This document lists several important precursors and founders of sociology, including Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Saint Simon, Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber. It notes that Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Saint Simon were precursors to the field, while Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, and Weber are considered the founders of sociology as an academic discipline.