Pragmatisme: Dewey and social control (HC6) Flashcards
1
Q
Science
A
Inquiry under the assumption that the world is the way it is independent of my opinion about that world
2
Q
Method of belief fixation
A
Tenacity: evades irritations of doubt efficiantly but social impulse is against it
Authority: fixes belief in the community, but some men possess a feeling of continguity about their beliefs
A priori: respectable from the view of reason, but makes inquiry something similar to the development of taste
Science: ultimate conclusion of every man will be the same
3
Q
Pragmatism
A
- The pragmatic maxim: the idea of anything (typically: a concept) is our idea of its (possible) practical effects
- The practical is what counts (and nothing else)
- What you belief is what you do, what you do is what you believe. ‘show, don’t tell’
4
Q
Pragmatism on practical problems
A
- Psychology focusses on certain practical problems that bother us (right now: the rhetoric of social media and its effects on individuals, for instance)
- Sociology also focusses on certain practical problems that bother us (right now: the division in society between people trusting governmental institutions and those that do not, for instance)
- Dewey: science is a tool that hepls us to control our hazardous, risky, dangerous environment.
5
Q
Who and what am I, in the light of my experiences?
A
‘I am a human being with a certain history, and I experience a world of other people, animals, things, etcetera, a world of feelings (in the broadest sense of the world), and I tend to believe to know (more or less what happens next, although I am often surprised by unexpected events.’ ‘I am a member of Group Blue, and that matters’
6
Q
Emile Durkheim
A
- Society is an entity in itself
- Social phenomena are external to individuals
- Social phenomena are objectively real
- Enculturation: personalities/characteristics of individuals are formed within the society through nurture (or: their social milieu)
- Holistic sociology
- Two extensive cases to illustrate sociology: suicide and religion
7
Q
Consider social facts as things
A
- Society is an independent entity
- Social facts are caused by other social facts, these are externa lto the individual, controlling the individual’s behavior
- Sociology as ascience links social phenomena to one another, and finds the sociological laws
- Organism analogy: ‘social institutions must be viewed in functional terms. If one can see clearly what a society is and understand what is necesaary to its maintenance and growth, one will be able to make a scientific analysis of its institutions in terms of the social functions they perform. It will then be possible to determine what is ‘pathological’ in social life, and prescribe remedies for the latter
- Durkheim takes a structural-functionalist approach in the science of sociology
8
Q
Sociology is NOT psychology
A
- ‘the determining cause of a social fact must be sought among the social facts preceding it and not among the states of individual consiousness’
- No reductionism to psychological properties of individuals
- The unit of social analysis is the cultre rather than the individual
- Social facts exercise coercive powers over the individual members of society: enculturation through education
- Sociology maps the functions in society as a system of coercion (through social laws) [notice the similarities with the traditional view of physics]
- ‘the function of a social fact cannot but be social, i.e. it consist of the production of socially useful effects. To be sure, it may and does happen that it also serves the individual. But this happy result is not its immediate cause… the function of a social fact ought always tob e sought in relation tos ome social end’
- Human nature is dual (twofold): it has an individualistic aspect and a social aspect
- Durkheim: the fundamental characteristic of a healthy society is solidarity; when that exists, the needs of both the individual and society are met through mutual service to one another
- A central task of sociology: the analysis of the conditions of solidarity through studying social facts
9
Q
What holds a society together?
A
- Organic solidarity
- Specialization is the solution to creating organic soidarity that keeps a society together
- Durkheim: division of labour and differentiation and dependence binds individuals
- The individuals is coerced by the norm of his cultural miliue – and reacts to customs & comventions, values & beliefs, as social facts in an unconscious and non-rational way
- It is these social facts that create organic solidarity
- Social facts give rise to a conscience collective (expression in French, common consciousness), holding society together
10
Q
Suicide and religion
A
- Famous cases presented by Durkheim to illustrate his scientific sociology: suicide and religion
- A suicide rate higher than the normal is evidence that some individuals are driven to acts of self-destruction by social causes
- The social cause: weakening of solidarity
- Degeneration of social bonds (anomie)
- So, a suicide rate higher than normal is caused by a social fact (structural causes): an erosion of solidarity which promotes ‘anomie’. Cure: strengthen social bonds (integration) and social organizations (like the workplace)
- Sociology maps the social causes leading to such a social phenomenon by formulating social laws/models
11
Q
Conscience collective
A
- Durkheim shows in his sociology that religion is merely the reflection of the secular soscience collective
- Religion does not offer the moral precepts – Religion only reflects the values and norms that are embraced by society
- ‘religion is a powerful force in deterring individuals from certain acts, but these acts are condemned by the conscience collective, not by God’
- What people believe is ‘the will of God’ is in fact ‘the needs of society’ (to maintain itself)
- Durkheim: in all societies the source of moral values is society
- Often religion is conducive for social solidarity
- Durkheim: when we revere God or Gods, we in fact revere our own society
12
Q
Problems with Durkheim
A
- Individuals are encultured by society or culture, which leads to orfanic solidarity which functions as the way to maintain the society or culture and hence the (group of) individuals
- But: there are many cultures!
- An individual may be ‘encultured’ by many different cultures or societies
- ‘a frenchman may be, simultaneously, a Breton, a Catholic, a communist, a physician, a chess-player, a conservative, etc.’
- Where does the organic solidarity really come from
- Modern societies are held together as functioning entities in ways that do not rely, or at least do not rely so heavily as Durkheim supposed, on the coercive power of the conscience collective
13
Q
The future of Sociology: 5 questions
A
- Why does sociology change?
- In what direction does it change?
- Why do we have sociology?
- What are the goals we aim for?
- What does sociology offer psychologists?
14
Q
Dewey’s ‘Escape from Peril’
A
The distinction between theory and practice is the natural result of getting rid of a fear of uncertainty, but through the ages we have come to learn that this distinction is not fuitful anymore
15
Q
Dewey’s Social Science and Social Control
A
- We are doing things wrong in social science: we mimic physical science, assuming the wrong picture of physical science!
- To be sure: there is a difference between physical facts and social facts
- Physical facts: ‘an occurence is a physical fact only when its constituents and their relations remain the same, irrespective of the human attitude toward them.’
- Social fact: [facts including] reference to human purposes and human consequences
- Wherever purposes are employed deliberately and systematically for the sake of certain desired social results, there it is possible, within limits, to determine the connection between the human factor and the actual occurence, and thus to get a complete social fact, namely, the actual external occurrence in its human relationships
