SOCY 227 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Social Actions, Tradition, Neo-Kantianism

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Social Sci, Edu and Soc Work - Sociology
• Course: SOCY 227
• Professor: G R Frank Pearce

Document Summary

Methodological individualist: society is made up of individuals and their goals, social phenomena is produced by individuals, individuals are the only things that are real. Societies, classes, are only made possible by individuals: individual behaviour has meaning, humans are guided by values. In order to understand what people do we have to understand the meanings they give to it: social sciences study human action, the natural world exists even without humans. No values on their own: human objects that belong to humans in the social world have value. Have value because humans gave them value: social action. Action where the meaning intended by a person involves a relation to another persons behaviour. The relation determines the way in which the action proceeds. Social action is not several people acting in the same way. That act was caused by a stimulus. Social action is not one person acting because they were pressured by others.