ABSTRACT
Facts, concepts and theories are bound up with each other as part of the cloth of sociological investigation. The accumulation of social facts in twentieth-century industrial society is a major undertaking. Analysis of the role of concepts in empirical social research remains to a very considerable extent underdeveloped, both a symptom and a cause of the gulf which continues to separate sociological theory from sociological research. Many of the theoretical concepts which sociologists use – social class, social cohesion, religious belief, bureaucratisation, power – are complex, intricate and rich in meaning. An over-narrow conception of 'problem' may possibly have restricted the past development of sociological research methods, just as it widened the gulf between general theory and middle-range theory. Problems, theories and methods are necessarily bound up together and are not separable in the practice of sociological investigation. Thus, theory exercises a compelling influence on research – setting problems, staking out objects, and leading inquiry into asserted relations.
