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Across disciplines, critical thinking is praised, taught, and put into practice. But what does it actually mean to think critically? In this brief volume, sociologist Joel Best examines how to evaluate arguments and the evidence used to support them as he hones in on how to think in the field of sociology and beyond. With inimitable style that melds ethnographic verve with dry humor, Best examines the ways in which sociologists engage in fuzzy thinking through bias, faddish cultural waves, spurious reasoning, and implicit bias. The short chapters cover: A general introduction to critical thinking and logic in the social sciencesSociology as an enterpriseKey issues in thinking critically about sociological researchChallenging questions that confront sociologists and a call for the discipline to meet those challenges. Students across disciplines will learn the building blocks of critical thinking in a sociological context and come away with key concepts to put into practice.

Neil J. Smelser, one of the most important and influential American sociologists, traces the discipline of sociology from 1969 to the early twenty-first century in Getting Sociology Right: A Half-Century of Reflections. Examining sociology as a vocation and building on the work of Talcott Parsons, Smelser discusses his views on the discipline of sociology and shows how his perspective of the field evolved in the postwar era.

Teacher, scholar, and leader, Neil Smelser stands as an iconic figure in sociology in the second half of the twentieth century. The essays in this volume, written by prominent scholars from all walks of the social sciences, reveal the range and depth of Smelser's influence—and his substantial contributions to diverse fields such as British history, social change, collective behavior, higher education, the economy, and psychoanalysis. Contributors: Jeffrey C. Alexander, Nancy J. Chodorow, Burton R. Clark, Yiannis Gabriel, Arlie Russell Hochschild, James M. Jasper, Christian Joppke, Alberto Martinelli, Gary T. Marx, Lyn Spillman, Piotr Sztompka, R. Stephen Warner, Christine L. Williams, Robert Wuthnow, Viviana A. Zelizer

This title reexamines and reconsiders the model of empirical research underlying most empirical work. The goal is neither a whitewash nor capital punishment, but rather it is to reform and mold empirical research into an activity that contributes as much as possible to a rigorous understanding of society. Without worrying about defining science or even determining the essence of the scientific enterprise, the goal is one that pools together logical thinking and empirically determined information. One of the fundamental issues to be addressed in this volume: Are there questions currently studied that are basically unanswerable even if the investigator had ideal nonexperimental data? If so, what are the alternative questions that can be dealt with successfully by empirical social research, and how should they be approached? In the chapters ahead, it will be important to keep in mind this doctrine of the undoable. Of course, one cannot simply mutter'undoable'when a difficult obstacle is encountered, turn off the computer, and look in the want ads for a new job—or at least a new task. Instead, it means considering if there is some inherent logical reason or sociological force that makes certain empirical questions unanswerable. There are four types of undoable questions to consider: those that are inherently impossible; those that are premature; those that are overly complicated; and those that empirical and theoretical knowledge have nullified.