Sociology cram test
I got a PhD in a social science (history) and worked for a year as a sociology acquisitions editor for an academic press, but could never quite figure out what sociology is, other than by reference to a particular list of works generally recognized as its canon. That is, I couldn’t say what makes sociology, as a whole, distinct enough that its various practitioners couldn’t be easily packed off, by their university employers, to new offices in departments of history, anthropology, political science, or, in a few cases, economics. I’m talking about method here, not focus - that is, in what distinct and useful ways sociology is done, that justifies it being its own thing.
O.k., I could define it in a negative fashion - and I don’t mean, “Sociology is not [x] because its practioners don’t do [y].” Rather, I’d have said that it’s defined mostly by the things it does worse than other disciplines, when treating like topics. Among sociology works treating historical topics, too many struck me as anachronistic - specifically, present-ist - in their approach, while among those treating culture-focused topics, too few did a good job of appreciating and accounting for the significance of cultural specificities. And in too many instances, scientism, or rather “numberism,” is to blame - sociologists, for me, seemed too quick to focus on problems that can be studied with a quantitative approach, or use such an approach when another, qualitative approach would be more appropriate. Also there is the unfortunate dominance, in the field as a whole, of the political blunderbusses of the “There is poverty and America sucks” school.
But maybe you haven’t read much sociology, and are still curious about it - yet you’re as busy as anyone, and won’t get to that Max Weber anthology anytime soon. Lucky you, I say: here’s all of sociology, in four easy lessons, on a single web page.