"Society" in Sociology

Sociology has no consensus definition of its subject matter, “society.” This is one plausible explanation for why cumulative scientific knowledge has been slow, inconsistent and limited in the discipline. This paper makes four points. First, the paper reviews how (and whether) twenty influential sociologists, past and present, have conceptualized “society,” with reference to original sources. Second, the paper shows that the biggest limitation in how sociologists have conceptualized “society” is that these conceptualizations have been inadequately inductive and naturalistic. That is, sociologists have at best only cursorily attempted to observe the animal kingdom and natural world for instantiations of “society.” Third, contemporary inductive work from ecology and wildlife biology suggests a naturalistic conceptualization of “society”: a specific kind of group that has been stabilized in time, space and identity. Fourth, this paper describes why it is highly likely that our understanding of human societies will become deeper, more systematic, and more fundamental if an inductive, naturalistic and nomothetic conceptualization of “society” is used to orient sociology.