The Role of Constructive Typology in Scientific Sociological Analysis

FOR sociologists, there is in existence an extremely controversial instrument of human orientation called the "constructed type."' There also exists a wide diversity of opinion relative to the scientific usefulness and applicability of this particular conceptual device. In view of this we will attempt to assist, to a limited degree at least, in the clarification of the possible and potential applications of the constructed type in the conduct of scientific sociological analysis. For our immediate purposes it is essential, first of all, to take as a point of departure a definition of science. There are numerous entirely acceptable definitions of science in existence; therefore, the problem is simply one of selecting a respectable one that will be applicable throughout our exposition and is in keeping with our terminology and approach. Becker's conception of science as being "the systematic statement of the probability of the potential or actual recurrence of phenomena which, for the purposes in hand, are regarded as identical,"2 is thus suitable. Immediately then the scientist is barred from dealing with the unique as the unique, leaving such procedure legitimately to the historian and illegitimately to those scientists who deal with all empirical data on an existential level, and who therefore are incapable of structuring their data into relevant systems. The scientist, then, is continually in search of the identical (for the purpose at hand), for the general, and for the recurrent aspects of the particular class of phenomena with which he is dealing. In order to comprehend the data of experience it is his task to create order out of chaos, to analytically eliminate the relevance of the unique, and to construct logically a conceptual order of things wherein the repetitive and interrelated aspects of phenomena are exposed. If, for the sociologist, human society is to be susceptible to understanding in the scientific manner, the logical limits of science must be a part of their analysis. These limits are imposed by objectivism, abstraction, and generalization. The imposition of these three essential criteria of science to sociological analysis will necessarily eliminate much of the data of experience; explicitly, the unique and the systematically irrelevant. The elimination of certain elements of data and aspects of knowledge from scientific consideration is entirely legitimate if we temper it with the realization that science does not represent the totality of human knowledge-but only the part of that knowledge that is geared to the prediction of what might happen under what circumstances. Prediction is the very essence of science; therefore, the ultimate criterion of scientific statement and generalization is the degree of accuracy involved in the statement of probability relative to the occurrence of a given phenomenon when a given set of factors are configurationally present in a situation. To accomplish this creation of order out of diversity, general out of unique, and recurrent out of occurrent, methodology is essential. There are two different levels of method between which it is important to differentiate. First, there is the term method that may be applied to logic that is aDDlicable to any tVDe of Dhenomena. Dhvsical or 1 We use the Becker terminology of "constructed" type rather than the older and more maligned "pure" and "ideal" types. 2Howard, Becker, "Constructive Typology in the Social Sciences," in H. E. Barnes, Howard Becker, and F. B. Becker, (eds.), Contemporary Social Thaeory, pp. 17-46.