Auguste Comte || Introduction to Sociology || Bcis Notes

Major Founders of Sociology

Major Founders of Sociology are Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber. They all have their own kind of characters and contributions in sociology.

1. Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

Auguste Comte is a renowned French scholar, social philosopher, a voracious reader. He is called the father of sociology as he coined the term ‘Sociology’. He represents the aristocratic, and law-abiding religious family. He was highly influenced by the European renaissance and the age of positivism prevailed during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Biography brief:

Auguste Comte was educated at the Imperial Lycee and Ecole Polytechnique in France. Formally, he was the study of mathematics and physics. He studied the available natural science and social science literature in depth. Fortunately, he got the chance to get the company of Saint Simon who was a great social scientist and social thinker and that triggered him to become a co-writer, co-worker, and co-thinker of Saint Simon.

In the course of time, he produced some renowned academic books like:

• Positive Philosophy(6 vol.)
• Positive Polity (4 vol.)

He was highly influenced by the European Renaissance and the age of positivism.

Findings:

He has given three major stages of social evolution and development. Comte organized and classified social thought and gave birth to the entire analysis of the evolution of human thinking. Three stages are:

• Theological stage
• Metaphysical stage
• The Positive Stage or Positivism

1. Theological stage

• The first stage of human evolution(nomadic stage)
• Used to believe in supernatural terms
•  Hunting and Gathering mode of life

2. Metaphysical stage 

• The second stage of human evolution developed rational knowledge
• Rationalism(reasoning helped to find out some order in the natural world)
• Examples; ‘puspak biman’ and ‘Akash bani’

3. The Positive Stage or Positivism

• Represents the scientific way of thinking, intellectual way of looking at the world
• Dominated by science and technology
• Suits for highly industrialized and E-society

Continued and you may also like Herbert Spencer.