Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 35

No single individual can found a whole field of study, and there were many contributors to early sociological thinking. However, particular prominence is usually given to Auguste Comte (1798–1857), who invented the word ‘sociology’ around 1840. Comte had originally used the term ‘social physics’ to describe the new subject, but some of his intellectual rivals were also using that term. To distinguish his own approach from theirs he coined the term ‘sociology’ – the systematic study of the social world.

Comte’s thinking reflected the turbulent events of his age. He wanted to create a science of society that would discover the ‘laws’ of the social world, just as natural science had discovered laws in the natural world. He recognized that each scientific discipline has its own subject matter, but Comte thought that a similar logic and scientific method would apply to them all. Uncovering the laws that govern human societies could help us to shape our own destiny and improve the welfare of everyone.

Comte wanted sociology to become a ‘positive science’ that would use the same rigorous methods as astronomy, physics and chemistry. Positivism is a doctrine which says that science should be concerned only with observable entities that are known directly to experience. On the basis of careful observation, laws can then be inferred that explain the relationships between those observed phenomena. By understanding the causal relationships between events, scientists can then predict how future events will occur. A positivist approach in sociology aims to produce knowledge about society based on evidence drawn from observation, comparison and experimentation.

Comte argued that human efforts to understand the world have passed through three broad stages: the theological, the metaphysical and the positive. In the theological stage, thinking was guided by religious ideas and a belief that society was an expression of God’s will. In the metaphysical stage, society came to be seen in natural rather than supernatural terms, with events being explained by reference to natural laws. The positive stage, ushered in by the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, encouraged the application of scientific methods. Comte regarded sociology as the last of the sciences to develop, but he argued that it was also the most significant and complex.

In the latter part of his career, Comte was keenly aware of the state of the society in which he lived and was concerned with the inequalities produced by industrialization and the threat they posed to social cohesion. The long-term solution, in his view, was the production of moral consensus through a new ‘religion of humanity’ to hold society together despite the new patterns of inequality. Although Comte’s vision was never realized, his contribution in founding a science of society was important to the later professionalization of sociology as a legitimate academic discipline.