Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to present a new social research method for the empirical studies in the field of Historical Sociology/Sociology of Science. Sociologists have been using many and various social research techniques, but the majority of them have been the tools to analyze the on-going social phenomena that is, in the present time and place where the social resea-chers are.
A new analytical tool called “Career-Net Analysis” has been developed by the present author to deal with empirical data on historical events so that sociological inquiry can be extended into the historical past. It includes a computer programme called “CAREER-NET SYSTEM” using a mathematical model, MDS (Multi Dimension Scaling) which is one kind of network analysis.
“Career-Net Analysis” is based on two sociological conceptions. One is called “career-net” which is defined as accumulation of the past social relations between each of actors and his alters in his (actor's) important socialization which is in itself considered a historical event.Another is “social nodes” which is a subordinate conception of the first. They are nodes, that it, times and places, where actor was socializaed as he met with significant others. Thus “Career-Net Analysis” resembles to certain extent what has been called “participant observation” that has often been used by urban sociologists, cultural anthrophologists and others.
Application of “Career-Net Analysis” is made to a historical event, a famous as well as very consequential decision made by the Meiji Restoration government to introduce German Medical Institution, rather than others, into Japan in 1869. By so doing this new tool has been tried to make a sociological analysis of the said historical event to inquire into the relations among the participant's actions, the social structures and cognitive structures of the time as well as the dimension of time itself.
