The Sociological Imagination

Mills coined the concept of the sociological imagination—that is, a method for analyzing social phenomena whereby the social scientist is able to connect historical, political, and economic powers with the conditions, lived experience, and future possibilities of individual persons. The method allows for an awareness of the relationship between lived experience and the wider society, which fosters the ability to see things socially. Mills developed the sociological framework to overcome the limitations he identified in the dominant trends within sociology during his lifetime; namely, those of “abstracted empiricism,” “liberal practicality,” and the “bureaucratic ethos.”

Integral to the sociological imagination is an image of the sociologist and social scientist as someone who cannot be considered a politically neutral actor within society. Thus, the sociologist who works under the sociological imagination has, as their minimal moral and political obligation to society, to cultivate the persona of a public intellectual.