R. Merton: Factors of production of scientific innovations in sociology

The article considers the nonlinear production of scientific innovations in sociology in the context of Robert Merton’s success in creating an original theory in competition with other authoritative scholars. The relevance of his experience is determined by todays’ focus on training sociologists as experts ready to develop creativity and ability to apply unconventional approaches to diagnose the increasingly complex challenges that Russian scientists face. The article explains the enduring significance of such Merton’s principles as “organized skepticism”, “sociological ambivalence”, and “specific ignorance”, which have proven their efficiency in producing scientific innovations in various historical periods. The article presents Merton’s description of sociology in the USSR through its “original organization” as the social-cultural determinant of such innovations as the integral use of the results of natural sciences and sociology for the national development, “rapprochement” of Marxism and the world sociological thought as the basis for the transition from monodisciplinarity to polyparadigmality, development of “engineering of social change”, new ideas about social well-being as a working and healthy lifestyle, search for humanized technologies, etc. The authors focus on the expression “standing on the shoulders of giants”, which allowed Merton to reveal the “critical nonlinear reflection” of scientific innovations not only in sociology, but also in natural sciences. The authors make conclusions about the cultural and civilizational determinacy of innovations in sociology, providing an example of a comparative analysis of the contribution of Russian and foreign scientists to the world sociological thought and warning about the uncritical borrowing of “universal” innovations from other cultures as leading to pseudo-innovations, non-functionality and dysfunctionality of social institutions.