Sociology - Essay Example

SOCIOLOGY INTRODUCTION Great sociologists of their time, their theories and contributions to the field of sociology will be reviewed in this paper. It is interesting to observe that although their ideas were diverse, some commonalities of belief systems and concepts existed. Auguste Comte (1795-1857): The French author Auguste Comte was one of the contributors to early sociological thinking. (Giddens, 2006: 11). The idea of progress is the basis of the Comtean system, states Sklair (2003: 35). It underpins Comte’s law of the three stages which claims that human efforts to understand the world have passed through theological, metaphysical and positive stages. Comte defines progress as a gradual amelioration of some fundamental order by a series of modifications, gradually tending to the completion of one design. He believed that Sociology was the latest among the science studies, and should be greater given significance. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917): Although Durkheim drew on aspects of Comte’s work, he felt that many of his predecessor’s ideas were too speculative and vague, and that Comte had not successfully carried out his programme: to establish sociology on a scientific basis. However, he agreed with Comte’s views that we must study social life with the same objectivity as scientists study the natural world (Giddens, 2006: 12). For Durkheim scientific sociology consists of classifying societies into genera and species, and in explaining a particular phenomenon within a given society by the social milieu. The proof of the explanation is obtained by the method known in logic as the method of concomitant variation (Aron, 1967: 68). Durkheim’s sociology reflects a tension created by the action of two quite distinct principles: On the one hand it suggests the idea that social forces exercise an external constraint over the individual; on the other, it posits the thesis that in society individuals are hierarchically organized by the action of these forces (Gane, 1992: 85). Max Weber (1864-1920): As a founder of modern sociology, Max Weber offered a systematic and coherent framework for the sociological perspective. He has contributed to a variety of substantive fields such as the sociology of stratification, the analysis of power and status, the study of bureaucracy, the sociology of race, rural sociology and the sociology of women (Turner, 1999: 3). Hamilton (1991: 45) states that to Weber social action meant action on the part of individuals participating in social relationships. According to Weber, “interpretative sociology considers the individual and his actions as the basic social unit”. Ferdinand Tonnies (1855-1936): Tonnies’ major work is Community and Society. In this he differentiates the underlying sociological principles between primitive human groupings based on kinship ties and modern commercial society where no ties exist between individuals except those consciously developed for achieving goals. The modern-day goals are: maximising pleasure and profit, and minimizing pain and loss, with ceaseless calculation of advantage (Mitzman, 1987: 39). According to Mitzman (1987: 108), Tonnies as the founding father of the German school of sociology, can be compared with Emile Durkheim who was a founder of the French school of sociology. In Durkheim’s major work The Division of Labor in Society, 1893, he states that modern culture was based on a sharply articulated division of labor. The disintegration of traditional culture was a point of concern for both Tonnies and Durkheim. Both sociologists separated themselves from the positivist psychology of the day, and viewed people in the framework of a social nexus. Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923): According to Pareto, whose intention was to study society scientifically like Comte, a logico-experimental study of nonlogical behavior should be morally and politically neutral (Aron, 1967: 160). One point on which Durkheim and Pareto agree is that both see religious beliefs as arising from society itself, from the sentiments that stir crowds, but whereas Durkheim tried to salvage the rational character of these collective beliefs by giving them an object of worship worthy of the sentiments experienced, Pareto observed that anything at all can serve as an object of worship (Aron, 1967: 164). Karl, Marx (1818- 1833): Society, according to Marx, comprised a moving balance of antithetical forces that generate social change by their tension and struggle. For him, struggle rather than peaceful growth was the engine of progress. This thinking was in contrast with most of the doctrines of his eighteenth century predecessors, but in tune with much nineteenth century thought. To Marx the motivating force in history was the manner in which men related to one another in their continuous struggle to wrest their livelihood from nature (Marx, 1964). According to McQuarrie (1978), Karl Marx’s method of theory construction was the Ricardian method of successive approximations involving three stages: observation, model formation, and model testing and revision. Giddens (2006: 301): Karl was struck by the inequalities created by the capitalist system, and saw polarized class relations and economic issues at the heart of all social conflict. Weber, on the other hand, developed a more complex, multi-dimensional view of society. According to Weber, other than class, status and party also formed part of the overlapping elements of stratification. Richard Machalek (born 1946): Machalek (1991: 187) states that since mortality rates contribute to the age composition of a population, they influence the relative proportion of the aged, which in turn influences their overall social status (Hess and Markson, eds.). Lester F. Ward (1841-1913): On the other hand, Ward (1906: 13) observes that the most important principle of social dynamics is effort. The social development that results from it is spontaneous. Applied sociology assumes that effort is consciously and intentionally directed to the improvement of social conditions. Ward believed in justice as the enforcement by society of an artificial equality in social conditions which are naturally unequal. By it the strong are forcibly shorn of their power to exploit the weak. William Graham Sumner (1840-1910): Sumner was concerned with social statics more than with dynamics. He evolved a theory of in-group and out-group patterns to account for social evolution, by which he was able to account for the exploitation of labor as an “out-group” phenomenon (Gumplowicz, 1980: 64). The urban-rural debate has long been addressed in sociology, but the distinction is said to be sociologically irrelevant, states Bonner (1998). The globalization and the mediatization of modern society seem to have made the distinctions developed by the sociologists in the late nineteenth century irrelevant for the late twentieth century and after (Giddens, 1991). CONCLUSION: The most important contribution of contemporary theoretical developments to sociology is the recognition of the importance of the need to include reflexivity in the process of inquiry (Bonner, 1998). According to McLain (2002), Reflexive theories offer an alternative perspective on sociological intervention and an interpretation of current social conditions that open up new possibilities for the theoretical, professional, and societal recentering of sociological practice as the “sociology of practice.” REFERENCES Aron, Raymond; Howard, Richard; Weaver, Helen. (1967). Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Durkheim, Pareto, Weber, Vol.2., New York: Basic Books. Bonner, Kieran. (1998). “Reflexivity, Sociology and the Rural Urban Distinction in Marx, Tonnies and Weber”. The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, Vol.35, 1998. Gane, Mike (1992). The Radical Sociology of Durkheim and Moss. The United States of America: Routledge. Giddens, Anthony. (2006). Italics. United Kingdom: Polity Publisher. Hamilton, Peter. (1991). Max Weber. United States of America: Routledge. Machalek, Richard, Hess and Markson (Eds). (1991). Growing Old in America. United States: Transaction Books. Marx, Karl. (1964). Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy. London: McGraw-Hill. McLain, R. (2002). “Reflexivity and the Sociology of Practice”. Sociological Practice, Vol.4, No.4: pp. 249-277. McQuarrie, Donald. (1978). "Marx and the Method of Successive Approximations.” Sociological Quarterly, Spring 1978, Vol.19, Issue 2: pp.218-233. Mitzman, Arthur. (1987). Sociology and Estrangement: Three Sociologists of Imperial Germany. United States of America: Transaction Books. Sklair, Leslie. (2003). The Sociology of Progress. Great Britain: Routledge. Turner, Bryan Stanley. (1999). Max Weber: Critical Responses. New York: Routledge. Ward, Lester F. (1906). Applied Sociology: A Treatise on the Conscious Improvement of Society by Society. Ginn and Company. Read More