SOSA 2002X Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: French Revolution, Social Forces
2 Dec 2014
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Document Summary
Seemingly ordinary social lives are reflection of social forces . Post french revolution era: living through the massive social transformation from pre-industrial to industrial society: the period of modernization . For durkheim, modern society was in a state of moral anarchy", disunity", disorganization", and decadence" (ashley an orenstein, 1990, p. 103) He was trying to apply the study of natural sciences to societal studies. Perspective known as positivism"- sees society and human interaction as being influenced by certain set laws. Tried to create sociology as being distinct from philosophy by advocating empiricism . Empiricism means your claim of society needs to be examined through the peoples" reality. Elementary forms of the religious life (1912) durkheim. Religion forms group cohesion, solidarity, sense of identity through rituals. Secularization is part of modernity people stopped going to church as much. Society is not a mere sum of individuals, but the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics.
