ABSTRACT
Pitirim Sorokin refers to his system of the categories of truth and cognition in many books, the most extended discussion is found in volume 4 of Social and Cultural Dynamics, and the best summary is in Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time. As an integralist, he worked with a variety of empirical methods, employed both formal and dialectical logic in his reasoning, and would never discount the role of intuition. In Sociological Theories of Today, Sorokin devoted a chapter to “Dialectic Theories of Social and Cultural Systems.” he clearly separates his own position from dialecticians who believe that dialectics reflects “the way the world works,” that dialectical processes are “reality” processes. Sorokin proceeds further to analyze important implications of the principle of immanent change: the immanent generation of consequences, the immanent self-determination of the system’s destiny, self determinism as synthesis of determinism and indeterminism, and several other derivative principles.
