**1. Introduction**

142 Sociological Landscape – Theories, Realities and Trends

Yu, C.-S. (2002). A GP-AHP method for solving rout decision-making fuzzy AHP problems.

This question, although trivial as it could appear, is neither so easy to by-pass, nor so useless: as I hope to show a little later.

Sociology consists, at first, of a lot of concepts (better: "ideal types", according with Weber), statements, theories, all grounded on observations and reasoning. In other words, it consists of knowing something, but also of thinking about the reliability of the way we put together such concepts, statements etc. Exactly the same as other sciences do.

According with a common sense shared by both laymen and most scholars, at the first level all kinds of knowledge are the outcome of some methodical actions aiming to reproduce within human mind some features of "reality". At the second level, they come from a methodical reasoning aiming to "explain" the events observed. And finally, they consist of drawing some conclusions useful to forecast what could arrive in the future, more or less far.

Some basic assumptions taken for granted are connected with such statements. The first one is that there is a "reality" existing behind and before our observations, independently on them; secondly, such reality is (or at least ought to be) rationally arranged to give place to a *Kosmos*, so as the ancient Greeks said. Then, human reason is able to catch such rational arrangements, because of a real similarity between both reasons: human and natural, subjective and objective. Finally, the three levels are "rationally" ordered according with the above hierarchy of priority: observing, explaining, forecasting.

Philosophers have many different opinions about such statements, but anyway they couldn't be demonstrated. Then I think it would be dangerous to build our knowledge on such unsettled grounds. Of course we can let laymen do so: indeed by this way they usually build a common sense knowledge permitting them to manage their everyday life. Moreover the same happened successfully along many centuries, before the modern pattern of science elaborated by Royal Society would be established.

We know very well that such a pattern has been revised several times: during the Enlightenment, by the nineteenth century Positivists and the neo-Kantian philosophers, until the sophisticated discourses of twentieth century epistemologists (see mainly the

Can Sociology Help Us to Live a Better Life ? A Phenomenological Approach to Clinical Sociology 145

Our very discourse deals with the *reason why people would like to know something* : because knowing is finally a social action, then it has to make sense (for the actor), which consists first of all (according with Weber) of the reason why they do so. We have already spoken about the common idea of science as something reflecting the world outside within the human mind. And we have pointed out some doubts about the consistency of metaphysical foundations of such a thesis. But now we would like to skip such problem by putting down a new question: *Why indeed people (including scientists) do make an effort like that*? The Italian poet Dante Alighieri during the XIVth century put on the lips of Ulysses the famous speech about "*virtute e conoscenza*": that means "human beings have not been created to live as animals, but to pursue virtue and knowledge". Behind such a sentence we can find a philosophical reasoning as well a theological one, well mixed so as it usually happened during the Middle Ages. The *sense* of mankind, that's the *reason why* it has been created (by God: Who likely had just this intention, and then this waiting from His creature) is to pursue virtue and knowledge. Then for our Middle Ages ancestors the effort to learn always more,

Nowadays on the contrary, after the scientific revolution of the XVIIth century, we can no longer take into consideration the *sense* of mankind, and namely a sense given it by God. A basic assumption of modern knowledge is not to need the hypothesis of God to explain anything in the world. Then we have to search for another explanation of the *social practice* 

Knowledge is indeed a social practice, and science (together with sociology) is included

A *practice* indeed is whatever (human) activity aiming to manage the world of life, to satisfy some need by changing something, by solving some problem. Of course, we know that all along the Western philosophical tradition people have distinguished the practical activity from the theoretical one: and knowledge has been considered as pertaining to the latter. But such a view, albeit very influential (have we to remind the two "reasons", the theoretical and the practical one, separately examined by Kant?), implies many metaphysical presuppositions which are not only indemonstrable, but finally contrasting with a phenomenological overview of the process of building human knowledge. That we are

Human life (something namely practical) flows always and overall within a social dimension. Never human beings lived all alone, running prairies and forests so as other wild beasts do: because they need to meet each other and share the efforts to gain what is necessary for collective surviving and to avert dangers coming from natural forces. In other words, they have to share social practices: i.e. making tools, hunting, caring kids and the elders, defending the group from enemies, etc. So as Durkheim pointed out, sharing working practices made societies consistent, that's giving the ground of human solidarity.

At this point we have to take note that no one, individual as well as human group, could survive without interpreting the events arriving all around: that's giving them a meaning as a sign of somewhat likely to arrive in a future, immediate as well as far. Animals too do

to build an ever growing knowledge, depends on a moral obligation.

*named* "*knowledge"*.

going to show here below.

**2. From the wild life until institutions** 

within knowledge. But what means to be a *social practice*?

sceptical thesis of the post-Popper ones, so as Feyerabend). Nevertheless there are, I think, good reasons to suspect that all these theories involve some metaphysic assumptions, generally not made explicit. The only basic feature we can assume as a solid ground to build our discourses is that both modern science and sociology are someway kinds of critical knowledge: that means, according with the most philosophers, a knowledge involving reflexive thinking about its foundations and methods as well.

In my opinion, we should first of all go back to the starting point of the so called modern science: when scholars decided to put apart from their field of research the *end*, the *aim* of the nature, and to pay attention only to the *causes* of natural phenomena. But refusing *teleology* involves to give no relevance to the *sense* of nature taken as a whole, as well as seen in its particular features. It seems to me that such a refuse should be maintained, in general, for the science, but on the other hand one should also deal with some consequences, that we could resume by speaking about the following three points.

First of all, people can hardly survive without giving sense to their *world of life* (the little section of the universe they live in, then the persons, animals and things they find during their everyday life, as well as the set of ideas, beliefs, information they have at hand for managing their life). People know very well that behind their own world of life there is a big world, the very universe, within which their own one has to make *sense*. Therefore they cannot be satisfied only with a science taking for irrelevant the problem of the sense of the whole: then, facing such a state of things, some ones shut their eyes and carry on their lives in apnoea. Some other ones (particularly within secularized societies) are in quest of satisfaction by living from hand to mouth, enjoying as much as possible every single moment: in other words, by living an *aesthetic life* (according to Kierkegaard). Finally there are some other ones who are in quest of sense by asking for it from religion. Only a few persons indeed are able to make sense by their own for their life, and that happens mostly by making a personal use of religious convictions. Then, generally speaking, we could point out that in the quest for sense religion plays a very important role.

A second question concerns the difference between *nature* and *human world*, as to the relevance of the *sense* for scientific research. Questing for the sense of human world (taken as a whole) means obviously to search for the place of such a whole within the universe: that's exactly the same as to search for the sense of the universe itself (that modern science refused to do). But usually social sciences don't pursue such an aim: they generally pay attention to specific features of human world, namely to human behaviour (individual, collective or institutional). That's namely the same as Weber pointed out by speaking about a sociology concerned with *human behaviour provided with a sense given by the actor himself.* 

Then sociologists not only cannot put away the problem of the sense in the same way as physicists or chemists: on the contrary, they have to do namely with the sense, in some way. And moreover (so as philosophers and historians) they usually *speak about* science: in other words they make a *meta-discourse* where science and scientists are the object (and maybe this is the reason why such other members are so suspicious of sociologists: they could feel not so happy for being taken as an object).

Indeed we are just now choosing an approach like that: we are going to *speak about*  sociology, as well as about science (then taking the former as it would share the same nature as the latter).

Our very discourse deals with the *reason why people would like to know something* : because knowing is finally a social action, then it has to make sense (for the actor), which consists first of all (according with Weber) of the reason why they do so. We have already spoken about the common idea of science as something reflecting the world outside within the human mind. And we have pointed out some doubts about the consistency of metaphysical foundations of such a thesis. But now we would like to skip such problem by putting down a new question: *Why indeed people (including scientists) do make an effort like that*? The Italian poet Dante Alighieri during the XIVth century put on the lips of Ulysses the famous speech about "*virtute e conoscenza*": that means "human beings have not been created to live as animals, but to pursue virtue and knowledge". Behind such a sentence we can find a philosophical reasoning as well a theological one, well mixed so as it usually happened during the Middle Ages. The *sense* of mankind, that's the *reason why* it has been created (by God: Who likely had just this intention, and then this waiting from His creature) is to pursue virtue and knowledge. Then for our Middle Ages ancestors the effort to learn always more, to build an ever growing knowledge, depends on a moral obligation.

Nowadays on the contrary, after the scientific revolution of the XVIIth century, we can no longer take into consideration the *sense* of mankind, and namely a sense given it by God. A basic assumption of modern knowledge is not to need the hypothesis of God to explain anything in the world. Then we have to search for another explanation of the *social practice named* "*knowledge"*.
