SOCI 3692 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Methodological Individualism, Autonomous Communities Of Spain, French Revolution
9 May 2018
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Theories of Society - 3692
General:
• Enlightenment
• Started in the middle of the 17th century through the 18th
• Thinkers saw themselves as bringing the light of science, systematic analysis, and
new ideas to the shadowy realms of tradition and ignorance
• They expected the “light of reason” to illuminate a path of human progress
• The enlightenment promoted the belief that human beings could choose the social
conditions of their own lives, based on reason, rather than accepting the
institutions they had inherited
• Movement that focuses on reason and individualism as opposed to tradition
• Heavily influenced by philosophers such as Rousseau and Smith
• Auguste Comte
• French philosopher
• Founded the doctrine of positivism
• Put emphasis on the study of social dynamics
• Thought that society could shift into positivist society if the sciences, including
sociology are used to explain things
• Evolution of society is based on the evolution of the mind through:
• Theological
• Metaphysical
• Positivist
• Positivism
• Derived from Hume and Kant
• The theory that theology and metaphysics are earlier imperfect modes of
knowledge
• Positive knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and
relations as verified by the empirical sciences
• Certain knowledge is based on natural phenomena - properties and relations
• Laws are to be understood as social rules
• Laws are valid because they are enacted by authority or created logically from
existing decisions
• Legal or moral relations should not limit the scope of the law
• Empiricism
• Belief that your knowledge of the world is based on your sense experiences
• Focuses on the sensory experiences
• Knowledge is not possible without experiences
• Efficient cause
• Aristotle’s philosophy of nature
• Every change is caused by an efficient cause
• Efficient causes answer “what did” but not “how did”
• Ball breaks a window
• The ball is the efficient cause of the window breaking
• Material cause
• Aristotle
• What something is made of
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• Contrasted with ideal cause
• There is no consciousness, no reality, no will, no idea
• Material causality purposes an objective world
• Humans are made of cells
• Tables are made of wood
• Ideal cause
• Society is constituted by ideal causality
• It supposes consciousness
• The cause is in your head, based in the mind
• The effect is the realization of that goal
• Ideal causality isn’t efficient, you may or may not realize this goal
• Relates to God, for this reason, it’s not discussed in natural sciences
• To realize society, is to realize an ideal
• Under socialism everything will be ideal causality (Marx)
• When we think of ideal things, we think of things in the mind, they are turned into
words to be communicated, but words are real things? Should we be discussing
material things?
• When you talk about ideal causes, you start with the subject, rather than the object
• Methodological Individualism
• Weber introduced this to the social sciences
• Social phenomena must be explained by showing how they result from individual
actions
• In turn must be explained through reference to the intentional states that motivate
the individual actors
• Relates to contract theory and how it starts off with the individual
• Every individual is equal and in some sense has to be heard
• Forms of methodological individualism tend to bracket out heteronomy
• In principle
• Macro social phenomena must be supplied with micro foundations
Before Sociology:
• State of Nature
• Concept used to describe the hypothetical conditions of life before society came
to exist
• A state in which people are “free”, with no rules, no regulations
• Freedom means autonomy, you are not acting because of other people
• Rousseau
• Social Contract
• Originated during the Age of Enlightenment
• Questions the origin of the society
• The legitimacy of the authority over the individual
• It was in some sense a theory of society, it asked the question what is society?
• We come to this kind of agreement to achieve goals
• Rousseau says the purpose of society is liberty
• Implication of social contract theory is the power and laws constitute society
• You establish fundamental laws
• The contract is the attempt at reconciliation
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