Abstract

This article relates the Integral sociology perspective of Pitirim A. Sorokin to the teaching of the Catholic Church regarding faith and science. It begins with a summary of the theoretical structure of Integralism and proceed to a discussion of its historical roots in Russian Christian philosophy, especially the tradition ofIntuitivism. I conclude that although Integralism is generally consistent with Catholic doctrine, it does not deal with certain fundamentals of the Catholic perspective. Moreover, Sorokin’s formulation seems to imply the possibility of both Christian and non-Christian, theistic and non-theistic variants of Integralism.Nevertheless, Catholic social scientists may find the integralist perspective appealing and useful, especially as compared with other contemporary paradigms.