Introduction
The doctrine of sociology emerged in the nineteenth century from the major discipline of philosophy; is primarily credited to Auguste Comte. Despite Comte’s formulation of the terminology, sociology, and its basic tenets, the subject was also fashioned by Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Many academia and other pundits have attributed those scholars as pioneer, fathers, of this branch of thought. One contemporary sociologist, Dr. Orville Taylor, who is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of the West Indies, Mona, argued that William Edward DuBois must be credited as one of the pioneers of the discipline (Taylor, 2003). His rational for that perspective lies in the scientific contributions of DuBois in the field of sociology. In an attempt to justify the science of sociology like that of the natural sciences, Spencer, Durkheim and Weber and to a lower degree Comte postulated its boundaries, scope and the techniques to which the subject matter can address while utilizing the principles of postivism. According to Inkeles, Weber, on the other hand, forwarded the perspective that positivism is not the only tool that allows a discipline to attain the status of science when he formulated the principle of verstehen, a method of understanding “and . .. discussing the vicissitudes of maintaining objectivity and neutrality of value judgment in social science” (Inkeles, 1964, p.6). What then constitutes sociology from the perspective of its founding fathers?
Sociology
According to Inkeles,
Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857), who gave sociology its name, devoted more energy to expressing hopes for and to staking out the claims of sociology than to defining its subject matter. He felt that social science in his time stood in the same relation to its future as once astrology stood in regard to the science of astronomy and as alchemy stood in relation to chemistry. Only in the distant future, he argued, would the sub-division of the field become praticable and desirable, and for his time he felt it ‘impossible . . . to anticipate what the principle of distribution may be’.” (Inkeles, 1964, p.3)
From Inkeles’ monograph, Comte categorized the field of study into “social statics” and “social dynamics” which allowed for the science of this subject matter. According to Inkeles (1964), Spencer wrote that:
The science of Sociology has to give an account of [how] successive generation of units are produced, reared and fitted for co-operation, the development of the family thus stands first in order . . . Sociology has next to describe and explain the rise and development of that political organization which in several ways regulates affairs-which combines the actions of individuals… and which restrains them in certain of the dealings with one another… There has to be simailarly described the evolution of ecclesiastical structures and functions… The system of restraints whereby the minor actions of citizens are regulated, has also to be dealth with…The stages through which the industrial part passes… have to be studied…[as well] the growth of those regulative structures which the industrial part develops within itself…(Inkeles, 1964, p.4)
Spencer coined the phrase “the science of Sociology” and although he did not depict the techniques that can be used to arrive a conclusion as is similar to the natural science forwarded the perspective that the ‘the whole society as its unit for analysis’ allows for scientific inquiry. Durkheim, on the other hand, used the words ‘the science of societies” to describe sociology. Sociology, therefore, the scientific inquiry of society in which its foci are social facts, social world, functions of society, structures, institutions, social actions, “arrive through a causal explanation of its course and effects” (Inkeles, 1964, p.7). Wallace and Wolf (1999) wrote that
Davis argued that sociology involves (1) examining the role (or function) that an institution or type of behaviour plays in society to other social features and (2) explaining it in essentially social terms (Wallace and Wolf, 1999, p. 17).
From Wallace and Wolf’s monograph, Davis concurred with other sociologists such as Waller, Weber, Spencer, Durkheim and other pundits that the subject matter of sociology is a social space in people operates. Davis’ theorizing is similar to that forwarded by Comte, and embedded within his perspective is scientific inquiry in which human roles are examined within society.
The subject matter of sociology “begins with the idea that humans are to be understood in the context of their social life, [and] that we are social animals influenced by interaction, social patterns, and socialization” (Waller, 2006, p.5). Waller’s monograph highlights the ‘social’ aspect of man, and accounts for he/she being in a social space. The fact that man is a social being; he/she is separated from the other animals because of the socialization process. Sociology, as a science, studies man as unit and collectively in his/her social world, in an attempt to explaining the behavioural patterns from a micro as well as a macrocosm perspective, we study man’s culture, social institutions, and the social events to which he/she subscribes. One of the primary reasons for discourse as to whether sociology is or is not a science rest square on the continuous changeability of man, and his/her irrationality. To which some scientists argued militate against objectivity, as a social behaviour is unpredictable even given the same set of conditions repeatedly?
Contemporary perspective of Sociology
The discipline of sociology studies social life, social change, and social causes and consequences of human behaviour. The parameters of sociology investigate structure of groups, organizations, and societies, and how people intermingle within these contexts. Human beings are social animals; and so, they are shaped by social factors. The subject matter of sociology covers from the intimate family to the hostile mob; from organized criminalities to religious denominations; from race, gender and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture; and from the sociology of work to the sociology of sports.
Sociology like anthropology and other areas within the Social Sciences provide plethora perspectives on the world, while generating new ideas and critiquing the old. Despite the subject matter being a social one, the field offers a range of research techniques that can be applied to virtually any aspect of social life: street crimes, prostitution, teenage pregnancy, wellbeing of the people, fertility, delinquency, corporate downsizing, how people express emotions, stress, education reform, how families differ and flourish, or issues of peace and war, and how social systems work.
Non-Comte influences
From Waller’s monograph, Denisoff, Callahan, & Levine (1974) attributed “the fundamental foundations of sociology . . . [to] ancient Greeks” (Waller, 2005). Taylor (2003) forwarded the perspective that Comte coined the discipline from a Latin word Socios, which means ‘group or society, and a Greek word logos which denotes ‘the study of’ hence “Thus, we end up with a word which means, ‘the study of society” (Taylor 2003, p. 6). In Waller’s (2006) presentation on the creator of the term sociology, he cited that “even though Plato is not considered the ‘father’ of sociology –he is probably the first person to systematically study society in a ‘sociological’ way” (p.2) to which Taylor equally subscribed in his monograph. Comte as a positivist, borrowed ‘statics’ and ‘dynamics’ from Isaac Newton’s scientific theories (Taylor, 2003, p. 8), and applied this to the study of society.
“By the middle of the 1800s, Comte had declared what, in his view, should be that task of sociology [and] [t]hen came Emile Durkheim who, influenced by Comte’s Positive Philosophy (Comte, 1974), published his ground-breaking The Rules to the Sociological Method (1982) in 1895” (Taylor, 2003, p. 8). From the works of Waller (2006) and Taylor (2003), sociology owes many of the initial tentacles not to Comte but in particular to Ibn Khaldun, Plato and to Isaac Newton.
Even though Plato was not ascribed as the father of sociology, he argued that there is an order to the universe (or society) and that man is an organism in a social space who must survive, and that he/she does so through groups. It is from the philosophical works of Plato and other scholars that Comte worked to coined the term sociology, which initially was known as social physics. Comte, on the other hand, was the first to use the term sociology in print in 1838 (Waller, 2006) but based on Plato’s construct of the world, society is ordered which may have assisted Comte in conceptualizing that societies are governed by some laws, and so can be studies using similar techniques as the natural sciences.
Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857)
Comte was the first to have used sociology in print in 1838 but borrowed ‘statics’ and ‘dynamics’ from Isaac Newton as agents that allowed him to foresee the measurability of social man. In using social statics and social dynamics, Comte saw the former as the assessment of the general principles of actions and reaction of the diverse parts of the social system (or society), which he argued cannot be studied separately “as if they had an independent existence” but must be analysed whole. With regard to social dynamics, Comte believed that the whole society must be the unit of analysis and how it develops and how it changes with time. According to Inkeles (1964), “He [Comte] was convinced that all societies moved through certain fixed stages of development, and that they progressed toward ever increasing perfection” (p. 4), and this explains how comparative study of society was possible for sociological analysis.
Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903)
When Spencer published the three-volume Principles of Sociology in 1877, it was the first comprehensive systematic study devoted to an “exposition of sociological analysis”, and in this he was more precise than Comte. Spencer used the phrase science of sociology in attempting to depict the focus of the discipline, and how the subject matter must address particular social space. He forwarded areas to which the discipline must study: These were, the family, politics, religion, social control, and industry and work, community, associations, division of labour, social differentiation or stratification, aesthetics, the study of arts, and the sociology of knowledge.
Spencer like Comte believed that the whole society must be studied as a unit of analysis, and that the different parts of a society were ordered as was purported by Plato. This, then, speaks to his theorizing on ‘structures’ and ‘functions’ of the society. Which explains Inkeles perspective that “He [Spencer] maintained that the parts of society, although discrete units, were not arranged haphazardly. The parts bore some ‘constant relation’ and this fact made of society as such a meaningful ‘entity’, a fit subject for scientific inquiry” (Inkeles, 1964, p. 5).
Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917).
Science of sociology is not possible “until it renounced its initial and overall claim upon the totality of social reality ever more among parts, elements, and different aspects which could serve as subject matter for specific problems” (Wolf, p. 380), this is similar to the perspective of the other founding fathers. According to Taylor, Durkheim’s sociology is built on a set of assumptions of a system having interdependent parts that are held together by a large value system (Taylor, 2003, p. 14). Durkheim’s works emphasized ‘consensus’ and ‘social order’ to the exclusion of social change and conflict to which Marx spoke extensively in his monographs. Despite the conservatism nature of Durkheim, “he advanced a discussion of the division of labour in society in which he accounted for the increased specialization, characteristic of modern capitalist society” (Taylor, 2003, p. 14), which would charaterize some of his works – for example, religion, capitalism and the “history of the non-Western world”.
Despite the claim of many sociologists that Durkheim’s work on suicide represents the primal piece of social work that substantiate the validity that the discipline can be studied scientifically, Taylor (2003) somehow was highlight sceptical of this laboured ‘truth’. From Taylor’s work on Re-Appropriating the Stolen Legacy: The African Contribution to the Origin of Sociological Thought, he wrote that
.. .Emile Durkheim who, influenced by Comte’s Positive Pilosophy (Comte 1974), published his ground-breaking The Rules of the Sociological Method (1982) in 1895. He applied his methodology presented in Rules to suicide, a phenomenon, normally considered to be psychological. Suicide, published in 1897, though flawed, was important because as Stephen Lukes remarks, ‘it represents both a typically bold and clear statement of the aspiration towards a social science that is absolutely objective, specific (to social reality) and autonomous (of non-scientific influences)” (Taylor, 2003, 8-9).
Taylor’s perspective on Durkheim’s theorizing on suicide represents primarily a single piece of critique that insinuates that the positivist techniques used by Durkheim were flawed, but provide a needed premise upon which the scientific techniques of the natural sciences were used in investigating a social phenomenon. In response to Taylor’s viewpoint on the correctness of Durkheim’s methodology, what are merits of Taylor in denouncing the validity of one of the father’s work.
Max Weber (1864 – 1920)
The study of sociology, from Weber perspective is a science that can be studied from an interpretive understanding of social action in “order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effect” (Inkeles, 1964, p. 7). The method of understanding that he advocated is known as verstehen. The scientific method of inquiry sees events from subjective standpoint. Notwithstanding the subjectivity of Weber’s theorizing on the subject matter of sociology, his method of interpreting social act and social relationship is not non-scientific but presents another channel in the process of garnering information on the actors in their situational, historic, or symbolic contexts.
Unlike Durkheim’s work on suicide that embodied the principles of positivism, Weber’s work on religion, in which he used a rival paradigm, verstehen methodology, did not fail to unearth some truths on the substantive issue. According to Taylor, Weber ‘magnum opus’, the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, “a religious ideology emanating from Calvinism was the driving force behind capitalism” (Taylor, 2003, p. 14).
Conclusion
Auguste Comte, the man who is credited for the use and formulation of the doctrines of sociology based the fundamental principles of the subject matter on grounded facts and experiences, which one can reasonably use positive statements (Hoult, 1974, 243-244). Within the theorizing, Comte formulated the general framework upon which was able to establish the claim to science. This forward thinking of the subject matter allowed Comte to acknowledge how scientific approaches can be applied in the studying of structures of and interactions within society. It was Comte, positivist perspective of philosophy that was brought to the study of man in society that leads to Herbert Spencer’s work on the discipline.
Inkeles (1964) argued that Spencer unlike Comte explicitly narrowed the sociological analysis to particular social agents. This reality did not contradict the postulations of Comte but that Spencer mentioned unit being the structure and function displayed by societies in different stages. So, when Durkheim forwarded a particular construct as to how this field of study can become a science, he obviously approved the idea that sociology can concern itself with a wide array of institutions and social processes. This offers justifications for Durkheim position of sub-dividing the first sociological journal, L’Annee Sociologiqque, into General Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Law and Morals, Sociology of Crime, Economic Sociology and Sociology of Aesthetics.
When Weber arrived on the sociology landscape within the dominant paradigm of positivism, in attempting to widen the scope of sociology to study the complete social fact developed a different methodology in understanding social action. Verstehen, a method of explaining issues within the subjective meaning system of humans, was not to lessen the dominance of objectivity and neutrality of value judgments in social sciences but understanding social man who places certain motives to his/her society. Weber wrote that sociology “is a science which attempts to the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects”, and this was not to contradict or militate against the other founding fathers but that he recognized the causality which is a critical component of positivism. Yet offering an alternative methodology that will allow social scientist to capture the social experiences of man.
Inkeles (1964) summarized the perspective of the entire piece of this work fittingly, when he said:
Although they by no means expressed themselves in precisely the same tterms, the four founding fathers we consulted seem in basic agreement about the poper subject matter of sociology (Inkeles, 1964, p. 7)
References
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__________. (1951). Suicide. New York: Free Press.
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Inkeles, A. (1964). What is sociology? An introduction to the discipline and profession. Englewood Cliff, New Jersey, U.S.A.: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Spencer, H. (1897). The principles of sociology. New York: D. Appleton.
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