The Future of Sociology
Sociology became an autonomous discipline during the first industrial revolution, but we cannot forget its pre-modern origins: from Platonic ontology to Aristotelian realism; from the great historiographic narratives of ancient Rome to the theories of Ibn Kaldun.
In going beyond the parcelling out of the specialized knowledge of modernity, the sociologist of the twenty-first century can re-appropriate the ancient philosophical roots, heading beyond the commonplaces of post-modernity, founding a post-post-modern social ontology and investigating the sui generis essence of human relations. In this way, the proto-sociological social philosophy becomes an essential instrument of palingenesis of a Sociology able to understand the new interactions between human and non-human.
The society of the twenty-first century will be able to overcome the post-modern if co-assisted by the horizons of meaning built by a dialectic between philosophy and sociology.