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• Classical theories should be considered alongside contemporary ones.
• Teleological thinking assumes progress is always being made.
• Challenge theories, do not treat them as obscure or difficult to grasp.
• Theories provide a way of thinking and understanding.
• Theoretical thinking involves generalization, relating new situations to old ones to predict patterns.
• Theories illuminate everyday scenarios by explaining phenomena, not just defining them.
• Theories explain how change occurs.
• Opinions are based on personal preference, not necessarily fact.
• Facts are indisputable and exist outside personal thoughts.
• Discussions often involve debates and mixing of facts, opinions, and theories.
• Common sense assumptions, when used correctly, are essential for theorists.
• Frameworks used to understand the world should be questioned.
• Familiar concepts should be viewed with a sense of unfamiliarity to improve understanding.
• Every phenomenon requires an explanation by asking questions to understand everything.
• Social theories map the space people navigate.
• Individuals negotiate social relations similarly to navigating a location.
• Social theory aims to make everyday social relations visible.
• Many aspects of society remain unseen.

Classical Sociological Theory

• People believe older theories are irrelevant despite being of use.
• Social media has changed the world which classical theories can be applied to.
• Theories predict future events by explaining relationships between variables.

Towards a Science of Society

• Sociology developed to control the development of people in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Thinkers needed a framework to identify and contemplate the structure they were in.
• Thinkers needed to anticipate the consequences of their attempts to change the structure.

Henri de Saint-Simon and the Study of Industrial Society (1760-1825)

• Saint-Simon was seen as wild and uncontrollable.
• He supported canal building in France.
• He supported the French Revolution fully.
• He first recognized a new social order emerging from feudalism's decline and was the first to introduce the term industrial society.
• He argued that industrialism could solve problems from feudalism issues.
• Social physiology is the field that this society should be studied in.
• Society is like a living organism that can be studied for its growth and stability.
• Begin by closely observing the course of civilization which can yield laws of social organization.
• Apply scientific thinking rather than a Christian perspective.
• Saint-Simon applied scientific thinking to the analysis of social organization.
• Earlier writings on society were not based in science involving "God said so" rhetoric.
• Saint-Simon advocated for the industrial revolution and wanted to preserve society.
• He saw a need for change of social norms and was characterized as both radical and conservative.

Auguste Comte and the Founding of Sociology

• Sought to reconcile the aftermath of the French Revolution, including the distraught from the reign of terror..
• He viewed European society as in crisis due to the replacement of social organizations and was not optimistic.
• The French Revolution was viewed as more social disorganization.
• Positivism was proposed as a new scientific approach and the criteria for scientific knowledge was found this way.
• Through careful study Comte believed he could find natural laws.
• "Society is more than just the sum of the individuals who make it up."
• Once proven, laws could modify society.
• Society needs to be seen as a science of the whole given organism as it is an organic whole.
• Cannot study parts of society in isolation.
• Positivism is that justifiable claims can be scientifically or logically/mathematically proven.

Law of Three Stages

• Theological: seeks absolute knowledge and the cause of everything where imagination rules.
• Metaphysical: a transitory stage pulling on facts and religious ideas.
• Positive: observation trumps imagination and truth is judged by empirical facts.
• Advantages to Positivism include the system discovering other systems within.

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• Positivism is based on empirical observation for an agreement.
• He opposed the "agree to disagree" concept and sought to find a basis for agreement.
• Positivism relieved arbitrariness by creating laws that would create a base for agreement.
• Comte wanted to find the laws that would be able to create that base.
• Postivism would dominate by uncovering so many laws.
• Durkheim wanted to use science to defend his theories, morals, and politics.

Durkheim's Key Theoretical Concepts

• Society has no material existence and is understood as a synthetic higher level of reality of experiences.
• People do things because of personal and external forces.
• Society shapes individual experiences through external forces.

Collective Conscience

• Shared values and norms holding society together in traditionally prominent societies.
• Social norms are a product of the shared collective conscious.
• This is what holds society together through our shared collective conscious.

Theoretical Typology of Social Solidarity

• Social solidarity is the degree to which social units are integrated.
• Integration is the feeling you have as you are individual is part of the whole.
• Social solidarity involves the actual constraint of individual behaviors for the benefit of the group.
• It also involves the organization of social units and groups into a single system.
• The amount of social solidarity will vary for groups.

Mechanistic vs Organismic Analogy

• Mechanistic: parts relate in a simple, involuntary way with clear relationships and high solidarity in a closed machine.
• Organismic: parts communicate with adjustments made based on information in an open machine found in humans.

The Division of Labour

• Mechanical and organic solidarity are the two types.
• Mechanical solidarity is the solidarity found in older simple societies.
• Organic solidarity is found in modern complex societies

Simple Societies

• There is a fundamental simplicity in roles of kin groups with little individual autonomy.
• Pioneer homestead with assigned duties is an example.
• These roles create a place for everyone to stay in their lane for survival.
• Held together by shared beliefs and morals.

Modern Societies

• More complex and individuals do different things.
• Multifunctional kin groups are replaced by specialized social institutions like economy, welfare, military, and education.
• Non familiar institutions specialize in these functions like healthcare and eduction.
• Organic solidarity maintains stability as interdependent parts.
• Economy depends on families to socialize children with the families relying on the economy for jobs and income.
• More stable and durable with modern society more adaptable.

Karl Marx and Dialectical Materialism

• Marx wanted to overthrow capitalism.
• He was a humanist journalist who witnessed the mistreatment of working-class people.
• Proletariat are the workers while the bourgeoisie are the higher class.
• Marx wanted a communist society where the Proletariat are the major landowners.
• Marx believed society warped people into doing bad things against people's innate positive nature resulting in revolution.
• Dialectical/Historical materialism is rooted in patterns of opposition in class conflict since society is made up of the classes.

Class Warfare

• Certain classes will come into conflict with each other, meaning that change inevitably will occur and be inevitable.
• It's difficult for the working class to control its activities and band together under an interest for revolution.
• The upper class as the money is able to realize their full potential.

Mode of Production

• Way to categorize and describe types of society with ownership of production forces.
• Class relationships and conflicts change over eras.
• Mode of production is an era in time.
• During feudalism that had landlords and peasant that moved to capatalism after the mode ended.

Modes of Production

• Primitive communism
• Ancient societies
• Feudalism
• Capitalism
• Advanced communism
• Move through each era.
• Material forces of production and the social relations of production.
• Material forces are every material to survive like tools.
• Social relations are the factory owners and workers.

Social Functions

• Every society produces food, raises kids, etc which each mode of production produces.
• Specific ways of obtaining necessities
• Specific social relationships
• Specific social institutions: political, legal, education.
• A society's production shapes its political, social, and cultural shape and future.

Sociology Overview

• The things that make up society like religion are impossible to understand before looking the foundation of work and production.
• Base: material forces of production include materials, tools, and workers with the social relations are class relations.
• Superstructure: develops with mode of production and consists of institutions like education.
• Relationship: superstructure expresses and legitimates base as legal and political institutions legitimize economic structure.