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Is There A Distinction Of Sociology From The Other Social Sciences

In today’s modern world it is the desire of the practitioners of the social sciences or social scientists as they are called to be clearly distinguished one from the other, instead of being placed into one general category as suggested by a “Professor Small” in his manifesto entitled “The Relation Between Sociology and the Other Social Sciences”. (Hoxie 739)
An anthropologist would certainly not want to be identified as a Psychologist or vice versa, and since the need for clear distinction exists in respect to titles relative to academic disciplines, then this leads me to answer in the affirmative, the question: is there a clear distinction of sociology from the other social sciences?
To begin discussing this argument one must first ask the question: What is sociology?
Sociology can be defined as, “the systematic study of human society”. (Macionis & Plummer 4) More technically, sociology is the analysis of the structure of social relationships as constituted by social interaction, but no definition is entirely satisfactory because of the diversity of perspectives. (Abercrombie 232)
Sociology then, is a systematic approach to thinking about, studying and understanding society, human social behaviour and social groups. It is based on the premise that these areas of social life can be better understood through systematic study and observation.
The term sociology was coined in 1838 by French social thinker, Auguste Comte. Comte along with other early pioneers of modern sociology, such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Karl Marx were not known as sociologists then. Weber was a German Economist, Durkheim, a French social theorist and Marx, a German philosopher.
The work of these early pioneers gave rise to sociology, a social science which was distinctly different from the other social sciences of the day, as it focused on analyzing groups that formed society and society as a whole, while the others tended to be individualistic in their approaches.
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