Robert K. Merton and Contemporary Sociology

351 Pages·1997·19.538 MB·English

by  Carlo Mongardini (editor), Simonetta Tabboni (editor)

Robert K.
MERTON
& CONTEMPORARY
SOCIOLOGY

K.
Robert
M E R T O N
& CONTEMPORARY
SOCIOLOGY
Carlo Mongardini &
Simonetta Tabboni
EDITORS
First published 1998 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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Copyright © 1998 by Taylor & Francis
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 97-16720
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Opera di R.K. Merton e la sociologia contemporanea. English.
Robert K. Merton and contemporary sociology / edited
by Carlo Mongardini & Simonetta Tabboni.
p. cm.
Papers presented at an international conference held in Amalfi,
Italy, in 1987.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56000-318-9 (alk. paper)
1. Merton, Robert King, 1910- -Congresses. 2. Sociology-
Congresses. I. Merton, Robert King. 1910- . II. Mongardini,
Carlo. III. Tabboni, Simonetta, 1937- . IV. Title.
HM22.U6M3854 1997
301-dc21 97-16720
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-1-56000-318-2 (hbk)
Contents
Foreword ix
Carlo Mongardini
Foreword to the American Edition xv
Carlo Mongardini
Preface xvii
Robert K. Merton
Part 1: Robert K. Merton’s Place in
Contemporary Sociological Thought
Introduction 1
Simonetta Tabboni
1. Robert K. Merton’s Structural Analysis:
The Design of Modem Sociology 21
Volker Meja and Nico Stehr
2. Robert K. Merton: The Relation between Theory
and Research 45
Paolo Ammassari
3. Merton and the Sociology of Science in Europe 61
Gianni Statera
4. The Informative-Formative Reception of Robert K.
Merton’s Work in Italy 77
Filippo Barbano
Part 2: Concepts of Sociological Analysis
5. Sociological Ambivalence in the Thought of R.K. Merton 101
Pierpaolo Donati
vi Robert K. Merton and Contemporary Sociology
6. Robert K. Merton’s Concept of Sociological Ambivalence:
The Florentine Case of the “Man-Ape” 121
Birgitta Nedelmann
7. Accumulation of Advantage and Disadvantage:
The Theory and Its Intellectual Biography 139
Harriet Zuckerman
8. Robert K. Merton’s Four Concepts of Anomie 163
Piotr Sztompka
9. The Unanticipated Consequences of Action:
Sociological and Ethical Aspects 177
Arnold Zingerle
10. Some Reflections on Latent Functions 187
Peter Gerlich
11. Patterns of Manifest and Latent Influence:
A Double Case Study of Influences on and from Robert K.
Merton 197
Charles Crothers
Part 3: Short Papers
12. Conditioning or Conditionings? Revisiting an
Old Criticism of Mannheim by Merton 213
Alberto Izzo
13. Some Thoughts on Two Works by Robert K. Merton 221
Paolo Almondo
14. Robert K. Merton, the Teacher: Episodic Recollections
by an Enthusiastic Apprentice 239
Rocco Caporale
15. Notes towards an Analysis of the Relationship between
Ambivalence and Rationality 247
Alessandro Cavalli
16. Robert K. Merton for an “Open Society” ? Or, a
Concept of Society Beyond Functionalism 251
Giuliano Giorio
17. Robert K. Merton’s Contribution to Sociological
Studies of Time 257
Simonetta Tabboni
Contents vii
18. Serendipity in the Work of Robert K. Merton 273
Maria Luisa Maniscalco
19. R.K. Merton: The Model of Theory-Empirical Research
Circularity as a Way Out of the Micro-Macro Dichotomy 285
Elena Besozzi
20. Sztompka’s Analysis of Merton’s Writings:
A Description and Some Criticisms 289
Charles Crothers
Afterword 295
Unanticipated Consequences and Kindred Sociological Ideas:
A Personal Gloss
Robert K. Merton
Contributors 319
Index of Names 325

Foreword
Carlo Mongardini
Robert K. Merton and Contemporary Sociology offers scholars of
sociology the fruits of an international conference which took place in
Amalfi in 1987 under the auspices of the Sociological Theories and
Social Transformations Section of the Italian Sociological Association
and with the participation of Merton himself.
Anyone who keeps up with the most recent developments in sociol­
ogy knows how many doubts and uncertainties there are to ensnare
sociological theory nowadays. Dissatisfaction with the results produced
by the discipline affects three types of sociologists equally. There are
those who keep themselves strictly in line with the traditional socio­
logical models, making efforts to gather up social life into tables and
unitary systems after the model of the natural sciences, and taking the
concept of society as the ideal point of reference; there are those who
find social unity despite its complexity in a moral judgement more or
less associated with a political project; and there are those, lastly, who
reduce sociological understanding to an anarchical aestheticism which
takes the experience of everyday life as its subject and which amounts
to an abandonment of theory as well as a more or less conscious
retreat into the realm of the present.
Faced with these diverse positions, none capable of furnishing ad­
equate tools for the interpretation and measurement of contemporary
social reality, the attention of scholars turns again to the classic soci­
ologists of the twentieth century. In particular to R.K. Merton, perhaps
the least “classic” among the classics. In Merton, in fact, we find no
system or unitary interpretative construct and yet we find a coherent
system of thinking and of analytical build-up that takes us back to the
ix