NATURE OF SOCIOLOGY

The nature of any subject refers to its internal characteristics which help us to understand what kind of science it is.  So, every branch of knowledge has its own nature.  Sociology is also a branch of knowledge and it has its own characteristics or nature.  It is different from other sciences in certain respects.

The following are the main characteristics or nature of sociology as enlisted by Robert Biersted in the book “The Social Order”.  They are as follows:

Sociology is the study of Social Life:Since, sociology deals with society so it focusses on the social life of individual, group and society as a whole.

Sociology, Science of Social Relationships: Sociology deals with the individual relation into society and vice-versa.  It views social relationships from various aspect.

Sociology , a study of Human Behaviour in Group:  There are many ways in which an individual behave in different groups of society.  The discipline sociology studies such human behavior.

Sociology is a Science of Society Reactions: Overall, sociology deals with all the aspects of society i.e., its members, their actions, relationships etc.  Hence, it is overall a science of society.

To include nature of sociology in short, this can be said that sociology is concerned with human relationships and the sociologists tends to discover evolution of society, its system structure, its institution and their rules etc.

Sociology is Relatively an Abstract Science and not a Concrete Science:  Sociology does not confine itself to the study of this society of that particular society or social organization or marriage, or religion or group and so on.  It means that sociology is not interested in concrete manifestations of human events.  It is more concerned with the form of human events and their patterns.  So, sociology is an abstract science, not a concrete science.

Sociology is a pure science and not an Applied Science:  Sociology is a pure science, because it aims at the acquisition of knowledge about human society.  It does not together whether the acquired knowledge is useful or can be put to use whereas the aim of applied science is to apply the acquired knowledge into life and to put it to use.   Now -a-days sociology is used in the discipline of social work to analyse and understand the social problems.

Sociology is an Independent Science:  Now sociology has emerged as branch of any other science like philosophy, history, political science etc.  As an independent science it has its own field of study.

Sociology is a Categorical and not a Normative Discipline:Sociology “confines itself to a statement about what is and not what should be  or ought to be.”  As social science it is always silent about questions or value i.e., it cannot say what is good or what is bad.  So, sociology simply interested in human groups which are categorized into social relations only not in normative relations.

Sociology is a General science and not a Special Science : Sociology studies human groups in general and relations between them in particular.  It studies the relations between peoples whether the relations are political or religious or economical, not like the other social science which study the special part, for instance political science studies only the political aspects, economics study only the production distribution aspects.

Sociology is Both a Rational and Empirical Science:  There are two ways of approach to scientific knowledge: empiricism and rationalism.  Empiricists have always claimed that sense experience is the ultimate starting point for all our knowledge but rationalists have claimed that the ultimate starting point for all knowledge is not the senses but reason.  This means empiricism emphasizes the facts that result from observation and experimentation whereas rationalism stresses reason and theories that result from logical inference.  Both are importantin sociological theory.  So, sociology is both a rational and empirical science.

 Sociology as a Science There is the biggest controversial question in sociology regarding its nature whether sociology should be regarded as science or not. There is a group of thinkers or theorists who believes that sociology is as much as science like other social science like history, economics etc.  whereas some of the theorists criticize and opposed this and deny the fact of regarding sociology as science. 

 Sociology as a Value Free Science

The main bone of contention in regarding sociology as science is the biasness and own prejudices of a person who analyse the facts of society.  Value free science means dealing sociology in a way that it should keep itself away from the question of social values and study social behavior in its empirical serve.  And a theories should not try to judge the positive or negativizes in social fact.  The study of sociology should be positive and normativeaspect should be ignored.  Sociology should isolate value laden behavior from the sociological analysis. The value free principles of analysis bring sociology close to the science for a sociology to be scientific, value free approach should be followed.  The view point of value free science has been agreed by many theorist like August Comte, who is the father of sociology gave importance of scientific approach. 

According to Pearsons, the classification of facts, the recognition of their sequence and relative significance is the function of Science.

According to Weber, “Sociology is a science which attempts the interpretative understanding of social action is order them by to arrive at a causal explanation of its cause and effects.

According to H.M. Jehoon, “Sociology is the science that deals with social group; their internal forms or mode of organization, the process that tends to maintain or change these forms of organization and relations between groups.”