SOC100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Louis Althusser, The Power Elite, Sociological Theory
26 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Theories use clearly-defined concepts to categorize groups by their shared. Describe consistent social relations, or persistent, interactions between categories of. Empirical based on induction, observation or measurement of the world. Sociology is an empirical discipline: it tries to examine objective fact about the world outside, based on carefully-gathered data. Ociologists have to decide on the principles they"ll use to organize information-these rest on a series of semi arbitrary categories. Data represents or pictures the society, theory explains it. Theory conceptual explanation of empirical data, which identifies an underlying principle that governs real outcomes. Logically-consistent way of presenting all the data in most economical way. Sociological theory organizes and explains data to describe society as a whole: characteristics. people they identify. Theories may be falsifiable: meaning we can use them to predict things in society in a way that allows us to test our theories and modify or reject them if things turn out differently.
