AUGUSTE Comte

Auguste Comte is best known for coining the term "sociology." Comte was born in France
shortly after the French Revolution. In response to the social upheaval and alienation of the
period, he devoted himself to the study of society, which he called sociology.

Comte divided sociology into two main branches: social statics, which is the study of
forces holding society together, and social dynamics, which is the study of forces
causing social change. Comte's observations and analyses were based on scientific
principles. He believed that because society operates according to its own set of laws,
similar to the way the physical world operates according to physical laws, it should be
studied as a social science. He called this approach positivism. According to positivism,
sociologists should focus only on what they can observe with their senses so they can
acquire reliable, valid knowledge about how society works. They can then use that
knowledge to stimulate social change and improve the human condition.
Comte was a major influence on other writers and thinkers of the 19th century, including
George Eliot, Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. Comte's ideas and methods also
advanced the field of sociology in general, especially modern academic sociology,
which emphasizes practical and objective social research.

GEORGE SIMMEL
Georg Simmel was an early German sociologist known for creating social theories that fostered
an approach to studying society that broke with the scientific methods used to study the natural
world. He is also considered a structural theorist, and was focused on urban life and the form of
the metropolis. A contemporary of Max Weber, Simmel is widely taught alongside him, as well
as Marx and Durkheim in courses on classical social theory.

HERBERT SPENCER
The sociologist Herbert Spencer is credited with the phrase "survival of the fittest," which he
applied to biological evolution years before Darwin's "Origin of Species," and also to the
evolution of society. As an agnostic, he also rejected the notion of a divine being, at least insofar
as it is possible to say anything meaningful (or empirical) about it.

WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER

William Graham Sumner (October 30, 1840 April 12, 1910) was an American
academic and held the first professorship in sociology at Yale College.[1] For many
years he had a reputation as one of the most influential teachers there. He was a
polymath with numerous books and essays on American history, economic history,
political theory, sociology, andanthropology. He is credited with introducing the term
ethnocentrism, a term intended to identify imperialists chief means of
justification, in his book Folkways (1906). Sumner is often seen as a protolibertarian. He was also the first to teach a course entitled Sociology.[1]

EMILE DURKHEIRM
According to Durkheim, the three branches of sociology include social morphology, social
physiology and general sociology. Sociology itself is the study of human society and social
relationships and they way in which people are affected by them
Social morphology refers to the geographical setting and population density of specific areas
and how those aspects affect social society. Social physiology refers to the religion, morals, law,
economic and political aspects of society and they way in which each discipline affects human
society as a whole. Lastly, general sociology is referred to by Durkheim as the philosophical part
of sociology as it works to discover social laws that come from specialized social associations.

MAX WEBER

Max Weber is credited as one of the three founders of sociology, but his most wellknown contribution was his thesis that combined economic and religious sociology. This
thesis proposed that ascetic Protestantism was associated with the rise of Western
market-driven capitalism.
Max Weber was an important proponent of methodological antipositivism. The German
sociologist argued that studies should be made with interpretive means. He thought that
the value and meaning that a person assigned to their action was just as important as
the sensory experience, also called empiricism, which was involved in social actions.
Weber is also known as one of the founders of the German Democratic Party. Although
he failed to get a seat in parliament, he was an advisor to the committee that drafted the
Weimar Constitution.

KARL MARX

Karl Marx's contributions to sociology include the concepts of dialectical materialism and
alienation. Along with Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, Marx is seen as one of the three
founders of the social sciences. Marx's theories, which have come to be grouped under the term
Marxism, centered on the intersection of society, economics and politics.