Foundations of Sociology: Durkheim, Weber, and Critical Theory

Written at January 14, 2024 on English with a size of 7.09 KB.

COMPTE: First to use the term sociology. Sociology should be scientific.
Law of the three stages: Theory proposes the world has gone through three intellectual stages. Theological stage (prior 1300): belief in supernatural powers and religious figures, social and physical world is seen as produced by God. Metaphysical stage (between 1300 -1800): abstract forces like 'nature', rather than gods, explain virtually everything.

Positivistic (1800): belief in science intellectual disorder is the cause of social disorder. Disorder stemmed from earlier idea systems because the positive stage, science still bears some marks of the two previous stages. Only when positivism gained total control would social upheavals cease. Society is characterized by inevitable conflict between workers and capitalists. FUNDAMENTAL AND NATURAL LAW. The theological stage gave men the indispensable impulse through he searches for answer to inaccessible questions, to incite human mind to progress. The metaphysical makes the transition from the theological to the positive philosophy possible. It allows the passage from supernatural to natural observation. The social disorder comes from the concurrent existence of the three stages. The marked preference of all is 'positive knowledge'. The view is to reduce the natural laws to the smallest possible number. Any kind of knowledge arrives to the positive stage in proportion to its generality, simplicity, and independence of other departments. Bacon, Descartes and Galileo made the revolution point in science. Social science is the fifth category (the most dependent on other categories).

DURKHEIM: Thought of a form of 'sociological socialism': a system where the discoveries of social sciences would be applied to solve the problems that affected the society. Task of sociology was to study social facts: forces and structures that are external to, and coercive of, the individuals. *ex: institutionalized law and moral beliefs. Two types: materials (bureaucracy, law) and nonmaterial (culture, social institutions). He focused what held together primitive and modern societies: Primitive: by nonmaterial social facts, common morality and collective conscience. Modern: because of the complexities of modern society, had been a decline in the collective conscience. Revolution wasn't needed to solve this problems, rather variety of reforms. The division of labour in society. Modern division of labour brought with it pathologies. Religion: Focus on the ultimate form of a nonmaterial fact: religion. Society was the source of religion. Examined primitive society cause he believed it was easier than modern society to find roots of religion. Society comes to define religious and other things: Totemism, in which plants and animals are defined. Religion was the way society expressed itself in the form of nonmaterial social fact.

WEBER: Interests in why institutions in the Western world had grown progressively more rational while powerful barriers seemed to prevent a similar development in the rest of the world. He distinguished between two types of understanding: Direct observational understanding. Empathetic Understanding, in which sociologists must try to understand the meaning of an act in terms of the motives that have given rise to it. Weber believes that there are four ideal types of social actions. Ideal types are used as a tool to look at real cases and compare them to the ideal types: traditional, affective value rational, instrumental rational.

Rationalization understood the course of social history in the increasing rationalization. However, this rationalization would lead to the disappearance of religious meanings from the world, which would lead to emptiness. Associated with secularization, depersonalization, and oppressive routine. Bureaucracy can be considered to be a particular case of rationalization, or rationalization applied to human organization. There are three types of authority system – tradition, charismatic, and rational-legal. Only in the modern Western world can a rational-legal authority system develop, and only within that system does one find full-scale development of the modern bureaucracy. The rest of the world reminds dominates by traditional or charismatic authority system which impeded the development of rationale-legal authority.

Protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism. The protestant idea of the elected was seen as what explained the success in labour activities. However, the specific protestant religious belief that forbids luxuries, brought to accumulation of capital. In modern societies, the accumulation of capital is embedded in a religious belief. According to Weber, the rationalization would bring capitalism to empty the accumulation of capital from the religious and ethical meaning, and would transform the development of activities and accumulation of capital into a sort of sport, a pure mundane passion and would bring to many social problems.

GRAMSCI: Elitist idea of Marxism: the illuminated bourgeoisie should lead the masses towards a revolution. Because the masses could not generate such ideas, they need the help of social elites. The essential ingredient of the most modern philosophy of praxis (action) is the historical-philosophical concept of 'Hegemony': the cultural leadership of the ruling classes. To have a true revolution, it is indispensable to gain hegemony in terms of cultural production. Not in favour to the bourgeois, it was that he thought that the working class didn't had enough education to start a revolution.

MARCUSE - CRITICAL THEORY: Considered that critical theory had to focus on cultural aspects of exploitations and new forms of social control, such as the reification and the objectification, as well as the entertainment industry. Very critical of those states that tried to apply Marx's ideas through Communism, such as the Soviet Union.

ADORNO: He drew attention in 3 significant ways in which capitalism corrupts and degrades us: Leisure time becomes toxic, should be an opportunity to expand and develop ourselves but it isn't. (described Walt Disney as the most dangerous man in U.SA). Capitalism doesn't sell us the things we really need. There are proto-fascists everywhere. Approach / Perspective: Marxism, neo-Marxism, feminism, functionalism (subject deals with specific issues). Explain reality or society as a whole.

Neo-Marxism: The critic. Is for the economical determinism. Thus, neo-Marxism started to consider culture and abandoned the perspective of economy that Marxism had. GRAMSCI: CULTURE. They never left the economics behind. Individual completely manipulated by the system. Dominance but more perverse than in the critical theory.

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