Convergent origins, divergent destinations: sociology's contributions and connections to economics in a historical and interdisciplinary framework

This article explores selected significant instances of sociology's contributions and connections to economics. These contributions are framed and analyzed within a historical and interdisciplinary setting of the originally common or convergent roots (Enlightenment philosophical rationalism and liberalism) and early co-developments, and yet the subsequently (especially since the 1930s) divergent trajectories and destinations of sociology and economics. These contributions are divided into two general categories: theoretical-substantive and methodological-epistemological. Sociological analyses of market phenomena, societal development and institutions are adduced as examples of sociology's theoretical contribution to economics. Ideal-types, Verstehen, and sociology of knowledge exemplify its methodological contributions and connections to economics. The article aims to help bridge a gap in the current literature in which such contributions and connections of sociology to economics are rarely recognized and considered in favor of those in the opposite ("rational-choice") direction.