The Summer-Porter Controversy at Yale: Pre-Paradigmatic Sociology and Institutional Crisis*

This reappraisal of the dispute between William Graham Sumner and Noah Porter at Yale (1879-1881) emphasizes the conjunction of disciplinary unxieties (over the academic establishment of sociology) and institutional crisis (over Yale's classical curriculum). Theoretical implications are developed through further explication of Thomas Kuhn's notion of “pre-paradigmatic” science.