily accessible areas
and "to encompass, little by little, this fleeting reality."7
Although he admits that "perhaps" this expansion will never be
completed, he expresses no doubts as to the possibility of its
completion, if social facts are treated as things.

Unlike other methods, Durkheim claims, his "is entirely
independent of philosophy."8 This follows from his belief that
there is an objective social reality which exists in itself,
apart from any interpretation of it, and that it is possible to
know "social facts" directly, without interpreting them. Let
us now examine this as a philosophical viewpoint in itself, and
see what assumptions are inherent in it.

For centuries philosophers have been concerned with the
problem of the ideal and the real. To Plato, the real world

which we see about us is but a reflection of the ideal world--

an imperfect reflection, at that. Each particular chair may

-5-

partake of the ideal form "chair," but it can never be all that
the form is. It is important to realize that at this point man
is generally considered part of the imperfect, real world. The
Christian concept which held throughout the Middle Ages, for
example, describes man as having been created "in the image of
God"--a materially real, but imperfect, copy of an ideal form.
Due to historical conditions which I will discuss later, the
position of man in this scheme shifted. Descartes, in trying
to understand how we know, has redefined man. To say "I think,
therefore I am," is to locate the essence of man in the realm of
the ideal rather than that of the real. Man is no longer seen
as an imperfect reflection; as thinker, he belongs to the
sphere of thought and of idea. One of the main effects of this
shift is a concommitant shift away from the problem of "ideal
vs. real" and toward the problem of the subject/object split.

This problem was crystallized by Kant. The objective world
exists apart from the knowing subject, and it is impossible to
know the thing-in-itself. In Platonic thought, the concern is
with the difference between the particular chair and the form
"chair"; now the question is whether the particular chair can
be, in some sense, known by the thinking subject (man). Kant
concludes that it cannot. All that it is possible to know is
the ethical principle proceeding from the self.

Durkheim is usually viewed as reacting against this
idealist tradition. He certainly rejected the emphasis on the

subject or the ideal realm as being in some sense "truer," or

more real, or on a higher level than the objective world.
However, the static dualism of idealist thought is fundamental
to his approach. The social fact is a thing-in-itself. It
cannot be known in terms of the subject; it can only be known
in its own terms. It is impossible to know a chair in the
sense of knowing "how it feels to be a chair;" it is possible
to know its length, breadth, color, etc. For Durkheim as well
as for Kant, there can be no real interaction between subject
and object. The interesting thing about Durkheim is that he
considers the social world in the same light as a chair: both
are objects.

Some of the implications of Durkheim's assumptions become
clearer when we compare them with what Weber has to say. 11s
does not treat social reality as a thing-in-itself. He disagrees
with Durkheim's view that it would be possible (although perhaps
not probable) to someday know all about social reality. Because
Durkheim sees social facts as real in themselves, he tends to
think of them as unchanging. You can go away and study some-
thing else for a while and when you come back, they'll still be
there, and you can pile up the new facts on the old ones until
the crystal palace of reason is complete. Change does occasion-
ally occur, but the periods of transition which he discusses
fall under the ”morbid" rather than the "normal" state of
things. Weber, on the other hand, argues that

...there are sciences to which eternal youth is granted,
and the historical disciplines are among them--all those

 

 

II
[Ill-Ill I

 

lllllllllllll‘lnl

to which the eternally onward flowing stream of culture
perpetually brings new problems.9

Social reality, then, is not seen in the form of a series of
static, measurable, objects. Change is the expected, the norm.

Another of Durkheim's assumptions which Weber would not

 

accept is the belief that there is a kind of "truth" inherent T”
in social facts which lies beyond value and interpretation. %
Although Weber does agree that there is a reality in the social i
realm, he sees it as infinite; and "there is nothing in the i
5’

things themselves to set some of them apart as alone meriting
attention."10 In other words, the observer of even the smallest
fragment of society is confronted, not with an obvious social
fact, but with an infinity of perceptions:

Order is brought into this chaos only on the condition that

in every case only a part of concrete reality is interesting

and significant to us, because only it is related to the
cultural values with which we approach reality.
Thus, the very selection of which facts are to be studied
constitutes an interpretation in itself.

Weber is a complex thinker, more difficult to categorize
than Durkheim; there is a certain dual nature to his thought
which may be seen reflected in the inner conflicts he experienced
in the course of his life. Yet in significant aspects he
remains in the idealist tradition. Concrete reality is not
described as a reflection of ideas, but only those parts of it
which relate to the ideal world of thoughts, interpretations,

and values can claim significance. Ananalysis of his concept

of "ideal type" will help to clarify this.

Although its function is different, the "ideal type" is
essentially a reincarnation of the Platonic form. Unlike the
form, the ideal type is seen as a mental construct rather than
a pre-existing entity. This is related to the shift described
above: as man comes to be viewed as part of the ideal realm, fl
so ideas come to be viewed as creations of man. The ideal type 1
is an abstraction composed of the essence of all particular

examples. Thus, the ideal type "chair" is unlike any particular

 

chair, yet something of each chair can be found within it. An $§
important point is that the "true" meaning of chair lies in the

ideal type and not in the particular example, just as the

Platonic form is seen as the "true” reality. For example, in

discussing the usefulness of the ideal type "handicraft society"

for an understanding of the particular example, medieval society,

Weber writes:

If the ideal type were “correctly" constructed and the

actual course of events did not correspond tb that pre-

dicted by the ideal type, the hypothesis that medieval
society was not in certain respects a strictly "handicraft"
type of society would be proved.
In other words, in case of a contradiction between a (correct)
ideal type and a particular example, the ideal type retains its
validity. To Durkheim, this would be a clear example of ignoring
the social fact in favor of values andinterpretations.

Durkheim, as indicated above, accepts the basic duality of
subject and object, but unlike most of those who preceded him,
sees "reality" as lying in the object rather than the subject.
Weber seems to fall more clearly in the idealist tradition.

Kant argued that although we cannot know the thing-in-itself, we

 

can know the ethical principle which proceeds from the self,
even if it does not occur in "reality." Weber's ideal type is
in no sense an ethical imperative; indeed, he specifically
argues against its use as such. Yet he basically accepts Kant's
premise that it is possible to know a "correct" idea which does
not exist in objective reality. Hegel had changed Kant's "ought" F‘
to an "18;" since, for him, the world is a reflection of the
Idea, "true" thought is the same as the world; reality which

does not conform to the idea is mere appearance. Weber's "ideal

 

type" reflects many of these same assumptions. Weber, of course, by
does not claim that the particular example is less real than the
ideal type; but in seeing it as less meaningful, he reveals a
fundamental similarity to Hegel.

Durkheim and Weber, then, have very different conceptions
of the meaning of social reality and, consequently, very
different methods of arriving at an understanding of it. For
Durkheim, the meaning of social reality is inherent in the reality
itself. In this sense, it is useless to discuss "meaning":
one might just as well say that social reality is social reality.
For Weber, however, the meaning of social reality resides in
the presuppositions, values, and interpretations with which we
view it. It is useless to discuss the "social fact-in-itself":
although it may exist, it is not meaningful in itself. What
Gives it meaning is the ideal type, the mental construct, the
idea. Weber sees the meaning of social reality in the subject;

Durkheim, in the object. How this affects their methodologies

-10-

is clear. Weber views theory, for example the construction of
ideal types, as essential. The ideal type can only be constructed
after a consideration of the particular examples; yet it has

a validity in itself. The way to understand the social world
is to compare it with the ideal. In itself, the social world
is infinite chaos which can never be known. Durkheim, on the
other hand, views theory as an unnecessary mediator which is
more of a hindrance than anything else. There can be no con-
flict between ideal and real for him. Reality lies in the
facts themselves, and the only way to understand social reality
is by examining the social world itself. The goal of Weber's
approach is theory; that of Durkheim's, law.

Currents of both these approaches are present in contemporary
sociology. The essential basis for agreement between Durkheim
and Weber, that is, the acceptance of a dichotomy between subject
and object, between the idea and objective reality, has been pre-
served. In Hegel's dialectic we find an attempt to overcome this
dualism which was to have deep significance for the social sciences.

Of fundamental importance to Hegel's approach is the refusal
to view the ideal and the real as self-contained, pre-existing,
and non-interacting entities. The Idea, it is true, exists
before all else--but even at this point it contains within itself
the potential for otherness. It steps outside of itself to
realize this potential and so becomes at one and the same time

both itself and its opposite:

 

-11-

...In this stepping over to one side (in order to be object

of reflection) the Idea sets the other side as formal

actuality...and as infinite negativity (antithesis).13
In stepping outside of itself to become Nature, the Idea has
thus actualized its own antithesis. Unlike the Platonic view,
the Hegelian one does not stop at this duality. Nature, the
real world, is not a stagnant reflection of the ideal form for
Hegel; instead, it is constantly interacting with it, in the
form of conflict. Indeed, this conflict is essential if the

Idea is to realize itself, since.

 

...as the opposite of itself in itself, (it) is its own
antithesis, which on the one hand exists, but, on the

other, is annulled and resolved. It is the urge, the
impulse of spiritual life in itself, to break through the
hull of nature, of sensuousness, of its own self-alienation,
and tiaattain the light of consciousness, namely, its own
self.

The opposition of the ideal and the real is not, then, an
unfortunate accident. Spirit, in itself, is mere potential.
It is only through activity--that is, through conflict with
its alienated self, Nature-~that it can "attain...its own self."
is Lobkowicz puts it,
...what Hegel as well as Marx have in mind whenever they
speak of alienation is not an aberration but rather a
phase in the process of man's self-development which, on
the one hand, is essential to the achievement of full
"humanity," and, on the other hand, is experienced by
man as a rag%cal frustration of his aspirations for self-
completion.
Por both Hegel and Marx, man's "essence" is not a former
state which has been lost, nor a pre-determined goal, but

self-creating process. Hegel describes this process in the

-12-

highly abstract terms of Spirit and Nature, of the Absolute;
Marx describes it, as indeed he describes anything, in terms of
the real, everyday life activity of men.

What does it mean in terms of real activity to say that

the Idea proceeds from itself and then stands opposed to itself?

 

pm.
It means that the chair is not just the reflection of an ideal ,
form, nor is it a thing-in-itself confronting man as a given. ti
Each chair was made by a particular man who sawed, joined,
sanded, hammered, and fondled it. The chair proceeds from the b5

worker: he has put himself into it. Yet, "the worker is
related to the product of his labor as to an alien object."l6
To Hegel, such a statement is tautological. Alienation
is inherent in the production of objects, in labor. To Marx,
however, the alienation of labor is a historical occurence,
brought on by specific social conditions. To understand why
Marx viewed this in such a different context from that of Hegel,
it is necessary to understand Marx's historical materialism,
father of the sociology of knowledge.

Hegel saw the Idea as preceding the real; for Marx, "on

the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world

.. ~-.. 7....- 4 ..‘—r» 'h-‘e

( (It in

 

E...“ ..._.._ -,

reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of (

thought. "17 Ideas do not exist of themselves; it is socially

M‘h-mw;~a

conditioned reality which determines them. "Life is not deter-f

"18 What fl.

mined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.
exists, first of all, is living people, not the abstraction of}

”the Idea.

-13-

Marx had a great deal of respect for the dialectic, and

 

i

made good use of Hegel's insight that everything contains within
itself the potential for otherness, indeed for its opposite. '
He felt, however, that "with (Hegel) it is standing on its head.

It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover

 

the rational kernel within the mystical shell."19 He resented, Tm

especially, the mystification of reality which occurred in his §

time at the hands of the Young Hegelians. By using this

"upside-down" dialectic, that is, by starting from ideas instead ‘
b:

of from the real world, they could transform whatever they felt
like into its opposite; and if their logic seemed contradic-
tory and their arguments reached an impasse, they would invoke
the dialectic as a magical formula. Shouting "Synthesis!" when
reality conflicts with theory is like shouting "Home free!" in
the middle of a battle and expecting not to be shot. The Young
Hegelians see the world in terms of

...the yes becoming no, the no becoming yes, the yes becoming

both yes and no, the no becoming both no and yes, the

contraries balance, neutralize, paralyze each other...How

does reason manage to affirm itself, to pose itself in a

definite category? ""33 is the business of reason itself

and of its apologists.

This would not be so bad if it could be seen as merely
amusing. But Marx fully understood the consequences of viewing
reality in such terms. For Hegel, it had meant accepting the
status quo of the German state as the most advanced (if not the
final) form of the Idea unfolding itself in history. The Young

Hegelians, on the other hand, saw much of existing reality as

unsatisfactory. However, since they saw social reality as

-14-

springing from ideas, they believed that the way to change
social reality was to change people's conceptions of it. Trying
to understand the category "freedom" as idea was seen as the
only way of becoming free. Marx argued that this amounted to

an acceptance of the status quo, since it left everyday life

 

unchanged. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, {i
in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."21 How
it can be changed will become clearer as we proceed.
Marx, then, sees ideas as emerging from material and social; )5
”m“ “M“ " -* “N" ' "““ I F;

conditions, rather than vice versa. As can be seen in the chart;
on the following page, at the base of all social reality lies :
the mode of production, or level of technology, as it is often g
referred to today. This base determines the relations of pro- a
duction and the general social organization of the society.
'vaiously, capitalism does not occur in a society which has.
hunting and gathering as its economic base. Finally, ideology
emerges directly from the economic base and indirectly from the
organization of society. Presumably, in a static society the
ideology would more or less directly coincide with social
reality. However, there is no such thing as a static society
for Marx. Change is always occurring. Even in a society in
which the technology seems to remain relatively stable, changes
in the environment--flood, famine, pestilence, for example--
have the effect of changing the economic base of the society.

A technological change in this base, such as the shift from

feudal to industrial society, can have an even more profound

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effect on society as a whole. New forms of organization and
new ideologies spring from this new base. However, the old
forms do not die, and it may happen that the dominant relations

of production and the dominant ideology are old forms, incon-

sistent with the new base.23

in important point to keep in mind is that "false conscious- ‘q
ness" is not false in the sense of being merely illusion, or a
lie. As Lefebvre points out,

Unlike philosophy, the Marxian theory of ideology tries

to get back to the origin of representations. It retains
one essential philosophical contribution: emergent truth
is always mixed up with illusion and error. The theory
discards the view that error, illusion, falsity, stand

off in sharp and obvious distinction from knowledge, truth,
certainty. There is a continual two-way dialectical
movement between the true and the false, which transcends
the historical situation that gave rise to these repre-
sentations.2

There is no such thing as a universally true ideology. An
ideology is "more true" than another if it is more consistent
with the social reality of its historical situation., Thus, in

Albé‘ "7

the 18th century struggle between feudalism and capitalism,

bourgeois ideology may be described as "truer" than that of x

feudalism. (Consider Don Quixote.) All ideologies truly
reflect some aspects of social reality at the same time that
they obscure others. For example, the American bourgeois
philosophy of individualism truly reflects such things as geo-
graphical mobility, emergence of the isolated nuclear family,
specialization of labor, etc. At the same time, its "Horatio

Algier" system of values serves to mask such social realities

..n'l-.. ‘ W. T

 

-17-

as racism and sexism. "If you work hard, you can be president"--

even a black woman raised in a ghetto?

Of fundamental importance to Marx is the fact that this / .

masking of certain aspects of reality serves someone's interests.( H

"The ruling ideas of each age have always been the ideas of
its ruling class."25 This in no way means that these ideas are
conscious creations of a manipulative elite; on the contrary,
the ruling classes are just as much products of social condi-
tions as the ruled. -What it does mean is that those who
benefit from old ideologies and old relations of production
will not willingly give them up. Thus it would be utopian to
think that merely because of a new mode of production, change
in the dominant form of organization and ideology will automa-
tically and immediately occur, without the actions of men to
make it occur. Always bringing things back to everyday reality,
Marx argues against the notion that social organization is
something apart from men which exists in and of itself and can
change in and of itself. He is opposed to the kind of reifica-
tion of society which occurs in Durkheim. Change occurs through
the real actions of living human beings:
The materialist doctrine that men are products of circum-
stances and upbringing and that, therefore, changed men
:23 pifid‘éfiii 2?. $352 °i§§¥mifiifi°2”cifliué'e‘iifiiieupbriggmg'
89 n .g ....
On the other hand, activity can succeed in changing social a y

reality only if the economic base allows for such change:

If the material elements of a total revolution...are not
given, it is absolutely irrelevant to the practical

We;

-18-

development whether the idea of this revolution has been
expressed a hundred times already--as the history of
communism proves.

““07““ N, .-’—'0”

5m. Marx; then, rejects the Hegelian view that the real world"
proceeds from the Idea. Instead, he sees ideas as reflections
of material reality.f This is not, however, a simple matter of
"given realityri, then ideazi'"; the relationship is more com-
plex than that. it any given point in time, ideologies are
present which reflect a number of past realities, as well as

the present, and perhaps some which reflect future conditions.
In Marx's analyses of real situations (Class Struggles in
France, for instance), this is demonstrated very well. Involved
in the events are the peasantry, the petit bourgeoisie, the
army, the proletariat, the industrial bourgeoisie, the landed
aristocracy, etc. It is not a simple question of a struggle
between capital and the proletariat. Each idea only partially
reflects reality.

From this, it is clear why Marx views alienation in_a
different light from that of Hegel. For Marx, alienation is a;
concept and, like any other, springs from real social condi- '
tions. Furthermore, like any other concept, it may be changed,"
negated, or overcome if there are fundamental changes in the
social conditions which brought it about. It is not, then, an
eternal category for Marx. To understand it, it is necessary
to go beyond philosophical speculation to an examination of

the conditions on which it is based.

Marx first approaches the problem of alienated labor in *e

-19-

the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Here he
examines it from the standpoint of the worker's relationship

to his labor. "The worker is related to the product of his
labor as to an alien object"15 because this object does not i
belong to him. Secondly, his labor itself feels unnatural: J
"The worker...feels himself at home only during his leisure

"28 This is of major

time, whereas at work he feels homeless.
significance to Marx, who sees labor not as a forced necessity,§

but as the natural activity of men. "It is just in his work

 

upon the objective world that man really proves himself as a e"
species-being."29 Man's species-life, that is, his activity as
a human being (his work) is turned into a means for his animal
existence. In other words, instead of eating and sleeping in
order to "work upon the objective world," he must work upon the
objective world in order to get money for food. The consequence
of all of this is that man is alienated from other men.
Marx sees these alienated relationships as stemming from \

the particular techno-economic system of industrial capitalism. 4,} ,

In Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, he looks at these same

30 societies in

relationships as they exist in pre-capitalist
order to show that labor is not, as Hegel thought, inherently
alienated. In pre-capitalist economies, the use of the means
of production (land, for the most part) was taken for granted.
Whether as part of the community (asiatic and ancient forms) or

as an individual (Germanic form), men felt themselves to be

proprietors of the land and their own labor. Man was seen as

-20-

the end of production, and society's major interest was not
maximum wealth, but the good citizen.

ill of this changed with industrialization. The prerequi-
site for this was the exchange system, the money economy. Prior

to this, the main form of "possession" was appropriation. A

 

man appropriated the soil by tilling it, appropriated food by FL

eating it. In a money economy, a man can buy land by exchanging

money for it, even though he lets it lie fallow. He can buy

more food than he can eat, though he lets it rot. It is :J
B"

through the money economy that alienation and individualization
(historical occurrences, he reminds us) come about.
What requires explanation is not the unity of living and
active human beings with the natural, inorganic conditions
of their metabolism with nature, and therefore their
appropriation of nature; nor is this the result of a his-
toric process. What we must explain is the separation of
these inorganic conditions of human existence from this
active existence, a separation which is only fully com-
pleted 13 the relationship between wage-labour and
capital. 1
This occurs as man begins to produce for exchange, not use. it
first, he sells the object of his labor, thus becoming alienated
from it. As time passes, moreover, he sells the labor itself.
Land, tools, and now even labor are no longer givens, as in
pre-capitalist modes of production, but are all the property--
the very private property--of another, the capitalist. Man
(as worker) is no longer the end of production, but the means
or it.
Seeing the world in terms of a self-object split, then, is

not a given for Marx: it is a specific historical occurence.

-21-

In pre-capitalist economies, a chair is not seen as a thing-in-
itself. It is related to in one of two ways: the worker who
makes. it interacts with it in a very basic way; and once it is
made, anyone may appropriate it by sitting on it. The chair is
seen in terms of its use value--a chair is for sitting. Once

a chair begins to be produced as a commodity, that is, in terms
of its exchange value instead of its use value, its nature is
radically transformed. When we define a chair as "something
which costs 85," we begin to see it as an object existing in
itself, since we lost sight of its real essence as "something
with which we interact by sitting." This is the "fetishism of

"32 through which the product of man's labor comes

commodities
to be seen, not in terms of its relationship to man, but as an
alien object.

The end result of this is the alienation of man from other
men, or the reification of social relationships. With the
development of the division of labor, the worker no longer
interacts solely with the chair; he interacts with other men to
make the chair. However, the worker does not see himself as
having a social relationship with the man next to him on the
assembly line. As this relationship is always mediated by a
commodity-~the chair, which they both see as object, or the
money which they will receive as wages--they come to see their
relationship as a relationship between objects.

The relations connecting the labor of one individual with

that of the rest appear, not as direct social relations
between individuals at work, but as what they really are,

-22-

material relatigps between persons and social relations
between things.

In the same way, the exchange relationship comes to be seen as
a relationship between money and commodity, rather than as a
human, social relationship between buyer and seller.

If Weber sees the meaning of social reality as residing}

in the subject, and Durkheim in the object, Marx sees it as

W-.. v ,

...r v~ .-.v’

lying in the relationship between the two. It is clear that a
by attempting to treat social relationships as "things", '
Durkheim has accepted the reification of social relationships
which occurred during the particular historical context of
which he was a part, as reality. For Marx, this reification

was a mystification, a fetish, not the reality itself. To him,

 

it is inconceivable that a subject or object could exist apart

~- * M -N\_.._—"-

from theirrelationship. Nothing is a chair unless it is sat

.. - ..‘—an“
fl—v-nr . .

upon; no one is a sitter unless he has something to sit upon.
Reality is not the confrontation of two nouns. It is a verb.
This is especially true of social relationships. To treat
human beings and their relationships as things (objects) is by
definition alienation. To Marx, this is an ideology which has

arisen from the particular historical conditions just described.

..’.4 ~\

Social reality, for Marx,comes down to the experience of

W

relationships. To talk of "institutions" without talking about

,"r‘w K

what men do in their everyday life is to mystify reality through';

the reification of social relations. One can never really

understand what is going on in the world by discussing abstrac- :
I
I

tions like "the State." This does not mean that there is no j

-23-
reality lying behind the concept, as some anarchists argue, and
that if we refuse to recognize it it will cease to exist. Like

any idea, it reflects a partial truth, in this case certain

I

\ «iii ”I” ",3
we call an idea an ideology, it also serves to conceal a.great{ x U

power relationships which do exist. preyer,mandwthiswis Why

deal moreof existing social reality. Marx would agree with
Durkheim that we cannot understand the social world merely by
examining concepts; we must go to the reality itself. But he
argues decisively against the treatment of social relations as
things existing apartfrom us. The general method of social
science is to be "objective," that is, to refrain from inter-
acting with the object of one's study, society; to keep the
subjective views of the observer from entering into the study;
and to try to understand the reality-in-itself through the use
of a readily verifiable measure. This is somewhat akin to
studying a chair by standing (to remain uninvolved) next to it
and measuring its height. The way to understand a chair, Marx
would argue, is to sit in it. If we ask if a chair is sturdy
and comfortable, we must cease to treat the chair as an object
apart from us; we must interact with it and allow our subjective
views to enter into the determination of the answer. This is
not being "objective." Yet can we understand a chair by knowing
its height and weight? is Mannheim says, we have come to the
point
where one no longer asks what one would like to know and
what will be of decisive significance for the next step in
social development, but attempts only to deal with those
complexes of facts which are measurable according to a
certain already existent method....one tends to be content

to attribute importance to what is measurable merely
because it happens to be measurable.

-24-

It seems that we have reached a stage at which thought
itself is alienated. The social sciences not only accept this
situation, but prize it. Positivist objectivity, which is
basically the alienation of thought, is seen as a highly-
desired goal. The social scientist is not concerned with
thinking, understand, or appropriating, insofar as they
involve interacting with the world; he is concerned with
possessing knowledge. "Thus all the physical and intellectual
senses have been replaced by the simple alienation of fill these
senses; the sense of having."35 Knowledge is no longer a process,
but an object which can be owned, bought, and sold. This
attitude is epitomized in the cry of a sociologist of my acquain-
tance: "It's my data, and I'll do what I want with it." It is
no longer a question of social relations, it is a question of
"social facts." Treating sociology as a "body of knowledge"
which may be possessed, treating society as an object to be
studied, and treating knowing as collection of data involve the
implicit assumption of the subject-object split. This assumption,
and the positivist objectivity which is based in it, constitute
an ideology which reflects the alienated situation of modern
industrial society. A methodology rooted in alienation accepts
alienation as innate in man, and can no more understand it than
a doctor who believed smallpox to be man's fate could find a
cure for it. Marx argues that just as it is only possible to
understand a painting in a truly human way by appropriating it
(interacting with it) rather than merely buying it (treating it

-25-

as object/commodity), so it is only possible to understand social
reality by interacting with it rather than treating it as a
thing. The essence of social reality lies in the relations
between human beings, and so can only be understood through
praxis, the union of thinking and acting and of theory and
practice which is his method.

If we accept, then, that ideas are not separate from
social reality nor the determinants of it but that they them-
selves emerge from social reality and interact with it; and that,
in particular, the subject-object split is an idea which becomes
strongest in the historical situation of industrialism, we must
conclude that the science of sociology, whose approach is based
in the acceptance of the subject-object split as true, is an
ideology rooted in a particular historical context. This does
not mean it is false, although it probably does mean that it is
not universally "true." is ideology, the science of sociology
can be seen as masking certain aspects of social reality at the
same time that it truly reflects certain other aspects. Lukécs
argues that "the ideological history of the bourgeoisie is
nothing but a desperate struggle to avoid seeing the true essence
of the society it has created..."36 This essence, or the
basic antimony of bourgeois society, is that it sees men as
isolates at the same time as it is socializing the means of
production. That is, under industrialism, people are economically
much more interdependent than in pre-capitalist societies;

particularly under the conditions of (centralized) monopoly

-26..

capital, production is geared to the society as a whole. Yet
production is not £9; society as a whole, but for the capitalist.
The inherent contradiction of capitalism is its embracing of
individualism while constantly increasing the potential for
socialism. '

"Bourgeois science" obscures this by describing it in
terms of the individual, as subject, being confronted by society,
as self-contained object, rather than examining the interaction
between the two. This is true whether the emphasis is placed
on the subject, as in Weber, or on the object, as in Durkheim.
Weber sees the meaning of social reality as lying in the mental
construct, the idea proceeding from the knowing subject; but

The grandiose idea that thought can only understand what

it has produced, hurls itself...in its effort to dominate

the whole world as self-produced, at the insurmountable

barrier of the given, the thing-in-itselfj7
In the same way that the effect of the object (society) on
social relations may be lost sight of, so also may the effect
of the subject (the individual) be forgotten--as in Durkheim.
The consequence of both methods is the same: continuation of
the status quo. For Durkheim, change is not a problem; the
individual at birth is confronted by a pre-existing society;
social reality is. For Lukacs, on the other hand, "reality is

38 Weber's image of

not (something which).is; it is becoming."
change is quite interesting, especially because it is so preva-
lent today. The "stream of culture" is constantly changing as

it flows by the observer standing on the bank. The individual

-27-

is not a swimmer, swimming with the current or against it,
trying to understand the conditions under which he will be held
up by the stream or drowned by it--oh no, he is not even wading
in it. He is separate from it, on the bank. Herein lies the
inherent contradiction of sociology: it sees the individual as
shaped by social forces over which he has no control and which
he cannot change; at the same time, it believes that the indi-
vidual as observer can stand "on the bank," unaffected by these
same social forces. (Through accepting the isolation of the
individual (as observer) from society as the basis of its
method, sociology obscures the basic contradiction of capitalist
society.

Mannheim, following Marx, has made a cogent argument that
it is impossible for the scientific observer to be uninfluenced
by social considerations (class, etc.). By claiming "objectivity,"
he is merely ignoring his biases. It is only by being aware of
our biases, Mannheim says, that we can overcome them. More
than this, however; just as one denies the essence of a chair
by defining it in terms of its height or price, so one denies
the essence of the social world by attempting to refrain from
interacting with it.

...participation in the living context of social life is

a presupposition of the understanding of the inner nature

of this living context. The type of participation which

the thinker enjoys determines how he shall formulate his
problems. The disregard of qualitative elements and

the complete restraint of the will does not constitute

objectivity, but is inggead the negation of the essential
quality of the object.

-28-

Mannheim sees the observer, indeed as Weber did before him,
as coming into a situation with his own values, presuppositions,
and biases. For example, a middle class observer will view
industrial society from the standpoint of the middle class.
Rather than attempt to erase or ignore this, Mannheim argues,
the observer should attempt to add on to it by taking on the
perspectives of the other classes as well. The whole, for
Mannheim, is the sum total of its parts; so industrial society
might be understood by putting together the perspectives of the
petit bourgeoisie, the industrial bourgeoisie, labor, the unem-
ployed, the landowner, etc.

Marx, although seeing all of these as existing side by d
side within the whole, does not consider them a unity. The
individual parts are related to each other and to the whole in
a dialectical manner; many contradictions are involved. Adding
contradictions does not necessarily give us a true picture of

reality. Mannheim starts from Marx's insight into the nature 4:

..fi—m_____ -

of ideology and goes on to conclude that by adding together the
partial truths reflected in each ideology, it would be possible
to arrive at the truth of the whole. Marx, on the other hand,
does not believe that it is possible to understand the whole
through an understanding of its parts as separate entities. It
is only possible to understand the whole as whole. This is

not something which is possible under any and all conditions,
however. Under most conditions, it is impossible to interact

with and hence understand the whole; but

-29-

Revolutions and comparable mutations disclose societies

as totalities...consequently it is correct to say that

revolutionar praxis is what introduces concrete 40

(dialectical intelligibility into social relations.

During a revolutionary situation, contradictions become obvious.
It becomes clear which ideologies are based in previous modes

of production, which in the present. Only in a revolutionary
period does ideology more or less truly reflect the social
reality in which it is based.

It is clear that Mannheim, unlike Marx, is still attempting
to interpret the world, rather than change it. He sees the
importance of participating in something in order to understand
it, but for him knowing is primarily a matter of thought-experience
rather than of thought-action. Mannheim speaks in terms of
synthesis, Marx in terms of supercession. This stems from their
differing conceptions of the whole: a synthesis involves the
adding together of partial truths, and the mutual cancellation
of partial untruths. Supercession involves going beyond both
thesis and antithesis by means of radical transformation. The
whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Both Marx and Mannheim place their emphasis on the
relationship between subject and object, rather than seeing
them as separate entities. Their conclusions differ, however.
For Mannheim, understanding the importance of this relationship
leads to

Increasing awareness of previously uncontrolled factors

and the tendency to suspend immediateajudgments until
they are seen in a broader context...

5.9

-30-

Thus man (as "unattached intellectual"), because he has greater J
understanding of the elements involved in making a choice, is 5
enabled to make freer (more rational) decisions. Yet this j
same understanding can lead to a postponement of decisions. E
For Marx, who defines man not as intellectual but as worker
(through "his work upon the objective world"), this relationship
can and should lead to action. It is impossible to "make
philosophy (Hegelianism) a reality without abolishing it.""2

That is, if we accept the meaning of social reality as lying in
the dialectical process rather than in the subject or object seen
in isolation, we are trying to "make philosophy a reality."

If this attempt amounts to nothing more than understanding reality
in a different way--seeing social reality as arising from the
interaction between subject and object as opposed to the previous
view of social reality as arising from ideas-~it has not
succeeded in "abolishing philosophy." The Hegelian tendency

to see the Idea, and with it the self as locus of the Idea, as
primary, cannot be overcome by means of mental processes such

as thinking and understanding; it can only be overcome through
action. It is obvious from Marx's own life that he saw thought
in the form of critical analysis as an essential part of praxis.
Yet this is not a goal in itself, but a preliminary to the
making of decisions and acting on them. We cannot "suspend
judgments until they are seen in a broader context" because we
can only understand that broader context by interacting with it.

Method is fundamental with Marx, because it is the height

 

"Ill‘lIlIII‘l"l|l|.llu

-31-

of truly human activity. It is only through real interaction
with the world that we can know/act. We cannot think apart
from reality, because ideas emerge from a particular social

context. If we passively accept whatever exists in the social

-.‘- MIMWm—mv» _.“
‘ \
.4.)
_-
‘c
.

realm, on the other hand, we become objects and are no longer
truly human. We must interact, then, in the way he has
demonstrated, constantly striving to get at the real causes
of things by uniting theory and practice, qualifying ideas
through comparison with what is, developing thoughts by
analysis of reality. This is more than a methodology; it is
his way of knowing, his way of living, his way of being
human.

It is clear that Marx's methodology of praxis is based
on very different assumptions from that of most western
sociology. The main difference is that sociology assumes a
subject-object split, an assumption which affects both its
methodology and its conclusion. Subject and object are seen
as separate and to a degree self-contained entities; little
attention is given to the relationship between the two. For
Durkheim and the school of positivism which espouses his views,
the meaning of the social world is to be found in "objective"
reality, in society. Society is a given, a thing-in-itself,
which can only be understood in its own terms. For Weber and
the theorists who follow in his footsteps, the meaning of social

reality lies in the subjective interpretations which we place

-32-

on it. "Society" exists, but in unintelligible form; it can
only be understood in terms of the mental constructs of the
subject.

For Marx, on the other hand, it is unthinkable to attempt
to understand either subject or object "in its own terms,"
i.e., apart from their inter-relationship. The conception of :Lv
subject and object as separate is, for him, an idea which I
arises out of the alienating circumstances of the particular
historical situation of capitalist industrialism and the reifica-
tion of social relations which occurs in that situation. A
method which attempts to understand society through the analysis
of concepts is insufficient, since all ideas emerge from a
particular historical context. A method which attempts to
understand the social world as object, on the other hand, is
denying its fundamental essence. Speialmreality is composed of 1
social relations, and is not something which exists apart from 1
the individual who observes it. It is only possible to under- H
stand social reality by interacting with it through a combina-
tion of thinking and acting; through praxis.

The questions which arise from the comparison of praxis
with the traditional methods of sociology are obvious. The
choice of method is inextricably bound up with one's view of
the ontological nature of social reality. If sociology accepts
the conclusion which the sociology of knowledge is leading it
to, that the nature of social reality is relation and process,

it must go beyond methodologies rooted in the assumption that

-33-

social reality is something which exists in itself, apart from
the knowing subject. Having reached this point, it must face
the basic question posed by Marx: If it is possible to know
only through interaction, does it follow that one may interact
merely for the sake of knowing, or are knowing and acting a
joint process which cannot be separated except through a return
to previous assumptions? If the meaning of social reality lies
in relations, we must seek it through our relation to society.
If we arrive at some level of understanding by interacting with
and relating to different aspects of society, can we consistently
say, "Aha! Now the process stops. Now that I possess this
knowledge, I no longer need to interact with society; I do not
need to unite this knowledge with action, because I am a
professional"? It is impossible to understand social reality
through praxis and at the same time treat knowledge as a noun
which can be a goal or an object; it must be seen as process and
interaction.

These are some of the most basic problems facing sociology
today. I will not say "problems which must be faced or..."
because they are not problems which must be faced; they can
be ignored today as easily as they have been ignored for the
last several decades. Ignoring them, of course, requires the
maintenance of an ideology which masks their existence. So
far, the ideology of "objectivity" and the "scientific method"

has been successful. Insofar as sociologists are more concerned

-34-

with sociology as a profession than as a way of understanding
social reality, it is likely to enjoy continued success--in

the journals and lecture halls, if nowhere else.

FOOTNOTES

1
Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (New York: Harcourt, Brace
& world, Inc., 1936;, p. 240

2It should be kept in mind that the main concern of this paper

is sociology and not Durkheim and Weber per se. The emphasis

is on those of their views which most clearly reflect the state

of the discipline today; other aspects of their work have been
left aside, although the resulting simplification seems sufficient
to the present purpose.

3Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (New York:
The Free Press, 1938), p. 3.

4ibid., p. 14.
5Emile Durkheim, Suicide (New York: The Free Press, 1951), p. 106.

6Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (New York:
Free Press, 1938), p. 49.

7ibid., p. 46.
8ibid., p. 141.

9Max Weber, Methodology and the Social Sciences (New York:
Free Press of Glencoe, 1945), p. 104.

lOihid., p. 78.
llinen
12ibid., p. 102.

13G.W.F. Hegel, Reason in History, trans. by Robert S. Hartman
(New York: The Liberal Arts Press, Inc., 1953), p. 32.

l"ibid., p. 71.

15Nicholas Lobkowicz, Theory and Practice: History of a Concept
from Aristotle to Marx (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of

Notre Dame Press, 1957), p. 319.

16Karl Marx, Early Writings, trans. by T.B. Bottomore (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1963), p. 122.

l7karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I (New York: The Modern Library, 1906),
P. 25.

18Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology (New York:
International Publishers, 1947). P. l5.

""1!!1ll|‘l1l‘lllli..l1lui* I '1'! .. lil‘lr:lr Illi: ill Ill" {'l') I‘ll.

FOOTNOTES (cont.)

19Marx, Capital, Vol. I, 100. cit.

20Karl Marx, The Poverty_of Philosophy (New York: International
Publishers, 1969), p. 107.

21Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach", Socialist Thought, ed.
Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday Anchor Books, 1964), p. 294.

22courtesy of Christopher P. Pilotti.

23It is interesting to look at developing nations from the
standpoint of this scheme. In a developing nation, the new
forms of organization, whether capitalist or socialist, and the
new ideology of modernization, are based in the techno-economic
system of advanced nations, so that the chart is reversed:

 

 

[New Ideology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘\
\
‘\
New Organization] \\
\\ \
\~ \
\ \
\ \
Still-Existing \ Industrialism
Old Economic 1 \ (Base Yet to be
Base _ Achieved)

 

 

 

Marx himself saw this in his own Germany: "You demand that
rea1_life embpyos be made the starting-point but you forget that
the real life embryo of the German nation has grown so far only
inside its cranium." ("Contribution to the Criti ue of Hegel's
Philosophy of Right” Marx & Engels On Religion New York:
Schocken Books, 1964), p. 48. Today all societies are inter-
related and industrialism, to Marx, is the future of all
societies. Thus the ideology of industrialism is not, in one
sense, false, since it is a real embryo, that is, a reflection
of the future. However, as is clear from the cases of Russia
and China, creating new social relations before achieving a new
economic base is problematic if not impossible.

2"Henri Lefebvre, The Sociology of Marx, trans. by Norbert
Guterman (New York: Random House, Inc., 1968), p. 85.

25Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "The Communist Manifesto",
Essential Works of Marxisp, ed. by Arthur P. Mendel (New York:
Bantam Books, 1961), p. 31.

FOOTNOTES (cont.)
26Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach", op. cit., p. 293.
27karl Marx, quoted in Lobkowicz, op. cit., p. 617.

28Karl Marx, Early Writings, ed. T.B. Bottomore (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1963). p. 125.

 

29ibid., p. 128.

3OIt must be remembered that in Marx's day capitalism and
industrialism were nearly synonymous

31Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, trans. by -
Jack Cohen (New York: International Publishers, 1965), pp. 80-87.

32Karl Marx, Ca ital, Vol. I (New York: The Modern Library, 1906),
38p. pp. 81.9 o

33ibid., p. 84.

3"Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, trans. by Louis Wirth and
Edward Shils (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1936),
pp 0 51-52 .

35Karl Marx, Early Writings, trans. by T.B. Bottomore (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1963), pp. 159-60.

36George Lukacs, Histoire et Conscience de Classe, my translation
(Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1960): p. 91.

37ibid., p. 155.
38ibid., p. 250.
59Mannheim, op. cit., p. 46.
40Lefebvre, op. cit., p. 53.
“lhannheim, op. cit., p. 190.

42Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of
Right", loo. cit., p. 49.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Durkheim, Emile. The Rules of Sociolggical Method. New York:
The Free Press, 1938.

. Suicide. New York: The Free Press, 1951.

Hegel, G.W.F. Hgason in History. New York: The Liberal Arts
Press, 1953.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Sociology of Marx, trans. Norbert Guterman.
New York: Random House, Inc., 1968.

Lobkowicz, Nicholas. Theory and Practice: History of a Concepp
from Arispotletto Marx. Notre Dame, Indiana: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1967.

Lukacs, George. Histoire et Conscience de Classe. Paris:
Editions de Minuit, 1960.

Mandel, Ernest and Novack, George. The Marxist Theory of
Alienation. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970.

Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia, trans. Louis Wirth and
Edward Shils. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.,

1936.
Marx, Karl. Capital, Vol I. New York: The Modern Library, 1906.

. "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of
Right," Marx & Engels 0n Religion. New York: Schocken

Books, 1964.

. Early Writings, trans. T.B. Bottomore. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1963.

. Pre-Capipalist Economic Formations, trans. Jack Cohen.
New York: International Publishers, 1965.

. The Poverty of Philosophy. New York: International
Publishers, 1969.

. "Theses on Feuerbach," Socialist Thought, ed. Albert
Fried and Ronald Sanders. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday Anchor Books, 1964.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. "The Communist Manifesto,"
Essential Works of Marxism, ed. Arthur P. Mendel. New York:

Bantam Books, 19 1.

. In: Ggpman Ideology. New York: International Publishers,
1947.

Weber, Max. Methodolor and the Social Sciences. New York:
Free Press of Glencoe, 1945.

 

 

MICHIGQN STQTE UNIV. LIBRQRIES

 

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9 7

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