Introduction

There is an increasing number of sociologists, sociology teachers and sociology students around the world, but for several reasons, it is not clear whether this seemingly favourable situation will last, nor whether the discipline will survive for a long time in its current form. Not that sociology is in crisis. More modesty, because sociology is only a subsystem within the system of science, which is itself a subsystem of society. In a money-driven world that admits only the measure of immediate profitability for the stockholders, the usefulness of sociology is challenged indeed. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book opens with a brief analysis of a quadruple fragmentation within the social sciences: the autonomization of theory and research, the fragmentation among theories, the separation of sociology and the Studies, as well as between the social sciences and moral, social and political philosophy.