Thomas Fararo

Thomas J. Fararo (February 11, 1933 - August 20, 2020) was Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh.

Some of his books are edited works that relate to his career-long interest in making mathematical ideas relevant to the development of sociological theory.

This combination is illustrated by the theoretical method he has called E-state Structuralism (where E stands for Expectations) with work on this done with former student John Skvoretz.

He often employed the axiomatic method in such work, as in the 2003 monograph with his student Kenji Kosaka that sets out a formal theory of how images of stratification are generated.

One of his objectives has been to articulate a coherent vision of the core of sociological theory: its philosophy, its key theoretical problems, and its methods, especially those employing formal representation.