As in the case of theory construction, too much concern with the inner processes of the subject matter and too little concern with the audience's evolving view of the subject matter will alienate the one from the other. A phenomenological-ontological approach to course presentation, however, would overcome this deficiency of the structural approach, for it would be concerned at all times with the evolution of the student's assumptions about the subject matter.
With this approach, a course would begin by articulating the student's common-sense assumptions about the subject matter, would continue by refuting these lay assumptions and replacing them with expert propositions, and would conclude by rapidly recapitulating, and thus manifesting for the student, the process by which his original naive view of the subject matter was transformed into a new sophisticated view of the subject matter.
Such a course demands from the teacher not merely knowledge of the goal to which he wants to draw his students, but also knowledge of their starting point — where his students were originally at.
Any course whose on-going development parallels the natural progression of the student's mind from start to finish should have no difficulty in eliciting and sustaining their interest. The curriculum as a whole should also be synchronized with the mental development of the student. The fact that little attention is paid to the evolving assumptions of students in most curricula today is responsible for the fact that students often feel their education lacks relevance.
Since naive student assumptions about a subject matter are most ignored at the introductory level, beginning students are particularly prone to finding introductory courses and texts dull. If a person's interest is aroused only when he encounters something unexpected, then he will necessarily find an introductory course to be dull insofar as it does not deny his expectations.
Perhaps the only unexpected feature of most Introductory courses, their only redeeming feature that arouses what little interest the student has, is their denial of his assumption that some complex subject matter, like social life, is unordered. Unfortunately, the particular kind of order that most Introductory courses impose on their subject matter consists merely of the Classic Statements of the field.
Although these Classic Statements had interested previous generations of experts because they had denied their assumptions, these Classic Statements will fail to arouse present student interest insofar as students today do not hold the same assumptions about the subject matter as did the experts of the previous generations. Nevertheless, introductory courses and texts do perform an indispensable function in the curriculum of the discipline as a whole, for they set up the pre-conditions necessary for students to find advanced courses and texts interesting.
Introductory courses engender those expectations about the subject matter that the propositions put forth in advanced courses are specifically designed to deny. Since the dialectical process of the interesting can occur only after specific assumptions about a subject have been formed, students usually find advanced courses to be more interesting than introductory courses.
This is not to say that introductory courses — even if they must be less interesting than advanced courses — must be as uninteresting as they often are. They could be made more interesting to the beginning student if they attempted to show him in detail how the Classic Statements of the discipline actually do refute many of the assumptions about the subject matter that he has acquired merely by being socialized into the common-sense world of the outside society in which he grew up.
Very recently, in some parts of the academy, there has been a reaction against excessive concentration on the sophisticated propositions of experts. But this reaction seems to be turning into an excessive concentration on the naive assumptions of students. Both extremes are to be avoided if student interest is to be maintained. In the past, student interest in a subject was often inhibited by too much attention to the latest conclusions of experts and too little attention to the original assumptions of students.
In the future, it looks as though student interest in a subject may be inhibited by too much attention to the original assumptions of students and too little attention to the latest conclusions of experts.
Students will then be as bored with having their naive views left undisturbed as they were with having their naive views ignored.
In either case, that transcendence of original assumptions that is intrinsic to the interesting does not occur. What is needed is a pedagogical approach that takes into account both the student's naive view of the subject matter as its beginning and the expert's sophisticated view of the subject matter as its end, and methodically leads the student from one to the other. Only in this way will the term academic cease to be synonymous with irrelevant.
In trying to construct The Index of the Interesting, I had hoped to make it as systematic as possible. However, as I proceeded in this attempt, I discovered — to my dismay — that the more systematic I tried to make it, the less interesting it became.
Rather than continue to spin out my system at the increasing cost of decreasing interest, I decided that my dilemma itself might serve as the basis for some reflections on the relation between the interesting and the systematic. At this critical point, I was proceeding in the following way. From my file of interesting propositions, I had taken one that I had not previously classified: "Robert Merton's assertion in Puritanism, Pietism, and Science that fundamentalist Protestantism and science, which were considered at the time he wrote to have developed from two completely different psycho-value complexes, in fact developed from the same psycho-value complex.
Evolution — and its general type — xiii a "What seem to be phenomena that evolved out of completely different sources are in reality phenomena that evolved out of the same source. According to my procedure for systematically elaborating my thesis — which had worked well enough in previous cases — the logical opposite of a general type of interesting proposition should also be a general type of interesting proposition.
But here the trouble started. I could find no concrete example of supposedly interesting Type xiii b propositions: What seem to be phenomena that evolved out of the same source are in reality phenomena that evolved out of completely different sources. I found myself attempting to force several recalcitrant social theories into this mould. Noting that the results were uninspired and plainly artificial, I eventually gave up and decided not to extend my thesis into this new category at all, even though I was certain there was a good example of Type xiii b propositions somewhere and even though I hated to lose my Merton example of Type xiii a propositions, which was such an excellent illustration of the hermeneutic power of my thesis.
Let me try to abstract from my particular difficulty the general difficulty that all theorists must confront when they try to be both interesting and systematic. I will take the simplest case. A theorist makes an interesting assertion about phenomenon a. His assertion is interesting because it counters his audience's previous belief about phenomenon a. He discovers his assertion is also interesting in regard to phenomenon b because it also counters his audience's previous belief about phenomenon b.
But then he finds that the two phenomena with which he has been concerned — phenomenon a and phenomenon b — have a logical relationship that, through its own internal process, engenders a third phenomenon c and a fourth phenomenon d. Now, if the theorist wishes to be systematic, he must further apply his assertion to phenomenon c and phenomenon d. But he has no guarantee that this systematic application of his assertion to phenomenon c and phenomenon d will still be interesting because his assertion may not counter his audience's previous beliefs about phenomenon c and phenomenon d.
The great theorist, therefore, intuitively recognizing the potential decline of interest in his assertion as this assertion is applied to more and more phenomena, usually only implies these extensions, leaving it to his epigone to articulate his system and systematically fill in the vacant boxes.
These less perceptive followers will apply their mentor's originally provocative assertion mechanically in the sense that they will not be attentive-as their mentor was — to the presuppositions about these new topics that their audience already holds.
Systems begin interestingly enough, but there is much logical and sociological necessity for them not to end that way. One must usually choose between being interesting and being systematic. One cannot easily be both. Phenomenology, as the term is generally used and as I have used it here, is the study of mere appearances on the sensory level and, more importantly for my purpose, mere assumptions on the cognitive level. The emphasis is on the "mere", for to call a phenomenon phenomenological implies that beyond what people see or assume there is something more real.
But the term phenomenology has another, larger, meaning — developed by Hegel and Husserl — that includes not merely the seductively false appearances and assumptions, but the whole movement of the mind away from them towards the ontologically true. It is in this larger sense of the entire process that what I have tried to lay out in these pages is a Phenomenology of Sociology.
I have asserted that all social theories that are found interesting involve a certain movement of the mind of the audience who finds them so. These theories implicitly articulate the routinely taken-for-granted assumptions of the audience who finds them interesting, and then deny these presumptions in the name of some higher — or more fundamental — truth. Yet not only is sociology founded upon this phenomenological process, this phenomenological process is equally founded upon sociology, for the original assumptions of each segment of the audience — the starting points of this process — are differentially distributed over social space.
Therefore, in order to develop fully a field of inquiry that may be called The Sociology of the Interesting , the Phenomenology of Sociology , which studies the movement of the audience's mind from one accepted social theory to another, must be combined with the Sociology of Phenomenology , which studies the dissimilar baseline theories of diverse lay and professional audience segments from which this phenomenological process begins. It is important to distinguish the Sociology of Knowledge from the Sociology of the Interesting.
The former is essentially a study of beliefs and assumptions; the latter is essentially a study of the breakdown and build up of beliefs and the transformation of assumptions. To be sure, the Sociology of Knowledge has studied the historical succession of ideologies, but, in its classic form at least Mannheim, , it has studied belief-systems as though they were static phenomena; it has considered the historical succession of belief-systems as the relatively sudden replacement of one static ideology by another static ideology.
The Sociology of the Interesting , on the other hand, has a much less static, much more dynamic orientation. It focuses on the exact point at which one belief-system is being transformed into another belief-system.
It focuses on the exact point at which the hold of an old theoretical assumption on some individuals or groups has weakened enough for them to begin to find a new — contradictory — theoretical proposition interesting. And it is concerned with discovering the precise sociological and phenomenological mechanisms of change. All this, however, does not mean that the Sociology of Knowledge should be replaced by the Sociology of the Interesting.
It does mean that the Sociology of Knowledge should be supplemented by the Sociology of the Interesting , for crucial aspects of our changing theoretical structures that are necessarily obscured from the perspective of the former will be more clearly revealed from the perspective of the latter. The foregoing discussion of the interesting gives us a model of scientific revolutions quite different from the one given by Thomas Kuhn Kuhn maintains, roughly, that a concrete experience that is anomalous to a previous set of scientific assumptions and interpretative procedures paradigms motivates scientists to look for a new set of scientific assumptions and interpretative procedures paradigms that explains the anomalous experience better than the old.
But to view most scientists as unwilling to make a major change in the accepted conceptual scheme until some concrete anomaly forces them to is to attribute to most scientists a conservatism and lack of personal ambition that surely cannot be that common a personality characteristic even among natural scientists let alone social scientists.
In opposition to Kuhn, I would contend that sheer boredom with the old routinely accepted paradigm and desire to make a name for themselves would motivate many scientists to look for anomalies unexplainable by the old paradigm but explainable by a new one preferably of their own devising , rather than merely wait for the anomalies to crop up by themselves.
One can acquire more professional status by attaching one's reputation to a rising new paradigm than by being the handmaiden of a declining old paradigm. The best way to make a name for oneself in an intellectual discipline is to be interesting — denying the assumed while affirming the unanticipated.
Yet one must be careful not to go too far. There is a fine but definite line between asserting the surprising and asserting the shocking, between the interesting and the absurd. An interesting proposition, we saw, was one that denied the weakly held assumptions of its audience.
But those who attempt to deny the strongly held assumptions of their audience will have their very sanity called into question. If the difference between the inspired and the insane is only in the degree of tenacity of the particular audience assumptions they choose to attack, it is perhaps for this reason that genius has always been considered close to madness. In this essay, I have tried to put forward a new way of analyzing theoretical propositions.
This essay, then, has been both a description and an exhortation. It has been a description insofar as I have tried to designate those factors that have made the writings of great theorists so interesting, It has been an exhortation insofar as 1 have urged my readers to become more aware of these factors in order to make their own writings more interesting.
I contend that the generation of interesting theories ought to be the object of as much attention as the verification of insipid ones. This report should be regarded as an introductory investigation of that residual category of 'genius' that separates the great theorists from the mediocre. Those whose beliefs have been recently weakened welcome new supports for old suppositions.
Many propositions that the older generation had found interesting become transformed into assumptions that the younger generation find routine. Consequently, those propositions that have interested the older generation — i. They have become the younger generation's taken-for-granted assumptions! Freudian insights, for instance, do not seem to arouse much interest in the young today because the young today already assume the sex drive to be a prime motivator of human behavior.
It retains the interestingness of a proposition by actually re-restricting its audience to those very experts who found it interesting in the first place, for jargon is a meaningful unit of discourse only in relation to the baseline assumption of an intellectual specialty. Most social researchers do not clearly understand that the purpose of their review of the literature is to articulate the assumptions of their audience, and not merely to fulfil a rhetorical ritual.
Nor do they clearly understand that the purpose of the rest of their research presentation is to increase our interest by refuting these assumptions, and not merely to "increase our knowledge" by confirming or ignoring them. But beyond this point, the more strongly an audience holds an assumption, the more insane they will consider anyone who attempts to deny it.
Anyone who attempts to deny his audience's beliefs about natural and social phenomena past this point is, in effect, attacking his audience's very sanity. The audience, in this case, can save its own sanity only by accusing him of losing his. Peace and survival of life on Earth as we know it are threatened by human activities that lack a commitment to humanitarian values.
Destruction of nature and natural resources results from ignorance, greed, and a lack of respect for the Earth's living things It is not difficult to forgive destruction in the past, which resulted from ignorance.
Today, however, we have access to more information, and it is essential that we re-examine ethically what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will pass on to coming generations.
Clearly this is a pivotal generation Our marvels of science and technology are matched if not outweighed by many current tragedies, including human starvation in some parts of the world, and extinction of other life forms We have the capability and responsibility. We must act before it is too late. Tenzin Gyatso the fourteenth Dalai Lama.
Davis Phil. Interesting non-propositions I will further restrict this paper to analyzing the interesting component of those theories that Kant has called "synthetic a posteriori propositions" — assertions that refer to the empirical world and are not merely matters of definition.
The interesting and the routine The interesting is something that affects the attention. The interesting in theory and in practice All interesting theories, at least all interesting social theories, then, attack the taken-for-granted worlds of their audiences.
Procedure To discover what made a social theory interesting, I examined a large number of social and especially sociological propositions that have been considered interesting, in the hope of isolating the common element of interest in all of them and of accounting for their differences.
The common element of all interesting propositions All of the interesting propositions I examined were found to involve the radical distinction between seeming and being, between the subject of phenomenology and the subject of ontology.
The species of interesting propositions While all interesting propositions were found to have in common the same dialectical relation between the phenomenological and the ontological, they were found to be distinguished on the logical level.
Comment The thrust of a younger ripening discipline is to develop organizing propositions of Type i a. Comment Many natural and social scientists have made their reputations by pointing out that the appearance of a natural or social phenomenon is an illusion and that what the phenomenon really consists of lies below its surface.
Comment Holistic propositions of Type iii a assert that what appears to be the property of an individual is actually the property of some whole of which the individual is a part.
What seems to be a local phenomenon is in reality a general phenomenon. What seems to be a general phenomenon is in reality a local phenomenon. Comment Generalizing propositions and localizing propositions are two of the most common types of propositions in modern social science research. Comment Just as some propositions are interesting because they assert an unexpected generalization or lack of generalization of the characteristics of a social phenomenon across some social category space, so other propositions are interesting because they assert an unexpected stabilization or lack of stabilization of the characteristics of a social phenomenon across time.
Comment Merton's discussion of manifest and latent functions is the classic statement of a methodological technique specifically designed to generate interesting propositions. What seems to be a bad phenomenon is in reality a good phenomenon. What seems to be a good phenomenon is in reality a bad phenomenon.
Comment Evaluative propositions are found interesting only when the theorist's evaluation of a phenomenon differs from his audience's evaluation of this phenomenon. Comment Modern computer technology in the social sciences both allows and fosters the prolific production of an enormous number of propositions involving correlations among phenomena Type viii that are uninteresting.
Comment This type of interesting proposition is relatively rare in the social sciences since few pairs or sets of social phenomena are conceived as being so incompatible with one another that they negate one another's very existence.
Comment There are two other types of co-variance propositions that attract interest: 1 What seems to be a continuous incremental co-variation between phenomena is in reality a discontinuous discrete co-variation. Comment When opposition propositions, especially of type xi b, are combined with evaluation propositions, especially of Type vii b, we have the relatively formalized technique of generating interesting propositions known as dialectical thinking. Comment Type xii propositions, which evoke interest by reversing the causal relationship usually assumed between phenomena, are especially common in popular sociology.
Non-interesting propositions We have seen that an audience finds a proposition interesting not because it tells them some truth they did not already know, but instead because it tells them some truth they thought they already knew was wrong. Complicating social factors If an audience will find interesting any proposition that attacks the assumption they hold about its topic, then presumably all one would have to do to assert an interesting proposition is, first, to specify what the audience assumption about any topic is, and, second, to come up with a proposition that refutes it.
Uncomplicating social factors Considering all of the assumptions of all of the various audience segments that a proposition must react against in order to be considered interesting, it is a wonder that anyone has ever asserted a proposition that attracted widespread interest.
Further research into the implications of interesting propositions I wish to re-emphasize the fact that I did not intend for The Index of the Interesting to be definitive. Implications of interesting propositions for further research The common critique of most contemporary social and especially sociological research is that it is dull, that it says what everybody knows or what nobody cares about.
The interesting and the academic The analysis of the interesting elaborated here also has repercussions on the non-research activities of social and other scientists, particularly in the areas of course presentation and curriculum development. Your Privacy. Manage consent preferences Strictly Necessary Cookies. They are essential for you to browse the website and use its features. Functional Cookies. Performance Cookies. Marketing Cookies. Book your spot now at any upcoming open day or virtual event.
Joe Wood 09 Nov Bookmark article. Better understanding of humankind Sociology allows you to gain a greater understanding of the complex and simple nature of humans and their societies. High levels of student satisfaction A degree in Sociology is generally seen as rewarding and stimulating by students.
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By studying societal behaviour, you will be able to make comparisons, solve issues and gain a rational understanding of some of society's more negative traits as well. Many skills added to your toolbox: the skills developed during a sociology degree are transferrable to many areas of work. Improved critical thinking allows you to make rational and measured decisions in the interest of fairness, whereas a synthesis of group and independent projects provides you with skills of teamwork, independence and autonomy.
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