SOCL 3101 Study Guide - Final Guide: Talcott Parsons, Cultural Artifact, Conspicuous Consumption
Document Summary
Final: positivism, leads to empiricism, using science to make a better world in a positive way, whatever we are studying is the result of certain laws of nature, society is something bigger than a collection of people, dominant theme of sociology, comte, hermeneutics, hermeneutics followers were opposed to positivism and empiricism of the sciences, we are dealing with people. We have to look at meanings, intentions, goals: universal laws determine individual behavior, our social structure is from numerous trail and errors, societies wouldn"t be here if it wasn"t for the actions of human beings, reification, describing concrete reality, giving a sense of objectivity to abstract ideas, treating abstract ideas as tangible objects, karl marx, conflict theory, economic determinism. Societies become larger, complex, and more differentiated: emile durkheim, primitive societies held together by mechanical solidarity, industrial societies held together by organic solidarity, strong collective versus weak collective conscious, talcott parsons, pattern variables: system/ domain, categorizing others, agil system.