I'm interested in society today. That is (i) what is society (are societies) (ii) what is studied in sociology and social studies (iii) what are the social sciences and how do they fit together?

Answers follow.

1. What is society (what are societies)?

Concise answer:

A society is a stable, self‑reproducing pattern of relationships among a population, organized through shared meanings, institutions, norms, and material systems.

More structurally: A society is not just people. It is:

A population (the biological substrate)
A network of roles and relationships (the social structure)
A shared symbolic order (language, norms, values, meanings)
Institutions (family, economy, state, religion, education, law)
Material infrastructure (technology, resources, built environment)
A temporal continuity (transmission across generations)

Societies differ by scale:

Micro‑societies — families, small groups, subcultures
Meso‑societies — communities, cities, organizations
Macro‑societies — nations, civilizations
Global society — the emerging planetary network

In terms of my metaphysical vocabulary

In your metaphysical vocabulary: A society is a structured realization of human relational possibility, stabilized by shared meaning and institutional form.

2. What is studied in sociology and social studies?

Concise answer:

Sociology studies social structures, social processes, and social meanings — how societies work, change, and reproduce themselves.

Core domains of sociology:

Social structure — class, status, roles, institutions
Culture — norms, values, symbols, identity
Socialization — how individuals become members of society
Groups & networks — families, organizations, communities
Power & inequality — race, gender, class, stratification
Social change — revolutions, modernization, globalization
Deviance & control — norms, law, punishment
Knowledge & meaning — religion, science, ideology
Methods — qualitative (ethnography), quantitative (statistics), theory

Social studies (in schools) is broader and more applied:

Topics

History
Civics
Geography
Economics
Basic sociology & anthropology
Political systems
Cultural studies

The essence

It’s essentially the “civic literacy” version of the social sciences.

3. What are the social sciences and how do they fit together?

Concise answer: The social sciences are disciplines that study human behavior, relationships, institutions, and meaning using systematic methods. They form an interconnected system.

Here’s the structural map — the one that will feel most natural to you.

A. The Core Social Sciences (the structural spine)

1. Sociology

o Structure, institutions, culture, inequality

o The “macro” and “meso” view of society

2. Anthropology

o Culture, meaning, human variation, deep ethnography

o The “humanity‑wide” and “micro‑cultural” view

3. Political Science

o Power, governance, states, policy, conflict

o The “authority and collective decision” view

4. Economics

o Production, exchange, incentives, markets

o The “resource and choice” view

5. Psychology

o Mind, behavior, cognition, development

o The “individual” view

These five form the core matrix.

B. The Integrative Social Sciences (bridges between domains)

Human geography — space, place, migration, environment
Communication studies — media, information, symbolic exchange
Education studies — learning, institutions, socialization
Criminology — deviance, law, punishment
Demography — population structure and change
Public health — society + biology + behavior
Social work — applied intervention in social systems

These disciplines connect the core sciences to real-world systems.

C. The Applied Social Sciences (action-oriented)

Law
Business / management
Public policy
Urban planning
International relations
Journalism

These take insights from the core sciences and apply them to governance, institutions, and practice.

4. How the social sciences fit together – the structural synthesis!

Here’s the clean hierarchy — the one that matches your preference for layered conceptual maps:

Level 1 — Individuals

Psychology
Cognitive science
Behavioral economics

Level 2 — Interactions

Social psychology
Communication studies
Micro-sociology

Level 3 — Groups & Institutions

Sociology
Anthropology
Organizational studies
Education
Religion studies

Level 4 — Systems & Structures

Economics
Political science
Law
Demography
Public health

Level 5 — Global & Historical Dynamics

International relations
Human geography
World-systems theory
Historical sociology
Cultural anthropology

This layered structure mirrors your metaphysical architecture: individual → interaction → institution → system → world‑system.

5. A non‑obvious insight!

The social sciences are not separate domains. They are different lenses on the same underlying phenomenon:

Human beings generating and sustaining worlds of meaning and power.

Psychology explains the mind that participates. Sociology explains the structure that organizes. Anthropology explains the meaning that binds. Economics explains the resources that enable. Political science explains the power that decides.

Together they form a single science of human world‑making.

6. Possible directions to go from here

If you want, we can now go deeper in any direction:

the metaphysics of society
the ontology of institutions
the structure of modernity
the crisis points of contemporary society
how your Horizons‑2000 system would define “society” at a fundamental level