Scientific Knowledge in Sociology: Problem Statement

Abstract

The article opens a cycle of publications, which analyze the similarities and differences between the two wide spread modern approaches to the description of society - sociological and informational ones. Both approaches have the same methodological problem to be solved. The problem of expressing hidden knowledge about society that participants in social processes operate with the help of natural language in the course of social communication. In order to harmonize sociological and informational approaches of describing society, it was proposed any natural language statements involved in describing society to be arranged according to the basic principle of information technology - modularity. The proposed way of harmonizing informational and sociological methods of building knowledge about society is invoked by the need to solve two scientific problems formulated in sociology itself - the constructability of social objects and the complexity of social relationships. The paper's methodological proposals are embodied in their computer realization, which practical application is demonstrated in other publications of the authors.