Kimberly San AgustinBSIT-III

Pioneers of Sociology- Anthropology

August/Auguste Comte – was a French philosopher who coined the word sociology in 1838 to designate to his newly formulated “science of the associated life of humanity.” He was the Father of Sociology.

Herbert Spencer – second Father of Sociology. He wrote Social Statics and focused on application of Darwin's Theory of Evolution to Social Life. Spencer compared society to an organism which continually changes to adopt to its environment. He believed that social progress is inevitable through evolution due to the principle of his “survival of the fittest.”

Emile Durkheim – a French scholar, Durkheim (1858-1917), was strongly influenced by Comte. In fact, many considered him heir of Comte. He came from a family of rabbinical scholars and broke the family tradition when he became a university professor, first French Sociology professor. However, religion remained one of his lifelong interests. His focus was on social forces that hold society or Social Solidarity.

Karl Max – Unlike Durkheim who focused on social solidarity in society, Karl concentrated on social conflict. He lived between 1818 and 1883. A German socialist and philosopher, Marx was a son of a Jewish lawyer who converted his entire family to Christianity. Marx attended the universities of Bonn and Berlin where he studied law, then history and philosophy.

Max Weber – was born to a wealthy German family and spent his youth in Berlin. He attended three universities in Germany and received his law degree in 1885. His first book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1960) examined how belief systems might affect people's actions and in turn the economic system of their society. He developed own view of Social Change, Economic Conditions. He introduced the Verstehen method into sociology.

Ferdinant/Ferdinand Toennis – lived from 1855 to 1936. He was born in Schleswig, the northernmost province of Germany, and spent all his academic life at the University of Kiel. In addition to his outstanding contributions to sociological theory, he performed a number of excellent field studies and wrote brilliant reports about them. His first and most important writing was Gemeinshaft and Gesselshaft. Toennis' chieft contribution to sociology was the introduction of a suggestive typology of social groups and even types of society.

George Simmel – lived from 1858 to 1918. He was of German-Jewish parentage. He studied philosophy at the University of Berlin, spent many years as a Privatdozent, and concluded his academic career as professor at the University of Strassburg. He achieved fame among sociologist through a series of brilliant articles published in Soziologie.

Edward Taylor – lived in 1832 to 1917. He was one of the pioneering anthropologists of the world. He dominated, shaped, and consolidated anthropology in Britain for the first fifty years of its development. After his researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilazation (1865), anthropology really came into shape. His first book, Anahuac of Mexico and the Mexicans Ancient and Modern (1861), is a record of that journey he made. He is credited for his contributions such as the invention of the term “animism”.

William Grahan Sumner – lived from 1840 to 1910. He was a famous sociologist-anthropologist, scholar, and teacher. He taught political science and social science at Yale University. He was a president of the American Sociological Society, and author of Folkways and the Science Society, a four-volume work which was published after his death. His work in anthropology, the science of society, came in later years. Sumner is also known as a “realist”.

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown – Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (1831-1955) was regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology.

Pitirim Sorokin (1989-1968) – he described himself as a subsequent farmhand, itinerant artisan, factory worker, clerk, teacher, conductor of a choir, revolutionary, political prisoner, journalist, student, editor of a metropolitan newspaper, cabinet member, an exile, and a professor. He provide a complete account of sociology, psychologically based and philosophically oriented. His approach has a vast “macroscopic” conspectus rather than a detailed survey of limited, particular problems. His works included: Contemporary Sociological Theories, Fads and Fables in Modern Sociology and Related Sciences, Social and Cultural Dynamics.

Talcott Parsons – was born in 1902. He made his first widespread impact with the publication of the Structure of Social Action.