| I begin by setting out a methodological dispute concerning the respective roles of recursive causation and contingent history in the development of the social sciences, and suggest that greater attention to the comparative analysis of forms of intellectual practice may contribute to a resolution of this dispute. In Canada, early institutional and structural analysis by sociologists focussed on the disciplinary separations that occurred in the 1960s, and was later rationalized with Robert Brym's prehistory model. Detailed investigations in intellectual history, however, showed the coherence of social science practice in the interwar period, and A.B. McKillop's humanist model represents a robust alternative. Using representative faculty members, I examine the form that interwar social science took at the University of Toronto, and conclude that it is a good match for the McKillop model. The practice of interwar social science in Nova Scotia, however, has other salient features, and I elaborate an alternative model of social economics that appears to be a better match for the historical practice in Nova Scotia. I conclude that this kind of analysis offers some prospect for advancing a resolution of the underlying methodological dispute. |
