SOCI 230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Ath, Auguste Comte, Statics
3 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Grew up in chaotic french government: inflation, church attempted to interfere, lacked political order and spiritual unity, society not making progress. Saint simon was teacher and inspiration: comte also worked as his secretary. 18th century utopian positivism: exalted science without concern of rules and limits of science. Possible to replace theological, religious, metaphysical beliefs and explanations because of science: new way to explain social organizational foundation, metaphysical= investigation of ultimate principles not subject to empirical confirmation (reason with a capital r) Focus of positivism is to search for laws: laws of how society should be governed needed to be found. Moral order: attribute of society: individuals are moral only to the extent of their place in society, what is right or wrong, what is valuable. Goal of sociology: recreate unified moral order that would aid in institutionalizing new political and social stability, if people discover basis of morality it can be incorporated into institutions: education, family, religion, economy, politics.
