Funzioni e responsabilità delle scienze sociali: note su alcune vicende nello sviluppo della società italiana

Abstract

This article examines some important moments of the social research and the debate on its public function in Italy. The illustration starts from the last phase of the nineteenth century and ends with the current situation of Italian sociology, which presents many problems and limitations. These limits severely reduce the public function of this subject. Sociology could be a foundamental and essential tool for our society. But it would be necessary – among other things – to recover the capacity for general, but not generic, analyses; and to resume the original vocation of sociology to criticize society.