CONTRIBUTORS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
Many of the early developers of the discipline of sociology were concerned with understanding the impact of the Industrial Revolution on human life in Europe and learning about processes of social change.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Conflict – the major force that drives social change
Means of production – resources essential to the production and distribution of goods and services
Capitalism – a system of economic exploitation (inequality) based on the profit motive that arose from the industrial revolution and created a two class distinction: bourgeoisie (owners) and proletariat (workers).
Auguste Comte: social statics (stability),
social
forces (change)
Positivism- belief that knowledge can be derived
only
from peoples sensory perceptions; a rejection of intuition or
speculation
for attaining knowledge.
Apply the methodology of the natural sciences to the
study
of society.
Emile Durkheim (1858-1918):
social facts: external to individuals, constrain or influence individual behavior, shared by a number of people.
Division of labor – work broken down to specialized tasks
Rejected reduction of human behavior to only biological or
psychological
explanations. Predictable patterns of behavior.
Global interdependence
Solidarity – ties that bind people to one another in society
Mechanical – common conscience uniformity - e.g. Kinship, religion, shared way of life
Organic – interdependence, cooperation- people need one another to survive
Suicide – behavior is described by different types,
predictable
patterns, related to social conditions.
Controlled comparison
Max Weber (1864-1920)
Rationalization – action motivated by thought and logic not emotion, superstition, tradition, mysterious forces
Value – rational action – grounded in logical assessment of ways to reach a goal.
Harriet Martineau (1802-1836)
W.E.B. Dubois (1868-1963)
Double consciousness – looking at self through the eyes of others.
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