What has the Sociology Lost, becoming the “Science”, and ceasing to be a “Social Thought”?

Abstract: 
In most cases, in the sociology “valuable” aspect of sociological knowledge still is understood falsely, i.e. in positivist manner. From the time of Max Weber the model and the top of scientific knowledge is considered as “value-free knowledge”. Meanwhile, in the “assessment” which in classical times was present in the body of social thought, there is nothing subjective and reprehensible. “Assessment” is, first of all, the assessment of how the observed social phenomenon corresponds / does not meet its “institutional” nature. That is why “understanding by its nature is connected with the assessment always” (K. Jaspers). Sociology, free from the “assessment” and “deontology” (category of “due”), degenerates into “objectivist” science, recording and measuring everything that falls under its “sociological” hand. Such sociology does not distinguish genuine from non-genuine social things. When sociology was “social thought”, it carried the power of critical and assessment view to the world.

For citation: Shcelkin A.G. What has the Sociology Lost, becoming the “Science”, and ceasing to be a “Social Thought”?. St. Petersburg Sociology Today. 2015. N. 6. P. 500-521.

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