It is something of a commonplace in the history of sociological theory that during the classical period of the development of the subject, when Weber and Durkheim and others were formulating the stock of ideas upon which subsequent theory has so largely drawn, no significant contribution was forthcoming from Britain. Parsons' The Structure of Social Action was probably the most influential single source of this view, and it is one which was subsequently popularized by Hughes, Annan and others. It is now sufficiently well established to have been taken as the explanandum in several recent essays. Where the explanation has been looked for in intellectual terms, this has generally involved some variation on the theme of the ‘curious strength of positivism’ in British thought. The gist of this claim is that the intellectual climate in Britain was (and is) marked by a tradition of empiricism in philosophy and individualism in social thought which was unreceptive to the abstract theory and the social-structural concepts which are integral to classical sociology. The significance of the British empirical tradition in philosophy has been particularly insisted upon. This makes it all the more important to point out that it was precisely during this period that what is generally referred to as Idealism was the dominant philosophy in Britain, a philosophy characterized by its thoroughgoing rejection of nominalism and empiricism in favour of the metaphysical tradition derived mainly from Kant and Hegel, a philosophy, I shall argue, which was potentially a fruitful basis for the development of sociological theory.

‘Why belgium?’ is the question that American and Belgian colleagues and friends have asked me recurrently since I began doing research in that society in 1959. Ever since then, Belgium has been one of the consistent sites of my sociological inquiry, reflection and analysis. (Zäire, Belgium's former colony in Central Africa, became another such site, beginning in 1962). With a mixture of real interest, conventional politeness, perplexity and, on the part of Belgians, a tinge of traditional irony, those who have followed my fieldwork have often wondered out loud what I was discovering and learning in that small society that could possibly preoccupy me for so many years. Through some of my publications on the sociology of Belgian medical science and research or, more accurately, on ‘Belgium through the windows of its medical laboratories’, I have implicitly responded to this question (1). And I have periodically speculated on it more privately in my fieldnotes, and in letters to friends. But I have never dealt with it in an explicit, public way. This article constitutes my first formal attempt to do so.

In the issue of the Turkish daily Milliyet dated September 23rd 1977, the following inventory of violent events which have occurred in Turkey in the preceding twenty-four hours was presented to the reader.

I. In a fight between the ‘revolutionary’ and the ‘idealist’ factions of the Diyarbakir Normal School for the training of primary school teachers one student was wounded in the chest and another in the abdomen. Both were hospitalized.

The clash started when the Assistant School Director attempted to ‘rough-up’ the two students because of their ‘hair and beard’. The students retaliated and were set upon with knives by students of the ‘idealist’ faction (I).

2. Ankara-Groups with ‘opposed views’ fought in Tuzlucayir with sticks and stones. One person was placed in custody.

3. Responding to sounds of repeated firing, police arrested a student who was found to carry a gun.

4. In the ‘Republic’ Lycée, a group shouted ‘down with the Fascists’ to rightwing students and began ‘firing in the air’. Two students were placed in custody.

5.The General Secretary of the Schoolteachers' Association claimed that the police ‘fired guns’ during the burial of a teacher who had been killed the preceding day. He also claimed that the Association's Gonen branch had been closed without justification.

6. The General Secretary of IGD (Progressive Youth Association) stated that a ‘Maoist’ group had forcibly occupied the Iskenderun branch of the Association (2).

7. A man was found in a coma in his room at the Terminal Hotel.

8. A 13-year-old boy who happened to be in the path of an oncoming group which was in pursuit of a person became the target of a hail of bullets. He was hospitalized.

9. A group of students who demonstrated in a tea-garden to the effect that ‘Çayans never die’ were apprehended (3).

10. A student of the Ihsan Mermerci Lycée was beaten with revolver butts by two members of the National Movement Party. The attackers then fired in the air and fled.

In recent years status inconsistency theory and research has come under attack for at least three major reasons:

(a) It has been shown that the effects of status inconsistency, if there are any (cf. under (c)), cannot be detected by following the prevailing procedures of analysis, i.e. tabular analysis (camparisons-of-sums method; cf. Lenski 1954 (1)) or linear equation models (regression approach). By now the criticism in the works of Blalock (1966a, 1966b, 1967a, 1967b, 1967c), Mitchell (1964) and Hyman (1966) is well-known (2).

Définir d'emblée la sociologie de la science n'est pas choseaisée. Y parviendrait-on même que l'exploit formel aurait peu d'intérêt, dépourvue que serait la définition des référents empiriques qui lui donneraient un sens. Contentons-nous done d'affirmer ici que la sociologie de la science, si multiples que soient ses acceptions et ses tendances, est une incontestable réalité intellectuelle qui s'efforce souvent avec succès de conquérir une dignité scientifique. Quatre remarques s'imposent d'emblée:

1) Comme la sociologie du travail et plus encore la sociologie militaire, la sociologie de la science s'est développée bien après que les activités sociales qu'elle veut étudier, e'est-à-dire la recherche et l'enseignement scientifiques, fussent devenues (a) des activités numériquement importantes, (b) consommant des ressources considérables, (c) dont les résultats ont une certaine importance pour chacun des États-nations concernés.

À Buchenwald, pendant la guerre, David Rousset et quelques autres détenus se trouvent un jour devant la chambre du Blockältester (doyen de bloc):

C'est une pièce misérable, étroite comme certains réduits de la zone à Paris. Un lit, une table, deux chaises, un poêle, quelques photos de femmes sur les cloisons, une carte du front russe. Ce coin sordide est un paradis. Nous sommes là, quelquesuns, à regarder, et quelle envie dans les yeux! C'est le signe de toutes les puissances, de tous les privilèges. Le rire me prend: qui jamais aurait pu imaginer que nous en serions à lorgner ce gîte de paria comme la réalisation de rêves impossibles, la satisfaction de véhéments désirs? (1).