Emile Durkheim and Max Weber - Essay Example

Emile Durkheim and Max Weber Émile Durkheim along with Max Weber was French sociologists who had major assumptions on ontology, epistemology and nature of humans in general. They rose to prominence during the 19th century due to their ideologies and views about human nature and society on the whole. These philosophers were known for their sociological views same as Karl Marx. These pioneers with their theory of sociology attempted to connect the society with the social and conscious working of people. They explains the nature of society and the connection it has in building the well being of people and their consciousness in general. They understood that society is a creation of social beings and its reality is as complex as their confusing nature Both Durkheim and Weber studied society and social beings on a conscious level and did investigate upon human’s biological and psychological state. ( Thesis) Now when it comes to ontology and epistemology, we can understand that it is a study on things as in their real nature. Older sociologists were not PhD holders or school going; rather they entered Unites States of America to study the revolutionary movement’s practicality (Kenneth,2010,pg.5) .Both Durkheim and Max Weber study human beings and society as they exist in the real form. They further more contemplate on the fact why humans live in a society and what it offers to the development of the human community is the main issues contemplated by Durkheim and Webers. In this subject, both human nature and their knowledge come in to question. Studying a society or a social institution is not easy without understanding the nature of human beings and their eagerness in forming a society or community. Now, when the question is about society many factors come in to play like human knowledge, the conscious effort of them to interact with each other and their living environment. Human beings itself is a mysterious entity and their inclination to knowledge, truth, justice and morality was an intriguing factor for philosophers like Durkheim and Weber. Now to learn about society and social institution it is mandatory to choose to understand the common interactive willingness of human being as a community and social groups. These philosophers wanted to understand how much of knowledge comes in to play when it is the question of justice, truth and morality. This is because truth is the corner stone of any society and as human interact and communicate with each other a society is formed and explaining this process becomes quiet perplexing. So, Durkheim and Weber had to probe in to the minds and consciousness of people in order to understand what makes society and social institutions? Why does human need a society? Why can’t we live in a loner place? Why do we as humans need social institutions? Such questions confused the minds of such great thinkers. They became convinced that the only way to investigate such acts is to examine the interaction of people and the way they communicate and constitute with one another. From another angle, it would be wise to look at people as individuals. When humans has the power to think and act logically an idea of society or a social institution may sound bizarre.Well, this sounds abnormal for thinkers like Durkheim and Weber because they look at social interaction from another dimension. Man is not the only being which lives in harmony in a society, if we look at the animal species, our close relative like primates does have a social circle. We definitely evolved from them and we need to communicate and interact to show the affection and physical bond. But human have a deeper consciousness and we definitely do not work like animals as we are an evolved species. Humans are the latest developed species when it comes to other life forms and his relationship with the planet is deeper than other creatures. They form a society because it is structured in their physical and mental constitution. A human cannot live in isolation as he is consistently in search for a counterpart to share his ideas and views as he wants to see his reflection in other human beings. So how can we connect these assumptions with Durkheim and Weber? Durkheim basically thinks that human beings are greedy and selfish in nature. They have unlimited desires and needs and this has a role to play in forming society and social institutions. Which means when people have desires they tend to earn wealth which obviously needs protection. In order to secure their wealth and power they create society which means law and order must comes in to play. This in some way connects with the assumption or claim of Weber. He thinks that humans has an innate nature to flourish as he needs to survive in this world. Weber suggest that acquisition of wealth is the prime motive of men According to Weber, in order to keep wealth and power, society and social institution are mandatory. And if we look at Weber, we can understand that he looks at human beings as a constraint individual. According to him, the society itself is constraint and the selfish desires of human beings makes him entangled in the four walls of society and social institutions. He thinks society is not a reality and the individual need to secure his wealth, power and security. So, here we can see that both Durkheim and Weber‘s claims synchronize with each other. The theory of Weber where he mentions that man seeks for money more than anything else in this world make sense as society and social institution give men an opportunity to secure as well as seek more power. So as conclusive part we need to understand the reality of human nature, society and social institution was the centre of study of Durkheim and Max Weber. They wanted to know what makes society and social institutions and the ideal behind this attachment of human to wealth and social circles with theories like ontology and epistemology. Work Cited Kenneth, A. (2010). Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World (3rd ed., p. 11). California, CA: Pine Forge Press Read More