The Scientific Legitimation of Fallacy: Neutralizing Social Change Theory

All sociological work has underlying assumptions, which are more or less explicit. Developments in the theory of social change have been hampered by assumptions which are fallacious in the sense that they have been treated as matters of scientific fact, as a priori bases upon which the researcher interprets his data and the theorist constructs his framework. Four such fallacies are identified-the fallacy of deviance, the fallacy of trauma, the fallacy of unidirectionality and utopia apprehended, and the fallacy of semantic illusion-and their consequences for the understanding of social change are briefly noted. It is concluded that a converse set of assumptions will prove fruitful for both empirical and theoretical work in the area of social change.