His very influential ideas enabled him to see human behaviour as a result of man's social environment. He once said " change society, you can change people- Marx's theory focused on society as being an institution, a social one, based on the family, education and law (Slattery M, 1985). .
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), also credited for his contribution to sociology was very much influenced by the writings and works of August Comte. Like Comte, he too was a teacher of philosophy. He wrote the first "Social Science" journal in France a few years later, which was published around 1898. Durkheim focused his theories on religion, suicide and other aspects of society (Giddens A, 1989).
Max Weber (1864-1920) was considered another contributor to early sociology and was considered by others to be a rationalist. He focused his arguments on a "Social Action" theory. He argued that Society itself is a result of the actions of individuals. So therefore it was important to study the actions of individuals in order to understand the way individuals looked at the world and how their views helped to influence their actions (Kirby et al, 1997).
Social sciences on a whole concerns itself with the human species and its function as individuals or part of society, culture, nation, and race universally. Breaking down social science leaves different areas to be considered such as anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, law, psychology, criminology and social psychology. All of these disciplines focus on different theories in explaining human behaviour. Take for example, anthropology. It could be argued that this discipline is closely related to sociology in that its involvement is in the study of human society and its culture. Anthropology emphasizes more on the diversities between societies; culture and behaviour where-in sociology examines more the pattern of human behaviour across the globe.