Download The particular position of Sociology among social Sciences

Ramazan Ahmadi
Student of master degree
The particular position of Sociology among social Sciences
Introduction
Studying and understanding the human society is not limited to a particular discipline.
But various fields of study such as; sociology, history, economics, psychology, human geography, ethnography, anthropology, demographics, law, politics and other related social
sciences study different aspects of social life and contribute to each other in general of understanding of society. Among them, sociology has more relations with other social and
humanitarian sciences.
Sociology is the study of social rules and procedures which evaluate people as both,
individuals and members of social associations, groups and organizations. Sociology has a
wide scope which includes from people’s interactions on the street to global level.
Main subject
As a part of human knowledge, humanitarian sciences study different social and human phenomena, which includes; psychic, educative, economy, juridical, political and social aspects. As an independent discipline, but part of social science, sociology has significant position. According to Pierre Neville, sociology is the intersection point of a collection of disciplines in social sciences. He says, it’s very difficult to study sociology without
relying on the results obtained in other fields; as sociology is the crossroad of other social
sciences [1]. Dr. Abdul Hamid Abdul Hamd says, “In a word, sociology is like the main
actor, if researchers don’t use sociological terms in their conversations and texts, or don’t
look from sociologic prospect, they will be accused to intellectual stagnation and illiteracy” [2]. In terms of the relation of sociology, we can find a few general points as below:
 Some people believe that other social sciences are like sociology’s councils, as it
studies all social phenomena.
 Some people believe that sociology is the study of the relationships between social
sciences and sociologists use the studding’s subject of another disciplines’ scholars.
 Some others believe that the subject matter of sociology and other social sciences
are almost the same, as sociology uses the method which is not different from other
social sciences. It worth noting that each branch of social sciences studies a particular aspect of human’s social life and they are close to each other.
Each branch of sciences benefits from the information and result of other fields. It’s
impossible for a scholar to be successful in his field of study without benefiting from the
researches of other scholars and research from other fields. Sociology pays attention to
historical, economic, political studies and the mention disciplines are dependent to sociology as well. Therefore, sociology can’t study and understand social phenomena and their
causes and factors without benefiting the results of researches in other disciplines. The relationship between sociology and some other disciplines are explained in below:
1. Sociology and History: sociology needs to pay attention to the history of phenomena
in order to understand and explain social events. Therefore, in this context the sociology should rely on history.
2. Sociology and Law: Law needs to understand the social conditions, problems and
contemporary issues for adjusting personal and social rules, and the right and responsibility of individuals towards each other and the state. Therefore, it should benefit from sociology to accomplish its goals.
3. Sociology and Psychology: sociology enters to the psychology fields in studying the
social demands, motivations and attitudes and psychology uses sociological studies
in examining the social impacts on individual’s behaviors and attitudes.
4. Sociology and Anthropology: anthropology studies the organizations, associations
and relationships among individuals in primitive societies and sociology studies the
organizations and social issues in today’s developed and industrialized society.
Therefore, sociology needs anthropology studies to explain social associations and
organizations [3].
5. Sociology and Demographics: the urbanizations, industrialization, women’s employment and increasing divorce as social phenomena considerably impact on demography. Also, sociologists use the results of demographic studies related to population movements and other demographic issues to understand the causes and impact
of population movements and find the solutions.
6. Sociology and Economics: economics studies the human’s function in terms of production, exchange and consumption of goods. It should be remembered that, economic and industrial establishments are not independent from social structure and
system. Economy is part of a society’s culture and various cultural and social factors,
especially; customs, people’s beliefs and values impact on the way of production,
distribution, exchange and consumption of goods. In other words, economic activities are inseparable from social life and will not be understood separately.
7. Sociology and Political Science: both are social sciences. In western societies the political science is used as a synonym for political sociology. In some countries, like
France, the concept of political sociology is more common than political science and
most of political scientists studies the same issues under both concepts.
However, there are some differences between sociology and political science according to Engels:
 Sociology studies the social life while political science is the study of “power”
which appears in formal institutions.
 Sociology analyzes the relations between institutions including political system
while the political science is concentrated on dynamics within the government.
 Political science evaluate the formal structure of the government, governmental
affairs and their functions and pay less attention to the real activities while sociology studies their real acts and activities.
Conclusion
Sociology is a branch of social sciences; some scholars even considers sociology as
the core of social sciences which increases the importance of sociology. This discipline is
in close relations with other social sciences. Because, psychology, political science, economics, anthropology, geography and history study the social phenomena as well. But
each of them has its own importance according to two reasons:
 Firstly, each discipline of social sciences analyzes the issues related to its scope of
work.
 Secondly, each of them pays attention to different aspects of social realities and the
sociology disciplines also do the same, but with a difference, sociology disciplines
don’t stop in this level. They try to interrelate different social layers and consider
them as unified whole.
References
1- Mohseni, M., general sociology, Tehran: Tahoori Library, 1987- p. 47.
2- Aboul Hamd, Abdul Hamid, Principles of Politics, Vol. I, Tehran University Press,
1978, p.13.
3- Gharaei Moquaddam, Amanullah, Principles of Sociology, Tehran: Abjad, 2008, pp.
89-90.