Introduction
Pick up a psychology textbook published before the 1960s and you may be surprised by the considerable presence of the algebraic formulae of Clark Hull ( Hull 1951 ) or the higher mathematics of Kenneth Spence ( Spence 1957 ). Until the 1960s , social sciences such as psychology and sociology often adopted the same paradigm as the physical sciences , leading to the possibility of applying a mathematical ( as opposed to statistical ) approach , but discuss this topic with professional psychologists and sociologists in the 21 st century in the UK and it characteristically emerges that they are mostly unaware of its existence . Stuart Dodd ’ s ‘ S-Theory ’ ( Dodd 1942 ) is an example of a now largely forgotten alternative to the contemporary ‘ mathematics-free ’ approach , and this paper is an examination of the concepts in his book on S- Theory . In the first section I will outline what S-Theory is and what Dodd claimed for it . In the second section I will explain S-Theory in more detail , and perhaps more importantly , explain what S-theory is not , as it is easy for misunderstandings to take place based on assumptions made by the reader which they may be completely unaware . In the third section I contrast it with other mathematical systems which are fundamentally unlike it . In the fourth section I will explore how S-theory was reviewed at the time of its publication , before giving examples of S-theory ‘ rules ’ in section five . I will then conclude the paper with a sixth section offering suggested directions for the possible development of S-theory in the computer era and a summary of the paper in section seven .
Introduction
Dodd ’ s S-Theory is an intriguing mix of what in the physical sciences is characteristically called ‘ dimensional analysis ’ together with a symbolic system for recording metadata . When Dodd ’ s published Dimensions of Society in 1942 , the concept of metadata had not been described , let alone named . One way of conceiving metadata is to consider the case of a phone call between two people , wherein the content of the call is the data , and aspects such as the date and time of the call and its duration are the metadata . S-theory is entirely focused on the metadata of a social ‘ situation ’, by which Dodd meant the metadata of any data from any social science . For example , if a graph showed a population versus time , it is not the size of the population , or the dates for which it is quoted , that is of relevance , as this is the data . In this case , the metadata is the fact that the graph is of population versus time , which as an S-formula would be written P T ¯ ¹.