Social Science Introduction

Author: Zheng Maoliang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: The term "sociology" was first proposed by the French positivist philosopher Auguste Comte in 1835. In 1838, he introduced it in the fourth volume of his Cours de Philosophie Positive. Literally speaking, the direct meaning of sociology is the study of society. Comte intended, under this name, to establish a science of society, similar to astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology, and to place it immediately after these sciences, classifying it among the five abstract theoretical sciences he called. For this science, he initially followed the existing practice of calling it "social physics," but after careful consideration, he changed it to "sociology." This term was first translated into "crowd studies" or "anthropological studies" in our country. Later, it was adopted by Zhang Taiyan, following the Chinese transliteration used by Japanese scholars, and was standardized as sociology.