Perspectives and Contradictions in the History of Sociology

Sociology has always experienced a deep internal contradiction between its own will, as Albion Small recalled, to develop knowledge to improve social interpretation, and the maintenance of a scientific autonomy that would not be contaminated by social needs, as R. Park and W. Ogburn put it in another way. In this contradiction, for example, the great research and methodological development carried out by women between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century disappeared, as did their ability to classify and understand social reality.After more than a century, this remains emblematic of the need to develop and deepen the history of sociology, which continues to bring novelties, as in the specific case of the decisive role of the female presence in the cognitive process, which is still evident to everyone. The history of sociology is not only a dialogue with the past, but in its necessity maintains a substantial heuristic capacity for the present - the capacity to encounter all subjects from time to time in public spaces. This paper aims to show both that, as Mills said, man can only understand what is happening and can happen in the world by defining historical reality and placing himself in his own time (Mills, 1959), and that the history of sociology has its own function and role, which must be rethought for a more complete knowledge of the discipline among the new generations, which does not have only a vision, as it has been for too long, of the mono-sexual male.