THE SEVEN UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIOLOGY

1. Sociology is a social science and not a natural science. This distinction is by content not by method. That is, sociology simply serves to distinguish those sciences dealing with the physical from the social universe.

2. Sociology is a categorical and not a normative discipline. By this is meant that sociology confines itself to statements of what is, not what ought to be.

3. Sociology is not an applied science but a pure science. Its main goal is the acquisition of knowledge about human society, not the utilization of that knowledge. For instance, sociology is mainly concerned with acquiring the knowledge about society that can be used to solve some of the world’s problems, but it is not itself an applied science.

4. Sociology is not interested in the concrete manifestations of human events but rather, in the form they take and the patterns they assume.

5. Sociology is a generalizing, not a particularizing or individualizing science. It looks for general laws about human groups and societies not as the case of history which seeks complete and comprehensive descriptions of particular societies.

6. Sociology studies those phenomena that are common to all human interactions.

7. Sociology is both a rational and an empirical science. This final characteristic concerns methodological issues. In the course of investigation, science adheres to principles of objectivity, relativism, ethical neutrality, parsimony and skepticism.

Professor O. A Ogunbameru,
Department of Sociology,
Obafemi Awolowo University,
Ile-Ife, Nigeria.