I. The contribution of Emile Durkheim to the development of Sociology:

1. Along with Karl Marx and Max Weber, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim is one of the key classical theorists in sociology. He is best known for founding sociology as a scientific discipline and for defining the boundaries of its subject matter.

2. Emile Durkheim was the author of some of the most programmatic statements about what sociology was and how it should be done. Emile Durkheim's key theoretical statement lies in his claim that social phenomena are realities that can only be explained by other social facts.

3. The most important concern for Emile Durkheim was the establishment of sociology as a distinct discipline. His goal was to provide a firm definition of the field and a scientific basis of its study.

4. Emile Durkheim's second concern was the issue of social solidarity or integration in society. He inquired into 

(a) The sources and nature of moral authority as an integrating force in society.

(b) as well as the rise of individualism in society.

Finally, Emile Durkheim has a strong interest in the practical implications of social scientific knowledge.

II. The contribution of Max Weber to the development of Sociology: 

(i) Max Weber was one of the leading German social thinkers of his time. Despite long periods of physical and mental ill-health, he has left a rich legacy of sociological writing.

(ii) Max Weber wrote extensively on several subjects but focussed on developing a sociology of social action and of power and domination.

(iii) Another major concern of Max Weber was the process of rationalisation in modern society and the relationship of the various religions of the world with this process.

(iv) He argued that the overall objective of the social sciences was to develop an 'interpretative understanding of social action'. These sciences were thus very different from the natural sciences which aimed to discover the objective ‘law of nature' governing the physical world.

(v) Since the central concern of the social sciences was with social action and since human actions necessarily involved subjective meanings, the methods of inquiry of social science also had to be different from the methods of natural sciences.

(vi) Max Weber was among the first to the special and complex type of 'objectivity' that the social sciences had to cultivate. The social world was founded on subjective human meanings, values, feelings, prejudices, ideals and so on.

(vii) The ideal type was used by Max Weber to analyse the relationship between the ethics of 'world religions' and the rationalisation of the social world in different civilisations.

(viii) Max Weber again used the ideal type to illustrate the three types of authority that he defined as traditional, charismatic and rational-legal.