Christel Mae T.

Rafols BSMATH-4

ASSESSMENT 2

1. Research on the people behind the development of sociology as a science and state their
contributions;

a. AUGUSTE COMTE – Isidore-Auguste-Marie-François-Xavier Comte, (born

January 19, 1798, Montpellier, France—died September 5, 1857, Paris), French
philosopher known as the founder of sociology and of positivism. Comte gave
the science of sociology its name and established the new subject in a systematic
fashion.

b. HERBERT SPENCER – Herbert Spencer, (born April 27, 1820, Derby,

Derbyshire, England—died December 8, 1903, Brighton, Sussex), English sociologist
and philosopher, an early advocate of the theory of evolution, who achieved an
influential synthesis of knowledge, advocating the pre-eminence of the individual
over society and of science over religion.

c. KARL MARX – Karl Heinrich Marx, (born May 5, 1818, Trier, Rhine

province, Prussia [Germany]—died March 14, 1883, London, England),
revolutionary, sociologist, historian, and economist. He published (with Friedrich
Engels) Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848), commonly known as The
Communist Manifesto, the most celebrated pamphlet in the history of the socialist
movement. He also was the author of the movement’s most important book, Das
Kapital. These writings and others by Marx and Engels form the basis of the body of
thought and belief known as Marxism.

d. EMILE DURKHEIM – Émile Durkheim, (born April 15, 1858, Épinal, France—

died November 15, 1917, Paris), French social scientist who developed a
vigorous methodology combining empirical research with sociological theory. He is
widely regarded as the founder of the French school of sociology.

e. MAX WEBER – Max Weber, (born April 21,1864, Erfurt, Prussia [Germany] —

died June 14, 1920, Munich, Germany), German sociologist and political economist
best known for his thesis of the “Protestant ethic,”
relating Protestantism to capitalism, and for his ideas on bureaucracy. Weber’s
profound influence on sociological theory stems from his demand for objectivity in
scholarship and from his analysis of the motives behind human action.
 Contributions
AUGUSTE COMTE Auguste Comte was the first to develop the concept of "sociology."
He defined sociology as a positive science. Positivism is the search
for "invariant laws of the natural and social world." Comte
identified three basic methods for discovering these invariant laws,
observation, experimentation, and comparison. He is also famous
for his Law of the Three Stages. These three stages are the
theological, metaphysical, and positivist. Comte discussed the
difference between social statistics and social dynamics; which
have been renamed social structure and social change. Comte’s
ideas have had a major role in developing structural functionalism.
His major goal was to integrate theory and practice.
HERBERT SPENCER His magnum opus was The Synthetic Philosophy (1896),
a comprehensive work containing volumes on the principles
of biology, psychology, morality, and sociology. He is best
remembered for his doctrine of social Darwinism, according to
which the principles of evolution, including natural selection, apply
to human societies, social classes, and individuals as well as to
biological species developing over geologic time. In Spencer’s day
social Darwinism was invoked to justify laissez-faire economics
and the minimal state, which were thought to best promote
unfettered competition between individuals and the gradual
improvement of society through the “survival of the fittest,” a term
that Spencer himself introduced.
KARL MARX Karl Marx influence on the sub sequential establishment of
sociology as an academic discipline and as a specific way of
analyzing society is immense, and has been recognized by pretty
much all of the sociological pioneers - Durkheim, Simmel, Weber,
etc. What Marx’ did that was so revolutionary in this regard was his
ambition to a) systematically analyze the constitution of society as a
whole, as such applying a rigorous scientific, rather than religious,
moral or in other ways exclusively normative, approach to society,
b) within this systematic and scientific analysis centralize actual
social relations - or “material conditions” as Marx would have
called it - rather than abstract economic or philosophical models,
which had been done to death previously by classical economists,
historians and philosophers, c) from this systematic, scientific and
material analysis derive a critique of the social structure.
EMILE DURKHEIM He was the man who formally established the discipline of
Sociology is commonly referred to as the man, alongside W.E.B Du
Bois, Karl Marx, and Max Weber, who designed modern social
science. Durkheim was credited with his devotion to the study of
society, how it functions, and what exactly holds it together. Almost
all of his theories were dedicated to the study of social order. His
opinion was that social disorders were not the necessary parts of the
modern world and could be reduced by social reforms. He was the
 man who formally established the discipline of Sociology is
commonly referred to as the man, alongside W.E.B Du Bois, Karl
Marx, and Max Weber, who designed modern social science.
Durkheim was credited with his devotion to the study of society,
how it functions, and what exactly holds it together. Almost all of
his theories were dedicated to the study of social order. His opinion
was that social disorders were not the necessary parts of the modern
world and could be reduced by social reforms.
MAX WEBER In his lifetime, Weber penned numerous essays and books. With
these contributions, he is considered, along with Karl Marx, Émile
Durkheim, W.E.B. DuBois, and Harriet Martineau, one of the
founders of sociology. Given how much he wrote, the variety of
translations of his works, and the amount written by others about
Weber and his theories, approaching this giant of the discipline can
be intimidating. Get a brief introduction to what are considered
some of his most important theoretical contributions: his
formulation of the connection between culture and economy;
conceptualizing how people and institutions come to have authority,
and how they keep it; and, the "iron cage" of bureaucracy and how
it shapes our lives.