Question 9. The place of Sociology in the system of science

Besides sociology, there are other sciences about humanity, society, communities, people, their relationship and coexistence both in the past and in modern world. Therefore, we should determine how sociology differs from them, why it has a priority position among Social Sciences today, and how it fits into the general system of scientific knowledge.

The famous American sociologist Sorokin believes that sociology differs from other Social Sciences in three main characteristics.

1. Its main feature is that it is generalized (from Lat. Generalis - general) science. History, in contrast, is individualized (from Fr. Individuel - personal, peculiar for only one) science, because focuses on the study of unique and unforgettable events (such as Christianity as a religion in the life of Ukraine; Abraham Lincoln as a president in the U.S.A. history; review of the First or the Second World War, etc.). Sociology explores common peculiarities of all religions of the world, all countries, all nations, all wars, for the establishment of institution of presidency, etc.

2. But there are other generalized social sciences such as economics, political science, law. How does sociology differ from them? The fact is that each of those sciences deals only with one area of ​​socio-cultural space: economics with the economic relations, exploring the economic structure; political science -with political relations, analyzing the state and other political institutions; jurisprudence - the legal relationship, explaining the system of rules and norms of behavior established by the state. Specificity of sociology and its fundamental difference from other generalized Social Sciences is that it: - examines all social processes, whether they are: economic, political, legal, artistic, religious, philosophical, ethical, etc.; - analyzes the society in the unity of all its parts, branches and spheres; all socio cultural space, and (within the spreading of globalization) humanity in general; - furthermore, Sociology examines the relationship between the phenomena that relate to the object of various studies of Social Sciences. For example, it may be the clarifying of relationship between the production cycles (the object of Economics) and the cycles of development of crime (the object of Jurisprudence), while each of them separately does not clarify. Also sociologists can be interested in the question whether economic crises affect the growth of crime, and economic prosperity - their reduction.

3. Sociology differs from other Social Sciences also in the way of human vision. For example, in economics the central actor is a person as economic being, that is involved in the production process; in political sciences - a person as a political being that has some ideological belief, shows his activity in political actions, etc., in jurisprudence – a person as a being that acts in the legal or illegal space and makes the offense; in religious studies - religious man in his or her relationship with God. Sociology considers a person as social being, inseparable being, that at the same is economic, political, religious and moral, rational and partly irrational being, that interacts in all these aspects, manifestations and diversities, as it exists in everyday life.

As an example we can take the problem of suicide ( from Lat. Sui - a + caedere - kill). French sociologist E. Durkheim, analyzing this problem in 1898, notes that various sciences study it. History provides information on specific historical persons who voluntarily died (Socrates drank the cup of hemlock poison-, Seneca cut his wrists in the bathtub with warm water). Biology, medicine and psychiatry found the causes of suicides in poor health conditions or mental disorders, geography - the climatic conditions of this or that part of the territory (e.g., hot wind, mixed with sand), economics - in economic factors such as poverty, bankruptcy, depression. All these sciences try to explain the phenomenon of suicide by means of separate, unrelated factors. They pay no attention to a particular society or culture in general, ignore the social organization and cultural phenomena.

According to Durkheim, the solution of suicide problem is a holistic consideration of the society and its culture. In a society where:

- all social relations are well balanced and interconnected with a high degree of "social cohesion" of people, where a person feels himself an important part of society or community, not forgotten and not alone;

- in societies where cultural values ​​are constant and undisputed, shared by all citizens, the percentage of suicides is usually quite low.

Conversely, a society with low "cohesion", whose members are poorly connected with each other and with communities feel themselves insecure, unwanted and neglected; a society where cultural values ​​and norms are destroyed or relative, often changing, not recognized by all its members – is a powerful generator and persuasive factor in committing suicide, regardless of climate or economic conditions and state of mental and physical health. This "morbid" state of society E. Durkheim calls "anomie" (from Fr. Anomie and Greek. A-nomos - lawlessness) - a condition characterized by the collapse of traditional values ​​and norms of society, disorientation of a person and society, lack of clear moral regulation of individuals behavior. Although E. Durkheim's work was written on the edge of the 19th and 20th centuries, sociologists recognize the validity of his argument for modern societies, including Ukrainian, in which there are all signs of anomie, and where the percentage of suicides among causes of death is high.

Thus, unlike other sciences, sociology is a generalized science that explores humanity, society, communities and people as social beings in their unity and interconnection of all spheres of social life. Sociology is now actively working with other branches of scientific knowledge, based on the achievement of statistics, demography, psychology, philosophy, culture, economic and political sciences and disciplines. Today sociology increasingly cooperates its activity and performs "exchange of senses" also with natural and technological sciences, forming a special branch of knowledge at the frontier of sciences. In particular, some sociologists look for an explanation of state of the modern societies through the theoretical positions of synergetics, and study societies, depending on their type, as a simple social (conventional), complex social (industrial) and complex socio-cultural (postindustrial) systems. There is also a kind of "sociologization" of sciences. There are such areas as biosociology, sociology of epidemics, myocardial sociology, sociology of crime, sociology of masculinity (from Lat. Masculinus - male), sociology of space, humor sociology, sociology of international relations and more.

Sofiya Olijnyk

Question 6: Object and subject of sociology

Understanding of sociology, as a science about formation and functioning of social communities which form the society and between which some new social relations and interactions are created, and moreover about social human – creator of these communities and the main subject of historical development - gives a chance for determining its object and subject. An object of any science, is the one for what is directed the whole process of research. Its subjective branch is formed out of those parts , relations, connections, components of object. By usage of language of philosophy, object and subject are correlated as the whole and its part.

Object of sociology is considered to be the whole social reality within its variety of qualitative characteristics. However some sociologists are taking the view, that this social reality during last years is diminishing in its scale at the expense of broadening of the zone of privacy, non-social life of individual, but the others are taking this view vice verse – they are broadening boarders at the expense of introducing new extremely increasing zone of cultural components (today such object of sociology is more and more often defined as social-cultural reality). So changeability of borders and content of traditional object of sociology causes mobility of subject of sociology, its continuance in constant movement, development and formation. Times of human development are changing, one type of society is being substituted by the other one, one or the other part of the life of society comes out on the front stage, and what is more needs and social inquiries are changing, etc. Accordingly, sociology in different times of its existence was changing conceptions about its objective branch (предметну галузь) , especially about what it explores.

Concept about sociology, as a science, object of which is society in its organic complexity, and also with its characteristics, as social structure, social institutions, social changes etc, was dominating at the beginning of existence of sociology (30-40s of XIXth c.). At the same time it is starting to be noticed everything what is characteristic for society in general , is not for the individuals separately, which are part of this whole social “combination’. At the end of the XIXth c. and at the beginning of XX th . c., contrary to this conception it is starting to form new understanding of sociology, as a science, where dominating object is human being as a social being, it is everyday life, relations and interactions with other people

Here the most important fact is social behavior of individual, his motivation for actions and interpersonal attitudes .

For modern society (especially for society of the II ^nd half of XXth c.) it is highly characteristic such following processes:

• Progressive schedule of former organic forms of cohabitation, for example family, professional union, village and town communities, etc;

• domination of super-individual creations, for instance social institutions;

• increasing human solitude and loss of the feeling of comfort, safety and stability in the world .

Particularly at that time both theoretical and practical points of view are directed to social communities, which successfully combine individual and communal, rational and emotional, as a result later they become object of social studies of new era more and more often. For the good of regarding exactly this social community as a core of objective branch of modern sociology sociologists propose number of some arguments to this:

4. Concept of social community contains in itself decisive quality of self-movement (саморуху), self-development of social unity, sense of stability and permanence of social systems. Furthermore, in this case there is no necessity to look for the origin of social development out of society; it can be defined out of internal problems and interests of social communities and groups of people, who create them.

5. Social communities enclose all possible states and forms of beings of human individuals in their sociality (соціальності). From the point of view of sociology, an individual is being examined not as from the position of his unique abilities and inimitable traits but more like in a system of social relations, as a representative of some certain society, as a social being. Individual is always inscribed to the complex system of social, class, settler (поселенських), family, professional, demographical and other groups, he shares and expresses his interests and orientations and masters his social experience.

6. More and more social communities appear as collective subjects of social transformations and main heroes in social life.Nowadays the whole progress of social development depends on actions carried by social objects and resulted of their activity. That is the reason why social communities as living, suffering, active, creative, conscious subjects which successfully combine concerns of the community and every single person, in modern times were regarded as a objective core of sociology.

These days with increase of tempo and worthiness of globalization processes, frames of objective fields of modern sociology are broadening to the notions of mankind , as forming world’s megasystem. Some sociologists consider that in some time humanity will gain characteristics and features of global community, where such features as formation of local or super-national communities with informal amiable relations, friendliness,cooperation, intercommunication, spending together of free time and leading some specific way of life will surely take an advantage. Nowadays very often modern example of such types of formations is regarded an Internet community, with all its numerous surfers, blogs, different communication appliances. Other sociologists define community vice verse: megacommunity with transnational countries, unified international law for regulation of globalization processes, world trade and world economics, cosmopolitan identities etc., in other words, so-called global creation, where there will be principles of rationalization, formalization of social connections and relations, institutionalization of global forms of social life.

As a result there are a lot of opportunities for professional sociologists to choose object for their research, and sociology as a science possess diversity of its objective field. Even person himself can be defined as a field for sociology, in other words, person is a social being. It also can be mentioned either local social community or social group, which interacts according to some society or society within its national-country border, or humanity in general. Besides this, social relations and social interactions between all above mentioned components create objective sphere of sociology.

Modern sociology includes in itself different concerns about object of its researches in its traditional (social reality), broad and updated (social-cultural reality) variants.

Galyna Rosil

Question 7.The structure of sociological knowledge

It is preferable to take for granted the definition of sociology, its object and subject also it’s preferable to pay attention to levels of sociological analysis to have a clear idea about the structure of sociological knowledge. Sociology – is a science about the formation and functioning of social communities that form a separate society, the humanity on the whole and some social relationships and interactions between them. It’s also a science about a social person – the creator of these communities and the main subject of historical development.

The object of contemporary sociology is socio-cultural reality, the subject is clarified depending on the scientific interest of sociologist e.g.: individuality as social person, social community/group, society in its state-national boundaries, humanity on the whole. Substantive domain of sociology forms social relationships and social interactions between all components that were previously mentioned.

Accordingly, the answer to the question what do sociologists explore? can be given. The next question concerns the result of their scientific exploring that is either in theory or is carried out in empirical investigations. Generalized answer to that question can be further: sociology creates scientific knowledge about socio-cultural reality in its whole variety at all levels of existence and development. This sociological system of scientific knowledge is differentiated and structuralized as it is reflected on a Picture 1.

General sociological theory

Specific sociological theories, Specific sociological theories,

that study subjects of that study vital activity of social

social life: subjects in such domains:

- sociology of a personality - sociology of a culture

- sociology of a family - sociology of politics

- sociology of a class, state, - economic sociology and

and social layer sociology of labour

- ethnosociology - sociology of leisure

- sociology of a nation - sociology of education

Datum of empirical sociological studies

General contemporary sociologic theory gives an idea about humanity as a global megasystem, which is formed as a result of globalization processes, and also about society as a system of a lower rank. General character theory reflects the determinative tendencies formation and functioning of social communities/subjects of social development at local and global levels of their existing, the place of human as a social being in these relations.

This general social theory has inner peculiarities depending on the paradigm in which it is created and developed. The notion of “paradigm” introduces to the science the American sociologist I. Kun to denote a specific theoretic model to set a problem and its solution. This model underlines some or another theory, includes general statements and principles, the set of specific categories and is defined by some academic group. Correspondingly the general social theory is represented by the succession of paradigms and belonging to it branches and schools. The main schools are structural and interpretive. Structural paradigm organizes, constructs and develops the social systems of different levels of complexity and performs duties while interpretative school explains the meaning of human behavior and interaction between people in the process of their common vital activity as a result of which the society is formed.

The general social theory includes: history of sociology, knowledge of object and subject of social science, conceptual-categorical apparatus. The tendencies of development as socio-cultural reality and the sociology itself are depicted in the general social theory. Also the place of sociology among other sciences is substantiated.

Special sociologic theories (or theories of average level) study subjects of social life (a person as a social being, founded by her communities of different levels of complexity and organization) and their vital activity in different domains and branches such as: (cultural political, economic, scientific, educative and leisure branches). They explain two general types of social relations and connections: