ABSTRACT
By defining the study of the social as a positivistic science, Comte was outlining a domain of “powerful knowledge,” for it is “only through the boundaries of [a] discipline … that general freedom, unforeseen expanded possibilities can be generated” (Young and Muller, 2013: 247). At the same time, he was defining society as a domain of expertise, demanding that sociologists take full autonomous control over their investigations of the social, and directing them to professional behavior. The description of sociologists as professionals, moreover, credits them with exclusive ownership of an area of expertise, autonomy and discretion in work practices, and occupational control of their work (Evetts, 2003: 406). By contrast with the natural or the biological sciences, however, and with the sciences associated with therapies, sociologists are confronted by unique challenges. In developing the new science in the course of the nineteenth century, sociologists had to decide how to recognize the slippery entity of society as an object of study and as a field. Embedded in the query about the nature of society was the conundrum of what practices would uncover its nature, and, of course, the practical issue of how in the world social scientists could have control over their work.
