Sociology differs from the older discipline of philosophy by focusing on

Sociology differs from the older discipline of philosophy by focusing on how society actually operates.

While philosophy is the study of knowledge, ethics, belief systems, morality, consciousness and society, sociology mainly focuses on society, social groups and how they operate. Additionally, sociology is considered more scientific that philosophy since it is based on more solid and rigorous research and testing.

The difference of the older discipline and sociology today is that, sociology focuses more on how the society functions or how they operate as a whole of which shows how everyone is being affected by their way of functioning or the role that they play in the society.