author
Guillaume de Greef
1842–1924
A Belgian sociologist, writer, and journalist who helped shape early social science in Europe. His work brought ideas about evolution, social progress, and collective life into lively public debate in late 19th-century Brussels.
1 Audiobook
Les lois sociologiques
by Guillaume de Greef
About the author
Born in Brussels on October 9, 1842, and dying there on August 26, 1924, Guillaume De Greef was a Belgian sociologist, economist, lawyer, writer, and journalist. He is often remembered as one of the notable Belgian voices in early sociology, working at a time when the field was still taking shape.
He taught at the Université libre de Bruxelles and was also closely involved in the Université nouvelle de Bruxelles, founded in 1894 by a group that included De Greef; he later served as its rector. His public life connected scholarship with wider social and political debates, and sources describe his outlook with terms such as positivism, socialism, federalism, and mutualism.
De Greef wrote extensively on sociology and social change, with works including Le transformisme social and Précis de sociologie. Even today, he stands out as a figure from Belgian intellectual life who tried to explain how societies develop, organize themselves, and sometimes break down.