II. Answer the following questions:

1. Who is regarded a father of sociology?

2. What scholars were deeply concerned with social life?

3. What hindered the development of science?

4. What is the essence of Comte's law?

5. What is the basis of theological stage?

6. What is the essence of metaphysical stage?

7. Where is this approach mainly found?

8. What is the scientific approach based on?

9. How may positivism be defined?

10. When did sociology become established as an academic discipline?

11. Is there complete agreement among sociologists on treating science?

12. Whose viewpoint would you support?

III. Complete the following sentences:

1. Auguste Comte is widely regarded as ... .

2. Prior to the birth of sociology, philosophers and theologians were primarily concerned with ... .

3. The major goal of the pioneering sociologists Comte and Durkheim was to ... .

4. In the medieval period people's view of humanity was shaped by ... .

5. Scientific understanding of the natural world is connected with such names as ... .

6. Comte's «law of the three stages” includes .„ .

7. Theological stage is based on ... .

8. At the metaphysical stage abstract forces were believed to ... .

9. Scientific approach focuses attention on ... .

10. Today many sociologists share Comte's belief that ...

IV. Divide the text into logical parts and make up an outline of the text.

V. Speak on:

1) Auguste Comte as “the father of sociology”.

2) His law of the three stages of development.

3) Further development of sociology.

VI. Read the text and entitle it:

Auguste Comte was born in southern France, grew up in a conservative family in the wake of the French Revolution, and spent most of the life in Paris. The dramatic social changes that were taking place around him stimulated his interest in society. From the Greek and Latin words meaning “the study of society”, he derived the word sociology.

The foundation of Comte's work was an attempt to apply scientific methods to the study of society and to the practical task of social reform. In his own lifetime, scientific thinking was becoming more sophisticated and influential than ever before, increasing human knowledge about the physical world. Why not, Comte reasoned, apply the same scientific methods to understanding the social world? In Comte's view, sociology should attempt to determine the laws that govern human social behaviour, in much the same way that natural laws govern the operation of the physical world. Comte's sociological study was concerned with what he called social statics — how society maintains itself as a cohesive system of many interrelated parts — and social dynamics — how society changes in an orderly way according to specific social laws.

Few sociologists today would agree that society operates according to absolute and invariable laws; yet most sociologists accept the idea that the study should be concerned with both social stability and social change. Most sociologists also agree that sociology should be based, as much as possible, on scientific methods.

VII. Read the text once more and find the answers to the following questions:

1. What does the word “sociology” mean?

2. What was the foundation of Comte's work?

3. What was his sociological study concerned with?

4. What should sociology be based on?

VIII. Summarize the contents of the text in 6 sen­tences.