How became Sociology (Sociologie) the scientific study of society? " Although there are various definitions of Sociology, Sociology (socius + logos) is the Science of Society. The founder of Sociology, Auguste Comte divided sociological theory into two parts, one is the theory of natural social order, the other is the theory of progress. Thesetwo theories are not incompatible, but intimately connected. I think, the central problem of Comte's Sociology may be progress with order. Turning to the sociological theory of Herbert Spencer we easily find static and dynamic theory of society. To Spencer what Biography is to Anthropology, History is to Sociology and his statement about Sociology is as follows : Sociology has to recognize truths of social development, structure, and function, that are some of them, universal, some of them general, some of them special. (H. Spencer,, The Study of Sociology.) Considering practical problems of their society and social political crises of their age, both Comte and Spencer planned to study social phenomena as a whole. At the end of the 19th century two eminent sociologists, Georg Simmel and fimile Durkheim criticised early theories of Sociology,, especially those of Comte and Spencer. Durkheim regarded sociological theories of them as the positive metaphysics. He pointed out absence of method in Spencer's Sociology and asserted that they argued facts in terms of ideas. Simmel also criticised those inclusiveand encyclopedic theories of Sociology. Simmel and Durkheim further proposed the new method of Sociology, then they discussed not only the sociological point of view, but also the object and domain of Sociology. So they established Sociology as a special science which has proper method and object for study of social phenomena. According to Simmel the main subject of sociological study of social phenomena is various forms of sociation (die Formen der Vergesellshaftung) which is proper subject in Formal Sociology. But he discussed other departments of Sociology, that is General Sociology and Philosophical Sociology. In short Simmel studied the social in society. On the other hand Durkheim discussed the social fact and proposed to consider social facts as things. This is the first and most fundamental rule in his method of Sociology. According to Durkheim Sociology can be defined as the science of institutions, of their genesis .and of their functioning. Considering the method and object of Sociology or sociological point of view, I would mainly discuss two monumental papers -written by G. Simmel and E. Durkheim (Simmel, Das Problem der .Sociologie, 1894; Durkheim, Les regies de la methode sociologique, 1895).
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