Sociology as a Science

a German contemporary Weber who a and human science”. He “nature we explain, Abstract In the time of Enlightenment, the idea of science was to promote the Good society. There was yet not perceived to be a contradiction in science between at the same time being objective and progressive. A century ago, though philosophers and scientist discovered the problem language poses for science: there is a difference between the world and the words. The response from the scientist was paradoxically to defend objectivity. Thus, when sociology was established as a science around the year 1900 it became inherently contradictory, i.e., at the same time being objective and geared at social reforms. (cf. Lindgren 2011) In this article is attempted an outline of a possible solution to this problem in terms of hermeneutics and phenomenology. The conclusion is: by taking understanding as the point of departure sociology can be progressive: promoting the good society and still be a scienc

about "is" and "is" is "empirical". Weber supported the "positivists" by claiming that social science is about "is". To Weber society was ridden by value-conflicts but this science could not do anything about. Thus, a critique of society -an imagining that the given society can be different; can be changed -to him is not-science but instead something political, ideological. That which distinguishes science is its "value-freedom" Weber [7].

What is is?
There is a problem though with this little word "is", something which other German speaking philosophers and scientists had discovered at the same time -Mach, Herz and most explicitly Gottlob Frege -and analytical philosophers have struggled with this little word ever since. The problem they -only "sub consciously" Freud [12] though, since they never gave up the opposite idea -discovered is that there is a difference between the world and the words. Since then first the logical-positivists and then the analytical philosophers -e.g.., Russell, Wittgenstein 2 -and later the post-modernists -e.g., Rohrty, Derrida -have struggled with the troublesome relationship between the words: language and the "empirical" world. The first mentioned -"analytical positivists" is a good name we can give them all since they all -have in wane been trying to save "science" by establishing a connection between the words and the world. The outcome of post-modernism is also positivism: as "post-positivism" -in practice -though they have resigned to the world of language Derrida. Still, these early German philosophers discovered something fundamental for our understanding of the every-day world: that words and phenomena are different things and that there is also "meaning". Then, when we talk use language there are three things present; the language/ words, the things/phenomena and the meaning. Communication: talking takes place within language and language is self-referring: tautological 3 . In themselves, words have no meaning they are empty; a "tree" is a "tree" etc. The things they sometimes refer to 4 have different words in different languages and the things thus have nothing to do with the words. There is also "meaning", something we want to "understand", communicate etc. The meaning -and the phenomena/things -is beyond, before etc the words: language 5 .
Thus "is" is only a word and that is why we must look somewhere else than in this word for the meaning of society.

Phenomena and Meaning
Then the "understanding" of Dilthey is still an alternative to "empirical science/positivism". Following Dilthey human science is about "understanding culture" i.e., "society". In order to understand society, we can also use phenomenology. At the time of Dilthey and Weber, Edmund Husserl was developing his new science of "phenomenology". Husserl said that we have to go to "the things themselves". In order to do so we must do "a phenomenological reduction", that is we must free ourselves of social interpretations.
Then the things appear "in themselves": as they really are: in their essence/meaning. In the sensuous experience: in "looking" one can look beyond the phenomena and experience the real thing, as a feeling of truth: understanding Husserl [13]. Thus -by combining hermeneutics and phenomenology -especially in the way Heidegger [14] and Gadamer later did -we can say that knowledge, as truth is a relationship between the thing/phenomenon and its meaning.
Understanding thus is a sensuous experience Husserl [13] where we use our bodies doing the thinking -i.e., in order to go beyond, before etc. language: Understanding -and not understanding -is sensuously experiencing the relationship between the phenomena/ thing and their meaning.

The meaning of society
Thus, in order to be scient fique, i.e., to understand the society we must overcome the world of words: language. Then, in order to promote the Good society, we can use ourselves; our feelings of society in changing society. Lindgren 6 . We also need to play with the words: language in order to overcome the given society: to think differently i.e., critically Lindgren [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23].