Social Philosophy’s Impact on Sociology: Key Thinkers and Concepts
Social Philosophy Background of Sociology
Social Philosophy and Sociological Thought
From birth, we are immersed in a world with established rules and customs. These factors influence us as people, shaping us into socialized beings. The role of the human being is to abide by the mores that society establishes. Genetics is modeled by society. Social philosophy is concerned with sociology and deals directly with it. The formal history of sociology is relatively recent.
Regarding the question of whether humans are sociable by nature, we must reflect on the history of thought.
The Athens of Plato and Aristotle
Aristotle raised the question of sociability, stating that man is a social being, a political animal. The Athens of Plato and Aristotle was considered a city-state, managed effectively. For a man to live outside the polis was unthinkable; he would be considered inhuman, a convicted beast. Socrates preferred to die rather than be exiled.
In his dialogue Republic, Plato speaks of educating individuals in the best possible way to be fair to the state and achieve harmony among all men. Man becomes society. Without a just society, humans would not be able to develop the skills that distinguish them from beasts. Aristotle’s thought: Nature does nothing in vain, and man is the only animal that has speech. Speech helps us distinguish between right and wrong.
Europe of the Enlightenment
While Athens of Plato and Aristotle affirmed that man is by nature a social being, Europe of the Enlightenment affirmed that man by nature is an unsociable being. Thinkers were again concerned with the problems that life in society presents. One determinant of the crisis is Enlightenment thought. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau agreed on the idea that man by nature is unsociable and needs a pact or contract to live in society.
According to Hobbes, man is an antisocial machine (man is a wolf to man). Hobbes is considered an ethical egoist who conceives human life as a constant struggle against each other for reasons such as competition, distrust, and glory. To exit this state of war, all against all, men should perform a contract to relinquish their natural rights by transferring them to a sovereign authority. The contract will be the foundation of a sovereign state. The Hobbesian state will be the depositary of the proper strength of every man. The state will be the monopoly of force and has the unique mandate of maintaining state peace. Hobbes calls him Leviathan. The Hobbesian state assumes all the power and is invincible.
According to Locke, men are all free and equal by nature, and the state must respect their rights equally. He suggested reducing state power to a minimum. To guarantee the sovereignty of the state, he proposed a division of government into three powers: legislative, executive, and federative.
For Rousseau, man in a state of nature has nothing social, because he tends to isolation and living alone. He is critical of property. Man must make a pact to defend their lives and their properties. In his Social Contract, Rousseau reflects on what should constitute the state to create a citizen equal and free.
According to Kant, man is neither sociable nor unsociable by nature, but both at once (unsociable sociability). Kant aims to reach a civil society that promotes greater human freedom, according to laws making the freedom of the individual compatible with the freedom of others.