Chapter 1.

origin and developmentof Sociology

1. Definition of sociology: Comte defines sociology as the science of social

phenomena subject to natural and invariable laws, the discovery of which is
the object of investigation.
2. Emergence of sociology and anthropology as disciplines: *Sociology is the
youngest of social sciences.
*Its major concern is society. Science is divided into two – physical science
and social science. Physical consists of maths, physics. social science
concerned with man and society.
* social science applies scientific methods of stud of intricate relationship
among men.
* the study of sociology came into existence due to two global wars
*the emergence of sociology is contributed to two factors that hit hard the
European society. They are industrial revolution and the French revolution
*Industrial revolution took place first in England in the 18th century brought
many changes. Factory system of production ,mechanisation ,
industrialisation brought many changes in the society.
*new industries and technologieschange theface of social and physical
environment. The simple rural life and small scale home industries were
replaced by complex urban life and mass production of goods .
*Industrialisation changed the direction of civilisation.
*People moved to cities for settlement. Farmers left their rural and settled
in towns and cities.cities grew rapidly. Social problems became rampant in
the fast developing cities.
* Aristocraites and monarchies crumbled and fell. Religion began tolose its
force as a source of moral authority.
*it is this time the need for sociology was born out tounderstand the
transformation that seemed to threaten the stability of European society.
*comte, Spencer and other classical thinkers felt the need testablish
separate social science of society to understand and study the problems
b. Inspiration from the growth of Natural sciences: The success attained by
the scientist inspird many social thinkers to emaulate their example.
Therefore Comte Spencer Durkheim Weber successfully demonstrated their
methods could be used to study the social world.
c. Inspiration provided by the radically diverse societies and cultures of the
colonial empires: The colonial powers of Europe were exposed to many
othersocieties and cultures. Their exposure to such diversities in societies
and cultures provided an intellectual challenge for the social scientist of the
day. The study of society with new term called sociaology thus came into
existence to find answers.

Anthropology as a discipline: define Anthropology : derived from two Greek

words Anthropos meaning man and logos meaning study. Thus it means
study of man.
Anthropology studies biological and cultural developments of man. It has
two division broadly physical Anthropology and cultural-socio anthropology.
Physical anthro is concerned with evolution of man. His bodily
characteristics, facial features and influence of environment and heredity .
Socio-cultural Anthro: main concern is culture. It studies various social
institutions of primitive communities of the past as well as present.

 Growth of anthropology as a discipline: The relationship of sociology

and anthropology are the same. Sociologist depends on anthropologists
tounderstand the present day social phenomena from the knowledge of
the past.
 Sociological topics like marriage , family can better be understood in the
lightof anthropological knowledge.
 Sociology has borrowed many concepts from anthropology like cultural
area, traits, patterns, cultural lag from socio-culturl anthropology.
 Therefore anthropology as a discipline is closely linked to sociology to
such an extent that both are indistinguishable. Both of them are fast
growing.
 Differences between sociology and anthropology: make a very brief
answer from page no 84

Classical Thinkers:
Auguste Comte: Was a French thinker,social philosopher and father of
sociology.
His main work was prospectus of the scientific works.
Positivisim is philosophy of science. He brought the meaning of
positivism as which asserts that only true knowledge is scientific
knowledge. It denotes any sociological approach which operates on the
general assumption that the methods of physical sciences can be carried
into social sciences.
Knowledge is based on systematic observation.
 Positivism was used by comte in two ways –
 As doctrine and as method
 As a doctrine: based on observation that is possible to observe
social life and establish reliable,valid knowledge about how it
works. Such knowledge can cause the change and improve the
human condition.
 This state of knowledge can be derived from sensory experience
metaphysical speculation is rejected asit is outside the reality of
true knowledge.
 The methods of physical sciences is regarded as the accurate
means of obtaining knowledge
 As method: Comte applied here the application of scientific
method to understand the study of society. He emphasised
careful observation based on statistical measures based on social
statics and dynamics.
 He also observed that sociology would be less experimental
compared to physical science because of the difficulties
intervening in people’s lives.
 He believed that social life is governed by the laws and principles
 He regarded scientific knowledge as relative knowledge and not
absolute knowledge.
 Comte believed that positivisim is purely an intellectual way of
looking at the world. He believed that mind should concentrate
on the observation and classification of phenomena.
 Comte gave three stages of law of three stages namely the
theological,metaphysical and positive stage.
 This principle of three stages evolved in gradual changes and
development in human thinking
 He explains the three stages as human progress. The theological
stage is dominated by priests and ruled by military men. Belief in
superstition ,fetishisim existed among men. Belief in feishisim was
the form of religion ,started believing in different objects because
its gods were individuals. As many fetishisim grew ,too many
confusions were created. Thus polytheism developed. They
created class of priests to take the blessings of goodwill and gods.
 Later men started to arrange these objects of god in hierarchical
order and finally rested on one God thus monotheism came in to
existence.
 The second stage is metaphysical stage: extension of theorlogical
stage.
 Rationalism developed. It states that God does not stand directly
 Reasoning developed .this helped man to find out some order in
the natural world.eg legal type of society.
 Mysterious forces such as are invoked to explain why things are
the way they are.
 The last stage was positive stage: this is the scientific wayof
thinking .
 He says mind has given over the search after notions, the search
for destination of the universe and applies itself to the study of
their laws.
 He concluded positivism as:we can observe uniformities or laws
but it is mere speculation . positivism supported observation and
classification of data.
 Criticism of the theory:
 Positivisim had little influence in contemporary sociology
 It leads to misleading emphasis on superficial facts.
 Some argue that nature of social life is such that methods used in
physical sciences are simply inapplicable and must be replaced
with a less rigid approach.
 Cultureal norms, symbolic meaning are variously held to be
distinctive human attributes whichbring a gap between natural
science and social life.
 There is no method of verification . in other words there is
problem of empricisim rises.