SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY 59 related fragments of scientific knowledge of the social ac- tuality. They involve interpretations of a philosophical na- ture and may therefore be answered in many different ways. They may be based on either idealistic or realistic, intel- lectualistic or volitional, absolutistic or relativistic systems of philosophy, and this will largely determine their form. The treatment of these problems has sometimes been called sociology. But it does not possess that categorical independence, that unique relationship between subject- matter and method, which would justify a conception of that treatment as a special science. All these questions are merely philosophical questions. That they have society for their object signifies only the extension of an already existing type of inquiry to a further territory. Whether philosophy be called a science or not, the philosophy of society has no right to withdraw itself from the advantages and disadvantages which result from its intimate relation to general philosophy. The philosophic treatment of social phenomena may be regarded as a preliminary to an exact scientific treatment, as a means of obtaining a first bird’s-eye view of the socio- historical actuality. In that case it is bound to be suc- ceeded by an exact treatment on the part of the different social sciences and sociology. But the philosophic treat- ment of social phenomena may also be regarded as an in- dependent and self-sufficient form of inquiry, as a meta- physics proper. In that case it will have a value in and for itself which is entirely independent of its relations to exact knowledge. As metaphysics proper, aiming at the comple- tion of knowledge and a valuation of the data of experience, it does in no way compete with empiricism, because it then results from a different viewpoint and serves an entirely different purpose. In neither case is it identical with the social sciences or with sociology.! 1 Soz., pp. 25-26; Grundfr. der Soz., p. 83; Phil. des Geldes, Introd.