“Emergence of sociology was not merely a‘ coincidence”. Comment
Answer:
The emergence of Sociology can be traced to the parallel progress of modernity in Europe after dark age period. The18th century Europe was characterized by massive social change when science was emerging, and held to be the only means of knowledge.
This was a period was characterized by:
- The Industrial Revolution, which transformed the means of production and the production relations.
- The scientific revolution and Enlightenment ideas of Kant, Rousseau, Voltaire, which questioned the role of religion, and brought the use of reason.
- The French Revolution which challenged the divine right of the king, placed the sovereignty on the people and bring liberty, equality and fraternity.
- Urbanization, which created new social classes, dismantled the old social order, were studied by Karl Marx, Adam smith etc.
- Scientist like Galileo, Newton questioned the infallible faith in religion, tradition and authority of churches.
- Ideological modernity period is called renaissance in which philosophers like Rene Descartes, David Hume, Martin Luther, Jean Calvin
- Imperialism and constant warfare
At this time every social institution was started to be seen with a view of inquiry. This gave the subject matter to the sociology in its nascent stage. Further these philosophers stressed on rationale, utility, this worldly belief, secular nature of state.
This period of rapid social change led to the birth of sociology, a discipline which was hoped could study society in a scientific way, and bring order to it.
Early sociologist like Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, sought to bring social order to society, and thus to use the science of society to better it.
This rapid social change created a need for a science to grasp it, and thus bring order in the chaos and thus the sociology as a distinct discipline emerge. Due to these changes people’s behavior towards society is rapidly changing and to study this change in behavior and reaction of people to such large-scale change in environment, sociology emerged as a separate subject. Sociology reflected the change and justified behavior of person. It provides reasons for the increase in crime, suicide, inequality, rise of capita lists, etc which remained unanswered by other disciplines. It actually fills the gap required to understand the change better.