 Dear learners, welcome to this LMS platform introduced by Krishnakanta Hendricks State Open University. Today, we will discuss the unit 1 of the Paper Sociology and Introduction, which is meant for the MA for Semester Learners who have opted for Sociology. Now, let us discuss the learning objectives of this unit. After going through this unit, you will be able to identify the factors which led to the emergence of sociology, know the nature of sociology and understand the scope or the subject matter of sociology. So sociology as an academic discipline emerged only in the early part of 19th century by the French sociologist August Cohen. He had coined the term sociology in his book The Positive Philosophy in about 1839. The term sociology is derived from two words, that is, socios and logos, which means the study of or the science of association or society. So does that mean that people did not study society before that? Of course not. People did study society, but sociology offers a more integrated and methodical study of society. For example, a sociologist is interested to know the connectivity between polity, economy, family, religion, etc. that makes every society unique and also its problems very specific. Now, let us try to understand what are the conditions led to the emergence of sociology. Now, in order to understand the emergence of sociology, it is necessary to look at the intellectual forces and the social events which occurred in Europe from 17th to the early 20th century. During the 17th century, Europe had experienced scientific revolutions in the domain of natural and biological sciences. But the social life of the people were governed by the church and the common masses were oppressed by the ruling classes in the guise of religion. Also some of the thinkers realized that a scientific study of society is imperative at that point. They were inspired by the methods applied by the natural scientists to find the universal laws. Social thinkers felt that in a social world too, there must be some universal laws that govern every aspect of society and to understand societies better and to find solution of the existing problems, it is necessary to discover those laws. So, 18th century witnessed the dawn of ideas such as liberty, equality and fraternity and many thinkers began to advocate that in order to assure equality in society, traditional ideas, beliefs and practices that hindered social equality must be overthrown. Social thinkers of this era argued that we can apply scientific principles to analyze and study the human beings, their nature and society. The thinkers of enlightenment justified reason as a measure to judge social institutions, so if any institution appears unreasonable, it can be overthrown. They believed that it is only with observation and reason we can find the truth which will ultimately lead to freedom of thought and action. In response to these ideas, people in large numbers tried to forcefully overthrow the state machinery and religion. And then there was a conflict between those who wanted to retain their power and those who wanted a share in that power structure of society. And this led to more chaos and destruction. And as it took place in France, it came to be known as the French Revolution but it had an impact over all other parts of Europe. On the other hand, with scientific invention, industrial revolution emerged in England but the people who walked in those industries had to work in a very inhuman condition. This had an impact on other structures of society like family, the rate of crime had increased as the people went poverty stricken. The rich became rich and the poor people became more poor. After witnessing the outcome of these two revolutions, some scholars again began to ponder how stability can be retained in society. What is social change? How and when does a society change, etc. And they were known as the the romantic conservatists. Also during that period, many European nations like England had set up colonies in different continents and they had encountered a totally different society. Now August Court was influenced by both the Enlightenment thinkers as well as the romantic conservatists. So he introduced a discipline that will study society scientifically. According to him, sociology will focus on two major aspects. One is social statics which studies the conditions that retain order and stability in society. And the other is social dynamics that tries to study social change and progress. He had argued that when society undergoes change, it will be guided by new principles and it is only by careful scientific study of society we can design those principles. Now let us try to know how sociology emerged in India. In India, sociology emerged from social anthropology. Sociology department was first introduced in the University of Bombay in 1922. After independence, the policy makers felt the urgency to reconstruct the Indian society. The economists took an active role in studying the economy of India but that was not enough. Hence the social anthropologists, sociologists and geographers took active part in studying Indian society. From 1950s to 1970s, village studies became the focus of sociology in India and caste became the focus of village studies. Sociologists like Iravati Karve, Binoi Sarkar, G. S. Khurye used sociological perspective to understand the tradition as well as uniqueness of Indian society. The work of these sociologists were used to design policies and the knowledge generated by these sociologists were beneficial in designing and redesigning policies of protective discrimination in response to the changing sociopolitical situations. Sociological studies in India has helped in observing, recording and monitoring developmental programs at the grass root level in the study of social change among different sections of the population in diverse parts of the country. Now let us try to understand the nature of sociology. We have already discussed that sociology is scientific in nature because it involves systematic methods of investigation, analysis of data and assessment of the theories based on evidence and logical argument. The scientific nature of sociology can be further analyzed by looking at the reliability of its knowledge, its organization and method. It can be judged in terms of fulfillment of some criteria like the reliability of its body of knowledge and its organization. Sociology also has an objective nature. In sociology, objectivity is maintained through the use of appropriate methodologies for collecting data and explaining the reason why a particular method was chosen or used. Now let us try to discuss what is the scope of sociology. It means what is the subject matter of sociology and it is society. And when we say society, what does it include? It includes everything or every aspect that is a part of society, be it the political structure, the economic structure, education system, media, technology, values, beliefs, culture, everything can be the subject matter of society or sociology because all these aspects influence society and in turn is influenced by society. Now Compt also felt the comparative study of societies as a whole as a major subject matter of sociological analysis. So from today's discussion, we have tried to understand why a separate discipline was required to understand society which forces led to the realization of this requirement, what is the nature of sociology and finally what is the subject matter of sociology. Now these are some of the simple questions that can come from the unit like is sociology science, explain, is it possible to study society scientifically or objectively explain, trace how sociology as a discipline emerged in Europe, discuss the nature and scope of sociology, discuss the factors that had led to the emergence of sociology and many more. And we can also have objective type questions from this unit like in which here the term sociology was coined etc. And with this today we will conclude this discussion on unit 1, thank you.