History of Sociology

Dr. John Bradford

Modernity: A timeline

• Roughly the historical period after the Middle Ages• Distinguished from small, pre-industrial, “primitive”,

feudal, or traditional societies.

What is “Modernity”?Rough historical markers: • Protestant Reformation (~1517)• ‘Enlightenment’ (1700s) [see

notes below]• Industrial revolution (1700s-

1800s)• American (1776), French (1789),

and Haitian (1791) revolutions

Transformations of Modernity:Overview and Summary

1. Science and Technology• New belief in progress based on objective,

empirical science• Traditions and old authorities undermined,

challenged

2. Work and Social Relationships• Specialized division of labor (Durkheim)• Relationships between people increasingly

become means to ends, rather than ends in themselves (Tönnies, Weber)

• Production primarily for profit and sale, nor for fixed needs and personal use (Marx)

Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

• Comte first coined the term “sociology”– Born into an aristocratic Catholic family in France;

collaborator and secretary of Claude Henri de Saint-Simon

– Originally used the phrase “social physics” but discarded it after a Belgian scientist (Quételet) usurped the phrase in his book An Essay on Social Physics

• Proposed that a science of society could be based on objective, empirical observation.

• Believed that the methods of natural science could radically transform society

Gabriel Tarde(not in your book)

- Contemporary of Durkheim’s- Argued that society was based

primarily on imitation, which we did mostly unconsciously.

- “Society is imitation and imitation is a kind of somnambulism”

- Somnambulism = sleepwalking - Note: the phenomena of imitation has

been given renewed attention with the discovery of “mirror neurons”

1843-1904

Emile Durkheim and ‘Social Facts’

• Social Fact = “[social facts] consist of manners of acting, thinking and feeling external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over him.”

• Social facts have a reality sui generis– ‘Sui generis’ = Latin phrase meaning, ‘of

its own kind’– Social facts cannot be reduced to

individual facts.

1858-1917

Durkheim and Division of LaborTraditional Society Modern SocietyMechanical solidarity = a form of social interdependence based on commonly shared beliefs and strong group identity. Based on very simple division of labor.

Organic solidarity = form of social interdependence based on differentiated/specialized division of labor.

Similar to simple organism or machine: individuals are mostly functionally equivalent and substitutable.

Similar to a complex organisms; its organs are not interchangeable.

‘Society is in the individual’ ‘The Individual is in Society’

Collective Conscience and Ritual Solidarity

• Collective consciousness/conscience is a collection of beliefs, ideas, and sentiments shared by members of a community. Basically, a shared sense of reality and identity based in common/shared experiences.

• Ritual solidarity refers to the bonds experienced by both participants and spectators of rituals, who focus their collective attention on a common object of perception.

‘Mass Games’ of North Korea

Durkheim and ‘Anomie’

• Anomie = 1. sense of disconnectedness, “alienation,” loneliness, and isolation. 2. Lack of moral direction.– This occurs more frequently in modern

society, where people are less integrated and often feel they don’t belong.

– This is experienced individually as a ‘personal trouble’, but is, according to Durkheim, also a ‘social fact’- i.e. has social (not individual) causes.

Durkheim and Religion• Religion is an expression of, and a way

of creating, social order. -“God is Society, writ large”

• All societies categorize things as either sacred (holy) or profane (everyday).The Sacred: all things set apart as special;

have high symbolic value; society demands reverence/awe toward them

The Profane: ordinary or mundane things with no special symbolic significance

Sacred and Profane• Societies unify around shared sacred symbols

representing (and reinforcing) their shared beliefs and shared sense of common identity.

• A totem is an animal or other natural object that spiritually or symbolically represents a people and their common origin. Similar to a mascot or logo.

Ferdinand Tönnies(not in your book)

Two types of social relationships:1. Relationships that people enter as ends

in themselves, or Gemeinschaft = intimate or communal association.

2. Relationships that people enter into as means to an end, or Gesellschaft = goal-driven, impersonal relationships

• Relationships in modern society are more frequently gesellshaft relationships. Why?

Ferdinand Tönnies(1855 – 1936)

Max Weber:The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

• ‘Spirit of Capitalism’ = the calling to make more money as an end in itself, and to work hard for its own sake as a sign of salvation. This is a new psychological disposition.

• The Protestant Ethic is the ‘Spirit of Capitalism’. The Protestant Ethic basically means sacrificing and saving for the future and adopting a rational (= calculating) attitude towards life.

• Implication: Secular capitalism has religious origins.

1864-1920

Max Weber:‘Rational’ and ‘Non-rational’

• Rational means ‘efficient’; adopting the most efficient means to achieve a given end. (Gesellschaft)

• Non-rational (not irrational!) means non-calculating behavior, including habits, traditions, and anything you do for its own sake (e.g. for the fun of it, or because it constitutes a way of life for you). 1864-1920

Karl Marx and Conflict Theory

1818-1883

• Father of modern socialism, communism, and conflict theory.

• Marxism is a Western intellectual tradition spanning 150 years, consisting of 3 components:

1. A political doctrine

2. A philosophy (or anti-philosophy) of History

3. and an analysis of the functioning of the economy

Marx’s Materialist Theory of History

• Question: What is more important than what people in a society think and believe?

• Answer: What they do and make! All people everywhere have to produce their means of ‘subsistence’ (livelihood).

• Production is primary: it is a necessary precondition for everything else. You must be fed before you can philosophize!

Materialist Theory of History

• How stuff is produced is what matters most. This is the ‘base’ of society. Marx calls the rules, customs, laws, and beliefs determining how the wealth should be distributed, the superstructure.

Superstructure Ideas about how to

distribute surplus

Base = foundationHow stuff is produced

(Relationships and Technology)

What is capitalism?

For Marx, Capitalism is a social order characterized by two conditions:1. Production for profit2. Wage-labor

What is capitalism?

1. Production for Profit: Goods (‘commodities’) are produced for sale in order to make a profit.

a) “For Sale” and not for immediate use or consumption.

b) “For profit” and not according to custom, need, tradition, or to maintain a fixed standard of living.

– M-C-M’: The Circuit of Capital

What is capitalism?

2. Wage-Labor: Production is based on wage-labor, i.e. people who, in order to survive, must sell their capacity to work in exchange for a salary or wage.

• These workers do not: a) own the machines that they use (‘the

means of production’), b) own the wealth that they produce, c) nor do they acquire the profits made

from the sale of that which they produce!

Capitalism as a Conflict of Interests

• Capitalism arises with industrialization, when production itself becomes “socialized”, requiring large numbers of people, operating machinery.

• Control of what is produced, however, is privatized, or centralized in the hands of the few , for private gain.

• A conflict of interest develops between workers (the proletarians) and the owners (the bourgeoisie) of the machines or ‘means of production’

Workers

(many)

Owners

(few)

Exploitation in capitalism

• For Marx, capitalism is inherently exploitative. There is a conflict of interest because workers produce the wealth, but receive in wages only a fraction of the wealth (or ‘value’) they produce. This is exploitation.

• The value that workers produce over and above what they receive in wages is known as SURPLUS VALUE.

Equality is only a mask,or appearance

Reality is not what it appears to beIs there such thing as “laws” of society, like there are laws of physics? Can we use science and reason to discover these hidden laws?

Summary of the Classics:What do they all have in common, if anything?

– They are all interested in the difference between appearance and reality.

– They intend to create a new map that better describes a new social world.

“The Map is Not the Territory”-Alfred Korzybski

Summary of the Classics:What do they all have in common, if anything?

– They are all ultimately motivated by a desire to make society better, i.e. to improve the human condition. This requires objective, impartial knowledge about society.

– Analogy: to build a better airplane, you first have to understand the laws of aerodynamics!