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.
