The Stance of Sociology in the Pressure to Cutback Humanity and Social Sciences: Stressing the Similarity to or Difference from Science

Abstract

Under the ongoing pressure toward the cutback of humanities and social sciences, we sometimes hear a discourse in which the value of a certain discipline is judged by whether it is “scientific” or not. This paper considers the possible stance of sociology against this adverse backdrop. There are several strategies to gain an evaluation for sociology. One is to close in natural sciences, as economics does. The second is to broaden the definition of science to include sociology within a scientific discipline. The third is to relativize the border between science and non-scientific disciplines to weaken the criterion. However, these strategies each have their own drawbacks. If the peculiarity of sociology is different from those of typical scientific disciplines, we need to have the tenacity to explain the stance of sociology to the broader public.