ABSTRACT
The debate on the relationship between sociology and philosophy is as sociologically understandable as it is philosophically inconclusive.
Looked upon sociologically, the debate is easily explained as an expression of natural concern with boundary-drawing: two intellectual traditions, two wide-open discursive formations that draw upon each other, feed each other, intertwine and live through joint history, need to guard their precarious institutional autonomy within the academic world of departmental divisions and specializations. The passion and ferocity of the battle reflect the elusiveness of its objective; the two discursive formations staunchly resist administrative attempts at separation and stay alive only in so far as the artificially erected dams are far too low and porous to resist overflowing. One can usefully think of the two discourses as two eddies inside one river. The same fluid matter passes through them incessantly; the eddies exist solely as conductors. For each of the two, to keep its respective identity means drawing in ever new matter and letting out the processed one.
