The sociophilosophical foundations of many theories and methodologies are nowadays often burried and forgotten. I think it would be of help to know about these foundations to reflect the bias in certain theories and methodologies.

The influence of the American Pragmatism or German Hermeneutics and Phenomenolgy on Sociology for example reaches far in sociological theories and methodologies. This includes scientific concepts, e.g. the anglo-american notion of 'Community' (as doing something together) is heavily incluenced by a pragmatist perspective, whereas the german idea of 'Gemeinschaft' is more focused on the experience of belonging and togetherness (which is influenced by phenomenological and hermeneutic perspectives). These different understandings are still notable in present-day sociological works.

So scientific cultures are influenced by sociophilosophical ideas and these ideas in turn guide the methodological orientation for our work (e.g. Grounded Theory as informed by Amercian Pragmatism or Lifeworld-analytical Ethnography based on Phenomenology). To understand these foundations helps to reflect on the methods used. And it deepens the understanding of Sociology as a diverse and multi-paradigmatic Science.

If modern philosophy can/does inform new sociological theories and methods would be a different question ...

Dear Paul, dear Christian,

thank you for your thoughts on my question! I definitely agree with you @Paul that a lot of sociophilosophical ideas heavily influenced a lot of theories, methodologies and methods we currently use. I also agree with you that a lot of these foundations are (or at least seem to be) forgotten nowadays. Another notion would be a more pragmatic adaption like in @Christians statement.

I asked the question in this way, because I believe that reflecting on philosophical concepts or reading philosophy in general is crucial for every scientist. To me this seems to be important not only if Philosophy promises a (direct) use for research. This could be seen as an useful effect of those reflections like you @Christian mentioned it or like @Paul explained it in terms of biases.

Of course it depends on the philosophical subject, but when I think about Philsophy, I often think about questions regarding (e.g.) ethics, equality, or democracy which often isn't conected in a direct way to a lot of research we do, but maybe rather counts as the basic foundation of a lot of things we reflect on. This became even more crucial for me while reading lately a lot of Jacques Ranciére and his strong position against Pierre Bourdieu. I won't spread the debate here, but the substantial differences between a conception of fundamental equality (Ranciére) or fundamental inequality (Bourdieu) and the effects it can have, in terms of theory, empirical but political as well, astonished me. Not to say that I hadn't known this before, but it struck me even more.

On the other hand, my impression is, that a lot of people who see themselves especially as empirical-working, often not seem to be that much interessted in theory and even more so not interested in philosophy in general. At least to me, this isn't without problems.

I think a strong background in philosophy would assist anyone working in any part of the social sciences. Reading a broad range of philosophers introduces the researcher on the many ways to look at problems.

Philosophy is like learning how to ride a bicycle. It's not so much about telling you where to go, but helping you find an easy mode of transportation to get there.

I think this question connects to the rise of positivism in academic research over the course of the 20th century. My understanding is that positivism arose largely out of a need to standardize research methods and writing formats, as well as to produce quantifiable data that can be replicated based on the scientific method. However, there are more recent concerns that positivism has taken over too much in some disciplines and takes emphasis away from philosophical and theoretical aspects of academia and their potential to augment research perspectives. I believe that both are valuable in the right balance and complement each other, with philosophy serving as a guide in determining what to research and how to research it, while positivist research provides evidence to support or oppose philosophical ideas.