UNIT 1

SOCIOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
1.1 DEFINITIONS
The systematic study of human society, of the organization of human groups, based on
experience and observation (science).
Founder: AUGUSTE COMTE. He is recognised as the founder of the term sociology in 1838 to
describe a new way of looking at society.
1a)Watson:“The academic study of the relationships which develop between human beings as
they organise themselves and are organised by others in societies”.
Sociology, Work and industry
1b)Watson :It is “something that looksat how human beings organize both themselves and each
other. In looking at how people think and behave, it looks for cultural patterns and ‘structures’
in social life”.
Cohen2 : “Sociology involves the systematic study of patterns of human interaction”.
Global Sociology
Berger3 goes on: “Then, the sociologist is the person who is interested in understanding the
society but in a disciplined way”.
Introducción a la sociología
-Giddens 4 : “Sociology can be identified as the systematic study of human societies giving
special emphasis to modern, industrialized systems”.
Introduction to Sociology

1.2 THINKERS
1.2.1 The great thinkers
 -Comte was not the first or the only person to think about society. - Such questions had
already fascinated brilliant thinkers of ancient civilizations
K’ung Fu-Tzu (Confucius 551-479 B.C.E.)

The Analects Plato (427-347 B.C.E)

The Republic Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.)

The Politics Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 C.E.)

De Civitate Dei Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Summa Theologiae William

Shakespeare (1564-1616) Julius Caesar

They wrote about the workings of society

Difference: More interested in imagining the ideal society than studying society as it
really was.

The Key thinkers

The Predecessors
J.J. Rousseau (1762) Social Contract (French Revolution 1789 – Bastille)

Adam Smith (1776) Inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (self-
interest)
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1840) What is property? (law, justice, heredity, inequality,
the structure of society we stablish: hope, fear)

Henry de Saint-Simon (1823) The industry, and The new Christianity (1825) (leaders =
producers: businessmen, and workers not nobility)

Alexis de Tocqueville (1835-40) The democracy in America (political thought: equality,

democracy, mobility of individuals ≠ aristocracy)

1.2.2 The classicals

Auguste Comte (birth:1798) The course in positivist philosophy (1830-42), and Positivist
catechism (1851- 54), (scientifically verified).
Émile Durkheim (1858) Division of labor in society (1893), Suicide (1897), and Moral
education (1925).

Karl Marx (1818) The capital (1867), and Wage labor and capital (1847).
Max Weber (1864) The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (1904), and
Economy and society (1922).

1.4 WHY SOCIOLOGY, AND WHY AT THAT TIME?

• Why did it happen? Why did Comte come to the idea of studying the society in a new way?
1) The rise of a factory-based industrial economy
2) The explosive growth of cities
3) New ideas about democracy and political rights

1.4.1 New industrial economy

• During the Middle Ages in Europe: People worked fields near their homes or in
smallscale manufacturing = “made by hand”
• By the end of the eighteenth century, inventors used new sources of energy -steamto
operate large machines in mills and factories.
• The workers became part of a large and anonymous labour force instead of labouring
at home, and they were under the control of strangers who owned the factories
• This changed the traditions and community life they had been guided by for centuries.

1.4.2. The explosive growth of cities

• Across Europe
– Landowners took part in the enclosure movement : they fenced in more and more
farmland to create grazing areas for sheep, the source of wool, for the thriving textile
mills.
Without land, countless tenant farmers had little choice but to head to cities in search of
work in the new factories.
As cities grew larger, these urban migrants faced many social problems: pollution, crime,
and homelessness.
– Moving through streets crowded with strangers, they faced a new, impersonal social
world.

1.4.3 Political change

• People in the Middle Ages:

1) Society as an expression of God’s will.
2) From the royalty to the serfs, each person up and down the social ladder
played a part in the holy plan.
3) This theological view of society can be read in a lot of hymns: -”The rich man
in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly, and
ordered their estate”.
• Evolution to the Modern Age:
1) But the cities grew, and tradition came under spirited attack.
2) Th. Hobbes (1588-1679), J. Locke (1632-1704), and Adam Smith (1723-1790).
 We see in their writings a shift in focus from a moral obligation to God and king
to the pursuit of self-interest.
3) Philosophers spoke of individual liberty and individual rights.
3.1)French Revolution (1789): was an even greater break with political
and social tradition.
3.2) Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) thought the changes in society
brought about by the French Revolution were so great that they
amounted to “nothing short of regeneration of the whole human race”

1.4.4 The highlights

4 Highlights from the Middle Age to the Capitalist Society
• The Reformation: (1517) from the corporate to the individual, and from traditional to
rational.
• The Enlightenment: (End 17th) rational and critical scrutiny of institutions religion,
inequality, kinship, property, etc.
• The Industrial Revolution: (End 18th) structural implications the working class,
processes of urbanisation.
• The French Revolution: (1789-99) The Monarchy had been toppled; notions of
democracy without appropriate institutions.

1.5 FIRST CONCLUSIONS

• It was a total breakdown of society at this time.
• They needed a total reconstruction of the social order: theoretical reconsolidation of the
elements on which social order had once rested: kinship, land, social class, religion, local
community, and monarchy.

• And here is the work of the founders of sociology: – Giddens says , the overwhelming interest
of Marx, Durkheim and Weber was in the “delineation of the characteristic structure of modern
capitalism as contrasted with prior forms of society”. Contemporary sociology has inherited this
role and has “as its main focus the institutions of ‘advanced’ or ‘industrialised’ societies, and of
the conditions of transformation of those institutions” .
– Sociology was – and continues to be – both a reaction to and a part of the social and cultural
changes in which it was / is involved.

1.6 A NEW AWARENESS OF SOCIETY

• Huge factories, exploding cities, a new spirit of individualism; these changes combined to
make people aware of their surroundings.
• The new discipline of sociology was born in England, France, and Germany –precisely where
the changes were greatest.
1.7 STAGES
Sociology comes from (Comte):
• A three-stage historical development:
– 1) The theological stage: from the beginning of human history to the end of the
European Middle Ages (1350 C.E.), people took a religious view that society expressed
God’s will. Also called the Primitive stage: human beings rely on the power of
supernatural beings existing beyond the natural world. So, explanations are given in
supernatural terms.
– 2) The metaphysical stage: Renaissance (15th century) – people saw society as a
natural rather than a supranaturalsupramundane system. Theological and supernatural
entities are replaced with abstract notions.
Th. Hobbes suggested that society reflected not the perfection of God so much as the
failings of a selfish human nature: “War of all against all” because of the natural
propensity of individuals to accumulate as much as they can so as to make life more
pleasant and advantageous for themselves. Hobbes, Th. (1651). Leviathan.
Harmondsworth: Penguin
– 3) The scientific stage of history: Copernicus (1473- 1543), Galileo (1564-1642),
Newton (1642-1727). They used the scientific approach to study nature and Comte used
it to study society: It means we could study society (our reality) in a systematic, rational,
and objective way. The mind is freed by reason and observation from its vain, egotistical
search for “Absolute Notions”.
– Comte’s approach is called positivism: a way of understanding based on
science.
– He believed that society operates according to its own laws
– He was right, but today we think: Human behaviour is far more complex than
the movement of planets. “We are creatures of imagination and spontaneity”, so
human behaviour can never fully be explained by rigid “laws of society”.

1.7.1. The sociological perspective

“Things are not what they seem”
P. L. Berger: “Seeing the general in the particular”
“Seeing the strange in the familiar”
“Seeing personal choice in social context”.
Does society shape our actions, vital decisions, and our personal choices?
The human being is the centre of social forces.
Although every individual is unique,a society shapes the lives of its members in
much the same way that the seasons influence our clothing and activities.

The society shapes our actions and personal choices, and it is the center of numerous
pressures
What social forces shape my life?
We have only one but also different worlds if we look at: Culture, Economy, Industry,
Race, Politics, Age, etc., and if we see our world from the outside maybe, we start to
understand it.

“Sociology: a unique perspective”

The subject matter of sociology is everywhere:
- Routines of everyday life - Social problems - The rapid changes taking place in society
-BUT: -Psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists, economists, and others
also study social behaviour and social change.
-SOCIAL SCIENCES

1.7.2 Other perspectives

PSYCHOLOGY: Analyzes individual behaviour Sociologists and psychologists share the
interest in individuals
BUT: The unit of analysis for psychology is the individual The unit of analysis for
sociology is the society.
ANTHROPOLOGY: The study of humancultures Sociologists and anthropologists both
share an interest in the study of people,
BUT: Anthropologists see culture as the basis for society and try to see how
different human societies have evolved and changed. Sociologists see culture as a
piece of a complex configuration of other social systems, that together compose
society.
SOCIALWORK is an applied field. It typically addresses people’s problems on an
individual basis, using counselling as a major tool. Sociologists do not see individual
solutions as adequate for addressing society’s problems.
Sociologists are likely to argue for societal-level changes to address broad-based
problems

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND ECONOMICS

Political science: the study of politics, including political behaviour, political
philosophy and organization of government and political parties.
Economics: scrutinizes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and
services. Both are interested in a specific set of social institutions; those that shape
political and economic behaviour.
Sociologists are interested in all social institutions, and in how social forces of all
kinds affect human behavior.

THE FAMILY
 -Psychologists: how individual personalities are formed within families – abnormalities
that result from problematic family dynamics.
Anthropologists: curious about the diverse family structures that develop in different
cultures.
Political scientists: scrutinize how a policy decision would affect different families.
Economists: expend great effort interpreting family consumer patterns and assessing
how changes in the economy affect employment, the mainstay of family economics.
Social workers: mostly concerned with delivering social services to families in need.
Sociologists: family is a basic institution for the (agent of) socialization of children (self-
identity and social roles), therefore for society (together with friends, school,
neighbourhood, etc.), but also care of aged, sick, or disabled, legitimation of procreation,
the regulation of sexual conduct, and basic security for its members. How does it work as
a structure, based on the individual? And as structure of the society?

1.7.3 The sociological advantages

• The sociological perspective helps us assess the truth of “common sense”.
• The sociological perspective helps us see the opportunities and constraints in our lives.
• The sociological perspective empowers us to be an active participant in our society.
• The sociological perspective helps us see and live in a diverse world and think critically
about the relative strengths and weaknesses of all ways of life, including our own.
• We know exactly that our own way of life is “right”, “natural”, and “better”

1.7.4 The sociological imagination

• Imagine yourself having grown up under completely different circumstances:
• Age, country, city, area, family, friends, etc.
• So, you can feel the stirring of the sociological imagination: the ability to see the
societal patterns that influence the individual in group life
• Mills wrote: “The task of sociology is to understand the relationship between
individuals and the society in which they live”.
•Sociology should be used to reveal how the context of society shapes our lives.
•He described this as understanding the intersection between biography and history. He
thought that to understand the experience of a given person, one had to have knowledge
of the social and historical context in which people lived.

1.8 SOCIOLOGICAL APPOACHES –1

• The structural-functional approach
•The society is a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.
•Social structure: any relatively stable pattern of social behavior (E. Durkheim).
•H. Spencer compares society to the human body: social structures work together to preserve
society.
•R. K. Merton: not all the functions of social structures are manifest (family, institutions, etc.).
We can find also latent functions of social structures and social dysfunctions.
• Problem: the society is not stable and orderly.

SOCIOLOGICAL APPOACHES –2
• The social-conflict approach
•The society is an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change.
•How factors -social class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and age- are linked to a
society’s unequal distribution of money, power, education and social prestige.
•This approach focuses on how social patterns benefit some people while hurting others.
•Looks at the ongoing conflict between dominant and disadvantaged categories of people.
• Problem: the society is not only a conflict. We share values and they unify members of a
society

SOCIOLOGICAL APPOACHES –3

• The symbolic-interaction approach

•The structural-functional and social-conflict approaches share a macro-level orientation: a
broad focus on social structures that shape society as a whole (observing a city from a
helicopter).
•Sociology also uses a micro-level orientation: a close-up focus on social interaction in specific
situations (urban life at street level –how pedestrians respond to homeless people they pass on
the street).
•Symbolic-interaction approach: “a framework for building theory that sees society as the
product of the everyday interactions of individuals” (The invisible world of symbols and forms
of interaction: the society = Simmel).
•“The society is nothing more than the shared reality that people construct as they interact with
one another”.
•Problem: the society is not only people interacting, it risks overlooking the widespread
influence of culture, e.g.

1.9 FINAL CONCLUSIONS

• To conclude with this Introduction:

• Every human individual is an agent with wants, aspirations, and sense of identity. He/she
brings his/her wants, aspirations, and sense of identity to the decisionmaking process.
• But we “choose” our aspirations, e.g.: job, car, clothes, or whatever, always in the light of our
previous experiences in life, and what we have learned from cultural and parental influences
• It is an interweaving of: individual and social factors
• Sociology is not simply the study of societies, and social structures.
• Neither, of course, is it a study of individuals’ activities aggregated, nor is it that societies are
defined by the sum of their parts.
• Rather sociology is a study of the interrelationships between the individual and society; its
greatest potential lies in examining the processes whereby human initiatives and choices shape
and are shaped by patterns of human interaction.
• It is through this sociological lens that we want to look at each one of our topics.

10. QUESTIONS
• 1 J.J. Rousseau, Adam Smith, K. Marx, and Max Weber are the four classic sociologists.
T/F
• 2. The use of new tools, to produce greater volume of products at a faster rate, were not one
of the causes in the 18th century to initiate the changes in that society. T / F
• 3. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century were two
milestones, which made possible the birth of the modern world. T / F
• 4. Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton used the scientific approach to study nature and Comte
used the same approach to study philosophy. T / F
• 5. Society can not shape the decisions of the individuals. They are all free, independent, and
society is abstract without power to tell the individual what to do. T / F
• 6. Routines of everyday life, social problems, the rapid changes taking place in society are
topics only for sociologists because it is clear that they are problems of the society. T / F
• 7. Sociologists, psychologists, political scientists and economists are the same because they
all study some structures of the society, for example the family. T / F
• 8. The individuals in the society suffer under factors of physical violence, economic
pressure, insults and unemployment but it does not mean that the society can not control
these factors through the institutions. T / F
• 9. Sociology is only the study of individuals, societies, and social structures. T / F
• 10. Sociology is the study of interrelationships between the individual and the society whose
greatest potential lies in examining the processes. T / F