The textbook covers the period from the formation of sociology as a strict scientific discipline (analysis of the theoretical and methodological views of the founding fathers of sociology K.A. Saint-Simon, O. Comte and subsequent theoretical and methodological programs of K. Marx, G. Spencer, J.S. Mill, G. Tard, E. Durkheim, F. Tönnis) before the initial signs of the first sociological crisis (crisis-pessimistic concepts of A. Schopenhauer, R. Wagner, F. Nietzsche).