Data and Sources

Abstract

The article focusses on problems of communication between sociology and history and on problems of at least partial incompatibility of results of these disciplines. According to the authors, different conceptions of empirical bases, namely sources within history and data within sociology, and different relations between theories and empirical work are responsible for those problems. These differences which may be seen as a part of cultures of disciplines lead to the construction of different worlds: a „world out there“ and a „world gone by“. Additionally, this concept provides an important explanatory clue for divergent styles of debates and controversies. In sociology, debates are centred less on the side of data and strongly on the part of methods and theory, whereas in historical debates - besides politically inspired arguments - one still finds a major recourse to historical sources and their implicit power for rejecting theoretical interpretations.