Statics and Dynamics

Contemporary usage of the terms statics and dynamics has its roots in the work of Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Comte developed social physics, or what he eventually referred to as sociology (Comte was the first to use this term), during the 1830s in France. He believed that sociology should be strongly modeled after the hard sciences, particularly biology. He saw society as a social organism and was interested in studying how various components, or subsystems, contributed to the social system as a whole. Comte was relatively unconcerned with the domain of the individual (although his thinking was shaped by basic assumptions about individuals) but, rather, was concerned with the social groupings of individuals, collective existence, and macro-level phenomena (especially the family). Furthermore, Comte gave priority to ...