Those who laid the foundations of sociology crossed the frontiers of their disciplines to make forays into the hitherto unexplored territory that came to be called Sociology. Entering this terrain from different vantage points, they created their own road maps and pathways. In technical terms, these are called ‘approaches’. Whenever a new discipline is founded, different pioneers adopt different approaches to move into the new territory. It paves the way for a later period of consolidation to ensure the systematization of an already developed knowledge base. Words with definitive meanings become concepts. Possible explanations for the occurrence of events—called hypotheses—are offered and then examined by others in other settings. Upon their validation by empirical data, they become theories and remain so until future research challenges that formulation and creates a need for a re-examination of existing theory. It is this process that is called the institutionalization and professionalization of the discipline.
The new discipline of sociology had the advantage of riding on the shoulders of older sciences—both natural and social—to develop its own paradigms and theories. The reigning idiom of evolutionism and the political ideology of Marxism influenced the beginnings of sociology. Evolutionism, developing in the biological sciences, provided the impetus to build models of society similar to the models for organic systems, and also to pay attention to the growth of societies. The Industrial Revolution also helped to create better transportation systems within the countries, and also facilitated long sea voyages to far-off lands. The new industrial economies of the West were in need of raw material for their industries, and markets for their finished products.
Let us now turn to the forerunners of the disciplines of Sociology and Social Anthropology.
We begin with the French scholar Auguste Comte7 (1798–1857). Comte is credited with giving the discipline its name somewhere in the 1840s. He did not like the term Social Physics, used by Belgian statistician Adolph Quetlet (1796–1874). Comte attributed the late birth of the discipline to the fact that social phenomena are far more complex compared to other natural phenomena. Their study had to wait till the tools had been perfected to investigate simpler phenomena. He argued that since the latter were the first to be taken up for scientific studies, they had a long period in which to develop complex—well-developed—science regarding such subject matters. And the complex phenomena—such as the social phenomena—were taken up for study much later. They are still being studied with simpler tools.
Building on this argument, Comte developed a hierarchy of sciences, in which he placed social sciences nearer the top as they were relatively new, and keeping in mind the complex character of their subject matter. Highly developed sciences relative to simpler phenomena were placed in the earlier stages.
This is how Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences is presented in chronological order—the older disciplines at the lower end, and newly emerging sciences—called nascent sciences—at the top.
Table 1.1 Comte’s Hierarchy of Sciences
| Complex Phenomenon | Science of Morals | Nascent Science |
| Sociology | ||
| Biology | ||
| Chemistry | ||
| Physics | ||
| Astronomy | ||
| Least Complex Phenomenon | Mathematics | Highly Developed Science |
It must be stressed that the purpose of Comte’s hierarchy was not to establish the superiority of sociology over other subjects, but only to indicate how recent it was.
Auguste Comte (1798–1857)
It should be regarded as an admission of the fact that those studying social phenomena are engaged in handling a complex subject, and that it could not have emerged as a special field of study until the ground was prepared by other sciences dealing with phenomena far removed from human activity. He also acknowledged that new fields are built on the foundations of the old. Old and established disciplines provide a theoretical repertoire and methodology that help to build new edifices of knowledge. It is also interesting to note that Comte did not mention other social science subjects such as economics, political science, psychology, etc. These are all subsumed under the umbrella concept of Sociology. Used in this broader sense, sociology, for Comte, was the other name for social sciences.
Comte advocated Positivism. It was a philosophical system of thought which maintained that the goal of knowledge is simply to describe the phenomenon, not to question whether it exists or not. He thus made a case for the use of the methodology of science—based on observation and experimentation—in social science research. He firmly believed that the logic of inquiry should be the same in both the physical and social sciences.
Comte believed in scientific determinism and in objective observation—empiricism—rather than in subjective or interpretative understanding. In other words, he suggested that sociological studies should be based on the actual observation of social reality, and not on speculation and personal understanding of the occurrence. ‘Never take explanations for granted,’ was his message. However, he did not promote the use of mathematics and probability theories, although he was himself trained in the mathematical sciences.8 That was the reason why he did not accept the term ‘social physics’ for the science of society suggested by Quetlet. It is interesting that while Comte had studied mathematics at the university, he did not recommend its extension into the social field. Comte firmly believed that the progress of mankind towards a superior civilization could be achieved through the science of sociology.
Comte introduced positivism to move the study of the ‘social phenomena’ away from the realm of religion. His followers, though, transformed positivism itself into a religion.
The other prominent name from France is that of Emile Durkheim (1858–1917). Durkheim was born a year after the death of Comte. He was the son of a Jewish Rabbi, but chose to stay away from the family profession. He was regarded as an agnostic. While Comte went to l’ École Polytechnique where he studied mathematics and the physical sciences, Durkheim joined l’ École Normale Supérieure to study history and philosophy. He, however, read the writings of Comte and Herbert Spencer, and did his doctoral dissertation on Division of Labour in Society—a book published in various languages and still treated as a classic.
Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)
Durkheim began his career as a high school teacher in philosophy. In 1887, he moved to the University of Bordeaux to develop education courses for secondary school teachers. It was there that he introduced a course in sociology and held the Chair of the Depament of Social Sciences. In 1902, he moved to Sorbonne University in Paris as Professor of Education, and in 1913 he succeeded in getting the Chair renamed the Chair of Education and Sociology.
It is, however, interesting to note that Durkheim did not use the term Sociology; instead, he preferred to use Science Sociale—social science—for the new discipline. The subjects he taught under this term included Law, Religion and Socialism. Besides, he lectured on crime, incest taboos, totemism, kinship and suicide.
Durkheim’s other major work is Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Research for this book took him to the world of the primitive tribes. Although he did not carry out any ethnographic research on a tribe himself, he used material produced on the various primitive tribes by anthropologists and other students of religion.
Durkheim’s other work on Suicide is a precursor to the use of statistics, and remains a classic in terms of the explanations offered after a thorough analysis of the available data.
While writing on substantive topics, Durkheim also paid attention to the methodology of social science research. The Rules of Sociological Method can be regarded as the very first book on social science methodology.
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
Another pioneering sociologist from Great Britain and a contemporary of Comte, Herbert Spencer learnt chemistry, mathematics, mechanics, and physics and showed no interest in the humanities while at school. He began his career as a civil engineer in the Railways. At the age of 28, he left the job and moved to London to engage himself with writing, and came out with his first book on Social Statics in 1850.
Working for 37 years from 1860 through 1897, Spencer produced a series of volumes on Synthetic Philosophy; three volumes in this series were devoted to The Principles of Sociology (published in 1876, 1885 and 1897). Prior to this, he had published two volumes on The Principles of Psychology (1864, 1867), an expansion of his previous work published in 1855. He conceptualized sociology as a study of social organisms, and in doing so he identified parallels and differentials between biological and social organisms.
In Germany, it was Georg Simmel (1858–1918) who pioneered sociology. Unlike Comte and Spencer, Simmel studied history, philosophy and psychology. Although his appointment as Professor of Sociology came much later and was opposed by several academics in his country, his was the first book that carries the title ‘sociology’. The full title is Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergellschaftung [Sociology: Investigations of Forms of Sociation]. He was a co-founder, with Weber and Toennies, of the German Society for Sociology.
Max Weber (1864–1920)
Another well-known name in the field of Sociology from Germany is that of Max Weber (1864–1920). He became Professor of Economics at Freiberg University at the age of 30. Two years later, Weber moved to Heidelberg as Professor of Political Science. Along with teaching economics and political science, Weber began editing a journal named Archives for Social Science and Social Policy, which included papers in political science, philosophy of law, social ethics, social psychology and sociology. In 1903, he began working on the book that is now regarded as a classic, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and this took him to the United States to personally observe the functioning of a capitalist society. He still remained ambivalent regarding an independent status for sociology, but in 1910 he joined hands with Simmel and Ferdinand Tönnies to set up the German Sociological Society. Weber brought the social sciences in Germany into direct critical confrontation with Karl Marx and Nietzsche, the intellectual giants of nineteenth-century European thought. This confrontation helped him create a distinct methodology for the social sciences, and produce scientific works dealing with the sociology of religion, social stratification, political sociology, small group behaviour, and the philosophy of history.
We may also add here the name of another German pioneer, Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936). Born into a wealthy farmer’s family in Nordfriesland in Schleswig-Holstein, he studied at the universities of Jena, Bonn, Leipzig, Berlin, and Tubingen. He received a doctorate in 1877 for his thesis on the Ancient Siwa Oasis. Four years later, he became a private lecturer at the University of Kiel. The conservative Prussian government considered him a social democrat and did not give him full professorship until 1913; however, he left the university in 1916. He returned to the university as a professor emeritus in 1921 and taught until 1933, when the Nazis, enraged by his earlier publications that criticized them, ousted him.
Tönnies is regarded as the first German sociologist proper, who published over 900 works and contributed to many areas of sociology and philosophy. He is most often quoted for the distinction he made between community and society—Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887). He also coined the term Voluntarism. Tonnies made contributions to the study of social change, particularly public opinion, customs and technology, crime, and suicide. He was also interested in methodology, especially statistics.
Karl Max (1818–83)
While talking of Germany, one cannot escape mentioning the name of Karl Marx (1818–83), who made a profound impact on all social science thinking. Although he never called himself a sociologist, his work in the field of economics and social history had great relevance to sociological thought. His thought took the form of an ‘ism’ and its ardent followers call themselves ‘Marxists’—a term that is used not only by professionals in the field of economics, history, political science, or sociology, but also by those engaged in politics of socialism and communism. He learnt Latin and German at school, and jurisprudence and philosophy at the university. His radical articles against the Prussian government’s treatment of peasants closed all doors to the academia and earned him an exile in Paris, where he worked on economic and philosophic manuscripts; however, he was also expelled from Paris and took refuge in Brussels, Belgium. But his political activities, which included drafting a Communist Manifesto (1848), resulted in his ouster from Belgium. He then migrated to London, where he lived from 1850 till his death in 1883. During his London years, he became interested in political economy. In fact, he is among the very first to use a ‘questionnaire’ to learn the situation of the labour class. For long years, he and his intellectual partner Friedrich Engels (1820–95) worked on the magnum opus Capital, which was published in three volumes. However, only the first volume of this mammoth publication came out in 1867; the other two volumes were published in co-authorship with Engels posthumously in 1885 and 1894 respectively. Marx died in 1883 and Engels in 1895, one year after the publication of the third volume. Engels believed that Marx’s economic theories provide a sound basis for socialism.
These radical ideas were politicized and gave birth to socialism and communism. As ‘isms’, Marxist ideology had its followers and detractors. They fought their battles academically, drawing material from history to prove their point or challenge their rivals. This is best seen in the writings of Marx and Weber. The opposition in their viewpoints is best expressed by the first letters of their last names—W in Weber is the reverse of the M in Marx! Marx’s emphasis on the mode of production led him to suggest that the structure of society is built on economic foundations. To challenge this, Weber studied the Protestant ethic and Calvinism to trace the spirit of capitalism, arguing that it is not the economy but religion on the foundation of which other structures of society are built. It is to signify the key role of religion that Weber’s intellectual journey brought him in contact with Hindu religion. This intellectual battle sowed the seeds of empirical research to test the several theses offered by the competing ideologies.
Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923)
Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was born in Paris, although he was of Italian parentage. In 1861, when Italy became one nation, his uncle was chosen as the first president of the Italian senate. For political reasons, his father remained in exile in France and returned to Italy when Vilfredo was 16 years old. He joined the Polytechnic Institute in Turin to get a degree in physics and mathematics, and then moved to another institution for a degree in engineering. This qualified him to be an engineer in a railroad company. Frustrated with his work, he joined politics and failed to win an election. Quite contemptuously, he wrote: ‘To live in this country, one must either be a thief or a friend of thieves’
Coming from an aristocratic background, and having inherited a large fortune from his uncle, Pareto retreated to the world of knowledge. He studied economics extensively and wrote critical articles on the economic policies of the government. In 1893, he became the Professor of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His writings on the equilibrium model of supply and demand and on the income distribution curve earned him the accolade of being the ‘father of mathematical economics’. Although he never called himself a sociologist, he engaged himself in sociological thinking since 1909, and came out with a book titled Treatise on General Sociology (Trattao di sociologia generale) in 1916. A favourite of the fascists, Pareto decried socialism but admired Karl Marx, whom he regarded as a poor economist but a good sociologist. As a trained engineer and specialist in thermodynamics, Pareto was an empiricist and advocated the use of methods of natural science in testing sociological theories. Talcott Parsons—whose work on Social Action has greatly influenced all social sciences—has included Pareto among one of four key contributors to the theory of social action. His ideas regarding the circulation of elites, residues and derivatives, and on productivity have percolated not only in sociology, but also in the science of management.
To quote Ashley and Orenstein:
In varying ways, Marx, Pareto, Simmel, Veblen, Durkheim, Weber, and Comte were all … outsiders. Marx was the exile in Paris and London; Simmel, the secularized Jew blocked from university advancement; Pareto, the aristocratic recluse; Veblen, the foreigner in his own land; Durkheim, the provincial rabbi’s son in Paris; Weber, the nationalist whose political ambitions were thwarted; and Comte, the disavowed high priest of the ‘religion of humanity’ (2005: 387).
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