You will begin your post with a Question prompted by the readings. This can be a question you have about the readings, or an open question you′d like the class to discuss pertaining to the readings. The question should be thoughtful and reflect your under

· Sociology sees its foundations in Enlightenment era (17th century) social philosophy (which is not the same as sociology) –

· John Locke (basis for liberalism; humans are empty vessels until experiences with society)

· Thomas Hobbes – “Leviathan” (“man’s” “state of nature” is brutal, so a “social contract” is made for cooperation)

· Rousseau (return to nature, romanticism, purity of the natural state of “man”)

· Adam Smith (“the Invisible Hand” of supply and demand, liberal economy)

· Kant and Hegel (get their own sections in the text book – they’re that important)

· The term “sociology” was originally coined in 1780 by Sieyes

· It’s a Greco-Latin hybrid that literally means “the study/knowledge of companions” (the study of a group.)

· The beginnings of the discipline are generally attributed to Auguste Comte in the 1838

· Comte coined " positivism" - the application of scientific principles to the study of society.

· Sociology considers itself a science, and, as such, originally used quantitative (numerical) methods primarily. It has expanded out to quantitative AND qualitative methods now, incorporating interviews, participant observation, and other non-quantifiable data (which is called qualitative data.)

· Shortly after Comte –

· Karl Marx in the 1840s (The Communist Manifesto)

· Herbert Spencer in the 1870s (Social Darwinism)

· These early social philosophers influenced the early sociologists - Emile Durkheim included.

· Emile Durkheim helped establish the academic discipline and believed that "social facts" could be studied in a way much like variables in science.

· Max Weber however, suggested that positivism was not the right path for sociology. He felt that subjectivity, not attempts at objectivity yielded the best results.

· Macro-level theories - attempt to explain large scale structures (government or economy)

· Micro-level theories - attempt to explain individual relationships with small-scale structures (such as community or clan.)

· These theories - NOT the same as "theory" in the physical sciences, BUT

· well-evidenced, predictive social science theories that stand the test of time tend to become paradigms - large-scale theoretical frameworks.

· Structural Functionalism, Conflict theory, and Symbolic Interactionism are the three major paradigms in sociology.

· Functionalism: society is a structure, which is made up of people who function together to fulfill their basic needs (very base-level, animal tribe - work together or die) (macro)

· Founded by Durkheim

· Conflict Theory: society is about conflict and competition for scarce resources (macro)

· Based on the works of Marx

· Symbolic Interactionism: society, and our individual interactions within it, is about how we communicate with each other – through language, presentation, and symbols (emphasizes agency over structure; micro; comes much later, in the 20th century)

· Most influential adherent was Goffman

· Structure – power/rule, economy, religion/education/socialization structures, etc.

· Agency – will and power of the individual to exert an influence on his/her own life

· It's not Structure OR agency, but both together. Socialization is an interaction of structure and agency

· Durkheim, Weber, and the other early sociologists work in the late 19th to early 20th century

· Debates in sociology revolve around industrialization and urbanization, the burgeoning urban poor and the newly rich and thriving bourgeois class (bourgeoisie)

Let’s place early sociology historically -

· The background:

· Age of Enlightenment, rise science, empiricism, etc. (17th cen.)

· Industrial Revolution, late 18th century – late 19th century

· Movement from agrarian to industrial production

· The rise of the bourgeoisie (merchants, bankers, lawyers, etc.)

· The growth of cities

· Urban poverty, overcrowding, pollution and an increase in disease

· Rise in workhouses and debtors’ prisons, orphanages, industrial accidents, etc.

· And a few people at the top making a lot of money off of these changes

· In this context, it’s no surprise that Durkheim studied suicide and Weber wrote about work and power, social philosophers like Marx wrote about how horrible capitalism is and writers like Charles Dickins wrote about poverty, workhouses, horrible rich people, etc.

· In the next generation of sociologists – Norbert Elias, C. Wright Mills, etc. (the mid 20th century sociologists) – there is a shift in focus. They wrote more about social change.

· There were two world wars

· Abrupt changes in social structures (especially gender, economy, and political philosophies)

· Breakthroughs in science and technology (war advances both)

· Post-WWII economic and “baby” booms (and the “suburbs” happen)

Week 2: The Foundations of Sociology and Classical Sociology

· Why isn’t social philosophy sociology?

· It has a lot to do with methods

· Philosophers studied the societies they lived in from the beginnings of civilization

· Ancient Greece and Rome

· Medieval China

· Western Political/social philosophers during the Middle Ages and Renaissance

· The Enlightenment (17th century) sees a huge “uptick” in social philosophy as the Western world was changing very quickly

· Enlightenment philosophies are marked by

· Rationalism and scientific thinking

· Support of the idea of a single “human nature”

· Negative views of tradition and past thinking

· Embrace of modernity

· Search for social “laws”

· John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith are examples of Enlightment thinkers

· The social philosophies of Enlightenment thinking were often directly opposed by Interpretivism (“Romantic” movement)

· Supported the idea of unique and valuable cultures

· Rejected the idea of a single “human nature”

· Negative views of modernity

· Nostalgia for tradition

· Embraces hermeneutics (models for the interpretation of meaning)

· Rousseau, and later, Nietzsche (questioned empiricism and knowledge production in science; humans create “facts”)

· The social philosophers with perhaps the greatest influence on sociology were Kant and Hegel

Kant

· Everything has a noumenal (pure) form that we can’t perceive and a phenomenal (perceived) form, which is our interpretation of the “thing in itself.”

· There IS a “real” world beyond human perception, but we can only ever understand existence through the lens of our own mind

· Kant believed that ALL human minds are alike

· What are the implications of that statement for the idea of equality?

· The idea of phenomena, the world as perceived through the human mind, leads to the idea of the social construction of reality - meaning, society, even nature to an extent (our understanding of it) are wholly created by humans

· Kant is strong influence on Durkheim and the creation of Structural Functionalism

· Also, an influence on Phenomenology, which we’ll study in the second half of the course (but basically involves lived human experience, sensory interaction, and the “felt” and experienced world.)

Hegel

· Responsible for introducing the concept of the dialectic into social philosophy

· Process + Conflicting Process = New Process (Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis)

· Conflict defines the human social world, with new structures arising as the result of conflict

· The Dialectic is the “process of movement and change”

· Also believes that structures are the result of the actions of individuals

· Structure and Agents/Agency are intertwined

· Alienation: the perception that social structures are all-pervasive and all-controlling, are “real” in and of themselves (beyond humans) and humans can do nothing to change or influence these structures.

· Hegel is a strong influence on Marx, and the creation of Conflict Theory in sociology

· Also, an influence on Structuration, which we’ll study in several weeks (but basically involves the how structure and agency interact to form the individual.)

· Classical Sociological theory arises at a pivotal time in human history. This term covers sociology and social philosophy from the 19th century to the early 20th century

· The “classical” period in Sociology: 1830s-1930s

· It arises during a time of great social change and political turmoil. This environment had a substantial effect on the content of early social theories.

· Also happening at this time, Enlightenment philosophy (rationalism, empiricism, etc.) is being applied at every level of society

· New ideas in politics and philosophy (democracy and humanism) were developing alongside scientific and technological breakthroughs (everything from germ theory to skyscrapers)

· Increasing secularization and profound changes in family life

· people moved to burgeoning cities (away from their extended families)

· households split sharply along gender lines (men left the home to work now while married women and girl children were relegated primarily to the domestic sphere)

· prior to modernization, most families had worked together as farmers and/or in household businesses such as weaving, carpentry, and the like

· Nearly all of the early social philosophers were white, European, middle class or wealthy men.

· This means that you can certainly expect some level of gender bias, ethnocentrism, etc. in the works of many of these early social philosophers.

· Without being apologists, we can recognize the environment in which they were writing

· if you WEREN’T a white, middle to upper class, European man, you had little to no power in Europe and the US

· despite these issues, their work still has substantial value in understanding societies in which these groups have most of the power even today (societies such as our own)

· Early writers had no problem with making their moral positions very clear. They had real concerns about what modernity would lead to – what problems might develop and how these problems might be solved (alienation, capitalism, social break-down, etc.)

· The Enlightenment/Interpretivism dichotomy has echoes in another major dichotomy in social theory – Materialism vs. Idealism

· Materialism: Structures and societies are based on material needs and their fulfillment (food, shelter, etc.)

· Idealism: Stable structures form because of shared values, ideas and beliefs (religion, community, language, etc.)

· Enlightenment thinking tends to be materialist and progressivist (societies can be ranked in hierarchies – savagery, barbarism, and civilization – and the goal is for society to keep getting “better”

· Interpretivism tends to be idealist and privileges the past, traditions and earlier forms (we’re not getting “better” – things get worse as we “civilize”)

· Most Enlightenment thinkers tend to follow materialism (Durkheim, for example) while most Interpretivists tend to follow idealism (Weber)

· Interestingly, Marx was an Interpretivist who believed in the primacy of material processes

· Historical materialism: the material conditions of a society determine its make-up (its structures, its ideologies, etc.

· This is interpretivist in that he is saying that all societies are different, but very materialist in that he’s saying that subsistence/production determines the nature of each society

· Ideologies: (according to Marx) the doctrines of the ruling class, taught to the underclasses so they accept the structures of society

· The ruling class has control of the material processes of society – the raw materials, the means of production, the capital for investment, and, through ideology and indoctrination, the labor of the working class

· Commodity fetishism: worship of, and desire for, the results of production (objects produced by the working class for money, which is then spent on the objects of their own labor.)

Nietzsche

· Critical of Enlightenment thinking and positivism

· Science creates knowledge (and designed the system in which knowledge is created.)

· It does not observe and disseminate objective “fact”

· It has frameworks (lens) and changing paradigms through which it understands reality (like all other forms of knowledge production)

· Epistimological relativism: there are multiple forms of knowledge production (not just one, such as “science.”)

· There is no one Truth, but multiple truth s

· Alternative facts? (not exactly – either believe in “fact” in science or don’t)

· The “will to power”: the strong will dominate the weak

· Scientists exercise the “will to Truth” in a similar way

· Scientific ideology can (and often does) support the narratives of the ruling class

· Examples (which are not true, but were once supported by mainstream science) –

· “non-whites have smaller brains than whites”

· “non-whites and all women are closer to nature and the animal world and are therefore ill suited for intellectual work; they also need to be taken care of as they’re unable to care for themselves/are like children”

· “the work of reproduction drains the resources of the mind and body, so women are not as capable or intelligent as men”

· “the bodies and brains of criminals are marked or malformed, as are homosexuals, women, and non-whites; these groups share similar qualities”

· Ironically, Enlightenment thinking and science supposedly claimed once to expose the domination of the Church and the aristocracy over both the individual and the structures of society, and yet imposed its own form of indoctrination.

· Science as knowledge production

· It creates both the knowledge and the system in which knowledge can be created

· Robert Boyle created and tested an air pump that made a vacuum in a bottle.

· The experiment in which he created the vacuum in front of an audience of his “peers” (other upper class white men) placed peer review and empirical experiment at the apex of scientific knowledge production

· The demonstration both established what could be considered legitimate science, and made clear who was to be excluded from knowledge production

· The experiment also involved putting a bird in the bottle and watching it suffocate – to prove that no air was in the bottle

· Those few women who were allowed to later watch a demonstration were deeply upset by the seemingly unnecessary killing of the animal; this became evidence that women were not suited for scientific pursuits or knowledge production.

· It has paradigms (so the Truth is not fixed)

· Up until the very end of the 19th century, scientists believed in a luminiferous aether (ether) – a medium through which electromagnetic radiation, such as light, could travel through (space was not a true vacuum)

· This was a part of the paradigm of classical physics

· The Michealson-Morley experiment, in which an attempt was made to detect the ether by comparing the speed of two photons when light was passed through a mirror showed there was no ether

· the two photons would have arrived at different times at the measuring point, creating an interference pattern; no interference pattern appeared.

· The entire ether-paradigm in physics was changed to one of space as a true vacuum, and the speed of light as constant (allowing for Einstein’s relativity)

· Science creates knowledge by its own rules system, and doesn’t allow other forms of knowledge and other rules systems; its “facts” are also subject to change, and yet it claims superior validity as knowledge of the world.

Week 3: Sociological Methods

How do we know what we know in sociology?

· Empiricism: knowledge comes from physical/sensory experience (as opposed to thought experiments, abstract ideas, etc.)

· Neutrality: not supporting a particular side or outcome

· Bias: prejudice in favor of a person, thing, idea or outcome

· Quantitative Data, surveys; experiments; statistical analysis; content analysis

· Qualitative Data, interviews; (participant) observation; historical data; case study

· Sociology considers itself an objective science, and, classically, makes use of aggregate, quantitative data whenever possible.

· Quantitative data involves

· Defining the unit of analysis – who or what are we studying?

· A sample of the population being investigated

· Sampling strategy – how the sample is generated

· Random Sample: every person in the population has the same chance of being selected for the study

· Convenience Sample: as the name suggests; privileges access

· Snowball Sample – research contacts a set group of people, then those people provide contact or suggestion for more respondents, and then those respondents do the same, etc. (like a snowball rolling downhill and getting bigger and bigger.)

· Control: factors that are held constant/do not change

· Variable: factors that change

· Independent variable: changes on its own/not dependent on any other variable

· Dependent variable: changes in association with another variable

· Attributes: versions/values of a variable

· Correlation: a connection between two variables

· Causality: one or more variables are caused by one or more other variables

“Correlation does not equal causation!”

· Goals of Research

· Descriptive study – describes a phenomenon or set of behaviors

· Explanatory study – explains a phenomenon or set of behaviors

· The Research Process (roughly, the ‘scientific method” – observe, hypothesize, test, confirm true or false, adopt as rule - or search for alternatives if false)

· Establishing the Problem or Question (through observation)

· Reviewing the Literature (observation)

· Forming a Hypothesis

· Creating the Research Design (methods/design test)

· Data Acquisition (test)

· Analyzing the Data (confirm true or false)

· Making Conclusions (adopt or go back to the beginning)

· Applications?

· Disseminating Data

Is Sociology a Science? (And should it be?)

· Social sciences include the declaration of potential biases (not generally done in “hard” sciences)

· Being considered a science however, is a benefit, on every level

· Science created the game and made the rules for its own benefit

· As such, scientism is often the result of how science is taught and reported

· Scientism: the absolute belief (in the irrefutability) of the “Truth” of science, its methods, and the knowledge it generates

Potential viewpoints and arguments:

· Sociology is not a science

· Dilthey believed that sociology

· must look with an objective eye (at society/structure) but a subjective eye at individuals (so it must be holistic – look at the whole of society)

· Must rely on descriptive analysis (so can’t be wholly objective)

· Doesn’t rely wholly on empirical (physical) data

· Collingwood says

· The scientific method can’t account for thoughts (unshared)

· “Hard” science methods are meant to uncover laws; human lives are particular and “historically conditioned”

· Sociology IS a science

· Quetelet’s work introduces statistics into sociology

· We can consider most human beings “normal” (as in the statistical meaning – most humans are average, and we fall along a bell curve)

· Humans will behave unpredictably at times, but the sum of their unpredictability will even out to what we can just consider standard, small errors in the natural sciences

· Nature brings order out of chaos – things will stabilize, unpredictability will even out on all sides

· Sociology should therefore study normality and what is “average” behavior (and what is not average is considered deviance)

· Even today, sociology uses statistics extensively, studies aggregate, normal behaviors, and has a subsection of study called “social deviance”

· Sociology is… something in the middle

· Nagel

· Most of our data is descriptive, and reflects a specific place and group, at a specific time in history

· Controlled experiments with humans are difficult (if not impossible)

· A social experiment is a social phenomenon in and of itself (you can’t study society from outside of it, or any)

· A single change may make it impossible to study the phenomenon (pre-change) ever again (once you change something in a human, it may not change back.)

· We don’t need controlled experiments however to be doing science (many sciences can only do “controlled investigations” for example)

· We don’t need to limit science to “objective” phenomena (biology, for example, studies subjective individuals with goals, too)

· “Objective analyses are in fact disguised social policy” (268)

· But, we can lay bare our biases, discuss our objectives for research, etc. (although we may not fully know them all – but isn’t that the case with any human, even those doing “hard” science?)

· Saying that objective “facts” and empiricism are the basis of “hard” science doesn’t exactly hold up to observation

· Science becomes more and more theory-laden as scientists need to rely on mathematics and instruments to get their data (astronomy, physics, etc.)

· Scientific “facts” are based on assumptions about the uniformity of nature, the conditions of the laboratory, and the belief in the peer review process and replicability as that which establishes Truth (argument by consensus fallacy?)

· “Physical theories provide patterns within which data appear intelligible” – Hanson

· Scientists (of any kind) need already extent beliefs (paradigms) to understand and interpret “observable facts”

· “Science is ultimately reducible to the beliefs, attitudes and opinions of groups who share the same disciplines” (274; McQueen, speaking about Kuhn’s idea that science and its paradigms are changeable)