SOCY1050 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Auguste Comte, Symbolic Interactionism, Structural Functionalism
Lecture 1B
Theories and Perspectives in Sociology
The Origins of Sociology
•Not until the Industrial Revolution, the enlightenment and the French and American
revolutions
•Change was massive and rapid enough for thinkers to see that previous assumptions about
collective life could be challenged.
The Industrial Revolution
•began with agricultural mechanisation in the 16th Century: improved cropping; enclosure of
common lands; industrial mechanisation
•the modern industrial city was born
•wealth moved from the landed gentry to industrial capitalists
•labour became a new social class
•a new form of oppression and squalor
Early Sociologists
Auguste Comte
Herbert Spencer
Karl Marx
Emile Durkheim
Max Weber Later
George Herbert Mead
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
Coined the term ‘sociology’ in age of turbulent post-revolutionary France
Believed in science of society that could reveal laws
‘Positivism’ – science should be concerned only with observable entities that are known to
our experience
Saw sociology as the end of a line of development: most complex of all the sciences -
‘SOCIAL PHYSICS’
Comte
An evolutionary view of the social world:
oTheological
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oMetaphysical
oScientific
oPositivistic
Positivism: the view that all knowledge can be produced through the scientific analysis of
empirical evidence (rather than through intuition or reason)
Herbert Spencer (1820 -1903)
society evolves from the simple to the complex (preceding Darwin)
‘survival of the fittest’ - the weak should be left to their own devices
‘ranked’ societies according to their complexity
still evident today in those theories/views that
- oppose welfare
- see, as inevitable, the demise of older cultures
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
•‘The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles’
•Capitalism and class struggle: capitalists vs. proletariat - The most important theorist of
capitalism
•workers suffered from alienation
•materialist conception of history – economic influences drive social change
•society progresses through a series of economic stages: primitive; feudal; capitalist;
(socialist); communist
•final stages achieved when workers develop class consciousness – revolution – overthrow
capitalists
Karl Marx
•Capitalism – a great achievement at a terrible cost
•Capitalism would eventually give way to communism – a productive, sophisticated,
communal way of life
•The Communist Manifesto + Das Kapital
•Alienation of workers
Marx’s legacy
•Marx’s legacy continues to this day in critical and ‘conflict’approaches to social science
•A dominant ideology is imposed on the working class who suffer from false
consciousness’(Engels)
•Political economy – what are the contradictions within capitalism? How might they be
resolved?
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Document Summary
The origins of sociology: not until the industrial revolution, the enlightenment and the french and american revolutions. Change was massive and rapid enough for thinkers to see that previous assumptions about collective life could be challenged. Coined the term sociology" in age of turbulent post-revolutionary france. Believed in science of society that could reveal laws. Positivism" science should be concerned only with observable entities that are known to our experience. Saw sociology as the end of a line of development: most complex of all the sciences - An evolutionary view of the social world: theological, metaphysical, scientific, positivistic. Positivism: the view that all knowledge can be produced through the scientific analysis of empirical evidence (rather than through intuition or reason) Herbert spencer (1820 -1903) society evolves from the simple to the complex (preceding darwin) Survival of the fittest" - the weak should be left to their own devices.
