ABSTRACT
This chapter examines ways of describing spatial and temporal regularities in the coincidence of physical and/or psychical behaviors of two or more organisms. It tries to systematize the way sociological analysts who adhere to natural science assumptions and procedures conceptualize spatial and temporal regularities in social phenomena–independently of how the participants in those social phenomena conceptualize these regularities, and independently of how such analysts conceptualize the latter conceptualizations. The chapter considers some of the ways that sociology treats, first, regularities in temporal regularities (i.e., social change and stability), and then regularities in spatial regularities (i.e., social spacing). Although the empirical independence of spatial regularities and temporal regularities was affirmed, parallels between the concepts used to describe six dimensions of both kinds of regularities were proposed. The chapter discusses end-to-end linkages, overlays, and hierarchic structure as ways of combining different time-paths or different spatial-patterns, and then discusses combinations of time-paths and spatial-patterns.
