Social Philosophy and Interdisciplinarity

Abstract

The present article considers the problematical nature of social philosophy’s interdisciplinary character. The author considers that we can discover its specification as an independent area of the humanities, with exarticulation of adjacent to social philosophy disciplines like political philosophy, historic sociology and social theory. If it will be done, we will be able as the scientists to prove that social philosophy, which if often considering as the synonymous of social theory, has right to exist. The author comes to conclusion that the most part of social theory supporters try to ignore valuative dimension in “theories” of thinkers they research (Georg Simmel, Hanna Arendt, Juergen Habermas, Zygmunt Bauman). In fact it is а duty of social philosophy which nature is valuative. In author’s point of view, such a trend in theoretical sociology as “cultural sociology,” which use not only explanatory and descriptive methods but also interpretations, reflects the differences between social theory and social philosophy because it emphasizes the cultural dimension of social processes. For example, cultural sociology deals with issues that are more relevant to philosophy than to sociology, in particular, it concerns the problem of evil.