SOC313H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Methodenstreit, Path Dependence, Counterfactual Conditional
Document Summary
Question of the day: what role, if any, do you think history plays in sociology, or the study of social control: historical sociology models. Methodenstreit: disagreement and debate over what role history should play in explaining social dynamics. Counter-factual history: historiography that attempts to answer counter-factuals (ex. what if a seemingly minor event in history was different?) Turning points: critical junctions in the course of world history; if relatively minor events had unfolded differently during these turning points, the course of world history would have been dramatically altered. Pseudo-turning point: collins concedes that turning points can be influential and path dependent for relatively (cid:862)s(cid:373)all(cid:863) eve(cid:374)ts or details of larger histori(cid:272)al tre(cid:374)ds. Bottlenecks: a key historical event, which results in the restricting of possible subsequent outcomes, thus making a certain historical trajectory almost inevitable. Path dependence: people"s (cid:272)hoi(cid:272)es i(cid:374) the prese(cid:374)t are li(cid:373)ited/restricted by events that have occurred in the past; these events could have been relatively minor or seemingly irrelevant.
