Weg van de toekomst. Over het voorspellen in de sociologie

Samenvatting

Away from the Future. On Prediction in Sociology. The idea that sociologists are capable of predicting the future of human societies is as old as sociology itself. The founder of modern sociology, Auguste Comte, believed that prevoyance was one of the goals of the new science of society. It is suggested that while some of the prophecies of the famous social thinkers of the 19th century, eg, Comte, Spencer, Marx, and Tocqueville, actually occurred, in many cases their predictions turned out to be wrong. Two Dutch sociologists who wrote their most important works at the turn of the century, Steinmetz and Bonger, presented some very enlightening insights, but it was impossible for their contemporaries to ascertain which one of their prophecies would turn out to be correct and which one was far off the mark. Reasons why social scientists cannot peer through the mists of the future have been presented by Karl Popper in The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and Its Enemies. Norbert Elias arrived, in What Is Sociology?, at a similar conclusion: sociologists should try to show how later figurations may be the outcome of developments in earlier figurations, but they should not pretend to be able to foresee later figurations on the basis of what they know about the earlier state of affairs. Yet, many social scientists, such as Giddens, Habermas, Wallerstein, and Ritzer, seem to pretend that they can tell policymakers what the future holds in store. In the short run, this prophetic pretension may add to the prestige of sociology, but in the long run it may undermine the credibility of the discipline. 24 References. Adapted from the source document.