A history of future's past: Recovering and using British sociology's lost biological roots

As even a casual glance at recent sociology literature reveals, the methods, scope, and aims of the field are currently the subjects of much debate. While these discussions touch on a wide range of themes, from the perceived need for a “Neo-Darwinian” paradigm to the obstacles confronting empirical investigation, a significant feature has been a renewed interest in sociology’s history. Yet far from being a form of parochial antiquarianism, this interest has been driven by a belief that reconnecting with often forgotten aspects of sociology’s past can play an important part in shaping its future.

This paper contributes to these discussions by exploring an episode that has proved particularly controversial in recent debates about the origins of British sociology: the decision to make L. T. Hobhouse the UK’s first professor of sociology and the editor of its first sociology journal, The Sociological Review, in 1907.

The paper explores this subject with three main aims. The first is to highlight how British sociology was founded on a debate that speaks to one of the major concerns in contemporary social science: the challenge from biology. The second is to present the very different visions of the biology-sociology relationship that were offered to British sociologists by Hobhouse and his rivals. The third is to consider how the historian’s skill in reconstructing debates such as the one about biology in early British sociology might aid sociologists’ efforts to utilise the past. In so doing, the paper not only charts a seldom-told history but also suggests ways that historians and sociologists might cooperate at a time when the value of their work is increasingly being questioned.       

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