Possible in Sociology

Abstract

Sociology – as both science and mode of societal self-reflection – was made possible by the conjunction of mid-nineteenth century European philosophical thought with the historical crises erupting within the emerging industrial societies in the West. Sociology, once established, evolved to make possible a proliferation of perspectives for studying a newly constituted ontological space identified by Auguste Comte. What, exactly, that ontological space denotes and how it is to be studied is at the center of debates within contemporary sociology. For Comte, sociology promised nothing less than a scientific blueprint for the reconstruction of society; a possible world that would be free of conflict, strife, and, especially, what he considered to be the disease of the West: individualism and its quixotic attachment to freedom of thought. To others, such a deterministic, authoritarian perspective was a precursor of the totalitarian societies of the twentieth century. Understanding this genealogy and imagining what possible worlds might await us is the unfinished business of that discipline that goes by the name “sociology.”