The Social World as a Scientific Problem: Method, History, and Reflexivity in the Production of Sociological Knowledge
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/ijsscs.v2i2.8062Keywords:
Common Sense, Empirical Evidence, Reflexivity, Sociological Object, Sociology, TheoryAbstract
This article examines the foundations of the sociological method by addressing a recurrent gap in discussions of sociological methodology: the tendency either to reduce method to technical procedures of data collection or to present classical sociological traditions as separate and self-contained models of analysis. In response to this limitation, the article proposes an integrative and reflexive account of sociological method as a specific form of scientific knowledge production about social life. Based on a qualitative and theoretical-bibliographical study, the research analyzes selected classical and contemporary works in sociological theory and methodology. The procedure consisted of thematic and conceptual analysis, organized around four analytical axes: the break with common sense and the construction of the sociological object; the relationship between theory, empirical reality, and methodological control; historicity and the denaturalization of social life; and objectivity, value neutrality, and reflexivity. Through a comparative reading of explanatory, interpretive, critical, and relational traditions, the article reconstructs how sociology transforms phenomena that appear evident, natural, or everyday into scientific problems. Its originality lies in showing that sociological method is not reducible to a single analytical model, but is constituted by a plurality of epistemological operations: objectification, interpretation, critique, historicization, relational analysis, and reflexive control over the conditions of knowledge production. The article contributes to current debates on sociological methodology by clarifying the links between theoretical construction, empirical inquiry, historical analysis, and reflexivity. It also suggests that future sociological research should strengthen the distinction between participants’ categories and analytical categories, avoid both naïve empiricism and abstract theoreticism, and treat objectivity as a methodologically controlled and socially situated achievement.
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