Lecture Flashcards
Durkheim Book #1
Concerned with changin nature of social solidarity
- nature of crime and punishments vary depending on solidarity
- primitive societies = very punitive
- moderate societies = rehab based
- examines mechanic and organic solidarity
Durheim book #3
unspoked debate with marx concerned with abnormal social solidarity 3 conditions of solidarity 1. anomic 2. forced division of labour 3. ...
Conceptual template
organizing ideas we struggle with
- contrasts mostly aren’t resolvable
Major issues in theory
nominalism vs. realism
facts vs. value judgements
objectivity vs. subjectivity
conservitive vs. radical
6 contrasts in sociology
- organicism vs atomism
- nature vs. nurture
- reactors vs. actors
- realist vs. nominalist
- facts and/or values
- conservative vs. radical
Explain organicism
- everything is a system
- institution is structure which serves purpose of society
- we are all players of roles inside a functioning system
- personal details irrelevant
- all interdependent on eachother recognizing other roles
- system falls apart if we deviate
- doesn’t consider criticisms, activism is deviance
- conservative
explain atomism
- exactly the same as organicism with one addition
- it is possible for a person to step outside the institution to critique it
- comes along with moral judgements
organicism vs. atomism
- on criticism of the system
-organicism believes critiques are deviants
= systems are naturally homogenous, theorists must protect system
believe in human nature - atomists believe you can step outside and be critical of the system
- believe in nurture
explain relationship between culture, society and the individual
- reactors - we are simply sponges conditioned by social world around us
- organicism - actors - humans are sometimes capable of making up our own minds, articulating unexpected demands of the system
- atomistm
what are the 2 analytical epistemologies in soc?
realism vs nommanalism
explain realism
- explain social events and processes with reference to ‘natural’ forces
- don’t explain in reference to human intentions
explain nomminalism
- social processes occure because of the intention of the individual
- we must develop methodologies to ask why i do what i do, realists don’t ask questions
- nomminalism gives agency to objects of study
what are descruptive/ analyticial explanations?
- if you are a you do B
- straight forward definitions not accounting for hybridity
explain prescriptive/ evaluative logic
- any judgement theorists make about ‘preserving’ social order
- that there are things we ‘ought’ to do to preserve it is a prescriptive/ evaluative statement for realism
prescriptive nominalist statement
- social order should be maintained OR changed in order to foster needs of humans
what are facts
- anything that is indisputably the case is one definition
- to say something is face assumes everone agrees, what happens when you can imagine disagreement
- when there isn’t universal agreement there is bias
-when there is universal agreement there is objectivity
-objectivity isn’t a matter of fact, it is a way of expressig intersubjective agreement
= can’t be forced or coerced
explain values
- an estimate of the worth of something
- there is no such thing as a fact without value
1. values influence what we decide to study
2. values influence how we decide to observe society (qualitative vs. quantitative)
3. values influence our definition of what constittues a fact (terrorist vs. freedom fighters)
4. how we explain things is influenced by values (scientifict method vs. intuition)
5. values influence how we use info we obtain
explain conservative thought process
- concerned with social order at all cost
- conservatives usually organicist
- concerned with good social solidarity, objective fafacts
explain radical thought process
concerned with human development at it’s apex and creating a social world that will enable that development
- all our values can be questioned, all our processes can be changed
explain evolution
- conservative notion
- value judgement, value of evolving depending on type of evolution
- focused on order and integrity of social system
explain development
- teleological = goal oriented, can’t say things are developing unless we have idea of end point
- development means it enables humans to have ability to develop
- women can’t be educated unless society allows them to go to school
evolution vs development
evolution - change to maintain order
development - change toward an ideal
epistemologies
sociology vs. common sense, philosophy, religion and history
sociology vs. common sense
common sense
- unreflective
- circular logic
- non rigourous- doesn’t require proof
- generalizes - no sensitivity to cross cultural differences
sociology
- reflective - think about our explanations
- non-circular = new point
- rigorous - tries to test ideas
- non general - sensative to cross cultural differences
sociology vs. religion
religion
- looks for first and final causes - God is answer
- based on faith, non logical
- circular knowledge, statement that can’t be investigated, 2+2=4, because 4=2+2
- religion is fine when passes of as faith, problem when passed off as logic
sociology
- relationship among things important, not first and final fundamental causes of things
- interested in what is and how to explain it
sociology vs. philosphy
philosophy
- interested in a coherent logies
3 strategies of validity to make argument logical
1. coherence
- systems of thought have to make sense in relationship to eachother
2. correspondence - relationship between coherence and facts, external confirmation
3. consensus - requires dialoguge and agreement, ultimate democratic test of coherence and correspondence
sociology - analytical and synthetic
sociology vs. history
history
- idiographic - interested in specifics, concerned with the detail
- if we are talking about war, historians say which war
sociology
- nomothetic - interested in general ideas, about nature of war itself, want to understand general human condition
science
- epistemology and method
- science does things that satisfy our interestst
scientific wheel
methods to
theory - >hypothesis - observation - law (emperical generalization) - theory
- can begin science at any point
- must move clockwise after beginning
explain hypothesis
- prediction of relationship between 2 or more variables
explain law
demonstrate universalizable hypothesis
- statement that says 2 or more variables ALWAYS influence eachother in the following way
- some argue no one has discovered law
- instead we use (emperical generalization)
explain theory
- logical system of emperical generalizations
huypothesis x always -> y - theory places it all together in a coherent way
2 functions:
1. expalin what has been observed
2. predict on basis of that explainetion either the reoccurance of what was observed or the occurance of something new
-theory must do both
operationalization
- the activity of putting the terms of a hypothesis into measurable form
- we are actively involved in the construction of the facts we observe
- facts aren’t generated from neutral points of veiw
