SOCI 100A Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Auguste Comte, Clergy, Anomie
13 Jun 2018
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September 20th…
THIS FRIDAY 3PM MIDTERM QUESTIONS WILL BE POSTED
- Look through the notes prepare good drafts, all tutorials
next week are focused solely on answering questions about
the questions.
Classical Social Theory:
Theories are just out attempted to interpret the world around us
(ex. People who are poor because they don’t work hard enough).
-Theories are made up of a set of testable assumptions
intended to predict future events (called hypotheses).
oTheories are different from opinion and intuition- both
of which lack evidence and are not subject to being
disproven
In assigments and midterms do not make statements you cannot
back up up!!!!!!! Always have evidence
Scholars are generally not interested in what people think and
believe but rather asking real questions and finding real answers.
Should you try to prove or disprove a theory ?
- To disprove a theory you only need one negative outcome.
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
Considered by many as the Father of Sociology because he was the
first to coin the term.
-He was a devout positivist who believed that since “science”
was so good at explaining the natural world it should be
applied to the social world as well.
-Comte believed human thinking progressed along 3 distinct
stages
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Comte’s Law of Three Stages (has been a tested questions
before)
1) Theological stage
- Longest period of human thinking
You explain the world and the things you can see with things
you cannot
- Religion provided primary means of understanding- God,
demons and mythological beings
-Move to establish a professional priesthood
2) Metaphysical Stage
- (metaphysics is a field of philosophy dealing with the nature
of existence and of truth).
- Began during the Enlightenment and saw a move away from
the power of the church and the theological order.
- Reality was explained in terms of abstractions like essence,
existence and substance.
-Connection the human condition
3) Positive/ Scientific Stage
- Just emerging in Europe during Comte’s lifetime.
- Explanations could only be based on laws generated through
experimentation, observation, and logic
- These societies would be ruled by sociologist-priests
- The sociologist-priests would join the academic training of
sociology with the passion and conviction of a religious
leader.
- The priest element is not religiously based, they are the
people that we want to make decisions on behalf of us, they
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
This friday 3pm midterm questions will be posted. Look through the notes prepare good drafts, all tutorials next week are focused solely on answering questions about the questions. Theories are just out attempted to interpret the world around us (ex. People who are poor because they don"t work hard enough). Theories are made up of a set of testable assumptions intended to predict future events (called hypotheses): theories are different from opinion and intuition- both of which lack evidence and are not subject to being disproven. In assigments and midterms do not make statements you cannot back up up!!!!!!! Scholars are generally not interested in what people think and believe but rather asking real questions and finding real answers. To disprove a theory you only need one negative outcome. Considered by many as the father of sociology because he was the first to coin the term.
