Those libertarians who associate sociology with the academic discipline taught in modern universities tend to be suspicious of this field of study, which is dominated by left‐​leaning intellectuals who view sociology as an indispensable foundation for social engineering. I confess that I have very little interest in what passes for sociology nowadays; instead, my interest lies primarily in the formative years of sociology, when the very legitimacy of a “science of society” was under attack from various quarters. Such attacks demanded philosophical analyses and justifications of sociology, and this need brought to the fore a host of first‐​rate intellectuals to defend the cause. Whether or not one agrees with those early champions is, from my perspective, irrelevant. If I read only those thinkers with whom I agree 100 percent, I would read no one but myself—and even then I would be restricted to what I have written over the past twenty years or so.

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) is a good illustration of the point I wish to make. The author of several landmark books in sociology—most notably The Division of Labor in Society, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, and The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life—Durkheim was trained as a philosopher and brought a philosophical perspective to bear on almost everything he wrote. This perspective is especially evident in The Rules of Sociological Method, a full‐​scale defense of positivism and a type of social holism, according to which social phenomena are sui generis and so cannot be reduced to (i.e., adequately explained in terms of) the actions, beliefs, values, etc., of individuals.

Now, there is little in Durkheim’s book on methodology that I agree with, and I suspect the same would be true of most libertarians, who tend to be methodological individualists. Nevertheless, over the years I have read Rules several times, and I will probably read it again at some point. I find the book of value because it raises difficult questions about the nature of social phenomena, and it provides reasonable and provocative, if incorrect, answers to such questions. The time spent reading a book that gets one thinking about significant philosophical issues is, I think, time well spent.

I should note that I had little patience for Durkheim in my early years. My attitude changed in 1974, at age twenty‐​five, while I was auditing a class (at the University of Arizona) taught by the distinguished sociologist Robert Nisbet. Nisbet admired Durkheim, despite his disagreements—indeed, he published The Sociology of Emile Durkheim in 1974—and in some personal conversations Nisbet persuaded me that Durkheim was worth reading carefully, while alerting me to some common misrepresentations of Durkheim’s ideas. It could be said that I later adopted the same attitude toward Herbert Spencer, with whom I have many serious disagreements. Admiration and agreement are two different things. (I shall discuss some of Durkheim’s ideas later in this series.)

In any case, I quoted Mises at the beginning of this essay partly because of the allergic reaction experienced by some libertarians, including serious intellectuals, whenever they hear the words “sociology” and “sociologist.” I thought a defense of sociology by a familiar and friendly name, Ludwig von Mises, might help with this problem, provided we keep in mind that many early discussions of sociology might better be described as social philosophy, or philosophies of society, rather than “sociology” in the modern, academic sense of the word.

I vividly recall a conversation I had with a woman (a non‐​libertarian) around fifteen years ago. She had a doctorate in sociology and taught the subject at the university level, so I figured this was a rare opportunity to engage in a stimulating discussion about some of the pioneers in sociology—an opportunity that almost never arises with my fellow libertarians. But when I asked her opinion of Max Weber—one of the most important and influential sociological writers of all time—she responded with a quizzical look, saying that she had heard the name but knew nothing else about him. I was surprised, to say the least. With my scant knowledge of how sociology is taught in modern universities, I cannot say if this anecdote is typical. But it at least illustrates, if in a peculiar and tenuous way, the chasm that divides the modern discipline of sociology from the philosophically oriented treatments of an earlier era. There is much to be learned from the early pioneers who understood the close relationship between sociology and philosophy. (This overlap is discussed in a number of Robert Nisbet’s books; I especially recommend The Social Philosophers: Community and Conflict in Western Thought, 1973.)