Science

As we've seen, scientific thought and practice was significant in the development of modern societies; in addition, we've also noted how an understanding of the way in which the natural world was structured (in terms of the discovery of laws that underpinned its development), gradually led to the idea that the social world was not only similarly structured but that it was subject to laws of development that could also be discovered by careful and systematic observation.

Sociology, as an academic discipline, grew out of these basic ideas. In many ways, Sociology was not just conceived, as we will see, to be the "science of society" but, perhaps more accurately, it developed to be the "science of modern society".

This section of the Pathway, therefore, looks at some of the early methodological developments in Sociology, relating them to both the general scientific beliefs of the 18^th and 19^th centuries and the early development of Sociology as an academic discipline. In this respect it starts to deal with a number of ideas:

Firstly, the influence of natural scientific ideas on the development of Sociology.

Secondly, the application of a particular form of methodology (positivism) to the analysis and understanding of human social behaviour.

Thirdly, the general development of Sociology as the "science of modern society".