Before the method: on the sense of social research and the origin of questions

Abstract

This essay discusses the consequences of fitting social research designs to the format of natural sciences. It argues that the cost is null for trying. Being society a system in development, the observation of facts according to lab rules or experiments lead to the invisibility of the subject matter and loosing track to the observer; what is lost is the sense of research and its replacement is just technical precision habits. Instead it suggests going back the social science based on historical and totality roots: the context is everything and the origin of questions. The method is the road to produce answers. Science began before and continues after it, in the relationship between sociology and society. There is when research acquires its meaning, that leads that society to that question: to question itself.