Approaches to History: Sociology and History
Approaches to History: Sociology and History
Seminar1: What is Sociology?
WHAT ARE THE AIMS OF SOCIOLOGY?
Sociology is one of the human sciences and as such it is a subject to be distinguished from the so-called 'physical sciences'. Sociology is the study of humanity. However this description of sociology is only partially correct. To say that sociology is about people and humanity is not enough to distinguish it from the other subjects in the human sciences. For it is equally the case that psychology, social policy, economics and social history, amongst others, are all in some sense about people and humanity. Thus the fact that sociology is about people and humanity gets us only part way along the road to a full definition of the subject. We might also suggest that sociology is 'about' society. This helps in so far as it adds another component to our full definition. But again it is not enough to fully define the subject, for all of the aforementioned human sciences are not only about people and humanity but about society too.
Sociology must also be concerned with human culture. A provisional definition of culture used by sociologists is that of ' a way of life'. Many have suggested that we can define sociology as the subject that deals with and explains social interaction. Here sociology is characterised by the fact that it examines the informal and formal social relationships engaged in by individuals. Sociologists might typically observe and explain types of interactions that take place between individuals. So to include this idea of social interaction in any definition of sociology is helpful. However the inclusion of social interaction does not establish sociology's distinctiveness when it is considered alongside, for example psychology.
Psychology, just like sociology, also involves the study of human interaction. So there must be a way of differentiating sociology from psychology. Whereas psychology studies human interaction of individuals; sociology studies the interaction that occurs within and between social groups. In this sense sociology would be described as a subject that places individuals in their social context as members of social groups, communities and as members of social institutions such as work or their place within a family or again their position within an educational institution. Psychology on the other hand appears to examine individuals as solitary and somewhat isolated beings. Indeed one might formalise the differences of approach by suggesting that psychology takes as its starting point the individual whereas sociology begins with the idea of the wider social networks and societies within which individuals are to be found.
Sociology can therefore be defined as the 'study of social order'. Sociology is a subject made up of competing theories on society. All the differing theories within sociology are best described as basically involved in the project of describing and explaining 'social order'. In other words sociology has always sought to understand how the components of society, the social relationships and the social institutions, contribute to, or deflect from the continued existence of 'society'.
The term 'sociology' was not coined until after the second great event of the 18th century; the French Revolution. For the French ...
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Sociology can therefore be defined as the 'study of social order'. Sociology is a subject made up of competing theories on society. All the differing theories within sociology are best described as basically involved in the project of describing and explaining 'social order'. In other words sociology has always sought to understand how the components of society, the social relationships and the social institutions, contribute to, or deflect from the continued existence of 'society'.
The term 'sociology' was not coined until after the second great event of the 18th century; the French Revolution. For the French Revolution, had shaken not just France and the rest of Europe to its foundations, but North America too. The old absolutist Monarchies were either overthrown or seriously under threat as new classes appeared on the political stage and demanded democratic representation and citizens' rights. A new set of ideologies, of nationalism, appeared to force the pace of social change. 'Sociology' seems to have arrived in the wake of these two events.
The term 'sociology was coined by a man named Auguste De Comte. He is conventionally understood to be the first 'proper' sociologist. Along with his countryman Henri Saint-Simon they set about devising a 'science of society'. A 'science' in the manner set down by the scientists and philosophers of the Enlightenment. One leading Enlightenment philosopher had been Immanuel Kant. This German philosopher had issued the proclamation that still to this day defines the principal objective of the Enlightenment: 'Dare to Know'! Briefly put, Kant, had defined the role of the philosopher as 'investigator' (compared with that of the British philosopher, John Locke, who, a hundred years earlier had defined the role of the philosopher as an 'under labourer' to the scientist). Comte and Saint-Simon 'dared to know' about this entity; 'society'. But, their 'daringness' was somewhat constrained by the contexts in which they lived as well as the social interests they saw themselves as representing. Robert Nisbet, a 20th century North American sociologist, described them as seeking to assist with the 'conservative reaction' then dominant in post-revolutionary France by developing a plan for a well ordered society. Nisbet suggests that Comte and Saint-Simon were acting as 'spokespersons' for the new industrial classes whose main objective was stability.
Sociology didn't really take form as an institutionalised and professional discipline until the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, and even this was an extremely uneven and gradual process. It began in France largely through the efforts of one of the so-called 'founding fathers' of sociology Emile Durkheim. It spread to the then new nation of Germany largely through the efforts of others such as Max Weber and to a lesser extent Georg Simmel. However all the time this new sociology was looking over its shoulder or to put it as the philosopher, Jacques Derrida, might; this new subject of sociology was 'haunted' by another type of explanation of society: The social theory of Marxism
The Canadian sociologist Irving Zeitlin once put forward the thesis that mainstream sociology has, ever since its early days, been in 'debate with the ghost of Marx'. Karl Marx had earlier in the 19th century developed a rigorous social theory of human society. He had rejected the idea of sociology and rejected the idea of regarding himself as a sociologist. Yet it is testimony to the force and pervasiveness of his arguments that sociology has sought to incorporate his theory as part of the 'sociological tradition' and he is now seen as one of the textbook thinkers on the subject. Sociology then is co-extensive with modern industrial society. Just when modern societies emerge so too does sociology.
Sociology is the scientific study of human social activity. In the effort to study human social activity sociologists break it down into objects of analysis. The three objects of analysis are population, social structure, and the individual. Each can be differentiated but each is also integrally related to the other two. As an object of analysis sociologists defines population as an aggregate of people in a geographical area that has size and longevity. The size has a lower limit of two and no upper maximum. Longevity varies and has a lower limit of zero with no known upper limit. Populations are by definition made up of individuals. The study of human population is termed demography. Demography studies the size and composition of a population, as well as migration and location of the population. Demographers track birth rates and death rates and monitor the population growth and try to explain them in terms of the social system's development.
A good example is the Malthusian theory in which population increases geometrically and the resources increase arithmetically resulting in a lack of resources resulting in famine and war. Fortunately the theory is flawed in that it does not consider social factors such as artificial contraception and the burden of large families in a post industrial society. The way a population interacts with the environment creates a social system. The social system draws on the population and affects the population. An example of this is in India where the ratio of men to women is 108 (108 males to every 100 female) while the sex ratio of most other nations is below 100. The cause for this disparity is that parents value sons more than daughters and sometimes abort a female foetus, or after birth give the daughter less care which can result in premature death. A social system is defined as two or more roles tied together by relationships of interdependence. A role is a patterned repetitive set of behaviours. An example of a role is an occupation. There are various categories of social systems like formal organizations that have goals in mind and attempt to achieve them or like informal organizations that are less goal oriented as in a community or a family. Human communities provide social systems that serve the function of providing the daily requirements of life to a population.
Social systems have four basic types of roles; production of goods and services, distribution of the goods and services, recruitment and training of new members, and control functions. Population affects the roles of the social system. An example of this would be if the birth rate increased then there would be a greater need to train these new people and the recruitment and training role would be affected. The training of an individual to become one of the group is termed socialization and is carried out by church, family, and school, among other sources. Individuals then are Homo sapiens that vary in sex, age, and lifecycle. Humans have the ability to lay out avenues to achieve a goal and then through thought processes make a choice on which avenue to follow. Humans are differentiated from animals in that all animals can sign i.e. react to something but only humans can symbol i.e. the ability to place meaning into something. To be human you must be able to symbol and to symbol you must have at least two people, which leads to a social system. The result is that in order to be human you must be in a social system.
Social systems affect individuals by the process of socialization. Socialization instils the norms of the system into the individual. The norms are all the proscribed and prescribed forms of behaviour in the social system. Norms vary in importance from the culture of wearing a tie to a formal dinner party to the civilization of adults not engaging in sexual acts with children. Socialization internalises these norms in the individual shaping the resulting personality of the individual. Lack of exposure to a social system will result in someone who is not human.
Gregory Stafford Page 1 4/30/2007
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