Social Sciences
Sociologists do not, of course, reject out of hand the contributions of writers in areas such as economics, politics and psychology. However, the existence of sociology as an academic discipline is based on a recognition that human beings are not one-dimensional beings but rather multi-dimensional beings.
For example, in our society people work (economic dimension), have the opportunity to vote in elections (political dimension), live in different areas of the country (geographic dimension) and so forth.
What interests sociologists, for example, might be the relationship between these three dimensions (for example, how does the area in which a person lives affect the type of work they do and how does type of work a person does affect how they vote in elections?).
If the sociological perspective differs from that provided by other social sciences, it is evident that it also differs from a final perspective we have to consider, namely that of Naturalistic or Common-sense explanations of the social world.
The basic ideas I've just noted invariably put sociologists in opposition to "common-sense interpretations" of human behaviour. Therefore, by investigating some examples of commonsense ideas about the social world it will allow us to both understand the particular way sociologists analyse social relationships and illustrate some of the ways sociological knowledge contributes to a greater understanding of human social behaviour.