ABSTRACT
When sociology set out on its historical path, it found that most fields of human activity were occupied by interpretations and theories. There were innumerable religious interpretations, including elaborate systems of dogmatics. There were moral conceptions and ethical theories. In this world, it was not easy to define the meaning and the purpose of the new discipline that called itself sociology. Historical and ideal, political relativism alone could scarcely provide a justification for adding a further variant. Both the legal system and the system of the sciences, including the discipline of sociology, will here be regarded as self-referential systems. The observation of the paradox only brings sociology back to the question of how it can deparadoxify its own paradox as a science – the paradox that there are propositions that are false because they are true.
