Pure Sociology - Response To Criticism

Response To Criticism

Mark Cooney, Allan Horwitz, and Joseph Michalski have responded to some specific criticisms of pure sociology, while Donald Black, in "The Epistemology of Pure Sociology" as well as other writings, has responded generally to critics' claims and provided an extensive defense of the pure sociological approach.

Noting the ideological nature of many of the attacks, Black says that his theory is in fact "politically and morally neutral." But according to Black, it nonetheless attracts politicized hostility due to its unconventionality:

"My work is shocking not because it is politically incorrect, but because it is epistemologically incorrect. It violates conventional conceptions of social reality in general and legal and moral reality in particular. It therefore shocks — epistemologically shocks — many on whom it is inflicted. If I disturb your universe I may be worthy of contempt. I may appear to be your favorite political enemy, a conservative if you are radical, a radical if you are conservative."

Black also discusses the aims of the approach. While it is unconventional sociology, it is conventional science, striving to provide simple, general, testable, valid, and original explanations of reality. And it is by these criteria alone, Black maintains, that it should be judged:

"If you wish to criticize my work, tell me you can predict and explain legal and related behavior better than I can. Tell me my work is not as testable as something else, tell me it is not as general as something else, tell me it is less elegant than something else, tell me that it has already been published, or just tell me it is wrong. Tell me something relevant to what I am trying to accomplish — something scientific."