ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that there is a good methodological reason why social science theory has not added up in the same productive manner that theory has grown in the natural sciences. It suggests that interdisciplinary research is best pursued by attacking contiguous analytical problems. This approach involves defining analytical problems that lie close together and yet retain a significant individual identity. Systematic theories about social organization have historically been focused on the analysis of whole societies. The chapter reveals the many-faceted ways in which geography is linked through contiguous-problem analysis with the social sciences. The analysis of social stratification has severely suffered because sociologists have never recognized the significance of job evaluation, as developed by personnel specialists, for the stratification of occupations. The chapter concludes that interdisciplinariness, when focused upon a common analytical problem, will produce no better results than if a single discipline had zeroed in on the same problem with its substantial professional talents.
