Robert Merton is an important figure in early 20th century sociology, an era in which sociology is devoted to creating a positive science of society. He is a student of Talcott Parsons, and reflects that drive to positivism. Merton is strongly influenced by Parsons’s theory of society as a functionally integrated system of specialized systems.1
Merton also turns to a sociology of science. He sees science as a specialized kind of social institution within a larger social system and one characterized by a certain degree of autonomy, governed by its own internal normative order (Merton [1942] 1973). Unlike many other sociologists of science who came in his wake Merton is committed to the idea that science is a distinctive historical innovation. In this respect, his argument about science is similar to Weber’s thesis about the origins of capitalism in Europe. Just as Weber argued that certain cultural values—formed at a specific point in European history and institutionalized in Protestant Christianity—laid the groundwork for capitalism, Merton also argues that a cluster of social norms and values create the preconditions for institutionally specialized scientific inquiry, ideally a pursuit that is value-free and independent of other social forces.
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Interestingly, and a testament to his influence, Merton’s ideas are so wide-ranging that some of his coinages have become catchphrases, like “role model” and “self-fulfilling prophecy.”↩︎