Noun
That branch of philosophy which treats of the constitution, phenomena, and development of human society; social science.
Source: Webster's dictionaryThe creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he is answerable. Nadine Gordimer
...there must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientist, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale. Ralph Ellison
Even at its most perceptive, sociology deals in abstractions. Richard Russo
All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many. Ulrich Beck
Sociology is the science which has the most methods and the least results. Henri Poincaré
Whether sociology can ever become a full-fledged "science" (a description of a class of events predictable on the basis of deductions from a constant rationale) depends on whether the terms which sociologists employ to describe events can be analyzed into quantifiable observables. Anatol Rapoport