Popov E.A., Korosteleva O.T., Mironova S.V., Mezhenin Ya.E. Sociology and social thinking: challenges and answers for other sciences

Abstract: The subject of this research is the interdisciplinary connections between sociology and other sciences that affect the formation and development of social thinking. The accent is made on the assessment of an empirical and theoretical-methodological potential of sociology made by the representatives of the “related” disciplines on human and society. Based on the analysis of publications on economics, political science, demography, culturology, and other spheres of socio-humanitarian knowledge, it is demonstrated that the colleagues-humanitarians highly appreciate the applied nature of sociological science and lean towards the use of sociological methods of the empirical research; however, theoretical, and especially methodological potential of sociology in the context of interdisciplinary cooperation remains in low demand. The authors made the following conclusions: 1) the establishment of borders of the interdisciplinary cooperation between various sciences often carries a formal character; at the same time, the role of one or another area of knowledge in such cooperation is being stated, however, this problem should be examined in a deeper level, focusing attention on the assessment of the systemic character of such connection; 2) sociology often refers to the potentials of other science, while other sciences are willing to borrows from sociology just the methodical support, therefore it is necessary to explore this problem.

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