History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.
Academic sociologists have been trained to conceive of their discipline - sociology - as the scientific study of society, and to remit to the sister discipline of psychology the study of individuals.
Sociology is really in trouble as a field. I can tell you, because I've known young people who have wanted to go into it, and they have been uniformly advised, if you are a free thinker, stay away from sociology.
The way forward does not lie in amateur and comically timeless linguistic sociology which takes 'forms of life ' for granted (and this is what philosophy has been recently), but in the systematic study of forms of life which does not take them for granted at all. It hardly matters whether such an inquiry is called philosophy or sociology.
I went to the London School of Economics to study sociology and psychology on a serviceman's grant.
I moved to Philadelphia to go to school at Eastern partly because I wanted to study the Bible and I also went to study sociology. I like how Karl Barth said we have to read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other so that our faith doesn't just become a ticket into heaven and a license to ignore the world around us.
My students often ask me, 'What is sociology?' And I tell them, 'It's the study of the way in which human beings are shaped by things that they don't see.'
I love seeing what people are eating. It's a great way of looking at what is similar and what is different about people. It's sociology and anthropology and history rolled into one.
Study the behavior of animals and you will understand human psychology and sociology. Study a flower excited under sunlight, and you will understand how all living things respond to light. The Almighty has provided everything in nature. Observe nature and you will grow. The cures of all illnesses are found in nature in the shapes of the body parts they were created to cure.
Already I notice a feeling of 'If this be sociology, Good Lord deliver us.' However sociology has endured many things like it and my faith in its ultimate triumph never wavers.
I don't take lessons in art. It all comes from the heart, and sure I'd love to study art! In school I come across one thing I do and I want to study that in college. I love history, I love science, I love art, I love grammar, I love literature!
Love is a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love the verb.
Research such as ours is driven by the human imperative to understand where we are. It motivates the study of our positions in family, or in society, or on earth. The results may be termed geology, or sociology, or poetry.
Sociology isthescience of talk, and there is onlyone law in sociology. Bad talk drives out good.
To those of you who study history, economics, sociology, literature and language I present the challenge of the utilization of the enormous resources in our grasp to the problem of creating a genuinely good life for yourselves and your children.
I often say that sociology is a martial art, a means of self-defense. Basically, you use it to defend yourself, without having the right to use it for unfair attacks.