SOC 305 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Social Fact, Social Theory, Human Nature
Document Summary
Reading: hollis, problems of structure and agency, pp. Key intuition of sociology- while individuals are necessary to understand the social world, the social world is so much more than just the individual; cannot be reduced (thanks hobbes, but we"re going to build on this) Utilitarianism- it"s your agency, contrast to sociological approaches. Both structure and agency are at play here, you can"t just look at one. When trying to understand society, you have to look at both ideas playing at the same time. Structure = top down; sociologists favor this account, because you"re not focusing on individual"s wrongdoing, you"re looking at structural constraints. Agency = bottom up; individuals are the reason that society is the way it is. Explanation & interpretation: explanation causal, objective; natural science; did x cause y, interpretation meaning, subjective, understanding; social research. Positivism & realism: positivism empirical, visible regularities; pure observations, realism hidden reality, pure observation is a fa ade.
