The purpose of this essay is to discuss the base of sociology from an existentialistic perspective. The discussion takes it's position in the debate on the crisis of sociology, and aligns with Alvin Gouldner's understanding of the crisis. Gouldner believed that the crisis of sociology was mirrored in a sociological method that failed to describe the social reality that it meant to describe; a lack in self-criticism and self-reflexivity, a lack in self-containment in relation to state interests and a lack in moral engagement. This raises a number of questions, which I discuss in the essay. What is the role of sociology in our society? How shall we form a method that responds to the social reality that we sociologists aim to describe? How can we make sociology more moral? Existentialism offers a starting point to describe these questions. I argue that the existentialistic description of man as essence carries implications for the social science. By constituting a critique of a computable moral, existentialism points at the necessity of a standing self-criticism and dialogue. An existentialistic description of man as non-essence carries implications for the theory and method of sociology. Man's possibility of radical exceeding of himself means the impossibility to reach theories that describe reality as it is. At the same time, method and theory are necessary to create knowledge about social phenomenon. I read existentialism as an imperative for a sociology that is reflexive in the sense a) a reflexivity in relation to the basic presumptions (value philosophical and ontological) that effect our sociological examinations b) a self-reflexivity that amount to an understanding of the scientists own role relation to his study and the object being studied. Furthermore, I read existentialism as an imperative for a radicalization of dialogue as method.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hv-2240 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Grönqvist, Simon |
| Publisher | Högskolan Väst, Avd för socialpedagogik och sociologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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