(i) First of Auguste Comte (1798-1857) gave the discipline its name, calling it sociology or the science of human association.

(ii) Hobhouse explained how sociology studied the interaction of human minds.

(iii) Park and Burgess said sociology is the science of collective behaviour.

(iv) Emile Durkheim said that sociology is the study of collective representation. All our thinking, feeling and doing constitute social facts. Social fact, according to Emile Durkheim, is exterior to human mind and it put constraints or human behaviour. He says that all that which is a social fact constitutes the suggest matter of the study of sociology.

(v) Max weber : He has defined sociology differently. He said that human activities are oriented towards some action, which fulfils some objectives. Individuals in the society engage in actions for realization of given goals/interests.

Actions, according to Max Weber, constitute the subject matter of sociology. Since every social action is directed at some other person, sociology studies the interaction systems, which shape social institutions, like polity, the hospital and bureaucracy.

II. Scientific Nature of Sociology:

(i) Sociology is a scientific discipline. It is a science in the sense that involves objective and systematic methods of investigation and evaluation of social reality in the light of empirical evidence and interpretation.

(ii) However, it is also a fact that sociology cannot be directly modelled on the patterns of natural sciences, because human behaviour is different from the world of nature.

(iii) Among other differences the subject matter of natural science is relatively static and unchanging whereas human behaviour, the subject matter of sociology, is flexible and dynamic.

(iv) The founder fathers of sociology were concerned with the study of social order and change. They also desired to model the science of society or sociology as exact a discipline as natural sciences.

(v) No doubt sociology is a science because it fulfils the basic requirements of objective and rational knowledge of social reality.