Intersection of Sociology of Knowledge, Sociobiology and Sociology of the Body

The article is devoted to the analysis of the relationship between three research areas: sociology of knowledge, sociology of the body and sociobiology. The author studies the theoretical concepts of scientists who initiated the sociological interest to human body and sexual practices (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Derrida, Nancy, etc.) and also pays attention to the papers of modern scientists who founded new sociology of the body and new approaches in the field of sociobiology seeking biological limitations on social behavior. Social scientists who are working in these field are interested in following questions: why behavioral stereotypes of men and women are so different; why plastic surgery, dietary foodstuff and health clubs have become so lucrative and rapidly growing industries; why the attitude to homosexuality and gay marriages has recently been changing in the society. A methodological distinguishing feature of the new sociology of the body is a phenomenological approach. It enables us to reveal that human notion of norms of sexual behavior, of health and illnesses, of physical beauty and ugliness, of aging implanted in human mind are invariably socially constructed and consequently variable and they used to have the long-standing social consequences. The formation of such views is considered as a process of social construction, associated with the social, cultural, ethno-religious and temporal contexts.