Sociology studies objective social forms, not human consciousness

Evidence

Sociology is not a humanities subject. The questions it must concern itself with are not essentially and primarily those of the consciousness, or even the subconscious, of the human beings of whom society consists. These questions relate primarily to the conflict between human beings and nature and to the objective forms of socialization, which cannot in any way originate in the mind, seen as a kind of inward state within human beings. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 476

Categorization

• DEFINE: Adorno’s demarcation of sociology from the humanities and from consciousness-centred social psychology.
• XREF: Cuts directly against Dilthey’s Geisteswissenschaften tradition and against the Institute’s own earlier psychoanalytic projects (Fromm’s social-character work).