SOC 2100: Classical Sociological Theory Lecture Notes PDF

SOC 2100: CLASSICAL Thursday October 3, 2024 Class Four SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY Lecturer: Dr J Thomas RECAP ▪The Law of the Three Stages ▪Comte’s contributions and criticisms of his work ▪Spencer’s life ▪Spencer’s influences OVERVIEW Spencer’s influences Societies and growt...

SOC 2100: CLASSICAL Thursday October 3, 2024 Class Four SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY Lecturer: Dr J Thomas RECAP ▪The Law of the Three Stages ▪Comte’s contributions and criticisms of his work ▪Spencer’s life ▪Spencer’s influences OVERVIEW Spencer’s influences Societies and growth Functional requisites Types of societies Consciousness in the social organism Spencer as individualist The role of the state The social scientist and objectivity SPENCER Influences and ideas SPENCER’S INFLUENCES Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) Unlike Malthus, Spencer believed that competition would lead to a good outcome, via ‘survival of the fittest’. War and conflict could lead to the evolution of societies. Karl Ernst Von Baer (1792-1876) The idea that biological forms develop from undifferentiated, embryologic forms to highly differentiated structures revealing a physiological division of labour. SPENCER’S INFLUENCES Charles Darwin (1809-1882) They influenced each other. Spencer influenced Darwin on evolution and his ideas influenced Spencer to think about ‘speciation’ – how different groups adapted to varying environmental conditions. SPENCER’S INFLUENCES ❖He believed in universal laws for each domain of reality. There were also laws or first principles that cut across all domains of reality. ❖He drew a great deal on the physics of his time – notions of force, indestructibility of matter, persistence of motion. SPENCER AND COMTE 1864 – He published an article titled: ‘Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte.’ The main points of his disagreement with Comte are summarized below. That societies pass through three stages That causality is less important than relations of affinity in building social theory SPENCER’S INFLUENCES That government can use the laws of sociology to reconstruct society That the sciences have developed in a particular order Psychology is merely a subdiscipline of biology SPENCER’S INFLUENCES Spencer acknowledged that the organismic analogy had been reintroduced by Comte (though he argued that Plato and Thomas Hobbes had made similar analogies), and he also agreed that knowledge comes from experiences or observed facts and that there are invariable laws in the universe. SPENCER’S INFLUENCES Two ideas from Comte can be observed in Spencer’s work. 1. Social systems reveal many properties of organization in common with biological organisms, and thus some principles of social organization can be initially borrowed (and altered somewhat) from biology. SPENCER’S INFLUENCES 2. When viewed as a “body social,” a social system can be analysed by the contribution of its various organs to the maintenance of the social whole (Turner, Beeghley & Powers, 2007, p. 49). SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES: SOCIETIES AND ORGANISMS KEY ELEMENTS IN SPENCER ❖A belief in evolution ❖The need to examine arrangements within societies from the perspective of their usefulness to the society in which they emerged. Some things emerge unintentionally. SIMILARITIES – SOCIETY AND ORGANISMS As organic and superorganic (societal) bodies increase in size, they increase in structure. That is, they become more complex and differentiated. Such differentiation of structures is accompanied by differentiation of functions. Each differentiated structure serves distinctive functions for sustaining the “life” of the systemic whole. SIMILARITIES – SOCIETY AND ORGANISMS Differentiated structures and functions require in both organic and superorganic bodies integration through mutual dependence. Each structure can be sustained only through its dependence on others for vital substance. SIMILARITIES – SOCIETY AND ORGANISMS Each differentiated structure in both organic and superorganic bodies is, to a degree, a systemic whole by itself (that is, organs are composed of cells, and societies are composed of groupings of individuals); thus, the larger whole is always influenced by the systemic processes of its constituent parts. SIMILARITIES – SOCIETY AND ORGANISMS The structures of organic and superorganic bodies can “live on” for a while after the destruction of the systemic whole. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOCIETY AND ORGANISMS There are great differences in the degree of connectedness of the parts, or structures, in organic and social wholes. In superorganic wholes, there is less direct and continuous physical contact and more dispersion of parts than in organic bodies. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOCIETY AND ORGANISMS There are differences in the modes of contact between organic and superorganic systems. In the superorganic, there is much more reliance on symbols than in the organic. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SOCIETY AND ORGANISMS There are differences in the levels of consciousness and voluntarism of parts in organic and superorganic bodies. All units in society are conscious, goal seeking and reflective, whereas only one unit can potentially be so in organic bodies. These are taken from Turner (2003) – and are based on ideas found in Spencer’s Principles of Sociology published in 1897. SOCIETIES AND GROWTH SOCIETIES AND GROWTH Societies can grow through population increase or by groups coming together (by choice or by force). These processes do not have to be consecutive or separate – they can be simultaneous. SOCIETIES AND GROWTH When societies grow they become more complex in structure and hence the parts become more mutually dependent. This leads to what Spencer called “the physiological division of labour” (Coser, 1977, p. 92). SOCIETIES AND GROWTH One implication of this is that larger societies are more fragile and vulnerable than smaller ones. This leads in turn to the need for a regulating system to both defend and coordinate. REQUISITE FUNCTIONALISM REQUISITE FUNCTIONALISM This concept addresses what organic and superorganic bodies need in order to adapt to an environment. These requisites exist for all organic and superorganic systems. REQUISITE FUNCTIONALISM Close study of the facts shows us another striking parallelism. Organs in animals and organs in societies have internal arrangements framed on the same principle. Differing from one another as the viscera of a living creature do in many respects, they have several traits in common. REQUISITE FUNCTIONALISM Each viscus contains appliances for conveying nutriment to its parts, for bringing it materials on which to operate, for carrying away the product, for draining off waste matters; as is also for regulating its activity (Spencer, Principles of Sociology, quoted in Turner, 2003, pp. 25-26). BASIC FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES OF SOCIETIES: Each superorganic body Has a set of agencies which bring the raw material…; it has an apparatus of major and minor channels through which the necessities of life are drafted out of the general stocks circulating through the kingdom…; FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES it has appliances… for bringing those impulses by which the industry of the place is excited or checked; it has local controlling powers, political and ecclesiastical, by which order is maintained and healthful action furthered (Spencer, Principles of Sociology, quoted in Turner, 2003, p. 26).  FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES There are four classes or needs that could be assigned under three labels: Needs for operation Production and reproduction Needs for regulation Need to coordinate and control members of a population through the use of power and symbols Needs for distribution Movement of people, information and resources among members of the population FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES Societies grow and differentiate along these axes. So first production (gathering of resources and their conversion into usable commodities) and reproduction (generating new members for the society) become evident and distinct from each other. FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES Then these become differentiated from regulating structures, such as centers of power (government) and centres of ideology like the church. FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES Finally, distinctive, distributed structures (markets, ports, roads) and other systems for distributing people, information and resources become separate from operative and regulatory structures. Thus, as societies grow, they differentiate between and within operative, regulatory, and distributive structures. FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES You can distinguish between simple and complex systems. In simple systems, needs are met by each element of the system, but when structures begin to grow and become more complex, they are met by distinctive types of structures that specialize in meeting one of these general classes of functions. FUNCTIONAL REQUISITES As societies become highly complex, structures become even more specialized and meet only specific subclasses of these general functional needs. (Drawn from The Structure of Sociological Theory by Jonathan Turner, pp. 25-26) TYPES OF SOCIETIES TYPES OF SOCIETIES Spencer employed various terms to do this – simple, compound, doubly compound and trebly compound. Simple societies had no head, then you had those with occasional headship and then those with stable headship. TYPES OF SOCIETIES He also ranked them according to their modes of settlement – nomadic, semisettled or settled. The key idea was that societies passed through these stages in order. (But apparently he changed his mind about this over the course of his life.) He also distinguished between societies on the basis of their internal regulation – namely militant and industrial societies. TYPES OF SOCIETIES It is rooted in a theory of society that states that types of social structure depend on the relation of a society to other societies in its significant environment. Whether this relation is peaceful or militant affects the internal structures of a society and its system of regulations. TYPES OF SOCIETIES With peaceful relations come relatively weak and diffuse systems of internal regulations; with militant relations come coercive and centralized controls. Internal structure is no longer dependent, as in the first scheme, on the level of evolution, but rather on the presence or absence of conflict with neighbouring societies (Coser, 1977, p. 93). TYPES OF SOCIETIES The dominant feature of militant societies is compulsion and the dominant feature of industrial societies is voluntary cooperation. The nature of progress: Over time, Spencer came to believe that there would not just be progress or movement from one stage to another, but that there could also be retrogression (Coser, 1977, pp. 96-97). INTEGRATION AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN SOCIETY HOW IS SOCIETY HELD TOGETHER? ‘The medium of language enables societies, though formed of discrete units, to exhibit a permanence of relations between component parts’ (Coser, 1977, p. 99). CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE SOCIAL ORGANISM In the (biological organism) consciousness is concentrated in a small part of the aggregate. In the [social organism] it is diffused throughout the aggregate: all the units possess the capacity for happiness and misery, if not in equal degree, still in degrees that approximate. CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE SOCIAL ORGANISM: IMPLICATIONS As, then, there is no social sensorium, the welfare of the aggregate, considered apart from that of the units, is not an end to be sought. The society exists for the benefit of its members; not its members for the benefit of society (Coser, 1977, p. 99). SPENCER’S VIEWS: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE SPENCER AS INDIVIDUALIST He was an individualist, and wanted society to be for the individual. Societies came about because there are more advantages to be had together than apart. The quality of a society depended on the quality of the individuals who comprised it. THE ROLE OF THE STATE The discovery of natural laws should lead to ideas about how not to act collectively. The whole is too complex and actions might lead to too many unforeseen consequences. The state should not interfere. DUTIES OF THE STATE Protection of the rights of individuals and Collective protection against outside enemies THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE Individuals should be free to enter into contracts with each other to pursue their interests. ‘Whenever the state intervenes in these contractual arrangements, whether for reasons of social welfare or any other, it either distorts the social order or leads to a retrogression from the benefits of industrial society to early forms of tyrannical and militant social order’ (Coser, 1977, p. 100). THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE He was a disciple of Malthus. But unlike Malthus he thought that increases in population would lead to an increase in intelligence in the general population. For the human race to progress it was essential that governments not intervene in order to keep the deficient alive (Coser, 1977, p. 101). THE SOCIAL SCIENTIST AND OBJECTIVITY Spencer believed that there was need for objectivity. The social scientist has to try to free himself from biases (towards to race, country and citizenship). RECAP Spencer’s influences Societies and growth Functional requisites Types of societies Consciousness in the social organism Spencer as individualist The role of the state The social scientist and objectivity