INTRODUCTION TO

SOCIOLOGY
INTRODUCTION

• Sociology is the youngest of all social sciences.

• The history of Sociology is as old as society.
• Systematic studies of society started long back in Greece, i.e in 427-347 BC.
• Plato and his disciple Aristotle laid foundation for systematic study.
• In India, King Manu laid foundation for sociology.
• He divided people into four varnas.
• Epics in India reflect the behaviour and various aspects how to live in a society.
• Manu referred to customs, social affairs in his book, ‘Manu Smruthi’.
• In 1839, Auguste Comte, a French Philosopher, (1798-1857) coined the term, ‘Sociology’.
• He is considered as, ‘Father of Sociology’.
• Sociology is derived from two words, ‘societus’ means society, (Latin word) and ‘logos’ (Greek word)
means study or science.
• It is the science of human society.
• It is considered as a social science.
• All human beings have to interact with other human beings in order to survive.
DEFINITION

• H.P. Fair, ‘Sociology is the study of relationship between man and his human environment’. As we know,
society is web of all social relationships, how an individual adjust with the members of the society, how
much he is social.
• ‘The study of human interactions and interrelations, their conditions and consequences’. - Maxweber
VIEWS OF SOCIOLOGY

• The society is science of society.

• It studies the social relationships.
• It is the study of social life.
• It is the study of human behaviour in group situation.
• It deals with social actions.
• It studies social systems.
SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY

• There are different views about the scope of sociology.

• Some think that sociology studies everything and anything under the sun, but this is a vague view.
• However, sociology deals with those problems which are not dealt by other social sciences.
• The main emphasis in broadest sense is related to the study of human interactions, interrelations, their
condition and consequences.
• It means in sociology, whole life of man in society is studied, which is difficult for any science to deal
properly.
• In order to limit and demarcate the field of sociology, there are two schools of thoughts among
sociologists as given below:-
• A) Formalistic school: the scope of sociology has been discussed and viewed by Simmel,Small,
Vierkandt, Max weber, Von Wiese and Tinnie.
• In Simmel’s vie, sociology is a specific social science which describes, classifies, analyses and delineates
the forms of social relationships.
• In Small’s view, sociology is the study of generic form of social relationships, behaviour and activities.
• According to Vierkandt’s view, sociology is concerned with the mental or psychic relationship by which
people are related to one another in society.
• In view of Max Weber, sociology is understanding of human behaviour.
• Von has given his view that sociology is the study of forms of social relationships.
• Tonnie has interpreted the social processes quantitatively and has given mathematical formula as given
below:
• P(social process) = A (attitude) × s ( situation)
• From above views, it can be concluded that according to formalistic school of thought, scope of
sociology is limited to the abstract study of social relationships.
• Criticism:
• Formalistic school has limited the scope of sociology.
• It is difficult to study the abstract forms separated from concrete relations.
• No social science can be studied in isolation from other social sciences. It means conception of pure
sociology is impractical.
B) SYNTHETIC SCHOOL:

• In synthetic school, Durham, Hobhouse and Sorokin has given their views.
• According to them sociology is synthesis of social sciences.
• In Durkhweim’s view, sociology has three main divisions. Each division deal with particular activities of
social groups.
• 1. Social morphology: this division deals with:
• Geographic basis of life.
• Geographic relation to types of social organisations.
• Problem of population.
• 2. Social physiology
• This branch of sociology deal with a set of social tacts. It has number of branches such as
• Sociology of religion
• Sociology of morals
• Sociology of laws
• Sociology of language etc.
• 3. General sociology:
• It mainly deals with discovering the general character of social facts.
• Hothouse view is also similar to Durkheim