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Who Had Faith in Sociology? Scholarly and Ideological Divergences in Belgium around 1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Raf Vanderstraeten
Raf Vanderstraeten*
Affiliation:
Ghent University, Belgium E-mails: raf.vanderstraeten@ugent.be
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Argument

This paper examines the early institutionalization of sociology in Belgium. It displays how different intellectual and social contexts bred their own research interests and research approaches. It shows, more particularly, how ideological affiliations and divisions defined the setting within which this new discipline had to develop in Belgium in the decades around 1900. As a consequence of the ideological controversies, sociology had difficulty gaining legitimacy as a theory-driven analysis of society. Most scholars in Belgium could not avoid taking an explicitly normative position on society. This paper also displays how secularization and the reinforcement of the international level and its infrastructure gradually allowed for more academic autonomy for sociology in Belgium.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , December 2018 , pp. 457 - 475
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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