In various otherwise divergent forms of thought, sociology has been understood as generating knowledge modern social life which can be used in the interests of prediction and control.
Anthony Giddens – Sociology
In keeping with the usual view, the goal of sociology is to uncover the most deeply buried structures of the different social worlds that make up the social universe, as well as the `mechanisms’ that tend to ensure their reproduction or transformation.
Pierre Bourdieu on Sociology
A field is all the more scientific the more it is capable of channelling, of converting unavowable motives into scientifically proper behaviour.
Scientific field
A subjective but not individual system of internalized structures, schemes of perception, conception, and action common to all members of the same group or class constituting the precondition for all objectification and apperception.
