The Ghost of Patrick Geddes: Civics as Applied Sociology

Abstract

In 1904 and 1905 Patrick Geddes (1905, 1906) read his famed, but today little-read, two-part paper, ‘Civics: as Applied Sociology’, to the first meetings of the British Sociological Society. Geddes is often thought of as a ‘pioneer of sociology’ (Mairet, 1957;Meller, 1990) and for some (egDevine, 1999: 296) as ‘a seminal influence on sociology’. However, little of substance has been written to critically assess Geddes's intellectual legacy as a sociologist. His work is largely forgotten by sociologists in Britain (Abrams, 1968;Halliday, 1968;Evans, 1986). Few have been prepared to follow Geddes's ambition to bridge the chasm between nature and culture, environment and society, geography, biology and sociology. His conception of ‘sociology’, oriented towards social action from a standpoint explicitly informed by evolutionary theory. A re-appraisal of the contemporary relevance of Geddes's thinking on civics as applied sociology has to venture into the knotted problem of evolutionary sociology. It also requires giving some cogency to Geddes's often fragmentary and inconsistent mode of address. Although part of a post-positivist, ‘larger modernism’ Geddes remained mired in nineteenth century evolutionary thought and fought shy of dealing with larger issues of social class or the breakthrough work of early twentieth century sociology of Simmel, Weber and Durkheim. His apolitical notion of ‘civics’ limits its relevance to academic sociology today.