Early Thinkers in the development of sociology

Herbert Spencer

Harriet Martineau

Auguste Comte :

Karl Marx

Max Weber

Emile Durkheim

Rejected Positivism.

He believed that communism was a better system than capitalism.

Co-Authored communist manifesto

First to translate Comte's writings to english.

She pointed out faults in a free enterprise system

First woman sociologist

Named the scientific study of social patterns Positivism

Believed social sciences could be studied using the same same methods as natural sciences

He believed that capitalism would collapse.

Like many other women she was discounted by male peers in her field

Established first European sociology department

Believed it was almost impossible to use scientific methods to predict group behavior. He believed that cultural influence was a factor.

Introduced verstehen where observers try to get an inside view of a situation

proposed Antipositivism with other sociologists

First book with the term "sociology"

Rejected Comte's views and Marx's views

Believed you could study social facts and use them to determine whether a society is "Healthy" or "Pathological"