ABSTRACT

Daniel Bonevac begins his widely read and respected treatment of logic by describing it as the study of correct reasoning. Not a great deal of thought is required to recognize that the issues and problems in contemplating formal theory construction go far beyond the prediction of precise values of variables. The most remarkable feature of the criticism is that with one exception the opponents of the sign rule never came close to clearly identifying an alternative, much less something remotely resembling a mode of theory construction other than the conventions of a natural language. To make the point again, from sociology's very beginning virtually all theories have been stated in accordance with the conventions of a natural language. The fundamental consideration is that critics of the sign rule simply do not see that it is used for nothing more than detection of possible empirical relations between variables.