Understanding Theories: Facts, Opinions, and Common Sense

• Classical and contemporary theories should be considered together.
• Teleological thinking suggests continuous progress.
• Theories should not be dismissed as trivial as they offer a way of thinking and understanding.
• Theoretical thinking involves generalization, relating new situations to old ones to identify patterns and predict outcomes.
• Theories help to understand everyday situations.
• A theory explains a phenomenon, describing how change occurs rather than just stating that it happens.
• Opinions are based on views or judgments, not necessarily on facts or knowledge.
• Facts are indisputable and exist independently.
• Discussions often mix facts, opinions, and theories.
• Common sense assumptions stem from personal preferences, so theorists must question established frameworks.
• It is essential to question the ordinary to better understand and theorize.
• Every phenomenon warrants an explanation.
• Questioning everyday reality is essential, regardless of perceived knowledge.

Mapping Social Relations

• Social theories map navigated spaces, similar to how maps guide navigation.
• Navigating social interactions involves understanding appropriate behaviors, like eye contact and silence.
• This navigation relies on baseline knowledge.
• Social theory aims to expose the social relations that shape daily life.
• Many crucial aspects of society remain unseen.

Introducing Classical Sociological Theory

• Older theories are not obsolete.
• Classical theories remain relevant despite changes in social media.
• Theories seek to explain relationships between facts or variables to forecast future events.

Towards a Science of Society

• Sociology emerged from a desire to manage human development in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Thinkers needed a framework to identify, contemplate, and structure their circumstances.
• They needed to anticipate the effects of their efforts to alter this structure.

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

• Saint-Simon was known as erratic.
• He attempted to promote canal construction in France.
• He supported the French Revolution.
• He recognized the rise of a new social order from feudalism's decline.
• He introduced the concept of industrial society.
• He believed industrialization was creating a new society that would solve feudalism-related problems.
• Social physiology should study the new society.
• The idea that society is a living organism was proposed, studying its social organization, growth, and stability.
• Observation of civilization would yield laws of social organization.
• He transitioned from a Christian to a scientific viewpoint.
• He was among the first to use scientific analysis of social organization.
• Earlier societal writings lacked scientific basis.
• He advocated for the Industrial Revolution using science to explain circumstances, instead of divine rationales.
• He sought to both preserve society and change social norms, holding radical and conservative views.

Auguste Comte and the Funding of Sociology

• He sought to reconcile the aftermath of the French Revolution, specifically the terror from the reign.
• He believed European society was in crisis due to the transition from one form of social organization to another.
• He was optimistic.
• He viewed the French Revolution as social disorganization.
• He prospered a new scientific approach, positivism.
• It is important to distinguish scientific from non-scientific knowledge.
• He believed careful study could reveal natural laws.
• Society is more than the sum of its individual parts.
• Proven laws could modify or change societies.
• Each society operates as an organic whole with interdependent relationships.
• Studying society requires studying the whole organism, not just individual parts.
• It is impossible to determine the health of the whole body by studying a single finger.
• Positivism suggests that every justifiable claim can be scientifically or logically proven.

Law of Three Stages

• Theological stage seeks absolute knowledge and the cause of everything where imagination rules over observation with imagination and faith.
• The Metaphysical stage is a transitory stage where there are some facts but also some religious.
• Positive stage is where observation trumps imagination and truth is judged by empirical facts where observation is important.

Advantages of Positivism

• The positive system discovers other systems within.
• Positivism is based on empirical observation, providing a base for agreement.
• He opposed the idea of "agree to disagree" concept
• Positivism offers a basis for agreement.
• Positivism helps with relief from the arbitrariness of human existence.
• Politics based on beliefs was harmful to society because it was not based on reason.
• Find laws to build base.
• He believed positivism would dominate due to uncovering new laws.
• Improvements would happen overtime.

Explore classical and contemporary theories, differentiating them from facts and opinions. Learn how theories explain phenomena and the importance of questioning common sense assumptions. Understand how theoretical thinking involves generalization and pattern identification to predict outcomes.