Cross-cultural dialogue 9

Author: Le Daiyun et al. / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-07-01
Features: Sociology is a science question: The Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences has decided to award you the gold medal this year, which may cause shock. How can sociology become a science? Is there a scientific sociology? Answer: Sociology has certain characteristics that allow us to place it among the sciences: Like other sciences, sociology is committed to constructing hypothetical harmonious models and systems and testing them empirically, especially through observation, statistical surveys, and comparative methods. As for scientific sociology, this is a particularity within sociology itself, and for me, it is prior to any social analysis: Indeed, sociology occupies a very special position because its object is embedded within the reality it signifies. Only astronomy is the opposite: Unless one believes in astrology, astronomy does not experience the consequences of the object it studies nor does it exert influence on the object. Thus, we are trapped within our object, which is one of the reasons why sociology takes skepticism as its object. Therefore, people are always skeptical that we may be trapped in the science associated with the presuppositions and biases tied to our position within the object. This gives rise to an absolute necessity: that we must take the world we inhabit as an object: not the universal social world—which is relatively easier—but the world of science itself, because, in my view, this is where the principle of "circumvention" lies, so circumvented, that is, the various "interests" associated with belonging to the world of science. Bachelard spoke of the psychoanalysis of the scientific spirit. For us, the psychoanalysis of the scientific spirit is the sociology of the world of science, the sociology of sociology. Such reflective demands place us in a rather peculiar position: the position of science about science, the position of meta-science. This also explains why there are some reservations: What is the later arrival of this science? This science in its initial stage, while studying other sciences as its object, teaches them something. This is a reaction I completely understand. That is to say, this reaction is not as universal as it might seem. The sociology of literature has elicited a much stronger response than the sociology of science. For example, my work has always been supported by scientists. Sometimes I wonder that when people try to say something about the truth of this world, the only support they can find in this social world can only be found in the solidarity among scientists. This may be because no one truly demands the truth of the social world, no one is particularly interested in the truth of the social world, of course, especially those in power.