Sociology: Founders, Concepts, and Influences
Defining and Explaining the Term Sociology Etymologically
The word sociology is a compound word from the Latin word societas (society, socius = fellow) and the Greek word logos (study, science). Sociology is then a science of society, or association, or fellowship. So, sociology is the scientific study of the fundamental forms of human coexistence.
The Emergence of Sociology
Sociology was born of a radical change in society, resulting in the emergence of capitalism. The century was marked by change, making man look at society. This situation was generated by the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. These changes were changing modern thought, which will become rational and scientific, replacing theological, philosophical explanations, and common sense.
The Founders of Sociology
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
Course of Positive Philosophy
Its main feature was the devotion to studies and positivist philosophy. The definition of Auguste Comte and sociology is that it should be seen as a science of society, calling it initially “social physics.” Relying on the definition of what sociology is a science of society, as well as supporting the advice of the Enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century, who claimed that we understand the laws of human society by applying the tools of science, Auguste Comte inserts a new theory of society, called “positive.”
A “positive theory” posits the principle that men should accept the existing order and should not challenge it. So, too, the human being is “revealing” the world with no possibility of “changing it.”
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917)
In Durkheimian thought, society takes precedence over the individual because this comes when one must adapt to standards already developed, such as laws, customs, languages, etc. The individual, for example, follows a series of laws imposed by society and has no right to modify them. For Durkheim, the subject matter of sociology is social facts. Durkheim proposed a method for sociology that is the set of rules that the researcher must follow to carry out correctly your searches. This method emphasizes the position of neutrality and objectivity that one should have in relation to society: it must describe the social reality without letting your ideas and opinions interfere with the observation of social facts.
Max Weber (1864-1920)
For Weber, society can be understood from individual actions. These are all kinds of action that the individual makes, guided by the action of others. Weber identified four types of social action. These are concepts that explain social reality, but are not the social reality:
- Traditional action (determined by a custom or habit)
- Affective action (determined by emotions or feeling states)
- Rational action in relation to values (determined by the conscious belief in an amount considered important)
- Rational action in relation to ends (determined by rational calculation that places goals and organizes the necessary resources)
For Weber, norms and social rules are the results of all individual stocks. The design of the method should emphasize the active role of the researcher in the face of society.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Marx produced a science based on various knowledge, and therefore a complex one. Marx elaborated his theory and the general program of labor movements. So, Marxism is founded on scientific socialism and dialectical and historical materialism. In his theory, Marx tries to understand how society works, based on nineteenth-century society. According to Marx, there must be man so that we can think; that is, first man has to produce their material and concrete life, through work, which are the goods necessary for their existence and survival, and only after that man may philosophize.
Positive Influences of Sociology in Brazil
Positivism had strong influences in Brazil, with the highest representation, the phrase “Order and Progress,” extracted from the maximum formula of positivism: “Love in principle, order based on progress at last,” in full on the Brazilian flag. The phrase tries to portray that everything in its place would lead to the perfect ethical orientation of life.
Enlightenment
This movement emerged in seventeenth-century France and defended the rule of reason over the God-centered vision that dominated Europe from the Middle Ages. According to Enlightenment philosophers, this way of thinking was meant to illuminate the darkness that was society.
The Illuminati Defended
- Equality (all should be equal before the law. No one would then have privileges of birth, as the nobility)
- Philosophical or religious tolerance
- Personal and social freedom
- Private property
What the Enlightenment Fought Against
The new bourgeois mentality, expressed by the Enlightenment principles, clashed with the Old Regime. Thus, the Enlightenment fought monarchical absolutism, mercantilism, and intellectual autonomy.
Enlightenment Teachings Influenced Sociology
The emergence of capitalism and all the modern sciences were only possible as a result of the Enlightenment that implemented anthropocentrism in place of theocentrism, reduced the power of the Church, and allowed the existence of mechanism and manipulation of nature by man. Sociology emerged to explain this new paradigm, then the Enlightenment is the direct cause of the advent of sociology.
Difference Between Philosophers and Sophists
The Sophists were teachers by profession and taught man the art of Greek oratory and rhetoric. The men of the aristocracy needed good sophists because in the majority were popular assemblies. The man well prepared by the sophists proposed an argument to persuade others to vote in favor of his argument. His projects obviously enjoyed himself and not the interests of its people. The company underwent a change from aristocracy to democracy, then philosophers, beginning with Socrates, denounced the hypocrisy of that company and led men to reasoning. They said that true wisdom was not to talk well, not only in argument. Led men to come to the conclusion that they knew nothing about the subject talked, not about his life, as reflected not only were anxious to meet and discuss their interests. Needless to say that philosophers have come to be hated by the sophists, which led to the death of some.
Elements of the Myth of the Cave
- Shadows represent what we see and believe to be true, doing so by common sense. According to Plato, all we know through the senses are shadows of ideas that exist in the perfect world of ideas, i.e., shadows are the way we see things without knowledge.
- Currents are what prevents people from achieving knowledge; we hold the prejudices that we believe to be true, i.e., common sense, think you know everything, etc.
- The man who frees himself does not look directly at the sun (knowledge/truth) because there are steps to achieve his knowledge. He comes to the philosopher.
- Man (Homo sapiens) is the only rational animal, which may reflect, think, etc., and above all, is the only one who is aware of what he knows, so sapiens (know, know).
- Philosophy is the love of wisdom, the endless quest for knowledge, for truth.
- The sun is the knowledge gained by the philosopher.
Socratic Method
It consists of a very famous practice of Socrates, the philosopher, in which, using a speech characterized by maieutics (lead or induce a person, by itself, that is, by his own reasoning, knowledge, or the solution of your question) and irony, led his party to come into conflict, trying to bring him to come to the conclusion that his knowledge is limited. The Socratic method is an approach to generating and validating ideas and concepts based on questions, answers, and more questions. Also known as Maieutics: “It is the method of birth of complex ideas from simple questions and articulated within a context.”
Nihilism (nothing) is a school of thought that defines humanity as meaningless.
Periods of Philosophy
Pre-Socratic
Pre-Socratic philosophy is different from the mythological explanation, for it seeks to explain natural phenomena with elements in nature and can therefore be easily explained and learned. The pre-Socratics overthrew the fanciful myths and exchanged them for plausible and probable explanations.
Socratic Period
Starts at the end of the 5th century BC with Socrates and covers the 4th century when philosophy investigates human affairs, that is, ethics, politics, and techniques. Besides Socrates, Plato and Aristotle also stood out in this period. Called the property of the fathers of philosophy, the early Greek philosophers were responsible for the passage of mythical thinking to critical thinking and rational philosophy, which became known as the Greek miracle, and reached maturity in the works of Plato and Aristotle.
Systematic Time
Starts at the end of the 4th century BC, through the logic of systematization, reached a higher point in Aristotle, through Socrates and Plato, where they had established a concept of science and intelligible, and also used the crisis skeptical of the sophists, and their interests focused around the man and the spirit. This period of Greek thought can also be called anthropology. The Academy and the Lyceum, preceded by Plato and Aristotle, also survived the following period, but especially the Academy for ethical and religious reasons.
Hellenistic Period
Starts at the end of the century BC and ends with the fall of the Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages. During this period, the philosophy of Greece, Rome, and Alexandria spreads and reaches the thought of the early Fathers of the Church. It occupies issues of ethics, of human knowledge, and the relationship between man and nature, and both with God.