Subject matter and emergence of sociology

Subject matter of sociology

Sociology is a science with its own subject matter.Many critics have included their views regarding sociology not having its own subject matter.The major criticism against sociology is that it borrows from other social sciences.Sociology focuses on human interaction influencing two or more people and each other's feelings, attitudes, and actions. Sociology does not  focus on what occurs within people as it does on what people feel internally. Hence, the focus of sociological inquiry is on people as social beings- their activities in relation to one another.Sociology has its own way of explaining people's behavior.Sociology is mainly concerned with analyzing human society and culture together.Similarly, It is related to the development of social institutions such as family and kinship, economic, religious, educational, scientific and expressive institutions. Sociology also studies about the primary unit of the social life, about the relationships, communities, associations, organizations, and populations. In order to explain the subject matter of the sociology, it should answer three of the basic questions: How and why societies emerge? How and why society persist? How and why societies change? On the basis of the following questions society can determine the subject matter:

We have not found any special field of sociology as its subject matter is parcelled out to many of the social sciences such as the political science, economics, psychology, anthropology, history and many more. The major criticism against the subject matter of the sociology is that sociology mainly borrows theory from other social sciences.

It might be stated somewhere that these arguments are simply incorrect and we do not need any consideration for this. But the thing is that today sociology is not only considered as a distinct science with subject matter but it has also acquired lots of the high status that is able to entitle it to be called as the “mother of all the social sciences”. Sociology has a distinct position among other social sciences.

Sociology is known to be a special kind of the abstraction, sociology has its own perspective has its own system of explanation of the human behavior. In the point of discussing the true position of sociology in people’s social life among other social sciences, Maclver a sociologist has remarked that these of the social sciences have the special status within sociology as similar to the associations have spheres within a specific community.

Sociology is able to produce a valuable information’ about the social institutions which includes church, state family, property and about the social traditions, social processes, social classes, people’s changes in social habits, about the customs and fashions, social control in the society, crime and suicide etc.

Sociology, also borrows the subject matter from the other social sciences, despite the fact, sociology has been giving this subject matter as a new form. Sociology has been adopting the different system of explanation of the different subject matter. Sociology keeps on borrowing the raw materials, has been applying a technique and creating society and also its distinct discipline for studying its structure and processes. In the words of Motwani, “Sociology like an edifice is both the principle of coordination of facts of social life into an organic whole and also an independent science, the end result of such integration”.

Emergence of Sociology

Sociology is emerged from the common tradition in which interest in the nature of human social behavior and society has always existed.The sociological issues, questions, and problems have been raised and discussed by forerunners starting from the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers.Sociology as an academic science was thus born in the 19th century in Great Britain and Western Europe especially in France and Germany, and it generally advances throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.The Industrial Revolution which was begun in the Great Britain, The French Political Revolution of 1789, the enlightenment and advances in natural sciences and technology were the major reasons for the emergence of sociology.

These events as mentioned above acted as socio-political, intellectual and economic ground for the emergence of sociology which can be summed below:

• Ancient Philosopher's Contribution:

In the writings of the philosophers, thinkers and the law givers of various centuries of various epochs reflected the structure of a contemporary societies, their problem and the methods to their solutions. For an example, Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, Kautilya’s Arthasastra, Confucius’ Analects, Cicero’s on justice etc are some of the ancient sources of social thinking which represented wide discourse of contemporary social phenomena.

• Reformation Movement

New ideas in the religion in 16^th century, Europe that led to the formation of the Protestant churches and that challenged the very orthodoxy of the Christianity. It created an environment to change the ideas within the philosophy of religion.

• Political Revolutions

The long series of the political revolutions completed in 1789, commonly termed as the French revolution, was one of the most prominent factors in the emergence of the sociology and also the rise of the theory. Early sociological thinkers like Comte and Durkheim were not influenced by the positive result of the social changes brought by the revolution. But they were disturbed by the resulting disorder of the society.

• Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism

The industrial revolution occurred in the Europe, especially in Britian in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. It was not a single event but many of the interrelated developments that culminated in the transformation of the western world from a largely agricultural to overwhelmingly industrial system, agricultural works for the industrial occupations provided to them. 

• The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a period of remarkable intellectual development and also a change in the philosophical thought. It was characterized by the belief that people could understand and control the universe by the means of reason and the empirical research.

• Religious Change

Social change brought by the political revolutions, the industrial revolution, and the urbanization had profound effect on the religiousity. Many of the early sociologists came from religious background and they brought to Sociology same objectives as they had in their religious life

These and other socio-political events created circumstances which a French philosopher, Auguste Comte was inspired to give birth to a new social science named "Sociology".

References

Regmi, Rishikeshab Raj, Udbodh Bhandari and Santosh K Gurung.Sociology for Management.Kathmandu: Buddha, 2013

Henslin, James M. Adie Nelson (1995). Sociology:A Down-to-Earth Approach. Canadian Edition. Scarborough, Ontario: Allyn and Bacon

Weber, Max (1962)Basic Concept in Sociology, London: Peter Owen

Macionis, John J. (2006), Sociology. Pearson Education