Development of the Subject of Sociology: From Monodisciplinarity to Inter- and Post-Disciplinarity

Occupation: Head of the Department of Sociology; Chief Researcher
Affiliation:
MGIMO-University
Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Science
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow

Journal name

Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya

Edition

Issue 3

Pages

16-26

Abstract

The article focuses on the analysis of the dynamics of the subject of sociology, proceeding from the fact that all sociological paradigms have studied, one way or another, the conditions and tendencies of changes in the life-worlds of people, although the representatives of each of them did it in their own way, which was determined by the dominant social problems. The accelerating and complicated development of nature and society under the influence of the “arrow of time” (I. Prigogine) required the complication of theoretical and methodological tools, which resulted in successive transitions from mechanistic monodisciplinarity, the instruments of which were borrowed from the natural sciences, to sociological disciplinarity, then to the increasingly complex interdisciplinarity and further to the development of post-disciplinarity, which, however, preserves the sociological core. At the same time, the article reveals the specific contribution of world sociological congresses that took place in the 21^st century, as well as individual scientists, to the development of the subject of sociological science in the context of the transition from Newtonian to the nonlinear-Einstein picture of the world. The author comes to the conclusion that the transition to more complex, actually modern inter- and post-disciplinary methodologies does not mean diminishing, denying the significance of previously created tools – each of them can be effective for the analysis of phenomena of different structural and functional complexity. He also suggests that post-disciplinarity with the sociological core should be given the humanistic vector of development. In this he sees the general prospects for the humanization of knowledge and life-worlds of people in the development of digital technologies, which carry both unprecedented alternatives to life and side-effects for people and society.

Keywords

subject of sociology, generation of sociological theory, metaparadigm, “arrow of time”, Newtonian’s worldview, Einstein’s worldview, non-linearity, monodisciplinarity, inter-disciplinarity, post-disciplinarity, metamorphoses, humanism

Received

13.03.2020

Publication date

16.03.2020

Number of characters

32882

Cite

GOST	Kravchenko S. Development of the Subject of Sociology: From Monodisciplinarity to Inter- and Post-Disciplinarity // Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya – 2020. – Issue 3 C. 16-26 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/socis/s013216250008794-6-1-en (circulation date: 25.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S013216250008794-6
MLA	Kravchenko, Sergey A. "Development of the Subject of Sociology: From Monodisciplinarity to Inter- and Post-Disciplinarity." Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 3 (2020):16-26. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250008794-6
APA	Kravchenko S. (2020). Development of the Subject of Sociology: From Monodisciplinarity to Inter- and Post-Disciplinarity. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya (3), pp.16-26 DOI: 10.31857/S013216250008794-6

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