What is a “sociologist”？
Mike
Before trying to define what a sociologist is, I would like to focus on the question of what a physicist is.
What is at stake in this question is what we know about the behavior of bodies and material corpuscles. Everyone has a certain knowledge on this subject. For the very practical purpose of being able to anticipate the fall of a tile, the wave of a wave or the trajectory of a tennis ball. This knowledge is generally acquired in a very spontaneous, even intuitive way, but it also happens that it results from a methodical learning, as is the case for being able to play tennis. None of those who acquire such knowledge is, however, qualified as a physicist.
The physicist is the one who seeks to disentangle the truth from the false as far as the behavior of the bodies and the material corpuscles is concerned, and which, in order to do this, uses methods which are usually called scientific. Their only aim is to remove as far as possible errors in the elaboration of theories; These methods are therefore not embroiled in any practical consideration. This scientific method was born at the beginning of the seventeenth century, notably with Bacon, Descartes and Galileo.
What is a sociologist?
What is at stake here is what we know about human behavior, especially in their social interactions. Everyone has a certain knowledge on this subject, and even precise opinions on the various possible behaviors, those that should be adopted as those of which it is important to guard. This knowledge and opinions are generally acquired in a very spontaneous or even intuitive way, but sometimes they result from a methodical apprenticeship, as is the case when they are the object of a moral, civic teaching Or religious. None of those who acquire such knowledge and opinions and none of those who teach them are sociologists.
The sociologist is the one who seeks to disentangle the truth from the false with regard to the behavior of humans in society and which, to do so, uses methods which aim to distance themselves from the errors to which condemn spontaneous knowledge and common opinions. They are indeed dominated by the illusion that the social world is transparent, whereas the determinations that influence human behavior are most often unconscious. These methods must therefore tend to objectify behaviors, without consideration for the social stakes, as estimable as the latter.
We are thus led to observe that, unfortunately, many today are called sociologists (or affirm themselves as such) and continually contravene these methodological instructions, whether to leave room for considerations of common sense Which owe little to any effort of objectification whatsoever, whether to defend opinions which thus benefit from a halo of usurped scientificity.
Pierre Bourdieu
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