Abstract

VELHO, Gilberto. The future of the social sciences and the importance of their past. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas [online]. 2005, n.48, pp.11-18. ISSN 0873-6529.

This article deals with the prospects for the contemporary social sciences, assessing some aspects of their past. In particular, the inter- and multi-disciplinary character of this area of knowledge is explored, with a number of specific examples. Amongst the various questions considered, the article pays special attention to "the individual and society" and "nature and culture". The article also points to a reorganization of the boundaries between disciplines, with growing fluidity, communication and transit in the production of scientific knowledge as such. The institutional problems faced by the social sciences are also discussed, focusing on the situation at universities, in the face of change and pressure from wider society and public authorities, in the form of the demand for productivity, massification and utilitarianism, and also the challenges deriving from a growing "culture of assessment", based, in the main part, on quantitative means.

Keywords : Inter-disciplinary knowledge; individual; society and culture; university; productivity and analysis.

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