1. OBJECT AND SUBJECT OF SOCIOLOGY

The essential side in substantiating the scientific status of sociology lies in the distinction between its object and subject.

The object of knowledge is all that the activity of the researcher is directed at, which opposes it as an objective reality. The subject of science is the reproduction of empirical reality at the abstract level by identifying the most significant, from a practical point of view, the natural connections and relations of this reality.

The object of sociological knowledge is the totality of connections and relations, which are called social. Since these relations and relations in each specific national object are always organized in a special way, the object of sociological knowledge acts as a social system and cannot act otherwise. Usually, a system is defined in a certain way as an ordered set of elements interconnected with each other and forming some integral unity. A social system is a complexly organized, orderly social whole, including interrelated social institutions, social groups, individuals. A social system can also be an individual if it is characterized from the point of view of the diversity of its relations with the outside world and the integrity of self-organization. The task of sociological science is the typologization of social systems, the study of the connections and relationships of each typologized object at the level of regularities, the acquisition of specific scientific knowledge about the mechanisms of their action and the forms of manifestation in various social systems for the purposeful management of them. Thus, the concepts of social, social relations and relations and the way they are organized serve as the basis for revealing the characteristics of the object of sociological knowledge, and of social regularities for determining the subject matter of sociological science.

Consequently, sociology is the science of general and specific laws and patterns of development and functioning of historically defined social systems, the science of the mechanisms of action and the forms of manifestation of these laws and patterns in the activities of individuals, social groups, communities, classes, nations.

The most important, the key to sociology is the concept of the social. The notions of the social are reduced to the following options: a) the social is the same as the public, i.e. the quality that characterizes a society, peculiar to society in contrast to nature; b) social - not society in general, but what happens in the social life of society. Social here is reduced to social relations.

So, if the object of sociology is social, social reality in the present, past and future, then we can state the following: when social is identified with social object, sociology is essentially the whole of society, the social life of man.

Consequently, the objects of sociology are all social systems or social relations, i.e. one or another reality: individual, family, team, groups, society as a system, world community, etc.

Most sociologists now believe that the subject of sociology is a set of problems in the social sphere of social life - social relations, processes, structures, social actions and interactions, institutions, social communities.

A method in sociology is a way to build and substantiate sociological knowledge, a set of techniques, procedures, and operations for empirical and theoretical knowledge of social reality. The method in sociology depends not only on the study of the problem by sociology and the theory constructed, but also on the general methodological orientation. The method includes certain rules that ensure the reliability and validity of knowledge. Methods of social cognition can be divided into universal and specifically scientific. The universal method of sociology is materialistic dialectics. The essence of the universal methods of sociology is that the economic basis of society is recognized as primary, and the political superstructure is secondary. When studying social processes, such principles of materialistic dialectics as objectivity, historicism and a systems approach are applied.