ABSTRACT
Discussion of the history of sociology poses some special difficulties, since it is not easy to define the subject matter of sociology in a way that differentiates it distinctively from the other social sciences, and there is little agreement among sociologists as to which older writings ought to be regarded as the most significant landmarks in the development of the modern discipline. Chapter 12, which dealt with the ideas of Henri Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte, was called ‘French Positivism and the Beginnings of Sociology’ but, though Saint-Simon and Comte were important in the development of nineteenth-century social thought, their writings were too speculative and metaphysical to be regarded as antecedents of what is denoted by either ‘positivism’ or ‘sociology’ in modern discourse. Through Marx and Engels, the notion of a comprehensive social science embracing all social phenomena in a unified theoretical model that would provide a scientific account of human history, explain contemporary society, and predict the future, derived a powerful impetus that has carried it through to the present day as an intellectual and political ideal. However, the mainstream tradition of modern sociological research, especially in the United States, neither practises nor professes to find much inspiration in such Grand Sociology. Most sociologists would not refer to Saint-Simon or Comte as precursors, much less founders, of their discipline; so the title of Chapter 12 is not one that could be defended very strongly.
