The Limits of Sociological Practice: On the Analytical Function of Sociology

Abstract

This article examines whether sociologists have lost sight of the proper scope of the discipline from a functional perspective, arguing that many of the tensions surrounding sociology arise from expectations that exceed its analytical function. Contemporary sociology is often expected to provide immediate solutions, predict future developments or support ideological positions; however, these expectations push the discipline beyond its proper scope. Drawing on classical sociological insights from Durkheim, Weber, Merton and Parsons, and engaging directly with the critical–realist case against value-neutrality, the article argues that sociology fulfils its role when it focuses on understanding social processes rather than attempting to engineer social change, forecast the future or act as political advocacy. It distinguishes objectivity, treated as a regulative horizon pursued but never fully possessed, from neutrality, redefined as a restraint of the analytical role rather than equidistance before the object, and develops the distinction through the worked example of suicide. It situates basic and applied sociology within a single analytical function, distinct from intervention and activism and documents through the case of social work how a discipline that declines to define its jurisdiction cedes ground to those that do. Recognising the structural limits of sociology does not weaken the discipline; these limits safeguard its analytical autonomy and secure the one jurisdiction that no rival is equipped to claim.