Every subject has its own scope and subject matter.

Sociologists differ among themselves regarding

Some sociologists opine that sociology studies everything and any- thing under the sun, whereas,
others opine that the scope of sociology is very limited as it studies only those things which are not
studied by other social sciences

Sociology is the study of social relationships, groups and societies. Sociologists differ in their opinions
about the definition of sociology.
Max-Weber, “sociology is the science which attempts an interpretative understanding of social
action”.
Auguste Comte, “sociology is the science of social phenomena subject to natural and invariable
laws, the discovery of which is the object of investigation”.
Emile Durkheim “Sociology is the science of social institutions”.

An analysis of the above definitions shows that sociologists differ in their opinion about the
definition and the subject matter of sociology. But the common idea underlying all these is that
sociology is concerned with human beings and their relationships.

MacIver opines that whatever subject may be included in the subject matter, its real subject
matter are social relationships.

Scope means area of study, field of inquiry or the subject matter. Each subject has its own field of
study, so also sociology. Study of sociology is organized within a specific boundary which is known as
the scope of sociology

There are two main schools of thought among sociologists on the issue of scope and subject matter
of sociology: Formal school or specialistic school of thought and synthetic school of thought.

Formalistic or specialistic school

According to this school of thought sociology cannot study social life as a whole. Hence, the scope
of sociology is very limited. They want to keep the scope of sociology distinct from other social
sciences.
The exponents of this school wish to keep the subject pure and independent. According to them it
should deal with social relationships, social activities and processes of socialization.

According to Simmel, sociology should confine its study to formal behaviour instead of studying
actual behaviour. Sociology comprehends the forms of social science which describes analyses,
classifies and delineates the forms of social relationships, the process of socialization and social
organization etc

Another supporter of formalistic school Max-Weber opines that the aim of sociology is to attempt an
interpretative understanding of social action. It should confine itself in the analysis and
classification of social action and social behaviors. As social behavior does not include the whole of
human relations, hence the scope of sociology is very limited.

Another main advocate of formal school Vonwiese opined that the scope of sociology is very limited
as it only studies the form of social relationships and forms of social processes. He has divided
these social relationships and social processes into many types. He has identified more than 650
forms of human relationships. Similarly there are two types of social processes in society such as
associative and dissociative which includes cooperation and conflict respectively

Criticism of formalistic school:

 The formalistic idea of pure and independent sociology is purely imaginary in nature.
 The formalistic school of thought has extremely narrowed down the scope of sociology to
merely the abstract forms of social relationships.
 Besides sociology, other social sciences like economics, political science, Psychology also
study social relationships.

Synthetic school:

It came into existence in reaction to the formalistic school of thought. It tries to make sociology a
synthesis of the social sciences. According to this school of thought, the scope of sociology is very
wide and all inclusive. We can’t understand society with the study of one aspect only; hence
sociology should attempt to study social life as a whole.

The main advocates of this school of thought are Emile Durkheim, L.T. Hobhouse, P.A. Sorokin,
Morris Ginsberg, Karl Mannheim

Emile Durkheim: The main advocates of synthetic school Durkheim opines that the scope of
sociology has three main divisions or field of study i.e (i) social Morphology (ii) Social Physiology and
(iii) General Sociology.

i) Social Morphology: It includes all those subjects which are fundamentally geographic, such
as, population, its size, density, distribution, mobility etc. This comprehends two studies.
First, analysis of the size and quality of the population in as much as it affects the qualities
of social relationships and social groups. Second, study of the social structure, or a
description of the main forms of social groups of institutions as well as their classification.
ii) Social Physiology: Social physiology is inclusive of all those subjects that are studied by
particular social sciences, such as religion, economy, language, morals, law etc. In other
words, social physiology has different branches, such as sociology of law, sociology of
religion etc. which are regarded as special aspects of sociology.
iii) General Sociology: General sociology is the philosophical part of sociology. Its function is to
discover the general character of these social facts and to formulate general social laws.

L.T. Hothouse : sociology is a science which shows social life of man as its sphere. He opines that it is
possible to have a fuller comprehension of the whole from the study of its parts. Hence, sociologist
should interpret social life as a whole.

Thus, it may be concluded that there is no conflict between two schools of thought about the scope
of sociology. Sociology is both a general science and a special science. It synthesizes all special
science. Hence the scope of sociology is very wide. One school studies the part and other studies the
whole. Both part and whole are interrelated we can’t study the part without studying the whole and
vice-versa.