Pitirim Sorokin and the duality of mind

• Main Author: Turner, Robert Griffith
• Other Authors: Sociology
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 2019
• Subjects: LD5655.V856 1976.T87
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/87324

The objective of this essay is a creative, critical analysis of Sorokin's theory of social change. In general, by showing the nature of Sorokin's system of sociology, and particularly his theory of change, it is demonstrated that neither of the two principles of change he proposes -- that of immanent change or of limits -- accounts for selection or choice by socialized human beings. It is shown that while the principle of immanent change accounts for the development of sociocultural systems and the principle of limits is informative with respect to exogenous conditions imposed on that development, no satisfactory principle is offered regarding the selection and/or extinction of such systems. In a nutshell, if n sociocultural systems are possible neither the principle of immanent change in a structure nor the principle of limits can account for the elimination of all but one possibility in the set n, at the point where a sociocultural system enters the social reality.· Human choosing or valuation must be introduced, therefore, as a third variable in the change of sociocultural systems. A widespread theme in sociology is that there are two complementary but opposed dimensions of the human psyche. One emphasizes relationship, universality and intuition while the other is the realm of causality, of practical verbal understandings. This "duality of mind" is reflected, for example, in Toennies' Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft distinction and in Durkheim's division between mechanical and organic solidarity, as well as in Sorokin's Sensate-Ideational dichotomy of main cultural types. In this essay the "duality of mind" is re-examined in light of Sorokin's theory of change. Evidence is found to support the idea that the human psyche has its Ideational and Sensate modes. These modes, which are called here the relational and the objective, are associated respectively with intuition and aesthetic understandings as opposed to lineal, causal and verbal understandings. In human choosing or valuation (which occurs both consciously and unconsciously) there is a marked tendency for either relational or objective understandings to predominate as a rationale for action. This phenomenon of exclusion means, among other things, that if one's basic premises about the world are objective, alternative relational understandings are rejected. The tendency for one's basic assumptions to be either relational or objective represents a principle of exclusion which turns out to be the missing change principle in Sorokin's scheme. In effect, if one's premises, whether relational (Ideational) or objective (Sensate) fail to be socially or psychically adaptive for the social actor for any reason, the tendency will be to substitute new (actually latent) premises which exclude the former ones as invalid or untrue. Thus Sorokin's concept of an Idealistic supersystem which balances the Sensate and the Ideational world-views is thought to be problematic. Further, support is garnered for the idea, implicit in Sorokin, that the current Sensate period in the West will be replaced by an Ideational cultural form. === Ph. D.