It is easy to accept Freud as an applied scientist, and, indeed, he is

It is easy to accept Freud as an applied scientist, and, indeed, he is widely regarded as the twentieth century’s master clinician. However, in viewing Marx as an applied social scientist the stance needed is that of a Machiavellian operationalism. The objective is neither to bury nor to praise him. The assumption is simply that he is better understood for being understood as an applied sociologist. This is in part the clear implication of Marx’s Theses on Feurbach, which culminate in the resounding 11th thesis: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the point, however, is to change it.” This would seem to be the tacit creed of applied scientists everywhere.

Marx was no Faustian, concerned solely with understanding society, but a Promethean who sought to understand it well enough to influence and to change it. He was centrally concerned with the social problems of a lay group, the proletariat, and there can be little doubt that his work is motivated by an effort to reduce their suffering, as he saw it. His diagnosis was that their increasing misery and alienation engendered endemic class struggle; his prognosis claimed that this would culminate in revolution; his therapeutic prescription was class consciousness and active struggle.

Here, as in assessing Durkheim or Freud, the issue is not whether this analysis is empirically correct or scientifically adequate. Furthermore, whether or not this formulation seems to eviscerate Marx’s revolutionary core, as critics on the left may charge, or whether the formulation provides Marx with a new veneer of academic respectability, as critics on the right may allege, is entirely irrelevant from the present standpoint. Insofar as Marx’s or any other social scientist’s work conforms to a generalized model of applied social science, insofar as it is professionally oriented to the values and social problems of laymen in his society, he may be treated as an applied social scientist.

Despite Durkeim’s intellectualistic proclivities and rationalistic pathos, he was too much the product of European turbulence to turn his back on the travail of his culture. “Why strive for knowledge of reality, if this knowledge cannot aid us in life,” he asked. “Social science,” he said, “can provide us with rules of action for the future.” Durkheim, like Marx, conceived of science as an agency of social action, and like him was professionally oriented to the values and problems of laymen in his society. Unless one sees that Durkheim was in some part an applied social scientist, it is impossible to understand why he concludes his monumental study of Suicide with a chapter on “Practical Consequences,” and why, in the Division of Labor, he proposes a specific remedy.

1. Which of the following best describes the author’s conception of an applied social scientist?

(A) A professional who listens to people’s problems
(B) A professional who seeks social action and change
(C) A student of society
(D) A proponent of class struggle
(E) A philosopher who interprets the world in a unique way

2. According to the author, which of the following did Marx and Durkheim have in common?

(A) A belief in the importance of class struggle
(B) A desire to create a system of social organization
(C) An interest in penology
(D) Regard for the practical applications of science
(E) A sense of the political organization of society

3. It may be inferred from the passage that the applied social scientist might be interested in all of the following subjects except

(A) the theory of mechanics
(B) how to make workers more efficient
(C) rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents
(D) reduction of social tensions
(E) industrial safety

4. Which of the following best summarizes the author’s main point?

(A) Marx and Durkheim were similar in their ideas.
(B) Freud, Marx, and Durkheim were all social scientists.
(C) Philosophers, among others, who are regarded as theoreticians can also be regarded as empiricists.
(D) Marx and Durkheim were applied social scientists because they were concerned with the solution of social problems.
(E) Pure and applied sciences have fundamentally similar objectives.