Is Sociology a Science?

Science means knowledge. Information by itself is not knowledge, but for systematized information, thinkers use various method like observation and experimentation primarily, and a few other methods, like postulation of hypothesis based on empirical evidence, analogical arguments, comparative method, etc.Whatever may be the subject matter that a thinker systematizes, he provides a perspective to it.Sociologists had the perspective of progress, organic solidarity, rational social order, etc and today the perspectives are conflict, equilibrium of structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, etc. Despite some similarities between sociology and sciences par excellence like physics and chemistry, whether sociology is a science or not is still a moot point.  The crux of the controversy lies in the meaning that we attribute to the word science.  Those who attribute a definite meaning believe that attributes of positive sciences (physics and chemistry) should be the criteria for deciding whether a branch of knowledge is a science or not.  Those, who oppose this view, argue that sociology is a science in its own rights; we can appreciate that assumption of various sociologists that sociology is a science. 

Many of the sociologists of the 19th and 20th centuries treated it as a natural science.  But there are some branches of knowledge where experimentations near impossibility and they are the social sciences.  Since individual, group and society are the three pillars of sociology it is impossible to conduct any experiment .According to Comte, society is created by natural laws that could be explained, just like the natural sciences.  Besides, since society is an objective reality, it can be studied by applying the scientific methods, of observation, experimentation and comparison.  Another 19th century sociologist, Herbert Spencer, treated sociology from the evolutionary viewpoint.Emile Durkheim who clearly defined the field of sociology adopted a new approach.  Society cannot be examined as individual entities, but as collectivities and their interactions, Social collectivity is a social fact and social facts must be regarded as things and they should be studied objectively just as in natural sciences.  Radcliffe-Brown, freely advocated a natural science of society, having its own laws and explanations.  It is also to be observed here that all the above thinkers adopted the evolutionary and organic analyses and concepts derived from biology.  Max Weber has contended that there cannot be an objective science of society since social action must be understood in terms of the meaning man gives to it.  In other words, value judgements are inevitable in sociology and we can never have completely objective science of sociology. In the same manner  George Simmel, has argued that a society is essentially a psychic interaction between human beings both as individuals and groups.  The predicament of sociologists in quite different from that of other sciences.  Any sociologist is at once a product and a part of the process that he observes and understands.  Secondly, sociology is a critique of society.