What is Sociology and scope of sociology.

                                   What is Sociology

At the time of the World Congress of Sociology 1976,the Mayoress of Uppsala (Sweden) while welcoming the delegates commented on the printed programme that "Sociology is everything and everything is Sociology".Common man understands sociology right in this way.

Generally , sociology is defined as the study of society (more specifically,human society or societies ).But this definition does not tell us much about sociology.We learn about man and society or about human behaviour in psychology ,anthropology ,economics ,political science and many other disciplines.Then why we study sociology?We study sociology because the perspective of all social sciences that study society is different from one another.For instance ,poverty a problem of society,is a cultural ,political,economic,psychological ,historical as well as a sociological problem. Sociology may claim to have a broader perspective of of social problems or society than all other social sciences.

      Linguistic Origin of the word Sociology

Etymologically, the word 'sociology' has a hybrid origin of two language-Latin and Greek .The word socius  is a Latin term meaning friend ,companion or associate.The Greek 'loogos' or 'logy' means study of.It also means doctrine ,discourse or theory.By combining the words it makes study of human association.

                             Scope of Sociology

We need to know somethings about its scope and subject matter.Anthony Giddens has written "the scope of sociological study is extremely wide ,ranging from the analysis of passing encounters between individuals in the street to the investigation of global social processes".

Almost all earlier sociologists agreed on this view that the proper subject matter and scope of sociology is the study of social interactions and social relationships .But their approach of study has led them to form into groups.They have distinguished two major approaches of sociology to study society.

1-Formal or specialist sociology

2-Synthetic or general sociology

1-Formal or specialistic sociology

There is a group of German sociologist who have distinguished the forms and content of social relationships.They insist that sociologist should be delimit their study of the forms of social relationships (competition , assimilation ,conflict ,cooperation etc.)
Basically it is a process having many expressions as the struggle between plants for space and food,and light,animals for food and shelter ,businessmen for customers and so on.Sociologist study only the formal characteristic for competition .
George Simmel is known to be the main champion of formal sociology.Formal sociology is an attempt to determine the basic forms of social interactions that underlie more complex form and contexts of social behaviour. Simmel suggested that one could isolate the form of interaction from the content , so that apparently very different interactions could be shown to have the same form.For instance,the relationship between the aristocrat and writer in the 18th century England and the relationship between a peasant and his landlord in the 20th century India are apparently different reactions . However they do have the same form ,in that they are both example of patronage relationships.

      Synthetic or general sociology
As against the view of formal sociologists, who wanted to shape sociology as a specialistic like economics,political science ,psychology etc,the other school of thought which is known as synthetic sociology,wants that sociology should study both the forms and contents of relationships.The followers of this school of thought are Comte,Durkheim,Sorokin,Hobhouse,Ginsbergetc. In their view sociology is a generalising and synthesising the science.
To conclude this discussion about formalistic and synthetic nature of sociology , it can be said that sociology is a special and general science in the sense of economic ,political science,or psychology which studies only the partial reality of society.Huntington Carins aptly remarked "sociology deals with social phenomena that are in part dealt with other social sciences, but no social science except sociology studies all of them ,and no other social science approaches any of them solely from the point of view of a sociologist".