Class 6 - Historical & Scientific Foundations of Sociology PDF

CLASS 6 / Part II: Historic and Scientific Foundations of Sociology Ø SUMMARY: Ø The Enlightenment and the birth of social science Ø Enlightenment as the pursuit of modernity Ø Enlightenment and the French revolution Ø Enlightenment and the birth of sociology: Saint- Simon and Comte Ø Conclusion CLA...

CLASS 6 / Part II: Historic and Scientific Foundations of Sociology Ø SUMMARY: Ø The Enlightenment and the birth of social science Ø Enlightenment as the pursuit of modernity Ø Enlightenment and the French revolution Ø Enlightenment and the birth of sociology: Saint- Simon and Comte Ø Conclusion CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Enlightenment as the pursuit of modernity Ø Enlightenment and social science Ø The separation of fact and value implicit in the scientific method was a key ingredient in the emergence of social science Ø however, contradiction: difficulty to establish a scientific basis for the societal and cultural values that the philosophes espoused CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Enlightenment as the pursuit of modernity Ø Enlightenment and social science Ø 2 basic conditions for the emergence of social science: Ø naturalism: cause and effect in the natural world (rather than a spiritual and metaphysical world) fully explain social phenomena Ø Control of value-judgements from unduly influencing the results of empirical study Ø Both conditions rooted in the practice and the idea of the scientific method (natural sciences) CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Enlightenment as the pursuit of modernity Ø Enlightenment and social science Ø the emphasis of the philosophes on rationalism, empiricism and humanitarianism lead to two unresolved philosophical consequences in the social sciences: CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Enlightenment as the pursuit of modernity Ø Enlightenment and social science Ø 1. Science as a project of social engineering: use of the scientific method as an attempt to transform / reform institutions Ø 2. Cultural relativism: on the one hand, an account full of contradictions and inconsistencies regarding the relation between Europe and the rest; on the other hand, development of crosscultural comparison as a central methodological tenet of social science CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Enlightenment and the French revolution Ø Enlightenment as a radical force in undermining the legitimacy of the ancien regime and of Christianity and its position in society (the Church) Ø central tenets of Enlightenment thinking contributed greatly to the outbreak and unfolding of the French revolution: Ø universality of human nature (secular); inalienable rights; freedom of thought, of speech, of economic activity; a greater degree of social, political and economic equality; emancipation, attacks on the Church CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Enlightenment and the French revolution Ø the French revolution in turn provided the catalyst for the development of the social sciences as professional academic disciplines Ø the revolution effected a perpetual crisis in modern European societies: quests for new modes of thought to deal with the new social and political realities created by the revolution CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Enlightenment and the birth of sociology: Saint- Simon and Auguste Comte the revolution lead to the emergence of new economically powerful middle classes; it engendered the rise of the “modern”, “industrial society” Ø Saint-Simon and Comte acted as carry-over vehicles of key Enlightenment ideas and concepts into the “classical sociology” of the second half of the 19th century Ø They solidified the links between the Enlightenment and sociology as a professional academic discipline emerging in the second half of the 19th century Ø CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø The birth of sociology: Saint-Simon (1760-1825) Believed that modern society was threatened by the forces of anarchy and revolution Ø Appeal to found a new science of man and society (social science) to counteract the negative forces of conflict and disorder Ø Society would only overcome its current crises if science and industry were put at the service of mankind through a major social reorganization Ø Scientists to act as new religious leaders; he proposed a “religion of Newton” Ø CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø The birth of sociology: Auguste Comte (1798-1857) Ø Developed positivism / positive sociology wished to create a naturalistic science of society, explaining its past and predicting its future Ø Theory / philosophy of history – the Law of Human Progress: Ø Based on the idea of the development of the human mind - societal stages mirror the developments of the human intellect in terms of social organization, types of social unit, forms of social order Ø CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø The birth of sociology: Auguste Comte (1798-1857) Ø Theory / philosophy of history – the Law of Human Progress: Ø biology and sociology: he thought of societies as giant biological organisms Ø Human society progressed through 3 stages: the theological stage; the metaphysical stage; the positive stage Ø Sociology was the study of such patters of evolution, proceeding through an analysis of static and dynamic aspects of social organization CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø The birth of sociology: Auguste Comte (1798-1857) Ø Underlying functionalism: Ø religion and language had the social function of cementing society; without some form of religion, no government possible (factional violence) Ø The main inheritor of Comte’s ideas and approach to sociology was Emile Durkheim, one of the founding fathers of “classical sociology” CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø The birth of sociology: Auguste Comte (1798-1857) Ø key similarities between Comte and Durkheim: Ø Emphasis on the clear definition of sociology’s subject matter Ø Emphasis on the methodological principles to underpin the new science: observation, experimentation, comparison Ø Shared functionalism in their approach to religion CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø The Enlightenment, the French revolution and the birth of sociology: Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) Ø Problematisation of both the Enlightenment and the French Revolution Ø theorizer of modern democracy + the French revolution Ø A social science trying to think modern democracy and modern societies, not to provide them with an ideological foundation through scientific discourse Ø A social science, not a social science (natural science cannot constitute a model for sociological political thought) CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Key conclusive points Ø the Enlightenment formed the first stage in forging a modern conception of society as an entity reducible entirely to human agency (secularism + natural science) Ø It was the first stage in the development of the modern social sciences Ø It functioned as an early sociological paradigm – cluster of influential interconnected ideas about the way people thought about the social world and human relationships Ø The philosophes’ objective was not merely to understand, but especially to change society CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Key conclusive points Ø They did not have a coherent explanatory model of the society in which they existed, but only a model of how to think about social arrangements: Critique, rationalism, empiricism, the scientific method and progress Ø the “secular intellectual”: intimately bound to the analysis and critique of society – from this role emerged the modern conception of the professional sociologist, based in a specific institution. Ø CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Key conclusive points Ø Most philosophes had an essentially individualist conception of man – their social theory hardly needed an explicit conception of society as an entity of its own Unlike Comte: society is a system with its own laws, independent of its members Ø History of sociology influenced by these two competing methodological options / two approaches to society: Ø CLASS 6: The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science Ø Key conclusive points: Ø Two methodological options: Ø 1. methodological individualism: Ø there are no “laws of society” independent of the individual; society is no more than an aggregate of individuals Ø Studying one individual we can understand how society as a whole will operate Ø 2. methodological collectivism / organicism Ø Society as super-individual entity with a life on its own CLASS 6 – The Enlightenment and the Birth of the Social Science Ø Bibliography: Ø “Chapter 1” Ø Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies; Wiley- Blackwell (1996),by Stuart Hall, David Held, Don Hubert, Kenneth Thompson (eds.);