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Styles of Sociological Thought: Sociologies, Epistemologies, and the Mexican and

U.S. Quests for Truth*
Gabriel Abend
Sociological Theory 2006 24: 1
DOI: 10.1111/j.0735-2751.2006.00262.x
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Styles of Sociological Thought: Sociologies, Epistemologies, and the

Mexican and U.S. Quests for Truth*
GABRIEL ABEND
Northwestern University
Both U.S. and Mexican sociologies allege that they are in the business of making true
scientific knowledge claims about the social world. Conventional conceptions of
science notwithstanding, I demonstrate that their claims to truth and scientificity
are based on alternative epistemological grounds. Drawing a random sample of
nonquantitative articles from four leading journals, I show that, first, they assign a
different role to theories, and indeed they have dissimilar understandings of what a
theory should consist of. Second, whereas U.S. sociology actively struggles against
subjectivity, Mexican sociology maximizes the potentials of subjective viewpoints.
Third, U.S. sociologists tend to regard highly and Mexican sociologists to eagerly
disregard the principle of ethical neutrality. These consistent and systematic differences raise two theoretical issues. First, I argue that Mexican and U.S. sociologies
are epistemologically, semantically, and perceptually incommensurable. I contend
that this problem is crucial for sociologys interest in the social conditioning of
scientific knowledges content. Second, I suggest four lines of thought that can help
us explain the epistemological differences I find. Finally, I argue that sociologists
would greatly profit from studying epistemologies in the same fashion they have
studied other kinds of scientific and nonscientific beliefs.
The phrase Uruguayan physics might refer to physics departments located in

Montevideo or to physicists who possess Uruguayan citizenship. But insofar as it
refers to theories and laws, the traditional conception of science would consider
Uruguayan physics to be an oxymoronic phrase. Maxwells equations are not
Scottish, nor is Lavoisiers refutation of the phlogiston theory of combustion
French. In fact, the oxymoron can be made even starker: Scottish attitude toward
value judgments and French conception of objectivity seem to be, from the point
of view of science, unintelligible expressions. Unlike mores, political cultures, and
aesthetic judgments, science, this argument goes, is universal.
In Mannheims ([1929] 1966:265) words, the sociology of knowledge has set itself
the task of solving the problem of the social conditioning of knowledge. Taking
*Address correspondence to: Gabriel Abend, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, 1810
Chicago Ave., Evanston, IL 60208. E-mail: g-abend@northwestern.edu. My research in Mexico was
supported by the Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University and a
Fulbright Alumni Initiative Award. I gratefully acknowledge the hospitality of the Centro de Estudios
Sociologicos at El Colegio de Mexico, the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales at UNAM, and the Centro
de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas. I have benefited from comments and suggestions from Sarah
Babb, Charles Camic, Paula England, Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas, Andreas Glaeser, Rebeca de Gortari,
Natividad Gutierrez, Carol Heimer, Jerry Jacobs, Miche`le Lamont, Jeff Manza, Ann Orloff, Juan Manuel
Ortega, Devah Pager, Olivier Roueff, Michael Sauder, Ben Ross Schneider, George Steinmetz, Jessica
Thurk, Francisco Zapata, several anonymous referees, and the editors of Sociological Theory. I owe special
thanks to Bruce Carruthers, Elif Kale-Lostuvali, and Arthur Stinchcombe, who read more drafts of this
paper than I care to remember.
Sociological Theory 24:1 March 2006
# American Sociological Association. 1307 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005-4701
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
science as a special case of knowledge, one would readily acknowledge that the fact
that two communities of sociologists might be interested in different topics or
privilege different methods can be accounted for by the existential basis of mental
productions (Merton [1949] 1968:514). This argument is consistent with the image
of science by which we are [generally] possessed (Kuhn [1962] 1970:1), according to
which science is objective, rational, and universal. For it can be argued that the
selection of a research interest or a methodological tool is just a matter of taste
unrelated to the context of justification. By contrast, it would not be consistent with
the traditional conception of science if two communities of sociologists differed in
something more fundamental: the criteria through which they discriminate between
true and false claims, their definition of what constitutes knowledge, their understanding of what an acceptable theory should look likethat is, their epistemological
assumptions. While there are theoretical and empirical grounds to expect variation in,
for example, foci of attention and rates of advance, it may be an unexpected and
unsettling empirical finding that sociologys very foundations are in some way socially
constructed (on these scare quotes, see Hacking 1999).
This is precisely the question that this article addressesits main argument is that
the discourses of Mexican and U.S. sociologies are consistently underlain by significantly different epistemological assumptions. In fact, these two Denkgemeinschaften
(Fleck [1935] 1979) are notably dissimilar in at least four clusters of variables (see, e.g.,
Andrade Carreno 1998; Brachet-Marquez 1997; Leal y Fernandez et al. 1995; Girola
and Olvera 1994; Davis 1992; Girola and Zabludovsky 1991; Paoli Bolio 1990; Garza
Toledo 1989; Sefchovich 1989; Ben tez Zenteno 1987): their thematic, theoretical, and
methodological preferences; their historical development and intellectual influences;
the society, culture, and institutions in which they are embedded; and the language
they normally use. It is reasonable to expect that if variation in epistemological
assumptions can be found at all, it would be more likely when there is variation in
these clusters of variables as well. Then, the comparison of Mexican and U.S. sociologies is a promising one to tackle the issue of that more fundamental difference.
Both U.S. and Mexican sociologies allege that they are in the business of making
true scientific knowledge claims about the social world. Conventional conceptions of
science notwithstanding, I show that their claims to truth and scientificity are based
on alternative epistemological grounds. My argument is organized as follows. After
expounding my data and methods, I present my findings in three substantive
sections, each of which addresses a different epistemological dimension. The first of
them explores the nature and role of theories and the dialogue between theory and
evidence. The second looks at whether and how epistemic objectivity is sought after.
Finally, the third substantive section examines to what extent the ideal of a value-free
science is pursued and realized.
In turn, my empirical findings raise two theoretical problems, which I discuss in the
conclusion. The first is how to explain the difference I describe. The development of a
theory that could explain the exceptionally complex process through which U.S. and
Mexican sociologies have come to hold their distinctive epistemological commitments
would require a profound historical study, which is beyond the scope of this article.
Nonetheless, I shall suggest four lines of thought from which this theory might profit.
The second theoretical problem is in what sense variation in epistemologies can be
said to be more fundamental than variation in, for example, methods or topics. This
will lead us to the subject of commensurability or translatability, that is, whether the
translation between theoretical claims rendered in these languages is at all possible (or
whether there is a meta-language into which both could be translated). I shall argue
STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT
that this problem is crucial for the sociology of knowledge in general, and for what I
call the sociology of epistemologies in particular.
Obvious as it by now may seem, I would like nevertheless to underscore that this is
not an epistemological treatise but an exercise in the sociology of knowledge. Hence,
in accordance with Bloors ([1976] 1991:7) tenets of impartiality and symmetry, I do
not grant any epistemic privilege to the Mexican or U.S. ways of going about studying
the social world. I do not know nor do I care about how true and false beliefs are
distributed.1 My approach is not theoretical, normative, or philosophicalit is
empirical and sociological. As I argue in the conclusion, sociologists would greatly
profit from studying epistemologies in the same fashion they have studied other kinds
of scientific and nonscientific beliefs.
DATA AND METHODS

My inquiry into the epistemological presuppositions that underlie the discourse of
U.S. and Mexican sociologies is based on a content analysis of a sample of journal
articles. The sample is drawn from two Mexican and two U.S. journals of sociology:
American Journal of Sociology (AJS), American Sociological Review (ASR), Estudios
Sociologicos (ES), and Revista Mexicana de Sociologa (RMS). These journals are the
most cited and most prestigious ones in each of the communities.2 The following
volumes are considered: AJS Volumes 101106 (19952001), ASR Volumes 6166
(19962001), ES Volumes XIVXVIII (19962000), and RMS Volumes LVIIILXII
(19962000). Throughout these periods, three different editors served on AJS, two
editors and one editorial team on ASR, three directores on ES, and two directores on
RMS.3 These variations provide some small degree of control over the effect of the
variable editor.
The population of articles from which I draw my sample does not consist of all the
pieces published in the volumes of the journals mentioned above. First, it excludes:
editorials, book reviews and review essays, comments and replies, addresses, translations, and any other nonrefereed piece (as far as it can be told). Nor does it include
theoretical, methodological, and exegetical articles, for my chief interests include the
dialogue between theory and data and the pursuit of objective representations of reality.
There is still another group of articles not included in my population. For a na ve
anthropologist of sociologies, the most striking difference between ASR and AJS,
on the one hand, and ES and RMS, on the other hand, would be the ubiquity versus
virtual absence of statistical and formal models. This is most important because the
variable method accounts for much of the variation of the epistemological dimensions under scrutiny. Specifically, the modal U.S. article, centered on a statistical
model and employing highly standardized argumentative and rhetorical practices,
1
As I discuss at some length in the conclusion, there is a sense in which this claim is reflexively
problematic. On reflexivity in the sociology of scientific knowledge, see Ashmore (1989) and Woolgar
(1988a).
2
For example, ASR and AJS have regularly led the rankings of total cites and impact factor that
appear in the Institute for Scientific Informations Journal Citation Reports, as well as Allens (1990, 2003)
core influence scores. While there are no comparable rankings in Mexico, RMS and ES are widely
regarded as the most prestigious Mexican journals of sociology. Along with the theory journal
Sociologica, they consistently figure at the top of sociologists assessments of prestige (e.g., Cruz and
Gutierrez 2001:112). Likewise, when the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT)
established its register of journals of excellence in 1994, ES and RMS were the only two empirical
journals of sociology included (Andrade Carreno 1995:201).
3
However, Andrew Abbotts tenure at AJS began only in the fourth number of Volume 106 and Jose Luis
Reynas in ES in the third number of Volume XVIII.
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
implies a certain relationship between theory and evidence and powerfully

displays objectivity by means of numbers and formulae. That the mostly quantitative U.S. pieces and the mostly nonquantitative Mexican pieces are associated
with dissimilar epistemological assumptions would not be difficult to establish. It
is a more interesting argument that the difference persists after method is
controlled for. And, given the characteristics of the two distributions, the only
viable solution is to compare just nonquantitative articles. By introducing a bias
in the populations of articles that makes it more difficult to reject the null
hypothesis of no difference, this move in the research design subjects my claims
to a much tougher test. It therefore allows for stronger conclusions and perhaps
even a fortiori arguments (for instance, along the lines of what Calhoun (1996)
calls the domestication of historical sociology). In practice, I establish the
following criteria to distinguish between quantitative and nonquantitative
articles. A standard quantitative article (a) uses ordinary least squares (OLS)
regression, more sophisticated statistical models, or other types of formal modeling (game theory, network models, etc.); and (b) these models play a key role in
the argument (if it is a multi-methods piece, the models play at least as important
a role as the other method used).4
The population of articles thus delineated, I drew a random sample of 15 cases for
each of the four journals considered.5 These samples constitute a different fraction of
the overall number of nonquantitative empirical pieces published by each of them.
This difference is due to the method through which I control for method, which leaves
out approximately 80 percent of the U.S. articles. By contrast, only two Mexican
articles meet the two aforementioned criteria. Therefore, inferences from the samples
estimates to the populations parameters have different degrees of confidence. All the
information concerning my sample is summarized in Table 1.
For at least three reasons, conclusions reached with these data cannot be generalized
tout court to U.S. or Mexican sociology. Hence, the expressions U.S. sociology and
Mexican sociology, which I use throughout the article, are meant to be just convenient
Table 1. Characteristics of the Sample
Journal
RMS
ES
ASR
AJS
Volumes
Number
of
Volumes
Time
Period
LVIIILXII
XIVXVIII
6166
101106
5
5
6
6
19962000
19962000
19962001
19952001
Non
Total
Empirical quantitative Sample
Articles
Size
Proportion
Articles
154
92
258
167
153
91
45
40
15
15
15
15
9.80
16.48
33.33
37.50
RMS, Revista Mexicana de Sociologa; ES, Estudios Sociologicos; ASR, American Sociological Review; AJS,
American Journal of Sociology.
4
The criterion I establish to the effect that OLS regressions (rather than, say, cross-tabulations) mark the
difference between quantitative and nonquantitative articles is based on the way in which the community
itself marks this difference. That is, whereas articles that run OLS regressions are generally seen as
quantitative, articles that present cross-tabulations are generally seen as nonquantitative. Two shortcomings
of my criteria are: first, I do not construct an objective indicator for the second criterion; second, the notion
of more sophisticated statistical models is admittedly fuzzy.
5
The complete list of the 60 articles randomly selected is available from the author upon request.
labels. First, a journal article is a literary artifact, which conceals the complex social
processes involved in doing or making science. Other types of scientific practices and
discourses could be searched for epistemological assumptions as well, especially if we are
interested in studying science in action (Latour 1987). Second, there are books. Most
sociologists write and publish both articles and books, and there are even book people,
who do not write articles and do not like to be regarded as article authors (Clemens et al.
1995:450). The effect of genre on epistemological presuppositions is evident, and I can
only encourage its empirical examination.
Third, and most importantly, it is not a straightforward question what the four
journals selected are representative ofprobably most professional sociologists do
not publish in them, there certainly is variation within each community, and disciplinary consensuses are weak. For example, in the United States, there is a wide array of
journals and a corresponding wide array of epistemological inclinations.6 In particular,
some of these journals are epistemologically at odds with ASR and AJS. Thus, even if
we restrict ourselves to the world of journals, my data are not representative of the
discipline as a whole but of one particular kind of sociological discourse. For my
purposes, the most important feature of the four journals selected is their high status,
their often being referred to as leading, mainstream, or top journals. And this is
precisely why they were selected. Given my aims, it is reasonable to focus on the
journals that are located at the center of the sociological field. Among other things,
central actors can more effectively define normative standards, are more readily associated with the field itself, and usually set the terms of the debate. Nevertheless, it
should be borne in mind that the four journals selected are not the only game in town,
even if they occupy a privileged position in terms of power and influence.
Let us conclude with two further methodological points. Journal articles are rhetorical constructs designed to persuade the community to which they are addressed of
the truthfulness of their claims (on the rhetoric of science, see Gross 1990; Bazerman
1988; Nelson, Megill, and McCloskey 1987; McCloskey 1985; Woolgar 1981; Gusfield
1976, 1981). In fact, thanks to the invisible hand of the peer review (Harnad 1998),
the community not only can accept or reject a piece of work but can actually correct
it. Thus, my analysis of journal articles is not about the real epistemological self of
individual sociologists, the one that would have manifested itself had they not submitted their papers to a prestigious journal. My analysis, then, is intended to shed
light specifically upon communal epistemological presuppositions.7
Finally, while it is widely accepted that scientific discourses are underpinned by
epistemological (and, for that matter, ontological) assumptions, even if not consciously adopted, it is more debatable how these can be accessed empirically.
Evidently, they cannot be accessed as straightforwardly as an articles topic or the
authors gender. While views on epistemic objectivity are not explicitly acknowledged,
the writing of an article presupposes a topic on which to write and encourages its
explicit communication, and the authors names are most times a reliable indicator of
their gender.8 However, since a conscious or unconscious stance on epistemic
6
There is an asymmetry here between Mexican sociology and U.S. sociology because the number of
journals in the former is much smaller than the number of journals in the later.
7
Here I take up Flecks idea of thought-communities having a somewhat autonomous existence, beyond
the aggregate sum of their individual components. Fleck suggests the analogies of a soccer match, a
conversation, and the playing of an orchestra, which would lose their meaning if regarded as individual
kicks one by one or the work only of individual instruments (Fleck [1935] 1979:46, 99).
8
Androgynous names and names in, so to speak, little-known languages might be seen as exceptions. But
still in these cases, the authors gender is a relatively unproblematic issue, and the difficulty is simply with its
measurement.
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
objectivity is unavoidably informing the authors research and writing choices, it will
necessarily yield observable, yet sometimes subtle, marks amenable to intersubjectively valid measurement. At least, this is one of the assumptions of this article.
THEORY AND EVIDENCE

What Is a Theory?
Grand-theories, the formulation of a more or less general social regularity, the
identification of the causal mechanism that brought about the outcome in a particular
circumstance, an abstractedly empiricist (Mills [1959] 1967) analysis of the relationship between two variables, and a historians detailed description of a specific event
wie es eigentlich gewesen are all, in some way, theoretical enterprises. In the latter
two cases, often accused of being atheoretical, this is not just because observations
and methods are theory-laden and accounts of the empirical world are mediated by
language (Popper [1934] 1992; Duhem [1906] 1991; Hanson 1958; Winch 1958).
Theories can be found not only in explicit explanatory systems of propositions but
also in analytical, interpretive, methodological, and argumentative choices. Therefore,
rather than imposing a particular definition, here theory becomes a variable itself.
My questions are whether U.S. and Mexican sociologies theories are actually different, whether there are discrepancies in the meaning of the term, and whether theories
relate differently to evidence and to other theories.
In most of my U.S. articles (U-ART9), the concept of theory is quite faithful to
Mertons ([1949] 1968:39) famous definition of the theories of the middle range:
logically interconnected sets of propositions from which empirical uniformities can
be derived. Merton ([1949] 1968:39, 68) emphasizes that middle-range theory is
principally used in sociology to guide empirical inquiry; from theories, specific
hypotheses are logically derived and confirmed by empirical investigation. Seventyseven percent of the theories found in U-ART are theories of the middle rangeclose
to, unambiguously related to, and tested by the data. When drawing on grander
theories, these are reformulated or curtailed so that they can function as theories of
the middle range. In addition to actually testing theories with data, 87 percent of
U-ART explicitly suggest one ought to test, confirm, corroborate, or prove
theories with data (see Table 2). Interestingly, U-ART tend to talk in terms of
confirmation rather than falsification (a term that is not found even once).
Hypotheses are confirmed rather than nonfalsified, and the literature has proven
or demonstrated, thereby tacitly adhering to a verificationist epistemology.
Mexican sociologists10 have a very different understanding of the concept of theory.
None of their theories is tested by and related to the data in the U.S. sense, and
none of the articles explicitly say that theories ought to be tested by the data. Fortyseven percent of M-ART are theoretical in the sense that they provide a nonevident
reading of the empirical world. The very distinction between theory and evidence that
U.S. standards take for granted is put into question herewhat U.S. sociologists
might understand as the data, Mexican sociologists may see as the theory, as both
the data and the theory. Another 50 percent of M-ART draw freely on
9
Henceforth, I refer to my sample of U.S. and Mexican articles, respectively, as U-ART and M-ART.
For the present purposes, it does not matter where authors were trained, work, or were born; the issue
here is the community that accepts their piece for publication. Thus, the terms Mexican sociologists and
U.S. sociologists do not mean sociologists who were born in those countries. Rather, they mean
sociologists who have published in those countries journals.
10
Table 2. Theory and Evidence in Mexico and the United States

United States
(%)
Mexico
(%)
77
10
0
13
0
50
47
3
87
13
0
100
87
13
7
93
7
93
93
7
90
10
0
100
60
40
0
100
30
30
Use of theory
Mertonian middle-range logic
Draw freely on grand-theory
Do not explicitly employ theories
Other
Statement that theories should be tested by data
Yes
No
General proposition among central claims
Yes
No
Role of the empirical problem
Empirical problem in itself is the main concern
Empirical problem speaks to a broader theoretical issue
Justification of problem in terms of a broader theoretical issue
Yes
No
Deductivism
Yes
No
Number of cases
theoriestheories that tend to be total systems of sociological theory, such as

Habermass, Luhmanns, Giddenss, Bourdieus, Touraines, and Marxs (see
Table 2). Authors borrow concepts and definitions from these theories, or use them
to interpret or illuminate particular aspects of their arguments. Sometimes, theories
are also presented as Weltanschauungen or inspiring meta-viewpoints, general frameworks that suggest how to formulate questions and how to look at the world, and
what is and what is not interesting.
For example, in his study of the Mexican urban social movement, Tamayo
(1999:501) says:11 To introduce this theme and contextualize it in some way, I rescue
[rescato] Alain Touraines idea when he affirms that the transit to globalization has
ended. Consider now Zermenos (1999) article on the Mexican social crisis, Urteaga
Castro-Pozos (1996) on female punks in Mexico, Gonzalezs (1999) on Mexican
Catholicism and the Catholic Church, and Astorgas (1997) on corridos about
drug traffickers. As these articles illustrate, Mexican sociologists may borrow terminology from Habermas (Zermeno 1999:191), Bourdieu, and Marx (Gonzalez 1999:
6869, 91); recall an observation made by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Zermeno
11
As with Abbott (1992:54), I have used quotations extensively, since the exact locutions employed are of
central importance. All translations are mine, except for titles and abstracts, which the Mexican journals
themselves translate into English. Because the exact locutionsin all their semantic and syntactic nuances
are of central importance, my translations try to retain as much as possible the original style, even when
alternative phrasings would have been less awkward.
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
1999:186); resort to Levi-Strauss to analyze a certain aspect of the subculture of

Mexican punks (Urteaga Castro-Pozo 1996:114); or make a brief reference to
Bourdieus concepts of field, objective positions, and dispositions (Astorga
1997:247). Similarly, Heau and Gimenez (1997:223) analyze the insurgent poetics
of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas from the perspective of Claude Duchets literary
sociocritique. This perspective provides foci of interest and jargon; it does not
provide any propositions with empirical content.
The word hipotesis may occur. But Mexican hypotheses are definitely not
Mertons specific hypotheses, logically derived and confirmed by empirical investigation. For example, Arciniega (1996:33132) says: Our hypothesis is that since
1975 . . . Peru initiated a process of reorganization of industrial relations that the State
will implement through its labor policies with the intention of marginalizing and
demobilizing trade unionism. Perhaps here the most semantically accurate translation of hipotesis would be theory. The statement is at such a level of abstraction
that U.S. sociologists may argue that one needs to operationalize the concepts contained in the theory and then put forward the hypothesis. The same is true of Tamayo
(1999:499; emphasis in original), who writes: The argumentation of this article is
twofold: the first is the hypothesis that a new social subject, the citizen, is coming into
being [constituyendose] in Mexico, who [the citizen] is sustained by considerations of a
structural character and of precise historical conditions.
The exact location of theories in the argument is significant as well. As Heau and
Gimenez (1997) exemplify, M-ART draw on theoretical systems whenever it seems
useful, at whichever point of the argument the theory might be needed. Alternatively,
theories might be simply embedded in or grow up with the argument. In contrast, 93
percent of U-ART follow a standard format of organization of the argument (see
below for a lengthier discussion of this point). Theories are employed at a certain
point of the text, which suggests and constrains their function in the argument. They
are separated from and precede the data. What it is thus assumed is, first, the
epistemological independence of evidence from theory: whatever the ontological
status granted to reality, the process of cognition does not affect its observable
manifestations. Second, most times theories are not a consequence of the empirical
investigation, but of the unscientific, arcane, and irrelevant context of discovery. They
are either relevant theories, formulated by prestigious scholars and drawn from the
literature, or ex nihilo constructions.
General Regular Reality

Perhaps the main ontological assumption that informs the dialogue between theory
and evidence in U.S. sociology is the great regularity of the social world, a version of
the principle of uniformity of nature. Epistemologically, it is further assumed the
sociologists ability to grasp that regularity in the form of lawlike propositions. I shall
call these two principles the general regular reality (GRR) assumption.12 Only 7
percent of M-ART central claims are general propositions; this is the case in 87
percent of U-ART (see Table 2).
The GRR assumption is well illustrated by Samuel Clark (1998) and Nancy
Whittier (1997). Drawing on the experience of four 17th-century minorities, Clark
formulates 14 nomothetic propositions (1998:1268) about the relationship between
12
The phrase is inspired by Abbotts (2001) general linear reality.

the treatment of minorities and international competition. Nancy Whittier (1997)

offers three propositions about generational processes in social movements.
PROPOSITION 4.The greater the fusion between local struggles and great-power rivalries,
the less likely is conciliation. (Clark 1998:1293; emphasis in original)
Proposition 1: The collective identity of a given cohort of social movement participants remains consistent over time. (Whittier 1997:763; emphasis in original)
These propositions are presented in universal terms. Lacking scope conditions, they
hold regardless of time and place (provided, I note, the objects could be meaningfully
defined). Logically, the propositions begin with universal quantifiers. Despite the fact
that U-ART never discuss whether these generalizations are nomic or accidental,
they can still be labeled social laws or lawlike generalizations.
Even when not explicitly advancing nomothetic propositions, most U-ART
arguments are predicated on GRR. Cooney (1997:316) exemplifies this with his
articles main question: Does the state diminish violence in human affairs? The
point of the piece is to elucidate that relationship in general terms, regardless of any
other confounding factor, regardless of time and place. Diani (1996:1054) affirms that
[t]he success of the [Italian] leagues challenges current theoretical approaches to
collective action. In other words, theories are supposed to explain all instances of
collective action, and therefore they are challenged by the fact that they do not seem to
work in one case. In another example, Collins (1997:844) tries to explain Japanese
capitalist growth by applying his general institutional model of capitalist development.
The model identifies in general terms a chain of causal conditions for self-transforming
capitalist growth (1997:845). And the explanation consists of substituting those general
terms with the particular names of their Japanese instantiations (1997:852). Collins
(1997:844; emphasis added) makes an epistemological case for his method:
Only a general model of the institutional components of capitalist growth and of
the obstacles to these institutions in agrarian-coercive societies provides the
context in which we can assess whether the conditions for the independent
development of capitalism were present in Japan and elsewhere.
In a comparable fashion, Bernstein (1997:536, 53941, 558) verbally presents and
graphically represents a general model to explain identity strategies. According to
her (1997:539) model, identity strategies will be determined by the configuration of
political access, the structure of social movement organizations, and the type and
extent of oppositions. Bernstein claims that her model can be applied (1997:531,
557) not only to her focal case (lesbian and gay movements) but also to the southern
civil rights movement, black nationalism, and the older and younger wings of the
feminist movement. For it to be a truly general model, though, it must be applicable
to any case. One final interesting example is the article of Biggart and Guillens article
(1999). The authors (1999:725; emphasis in original) point out a limitation to much
of the development scholarship of recent decades: the search for a unified theory of
development applicable to all countries. They criticize the approach of applying
general theory to explain historical instances (1999:730) and try to avoid falling into
the trap of universal explanations (1999:729). Even if departing from the typical
GRR assumption, the way they make the case against a general critical factor
10
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
explanation of development still manifests the influence of the dominant epistemological worldview. Biggart and Guillen (1999:723; emphasis in original) argue that
development depends on successfully linking a countrys historical patterns of social
organization with opportunities made available by global markets. Rather than arguing
that there is no general system of propositions that can explain economic development, the authors formulate their generalization, but one step higher in the ladder of
abstraction. Of course, the empirical nature of those links between the characteristics
of the country and the global markets will vary significantly, but the existence of a
certain causal variable is constant across time and space. This claim allows them to
formulate a sociological theory of cross-national comparative advantage (1999:722)
or institutional perspective on development (1999:728, 742).
The GRR logic is apparent in the widespread search for conditions under which
things happen. For example, Loveman (1998:477, 479) asks: under what conditions
will individuals risk their lives to resist repressive states? and when (under what
conditions) do high-risk social movements and organizations emerge? Bernstein is
interested in under what political conditions . . . activists celebrate or suppress
differences from the majority (1997:532, 539, 561). Hagan (1998:56) identifies particular conditions under which social networks can develop or weaken. As we shall
see, these formulations invite deductivism and, in particular, deductive-nomological
explanations. This type of reasoning is nonexistent among Mexican sociologists.
That Mexican sociology is close to the idiographic pole of Windelbands ([1894]
1980) dichotomy is reflected by another indicator: 93 percent of M-ART are principally driven by the comprehension of an empirical problemthat is the main thrust
of the exercise. While some authors argue about the importance of the case or cases as
such, no one justifies its or their selection in theoretical terms. Thus, the purpose of
most articles is to make sense of, tell a persuasive story about, give a good account of,
or shed light upon that empirical problem. Even though this problem might involve
one, a few, or several cases, it is not through general models that these cases are
dealt with, nor is it against the background of a general regular reality that stories
about instances are told. According to the Mexican assumptions, abstracting general
principles from concrete empirical occurrences may be a misguided strategy, for it is
only in those particular contexts that the observed relations are valid.
On the contrary, in 93 percent of U-ART the main function of the empirical
problem is to prove, illustrate, or speak to a broader theoretical issuearticles
are not mere examinations of empirical problems. Consequently, 90 percent provide
an explicit justification of why the case or cases under study were selected that
concerns its or their theoretical relevance (see Table 2). Still, given the widespread
belief in and prestige granted to lawlike propositions, most nonquantitative social
research faces the problem of specifying the epistemic role of empirical cases from
which inferences to broader populations are not statistically reliable. The crucial
argumentative moment, then, is that transitional one when authors have to move
from particulars to general statements, ordinarily in the concluding section of the
article.
For instance, how precisely does the author move from four lesbian and gay rights
campaigns in Vermont, Oregon, and New York City to a general model of identity
deployment (Bernstein 1997:558)? How exactly is the connection made between the
debates and riots about abolitionism in antebellum Cincinnati and the general problem of how episodes of collective action affect the success or failure of different
frames (Ellingson 1995:135)? Debating with Snow and his collaborators, Ellingson
(1995:13637) contends that
11
these processes of frame alignment are influenced as well by the course and
interpretation of collective action events. Such events intervene in the process
of creating frames or discourses, change the value actors assign to collective
beliefs, and motivate some groups to abandon a set of arguments and adopt
those of a rival or create new ones. They also provide some speakers with new
information that they can use to substantiate their claims and discredit the claims
of others.
But Ellingson also affirms that [e]pisodes of collective action may lead speakers to
reopen the discursive struggle by providing evidence for speakers and audiences
(1995:135), and [e]vents, then, may change the underlying ideas or beliefs that
make up discourses and frames used by movement actors (1995:136). The third
conclusion of this study is that speakers occupying different positions within a field
of debate may respond to episodes of collective action and construct their arguments
in very different ways (1995:137). The important contrast here is between universal
statements and those statements whose generality is affected by the modal verb
may. While it might be debatable how the analysis of antebellum Cincinnati leads
to claims about what generallylet alone alwaysinfluences processes of frame
alignment, it is clear that an instance suffices to prove that something may or can be
the case or happen (or to illustrate how something is the case or happens, or at least
how something was the case or happened). The same tension is apparent in two
different wordings of Zhaos (1998:1498, 1523; emphases added) argument, one in
his introduction, and the other in his conclusion: This article argues that ecology is
relevant to movement mobilization because it determines the structure and strength of
social networks . . . versus This article demonstrates that ecological conditions can be
important to a political process as complex as a large-scale social movement . . .
The use of may or can in contexts like these is a concession from the point of
view of GRR, especially when it is meant to indicate a retreat from determinism to
probabilism (rather than conservativeness about the degree of confirmation of a
deterministic social law). But, in any event, it is probably the only reasonable rhetorical choice for small-N studies that intend to contribute to theory (in the U.S.
sense). On the contrary, these problems do not arise for those few arguments whose
inferential structure is modus tollens rather than modus ponens, as originally argued by
Popper ([1934] 1992). For instance, Biggart and Guillen (1999) need only to show that
the paths of development of the automobile industry in South Korea, Taiwan, Spain,
and Argentina have been different to refute any critical factor theory of development. Indeed, two cases would have sufficed. Because the number of potential
instances tends to infinity, the degree of confirmation added by two more cases is
almost zero. Likewise, Centeno (1997) can challenge the universality of the positive
relationship between war and state making by showing that it does not hold in the
case of 11 new Latin American states between 1810 and 1830.
In their analysis of the outcomes attained by 15 homeless social movement organizations active in eight U.S. cities, Cress and Snow (2000:1101) say:
While it is an empirical question whether this conjunction of conditions holds for
other movements, the findings and analysis suggest that attempts to understand
movement outcomes that focus on the ways in which different conditions interact
and combine are likely to be more compelling and robust, both theoretically and
empirically, than efforts that focus on the conditions specified by a single perspective or that pit one perspective against another.
12
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
This paragraph illustrates two of my points. Having studied 15 organizations, Cress

and Snow are cautious not to affirm that their substantive conjunction of conditions
holds beyond their cases. However, they still maintain that their findings and
analysis suggest something that pertains to the study of movement outcomes
in general. But Cress and Snow are also cautious in another way. What the authors
findings and analysis suggest is that certain approaches to the study of social movements are likely to be more compelling and robust than some others. That this is
said to be just likely is another reflection of the tension between the demands of
GRR and the so-called small-N problem.
Deductivism
A variable closely related to GRR is what I call deductivism. I define deductivism as
the use of deductive logic for either explanation of events or confirmation of theories.
Although they pursue different aims and the truth status of their components is
different, I emphasize here the structural similarity between the deductive-nomological model of explanation and the hypothetico-deductive method for confirmation
(Salmon 1989). Stinchcombe (1968:16; emphasis in original) puts the latter thus:
From [a] theoretical statement we derive, by logical deduction and by operational
definitions of the concepts, an empirical statement. The theoretical statement then
implies logically the empirical statement. For its part, Hempel and Oppenheims
deductive-nomological or covering-law model argues that in empirical science, the
explanation of a phenomenon consists in subsuming it under general empirical laws
(Hempel [1942] 1965:240; Hempel 1965; Hempel and Oppenheim [1948] 1965; see also
Gorski 2004; Ruben 1990; Salmon 1989, 1998; Cartwright 1983; Wright 1971). The
explanantia are the premises of the syllogism: the major is a universal law, and the
minor a statement of initial conditions. The explanandum is the conclusion, which, of
course, follows logically.
While not a single M-ART proceeds in a deductive fashion, 60 percent of U-ART
deduce empirical statements from theories of the middle range, be it to explain the
former or to confirm the latter (see Table 2). In an illustrative article, Goldstone and
Useem apply (1999:988, 1025) a reformulation of Skocpols formula for revolution (1999:992) to prison riots. The central empirical question is whether the same
conditions for a revolutionary situation (1999:1002) can account for prison riots as
well (and perhaps, the authors speculate, also for instability in military organizations,
schools, or business firms; in fact, in any hierarchical, absolutist-type social organization, whether it operates on the scale of millions, or merely hundreds, of individuals (Goldstone and Useem 1999:1024)). Actually, the deductive ideal is explicitly
put forward: A hallmark of good theory is that i[t] can usefully be extended to
phenomena not anticipated in the original development of the theory (1999:1025).
One of Goldstone and Useems chief assumptions here is the meaningfulness of
their theoretical translation. The application of a theory to a particular case requires
that the entities under examination belong to the class of entities the theory refers to.
This correspondence is not given in the facts but needs to be theoretically established.
Yet, prior to that, Goldstone and Useem had to translate or rephrase Skocpols
theory to create analogues for prison riots (1999:1002). They claim that this task is
straightforward (1999:1002), but it might be so only in light of certain decisions as
to what should be taken into account in order to say that two given entities are similar
or different. And these decisions are suggested neither by the empirical world nor by
the theory that is being extended.
13
Koopmans and Stathams piece exemplifies how, by using the hypothetico-deductive method, competing theories can be confronted. The authors present three theoretical perspectives on citizenship: postnational, multicultural, and national.
From these theories, they derive (1999:652, 655) a set of hypotheses about the
collective claims making of migrants and ethnic minorities. The authors express
(1999:67075) that the three theories imply, predict, lead us to expect, allow
us to derive a clear expectation, imply clear expectations, or are associated with
certain values of the dependent variablepatterns of minority claims making. Being
logical implications, they are assumed to be the theories predictions for the case at
hand. Finally, Koopmans and Statham (1999:655) confront these hypotheses with
[their] data in order to assess the relative merits of the three models.
The deductive approach found in U-ART can be fruitfully compared with Nava
Navarros article (1997:301), which studies, from [a partir de] the perspective of
collective action and social movements, the case of the Refresquera Pascual (a
Mexican cooperative that produces soft drinks). The author affirms (Nava Navarro
1997:302) that our argument [planteamiento] stems [se desprende] fundamentally
from the European perspective represented by Alain Touraine, and from Anthony
Obers[c]halls arguments [planteamientos], because of the manner in which they highlight the concept of social conflict and this concepts importance for our object of
study. But what does the author precisely mean by the verb to stem? Rather than
drawing predictions from, or explaining the case by subsuming it under Touraines
theory, Nava Navarro (1997:302) understands social movements in Tourainian
terms: in Tourainian terms, we will understand a social movement as the most
complex form of collective action, which one defines as the set of interactions
normatively oriented between adversaries who possess opposing and conflicting interpretations about the reorientations of a model of society. From Touraine and
Oberschall, Nava Navarro (1997:303) borrows the idea that in order to understand
collective actions import [alcance] it is necessary to analyze the dynamics of the
conflict; then, starting with these considerations, we will reconstruct the experience
of the case of Refresquera Pascuals workers. Her empirical inquiry is informed by
those considerations but does not explicitly return to them.
Mexican sociologists theories are constructed much nearer to the facts
(Stinchcombe 1978:117). Indeed, they are constructed so close to the facts that they
are sometimes inseparable from themthe theories are the facts; the theories are the
facts as they are told. Now, despite the impression that U-ART often try to convey, it
seems to me that theories are not constructed through insightful intuitions, introspection, or speculations in a state of aloofness and detachment from sensory experience.13
Instead, theorists do draw on the empirical worldthe principles of a theory are
based on the more or less systematic observation of a limited number of instances.
Because theories are understood in the United States as (at least moderately) general
explanatory systems of propositions, they are expected to be relevant to cases beyond
those from which they were originally drawn. Thus, theory construction involves
ampliative or nondemonstrative reasoning. Like physicists theories, sociologists
theories are haunted by the specter of Humes problem of induction. Therefore, as
in physicists theories, the principle of uniformity of nature or GRR has to be
assumed.
13
This does not seem to be even possible. Even if it were, it would be enormously costly, for any logically
consistent theory, however empirically implausible, would have the same probability of being formulated
than any other.
14
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Then, both physicists and sociologists can proceed as though their theories were,
rather than inductive generalizations, laws of nature. From these laws of nature, one
can deduce other laws, explain by subsumption, and derive predictions. In this regard,
the current state of affairs in the United States approximates Homanss (1964, 1967,
[1961] 1974) or Blalocks (1984, 1969:2) realistic ideals:
It has been noted that theories do not consist entirely of conceptual schemes or
typologies but must contain lawlike propositions that interrelate the concepts or
variables two or more at a time. . . . Ideally, one might hope to achieve a
completely closed deductive theoretical system in which there would be a minimal
set of propositions taken as axioms, from which all other propositions could be
deduced by purely mathematical or logical reasoning. More realistically we might
take the model of the completely closed deductive system as an ideal which in
practice can only be approximated.
All in all, perhaps the chief contrast lies in that while in the United States most
theories have substantive content, Mexican sociologists tend to think and make use of
theories as grammars. The guidance provided by these theories is completely different
from the one Mertons theories of the middle range provide. Grammars are conventional tools and therefore lack truth-value. Grammars are ways of worldtelling.14
There are numerous grammars, and they can be seen simply as different equally
acceptable instruments with which the world is talked about. Mexican sociologists
tell; U.S. sociologists show (Booth 1961). This argument leads us to the next
section.
EPISTEMIC OBJECTIVITY
In the realm of science, the term objectivity has had at least two different meanings:
one ontological and one epistemological (see Lloyd 1995; Megill 1994; Daston 1992;
Daston and Galison 1992). For the scientific enterprise to be meaningful, the existence
of some kind of objective reality and the equation of this ontological objectivity with
truth have to be assumed, and discussions about realism can be safely left to philosophical speculation. But once this is granted, science faces the epistemological
problem of the cognition and representation of reality. Let us consider the analogy
of realist painters, who try to represent things as they really are. Naturally, they have
to use certain paints, brushes, and grounds. They have to look at their object from
some point of view. If we further assume, for the sake of the argument, that their
object is the world, then they have to paint themselves, too. Indeed, they have to
paint themselves looking at and representing the world from their specific location.
Therefore, their paintings of the world inevitably acknowledge some subjective
elements. Similarly, with the exception of Poppers world of intelligibles ([1972]
1979:10652), knowledge and knowing necessitate a subject, the knower. Insofar as
this subject is not the Universal Reason or the Objective Spirit, but a linguistically and
historically situated individual, subjectivity is to some extent necessarily involved.
Then, how do scientists deal with the conflict between their aiming at the objective
world and an unavoidably present subjectivity?
14
It is irrelevant here if they are ways of worldmaking (Goodman 1978) as well, as the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis suggests (Lucy 1997).
15
One possible strategy is to define ontological objectivity as the neutralization of

epistemological subjectivity. In Thomas Nagels (1986:5) words,
[a] view or form of thought is more objective than another if it relies less on the
specifics of the individuals makeup and position in the world, or on the character
of the particular type of creature he is. [. . .] We may think of reality as a set of
concentric spheres, progressively revealed as we detach gradually from the contingencies of the self.
Objective knowledge is thus related to impersonality and impartiality; disinterest,
neutrality, detachment, and impassibilite; it is antithetical to the knowers individuality, idiosyncrasies, contingencies, biases, prejudices, and whims. As a result, scientists
pursue the absolute conception of the world (Williams 1978, 1985); they know sub
specie aeternitatis. Their views are views from nowhere (Nagel 1986), viewpoints
of no-one in particular (Fine 1998), Gods eye points of view (Putnam 1981:4950),
or escapes from perspective (Daston 1992). In practice, this stance has crystallized
into a conception of objectivity as procedural. A standardized, rigid, and formulaic
procedure, the mythical scientific method, severely limits the exercise of discretion and
repudiates any form of unarticulated tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1958).
One alternative strategy denies the equation of reality with detachment from the
contingencies of the self. It denies that the knowledge true of the objective world is
that knowledge that anyone can reachonly certain positions have the advantage of
revealing the decisive features of the object (Mannheim [1929] 1966:301; see also
Harding 1986, 1991, 1998). Hence, idiosyncrasies, individualities, and contingencies
are not obstacles to be surmounted, but vantage points. Thus, this second strategy
customary among 17th- and 18th-century natural scientists, 18th-century atlas
makers, and 19th-century British actuaries and French engineersleaves room for
two aristocratic, anti-democratic, and ineffable attributes: genius and skill (Scott
1998:30941; Porter 1995; Shapin 1994; Daston 1992:60912; Daston and Galison
1992:118). Ontological objectivity is associated with the maximization of epistemological subjectivity. Rather than a standardized method that anyone can follow, the
knowers approach to the known should be a function of their nature and the nature
of their relationship. While this stance does not imply ontological relativism, it does
pose critical challenges to intersubjective validity.
In the following pages, I argue that Mexican sociology presupposes this second
model of objectivity. As we shall see, no attempt is made to attain views from
nowhere, and standardized procedures are rarely followed. Moreover, its discourse
admits, perhaps encourages, the paradigmatic exemplar of perspective: value judgments. In contrast, U.S. sociology presupposes the first model of objectivity.
According to this model, as Pearson ([1892] 1937:6) wrote in his Grammar of
Science, one of the main characteristics of the scientific frame of mind is its reliance
on judgments independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind. Let us now
turn to the data.
Reconstruction of the Research Process
Most times, research processes do not follow the orderly steps outlined in textbook
introductions to the scientific method. Yet, scientists often pretend in their research
reports or journal articles to have religiously respected those steps. This a posteriori
rationalisation of the real process (Latour and Woolgar 1979:252) is crucial to the
16
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
ideal of neutralization of subjectivity, for it veils the chaotic, the contingent, and the
unmethodical. In turn, veiling the chaotic, the contingent, and the unmethodical is
crucial to the possibility of replication.15 Doing ethnographies of laboratories and
contrasting natural scientists formal and informal accounts, sociologists have highlighted the fictional character of these rationalizations (Gilbert and Mulkay 1981,
1984; Knorr-Cetina 1981; Latour 1981; Latour and Woolgar 1979; Gilbert 1976; see
also Medawar [1963] 1990). This particular type of impression management
(Goffman 1959) is evident in 80 percent of U-ART but none of M-ART (see Table 3).
One suggestive indicator is the vocabulary of expectations and anticipations,
hypotheses and predictions about the empirical world, presented before the
findings or results (e.g., Lieberson, Dumais, and Baumann 2000:1249, 1253;
Zhao 1998:1494; Diani 1996:1056, 1057; Ferree and Hall 1996:935, 936). Then, results
might turn out to be as expected (Stearns and Allan 1996:710), or one can encounter
a surprising finding (Koopmans and Statham 1999:689) or surprising result
(Lieberson, Dumais, and Baumann 2000:1261). Lavin and Maynard (2001:469;
emphasis added) illustrate the point:
Given that there are no restrictions placed on interviewer laughter at the
University of Midstate survey center, we would expect that interviewer practices
for tacitly declining respondent-initiated laughter would be less prevalent and
that reciprocation would be more frequent. Our counting of acceptances, declinaTable 3. Epistemic Objectivity in Mexico and the United States
United States (%)
Mexico (%)
Rational reconstruction of research process

Yes
No
80
20
0
100
Sections
Standard
Nonstandard
Two or no sections
93
7
0
0
80
20
Average number of tables
4.40
0.33
Data discussion
Yes, in a section
Yes
No
67
20
13
0
10
90
Methods discussion
Yes, in a section
Yes
No
63
7
30
0
0
100
Number of cases
30
30
15
Because of practical difficulties, meager incentives, and the Duhem-Quine thesis (Duhem [1906] 1991;
Quine 1953; see also Harding 1976), few studies are actually replicated. Yet, science heavily relies on the
possibility of replication (see Collins 1985). For the Duhem-Quine thesis at work in recent U.S. sociology,
see Ferree and Halls (1996) article, Manza and Van Schyndels (2000) comment, and Ferree and Halls
(2000) reply; and Finke and Starks (1988) article, Breaults (1989a) new evidence, Finke and Starks
(1989) comment, and Breaults (1989b) reply.
17
tions, and pseudo-laughing techniques in the two data sets confirmed these
expectations.
This vocabulary is reminiscent of the standard quantitative article and its expectations about what the statistical models will yield. In fact, as Latour (1981:66) points
out, a temporal framework is being invented, with the help of temporal markers.
The question, for both quantitative and nonquantitative articles, is not whether
expectations in fact arise in the mind of researchers previously to their encounter
with the data, whether they were really surprised to find out what they found out, or
whether the literature review is actually the first section they write up. The point is
that the community expects a rational reconstruction of the research process that
describes it as though that were the case. Even when every individual scientist knows
how things actually work most of the time, the community seems to believe in the tale
of orderly sequence.
The reconstruction of the research process is also visibly indicated by the fact that,
as mentioned above, 93 percent of U-ART exhibit, with minor variations, a standard
format of organization of the argument (see Table 3). This format is modeled on the
research report in the natural sciences. It is based on the tidy steps of the scientific
method: introduction, theory or literature review or previous literature, data
and methods (instead of the experimentalist materials and methods), results or
findings, and discussion or conclusion. This sequence tries to appear as natural,
logical, and necessary. It makes available to the reader a picture of the discovery
process as a path-like sequence of logical steps toward the revelation of a hitherto
unknown phenomenon (Woolgar 1981:263).
Language, Mathematics, and Symbols

Standardization efforts concern language as well. Procedural objectivists and ordinary
language have always had a difficult relationship. For instance, logical positivists,
pointing out languages impreciseness and ambiguity, aimed at a completely formal
language for science (see, e.g., Nagel 1961:710). The problem with ordinary language
is that it is too malleable; the imprint of the authors subjectivity is too conspicuous.
Thus, for example, the new scientific professional historian of the end of the 19th
century rejected its literary, gentleman amateur predecessors Gothic style
(Novick 1988).
The issue of sociologys prose and its alleged abstruseness has many dimensions,
including the relationship between complex ideas and dense style, and how the
mastery of a code inaccessible to the layperson legitimizes professional niches. Here,
I want only to note that, given that texts meanings are the product of a dialectical
process in which the reader plays a significant role, the greater the proses obscurity,
the more its meaning depends on the reader, and the less it achieves objectivity or, for
that matter, intersubjectivity. Despite U.S. sociologists complaints (e.g., Erikson
1990; Becker 1986), Mexican prose is by far more abstruse than U.S. prose. Very
much like in the case of continental (as opposed to analytic) philosophy (Rorty
1982:220), in Mexico the burden of understanding the text is usually placed on the
reader.16
16
There is no reason to believe that the grammatical nature of the two languages is a source of
spuriousness (i.e., that Spanish lends itself more readily than English to abstruse prose).
18
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
For reasons related to the economy of research, I cannot offer an objective

indicator here (for example, one that counted the average number of clauses per
sentence17). I can only illustrate the point with one not atypical sentence from
M-ART, which a translator not so preoccupied by style may have rendered into
English in two or three sentences:
In other words, even though in a first moment one should be careful to understand certain social processes as possessing a neutrality that methodologically
save us from politically opposing to something that can be of indisputable benefit
for a country, then, after doing this act of analytical composure, one must
consider the possibility of a quarrel in the field of the effects or outcomes of
those processes, crucial dilemma in the case of a co-government between the left
and other groups of the political scenario and one of the fundamental ways to
exert, from the left, differentiation without having to wait for the thorough
application of all and every one of the properly leftist proposals, in the assumption
of course that they have left the limbo of fantasy. (Barrios Suvelza 2000:18081;
emphasis in original)
At the antipodes of natural language stands mathematics. Mathematics embodies
the ideal of objectivity as neutralization of subjectivity. First, it is the existing conventional language that best surmounts individualities and contingencies, and best
serves commensurability, publicity, and communicability. Once social concepts have
been translated into the language of mathematics, they can be manipulated and
treated as though they were that type of entities, taking advantage of mathematics
elegance and exactitude. Second, mathematics is thought to be objective, universal,
and untouched and untouchable by social factors (for counterarguments by sociologists of mathematics, see Bloor [1976] 1991; Restivo 1992). Thus, in addition to the
epistemic purposes that regression coefficients and equations serve in quantitative
social research, they symbolically convey a sense of objectivity and scientificity. All
these are very convenient for quantitative sociologists oriented toward the languagegame of science who have followed Lord Kelvins dictum about the meagerness (or
meagreness) of knowledge not expressed in numbers (McCloskey 1985:7; Merton,
Sills, and Stigler 1984; Kuhn 1977:178; Wirth 1940:169). But what do nonquantitative
sociologists oriented toward the same language-game do?
Whereas Mexican sociology disregards mathematics and statistics almost completely, U-ART recurrently resort to mathematical and statistical jargon and symbols.
For example, Koopmans and Statham (1999:668) report Cronbachs alphas for
intercoder reliability, and in their seven cross-tabulations (1999:67686) they report
chi-square values, P values, and degrees of freedom, employing the usual statistical
notation. Lieberson, Dumais, and Baumann (2000:1266, 1281, 1283) report P values
and Spearmans rhos, and graphs and numbers are prominent. The authors
(2000:1260fn) also construct an Index of Androgyny, derived from the P* index,
and provide its equation in a footnote. Guseva and Rona-Tass theoretical
17
It would even be necessary to contemplate the grammatical function of those clauses to build a reliable
indicator of abstruse prose. Two other plausible indicators are the average numbers of relative and
demonstrative pronouns per sentence. As for the vocabularys obscurity, it would be yet harder, for how
would one define a words degree of obscurity? How would one measure the degree of obscurity of each
articles thousands of words? Bazermans (1988:16771) analysis of spectroscopic articles published in the
Physical Review from 1893 to 1980 relies on variables such as type of subordinate clauses, sentence length,
or type of word used as the subject of the main clause.
19
(2001:624) section discusses various scholarly approaches to credit, risk, uncertainty,

and trust. In their gloss of the approach of mainstream economic theory to uncertainty and risk, they (2001:624) present an algebraic expression that represents the
standard theorem of expected utility maximization.
Conversation-analysis pieces are another good example. Their symbolic apparatus
is ostensibly displayed in numerous extracts or excerpts and in comprehensive
appendices with transcribing conventions used in this article (Lavin and Maynard
2001:47476) or transcription symbols (Greatbatch and Dingwall 1997:167).
Conversation analysts claim that their transcripts enable researchers to reveal and
analyze tacit, seen but unnoticed, aspects of human conduct that otherwise would be
unavailable for systematic study (Greatbatch and Dingwall 1997:153). It should be
noted that this revelation is achieved by following a standardized method that
mechanically translates utterances into symbolic representations. This method generates two types of numbers: arbitrary progressions indicating the line number and
numbers in parentheses indicating lengths of silences in tenths of seconds. In the
second case, one is in the presence of precise numerical measurements of an aspect of
the empirical world, that is, numbers correspond in some way to nature. This is
rapidly taken advantage offor instance, Duneier and Molotch (1999:1277) refer to
and interpret a full 2.2 second silence in their transcripts, and Lavin and Maynard
(2001:46) do so with a 1.9 second pause. While authors retain interpretative discretion to some extent, the methods of conversation analysis have limited part of it and
thus helped in the accomplishment of procedural objectivity.
In their quest for procedural objectivity, U-ART can undertake more systematic
formalizations. Goldstone and Useems (1999:1020) comparative-historical study of
13 prison riots in the United States is supplemented by a formal data analysis: the
matched-pairs signs test. Cress and Snows (2000) research on homeless social movement organizations employs Ragins (1987) qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).
QCAs truth tables, Boolean equations, and the very mention of the logic of Boolean
algebra (Cress and Snow 2000:1079) conspicuously give off impressions of objectivity
and scientificity. But, more importantly, QCA realizes procedural objectivity by being
an algorithmic rule into which oneanyoneenters data and obtains results. Like
statistical models, truth tables are presented as yielding undisputable truths independent from the whims of the knower.
Let us now look at the usage of tables and figures. The difference between U-ART
and M-ART is quite significant: the average number per article in U-ART is 4.40 and
in M-ART is 0.33. A discussion of the pictorial language (Lynch and Woolgar 1990;
Gilbert and Mulkay 1984) of tables and figures is well beyond the scope of this article.
Let us just note that tables and figures stand closer to mathematics than to natural
language in their appeal to commensurability and rejection of subjectivity. For
instance, tables very often contain numbers. Their shape and appearance is extremely
suggestive of a certain style of thought. Sometimes, tables even supply the algorithmic
rule that nonquantitative articles generally lack. Take the case of Cooney (1997). His
Table 3 (1997:323) compares rates of death from war and homicide between stateless
societies and democratic state societies. It is easy to notice in the table that the former
have much higher rates. Then, Cooney (1997:324) writes: Thus, the conclusion to be
drawn from Table 3 seems clear: The more violent . . . What deserves mention is that
the conclusion is drawn from the table rather than from, say, the narrative. It is as
though the table were not showing the data or supporting an argument but producing
the results, and by looking at it one could find out the previously unknown
relationship.
20
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Discussion of Data and Methods

To allow for replication, scientists have to exhaustively describe how their knowledge
claims were arrived at. This includes the description of the data on which the article
draws, the methods employed to collect it, and the operations performed on the
evidence. As one of the biochemists interviewed by Gilbert and Mulkay (1984:53)
puts it, the scientific paper should make it possible, assuming that a library is
available, for a Martian to come and do your experiment. Eighty-seven percent of
U-ART have some sort of data discussion. Sixty-seven percent is in the form of a
data or data and something else (usually methods) section. Ninety percent of
M-ART do not make a single reference to the evidence on which they draw; no data
section is ever found (see Table 3). That is, arguments are based on empirical evidence,
but there is no discussion of its characteristics, how it was collected, its limitations,
and so on.
By the same token, while not a single M-ART refers to the methods through which
its knowledge claims were reached, such references appear in 70 percent of U-ART
(see Table 3). Even when Mexican authors conducted costly research in the field, it is
not rhetorically profitable to describe it in detail. If they are interested, readers have to
struggle to infer from hardly visible cues what the research consisted of and how it
was carried out. For example, Salas-Porras uses footnotes to indicate that Expansion
and various international newspapers were consulted (2000:70) and to mention the
interviews she conducted (2000:6668, 75; see also Botero Villegas 1998).
U.S. ethnographies are particularly worthy of note in this respect. How do ethnographers deal with procedural objectivity, given that the method through which they
collect the data seems to be essentially subjective? One recurrent strategy is an
extremely detailed account of their data and methods. Ethnographies may report
such details as how a research project fortuitously began when the author met several
gang members while administering a survey (Venkatesh 1997:86); who introduced the
interviewees to the authors (Edin and Lein 1996:255); or a precise description of where
and when the ethnography was conducted (Duneier and Molotch 1999:1265): on
three adjacent blocks along Sixth Avenue, from Eighth Street and Greenwich Avenue
to Washington Place, over the period September 1992October 1998, with daily
observation from September 1992 to June 1993 and complete immersion during the
summer months of 1996 and 1997. Duneier and Molotch (1999:1268) further illustrate the point:
Mitch became a general assistant to the street vendors, sometimes watching their
merchandise while they went on errands, occasionally also buying up merchandise offered in their absence, and assisting on scavenging missions. He also
performed such favors as going for coffee. He eventually worked for two full
summers as a scavenger and vendor.
The basic idea that underlies these detailed descriptions seems to be that one can
control for performing such favors as going for coffee. In other words, although the
fact that the author went for coffee might introduce biases and it certainly introduces
idiosyncratic elements, by means of a benign introspection (Woolgar 1988b) one
would be expunging any unwelcome effects from the data. Through the fragments of
the paper devoted to tales of the field, ethnographers might be actually exorcizing
the data from the evil spirits of subjectivity. Afterward, their knowledge claims can be
asserted in the customary tone of objectivity. This point about field research takes us
21
to a more general issue that is not restricted to ethnographies: the relationship

between authoriality, passive voice and first-person pronouns, and epistemic
objectivity.
Authoriality
As Booth (1961:8) has shown, James and Flaubert initiated a major shift in the
rhetoric of fiction: true novels had to be realistic, all authors had to be objective,
true art had to ignore the audience: Since Flaubert, many authors and critics have
been convinced that objective or impersonal . . . modes of narration are naturally
superior to any mode that allows for direct appearances by the author or his reliable
spokesman. Natural scientists, too, seem to be fond of impersonal modes of narration. Thus, sociologists of science have often reported that natural science papers are
mostly written in the passive voice and in the style of nonsytle (Gilbert 1976;
Gusfield 1976:20, 17). But, at least in science, the authors choice of voice has more
than stylistic implications. Scientists seem to believe that direct appearances by the
author are detrimental for the objectivity of their claims. As suggested above, this is
related to the role that an anti-subjectivity understanding of objectivity can bestow
on the author: the scientist is regarded only as a messenger relaying the truth from
Nature . . . [T]he message from Nature he brings should not be seen as his own
particular message (Gilbert 1976:285; see also Foucault 1984:109).
Drawing on conceptualizations of textuality and facticity more popular among
literary critics than sociologists, Agger (2000) has argued that mainstream U.S.
sociology conceals authoriality and purges literariness. Positivist science is composed in the passive voice; the first-person presence of the author is expunged
(Agger 2000:28). According to my data, however, this is only partially correct.
Because authors want to appear as conceivers, doers, and owners of their knowledge claims, the first person frequently is used to express the authors active role in
constructing ideas and collecting data as well as to claim credit for the research
process and results (Bazerman 1988:287). Thus, in U-ART the first person is prominent only in certain approved topoi (Clifford 1983:132), such as data and methods
sections, and the paragraphs where authors specify what their hypotheses, their
findings, and their contributions to science are. Then, like Geertz (1973) in his notes
on the Balinese cockfight, sociologists abruptly disappear (Clifford 1983:132) from
the text. As Latour (1999:132; emphasis in original) notes in his discussion of
Pasteurs famous article on lactic fermentation: [t]he director withdraws from the
scene, and the reader, merging her eyes with those of the stage manager, sees a
fermentation that takes form at center stage independently of any work of construction. A prime example of this is comparative-historical sociologists narrative presentation of historical data as unproblematic facts, in which all vestiges of authoriality
are banished. After the introduction, the formulation of a research question, and the
theoretical discussion, they let history speak for itself.
First-person singular pronouns are rare in M-ART. Sometimes they are supplanted
by the regal we. But M-ART are mostly rendered in the impersonal form of the
third-person singular. Data and methods are not discussed, and asking for credit for
knowledge claims, although not entirely absent, is less frequent than in the United
States. Thus, grammatically, Mexican authors are for the most part not present in
their texts. How can we account for this type of impression management? First, it is
clearly related to the pragmatics of standard Spanish: the aforementioned thirdpersonal form is very common and natural, even in colloquial speech. Second,
22
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Mexican sociologists may take for granted that sociological accounts consist of
interpretations. Instead of letting the facts speak for themselves as much as possible
while intervening only when necessary, a Mexican article is believed to be in its
entirety the product of its authors intervention. Thus, it might be unnecessary to
say explicitly that those interpretations are the authors, for how could it be otherwise? In particular, that Nature is not speaking for itself is suggested by the ubiquity
of value judgments. It should be recalled that, after all, Nature fervently adheres to
the positivist doctrine of ethical neutrality.
ETHICAL NEUTRALITY
The ideal of a value-free science has diverse philosophical roots, from Humes famous
argument about the impossibility of deriving ought from is, to logical positivists
argument about the meaninglessness of value judgments (Proctor 1991; Hume [1739
1740] 1978:46970; Ayer 1952). Among U.S. sociologists, the standard reference is
Webers (1946, 1949) purportedly sharp distinctions between value and fact,
Wertfreiheit (value freedom or ethical neutrality) and Wertbezogenheit (value relevance or value relatedness), and context of discovery and context of justification (see
Ciaffa 1998; Turner and Factor 1984). In fact, modern science associates values with
bias and perspective and thus makes ethical neutrality a prerequisite of epistemic
objectivity. Values are confined to what Reichenbach (1938) dubbed context of
discovery (when smoking a cigar on the sofa, as Weber (1946:136) says). They
are removed from the presentation of the scientific self in the journal article. In what
follows, I examine to what extent Mexican and U.S. sociologies conform to this
prototype.
Yet what is it about a judgment that makes it count as a value judgment? How do I
distinguish wertende from wertfrei statements? In three types of cases this is a relatively straightforward task. First, overt judgments of goodness, beauty, rightness, or
worth. Second, in fact a subtype of the first, when authors take sides, breaking the
rule of impartiality toward ones characters, to put it in the way Chekhov and
Flaubert have (Booth 1961:77). Third, statements about what one (morally) ought or
ought not to do. The fourth type is not so easy to detect. For in this case authors do
not overtly declare that such-and-such a thing is good or that such-and-such a thing
ought to be done. Rather, in particular discursive contexts and in the context of a
particular community of discourse, certain words, expressions, tones, citations,
gestures may connote particular value judgments. Indeed, certain vocabularies may
in and of themselves indicate loyalty to certain values.18 As we shall see below, this is
one of the ways in which facts and values may be intertwined.19
By extremely conservative standards of measurement, value judgment can be found
in 80 percent of M-ART and only 10 percent of U-ART (see Table 4). The first thing
to realize is that this difference is not purely epistemological, as the type of topics
Mexican sociologists address themselves to has a lot to do with it. For the chances of
18
These sort of statements may aspire to be true knowledge claims, and (as per my methodological
orientation) I do not imply that this aspiration is irreconcilable with their also being value-laden.
19
This rough characterization of value judgments suffices for my purposes. I am of course aware that one
can define values in such a way that most or even all knowledge claims be value-laden. For example, theory
choice is partly based on epistemic values (see, e.g., Putnam 2002). Values can be said to be built into the
sociologists very concepts (see, e.g., Taylor 1985). Furthermore, the ideal of a value-free science is itself a
moral one, so that the absence of moral statements can be interpreted as a particular kind of moral
statement. Nevertheless, one can still consistently and usefully distinguish between these senses of valueladenness and the more restricted sense that I employ.
23
Table 4. Ethical Neutrality in Mexico and the United States
Presence of value judgments

Yes
No
Number of cases
United States (%)
Mexico (%)
10
90
30
80
20
30
complying with the principle of ethical neutrality seem to be lower if one is discussing
the current leftist administration of Mexico City rather than mimetic institutional
isomorphisms.
Let us consider some examples from my data. Salas-Porrass (2000) article on
Mexican entrepreneurs participation in electoral politics is full of trenchant censures
of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the then incumbent Partido
Revolucionario Institucional. Significantly, her (2000:77, 80) very approach to her
main object of inquiry, the relationship between entrepreneurs and electoral politics, is
by no means neutral:
The financial contributions of the wealthy make the electoral field more unbalanced and unjust, give additional means of influence and power to a small
minority, increase the traffic of influence, political clientelism, disloyal economic
competition and corruption.
[A very select group of entrepreneurs] erode [sic] more serious and consistent
efforts, both of small and large entrepreneurs, to develop a more ethical, plural
and democratic version of liberalism than the one we have hitherto known in
Mexico: unilateral, classist and deformed.
Take now the case of Pucciarelli (1999), who discusses the current political, social,
and economic situation in Argentina. His major knowledge claim is that the
Argentinean social structure has recently undergone major transformations toward
greater social polarization, social segmentation, social fragmentation, and
social exclusion. While this claim does not necessarily entail a value judgment,
Pucciarelli hastens to harshly condemn all these transformations, offering an ardent
critique of Argentinas political affairs. Interestingly, just as several other M-ART
authors refer to their homelands, he (1999:121, 126) refers to Argentina as our country,
identifying himself with the nation and the community. More relevantly, condemnation
and description are so enmeshed that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. This
is most evident when the author (1999:148; emphasis added) explicitly makes a case for
employing the term decadence over the less value-laden crisis:
[I]t seems to us that the notion of decadence [decadencia] is more appropriate
for our purposes, that it contains a more precise meaning and it allows us,
besides, to take adequate advantage of its principal property, namely its descriptive, comparative and also valorative [valorativo] sense.
Tellingly, Pucciarelli entitles the article Crisis or Decadence? Now, simply by
adopting a Marxist terminology (in its Latin American left variant), one might be
espousing in the epistemological terrain the spirit of the 11th thesis on Feuerbach, and
24
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
perhaps in the political terrain the progressive or even the revolutionary cause, too.
And, at the same time, one might be displaying adherence to the right values, much
in the way citations of right theorists work (Stinchcombe 1982, 2001; Gilbert 1977).
Mexican sociologists frequently talk about dominant classes (Dilla Alfonso and
Oxhorn 1999:132; Pucciarelli 1999:134, 140, 149; Botero Villegas 1998:394, 395;
Stavenhagen 1998:7); dominant power (Heau and Gimenez 1997:224); dominant
groups (Stavenhagen 1998:9); dominant sectors (Botero Villegas 1998:40607); and
bourgeoisie (Barrios Suvelza 2000:191, 193; Tamayo 1999:502, 509). They likewise
talk about popular classes (Barrera 1998); popular sectors (Pucciarelli 1999:134,
149; Barrera 1998:passim; Ibanez Rojo 1998:359; Massolo 1996:136); popular struggles (Heau and Gimenez 1997:passim); and proletariat (Tamayo 1999:502).20 Yet,
the bete noire is undoubtedly neoliberalism (Pucciarelli 1999:129, 130; Tamayo
1999:510; Barrera 1998:passim; Massolo 1996:134, 136). One might refer to the
neoliberal depredation (Dilla Alfonso and Oxhorn 1999:132); to neoliberal economic policies (Zermeno 1999:passim; Ziccardi 1999:110); to the importance that
current neoliberal politics attribute to big firms to the detriment of small ones
(Mingo 1996:91); to the subtle imposition of neoliberal values [normativa]
(Barrios Suvelza 2000:176); or to a situation that has been considerably aggravated
by the neoliberal policies of governments and multinational financial organisms
(Stavenhagen 1998:13). In the present context, neoliberalism is obviously a valueladen word. It does not mean an economic doctrine based on the laissez faire, laissez
passer dictum. It means an economic doctrine based on the laissez faire, laissez
passer dictum that is conceptually incorrect and morally deplorable.
In fact, arguments related to, broadly speaking, neoliberalism are the place in
which most often values and facts are brought together in M-ART. For example,
Stavenhagen (1998:34) talks about the neoliberal dogma:
Like all dogmas, this one stays firm against any evidence with an impressive
advertising apparatus and has taken over the principal inter-governmental agencies, the dominant arguments of the governments of the planet, and most
academic institutions and universities (not to mention the associations of
entrepreneurs, who are the first to be interested in promoting the myth).
Referring to Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, Stavenhagen (1998:89) contrasts two camps: peasant movements, left parties, and some intellectuals that
demanded the necessity of agrarian reforms, based on convincing economic, social,
and political arguments with the dominant groups that organized themselves
nationally and internationally and soon managed to contain the popular tide by
installing more or less brutal military regimes, with ample help from the U.S. One
does not need additional clarification to understand that the author is morally rejecting the neoliberal dogma or that the peasant movements, the left parties, and some
intellectuals are the good guys and the dominant groups are the bad guys. And
once again, his value judgments, entrenched in his reasoning and vocabulary, can be
separated neither from his account of the facts nor from his argument about the
causes of poverty in Latin America.
20
Other expressions with Marxist connotations are: class struggle (Tamayo 1999:507); oppression and
exploitation (Massolo 1996:134); oligarchy and class for itself (Barrera 1998:15); class consciousness (Barrera 1998:20); hegemony (Botero Villegas 1998:495); organic intellectuals (Dilla Alfonso and
Oxhorn 1999:137; Heau Lambert and Gimenez 1997:242); and superstructural variables (Barrios Suvelza
2000:176, 200).
25
For his part, Zermeno (1999:183) sets out to analyze the widespread disorder and
social atomization caused by trade liberalization and globalization. The author
believes that one should temper those incommensurable powers such as
Washington and the big transnational corporations [trasnacionales] and financial
institutions (Zermeno 1999:199). A similar mood toward Washington is found in
Dilla Alfonso and Oxhorns (1999:123, 142) article, which refers to the aggressiveness
of the U.S. [against Cuba] and the interfering [injerencista] Helms-Burton law.
Finally, Barbieri (2000:51) points out that the strong resistance of large multinational
corporations and governments of countries such as the U.S. and Japan to taking
measures that affect their economic interests, placed [centro] on the poor population
of poor countries, and specifically on their women, the cause of the worlds misfortunes [males].
Only 10 percent of U-ART (i.e., three articles) are not entirely value-free.21 In two
of them, there are only minor words, expressions, or references that could be interpreted as value-charged. For its part, Edin and Leins article (1996) is especially
illustrative of how values might be incorporated into scientific discourse in the
United States. Edin and Leins findings about single mothers economic survival
strategies are reached through scientific methods, from which values are conspicuously absent and procedural objectivity devices conspicuously present. In the final
part of the conclusion, after summarizing their findings, the authors point out that
they have clear policy relevance, and proceed to offer six policy suggestions
(1996:264). For example:
(1) Allow recipients to count participation in high-quality training or educational
programs that lead to living wages as satisfying the work requirement.
(3) Expand the Federal Unemployment Insurance program to cover more workers in the low-wage sector, including part-time workers. (Edin and Lein 1996:264)
The Humean problem is whether Edin and Leins normative statements follow from
their scientific findings. It seems to me that, since in their account values are totally
isolated from facts, no logical relationship is needed: their normative statements
simply ascertain the best means to reach ends that policymakers have selected and
with which science has nothing to do. Even though in the present case the authors do
endorse those ends, from a logical point of view this step is not necessary: We believe
that as states move single mothers from welfare to work, mothers and their childrens
material well-being should be safeguarded (Edin and Lein 1996:264; emphasis
added).
U.S. sociologists overall attitude toward values might be well summarized by a
paragraph of Ganzs (2000:100708; emphasis added) piece:
The data on which this analysis is based is drawn from primary and secondary
sources as well as my experience with the UFW [United Farm Workers] from
1965 to 1981 as an organizer, organizing director, and national officer. This raises
a potential problem of bias based on my personal experiences, interests I may have
in particular accounts of controversial events, and personal relationships with
persons on all sides of the conflict. But my experience also equips me with a deep
21
An ingrained and institutionalized value judgment into which I am not able to delve is the different
ways in which generic third-person singular pronouns and their inflected forms are used in the United States
to avoid so-called gendered language.
26
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
understanding of the context of these events, direct information as to what took

place, and access to important research resources. In an attempt to realize the
benefits while minimizing the risks, I triangulate my data for this study by
drawing on multiple primary and secondary sources, relying on my own experience only where specifically noted.
Even thoughor, actually, precisely becausethey are the source of unique understandings and evidence, personal experiences, interests, and personal relationships are seen as threats to objectivity. They may introduce biases and thus
jeopardize the viewpoint of no-one in particular. Still, through the triangulation
of data it can be found out whether ones accounts are not objective, and correct
them. One can correct those bad biases, and keep the good ones. As Ernest Nagel
(1961:489) would say, since by hypothesis it is not impossible to distinguish between
fact and value, steps can be taken to identify a value bias when it occurs, and to
minimize if not to eliminate completely its perturbing effects.
Let us finally note that U.S. sociologists are believed to be, on average, much more
liberal than the rest of this countrys population. Indeed, sociology has been shown
to be the most liberal academic discipline in the United States (Hamilton and Hargens
1993; Ladd and Lipset 1975). Furthermore, U.S. sociologists publish in several venues
that welcome ethically committed work. The point is that those outlets are not the
most prestigious and professional journals. In these, there is only room for true
science.
CONCLUSION
Incommensurability and the Sociology of Knowledge
The main finding of this article is that the epistemological assumptions of Mexican
and U.S. sociologiesas represented by a random sample of nonquantitative articles
drawn from four leading journalsare significantly different. First, they assign a
different role to theories, and indeed they have dissimilar understandings of what a
theory should consist of. Second, whereas the U.S. articles actively struggle against
subjectivity, the Mexican articles maximize the potentials of subjective viewpoints.
Third, U.S. sociologists tend to regard highly and Mexican sociologists to eagerly
disregard the principle of ethical neutrality.
This finding has an important implication for the ongoing research program of the
sociology of knowledge, whose ambition is to account not only for religious beliefs,
moralities, and ideologies, but also for mathematical theorems and scientific theories.
There are several ways of construing the argument that scientific knowledge is conditioned, determined, shaped, influenced, etc. by its social context. Many of
these versions are at best unclear and at worst plainly false. Of course, science is a
human activity, scientists have interests, biases, and so on. Of course, as any human
institution, science involves politics, inequalities, culture, language, rhetoric, emotions, and so on. But how exactly does it follow that Godels incompleteness theorem
or Paulis exclusion principle (i.e., the theorem itself or the principle itself) is socially
constructed? I believe that my investigation suggests a more promising direction for
the social conditioning argument. It is easy to see that underlying epistemological
assumptions have an effect upon the so-called cognitive content of scientific theories.
What is more, this effect is of a particular character, which makes it theoretically
consequential: one may not be able to factor it out; it may be built into the theory
27
itself. As we shall see, that two truth-seeking communities make dissimilar epistemological assumptions may entail the incommensurability of the bodies of knowledge
that they produce: there might be no common metric by means of which their truth
claims could be measured against reality; translation might be impossible in principle.
Yet epistemological assumptions, as assumptions, are by definition not entirely
detached from the contingencies of the self and society. Therefore, the cognitive
content of scientific knowledge claims might be in one (literally fundamental) respect
influenced by the social conditions of its production.
In 1962, both Kuhn ([1962] 1970) and Feyerabend ([1962] 1981) first presented in
print the incommensurability thesis. But already in Kuhns magnum opus (let
alone in posterior commentaries, debates, Feyerabends writings, and Kuhns various
rounds of second thoughts), there are several somewhat incommensurable incommensurability theses. One can organize this field by distinguishing between semantic,
epistemological, and perceptual incommensurability (Hoyningen-Huene and Sankey
2001; Bird 2000; Sankey 1994; Hoyningen-Huene 1993:20122; Kitcher 1983; see also
DAgostino 2003; Chang 1997; Wong 1989). The semantic thesis argues that there is
no language, neutral or otherwise, into which [two] theories, conceived as sets of
sentences, can be translated without residue or loss (Kuhn 1983:670). In fact, the
meaning of observation and theoretical terms is a function of the theory in which they
occur. The perceptual thesis is based on Kuhns ([1962] 1970:150) statement that the
proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worldswhat
Hacking (1993:276) calls the new-world problem. The basic idea is that worldviews
and perceptual experience are not independent. Finally, the epistemological thesis
argues that paradigms differ in their standards of theory appraisal. In Kuhns ([1962]
1970:109) words, scientific schools disagree about what is a problem and what a
solution.22
To consider the epistemological thesis, let us pose the following thought experiment. Suppose a Mexican sociologist claims p and a U.S. sociologist claims not-p.
Carnaps or Poppers epistemology would have the empirical world arbitrate between
these two theoretical claims. But, as we have seen, sociologists in Mexico and the
United States hold different stances regarding what a theory should be, what an
explanation should look like, what rules of inference and standards of proof should
be stipulated, what role evidence should play, and so on. The empirical world could
only adjudicate the dispute if an agreement on these epistemological presuppositions
could be reached (and there are good reasons to expect that in such a situation neither
side would be willing to give up its epistemology). Furthermore, it seems to me that
my thought experiment to some degree misses the point. For it imagines a situation in
which a Mexican sociologist claims p and a U.S. sociologist claims not-p, failing to
realize that that would only be possible if the problem were articulated in similar
terms. However, we have seen that Mexican and U.S. sociologies also differ in how
problems are articulatedrather than p and not-p, one should probably speak of p
and q.
I believe that Mexican and U.S. sociologies are perceptually and semantically
incommensurable as well. On the one hand, I suspect that equal stimuli do not
generate in Mexican and U.S. sociologists equal sensationsthey may see different
things when looking at the same sorts of objects (Kuhn [1962] 1970:120; emphasis in
22
From this, Feyerabend (1970:228, 1975:214, 285) concludes that theory choice, rather than rational, is a
matter of taste and subjective wishes. More conservatively, Kuhn (1977:331) rejects Lakatoss
(1970:178) mob psychology charge and suggests that his criteria function not as rules, which determine
choice, but as values, which influence it.
28
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
original). However, I do not have the data, presumably experimental, to support this
proposition. On the other hand, I believe my data suggest that the vocabularies of
Mexican and U.S. sociologies are theory-laden and thus may fail to share common
meanings. Terms such as social class, social movement, hypothesis, and variable resemble some of Kuhns favorite examples: the meaning of the term mass for
Newtons and Einsteins mechanics and the meaning of earth for Copernican and
Ptolemaic astronomy. Likewise, what decadence means is a function of how the
theory in which it occurs conceptualizes the relationship between values and facts.
Finally, as Kuhn (1983) himself emphasized regarding the case of force and mass,
U.S. and Mexican vocabularies consist of sets of terms, whose meaning is crucially
dependent on their being a set.
In yet a fourth sense, the incommensurability thesis has been read as suggesting
unintelligibility. With Kuhns turn toward Quines (1960) indeterminacy of translation thesis, incommensurability becomes tantamount to untranslatability. From
there, the inability of advocates of rival cosmologies and ontologies to understand
one another (Laudan 1996:9) seems to follow. Not only did critics find the empirical
evidence for this claim weak (Toulmin 1970:4344), but they also pointed out that
Kuhns argument was incoherent and logically self-defeating (Putnam 1981:11415).
Is it not the case that historians of science, such as Kuhn himself, make sense of earlier
paradigms in the language of the dominant one? Is it not the case that Whorf
(1956:214), claiming that English and Hopi cannot be calibrated, uses English to
convey the contents of sample Hopi sentences (Davidson 1984:184)? In fact, translatability might even be a criterion of languagehood: an untranslatable utterance
would not be speech behavior but random noises (Davidson 1984; Putnam 1981). I
strongly deny that Mexican and U.S. sociologies are incommensurable if this is taken
to mean unintelligible. Of course, my own endeavor presupposes and, if successful,
demonstrates that one can plot them on a common coordinate system and render one
of them in the language of the other. But an important nuance should be brought up
here. As Kuhn (1983) himself retorted, inability to translate does not entail inability to
understand. I do not claim to have translated Mexican sociology into U.S. sociology
meeting the standards that a Quinean manual of translation would have set. Rather, I
have presupposed and demonstrated that a certain language can be understood,
interpreted, and communicated in such a way that it becomes intelligible to the
members of a different linguistic community.
Given its reflexive character, I would like to use the present article to provide one
last illustration of my argument about incommensurability. As mentioned in the
introduction, I have followed Bloors tenets, in the sense that neither the Mexican
nor the U.S. epistemological approach has been assumed to be more fruitful, reasonable, or likely to get one closer to the truth. Unfortunately, in a strict sense there is no
uncommitted manner to put forward knowledge claims about how knowledge claims
are put forward. For the epistemological assumptions of ones own claims, the
language in which they are written can be said to performatively support a certain
way of doing science. Not surprisingly in view of its conditions of production, at the
performative level this article sides with the U.S. epistemological approach. For
instance, I present a data and methods section and four tables (slightly below the
mean). I reconstruct my own research process so that it fits the textbook model of
scientific research, without mentioning errors, cul-de-sacs, and reformulations.23 I aim
23
This is, however, a performative contradiction. By mentioning that I am not mentioning errors, cul-desacs, and reformulations, I am in fact mentioning them.
29
at objective reality through intersubjectively valid measurements and do not let any
value judgments into my argument. The question then becomes: Could Styles of
Sociological Thought be rendered in both the U.S. and Mexican sociological
languages? Could it be rendered in both languages without residue or loss? I do
not think so. Suppose I did let value judgments into my argument, did not carefully
explain what my data and methods are, and did not emphasize the intersubjective
validity of my measurements. The outcome could hardly be said to be a faithful,
semantically equivalent translation of this article. Because many essential things
would indeed be lost, the outcome should rather be viewed as a different article.
Above all, the very question I have addressed to the empirical world isin terms of its
substance, conceptual bases, and most importantly logical formof the kind accepted
by and meaningful to the U.S. sociological community. But our hypothetical Mexican
version of this article would have to ask a question of a different form, and ipso facto
the correspondence between the two would collapse.
Accounting for Epistemological Variation

Not only do I believe that epistemological presuppositions vary across communities,
but also that they are not randomly distributed. Future research should work out a
theory about how the nature of Mexican and U.S. epistemologies is related to their
being Mexican and U.S. Here I just want to suggest four lines of thought that might
be worthy of further elaboration and eventually empirical corroboration.
For an academic discipline to establish itself, it must appear in the eyes of the
relevant actors and constituencies as distinct from both neighboring disciplines and
what I would like to emphasize herenonprofessional, unaccredited, or nonscientific
knowledge. That is, an epistemological boundary must be drawn (Lamont and
Molnar 2002; Babb 2001; Camic 1995; Camic and Xie 1994; Fisher 1993; Lamont
1992, 2000b; Cozzens and Gieryn 1990; Abbott 1988; Gieryn 1983, 1995, 1999). Thus,
a theory of epistemological variation must consider which actors count as relevant in
a particular context, as well as their positions, dispositions, views, and interests. In
this regard, several scholars have brought to light the unique role played by funding
in American sociology, and the distinctive affinities between American sociology,
foundation, and scientism (Turner 1998:70; see also Turner 1994; Fisher 1993;
Geiger 1993:94110; Ross 1991; Turner and Turner 1990; Bannister 1987; Silva and
Slaughter 1984; McCartney 1970; but see Platt 1996). For U.S. public and private
foundations and university administrations, scientificity has meant scientism,24
quantification, and neutralization of subjectivity, and through these criteria they
have distinguished between scientific and nonscientific discourses about society. In
Mexico, external funding agencies have played a less significant role, and, in fact,
there have not been comparable funding agencies in terms of financial and institutional resources. Moreover, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
(UNAM), the institutional home and source of support for most research and teaching throughout the history of Mexican sociology, has been far from demanding
scientism from its social scientists. In turn, this is a consequence of how Latin
American public universities are governed and administered, the great formal and
informal power that professors and students have in this system, the nature of the
24
By scientism it is generally meant the thesis that the science of society should be modeled on the
natural sciences (see Steinmetz 2004; Platt 1996; Ross 1991; Bannister 1987; Bryant 1985; Halfpenny 1982;
Giddens 1974; Hayek 1952).
30
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
intellectual culture predominant in these institutions, and the degree to which

university matters are political and indeed closely connected to national politics
(Ordorika 2003; Mendoza Rojas 2001; Lorey 1993; Brunner 1985; Clark 1983:156;
Mabry 1982; Ribeiro 1967).
My second dimension attends to one type of relationship between sociology and the
polity (see Fourcade-Gourinchas 2000, 2001; Jepperson 1992, 2002; Wagner,
Wittrock, and Whitley 1991; Wagner 1990, 2001; Wittrock and Wagner 1990, 1996).
In the United States, as the first editor of the magazine Contexts pointed out (Fischer
2002:iii), there is a wide moat surrounding the ivory tower (see also Burawoy 2005a,
2005b). In general, sociologists are scientists oriented toward scientific institutions
and rewarded primarily according to their contributions to pure science. In contrast,
Mexican sociologists are scientists oriented toward both scientific and political institutions and evaluated according to contributions to both pure science and political
life. Indeed, sociology qua scientific discipline has been to a large extent constituted
through and defined by its involvement in politicsspecifically, as a critical left-wing
force (see, e.g., Zapata 1990). However, it is important that not just any kind of
contribution to political life has been constitutive of the metier of the sociologist.
Rather than just performing utilitarian calculations or developing algorithms that
provide the most efficient means to realize political ends established elsewhere,
sociologists have been expected to identify, articulate, and criticize those very ends
(Munoz Garc a 1994; Castaneda 1990:41718; Sefchovich 1989; Villa Aguilera 1979).
It is precisely this capacity to illuminate practical problems by drawing on social
thought, provide public opinion with theoretically informed accounts couched in
suitable terminologies, substantiate normative standpoints in the public sphere, and
bring knowledge to the service of . . . justice and reason that sociologists have
claimed as oneand arguably theessential component of their professional expertise (Contreras 2000:160; Ibarrola 1994:184; Portes 1975). And most of the actors with
which sociology has interactedthe state, the media, public opinion, the UNAM,
student bodies, neighboring disciplineshave not only accepted these claims as
legitimate but also expected it to assume such roles as being the moral consciousness
of the state (Girola and Olvera 1995; Castaneda 1990, 1995a:294, 1995b). Thus, the
physicist could obviously not be a model for the sociologist.
A third promising explanatory idea is based on Steinmetzs (2005c:36) socialepochal or macrosociological approach, which focuses on the impact of largescale social structural processes and cultural discourses on sociologists sense of the
plausibility of different ways of thinking about the social (Steinmetz 2005d:278; see
also Steinmetz 2005a, 2005b). Independently of factors such as sociologists interest in
drawing particular boundaries or foundations interest in promoting particular types
of research, in any given social context some epistemologies and ontologies would just
strike people as more plausible than others. In these papers, Steinmetz directs his
attention to the case of U.S. sociologys methodological positivism, which is found
to be causally connected to the Fordist mode of societal regulation. But one can draw
on this approach to think about the causal connections between third world modes of
societal regulation and the epistemological foundations of the sociological knowledge
produced in these regions (a line of reasoning both suggested and encouraged by
Steinmetz himself). If one looks at the specific Fordist elements that bolstered positivism in the United Statesfor example, economic stability, security, a postideological culture, social regularity and predictability, geopolitical centralityit is clear
that in Mexico most of these conditions did not obtain (or, at the very least, did not
obtain to the same degree). Ultimately, however, only systematic empirical research
31
can determine whether and how these and other social-epochal factors have had an
impact on the epistemological worldview of Mexican sociology.
Last but not least, our theory should not forget that the two cases under consideration are not independent. That Mexican sociology has opposed scientism is to some
extent a consequence of what Reyna (1979:67) calls the Latin Americanization of
Mexican sociology: a sort of reaction against the methods and approaches that
came, principally, from the U.S. (see also Hiller 1979). In fact, Mexican sociology
has explicitly drawn inspiration from European traditions (primarily French sociology) that lend great prestige to public intellectuals and view views from nowhere
with suspicion (Lamont 2000a; Loyo, Guadarrama, and Weissberg 1990:37; Lemert
1981; Villa Aguilera 1979).25
In sum, the general point I put forward is that epistemological stances can be
accounted for by the social conditions of production of the discourses they underlie.
This is, of course, a reformulation of the central question of the sociology of knowledge, from Mannheim (1952, [1929] 1966) to the Edinburgh school (Bloor [1976] 1991;
Barnes 1974); from Berger and Luckmann (1966) to Bourdieu ([1984] 1988). A first
generation of sociologists of science argued that social factors may influence foci of
attention and rates of advance (see, e.g., Cole 1992) but that they do not affect the
cognitive content of science. A second generation, the sociologists of scientific
knowledge, violated the sanctuary that neither Mannheim (1952, [1929] 1966) nor
Merton (1973) had dared to violate.26 Now sciences assemblage of truths (Hacking
1999:66) was said to be socially constructed. The irony is that, as Trevor Pinch and
Trevor Pinch (1988:186) observe, sociology, the softest of all the scientific disciplines, should make claims to be able to account for physicsthe Queen of the
Sciences.
I believe it is high time sociologists pressed this irony further and tried also to
account empirically and sociologically for the putative ultimate foundations upon
which sciences edifice of knowledge has been erected. In fact, even though sociologists have largely not adopted this approach, there have recently been a few hints and
efforts in this direction: Kurzmans (1994) call for an empirical epistemology;
Somerss (1996, 1998) purposefully oxymoronic historical epistemology; KnorrCetinas (1999) epistemic cultures; Shapins Social History of Truth (1994);
Steinmetzs (2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d) work on U.S. sociologys positivism;
Mallard, Lamont, and Guetzkows (2002) epistemological codes; and Fuchss
(1992, 1993, 2001) conceptualization of epistemology as a dependent variable. An
empirical sociology of epistemologies would set out to show that beliefs about the best
path to the truth have varied across time and place as much as beliefs about morality
and beauty. It would also maintain that variations in epistemological beliefs should be
accounted for sociologically. Finally, it would be interested in how the relationship
25
My account applies, roughly, from the 1960s to the 1990s. Mexican sociology achieved a sizeable degree
of institutionalization only in the 1960s (Girola 1996; Valenti 1990). In its inchoate phase the predominant
tradition was a somewhat idiosyncratic version of positivism (Andrade Carreno 1998; Garza Toledo 1989;
Sefchovich 1989). For the past few years, Mexico has undergone major political and social changes, which
have impinged on both the higher-education system and the social legitimacy of different kinds of boundary
work. For example, the influence of the CONACyT has increasingly become substantial, thanks to its
program of economic incentives for researchers and its register of journals and graduate programs of
excellence. More importantlyand despite sociologists complaintsCONACyT explicitly equates scientificity with scientism (see, e.g., Bejar Navarro and Hernandez Bringas 1996:12331; Perlo Cohen 1994).
While policies of this kind were first implemented in the 1980s and 1990s, epistemological outlooks are
structurally ingrained features that may be affected only in the long run.
26
Some of them even questioned the distinctions between social and cognitive factors, content and
context, and internalist and externalist explanations of science (Latour 1999; Callon 1981).
32
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
between epistemological discrepancies and incommensurability can buttress sociologys challenge to the traditional conception of science. Thus, an empirical sociology
of epistemologies would constitute a step forward in the agenda of the sociology of
knowledge, as it would further our understanding of the social conditioning of
scientific knowledge.
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Sociological

Styles of Sociological Thought: Sociologies, Epistemologies, and the Mexican and

American Sociological Association

>> Version of Record - Mar 1, 2006

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Styles of Sociological Thought: Sociologies, Epistemologies, and the

The phrase Uruguayan physics might refer to physics departments located in

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

DATA AND METHODS

implies a certain relationship between theory and evidence and powerfully

Table 1. Characteristics of the Sample

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

THEORY AND EVIDENCE

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STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

Table 2. Theory and Evidence in Mexico and the United States

theoriestheories that tend to be total systems of sociological theory, such as

1999:186); resort to Levi-Strauss to analyze a certain aspect of the subculture of

General Regular Reality

The phrase is inspired by Abbotts (2001) general linear reality.

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

the treatment of minorities and international competition. Nancy Whittier (1997)

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

This paragraph illustrates two of my points. Having studied 15 organizations, Cress

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

One possible strategy is to define ontological objectivity as the neutralization of

Rational reconstruction of research process

Average number of tables

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

Language, Mathematics, and Symbols

For reasons related to the economy of research, I cannot offer an objective

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

(2001:624) section discusses various scholarly approaches to credit, risk, uncertainty,

Discussion of Data and Methods

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

to a more general issue that is not restricted to ethnographies: the relationship

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

Table 4. Ethical Neutrality in Mexico and the United States

Presence of value judgments

United States (%)

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understanding of the context of these events, direct information as to what took

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STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

Accounting for Epistemological Variation

intellectual culture predominant in these institutions, and the degree to which

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STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

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Clifford, J. 1983. On Ethnographic Authority. Representations 2:11846.

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STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

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STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

Koopmans, R. and P. Statham. 1999. Challenging the Liberal Nation-State? Postnationalism,

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Downloaded from stx.sagepub.com at COLEF BIBLIOTECA on August 27, 2014

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

Downloaded from stx.sagepub.com at COLEF BIBLIOTECA on August 27, 2014

Downloaded from stx.sagepub.com at COLEF BIBLIOTECA on August 27, 2014

STYLES OF SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT