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The present paper is intended to be a humble attempt to redeem sociology, a discipline unjustly perceived as a handmaiden among the human sciences, from the secondary role to which it is inappropriately relegated in deference to an evergrowing trend of technicalization and formalization, even algorithmic, of economics and law and even of certain specialized branches of sociology itself. On the contrary, an attempt is made to demonstrate, keeping in the background the great work of Mireilles Delmas-Marti, that it is precisely the most general, historically-anthropologically compromised and culturologically oriented part of this discipline that is the one most capable of accounting for the complexity underlying the local/global dynamics in progress, deciphering the asynchronic and destabilizing forces that corrode the effectiveness of the rules redesigning scenarios and destinies of social actors, and partially motivating the reasons involved. It seems all the more significant and urgent to us to push academic reflection towards a revival of the "great sociology" traditionally understood, in a season of disturbing juridical nihilism and worrying déshistoricisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the special issue on Law, Sociology and Cognitive Science. The underlying argument is that only if sociology of law goes beyond its epistemological confinement, it will allow formulating plausible predictions and explanations, and it will provide verifiable theories. It was precisely in the work of its pioneers that sociology was conceived of as an interdisciplinary science. We also believe to be scientifically controversial that disciplines belonging to the realm of social sciences offer visions that are inexplicably incompatible with the natural history of the world, and inconsistent with one another. As the epistemological wall separating the natural sciences from the human sciences is brittler than we used to think, a renewed cognitive (or sociocognitive) approach, in both its symbolic and its behavioural paradigms, may help sociologists to reconnect, and make sense of, the multiple levels of understanding that help explain social life and social normativity (including its “legal rules” subset). Finally, it is necessary to dwell on some of the main epistemological and ethical obstacles that prevent the establishment of an ongoing and permanent dialogue between social sciences and cognitive sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]