Sociology is the systematic, sceptical and critical study of the way that people do things together .It’s not a science that simply lists facts and figures about society. Instead it becomes a form of consciousness, a way of thinking, a critical way of seeing the world. It welcomes you to challenge the obvious, to question the world as it is taken for granted and to de-familiarising the familiar. This is what empowers critical thinking which triggers the development of the understanding of the human life. The aim of this essay is to outline the sociological approach to understanding human life , to explore the different sociological perspectives , to question the reliability of the different forms of research and to emphasise the key …show more content…

The second sociological perspective is the conflict perspective . this analysis points out that, rather than promoting the operation of society as a whole , social structure typically benefits some people while depriving others, for example the rich in relation to the poor. So sociologist such as Marx that belong to this school of thought try to understand society at the same time change it . The problem here is that as this perspective highlights inequality and undermines unity among members in a society. The aim of this perspective is to pursue political goals , it overlooks scientific objectivity.
The other side of the sociological approach to understanding human life is to conduct sociological investigation in order to find out what is sociologically true. There are many different areas of thought which have different angles on what is scientifically true. Positivism suggests that sociological/scientific truths are based on empirical evidence. So for example Berger approach of seeing the general within the particular would coincide here. The reliability of sociological truths do have limitations , for example Peter Berger social patterns change constantly, what is true in one society and in one particular time may not hold truth in another. As opposed to the laws of mathematics, they are universal