ABSTRACT
Social philosophy is the product of the application of the specific philosophic thought form to the subject-matter of society. It results from a specific functional relationship between the subject and the socio-historical actuality which differs from that functional relationship which produces scientific knowledge. The distinction between science and philosophy is the criterion for distinguishing between the social sciences and sociology on the one hand and social philosophy on the other. The epistemology of sociology or of any other social science is the inquiry into the basic presuppositions of the scientific investigation which cannot be dealt with within the actual science itself. It deals with the a priori elements, not of knowledge in general, that being the task of general epistemology, but of social or sociological knowledge. The metaphysics of sociology and the social sciences does not inquire into the prerequisites of society, but takes society for granted.
