Essay on the Four Pioneers of Sociology – These “four founding fathers” Comte, Spencer, Durkheim and Weber—it seems, agreed upon the proper subject-matter of Sociology.
(1) Firstly, all of them urged the sociologists to study a wide range of institutions from the family to the state.
(2) Secondly, they agreed that a unique subject-matter for sociology is found in the interrelations among different institutions.
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(3) Thirdly, they came to the common consensus on the opinion that society as a whole can be taken as a distinctive unit of sociological analysis. They assigned sociology the task of explaining wherein and why societies are alike or different.
(4) Finally, they insisted that sociology should focus on ‘social acts’ or ‘social relationships’ regardless of their institutional setting. This view was most clearly expressed by Weber.
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Development of Sociology in the 20th Century-Essay
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In the second half of the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th centuries a large number of sociologists and social thinkers contributed a great deal to the development of sociology. Karl Marx 1818-1883, Lester F. Ward 1841-1913, George Simmel 1858-1918, Alfred Vierkandt 1867-1953, Gabrial Trade 1843-1904, Small 1854-1926, Giddings 1855-1931, C.H. Cooley 1864-1929, James Ward 1843-1925, Lloyd Morgan 1852-1932, L.T. Hobhouse 1864-1929, E.A. Westermarck 1862-193 9. Pareto 1848-1923, Charles A. Elwood 1873-1946, Benjamin Kidd 1858-1916, E.B. Tylor 1832-1917, J.G. Frazer 1854-1941, B. Malinowski 1884-1942 and others are some of them.
Sociology experienced a rapid development in the 20th century, most notably in France, Germany, the United States and England. Recently famous sociologists like P.A. Sorokin, Talcott Parsons, R.K. Merton, R.M. Maclver, M. Ginsberg, Kingsley Davis, W.F. Ogburn, A. W. Green, Kimball Young, P.G. Murdock, W.I.H. Sprott, E.A. Ross, Wilbert Moore, Karl Manheim, M.N. Srinivas, G.S. Ghurye and a host of others have further enriched the subject by their social investigations and writings.
Today, sociology is firmly established as a discipline. The developments of the 20th century provided a great stimulus for the study of social sciences in general, and sociology in particular. All major universities in the world, now offer instruction in the subject.
Even in the U.S.S.R. sociology is a legitimate discipline now. “It is not yet in many respects, a mature science and the student will find in it therefore, more divergent points of view and rather less systematic agreement than in such other sciences as physics, astronomy and biology”. (Robert Bierstadt)