Sociological Beauty: The Aesthetics of Donald Black’s Corpus

Sociologists have long debated the extent to which their discipline is a science. Donald Black harbored no doubts on this issue. For Black, sociology was the science of social life, distinct from other human sciences, such as biology and psychology. He found inspiration and exemplars for sociology in science, especially at its highest levels, including the importance many renowned scientists have placed on the role of beauty in their work. At various times, scientists have spoken of beautiful hypotheses, beautiful experiments, beautiful methods, beautiful mathematics, and, especially, beautiful theories. Black echoed that sentiment, arguing that the most important theories are beautiful because reality itself is beautiful. This paper documents the central role of aesthetics in Black’s sociology. It traces the role of factors such as simplicity, symmetry, and elegance in five aspects of Black’s work: his use of language and numbers, his concepts, explanatory paradigm, and substantive theories. The beauty of Black’s corpus provides both an example and a challenge to future generations of sociologists.