Ch1.2 and 1.3: symbolic imagination Flashcards
what concepts did ancient Greeks provide as the foundation of sociology
through the distinction they found between physis (nature) and nomos (law or custom)
physis
what emerges from itself without human intervention
nomos
human conventions designed to constrain human behaviour
norms
social rule that regulates human behaviour
later Greek philosophers
- Socrates (469-399BCE)
- Plato (428-347BCE)
- Aristotle (384-322BCE)
Ma Tuan-Lin
recognized social dynamics as an underlying component of historical development
Ibn Khaldun
- some considered to be the world’s first sociologist
- key analysis was the distinction between the sedentary life and the nomadic life (basis of development and decay of civilization)
nomads
independent of external authority, developed a social bond based on blood lineage and esprit de corps, allowing them to mobilize quickly in response to the rugged situations of desert life
esprit de corps
used to describe the sense of solidarity, loyalty, and unity among members of a particular group or community. It refers to the shared feelings of belonging, camaraderie, and common purpose that bind individuals within a social group.
when was the basis of modern discipline of sociology established
the 19th century
three major transformations that defined modern society
- the development of modern science from the 16th century onward
- the emergence of democratic government with the American and French Revolutions (1775-1783 and 1789-1799)
- the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century
development of modern science
16th century
- provided the knowledge needed for sociology to move beyond earlier moral, philosophical, and religious types of reflection on the human condition
- abandoned the medieval view of the world that defined the natural and social world as a changeless, cyclical creation orders and given purpose by divine will
- Max Weber’s disenchantment
- combined Plato’s rationalism and Aristotle’s empiricism
disenchantment of the world
coined by Max Weber during the development of modern science, as societies modernize and progress, they move away from magical, mystical, and enchanted views of the world to more rational, scientific, and secular perspectives.
rationalism
sought the laws that governed the trust of reason and ideas, scientists like Galileo and Newton found its highest form of expression in the logical formulations of math
empiricism
sought to discover the laws of operation of the world through methodical and detailed observations
the emergence of democratic government with the American and French Revolutions
- 1775-1783 and 1789-1799
- part of the Enlightenment project focusing on historical change, social injustice, and social reform
- demonstrated that humans had the capacity to change the world
- through the process of democratization, society came to be seen as both historical and the product of human endeavours
Mary Wallstonecraft’s opinion on gender inequality
argued that allowing women to have a proper education would enable them to contribute to the improvement of society
the Industrial Revolution
- 18th century
- refers to the development of industrial methods of production, introduction of industrial machinery, and organization of labour to serve new systems
- economic changes brought wage labour, capitalist competition, increased mobility, urbanization, individualism but also with poverty, exploitation, hazardous working conditions, crime, filth, disease, etc
August Comet
- father of sociology
- positivism
- believed that using scientific methods to reveal the laws by which societies and individuals interact would usher in a new positivist age of history
- envisioned sociology as antidote to conditions he described as moral anarchy
- imagined a social order that is deeply conservative and hierarchical where he would be at the pinnacle of society entitled “greatest priest of humanity”
positivism
- emphasizes the interdependence of social institutions and their contribution to social order and cohesion
- advocates for the use of empirical evidence and the scientific method to uncover regularities and patterns in social behavior.
Karl Marx
- developed a critical analysis of capitalism that saw the material or economic basis of inequality and power relations as the cause of social instability and conflict
- analysis showed the social relationships that created the market system, and the social repercussions of their operations
- “ruthless critique of everything existing”, materialism’s focus would not to scientifically analyze or objectively describe society, but to use a rigorous scientific analysis as a basis to change it
interpretive sociology
whereby social researcher strive to find systematic means to interpret and describe the subjective meanings behind social processes, norms, and values
theory
a way to explain different aspects of social interactions and create testable propositions about society
multi-perspectives science
a number of distinct perspectives or paradigms offer competing explanations of social phenomena
sociology being a multi-perspectives science emphasizes on
empirical observation and the logical construction of theories and propositions
paradigms
philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalization, and the research performed in support of them (critical sociology and symbolic interaction)
Talcott Parson (structural functionalist)
proposed that any identifiable social structure could be explained by the particular function it performed in maintaining the operation of society as a whole
three sociology knowledges
positivist sociology, interpretive sociology, and critical sociology
positivist sociology
- focus on developing knowledge useful for controlling social life (macro-level)
- introduced by August Comte and Émile Durkheim
- emphasizes on empirical observation and measurement, relies on translating human phenomena into quantifiable units of measurement
what are the four main rules that define what constitutes valid knowledge
- the rule of empiricism: we can only know about things that are actually given in experience, we cannot validly make claims about invisible or unobservable things
- the rule of value neutrality: scientists should remain value-neutral in research because it follows from the rule of empiricism that values have no empirical content that would allow their validity to be tested
- the unity of the scientific method rule: all sciences have the same basic principles and practices whether their object is natural or human
- the rule of law-like statements: the type of explanation sought by scientific inquiry is the formulation of general laws to explain scientific phenomena
two forms of positivism since 1940s
quantitative sociology and structural functionalism
quantitative sociology
- uses statistical methods (surveys) to quantify relationships between variables
- cannot determine through quantitative means what is valuable or what should be
structural functionalism
- sees society composed of different structures that perform specific functions to maintain the operation of society
- Parsons’ AGIL schema provided a useful analytical grid for sociological theory which the society can be seen as a system composed of structure that satisfied four functions: adaptation, goal attainment, integration, latent pattern maintenance
- emphasizes the interdependence of social institutions and their contribution to social order and cohesion
structures
regular patterns of behaviour and organized social arrangements that persist through time and the functions they serve (biological and social needs of individuals)
adaptation
how the system adapts to its environemnt
goal attainment
how the system determines what its goals are and how it will attain them
integration
how the system integrates its members into harmonious participation and social cohesion
late pattern maintenance
how basic cultural patterns, values, beliefs are regulated and maintained
dynamic equilibrium
what Parson referred to all parts working together to produce a stable state
what two more functions did Robert Merton add to the social processes
manifest functions and latent functions
manifest functions
the consequences of a social process that are sought or anticipated
latent functions
the unsought consequences of a social process
criticism of positivist sociology
- challenged the way in which social phenomena are regarded as objective social facts
- challenges both the social injustice and practical consequences of social inequality
- interpretive sociologists argued that quantification of variables reduces the complexities of social life to abstract set of statistical that fails to capture the meaning it holds for individuals
- structural functionalisms only focuses on macro-level systems
- challenged the conservative tendencies, though claiming to be value-neutral, social sciences can never be neutral, law-like statements cannot account for the underlying historical dynamics
interpretive sociology
- focus on understanding or interpreting human activity in terms of meanings that humans attribute to it
- promotes the goal of greater mutual understanding and consensus among members of the society
social constructivism
capturing the way that individuals construct a world of meaning that affect the way people experience the world (interpretive sociology)
symbolic interaction
- focus on the notion that communication is how people make sense of their social worlds
- relationships are conducted on the basis on shared understandings
- micro-level
- prefer qualitative research as they seek to understand the symbolic world (in-depth understanding)
George Herbert Mead
one of the founders of symbolic interactionism, coined the term with his student, Herbert Blumer
three premises of symbolic interactionism
- humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things
- the meaning of such things is derived from the social interaction that one has with others
- these meanings are handled in, modified through, and interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things they encounter
labelling
individuals come to be characterized or labelled as deviants by authorities
deviance
not only a social fact but the product of a process of definition by moral authorities or other privileged members of society
criticism of interpretive sociology
- focusing on micro-level interactions makes it difficult to generalize to the public
- difficult to get at the historical context or relations of power that structure symbolic interactions
- from critical perspective, the insight of micro sociology need to be broadened through the use of sociological imagination
critical sociology
- promote practices of liberation and social change in order to achieve social justice
- generate questions about the relationship in our everyday life and issues concerning social justice
emancipatory interest
a sociology that seeks not simply to understand the world, but to use sociological knowledge to change and improve the world and to emancipate people from conditions of servitude (critical sociology)
two value judgements of critical sociology
- human life is worth living, or rather that it can be and ought to be made worth living
- in a given society, specific possibilities exist for the improvement of human life and the specific ways of realizing these possibilities
historical materialism
- developed from Karl Marx’s work in critical sociology
- focus on the study of how our everyday lives are structured by connection between relations of power and economic process
- analyze the constraints that define the way one reviews the options and make decisions
- macro-level
economic mode of production
the way societies act upon the environment and its resources in order to use them to meet the needs
dialectics
proposes that social contradiction, opposition, and struggle drive processes of social change and transformation
four components of dialectics
- everything is society is related
- everything in society is dynamic
- gradual accumulation of social changes eventually create a qualitative transformation or social turning point
- tensions that form around relationships of power and inequality in society are the key drivers of social change
feminism
- another major field of critical sociology
- focus on power relationship and inequalities between women and men and analyze the grounds of the limitations faced by women when they claim the right to equality
patriarchy
refers to a set of institutional structures that are based on the belief that men and women are dichotomous and unequal categories
dominant gender ideology
the assumption that physiological sex differences are related to differences in their character, behaviour, and ability
four characteristics of feminism sociology
- gender differences are the central focus
- gender relations are viewed as social problem
- gender relations are not immutable, they are sociological and historical in nature, subject to change and progress
- about emancipatory commitment to change the conditions of life that are oppressive for women that need to be transformed
Dorothy Smith’s standpoint theory
- key innovation that enabled issues to be seen and addressed
- argued women’s lives could be more effectively examined if one began from the actualities of their lived experience in the immediate local settings
- observed that women’s position in society is divided by the experience of dual consciousness
criticism of critical sociology
- only see the most revolutionary transformation of society as a solution
- interpretive sociology critiqued for overstating the power of dominant groups to manipulate subordinate groups, for implying that people are purely the products of macro-level historical forces and struggles rather than individuals with capacity and collective agency
Marx’s concept of alienation
the isolating, dehumanizing nature of capitalist production
Marx’s concept of false consciousness
the idea that people in a capitalist society unknowingly participate in a system that promotes inequality. It argues that if people were to realize the level of inequality and injustice that the system produces, they would revolt and abolish the system.
Marx’s concept of class consciousness
the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests.
“Today, the market decided to take a turn for the worse, as the Dow Jones fell 300 points.” The use of the concept “the market,” in this statement, is an example of
reification
How is micro-level Sociology related to macro-level Sociology?
Patterns found at the micro-level can provide hints about social processes that may be happening at a larger scale in society.
In Horace Miner’s anthropological study, where did the Nacirema people live?
United States
What are Sociologists trying to identify when they are studying a particular social group or individual?
Patterns that might be generalizable to other social groups or individuals.
Which of the following shifts in how we analyze a social situation is made by someone who adopts a Sociological Imagination?
From internal, individualistic explanations of social problems to external, structural explanations of social problems
