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Reflections on the Methodological Issues of the Sociology of Law
Author(s) -
Banakar Reza
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of law and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.263
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1467-6478
pISSN - 0263-323X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6478.00154
Subject(s) - sociology of law , sociology , epistemology , field (mathematics) , context (archaeology) , kinship , law , medical sociology , sociology of knowledge , social science , political science , anthropology , philosophy , pure mathematics , biology , paleontology , mathematics , medicine , nursing , public health
The general focus of this paper is on the methodological limitations of the sociology of law in capturing the law's ‘truth’ as its practitioners experience it. The paper starts with arguing that the law does not have a monolithic ‘truth’. Some aspects of its ‘truth’ are produced through its own recursively sealed operations, while its other aspects are generated with reference to empirically grounded knowledge, which potentially links the discourses of law and sociology. Notwithstanding this discursive kinship, the sociological studies of the law's internal processes cause difficulties even to those scholars who are versed in substantive law. To expound this problem, the sociology of law is compared with medical sociology and attention is drawn to the way sociology copes with the ‘truth’ of medicine. The final part of the paper initiates a quest for possible solutions to the methodological problems of the sociology of law by placing them in the context of the ongoing conflicts and competitions of the field of science.