The ‘Sociality’ of man: the Central Problem of Sociology – Short Essay – It was Aristotle who said long back that man is a social animal. This proposition gives room to the central problem of sociology i.e., the sociability or the sociality of man. The essential fact is that man always belongs to a society or a group of one kind or the other, and without it, he cannot exist.
Several questions of great sociological importance arise in this regard. “In what sense man is a social animal? In what sense do we belong to society? In what sense society belongs to us? What is the nature of our dependence upon it?” These questions take us to a more fundamental question of the relation between the individual and society.
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The relationship between individual and society is ultimately one of the most profound of all the problems of social philosophy. It is, in fact, a philosophical rather than a sociological problem, because it involves the question of values.
We see ourselves on one side and our society on the other-the person and the group, the individual and the collectivity. What does each owe to the other? In what sense is the single individual a part of a whole that is greater than he? In what sense does the whole exist for the individual? When we accept the statement of Aristotle that man is a social animal, what does this proposition ultimately mean? These are some of the difficult questions. The sociologist cannot remain silent when confronted with these larger issues of human worth and human destiny.
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