Eugeniu Speranţia and Axiological Sociology – between Phenomenology and Noology

Abstract

This paper intends to reevaluate the studies of Eugeniu Sperantia, the founder of axiological sociology in Romania. Starting from the importance of values in society, Sperantia analyses the spiritual dimension, the manifestation of the axiological factor in the social logic, a manifestation that creates social realities full of meaning for sociology. We can consider axiological sociology as a response of the Romanian sociology to the phenomenological theory appeared in the German cultural space, and in this line of thought in which prevails the spiritual manifestations we can also include the noological sociology, a view that seeks to understand the spiritual order of the social world. Thus, we can consider phenomenology as the most general theoretical framework, followed at an intermediate level by the axiological sociology focused on the dimension of the spiritual factors considered necessary to establish the specific determinism of sociology, and at a more restricted level, the noological sociology – a view that underlines the religious values in understanding the way society works. This theoretical perspective offers the possibility to gain access to the spiritual foundations of a society, like values or religious faiths, starting from the importance of intersubjectivity and the way that society forms itself and exists.