What is Sociological Theory? What is Sociology?
• From Calhoun et al.: -Sociology is the development of systematic knowledge about social life, how it is organized, how it changes, its creation in social action and its disruption and renewal in social conflict. – Sociological theory, then, is “a guide to social inquiry and an attempt to bring order to its results”. This is a very wide definition of sociological theory, but includes two important points: • Has to offer an empirical claim that could be the basis of either tests (to be judged by evidence) or logical comparison (between competing theories). That is, it must be scientific. • Has to focus on social life as a specific and distinct object of study. • What distinguishes Sociology from Philosophy? The order of the questions asked. Sociology is, at least primarily, concerned with empirical questions. Questions that could, in principle, be determined and evaluated by turning to empirical evidence. Philosophy, on the other hand, deals with questions of a different magnitude. The
