Abstract

International sociology is in a deep state of crisis. According to the author, one of the causes of the crisis is the adoption of a hyper-constructivist epistemological point of view: on the one hand, it prevents sociology from establishing common scientific criteria for assessing the quality of empirical and theoretical research; on the other hand, constructivism has transformed sociology in an all-embracing science which lacks clear boundaries and a shared definition of its own object of inquiry. As a way out of the crisis, the author indicates a deep acknowledgement of sociology's double nature as a technical science and a as more philosophical, normatively-oriented discourse on society and social life.