Advancing knowledge in the spirit of Fararo: Generativity and unification

This paper honors Thomas J. Fararo by highlighting his foundational contributions to two chief theoretical methods – generativity and unification – noting the footsoldiers episode, surprise, and beauty along with other elements of his legacy that accelerate progress in generativity and unification, such as mathematical functions and probability distributions. Generativity and unification enable progress toward the goal of understanding more and more by less and less, generativity by linking theoretical elements to observables in testable propositions, unification by unifying elements from two or more theories. Though deductive strategies are classical in origin, generativity – both the word and its expanded meaning that covers not only deductive strategies but also the Toulmin-type nondeductive strategies and computer simulation strategies – was Fararo’s invention. U nification, too, was classical in origin, but Fararo expanded it from a purely theoretical operation to a spirit of unification with the potential to make peace between warring intellectual factions. Fararo’s guiding hand is discernible in both the substance and methods of wide swaths of theoretical work in sociology, and this paper illustrates that aspect of his legacy by discussing his contributions to the author’s early work on justice theory, including strategies of generativity later used also in status theory, and the more recent proposed unification of justice, status, and power. All of Fararo’s work, not only writing and teaching but also guiding others, exemplified, in Toulmin’s words: “the personal attitudes needed for effective work in science – adventurous skepticism and critical open-mindedness.”