CAS BI 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Auguste Comte, Class Conflict, Industrial Revolution
22 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
- No need to memorize dates or names; just know definitions/main ideas; statistical trends
(rising rates of obesity)
Explaining Social Behavior: Using Sociological Theory
- What is a theory?
- A set of ideas that provides explanations for a broad range of phenomena
- A theory cannot be wrong, but can be tweaked.
- A sociological theory is a set of ideas that explains a wide range of human
behaviors
- Ex. Humans avoiding behavior that is punishing or encouraging
something to seek rewards
Origins of Sociological Thought (individuals who helped/contributed to Sociology)
- August Comte
- 19th c. France
- He believed that human could be studied just as scientifically as any mouse,
cloud, being etc.
- Example: Use of religious behaviors to explain certain things such as
phrenology (bumps on head = certain fate)
- Positivist: Believed accurate observation and descriptions as the highest form of
knowledge (such as graphs etc)
- Social research can improve human condition = to motivate social change or
policy
- Formation of these changes originate from social science
- Emile Durkheim = carried Comte’s idea forward by studying the relation between suicide
and trends.
- 19th c. France
- “Social Facts”: people can be studied just as natural science can be studied
- Research Exemplar: Suicide (1897)
- Looked at death records and stratified them/compared them to other
records (time periods, historical trends aligned with marriage/economy)
- Karl Marx
- Industrial revolution in Europe
- “All human history thus far is the history of class struggle”
- Ex. Occupy Wall Street Movement; however class wasn’t always a part of
the movements
- Max Weber
- Late 19th/early 20th c/ Germany
- Technological and scientific development -> “rational society,” where social and
economic life is based on efficiency and technical knowledge
- Studied how modern society/corporations have hierarchies
Specific Theoretical Frameworks: Functionalism:
- Originated in 1950s (conservative time period; women staying at home or men going to
work; calm and complacency)
- Core Assumptions:
Document Summary
No need to memorize dates or names; just know definitions/main ideas; statistical trends (rising rates of obesity) A set of ideas that provides explanations for a broad range of phenomena. A theory cannot be wrong, but can be tweaked. A sociological theory is a set of ideas that explains a wide range of human behaviors. Humans avoiding behavior that is punishing or encouraging something to seek rewards. Origins of sociological thought (individuals who helped/contributed to sociology) He believed that human could be studied just as scientifically as any mouse, cloud, being etc. Example: use of religious behaviors to explain certain things such as phrenology (bumps on head = certain fate) Positivist: believed accurate observation and descriptions as the highest form of knowledge (such as graphs etc) Social research can improve human condition = to motivate social change or policy. Formation of these changes originate from social science.
