REVIEW A R T IC LE

A REVOLUTION IN SOCIOLOGY?
JO H N H. GOLDTHORPE
Jack D . Douglas (ed.) Understanding Everyday Life: Toward the Reconstruction of Sociological
Knowledge. London: Routledge, 1971, xii + 358 pp., 4.-20.
Paul Filmer, Michael Phillipson, David Silverman and D avid Walsh, New Directions in
Sociological Theory. London: Collier-Macmillan, 1972, vii + 246 pp., ,3m
5 o ( i paperback).
I
The emergence within the last decade o f relatively well-defined schools o f phenomenologi
cal sociology and, in particular, o f ethnomethodology has had an increasingly divisive effect
within the sociological community at large. Initially, the typical reaction o f more conventional*
sociologists to these new movements o f thought could perhaps be best described as one o f
somewhat bewildered doubt, and such hostility as was displayed was probably aroused more
by the manner o f their presentation than by their actual content. The determinedly esoteric
and often impenetrable language o f their exponents and their preference for privately circu
lated typescripts rather than for publication created the impression that they were more inter
ested in forming a cult than in effective communication, and also the suspicion that obscurity
and inaccessibility were being deliberately used as protection against critics from without.
But at the same time it was in general the case that the more decisive the break w ith con
ventional sociology that was proposed, the less the concern w ith attacking, amending or dir
ectly competing w ith it. Most notably, Garfinkel and those associated w ith him maintained that
from the theoretical position they had adopted the principle o f ethnomethodological indif
ference* must apply to all questions o f the adequacy, value, importance or necessity o f
conventional sociology as o f all other constructive accounts* o f social life.1 Thus, the possi
bility was present i f not exactly for peaceful co-existence, then at least for separate develop
ment ; and so far as the great majority o f sociologists were concerned, no particular response
to ethnomethodology, whether critical or otherwise, appeared to be called for.
Subsequently, however, this state o f affairs has been seriously disrupted b y a new wave o f
ethnomethodological w riting, well represented by the items under review, which is distinctive
in tw o important ways. First, it seeks to present the ethnomethodological approach to a rela
tively widely conceived audience (and to this end is happily somewhat more attentive to
clarity o f thought and expression); and secondly, it is often taken up w ith explicit criticism o f
and indeed polemic against conventional sociology o f a quite radical character. A lack o f
interest in remedying* the latter is still generally professed: but n ow only because the aim
is in fact to bring about a revolutionary paradigm shift whereby the proper concerns, problems
and methods o f sociology w ill be entirely transformed. If, then, such an objective is to be
taken at all seriously, ethnomethodology and conventional sociology must stand opposed to
each other in a w ay that permits o f little indulgence: the intellectual credibility o f the one is
directly threatened by that o f the other. Thus, not surprisingly, the ethnomethodological
challenge has been met by counter-criticism o f a no less total kind, and also which is yet more
divisive w ith a refusal to respond to it which is in bad faith; that is, which represents a cal
culated strategy o f attempting to minimize its significance, and thus perhaps its effect, b y
systematically ignoring it.

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A crucial issue and one on which the present discussion w ill concentrate must therefore
be that o f whether or not the ethnomethodologists claim to have made, or at least to have
made imminent, a revolution in sociology is in fact a compelling one. I f it is, then a crisis
does indeed confront sociology: i f it is not, the situation is presumably the less dramatic and
more normal one in which the interest o f new thinking may be expected to lie as much in
complementarities and developments as in oppositions and disjunctions. A n evaluation made
on the basis o f the tw o volumes here considered must lead to the conclusion that it is the
latter, apparently less exciting, prospect that is to be thought the more likely: in other words,
to the conclusion that one need not accept that the objective o f a paradigm shift in sociology
has been achieved or even is in sight. However, provided one is not as captivated by fashionable
discontinuiste philosophies o f science as are the ethnomethodologists themselves, such a con
clusion in no w ay implies a rejection o f their position in toto. It is quite consistent with an ap
preciation o f the force o f certain methodological and theoretical arguments that are integral
to this position, and o f the possibilities for a significant expansion o f the field o f sociological
enquiry which these arguments would suggest. In what follows, an attempt is made to provide
the grounds for this particular critical stance.

II
Ethnomethodological criticism o f conventional sociology has as its major focus what are
taken to be the positivistic assumptions and practices upon which the latter rests. In regard to
such criticism, however, an important distinction needs to be made, and one which is in fact
acknowledged at the outset o f a valuable contribution by Thomas P. W ilson to the Douglas
collection (subsequently cited as D). That is, the distinction between (a) criticism o f methodo
logical and technical shortcomings in particular pieces or styles o f research, or o f conceptual
or logical weaknesses in particular theories criticism, in fact, o f a kind which might well come
from among conventional sociologists themselves; and (b) criticism o f a more fundamental
character aimed at calling into question all forms o f conventional sociology, no matter how
well, on their own terms, they may be conceived and executed. In the chapters in the Filmer
volum e (subsequently F) which have a primarily critical intent, this discrimination shown by
W ilson, and in effect by most o f Douglass collaborators, is unfortunately absent. Thus,
while the authors o f these chapters David W alsh and Michael Phillipson write in a highly
polemical tone, much o f what they have to say is o f very uncertain relevance to their pro
grammatic purposes. The main objection to w hich their contributions are open is not that some
o f the criticisms they advance are ill-conceived (although this is the case2), but rather that many
o f them could quite readily be accepted as valid and without damaging consequences by
adherents o f various positions other than the ethnomethodological one. The point that Walsh
and Phillipson seem not to appreciate is that i f conventional sociology is to be treated as a
residual category as including everything apart from ethnomethodology then in seeking
to maintain the claim that they have accomplished a paradigm shift, it will not do for ethno
methodologists to concentrate their critical attention on what would be quite widely regarded
as bad research practice, or on the writings o f Lundberg, Homans, the structural-functionalists
and systems theorists. W hat, rather, is crucial is that they should demonstrate ho w in principle
ethnomethodology differs radically from, and transcends, even those varieties o f conventional
sociology which w ould appear prirna facie to have most in common w ith it.
Thus, in the Douglas collection it is not accidental that D on H. Zimmerman co-authors
one paper (with D . Lawrence Wieder) which demurs at an attempt by Norm an Denzin to
represent ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism as convergent perspectives;3 and
another (with Melvin Pollner) which seeks to establish one quite general, defining charac
teristic o f conventional sociology and one b y reference to which ethnomethodology may

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be clearly set apart namely, the systematic confounding o f topic and resource. The thesis
that Zimmerman and Pollner here advance is also utilized b y W ilson and is at various points
alluded to by Walsh and Phillipson and their colleagues. It may in fact be considered as one
o f tw o lines o f argument which are o f a kind adequate to sustaining the revolutionary critique
and programme that ethnomethodologists would wish to launch, and to which therefore
ones attention must be chiefly directed.
In its essentials, the argument in question is the following. The ways in which conventional
sociologists define their problem areas (race relations, formal organization*, juvenile delin
quency etc.), collect their data (by interviews, use o f records, official statistics etc.) and seek
to explain what happens (through hypotheses and theories) all necessarily involve them, if
only through their use o f language, in drawing on a vast array o f everyday commonsense
meanings and understandings. These meanings and understandings, they assume, are ones
w hich they largely share w ith others their respondents, informants, collaborators, readers
or whoever; and such an assumption is obviously fundamental to their entire enterprise the
crucial resource for the social activity which is doing sociology*. Y e t this resource remains
quite unexplicated: it is simply taken for granted. Thus, the ironic situation arises that the
conventional sociologist proceeds with, as it were, a most remarkable and fascinating social
construction beneath his feet which alone sustains him yet which he does not notice or at
least leaves unexamined. The consequence is, then, that conventional sociology fails to attain
any significantly higher level o f theoretical awareness than that possessed b y the lay members
o f society themselves. W hile topic and resource remain so confounded, sociology can never
be more than an eminently folk* discipline.
This analysis o f the predicament o f sociology as normally practised is, as w ill be seen, open
to challenge in a number o f particular respects. Nonetheless, the most obvious response to
it is not to seek to deny its basic validity but rather to raise a simple question: so what? Such
a response is indeed one that Zimmerman and Pollner anticipate but this only underlines
their inability to produce replies which are adequate to their purposes. Although they imply
that it is in some w ay untoward that professional and lay sociology should be oriented to a
common fact domain, they appear to offer only one argument in direct support o f this v ie w :
that in so far as sociology is a folk discipline, it must be deprived o f any prospect or hope o f
making fundamental structures o f folk activity a phenomenon (D p. 82) which is true but
hardly devastating. W hat they do not counter is the contention that, even accepting all they
have said, one can still have good grounds for regarding conventional sociology as something
clearly more than just one folk construction among others. For example, even i f the data
collection activities in which the sociologist engages do not give him information that is
qualitatively different from that available to the actor in everyday life, they can, and do,
provide him w ith significantly more, and more reliable, information on the topics he investi
gates. And this in itself, as suggested below, may lead to greater theoretical awareness than is
available to lay members. Further, even i f sociological theories are addressed to essentially
the same sorts o f problems as are lay theories, there is still a far from trivial difference which
remains: namely, that the former theories, unlike the latter, must, in order to perform their
intended function, conform to certain standards o f logical consistency and exposure to empiri
cal test. Thus, when sociologists place the results o f their enquiries and their explanations in
competition with members accounts and seek to remedy* these, the basis on which they may
properly do so is not primarily as Zimmerman and Pollner seem to think a claim to greater
objectivity and freedom from bias. It is, rather, that they are able in this w ay to open up possi
bilities for discussion o f a better grounded and more consequential character.
M oreover, one may also throw back at Zimmerman and Pollner the question o f whether
any kind o f sociology can ever entirely escape dependence on commonsense meanings and
understandings. They are in fact themselves silent on this issue, but one may remark that
Douglas, in his introductory essay to his collection, offers the follow ing crucial qualification

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to the phenomenological stance (D p. 22):

It is im portant to note, h o w ever, that no m atter h o w far back one goes in further reducing (or bracketing)
o n es phen om en ological reductions , there in evitab ly com es a poin t at w h ich one either accepts total
solipsism and the im possibility o f k n o w in g anyth in g or grounds his th o u gh t in som e (presupposed)
com m onsensical experience .4

A similar acknowledgement, it may be added, is made by Silverman, although, curiously,

accorded only the status o f a footnote (F p. 172, n. 15):
S o c io lo g y is necessarily a fo lk discipline inasmuch as its discoveries are necessarily m ade fro m w ith in
society. In the act o f analysis, w e are forced to assume some features o f an order out there and thus to
draw up on our com m onsense k n o w le d ge o f social structure . . . .

O n e objects to m uch so cio lo gy,

then, n ot because it draws up on com m onsense k n o w led ge, but because it fails to exam ine h o w co m m o n
sense practices are used as a resource b y participants and observer.

For the purposes o f the present discussion, statements such as the foregoing are highly sig
nificant. For what they imply is that the argument about the confounding o f topic and resource
is far less decisive than it might at first appear. In effect, it comes down to the claim that
hitherto sociologists have been unduly complacent and unenquiring about the extent o f what
they take for granted in the various practical activities in which they engage. Such a claim
may be accepted as valid, as making a salutary critical point and as indicating an important
new area for sociological investigation but without being thereby taken as anything like a
sufficient basis for promulgating a sociological revolution. The problem Douglas raises
(D p. 22) o f just how far w e are to reduce our everyday experience revels clearly enough
that one is here concerned w ith what is eminently a question o f degree, and with one which
cannot be answered in general terms but only case by case, according to the nature o f the sociol
ogists interest.
The second major argument whereby it is attempted to show that ethnomethodology rep
resents a qualitative advance beyond conventional sociology is again one employed by several
contributors to the books under review, but which is best set out by Wilson. Briefly, it is
that the aspiration o f sociology to follow the deductive form o f explanation which is
characteristic o f the natural sciences is in fact blocked by fundamental problems o f the description
o f the phenomena w ith which sociology is concerned. The form o f explanation in question
logically requires that any assertion entering into it is a statement as opposed to an indexical
expression ; that is, is independent o f the occasions o f its use. It therefore follows that all
descriptions that are involved must be literal ones, having meanings that are context-free,
stable and intersubjectively verifiable. However, in the study o f social interaction it is not at
all apparent how such descriptions may be achieved.
In conventional sociology, it is held, the basic assumption is that in most contexts o f interac
tion there exists some shared, culturally-given set o f values and definitions, equally available
to participants and observers; and it is this assumption which is then exploited for descriptive
purposes. For example, the investigator identifies particular structures o f normative expec
tations and complexes o f subjective orientations, and then seeks to use these as variables
b y which observed patterns o f social behaviour can be specified and, under given conditions, ac
counted for in terms o f action. But, the ethnomethodologist would want to add, in proceeding
thus the conventional sociologist is forced to draw still further on his basic assumption, whether
w ittingly or not, in order to explain how in the first place actors actually recognize particular
situations and actions as, say, instances to which one set o f norms is appropriate rather than
another. W here stable interaction occurs, it must be supposed that different participants
discriminate situations and actions in much the same way, and that they do so because o f sub
stantial cognitive consensus among them, which presumably also derives from their common
socialization. Such a position is, however, a difficult one to support. It reduces actors to mere

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automata, programmed* by their culture; it goes against evidence that the same* norm or
role may be construed in widely differing ways by different actors; and it cannot do justice
to the fact that social interaction, even when sustained, is frequently experienced as highly
precarious. In other words, there does not seem to be here a convincing answer, or even ap
proach, to the fundamental question o f how social order comes about.
In contrast, the ethnomethodologists w ould themselves propose that social interaction should
be treated as always and in principle problematic. Stable interaction should be view ed not as
the more or less automatic product o f pre-existing, culturally established values and definitions,
but rather as a practical accomplishment o f the actors involved: specifically, as being created
through or, more exactly, as being presented in their interpretation and reinterpretation
o f each others actions within a particular context, which is in turn understood to be what
it is through these actions. Thus, shared meanings, rather than being cultural givens, are,
as W ilson puts it (D p. 69), formulated on particular occasions b y the participants in the
interaction and are subject to reformulation on subsequent occasions.* Correspondingly,
norms and roles are not to be seen as regulating conduct from without, as external constraints,
but as being o f significance only in so far as they are incorporated as elements in actors*
typifying, accounting and other interpretive procedures.
The methodological implications o f this position are then taken by its adherents as being
far reaching ones. I f social interaction is to be regarded as essentially an interpretive process,
there is no w ay o f treating observed behaviour and events as interaction and o f describing
its features, other than by seeking in some w ay to go beyond appearances* to the underlying
pattern o f intended meanings within a given context. W hether the investigator begins with
his ow n observations or w ith data from casual informants, interviewing programmes, written
records or whatever, he is compelled to go through some process o f Verstehen before he is
able to operate w ith notions o f action, interaction etc. In other words, the sociological analyst
o f interaction is in basically the same position as the lay participant in interaction: no meanings
are directly given to him but, rather, he must endow his data* w ith meaning via his own
interpretive practices. It follows, therefore, that the descriptions o f interaction which it is
possible for the sociologist to make must always be understood as interpretive descriptions
and not as literal ones. If the only w ay an observer can identify what actions have occurred
is through some form o f Verstehen, then his descriptions cannot be independent o f context,
nor stable, nor inter subjectively verifiable in any strong sense. T o quote W ilson again (p. 75):
...

[T]he observers classification o f the behaviour o f an actor o n a giv e n occasion in the course o f

interaction as an instance o f a particular typ e o f action is n ot based o n a lim ited set o f specifiable features
o f the beh aviou r and the occasion but, rather, depends o n the indefinite co n text seen as relevant b y the
observer, a con text that gets its m eaning partly th ro u gh the v e r y action it is bein g used to interpret.

Thus, as situations change, interpretations are subject to indefinite, possibly retroactive revision,
and the interpretations o f different individuals w ill necessarily agree only in so far as they
happen to succeed in negotiating a common social reality.
The upshot is, then, that in the ethnomethodological view , the tasks o f sociology cannot
be undertaken through methods characteristic o f the natural sciences. Because literal des
criptions are not possible, the study o f social interaction is not compatible w ith a commitment
to pursue deductive explanations. Acceptance o f this point, it is held, distinguishes ethnomethod
ology from conventional sociology, and at the same time indicates the decisive break which
the former has made with the established, positivistic presuppositions o f current sociological
work.
This argument may be regarded as a good deal more consequential than that relating to
the confounding o f topic and resource. It is not, however, so novel as some o f its exponents
would seem to think, being in fact but a modem variation on what is a very old theme.6
Moreover, because one is here on basically well-trodden ground, counter-arguments are

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not difficult to see, and ones which again point to the conclusion that ethnomethodology is
destined, willy-nilly, to be more a reformist than a revolutionary movement.
First, it may be pointed out that the strength o f the ethnomethodolgists* position depends
crucially upon an empirical issue which they appear not to have treated very seriously and,
perhaps, not always to have recognized. That is, the issue o f whether or not or, better,
how far social actors are programmed* by their culture, with the programme being then
directly accessible to the investigator. The ethnomethodologists refusal to accept sociological
theory which is viable only if actors are taken to be complete cultural dopes* is empirically
well justified; so too is their insistence on the crucial but neglected role o f cognitive processes
in social interaction. Nevertheless, this is not to say that similarly good grounds exist for their
contention that what W ilson labels the normative*, as opposed to the interpretative*, paradigm
for the study o f interaction is totally and invariably inoperable. In particular, one may question
the, largely implicit, claims: (i) that norms and roles are always and to an equal degree unspe
cific and subject to differential interpretation; and (ii) that in all situations alike an assumption
o f basic consensus on meanings and definitions will be equally inappropriate. One has only to
spell out such propositions for them to appear by no means self-evident but, on the contrary,
empirically plausible only where some degree o f ethnocentrism prevails.6 Certainly, it would
still seem open to suggest that in some situations the presuppositions o f the normative paradigm
will, as a matter o f fact, give a more or less adequate basis for analyses o f action in terms o f
variables* and via deductive explanations. And in any event, it may be held, where such pre
suppositions are not valid, then, w ith a properly formulated explanation, this w ill be auto
matically shown up by its weakness or failure. Conversely, to the extent that explanations
o f the kind in question are successful, the appropriateness o f the approach may be taken as
confirmed. The ultimate proof o f the pudding must be in the eating.7
Such a rejoinder to the ethnomethodologica! argument, it should be stressed, does not lead
one to deny that interpretive procedures are always involved in social interaction: it rejects
only the contention that the sociological analyst may never, to any extent, take these procedures
for granted. The force o f this point, one may add, is sufficient to again bring from Douglas
a significant concession. In modification o f Garfinkels emphasis on the awesome indexicality*
which characterizes interaction, Douglas explicitly accepts (D p. 42) that variability in the con
textual determination o f social meanings is normal in everyday life*. And, as he also notes,
recognition o f this variability is highly relevant to the debate over the use o f questionnaires
and interviews as data collection techniques. The real issue can in this w ay be seen to be that
o f the degree o f indexicality o f the questions asked and the answers given. In other words,
there would seem no basis, even in the ethnomethodological position itself, for a total rejection
o f such techniques. W hat is brought out is, rather, the importance o f the practical matter o f
deciding when questions and answers are so dependent upon the situation o f their use that the
data which are produced are too unreliable to be worth having.
A second counter-argument which may be deployed is o f a still more basic kind. The critique
o f the normative paradigm offered by Wilson and others (and, indeed, the ethnomethodologi
cal case as a whole) starts with the assertion that the specific concern o f sociology is with social
action and interaction. It is possible, though, simply to rebuff this claim on the grounds that
it imposes limits on the subject to which it has never conformed in the past and to which it
need not now restrict itself. Such a response might seem to turn the issue into the somewhat
futile one o f what is, and is not, to be called sociology. But it must be noted that the ethno
methodologists w ould want to question whether, ultimately, sociology could be about anything
other than social interaction; while, in opposition to them, it could be held that the study o f
interaction in vacuo, as it were, is not a viable intellectual undertaking. Thus, instead o f the
argument grinding to a halt, it is led into questions o f a quite fundamental in the end,
ontological kind, which should not be burked but seem, rather, deserving o f consideration
in their own right.

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III
Undergirding the several specific criticisms o f the practices o f conventional sociology
which ethnomethodologists advance, there is always, whether explicit or not, one quite general
and basic objection w hich it is essential to recognize: namely, that conventional sociology
proceeds on the unexamined assumption that a social w orld is there as a given, available
for study in essentially the same w ay as is the w orld o f natural phenomena; hence, the aim
o f sociological enquiry can be taken as that o f describing and explaining features o f this w orld,
o f showing what it is really like. W hat is important for the ethnomethodologist is precisely
that the assumption in question should not be made that the idea o f an independent social
reality should be abandoned, or at least suspended, and social phenomena be treated as real
only in so far as individuals* actions and interpretations routinely confirm them as such. In
other words, the social w orld is not to be regarded as a given, but as an everyday, practical
contrivance. W hat is there for the sociologist to study can thus be nothing else than the
procedures o f typifying, accounting and o f order construction* generally whereby this consti
tution o f social reality is actually brought off. A nd in turn, it is argued, this means that it is
only at the level at which such procedures are in operation the m icro level o f everyday
interaction that the sociologist can properly w ork; or, at all events, that there can be no
other macro level at which sociological enquiry can be conducted independently o f
an appreciation o f how , in everyday life, social reality is first produced.
It is in terms o f this argument that one must understand W alshs claim (F p. 34) that
sociological th eo ry . . . must start from the bottom and build up ; or Douglass contention
(D pp. 11-12) that, while macro-analysis should undoubtedly continue because o f its great
practical importance*, it should not as yet be regarded as scientific since it is not grounded
in the systematic observation o f concrete phenomena such observation being possible only
at the level o f inter-action, from which level a scientifically acceptable macro-sociology
(if it is ever achieved) w ill have to be developed. Moreover, equally dependent on this view o f
social reality is the contention that the concepts which the sociologist uses in his analyses must
always be derivable from those used by actors themselves; in other words, that there is no
possibility o f the sociologist being able to achieve a perspective on the social w orld which,
in relation to the standpoint o f the actors involved, might be radically corrective or revelatory.
As Phillipson puts it (F p. 87):
I f m en act o n the basis o f the m eanings th ey g iv e to their w o rld and the project o f so c io lo g y is to
understand m en s actions, then the m ost adequate sociological interpretations w ill be those that m inim ize
the rem edy o f those actions b y ensuring co n tin uity betw een their descriptions and the m ean in gfu l
actions to w h ich th ey relate.

Again, the ethnomethodological argument is not without force; but again too its shock
w ould seem more likely to have a bracing than a fatal effect upon the body o f established
sociology. This is so because the assumptions and arguments from w hich its further-reaching
implications stem are, once more, by no means so unassailable as their proponents suppose.
Throughout ethnomethodological writings there runs an uncertainty on crucial questions o f
ontology. A t some points as, say, when differences w ith symbolic interactionists are being
stressed, ethnomethodologists write as i f they accept a straightforward dualism: the physical
w orld is out there* and real, the w orld o f mental states is in here and real, but the social
w orld has no such autonomous existence. It does not exist, to quote Walsh, independently
o f the social meanings that its members use to account it and, hence, constitute it, and social
structure cannot refer to anything more than members everyday sense o f social structure
since it has no identity which is independent o f that sense*. (F p. 49, 54; cf. Zimmerman and
W ider, D pp. 293-4). h might appear, then, that a stricdy mentalist view is being adopted:
society is entirely in the mind and has to be understood as being what people think it is.
A t other points, however, where perhaps the spectre o f solipsism looms up, an attempt is

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clearly made to set out a rather more sophisticated position. For example, W alsh also tells
us (F p. 18) that Durkheim is not entirely mistaken in arguing for the objective (factual)
character o f the social w orld . . . but misconceives the source o f its facticity:
It is n ot that a real objective factual w o rld exists o u t there to w h ich the m embers o f society are subject
but that actors in the process o f apprehending this w o rld (that is, explaining it, defining it, perceiving it)
externalize and objectify it thro ugh the available m o d e b y w h ich apprehension can be articulated.
Prim arily this m od e is that o f natural language. Language, b y virtue o f the categories w h ich it makes
available for the interpretation o f the appearances o f the social w o rld , objectifies and externalizes that
w o rld for its m embers.

The confusion here displayed is recurrent in ethnomethodological w ork, even i f often

better concealed. Its origin lies, one may suggest, in what Karl Popper has called ontological
parsimony*. If, as W alsh argues, language externalizes and objectifies actors* explanations,
definitions and perceptions, and in this w ay constitutes the social world, then one may ask
w h y this w orld should not be regarded as being just as real, in its own fashion, as are the
physical and mental worlds. W hat, apparently, prevents ethnomethodologists from unam
biguously accepting it as such is that they do not see, perhaps do not wish to see, one important
point: that it is quite possible to treat the social world as they would wish as being produced
by actors in their interaction and as being factual for them only through their apprehension
o f it without being thereby constrained to hold that its reality can have no more than an
intersubjective character. (Cf. the remarks by Silverman, F pp. 167-8 or Douglas, D p. 27.)
The position is, rather, as Popper has recently argued8, that one may recognize, in addition
to the worlds o f physical and mental states, a third w orld o f the objective content of thought.
This can be taken as comprising all such entities as theories (scientific and lay), works o f art,
bodies o f law, established customs and convention in fact, any kind o f statement describing
anything or conveying any significant message or meaning; that is, one which entails another
or agrees or clashes w ith another. This w orld o f objective ideas or intelligibilia, is, Popper
emphasizes, a human product; but, he shows, it is mistaken to suppose that the entities within
it are no more than symbolic or linguistic expressions o f subjective mental states or o f dis
positions to act or, for that matter, means o f communication serving simply to evoke certain
mental states or dispositions to act in others. For the objective content o f ideas exists quite
independently o f anyone actually knowing it: as, say, in the case o f an unread book, an
undeciphered inscription or a forgotten mathematical problem.9
Thus, one may suggest, the ethnomethodologists could clarify their ontology greatly by
accepting that the study o f the social world, even when taken as defined in and through interac
tion, still involves entities which, while originating in mental states, have nonetheless their
own autonomous domain. However, the difficulty is that to do so would also mean their
accommodating certain other consequences o f the idea o f the third world* which would
not fit in so readily w ith their more polemical and revolutionary concerns.
In mapping their social universe and in explaining and accounting it, actors come into
contact w ith others w ith different social maps, and consequently, as the ethnomethodologists
rightly argue, a problem o f negotiating and bringing o ff some common definition o f social
reality is inherent to interaction. However, what it would seem necessary to add here is,
first, that the version o f reality which emerges from interaction like the outcome o f any
negotiation may w ell be an unintended (and possibly an unwelcome) one for some at least
o f the participants; and secondly, that, once produced, this negotiated version o f reality will,
like any other, have objective content capable o f existing independently o f the actors w ho
created it. Constructed* social orders are not like dreams in that they necessarily vanish once
they are no longer represented in individuals* mental states. In so far as they are externalized
in symbolic or linguistic form, they can live on autonomously. A law, a regulation, a customary
practice, a point o f etiquette exists as an intelligible even when it is in no ones mind. It is

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there, for example, to be possibly invoked and appealed to even i f variously construed in
precisely the processes o f accomplishing and demonstrating social order in which ethnometho
dologists profess to be centrally interested. It must then follow that such third world* entities
may properly be objects o f enquiry in, as it were, their own right apart, that is, from their
actual interpretation in social action and rather as the conditions of such action. In other words,
the claim that the subject matter o f sociology can be nothing other than social action is power
fully controverted.
Furthermore, ontological pluralism o f the kind Popper suggests directly prompts questions
concerning the relationships between the different worlds o f reality that are distinguished.
Popper himself has argued that the second world* that o f subjective experiences interacts
directly w ith both the first w orld o f physical states and w ith his third w orld, while the
first and third worlds are able to interact indirectly via the second. I f such a position is accepted,
the implications for the analysis o f interaction are considerable. M ost obviously, it means
recognizing that as well as third world* conditions o f action o f the kind just suggested, there
are first w orld ones also ones deriving from the fact that actors have bodies upon which
action is in various ways dependent, and are thus subject to limitations imposed by the physical
environment. It is true that the physical w orld can directly influence the course o f social action
only as it is mediated through perception and interpretation. Nevertheless, such issues as whether
or not interaction is possible or actually occurs, w ho participates in it, and what its outcomes
are (in relation, say, to actors purposes) are all ones to which physical aspects of, for example,
ecological, demographic and technological conditions are highly relevant as either constraints
or facilities. Such conditions must, o f course, themselves be seen as being at some juncture
determined or determinable in some degree by social action. B ut this is not to say that their
effects in relation to social action w ill then, any more than those o f third w orld entities,
be always intended ones. N o r again need it be the case that those whose actions are thus con
ditioned w ill know how this happens, or even that it happens at all.
In short, the point is that processes o f interaction between different domains o f reality are
typically complex, and w ill frequently be opaque to actors in their everyday lives: consider
the processes involved in, for example, such phenomena as inflation, occupational mobility
or residential segregation. But many problems which are thus posed have always been o f
interest to sociologists and would still appear entirely legitimate. O ne may agree w ith W ilson
(D p. 58) when he claims that the central* concern o f sociology is w ith social action, but still
observe that central* is not the same as total, and further that issues such as those raised in
the previous paragraph, while crucial to the study o f action, obviously cannot be understood
simply in terms o f action. In treating such issues ones o f the conditions o f action the inves
tigation, from a sociological standpoint, o f a variety o f non-meaningful phenomena w ould
seem very likely to be called for.10
Finally, it may be maintained that where series o f unintended consequences flow from the
interplay between a multiplicity o f intended actions and their conditioning context, the
opacity which results w ill be penetrated, if at all, only b y methods o f enquiry and concep
tualization which go clearly beyond those o f lay members in everyday life. It is likely that
information w ill need to be collected on a scale or over a time period which w ould simply
not be practical possibilities in everyday life; and that concepts w ill need to be formed that
have little or no connection w ith those embodied in everyday descriptions and accounts.
For example, concepts such as those o f demand pull* and cost push inflation or o f structural
and exchange* occupational mobility are not as W alsh asserts all sociological constructs
must necessarily be (F p. 18) second order constructs; that is, constructs o f constructs
made by the actors on the social scene*. Nonetheless, they are ones o f some demonstrable
heuristic and explanatory value, and there seems no good reason w h y there should be any
self-denying ordinance against their use.11 Moreover, it w ould appear evident that in certain
contexts, that is, in regard to certain problems, such concepts could be corrective and revelatory

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in relation to lay members understandings, and be accepted by members as such on rational

grounds. O ne returns, thus, to the point previously made that sociology can claim to be more
than merely one folk construction among others while being also distinguished b y the fact
that its privileged position requires that whatever it offers as knowledge must be publicly
available and always exposed to criticism, test and improvement.12
IV
In the foregoing, a number o f considerations have been advanced against the militant
ethnomethodological view that the procedures o f conventional sociology (understood as a
residual category) are fundamentally flawed, and that ethnomethodology itself represents a
paradigm shift* whereby a more valid definition o f the proper concerns and objectives o f
sociological enquiry has been achieved. In conclusion, however, the argument that ethno
methodology is unlikely to have a revolutionary impact may be taken into its exponents own
camp by examining a crucial point o f division, or at least o f uncertainty, which their writings
display but which they do not appear to have fully appreciated.
The point relates to the basic or interpretive rules o f everyday interaction which play
a central part in the ethnomethodological approach as the criteria or principles by reference to
which members present and consider accounts as being rational and coherent, and, to this
end, invoke such surface rules as formal regulations, customs, conventions and the like.
Critics o f ethnomethodology, such as Dreitzel and Gouldner, have asked: W hat are these
rules? and W here do they come from?.13 T o the second question, the standard reply would
seem to be that one is rather misguided to ask, but what is more relevant and revealing is
that such a reply may be offered on tw o quite different bases, which in turn im ply different
answers to the first question. The crucial distinction is that between treating the basic rules
as having substantive content or treating them as rules o f interpretive procedure. W hich alter
native is adopted appears all-important for the nature o f ethnomethodological enquiry;
but, it may be held, in either case problems arise for programmatic statements o f the kind
earlier noted. If the former position is taken, then it is hard to see how ethnomethodologys
declaration o f independence from conventional sociology can be sustained; if the latter, then
serious contradictions become apparent within ethnomethodological writing on concept
formation, appropriate explanatory paradigms and the like.
Filmer, for example, appears to understand the basic rules o f interaction as having substantive
significance as, in Cicourels phrase, providing a sense o f social structure . Thus, Filmer
remarks that from a Parsonian standpoint such rules would have to be found in the deeply
internalized, fundamental, common norms and values embodying the deterministic, limiting
conditions within which ordered social interaction is possible. (F p. 228). However, in opposi
tion to this view , he contends that these rules are only established as what they are by their
actual ability in organizing the settings o f everyday actions which ability is in turn demon
strated only by the rationality and coherence o f the accounts that members give. Thus, the
rules come from* nowhere other than the occasions o f their use. As Filmer puts it (F p. 227):
th ey are generated w ith in the activities w h ich th e y organize. Th is is the reflexive and incarnate*
character o f the rules w h ich Garfinkel repeatedly emphasises as an awesom e and remarkable phenom
enon.

The most obvious difficulty w ith this reply lies in the fact that it raises another aspect o f
the empirical question already noted: that o f just how far meanings and definitions in inter
action are situationally determined and are thus only analysable in context*. For to say as
Filmer does (ibid.) that the argument he presents has been demonstrated quite explicitly
by Garfinkel simply w ill not do. As Garfinkel himself has wisely acknowledged, his
demonstrations in this connection are to be taken as no more than illustrative examples o f
his thesis, and not as providing findings which can effectively substantiate it.14 Furthermore,

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as already observed, Douglas, for one, is prepared to accept, in opposition to Garfinkel, the
far more plausible view that situational determination is variable in its extent; and what must
here be stressed is that in so doing he also accepts, willy-nilly, the dependence o f ethnomethodo
logical concerns on w hat must be the outcome o f other forms o f sociological enquiry. Douglas
argues (D p. 39) that
[A ] preponderant focus o n contextual effects tends to distort the realities o f eve ry d a y life . . . . A fte r
all, absolutist (non-situational or non-contextual) th o u gh t is n o t the creation o f som e m ad scientist.

Absolutist thought is afundamental part of Western thought of moral thought and rational thought.
He then goes on to remark how both moral absolutism (It is a matter o f principle, I have
no choice) and rational absolutism (scientific method, technical rationality) can, and do,
provide important rules o f action which are o f a clearly situation-transcending kind. Thus,
it must follow from Douglases stance that third w orld entities are integrally involved in
the study o f social interaction. Rules o f action such as moral or zweckrational imperatives
can serve to structure particular situations for participants while existing independently o f
those situations; they are intelligible, and have to be understood, as cultural that is, third
w orld phenomena quite apart from the occasions o f their use .
Moreover, to the extent that the rules by reference to which reality-construction proceeds
are taken as substantive but, to quote Dreitzel, as not necessarily a free product o f the sub
jectivity o f members in search for meaning,15 a further pertinent question can be posed:
W hat, then, are the extra-situational influences that help determine what the rules say,
and w hy, in a given situation, the reality which is negotiated comes out the w ay it does and
not otherwise? T o enquire thus is, o f course, to raise matters o f social advantage and power,
and is in fact to pinpoint other major difficulties in any purely situational approach to inter
action. For instance, it is not simply that ethnomethodologists neglect questions o f how certain
individuals come to be in certain situations in the first place; they also fail to enquire how ,
underlying the communicative behaviour that goes on, situations may also be structured
by the differential control over resources, economic, political and symbolic, which participants
bring to their interaction.16 A nd what is further remarkable is that they pay little attention
either to the ways now increasingly explored in which language and associated cognitive
processes may be themselves conditioned by existing social relations o f advantage and power,
with important implications for just what sense o f social structure the members o f different
groups and strata come to acquire.17 Thus, the point is again underlined that ethnomethodo
logical enquiry, understood in the manner in question, is incomplete in itself and not in
tellectually viable in isolation from other, more traditional, sociological concerns.
It is perhaps as a means o f avoiding this charge that the alternative position on basic rules
o f interaction that they are to be taken as ones o f interpretive procedure gains its greatest
attraction for ethnomethodologists. For example, in the tw o contributions to the Douglas
collection co-authored by Zimmerman, the case for the separateness o f ethnomethodology
from conventional sociology is closely linked with an insistence on the fact that instead o f
an ethnography that inventories a settings distinctive, substantive features, the research
vehicle envisioned here is a methodography. . . that searches for the practices through which
those substantive features are made observable. (Zimmerman and Pollner, D p. 95). The key
assumption is that these practices display invariant properties {ibid.) or as least ones o f immense
generality (p. 99), and the discovery o f the basic rules o f interaction understood in this sense
is then seen as the chief objective o f ethnomethodology. Thus, its concerns and those o f con
ventional sociology may readily be represented as quite distinct, and, rather than the former
having any dependence on the latter, the ethnomethodological perspective, it can be said,
demands treating as problematic what in lay and professional sociological investigations alike
is treated as a stable and unquestioned point o f departure. (p. 103).

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O ne not unreasonable reaction to this position w ould be to ask what empirical or theoretical
grounds exist for believing that other than trivial features o f social interaction are invariant
to culture and can then constitute a subject matter for ethnomethodology thus conceived.
H owever, for present purposes, attention may be directed to another problem. I f ethnomethodo
logical enquiry is to focus on interpretive practices o f the kind in question, then this would
seem to undermine, or at least confuse, the critique o f the philosophy and procedures o f
conventional sociology that ethnomethodologists have offered and the alternatives they have
proposed. It should be evident, for example, that ethnomethodology, so oriented, could
not itself utilise the interpretive paradigm* as advanced, say, by Wilson. For as Zimmerman
and W ieder make explicit (D p. 294), in their understanding o f ethnomethodology the interest
in the documentary method* o f interpretation or, one could add, in any form o f Verstehen
is not in it as our method, but as a method that members use in discovering and portraying
orderly and connected events.* (italics added). In other words, they see, apparently more
clearly than does W ilson himself (cf. D p. 78 and n. 32) that i f interpretive practices are to
be opened up as a topic for investigation, then interpretive methods can scarcely provide
the appropriate means for so doing.
But what kind o f method, one might then ask, would be appropriate? O n this question
one may find in ethnomethodological writing a frank recognition o f a problem still largely
to be resolved. However, the important point is that there seems no reason at all w hy whatever
method is ultimately developed should conform to precepts o f the kind that are, for example,
reiterated throughout the Filmer volume that actors* definitions o f the situation should be
paramount, that the remedying o f actors accounts should be minimal, that the investigators
constructs should be no more than constructs o f actors constructs, and so on. O n the contrary,
it would seem most probable that any description and, especially, any explanation o f invariant
features o f interaction w ill need to be through language other than that o f the everyday actor,
and in terms which w ill be decidedly revelatory to him. Quite conceivably, too, the investi
gation could lead i f it led anywhere at all not only out o f the field o f sociology itself but
out o f that o f the social and human sciences generally and into, say, ethology or neuro-physiology. A t very least, one could say that i f ethnomethodology, understood in the manner in
question, were to produce new foundations for sociology, these w ould appear far less likely
to be o f a phenomenological* than o f a quite strictly positivistic* kind.
That divergent and seemingly conflicting positions should be found among those w ho call
themselves ethnomethodologists would be o f little consequence were the latter more ready
to acknowledge the still highly inchoate nature o f the ideas and arguments which they present.
But such a lack o f consistency and clarity in viewpoint must make all talk o f a paradigm shift
seem quite absurdly pretentious. In any event, ethnomethodologists would do well to remem
ber that revolutions o f this kind are best discerned after indeed, long after the fact o f their
occurrence; to proclaim one in the making is in itself to incite disbelief.

Notes
1. See, for example, Harold Garfinkel and Harvey Sacks, O n Formal Structures o f Prac
tical Actions in John C . M cKinney and Edward A . Tiryakian (eds.) Theoretical Sociology:
Perspectives and Development, N e w Y o rk: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970, pp. 345-6 esp.
In contrast, the w ork o f Cicourel, which was less deliberately distanced from conventional
sociology, was explicitly intended to challenge, and revise, certain o f its basic presupposi
tions. See A . V . Cicourel, Method and Measurement in Sociology, Glencoe: Free Press, 1964.
2. For example, the discussions by Walsh o f variable analysis (pp. 41-55) and by Phillipson
o f quantification (pp. 97-100) are alike inadequate in that they are written without any
attempt to take into account the contributions made by measurement theorists over the
last half century or more.

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3. In contrast, in the Filmer volum e there is remarkably little discussion o f symbolic interactionism, and the attitude displayed towards it is uncertain (cf. pp. 20, 48-9, 127).
4. I have corrected Douglass mis-spelling here as throughout o f solipsism . The error
is w orrying in that it suggests ignorance o f the w ords etym ology w hich happens, in
this case, to be a good guide to its meaning.
5. Most obviously, o f course, on that central to the great debate in late nineteenth and earlier
twentieth century Germany on the comparative methodologies o f Natur- and Geisteswissenschqften.
6. As an example o f such ethnocentrism, see Cicourels discussion o f the situation o f the
new faculty member in his Basic and Norm ative Rules in the Negotiation o f Status
and Role in Hans Peter Dreitzel (ed.) Patterns o f Communicative Behaviour, London:
Collier-M acM illan, 1970, pp. 10-12. This actors dilemmas strike one as very American
and contemporary: they w ould scarcely have arisen in, say, M ax W ebers Heidelberg.
It should, however, be added here that Cicourels w ork on the cognitive aspects o f social
interaction and structure (continued in his paper in the Douglas collection) represents
by far the most important contribution to sociological theory to have thus far emerged
from the ethnomethodological movement*.
7. It is, for example, possible to think o f such explanations as embodying, in addition to
a sociological theory, a theory also o f the measurement o f meaning. I f the latter fails,
then so too does the former; whereas to the extent that the latter holds up, then the former
can be judged on, as it were, its own sociological merits. I am endebted to m y colleague
Anthony Heath for drawing m y attention to this argument. C f. Blalocks discussion
o f auxiliary theories in his paper The Measurement Problem: A Gap between the Lan
guages o f Theory and Research in Hubert M . and Ann B . Blalock (eds.) Methodology
in Social Research, N e w Y o rk : M cGraw-Hill, 1968, pp. 23-27 esp.
8. K . R. Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, O xford: Clarendon Press,
1972, chs. 3 and 4 esp. For a useful discussion o f some implications o f Poppers ideas in
this respect for the philosophy o f the social sciences, see I. C . Jarvie, Concepts and Society,
London: Routledge, 1972, chs. 2, 5 and 6 esp. Jarvies indication o f the, in part, convergent
perspectives o f Popper and Schiitz is o f particular interest.
9. Indeed, it may be asserted that only some fraction o f all that knowing subjects could
potentially know about third w orld entities w ill in fact ever be known, despite these
entities being human constructions w ith no origins other than in human creativity. T o
take Poppers striking example, the system o f natural numbers may be regarded as a
human invention; yet it can be shown that there are infinitely many problems in the
arithmetic o f integers, and thus an indefinite number o f discoveries about the system to
be made. See Objective Knowledge, pp. 118-9, 161.
10. It is in this connection, moreover, that quantitative data o f a relatively macro* character
may be especially important. Ethnomethodological criticism o f such data (cf. Douglas,
D p. 6) fails because it is no more than an unjustified extension o f an argument that is
cogent only in regard to moral statistics or, more generally, the statistics o f social actions;
i.e. data in the constitution o f which interpretive judgments about actors motives and
intentions are necessarily involved, and the idea o f a true rate thus becomes problematic.
11. It may be noted that Schiitz, w hom Walsh and his colleagues obviously take as a major
source o f inspiration, is quite explicit that much o f value may be achieved in the social
sciences without introducing concepts that refer in any w ay to the actor and his subjective
point o f view provided that the investigator working in this w ay keeps in mind what
he is about and does not shift levels*. In other words, the important postulate is that o f
the purity o f method : choose the problem you are interested in, consider its limits and
possibilities, make its terms compatible and consistent w ith one another, and having
11(12 pp.)

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12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

17.

REVI EW A R T I C L E

once accepted it, stick to i t ! Alfred Schiitz, The Social W orld and the Theory o f Social
Action* in Collected Papers, vol. II, The Hague: Martinus NijhofF, 1964, pp. 6-8.
C f. Jarvie, Concepts and Society, pp. 170-2.
See Dreitzels Introduction to the volume cited in n. 6, above, pp. x v et seq.; and A lvin
Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology, London: Heinemann, 1971, pp. 390-95.
See his Studies o f the Routine Grounds o f Everyday Activities, Social Problems, vo l.11,
no. 3, W inter, 1974.
Introduction, p. xvii.
Compare in this respect the far more sophisticated treatment o f the processes w hereby
symbolic universes are maintained and controlled that is found in the phenomenological
sociology o f Berger and Luckmann. See Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The
Social Construction of Reality, London: Allen Lane, 1967, Part T w o , ch. 2 esp. N ote also
the remarks by Dreitzel, Introduction, pp. x v -x v i.
For a useful, if tendentious, review o f some o f the main issues, see Claus Mueller, Notes
on the Repression o f Communicative Behaviour in Dreitzel, Patterns o f Communicative
Behaviour. Especially relevant to this problem area, as Mueller recognizes, is the w ork
o f Basil Bernstein and his associates (see the papers collected in his Class, Codes and Control,
vol. I, London: Routledge, 1971 and vol. 2, 1973). Y e t neither o f the volumes under
review contains a single reference to Bernstein.

Biographical note: J o h n H. G o l d t h o r p e , bom 1935. B .A . London 1956; M .A . Cambridge

i960; Research Fellow, University o f Leicester 1957-60; Fellow, K in gs College, Cambridge
1960-69; Official Fellow, Nuffield College, O xford 1969-; Editor Sociology 1969-72.