Publication Date
3-25-1968
Abstract
Sociology is often called the study of society or of social life. But such a simple definition in terms of subject matter does not distinguish it from the other social sciences. For they all study social life or, to put it more precisely, patterns of conduct that are common to groups of people. It is not their subject matter but their approach to it that differentiates the various social sciences. They ask different questions about social conduct, focus upon different regularities in it, and hence arrive at different explanatory principles for it. The economist, for example, is concerned with those patterns in a society that are produced by men’s attempts to allocate means to ends rationally. And the psychologist analyzes how characteristics of the human personality or organism develop and give rise to patterns of behavior. In contrast, the sociologist is interested in the regularities in social conduct that are due neither to psychological traits of individuals nor to their rational economic decisions, but that are produced by the social conditions in which they find themselves.
Disciplines
Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sociology | Theory, Knowledge and Science
Recommended Citation
Jones, J. E. and WKU Government, "UA62/8/1 A Study Guide for the Development of the History of Social Thought" (1968). WKU Archives Records. Paper 9260.
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_ua_records/9260