Auguste Comte

I think the social physics vs. physics (natural science) analogy is an interesting expression of sociology as a social science. In the same way physics discovers and interprets the natural world to understand its laws and allow us to manipulate nature, sociology reveals the “laws” or forces in society which we could then use to consciously change it. Similarly, in the same way physics has both theorists and experimentalists, sociology has the same thing. Although I’m not very interested in quantitative/qualitative research into society, I am interested in critical theory and how we are meant to understand and interpret society as it continually changes. Both types of sociologists seem necessary.