Donald Black''s Concept of ‘Behavior of Law'': Birth of Pure Sociology from the Spirit of Crime Rates

Abstract

This article is the first attempt to represent and systematically explain in a Russian sociology the historical and social context as well as the epistemological foundations and theoretical resources, which have become the groundwork to ongoing development of new paradigm in social sciences - «pure sociology» by the well-known American sociologist Donald Black. Author starts from Black's early works and coherently shows how Black developed the pure sociology through the first two decades of his career. Author reveals the Black's approach to classic theoretical legacy of sociology. A significant part of the paper is devoted to the epistemological presuppositions of the Black's theoretical construction. Special emphasis is put on the elimination of psychology, teleology and human itself from sociological explanation. The Black's final theoretical outcome was the geometric model of social space, a kind of «periodic table» allowing to explain and predict the behavior of any social phenomena as a quantified natural phenomenon. In the final section, the author describes the conception «Behavior of Law» showing how to pure sociology and social geometry can be used by researchers in the law and law enforcement studies.