Pitfalls of Sociological Mantra. On Peter L. Berger’s “Disinvitation to Sociology”

Abstract

In his well-known paper published several years ago Peter Berger wrote about marginalization and increasing irrelevance of sociology pointing to the two factors contributing to its demise: domination of quantitative methodology and ideologization. In his view the latter is reflected in the often unproductive repetition of the mantra of „class, race, and gender“. In my paper I ask whether these charges are somehow justified and discuss them in the wider context of recent debates over the condition of social sciences and the humanities. I ask also what is the condition of Polish sociology, and why it is so that Berger’s charges are only partially valid in the Polish context.