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CHAPTER IV 
SOCIOLOGY AS DISTINCT FROM 
SOCIAL PHILOSOPYY 
I iy HE term “sociology” has often been used for in- 
I quiries regarding the socio-historical actuality which 
are in the last analysis of a philosophical nature. It 
becomes necessary, therefore, to distinguish between the 
science of sociology on the one hand and social philosophy 
on the other. The word “sociology” does not stand for a 
special science but simply for a branch of philosophy as 
long as it is merely used for this latter discipline, and its 
legitimation as a science demands, therefore, a clear differ- 
entiation. 
Social philosophy is in essence the same as and belongs 
to philosophy. It is the product of the application of the 
specific philosophic thought form to the subject-matter of 
society. It results from a specific functional relationship 
between the subject and the socio-historical actuality 
which differs from that functional relationship which pro- 
duces scientific knowledge. It is the outcome of a way of 
dealing with the phenomenological world which is different 
from the way in which science deals with that same world. 
It results from the application of the philosophic method, 
and for that reason it should be classed with philosophy 
rather than with the social sciences or sociology. The lat- 
ter forms of inquiry, although dealing with the same sub- 
ject-matter, employ a wholly different method. The dis- 
tinction between science and philosophy is therefore also 
the criterion for distinguishing between the social sciences