Sociology and Common Sense: Discussion

Author(s): Robert Redfield

Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Feb., 1947), pp. 9-11
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2086484
Accessed: 22-02-2024 16:33 +00:00

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and

extend access to American Sociological Review

This content downloaded from 117.223.219.66 on Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:33:11 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
This content downloaded from 117.223.219.66 on Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:33:11 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

statistical sociologist. The second, the qualitative
analyst, is, I suppose, myself and hundreds
like me, cultural anthropologists and sociologists
who study social situations by direct observation,
"in the field." The third, for whose participation
Dr. Taylor chiefly argues, is the man of com-
mon sense. He is a fellow who lives in a com-
munity and as a part of his business of living
tries to get something done working with the
people of that community. He may be a leader
of a farmers' organization. He may be a pre-
cinct committeeman. What is important about
him, Dr. Taylor reminds us, is that he has an
understanding of how things work or how they
don't work in that community.
Now we might get an impression from Carl
Taylor's address which I don't believe he wants
us to get. This mistaken impression would be
that it is only the man of common sense who is
to provide the general view of the situation,
the gleam of general understanding, the clue of
explanation. I don't think he wants us to under-
stand that the man of common sense supplies
the explanations while the qualitative analyst
collects the facts and the statistician counts
them. Rather, I should say, it is the obligation
of the cultural anthropologist or field sociologist ence. We will see in action programs an excel-
to "size up" the whole situation and to provide
some general statement of what the situation
is like and where it is going. This is what we
mean by "insight," and I should say that the
cultivation of insight is a principal business of
the qualitative analyst. In this regard there is a accomplished or that prevented, even without
great similarity between him and the man of
common sense. The sociologist or anthropologistAgriculture. The point at which we should look,
has to stay long enough and intimately enough
with the situation to provide this insight, this
general way of taking the situation as one piece mon-sense understanding with sociological knowl-
and throwing emphasis on some parts of it as
particularly meaningful.
Moreover, I would not join in the view, if it
were Carl Taylor's view, that the understanding
of the man of common sense is always better
than that of the sociologist coming into the
situation from outside. Was it not Ellsworth
Faris who used to say that common sense is
always wrong? Always wrong it is in that it is
never complete, and is never understanding in
terms of theoretical and comprehensive general-
izations. Often wrong it is, insofar as it rests on
folk beliefs and prejudices. In this respect there
is an important difference between the qualita-
tive analyst and the man of common sense. Both
use insight. Both get a comprehensive under-
standing of the total situation from direct ac-
quaintance with it. But the view of the man of
common sense suffers from the disadvantages
as well as the advantages of three circumstances
from whose evil effects, or beneficial effects the
sociologist from the outside is free: he is only
inside the situation and cannot see it from out-
side; he does not know many comparable situ-
ations; and he is not trained in methods of
correcting his own view. So the sociologist.
while he surely will be wise in listening to the
man of common sense, must be prepared to find
him wrong as much as he is right. It was com-
mon-sense workingmen in the Western Electric
factory who told the sociological investigators
that the foremen were to blame for the difficul-
ties of production, and we all remember, who
have read the sociologists' reports, how little the
foremen had to do with the real explanations.
We will agree that a fully useful sociology is
not to be made by systematizing what one
sociologist happens to know. We will urge the
necessity of direct observation of particular
social situations, and the combination of statisti-
cal with quantitative methods. We will recognize
insight as indispensable to the understanding
of social situations and therefore to social sci-
lent opportunity to multiply insights. We will
recognize, also, that all life is, in a sense, an
action program, and that the anthropologist who
studies a primitive community finds its leaders
and its factions engaged in efforts to get this
the stimulus of the United States Department of
it seems to me, in connection with Carl Taylor's
address, is the point he calls "synthesizing com-
edge." How may the sociologist best take
advantage of the insights of the men of com-
mon sense within the community that is studied?
To what extent is it helpful, to what extent hurt-
ful, for the sociologist to be himself a participant
in the action program? What are the ways of
rapid access to the common knowledge? And
how are the insights of the men on the ground
best to be tested and corrected? Few are likely
to doubt that the sociologists in Dr. Taylor's
example of the study of success and failure of
an action program in two soil conservation dis-
tricts were wise in talking to the farmers in
those districts. How else could one find out what
were the significant differences between the two
districts? But just how, one would ask Dr. Tay-
lor, was the common-sense understanding of the

This content downloaded from 117.223.219.66 on Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:33:11 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SOCIOLOGY AND COMMON SENSE-DISCUSSION II

farmers "synthesized" with Dr. Taylor's more ably the fact that the theories are not too
formal knowledge? How, in the first place, was helpful. They have not often been put to critical
it determined that what the farmers said was test because they have not been formulated so
true or not true? And in the second place, how that they could be proved wrong if they are
was this knowledge, in the language of common wrong. Hence the social actionist darned well
sense, converted into the more formal language better have common sense, since he cannot get
of science? For the making of social science is a much real help from uncommon sense. I suspect
going back and forth between particular fact that Dr. Taylor has overstated rather than
and general fact, between the partial insights understated in giving sociological training as
of men on the ground and the improved insights much credit as he does for making a man useful
of the more theoretical men who come freshly in a social action program. He does say, of
to that ground. We need accounts of how this is course, that it takes a young man several years
done in particular cases to quicken our scien- to unlearn what he had been taught in graduate
tific imaginations. In reminding us of this need, school. But, I am inclined to think that neither
and of a place to look for its fulfillment in the Dr. Taylor himself, nor those of us who have
jointure of man of action and man of science, played humbler roles in social action programs,
Carl Taylor has done us a service. owe much of what success has been achieved
as social actionists to sociological theories as
DISCUSSION
such. Those who are successful owe it to the
fact that they have a good endowment of prac-
by tical horse sense, plus technical skill in ordering
data. Sociology is not a mere collection of
Samuel A. Stouffer
statistical facts or of items of practical experi-
Harvard University
ence or even of tricks for studying these things.
Our Society is honored in having as its Presi- Essentially sociology is a system of theoretical
dent a man whose career has been a living ex- propositions about cultures, societies, and
emplification of the thesis which has been so groups. And I fear, indeed, that when we speak
effectively discussed this evening. of the engineering application of sociological
I believe sincerely that the rapidity with theories we may be talking largely of the future,
which sociology will develop as a science depends rather than the past.
-just as was the case with chemistry, physics Let's check up on this apprehension. Dr. Tay-
or biology-on the usefulness of its engineering lor gives some interesting illustrations of the
applications. Science in general owes its support sociologist in action in studying rural problems.
primarily to the fact that as a result of scientific But, you will note, not once does he mention
study something happens. If the engineering an explicit sociological hypothesis or theory
applications of sociology in industry and in which was used in these studies. Now I do not
government really pay off, the salaries of and mean broad statements like "Values are rela-
prestige of men with sociological training will tive," or "There are many causes of social
increase, and this in turn will attract more and change." I mean propositions of the type, "Given
better graduate students. Thus the level of our A and B under condition C, the result will tend
professional competence will go up. At the same to be D." Where can we find such propositions,
time the engineering needs become a powerful which can be usefully applied in a social action
stimulus to the development of better social program?
theories-theories which are operationally stated I am sure, of course, that there must be some
in such form that inferences and predictions examples to guide us. Dr. Taylor doubtless has
from the theory can be empirically tested and, ifexamples which he lacked time to present in
good, applied in practical situations. Nothing detail. One illustration which comes to my mind
could be more wholesome than pressure on the is from the work of Shaw and his colleagues
theorist to abandon the slippery verbalisms on juvenile delinquency. Years of research led
which give him an out even when he is wrong to the conclusion that much of the urban de-
and to force him to put his propositions in suchlinquency was concentrated in a few areas
specific terms that if he is wrong the data will characterized by poverty, bad housing, and
show that he is wrong. apathy on the part of most of the elders whoa
The trouble with social engineering as an ap- being unsuccessful economically, had been un-
plication of sociological theories today is prob- able to join the more successful in migrating

This content downloaded from 117.223.219.66 on Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:33:11 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms