Eureka!

This chapter examines what we gain by disregarding the richly textured singularity of the particular by discussing the theoretico-methodological danger of “undergeneralizing,” particularly given the compartmentalization of modern academic knowledge, which impedes intellectual cross-fertilization. It also reminds us that only by decontextualizing our findings can we mentally distill generic social patterns from the specific social contexts in which we encounter them—patterns we would have actually missed had we focused on the distinctness of those contexts. The chapter then explores the way analogical reasoning helps scholarly discovery. Differences, after all, are often merely superficial, and using analogies to “dive” beneath the surface helps reveal what is otherwise “invisible.” Only by disregarding “surface” differences between seemingly disparate instantiations of what is indeed the very same generic social pattern can we uncover their fundamental transcontextual commonalities.

Exampling

This chapter examines the theoretico-methodological practice of “exampling.” After all, in concept-driven sociology, examples are the data, assuming the form of specific empirical illustrations of generic patterns. By using concrete “cases” yet disregarding their singularity, concept-driven researchers can empirically instantiate those abstract, initially difficult-to-grasp patterns. As this chapter demonstrates, a generic sociology calls for multicontextual data. In order to identify generic, transcontextual social patterns, one needs to encounter them in multiple social contexts, and the wider the range of contexts in which one collects one’s data, the more generalizable the patterns they reveal. Such contextual diversity is manifested multi-culturally (drawing on examples from diverse cultural contexts), multihistorically (using data from a wide range of historical periods), multisituationally (drawing on examples from diverse social “domains”), as well as at multiple levels of social aggregation (effectively disregarding scale).

Analogizing

Multicontextual exampling implies a comparative perspective. Yet while comparativists conventionally emphasize cross-contextual variability, generic sociologists try to reveal cross-contextual commonality. Given its transcontextual agenda, it is the quest to uncover formal “parallels” between substantively disparate phenomena that characterizes generic sociology. In sharp contrast to sociologists’ conventional tendency to highlight differences between substantively disparate situations, it regards the latter as but various manifestations of the same transcontextual pattern. While diversifying the contexts in which they collect their data, generic sociologists thus try to identify common formal patterns across substantively diverse contexts. This chapter examines the mental process by which we uncover formal “parallels” across seemingly disparate contexts, namely analogizing. When analogizing, one disregards conventionally noted substantive differences in order to notice conventionally disregarded formal equivalences. The chapter features the four main types of cross-contextual analogies (cross-cultural, cross-historical, cross-domain, and cross-level) generic sociologists use in their analyses.

Generalizing

A theory presupposes an effort to apply it to more than just a specific situation, and “theoretical” statements are thereby supposed to be generalizable. Social theorizing thus involves a “generic” outlook on social life distinctly characterized by its conscious disregard for specificity. Instead of studying specific groups, situations, and events, theorizers thus try to transcend their singularity. Focusing their attention on the generic rather than the specific, they actually study genericized “types” of groups, situations, and events in an effort to reveal general patterns that are practically “invisible” to those who only study the specific. This chapter examines theorizers’ epistemic endeavor to “distill” such generic social patterns from the specific contexts in which they actually encounter them, effectively detaching them from their specific cultural, historical, and situational instantiations and introducing a “generic sociology” that is pronouncedly transcontextual (transcultural, transhistorical, as well as transsituational) in its scope.

Focusing

Defying the conventional artificial split between “theory” and “methodology” and treating them as inseparable, this chapter introduces a yet unarticulated “concept-driven” method of theorizing that helps sociologists identify and analyze social patterns. It emphasizes the significant role of “sensitizing concepts” that, like magnets, “attract” empirical data to researchers’ minds by sensitizing their awareness to many they would have most likely overlooked otherwise. This concept-driven way of conducting research sharply contrasts with the way sociologists are conventionally trained to approach their objects of study by insisting that they commit to a particular conceptual focus (rather than a particular statistical sampling procedure, as in survey research, “field,” as in ethnographic research, or period, as in historical research) and thereby remain rigorously “focused.” It is such conceptual foci, indeed, that drive the empirical part of their research.