Answer:
This article presents new insights into Spencer's theoretical sociology as he applied it to the professions and professional institutions, which he discussed extensively, particularly in his Principles of Sociology. The first part of this article notes the main conceptual insights which he established and aligns them within the wider context of a re-reading of Spencer's sociology. Particular attention is paid to the “social organism” and the spontaneous cooperation of social individuals in society (with each possessing “social self-consciousness”). This part also reappraises Spencer's account of the emergence of “professionals” and their distinctive “cunning, skill, and acquaintance with the nature of things,” which professionals have brought to bear on what has been experienced in the ordinary social lives of people as complexity or the unfamiliar in the world. The subsequent discussion focuses on, first, a retrieval of Spencer's theoretical stance on the activities of the professions, and on work and conditions in general, and, second, on reviewing some of the major resonances which his work has with practical problems and the associated theoretical issues concerning the sociological understanding of professional/service-user interaction in social life today.
Introduction
Recent studies on Spencer have produced significant insights about how to interpret his complex ideas afresh, permitting them to be seen in a more substantial and systematically linked conceptual context1. In an earlier article the present writer provided a general survey of what new accounts have achieved in terms of additional theoretical coherence to the understanding of Spencer. The present article has a different primary focus, a reassessment of his substantial body of work on the professions and professional institutions. It has been an overlooked strength of Spencer that he nuanced his abstract sociological thinking about aspects of social life with micro-level everyday observation (as argued by Turner, 1985, Ch. 8). One interest which Spencer had in particular was professionals and professional institutions.
