The Origins of Modern Sociology: A Historical Overview - Prof. John Andre Fulton, Study notes of Introduction to Sociology

Download The Origins of Modern Sociology: A Historical Overview - Prof. John Andre Fulton and more Study notes Introduction to Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 1: Responding to Chaos I. Introduction 1) The first people of the world was dominated by the physical environment 2) People were accustomed to wars with foreigners and revolution by eighteenth century II. Inquiries into the Physical World 1) During the sixteenth century that people started to question the validity of long-held beliefs about the fundamental nature of the world 2) Ptolemy had determined the earth was the center of the universe (geocentric) 3) Nicholas Coperinus (Mikolaj Kopernik) suggested the sun was the center of the universe that all the planets revolved around it (heliocentric) 4) Galileo Galileo proved heliocentric theory with a telescope a. Telescope invented by Hans Lippershey 5) Galileo was scared about contradicting the Church so wrote a book about how Ptolemaic view was correct 6) Galileo was trial for questioning the Church and recant in order to not be excommunicated 7) Newton discovered the binominal theorem, deals with powers of binomials 8) Newton established laws of motion and gravitation a. Things move by force (inertia), force=mass*acceleration (acceleration), and there an opposing and equal reaction to every force b. Gravity keeps objects from floating 9) Church, a little bit of retreating, still believed that God ordered individual’s place in the world III. Technology, Urbanization, and Social Upheaval 1) American Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789 proposed to serve the needs of people 2) During the 1600s, people were working long hours for tiny wages, insufficient food, and inadequate shelter 3) Britain, France, and Germany were the first to undergo industrialization a. Sociologist emerged, there to offer solutions to pressing problems 4) Auguste Comte created sociology in 1832 a. Saw the chaos with French Revolution which sparked idea b. People are main problem of society because individualism 5) The Laws of Three Stages: a. Theological stage: religious leaders were main source of knowledge and intellectual authority b. Metaphysical state: people turn to philosophers for guidance c. Positive or scientific: knowledge would be based on scientific principles 6) Sociologist use scientific methods to gain knowledge and advise people about how to live life IV. The Origins of Modern Sociology in France: Emile Durkheim 1) Emile Durkheim stressed to study society and social dynamics to find out what was going on 2) Durkheim argued that even a society filled with selfish individuals would hold together, because even selfish people need one another to survive 3) In society with a very simple division of labor, people’s work would be alive and so are the people 4) Collective conscience: similar circumstances that led people to have shared ideas, values, and goals 5) Organic solidarity: society functioned as a complex entity that depended on the proper functioning of a variety of parts, or organ 6) The structure of society forces people to interact and maintain social relationships with one another 7) Society and social phenomena actually do exist 8) Sui generis: social facts can only be explained by social facts, not individual facts 9) Sociology: scientific study of social facts, or of those things in society that transcend or are bigger than individuals V. Except: Emile Durkheim, From Suicide (1897) and The Rules of the Sociological Method (1904) 1) Social facts consist of manners of acting, thinking and feeling external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over VI. The Origins of Modern Sociology in Germany: Ferdinand Tonnies, Max Weber, and Karl Marx 1) Ferdinand Tonnies compared how social relationships between people differed in the two types of societies 2) Two basic categories of social relationships: a. Ones that people enter into as ends in and of themselves i. For emotional or affective reason or communal (Gemeinschaft)  Example: family b. Ones that people enter into as means to specific ends i. Not out of affection, but to achieve goals or social (Gesellschaft)  Example: financial gain 3) Tonnies suggested that modern society is more Gesellschaft than in pre- modern society that was Gemeinschaft 4) The type of relationship determines the rules of the relationship 5) Max Weber believe that people had begun to see one another more and more as Gesellschaft a. Rational behavior (calculative) 6) In modern society, people do things to achieve goals and not as a way of living like in pre-modern 7) Weber wanted to know why people in modern society chose rationalism over irrationalism behavior VII. Karl Marx 1) Karl Marx: