PAP 2300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Mechanical And Organic Solidarity, Statics, Social Fact

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Public Administration
• Course: PAP 2300
• Professor: Christopher Cooper

Document Summary

Holistic view of society looking at all components at the same time. Comparative method: human and animals, cross cultural. Look at societies in the same movement at the same time, in different stages of evolution. Assumes all societies evolve in the same way: historical comparison. Look at society at different points in development. Allows society to continue generation after generation. Also helps us understand why it stays the same. Key component of society is the mind: how the average person thinks. Simple explanations, spirits, priests are rulers: metaphysical. Period of destruction catholic church, relationships with god. Don"t need church pray directly to god no priests: in france some people thinking in the superstitious, some in metaphysical no common threads, no solidarity = conflict, scientific / positivist. Organize in terms of these natural laws. Concepts, their language division of labor, profit etc. Rejected the idea that the concepts are natural.