Theories and Perspectives
in Sociology
Comte and Positivism
• Comte coined the term ‘sociology’
• Positivism seeks reliable knowledge to be able
to predict and intervene in social life
• Aim of sociology – to improve society
• BUT, can people’s meaningful actions really be
studied in this way?
• Would socially powerful groups ‘intervene’ in
lives of the population?
• Much mistrust of ‘social engineering’
August Comte
(1798-1857)
• Development Stages of Human Societies
(European)
• Theological- Medieval- Theology queen of all
knowledge.
• Metaphysical: Earth and Human centred Renaissance
Italy, Revival of Greek Knowledge /Arts
• Positivist-- Scientific Revolution-Basis of knowledge :
sensory perceptions - quantifiable and verifiable and
expressible in mathematical relations. ( Copernicus,
Galileo, Newton; Royal society)
Spencer and Social Evolution
• Societies evolve, just like natural world
• Structural differentiation – move from
simple to complex forms
• Functional adaptation – societies adapt to
their environments
• Principle of ‘survival of the fittest’
• Spencer was not in favour of state
intervention in support of vulnerable
groups
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
(Evolutionary Change)
• Committed to economic individualism
and the free market.
• Defining principle: struggle for existence,
survival-survival of the fittest leading to
justification for imperialism, colonialism,
domination of strong over the weak.
• Period marked by great social upheavals- wars
of conquests, land enclosures, urbanization
Revolutions in Germany, France (Paris Commune)
Marx – The Capitalist
Revolution
• Materialist conception of history – societies
develop via successive modes of production (e.g.
capitalism, communism)
• Capitalism was revolutionary breakthrough, but
rooted in naked exploitation of workers
• Later Marxism had to deal with lack of a
communist revolution
• Frankfurt School critical theory looked to mass
consumerism and ‘false needs’ to explain the
seduction of workers into the system
Marx (1818-1883) How history is made?

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they
please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances,
but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted
from the past. ... In the social production of their existence,
men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are
independent of their will, namely relations of production
appropriate to a given stage in the development of their
material forces of production. The totality of these relations
of production constitutes the economic structure of
society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and
political superstructure and to which correspond
definite forms of social consciousness.
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----In the social production of their existence,
men inevitably enter into definite relations,
which are independent of their will, namely
relations of production appropriate to a
given stage in the development of their
material forces of production. The
totality of these relations of production
constitutes the economic structure of
society, the real foundation, on which arises
a legal and political superstructure and to
which correspond definite
social consciousness.
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forms of
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The
mode of production of material
life conditions the general process of
social, political and intellectual life.
It is not the consciousness
of men that determines
their existence, but their
social existence that
determines their
consciousness.
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The bourgeoisie cannot exist without
constantly revolutionizing the
instruments of production, and thereby
the relations of production, and with
them the whole relations of society.
Conservation of the old modes of production in
unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first
condition of existence for all earlier industrial
classes. Constant revolutionizing of production,
uninterrupted disturbance of all social
conditions, everlasting uncertainty and
agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch
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all earlier ones.
All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their
train of ancient and venerable
prejudices and opinions, are swept
away, all new-formed ones become
antiquated before they can ossify.
All that is solid melts into air, all that
is holy is profaned, and man is at last
compelled to face with sober senses
his, real conditions of life, and his
relations with his kind.
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Durkheim – Establishing Sociology
• Society has a reality sui generis –
can’t be reduced to an aggregate
of individuals
• Focus on groups / collectivities –
explanations involve social facts
• Functionalist approach based on
studying interconnections between
institutions
Parsons’s structural functionalism
tried to solve the ‘problem of social
order’
His AGIL scheme facilitated study
of the social system
Critics see this as too abstract and
lacking concrete empirical reference
Emile Durkheim
(1858-1917)
• Social Facts as things: Durkheim argued that society
must be studied in terms of social facts, that are “ a category
of facts” with distinct characteristics,“ consisting of ways of
acting, thinking, and feeling external to the
individual and have their own existence reality
outside the lives and perceptions of individual
people; they exercise a power of coercion on
individual from outright punishment to social
rejection in the case of unacceptable behaviour, to
simple misunderstanding in the case of misuse of
language; to control him”. E.g.,Social Institutions and Social
forms: (family, social solidarity, religion etc., ( Durkheim, The Rules of
Sociological Method, 1895).
Social Fact
• "A social fact is every way of
acting, fixed or not, capable of
exercising on the individual an
external constraint; or again, every
way of acting which is general
throughout a given society, while
at the same time existing in its
own right independent of its
individual manifestations."
Social Solidarity
• Mechanical solidarity : prevalent in preindustrial societies. Individualism is
minimized and the individual is subsumed
within the collectivity
• Organic Solidarity : Characteristic of large
scale, modern, industrial / urban societies. Is
generated by the extensive division of labour
within industrial societies, which tends to
produce differences rather than similarities.
Strong bonds of mutual interdependence
generate organic solidarity.Important studies: The Divison of
Labour in Society, 1893; Suicide: A Study in Sociology, 1897
Religion- Durkheim’s view
Durkheim saw totemism as the most basic form of religion. It is in this belief
system that the fundamental separation between the sacred and the profane
is most clear. All other religions, he said, are outgrowths of this distinction,
adding to it myths, images, and traditions. The totemic animal, Durkheim
believed, was the expression of the sacred and the original focus of religious
activity because it was the emblem for a social group, the clan. Religion is
thus an inevitable, just as society is inevitable when
individuals live together as a group.
Durkheim presented five elementary forms of religious life to be found in all
religions, from the more "primitive" to judeo/ Christian / Moslem. These are:
1. Sacred/Profane division of the world; 2. Belief in souls, spirits, mythical
personalities 3. Belief in divinity, either local or multi-local 4. a negative or
ascetic cult within the religion 5. Rites of oblation, communion, imitation,
commemoration or expiation.
He argued that these five forms were communal experiences, thereby
distinguishing religion from magic.
Functionalism
• Along with Herbert Spencer , Durkheim held
that society is a complex system whose various
parts work together to produce stability and
solidarity. This is referred to as Functionalism .
‘Society’ and ‘Culture’ to be studied as social
facts existing independent of individuals.
• Men are shaped and influenced by their
groups and group heritage.
• Academic sociology’s emphasis on the
potency of society and the subordination of
men to it is itself an historical product that
contains an historical truth. (Berger)
Weber – Capitalism and
Religion
• Origins of Western capitalism are linked to religious
belief and practice
• Protestant sects (Calvinism) believed in predestination –
only elect few make it to heaven
• Creates ‘salvation anxiety’ and people look for signs of
election, e.g. success in business
• BUT – profits reinvested, frugal lifestyles and beginnings
of capitalist accumulation
• Weber’s thesis widely seen as ‘good sociology’ –
counter-intuitive, new insights, generated much later
research activity and theory
• The Protestant Ethic---and the Spirit of
Capitalism.
• Weber showed that certaintypes of Protestantism –
notably Calvinism – were supportive of rational
pursuit of economic gain and worldly activities
dedicated to it, seeing them as endowed with moral
and spiritual significance. Weber argued that there
were many reasons to look for the origins of modern
capitalism in the religious ideas of the Reformation.
Weber argued that ascetic Protestantism was one of
the major "elective affinities" in determining the rise of
capitalism, bureaucracy and the rational-legal
nation-state. This theory is often viewed as a reversal
of Marx's thesis that the economic "base" of society
determines all other aspects of it.
• In Politics as a Vocation,
----Weber defined the state as
an entity which claims a "monopoly on the legitimate
use of violence",
• His analysis of bureaucracy in his Economy and Society is still
central to the modern study of organizations.
• Weber was the first to recognize several diverse aspects of
social authority, which he respectively categorized according
to their charismatic, traditional, and legal forms. His analysis
of bureaucracy thus noted that modern state institutions are
based on a form of rational-legal authority.
• Weber's thought regarding the rationalizing and secularizing
tendencies of modern Western society (sometimes described
as the "Weber Thesis") has been a recurring theme in Western
social sciences.
• Weber presented--sociology as the
science of human social action;
action which he differentiated into
traditional, affectional, valuerational and instrumental.
[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object
is to interpret the meaning of social action
and thereby give a causal explanation of
the way in which the action proceeds and
the effects which it produces.
• – Max Weber The Nature of Social Action 1922
Rationality
• Weber maintained that Calvinist (and
more widely, Protestant) religious ideas
had had a major impact on the social
innovation and development of the
economic system of Europe and the
United States, along with other notable
factors included the rationalism of
scientific pursuit, merging observation
with mathematics, rational systematization
of government administration, and
economic enterprise.
---- of rationalization
• Weber outlines a description,
(of which bureaucratization is a part) as a shift
from a value-oriented organization and action
(traditional authority and charismatic
authority) to a goal-oriented organization and
action (legal-rational authority).
• Weber identifies bureaucracy with rationality,
and the process of rationalization with
mechanism, depersonalization and
oppressive routine. (C. Wright Mills in The man and His
Work, From Max Weber)
• The result, according to Weber, is a "polar night
of icy darkness", in which increasing
rationalization of human life traps individuals in
an "iron cage" of rule-based, rational control
• What Weber depicted was
not
only
the
secularization
--of Western culture, but also and especially the
development of modern societies from the
viewpoint of rationalization. The new structures of
society were marked by the differentiation of the two
functionally intermeshing systems that had taken
shape around the organizational cores of the
capitalist enterprise and the bureaucratic state
apparatus. Weber understood this process as the
institituionalization of purposive-rational
economic and administrative action. To the degree
that everyday life was affected by this cultural and
societal rationalization, traditional forms of life which in the early modern period were differentated
primarily according to one's trade - were dissolved.
Middle-Range Theories:
The Protestant Ethic
• Merton coined term to mean that which is
specific enough to be tested by empirical
research, yet sufficiently general to cover a
range of different phenomena
• Affinity between religious values and capitalist
enterprise
• Meets four criteria to be ‘good theory’:
–
–
–
–
Counterintuitive
Solves a puzzle
Illuminates issues beyond the immediate context
Not just valid but potentially cumulative
Interactionism in Sociology
• Weber’s and Mead’s ideas underpin much
interactionism
• Symbolic interactionism – focus on microinteractions, meaning construction and formation
and changes in self-identities
• Phenomenology – focus is on the experience of
social life. Schutz explored the taken-for-granted
lifeworld.
• Ethnomethodology - studies ‘native’ methods for
understanding the social world. Garfinkel’s
experiments aimed to disrupt social order to
uncover the creation of Durkheim’s ‘social facts’
Four theoretical dilemmas
1. Human action and social structure
2. Consensus and conflict
3. Incorporating gender into social analysis
4. The direction of social change and
development of human societies
Structure and action
• Which has primacy: the social constraint
exercised by societies or the wishes of
individuals?
• Social structure is external to us: systems exist
and function independently of the use we make
of them
• Critique: what is society if not the sum of all our
individual actions?
• Important not to over-emphasise the contrast
• Structuration – active making and remaking of
social structures
Consensus and Conflict
• Durkheim sees society as set of interdependent
parts, i.e. an integrated whole
• Organic analogy: parts are organs and they
operate in harmony out of necessity
• Marx and followers emphasis ongoing conflict
built into the system: from time to time these
break out into active change
• Possible to see inter-relations of conflict and
consensus, e.g. through role of ideologies
Issues of Gender
• Durkheim: man is product of society, woman
more product of nature
• Women in private sphere, men in public
• Marx: gender differences mainly reflect other
divisions, such as class
• Feminist perspectives: knowledge is related to
sex and gender
• Not necessarily fixed category, but fluid
• Challenge remains: bringing study of women
into sociology not the same as coping with
problems of gender
Shaping of the Modern World
Broadly Marxist ideas
Broadly Weberian ideas
Capitalist economic growth
Rationalization of production
Class inequalities are basic to
nature of modern societies
Class just one type of inequality
among many
Power derives ultimately from
economic inequalities
Power is separable from other
sources, e.g. gender
Capitalist societies are transitory on
road to socialism
Rationalization will go further in
future in all spheres
Western dominance comes from
command over industrial resources
and military power
Western dominance is a result of
expansionist logic of capital
Feminist Theories
• Knowledge is related to questions of
gender and male domination in society
• 1960s / 70s: concern with sources of
gender inequality – since 1980s, new
concerns with gender identity and culture
• e.g. Faludi on the ‘crisis of masculinity’
• Butler on the ‘performativity’ of gender: no
fixed form of gender identity separate from
its performance in society
Poststructuralism /
Postmodernism
• Foucault sees discourse and discursive practices as
shaping social life – knowledge and power are
inextricably intertwined in surveillance and disciplinary
strategies
• Postmodern thinkers reject the type of theory advanced
by Marx and Weber – no ‘meta-narratives’ (Lyotard
1984)
• Baudrillard – reality / representation distinction has
merged into hyperreality (‘the Gulf War did not happen’)
• Habermas opposes postmodernism – the Enlightenment
project must be defended, not jettisoned prematurely
Globalization, Risk and
Environment
• Manuel Castells:
– An information society marked by network economy
– Flavour of Weber’s iron cage – the ‘automaton’
• Anthony Giddens:
– ‘runaway world’ requires trust in abstract systems
– Increase in ‘social reflexivity’ among individuals
• Ulrich Beck:
– ‘the second modernity’, extension globally
– Risk society, manufactured risks (e.g. global
warming) – nature becomes political
– Displacement of the nation-state opens the door for
real cosmopolitanism – a global form of citizenship
and human rights
Conclusion
• A new phase of sociological theory?
• Marx, Weber and Durkheim formed their
ideas during time of rapid social and
economic change
• Current global changes are comparable to
great transformation of nineteenth century
• Now, as then, existence of a diversity of
approaches is neither surprising nor
worrying