1. HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY &
AUGUSTE COMTE
HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY:
• Age of Enlightenment
• French Revolution
• Industrial Revolution
AUGUSTE COMTE
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2. HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY
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People choose to study fields or disciplines
that are most important to them or that affect
them.
In the past (primitive societies), survival was
most important, so people would study crops,
climate, migration patterns.
By the beginning of the 19th Century, humanity
had succeeded in making the natural world
seem more predictable.
But then, Westerners’ social world became
frighteningly chaotic.
3. HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY
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People were accustomed to wars with
foreigners, but in the 18th Century nearly every
European nation faced internal war in the form
of revolution.
By the time the 19th Century rolled around, the
political, economic and religious foundations of
society appeared to be on the verge of
crumbling.
Things were in chaos & people were
frightened.
4. HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY
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There are three main eras in history that led to
the creation of Sociology as we know it:
AGE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT (1700S)
FRENCH REVOLUTION (1789-1799)
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (1750s
onwards)
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Since the dawn of time, we have been
interested in the source of our behaviour.
However, these ideas were traditionally
expressed in religious terms, or drew on well-
known myths, superstitions or traditional
beliefs.
Prior to the times of Copernicus (1543),
Galileo (1632) & Newton (1687), the Catholic
Church determined the laws and principles of
nature and the world at large.
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Newton began to formulate theories on scientific
principles.
Newton’s theories were so simple, profound and
compelling, with the evidence he provided, that
the Roman Catholics had no choice but to
accept his ideas.
During the next century, religious leaders
retreated from their position that their authority
was the last word on the natural world but they
still maintained that it was God that determined
man’s “estate” or position in society and that was
condition in which he or she would die.
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But Newton’s ideas made people
question the Church.
Hence began the Age of the
Enlightenment (Age or Reason).
This was a period where there
was a drastic change in Western
philosophy, science, intellect and
culture.
At this time, individuals began to
use science and rationality to
understand the world.
The Enlightenment, therefore,
became a shift in the thinking
process at the time.
The philosophers encouraged the
masses to think logically (or shed
light/become enlightened) about
any phenomena that occurred in
the society.
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The Enlightenment was a period of profound
optimism, a sense that with science and reason
(and the consequent shedding of old superstitions)
human beings and human society would improve.
They also promoted ideas of power, rights and
equality.
Thus this trend of thought influenced Sociologists
(like Comte, Durkheim and Parsons) who believed
that Sociology could help solve mankind’s problems.
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These individuals were anti-clerical and were
particularly opposed against the traditional
Catholicism.
They weren’t atheists; rather they believed in
Deism where God exists but He leaves it up to
mankind to make their own path in life.
Famous Enlightenment thinkers: Locke,
Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rousseau,
Newton, Voltaire, and others.
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The Enlightenment encouraged criticism of the
corruption of the monarchy (King Louis XVI &
Marie Antoinette), and the aristocracy.
The French revolution was a period of radical
social and political upheaval in France from 1789
to 1799.
It marked the triumph of secular ideas and
values, such as liberty and equality, over the
traditional social order.
It was the start of a powerful and dynamic force
that has since spread across the globe and
become a staple of the modern world.
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These new ways of thinking, combined with a
financial crisis (the country was literally bankrupt)
and poor harvests left many ordinary French people
(landless serfs) both angry and hungry.
In 1789, the French Revolution began. In its first
stage, all the revolutionaries asked for was a
constitution that would limit the power of the king.
Ultimately the idea of a constitution failed, and the
revolution entered a more radical stage.
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In 1792, Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette,
were beheaded along with thousands of other
aristocrats believed to be loyal to the monarchy.
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The other great revolution that led to the
evolution of Sociology began in Britain in the late
1700s to the late 1800s.
It was an ongoing process in Britain which
spread to other parts of the world.
It can be defined as the broad spectrum of social
and economic transformations that surrounded
the development of new technological
innovations such as the steam power and
machinery.
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The rise of industry led to an enormous
migration of peasants from the land to
factories and industrial work, causing a rapid
expansion of urban areas (urbanisation) and
ushering in new forms of social relationships.
Consider the table below which showed the
rate at which urbanisation took place:
CITY 1800 1900
LONDON 900,000 4.7 MILLION
PARIS 600,000 3.6 MILLION
BERLIN 170,000 2.7 MILLION
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This drastically changed the face of the social world
and with it came many problems, including child
labour, poor working and living conditions, poverty
and increased diseases.
People (including children) worked for long hours,
with little wages, insufficient food, lack of clean water,
no health insurance and inadequate shelter.
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Many of our personal habits also changed.
Most of the food we eat and the beverages we
drink are now produced by industrial means.
20. How does all this affect Sociology?
20 The shattering of traditional ways of life challenged
thinkers to develop a new understanding of both
the social and national worlds.
Early pioneers of sociology were caught up in the
events surrounding these revolutions and
attempted to comprehend both their emergence
and potential consequences.
It was no accident that the first sociologists
emerged in Britain, France and Germany and
these 19th Century thinkers sought to answer and
offer solutions to the pressing problems of modern
society.
22. AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857)
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Auguste Comte is the founding father of Sociology.
His contribution to sociology can be divided into five
categories.
They are namely:-
1. Classification and ordering of social sciences.
2. The coining of the term sociology.
3. The law of three stages.
4. The plan for social reconstruction.
5. Positivism.
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No single individual can establish a whole field of
study and there were many contributors to early
sociological thinking.
However, French author, Auguste Comte, has
been credited with coining the term “sociology.”
Comte originally used the term
“social physics” but some of his
intellectual rivals at the time
were also using the term and he
wanted to distinguish his studies
from theirs.
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Comte’s thinking reflected the turbulent events
of his age.
The French revolution had introduced
significant changes into society and the growth
of industrialization was altering the traditional
lives of the French population.
Comte sought to create a science of society
that could explain the laws of the social world
just as natural science explained the
functioning of the physical world.
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Although Comte recognized that each scientific
discipline has its own subject matter, he believed
that they all share a common logic and scientific
method aimed at revealing universal laws.
Just as the discovery of laws in the natural world
allows us to control and predict events around us,
uncovering the laws that govern human behaviour
and society could help us shape our destiny and
improve the welfare of humanity.
Therefore, for Comte, society conforms to laws in
the same was the physical world does.
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Comte argued that sociology should become a
positive science or as he called it “positivism.”
He believed that sociology should apply the same
rigorous scientific methods to study of society that
physics, chemistry or biology use to study the
physical world.
Positivism holds that science should be
concerned only with observable entities that are
known directly to experience (Giddens 2001, 8).
A positivist approach to sociology believes in the
production of knowledge about society based on
empirical evidence drawn from observation,
comparison and experimentation.
Scientific sociologists would be the
experts on the earthly social world
just as astronomers were experts
on the heavens.
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Comte’s law of the three stages claims that
human efforts to understand the world have
passed through three stages:
1. Theological – all phenomena and
thoughts were guided by religious
explanations and the belief that society
was an expression of God’s will.
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2. Metaphysical – which emerged around
the time of the Renaissance, society
came to be seen in natural, no longer
supernatural terms.
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3. Positive – was ushered in by the
discoveries and achievements of
Copernicus, Newton, Galileo and others
who encouraged the application of
scientific techniques to the social world.
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Bearing these stages in mind, Comte
advocated that sociology was the last science
to develop but it was the most significant and
complex of all the sciences.
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Comte was aware of the state of the European
society in which inequalities were being
produced by industrialization and the threat
posed to social cohesion (unity).
The long term solution: the production of a
moral consensus that would help hold together
society despite the new patterns of inequality.
Although Comte’s vision for the reconstruction
of society was never realized, the contribution
to systematizing and unifying the science of
society was important to the later
professionalization of sociology as an
academic discipline.
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In the latter part of his career, Comte drew up
ambitious plans for the reconstruction of French
society (in particular) and for human societies
(in general) based on his sociological viewpoint.
He urged the establishment of a ‘new religion of
humanity’ which would abandon faith and
dogma in favour of scientific grounding.
Sociology would be at the heart of this new
religion.Sociologists would
investigate the world in a
scientific manner and
advise people about how
life ought to be lived.
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Comte called his religion the Universal Religion
and referred to himself as the “Great Priest of
Humanity”.
Comte even wrote to the Catholic Pope and
suggested that he abdicate and let Comte take his
place.
He did have many followers, including English
philosopher John Stuart Mill & some formed a cult
called Comtism.
Unfortunately he went too far and by the time
Comte died in 1857, Sociology was the
laughingstock in France.
