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The sociology of science involves the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." [149] Important theorists in the sociology of science include Robert K. Merton and Bruno Latour.
Durkheim distinguishes sociology from other sciences and justifies his rationale. [1] Sociology is the science of social facts. Durkheim suggests two central theses, without which sociology would not be a science: It must have a specific object of study. Unlike philosophy or psychology, sociology's proper object of study are social facts.
The sociology of scientific knowledge in its Anglophone versions emerged in the 1970s in self-conscious opposition to the sociology of science associated with the American Robert K. Merton, generally considered one of the seminal authors in the sociology of science. Merton's was a kind of "sociology of scientists," which left the cognitive ...
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the discipline of sociology: . Sociology – the study of society [1] using various methods of empirical investigation [2] and critical analysis [3] to understand human social activity, from the micro level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and social structure.
The sociology of knowledge is a concept in the discussion around scientific method, claiming the underlying method of science to be sociological. King explains that sociology distinguishes here between the system of ideas that govern the sciences through an inner logic, and the social system in which those ideas arise. [μ] [i]
Social science can be described as all of the following: A science – systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. [1] [2] [3] Major category of academic disciplines – an academic discipline is focused study in one academic field or profession. A discipline ...
Sociology as a scholarly discipline emerged, primarily out of Enlightenment thought, as a positivist science of society shortly after the French Revolution.Its genesis owed to various key movements in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of knowledge, arising in reaction to such issues as modernity, capitalism, urbanization, rationalization, secularization, colonization and imperialism.
In terms of sociology, historical sociology is often better positioned to analyze social life as diachronic, while survey research takes a snapshot of social life and is thus better equipped to understand social life as synchronic. Some argue that the synchrony of social structure is a methodological perspective rather than an ontological claim ...