INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

History of sociology The term sociology was coined by French philosopher Auguste Comte in 1838, who for this reason is known as the Father of Sociology. Comte felt that science could be used to study the social world. Just as there are testable facts regarding gravity and other natural laws, Comte thought that scientific analyses could also discover the laws governing our social lives. It was in this context that Comte introduced the concept of positivism to sociologya way to understand the social world based on scientific facts. He believed that, with this new understanding, people could build a better future. He envisioned a process of social change in which sociologists played crucial roles in guiding society. Other events of that time period also influenced the development of sociology. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries were times of many social upheavals and changes in the social order that interested the early sociologists. The political revolutions sweeping Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to a focus on social change and the establishment of social order that still concerns sociologists today. Many early sociologists were also concerned with the Industrial Revolution and rise of capitalism and socialism. Additionally, the growth of cities and religious transformations were causing many changes in peoples lives. Founders of sociology

Auguste Comte
The French philosopher Auguste Comte (17981857)often called the father of sociologyfirst used the term sociology in 1838 to refer to the scientific study of society. He believed that all societies develop and progress through the following stages: religious, metaphysical, and scientific. Comte argued that society needs

scientific knowledge based on facts and evidence to solve its problemsnot speculation and superstition, which characterize the religious and metaphysical stages of social development. Comte viewed the science of sociology as consisting of two branches: dynamics, or the study of the processes by which societies change; and statics, or the study of the processes by which societies endure. He also envisioned sociologists as eventually developing a base of scientific social knowledge that would guide society into positive directions.

Herbert Spencer
The 19th century Englishman Herbert Spencer (18201903) compared society to a living organism with interdependent parts. Change in one part of society causes change in the other parts, so that every part contributes to the stability and survival of society as a whole. If one part of society malfunctions, the other parts must adjust to the crisis and contribute even more to preserve society. Family, education, government, industry, and religion comprise just a few of the parts of the organism of society. Spencer suggested that society will correct its own defects through the natural process of survival of the fittest. The societal organism naturally leans toward homeostasis, or balance and stability. Social problems work themselves out when the government leaves society alone. The fittestthe rich, powerful, and successful enjoy their status because nature has selected them to do so. In contrast, nature has doomed the unfitthe poor, weak, and unsuccessfulto failure. They must fend for themselves without social assistance if society is to remain healthy and even progress to higher levels. Governmental interference in the natural order of society weakens society by wasting the efforts of its leadership in trying to defy the laws of nature.

Karl Marx

Not everyone has shared Spencer's vision of societal harmony and stability. Chief among those who disagreed was the German political philosopher and economistKarl Marx (18181883), who observed society's exploitation of the poor by the rich and powerful. Marx argued that Spencer's healthy societal organism was a falsehood. Rather than interdependence and stability, Marx claimed that social conflict, especially class conflict, and competition mark all societies. The class of capitalists that Marx called the bourgeoisie particularly enraged him. Members of the bourgeoisie own the means of production and exploit the class of laborers, called the proletariat, who do not own the means of production. Marx believed that the very natures of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat inescapably lock the two classes in conflict. But he then took his ideas of class conflict one step further: He predicted that the laborers are not selectively unfit, but are destined to overthrow the capitalists. Such a class revolution would establish a class free society in which all people work according to their abilities and receive according to their needs. Unlike Spencer, Marx believed that economics, not natural selection, determines the differences between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. He further claimed that a society's economic system decides peoples' norms, values, mores, and religious beliefs, as well as the nature of the society's political, governmental, and educational systems. Also unlike Spencer, Marx urged people to take an active role in changing society rather than simply trusting it to evolve positively on its own.

Emile Durkheim
Despite their differences, Marx, Spencer, and Comte all acknowledged the importance of using science to study society, although none actually used scientific methods. Not until Emile Durkheim (18581917) did a person systematically apply scientific methods to sociology as a discipline. A French philosopher and sociologist, Durkheim stressed the importance of studying social facts, or patterns of behavior characteristic of a particular group. The phenomenon of suicide especially interested

Durkheim. But he did not limit his ideas on the topic to mere speculation. Durkheim formulated his conclusions about the causes of suicide based on the analysis of large amounts of statistical data collected from various European countries. Durkheim certainly advocated the use of systematic observation to study sociological events, but he also recommended that sociologists avoid considering people's attitudes when explaining society. Sociologists should only consider as objective evidence what they themselves can directly observe. In other words, they must not concern themselves with people's subjective experiences.

Max Weber
The German sociologist Max Weber (18641920) disagreed with the objective evidence only position of Durkheim. He argued that sociologists must also consider people's interpretations of eventsnot just the events themselves. Weber believed that individuals' behaviors cannot exist apart from their interpretations of the meaning of their own behaviors, and that people tend to act according to these interpretations. Because of the ties between objective behavior and subjective interpretation, Weber believed that sociologists must inquire into people's thoughts, feelings, and perceptions regarding their own behaviors. Weber recommended that sociologists adopt his method of Verstehen (vrst e hen), or empathetic understanding. Verstehen allows sociologists to mentally put themselves into the other person's shoes and thus obtain an interpretive understanding of the meanings of individuals' behaviors. DEFINITON OF SOCIOLOGY the science of society, social institutions, and social relationships; specifically : the systematic study of the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings.

IMPORTANCE OF SOCIOLOGY

Sociology makes a scientific study of society: Prior to the emergence of sociology

the study of society was carried on in an unscientific manner and society had never been the central concern of any science. It is through the study of sociology that the truly scientific study of the society has been possible. Sociology because of its bearing upon many of the problems of the present world has assumed such a great importance that it is considered to be the best approach to all the social sciences.

Sociology studies role of the institutions in the development of the individuals: It is through sociology that scientific study of the great social
institutions and the relation of the individual to each is being made. The home and family ,the school and educaton,the church and religion, the state and government ,industry and work ,the community and association, these are institutions through which society functions. Sociology studies these institutions and their role in the development of the individual and suggests suitable measures for restrengthening them with a view to enable them to serve the individual better.

Study of sociology is indispensable for understanding and planning of society: Society is a complex phenomenon with a multitude of intricacies. It is
impossible to understand and solve its numerous problems without support of sociology. It is rightly said that we cannot understand and mend society without any knowledge of its mechanism and construction. Without the investigation carried out by sociology no real effective social planning would be possible. It helps us to determine the most efficient means for reaching the goals agreed upon. A certain amount of knowledge about society is necessary before any social policies can be carried out.

Sociology is of great importance in the solution of social problems: The present

world is suffering from many problems which can be solved through scientific study of the society. It is the task of sociology to study the social problems through the methods of scientific research and to find out solution to them. The scientific study

of human affairs will ultimately provide the body of knowledge and principles that will enable us to control the conditions of social life and improve them.

SOCIOLOGY AND OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCE Social sciences concern peoples relationships and interactions with one another. Sociology, with its emphasis on social life, falls into this category. A multidisciplinary field, sociology draws from a variety of other social sciences, including anthropology, political science, psychology, and economics.

Anthropology
Anthropology concerns individual cultures in a society, rather than the society as a whole. Traditionally, it focuses on what might be termed primitive cultures, such as the Yanomamo people of the South American jungle, who live much the same way they did hundreds of years ago. Anthropologists place special emphasis on language, kinship patterns, and cultural artifacts.

Political Science
Political science concerns the governments of various societies. It considers what kind of government a society has, how it formed, and how individuals attain positions of power within a particular government. Political science also concerns the relation of people in a society to whatever form of government they have.

Psychology
Psychology takes the individual out of his or her social circumstances and examines the mental processes that occur within that person. Psychologists study the human brain and how it functions, considering issues such as memory, dreams, learning, and perception.

Economics
Economics focuses on the production and distribution of societys goods and services. Economists study why a society chooses to produce what it does, how money is exchanged, and how people interact and cooperate to produce goods. SHOW THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIOLOGY IN YOUR CHOSEN CAREER Sociology is important for the student of architecture since it helps the architects understand the social strata, his cultutre and behavioural pattern and hence forth meet the design needs,

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

All cultures comprise different components that are necessary for members of society to competently participate in social life and interactions. First, culture provides a stock of knowledge a cognitive component that is a basic foundation for social behavior. Culture also comprises elements necessary for the maintenance of integration and conformity in society a normative component that is, ways of specifying the correct ways of thinking and behaving and of defining morality.

COGNITIVE CULTURE
A symbol is anything that represents something else. It can be either a material object (a flag, a cross) or a non-material element (a sound, a gesture). As members of a culture, we are constantly and thoroughly surrounded by symbols: when we stop at the red light, we obey a symbolic command. Symbols carry shared meanings among people and they can be used to produce loyalty or hostility.

A major symbolic system in use in all human societies is language. Other species have linguistic systems but human language is significantly different. For most language-using species, the capacity for language is genetically determined and fixed; linguistic elements are not learned and do not change over time. Uses of language operate on a stimulus-response basis: a given stimulus (food or danger) will trigger a fixed linguistic response (a specific growl or shriek for lions, a specific flying pattern for bees). Human language has to be learned and is variable (thousands of different human languages exist in the world), flexible (there is significant linguistic variation over time) and generative (humans can create linguistic forms, such as sign or computer languages, literature and poetry). Finally, human language does not operate on a stimulus-response model.

NORMATIVE CULTURE
Values are general abstract moral principles defining what is right or wrong, good or evil, desirable or undesirable. In other words, values often come in pairs of positive and negative terms: we value freedom and dislike oppression, we value education and dislike ignorance or we value individualism and fear collectivism. Norms are specific guidelines for behavior based on values. They are rules and instructions specifying what are expected of us in different situations. For instance, the value of honesty implies the norm that students should not cheat on exams or plagiarize papers. Doing so would violate the value of honesty that is characteristic of academic life. Norms can be prescriptive defining how one ought to behave in given situations or proscriptive defining how one ought NOT to behave. Folkways are conventions of everyday life that members of society are expected to follow but whose violation is not considered serious. If someone picks their nose in

public, it is considered impolite and inappropriate behavior but no one gets arrested for this. Mores (pronounced mo-RAYS) are norms which reflect strongly-held values and whose violation involves a strong negative societal reaction, such as incarceration or even death. Nature and definition of society and culture The natureculture divide, refers to a theoretical foundation of contemporary anthropology. Early anthropologists sought theoretical insight from the perceived tensions between culture, as a social entity, and nature, as a biophysical entity. The argument became framed as to whether the two entities function separately from one another, or if they have a continuous biotic relationship with each other. Debate during the 1960s and '70s extended the debate to the role of women (as nature) and men (as culture).