Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. There were several people who made great contributions in this field. Two of these people were Karl Marx and Auguste Comte. They were great men of thought that aided in building the framework for what is now known as sociology. Both men were very important to the field of sociology even though they had some completely different theories. One must understand these two men, both how the were similar and how they were different, in order to have a better understanding of what the field of sociology is as it exists today.
Auguste Comte was born in France in 1798. He is regarded as the founder of sociology because he was the first to coin the term. His goal was to establish sociology as an intellectual disciple. Comte’s great works were The Course in Positive Philosophy and The System of Positive Polity. Since he grew up in France during a time of great upheaval, he had very conservative views on war and revolution. He believed that ideals could change a social system without the need for revolt. He believed that conflict comes from ideology rather than from social
Karl Marx was born in Germany in 1818. He is the father of the theory that is known as Marxism. His theory is often referred to as the conflict theory. His major work was the Communist Manifesto, in which he outlined what he saw as the problems with capitalism. Marx was a radical. He believed that change could only come about through a revolt of those being oppressed by capitalism. He believed that conflict came about because of class struggle rather than ideology.
Both Marx and Comte thought that sociology could be used to change the world as they knew it. Marx favored a revolt of the working class to bring about this change while Comte favored ideology to bring about change. Comte’s theories were based on religious beliefs while Marx’ theories tried to steer clear of religion because he thought that it gave people a false consciousness. This means that he thought religion allowed people to justify the state in which they lived because religion teaches one to be content with where they are in life and with what they have. These men both had aspects of their theories that were not completely accurate. Each man’s theory was considered controversial for their time. The
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