Moreover, sociologists maintain that their perspective, as well as many of their insights, are generalizable beyond the specific historical context in which they were first conceived. Sociology is characterized as a discipline by several distinct modes of inquiry. First and foremost, sociology emphasizes human sociality as central to inquiry. In this view, human action is to be understood within a web of social relationships and broader structures. In this way, sociology distinguishes itself from psychology and some forms of political philosophy that consider the autonomous individual to be a meaningful unit of analysis.
Sociology sees humans as fundamentally social.
Sociological inquiry is holistic in maintaining that human action can be understood only by linking it organically to the whole of social life. Social theories are central to sociological investigation, in part, because they provide comprehensive statements regarding the connections among the various facets of social life. In this way sociology may be distinguished from disciplines like economics and political science that focus on a particular dimension of social life as the center of their inquiry. Sociological inquiry is analytical . The political implications that particular sociologists draw from such a critical understanding may vary from conservative to radical, but critique is common among all sociological analysis.