At present, sociology is gaining wide recognition and occupies a worthy place among the sciences. She studies society as a whole and man in particular, and also analyzes the numerous points of their mutual contact. Sociology allows you to explore those aspects that we sometimes ignore, makes it possible to understand the structure of human society, to understand the feelings that govern our behavior, and to understand how our society was formed. In other words, sociology gives us a certain consciousness that helps us understand the social forces that hold us back or liberate us, clarifying the aspects of our lives and opening up the social world for us.
The difficulty in defining sociology as a science was caused by the fact that all the huge number of manifestations of social researchers tried to artificially lead to one thing, to merge together, and this is basically unrealistic.
“Social” is the most important category of sociology. It arises in the process of interaction between people and includes the whole diversity of their relationships and ties that form social life. The main attention of sociologists is directed to a person, since he is an active subject of social relations.
Due to the ambiguity of the definition of sociology as a science, it leads to its multi-level structure and is structured for various reasons:
- According to the object of research: macroscience, microsociology and sociology of the middle level.
- According to the level of knowledge gained: theoretical and empirical.
- According to the goals and objectives of sociological research: fundamental and applied.
Consider that includes the subject and object of sociology.
The subject of a specific science is the conditioned sphere of the subjective or objective world. The object of science is what it studies, for sociology - society. A certain subject and object of sociology allows us to consider it as a science.
The subject and the object of sociology is quite specific, since it is aimed at studying society in all the variety of social properties, relations and connections. Expressors and carriers of social qualities are classes, groups, individuals.
Therefore, social relations, interaction, communication, as well as ways to organize them, this is the object of sociology as a science.
The subject of science is the result of theoretical study. The subject of sociology as a science cannot be defined unambiguously, since it is the result of research activities. His understanding throughout the history of sociology has changed. Different schools and directions have a different understanding of the subject of sociology as a science, since it is closely intertwined with research activities.
A part of reality acts as an object of science, which is reflected and investigated by concrete science. These include: society as a whole; community, including workers, entrepreneurs and farmers; macro-groups consisting of urban population, workers' settlements and production associations; and microgroups, which include groups, companies of people, families. In accordance with this, the object of sociology as a science is social phenomena and society as a whole, their development and functioning. Then the subject of sociology is a conceptual scheme of reality, where its main elements and features are combined into a system and logically flow from each other.
The subject and object of sociology is studied by society as a whole, paying attention to its individual parts, areas, elements, for example, domestic and labor relations, social institutions of education and politics, and conducting their analysis in the social aspect, considering them through human awareness and perception.