This article reflects on the chronological order of construction and development of social sciences in Latin America, paying attention to facts and contexts that describe it analytically. It starts with the transition from social thought of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the professionalization and institutionalization of social sciences, pointing out milestones that marked the positioning of the reflections and debates that led to the formation of bodies of knowledge and subsequent consolidation formal in academic and study institutions in the continent. It follows the analysis in analytical key from the developmentalist, dependentist and neoliberal paradigms, observable from the fifties, focusing on three socio-historical moments nuanced by the prevailing paradigm in each of them. The last part, exposes some alternatives to rethink and transform Latin America, pointing out the contemporary challenges and perspectives that have resulted from the relationship between social sciences and socio-political processes, where the role of the state, politics, democracy and actors / as social have been determined by new social and political phenomena and, therefore, the role of social sciences, as well as the critical thinking that is sustained in new categories.