Modernity's Critical Conscience: A Social Science that Matters

This book offers a thought-provoking defence of social science – and particularly the discipline of sociology – and its relevance for 21st-century challenges to democratic societies.

The author shows how social science holds a unique and critical role: namely, to act as modernity’s critical conscience by scrutinizing power relations and unmasking attempts to trivialize social reality. They do so by revisiting several classic texts in social science, demonstrating their timeless relevance for understanding society and the role of knowledge, and relating them to contemporary issues and debates. Although often depicted as having limitations compared to "hard" sciences, the book argues that the methodologies used in social science enables it to act as modernity’s critical conscience by embracing the essential qualitative and critical view that is its true essence. Contemporary calls for making social science relevant to society should be met by staying true to this approach and thus remain relevant rather than attempting to become relevant. In this way, social science can contribute to countering political polarization, "knowledge resistance," trivialization, and other contemporary threats to democratic society, with the author ultimately advocating for a revitalization and institutionalization of social science’s mechanisms for self-reflection to the broader and deeper benefit of society.

A beautifully written, wide-ranging, and appealing explanation of what the social sciences, and sociology in particular, could, and should be, it will be of equal interest to professors and graduate students as to undergraduate students studying introductory modules to sociology.

Olof Hallonsten is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Lund University School of Economics and Management, Sweden.