While the roots of sociology reach back to philosophers like Plato, the study of sociology as a social science is a rather new development in history. In fact, it was not until the nineteenth century that any writer could have been considered a sociologist. The early writers were under the misunderstanding that human behavior could be discovered in the same manner that the laws of nature had been observed by scientists. By understanding the lives and works of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Jane Adams, people can understand some of the basics of sociology and how far it has come in two hundred years.
Emile Durkheim was an Anthropologist and the first French sociologist. He was the son of a Rabbi and consequently studied Hebrew and the Old Testament. Interestingly, Durkheim later converted to Catholicism for a short period of his life, but ultimately became Agnostic. Durkheim introduced many important ideas to sociology. He realized that social events in sociology do not occur according to the same structures as other sciences. Social phenomena were social facts
…show more content…
Weber was a Chair in economics at the University of Heidelberg, private scholar towards the end of his career, and a prolific writer. Unfortunately, he had a nervous breakdown in 1898, most likely because he had had no work for six years. One of Weber's main views was that Sociologists should do their best to set aside their personal values when analyzing society; that Sociologists should strive for objectivity and neutrality in their research. Other theorists like Marx and Durkheim, presumed that society, despite being made of individuals, occurred separately from them; Weber, on the other hand, was interested in value-free sociology. Sociology should be not be viewed as a way to judge or push society, but as describing, analyzing, and explaining society as a