Social Philosophy, Social Studies or Generality: the Problem of the Crisis of Sociology

Abstract

In recent decades, the crisis of sociology has been increasingly discussed in the social science discourse. Many well-known Russian and foreign socio­logists have already spoken out on this issue. Discussions about the theoreti­cal decline, the decline in the social status of sociological science, its transforma­tion from fundamental to applied knowledge are reproduced at congresses and conferences, in numerous publications. The bibliography devoted to the cri­sis of sociology has dozens of sources, and this stream does not decrease. In line with this popular topic, the author substantiates his approach to the analysis of the crisis problem in sociology, which is based on epistemologi­cal contradictions laid down in the creation of the specialized science of so­ciety in the middle of the 19th century – during the rise of positivism, which denies classical philosophy and focuses on an empirical approach, demon­strated high efficiency in the natural sciences, yielding positive results. The article substantiates that the rejection of abstract thinking, the narrowing of the boundaries of knowledge to the framework of empirical knowledge, the reduction of cognitive activity to practical experience, the primacy of methodology over theory are the birth traumas of sociology that brought it to its current position.