how do our authors define as to what constitutes the discipline of sociology

Learning Objectives

By the cease of this section, yous will be able to:

Explain why sociology emerged when it did
Describe how sociology became a dissever academic subject

Figure (b) shows an ancient Chinese man.

People accept been thinking like sociologists long before sociology became a divide academic field of study: Plato and Aristotle, Confucius, Khaldun, and Voltaire all set the stage for mod folklore. (Photos (a),(b),(d) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; Photo (c) courtesy of Moumou82/Wikimedia Commons)

Since aboriginal times, people have been fascinated by the relationship betwixt individuals and the societies to which they belong. Many topics studied in modern folklore were also studied by ancient philosophers in their desire to describe an ideal society, including theories of social conflict, economics, social cohesion, and power (Hannoum 2003).

In the thirteenth century, Ma Tuan-Lin, a Chinese historian, kickoff recognized social dynamics every bit an underlying component of historical development in his seminal encyclopedia, Full general Study of Literary Remains. The next century saw the emergence of the historian some consider to be the world's first sociologist: Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) of Tunisia. He wrote about many topics of interest today, setting a foundation for both modern sociology and economics, including a theory of social conflict, a comparing of nomadic and sedentary life, a description of political economy, and a report connecting a tribe's social cohesion to its capacity for power (Hannoum 2003).

In the eighteenth century, Age of Enlightenment philosophers adult general principles that could be used to explicate social life. Thinkers such as John Locke, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Hobbes responded to what they saw every bit social ills by writing on topics that they hoped would lead to social reform. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) wrote about women'due south conditions in society. Her works were long ignored by the male academic structure, merely since the 1970s, Wollstonecraft has been widely considered the first feminist thinker of consequence.

The early nineteenth century saw great changes with the Industrial Revolution, increased mobility, and new kinds of employment. It was also a time of cracking social and political upheaval with the rise of empires that exposed many people—for the first time—to societies and cultures other than their ain. Millions of people moved into cities and many people turned abroad from their traditional religious beliefs.

Creating a Discipline

Auguste Comte (1798–1857)—The Begetter of Folklore

The term sociology was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836) in an unpublished manuscript (Fauré et al. 1999). In 1838, the term was reinvented by Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Comte originally studied to exist an engineer, but after became a pupil of social philosopher Claude Henri de Rouvroy Comte de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). They both thought that social scientists could study guild using the same scientific methods utilized in natural sciences. Comte too believed in the potential of social scientists to piece of work toward the betterment of society. He held that one time scholars identified the laws that governed society, sociologists could address problems such as poor education and poverty (Abercrombie et al. 2000).

Comte named the scientific study of social patterns positivism. He described his philosophy in a series of books called The Course in Positive Philosophy (1830–1842) and A General View of Positivism (1848). He believed that using scientific methods to reveal the laws by which societies and individuals interact would usher in a new "positivist" age of history. While the field and its terminology have grown, sociologists nevertheless believe in the positive impact of their work.

Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)—the Beginning Woman Sociologist

Harriet Martineau was a author who addressed a wide range of social science problems. She was an early on observer of social practices, including economics, social class, faith, suicide, government, and women's rights. Her writing career began in 1931 with a serial of stories titled Illustrations of Political Economic system, in which she tried to educate ordinary people almost the principles of economics (Johnson 2003).

Martineau was the kickoff to interpret Comte's writing from French to English language and thereby introduced folklore to English-speaking scholars (Hill 1991). She is also credited with the first systematic methodological international comparisons of social institutions in two of her most famous sociological works: Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838). Martineau constitute the workings of capitalism at odds with the professed moral principles of people in the United States; she pointed out the faults with the free enterprise organisation in which workers were exploited and impoverished while business owners became wealthy. She further noted that the belief in all beingness created equal was inconsistent with the lack of women's rights. Much like Mary Wollstonecraft, Martineau was often discounted in her own fourth dimension by the male domination of academic folklore.

Karl Marx (1818–1883)

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German philosopher and economist. In 1848 he and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) coauthored the Communist Manifesto. This book is ane of the most influential political manuscripts in history. Information technology also presents Marx'southward theory of society, which differed from what Comte proposed.

Marx rejected Comte's positivism. He believed that societies grew and changed as a result of the struggles of dissimilar social classes over the means of product. At the time he was developing his theories, the Industrial Revolution and the ascension of capitalism led to great disparities in wealth between the owners of the factories and workers. Capitalism, an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of appurtenances and the means to produce them, grew in many nations.

Marx predicted that inequalities of capitalism would become and so extreme that workers would somewhen defection. This would lead to the collapse of commercialism, which would be replaced past communism. Communism is an economic system under which at that place is no private or corporate buying: everything is owned communally and distributed equally needed. Marx believed that communism was a more equitable arrangement than capitalism.

While his economic predictions may not have come truthful in the time frame he predicted, Marx'south idea that social conflict leads to change in order is still one of the major theories used in modern sociology.

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)

In 1873, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer published The Report of Sociology, the beginning book with the term "sociology" in the title. Spencer rejected much of Comte's philosophy besides as Marx's theory of grade struggle and his support of communism. Instead, he favored a form of government that allowed marketplace forces to command capitalism. His work influenced many early on sociologists including Émile Durkheim (1858–1917).

Georg Simmel (1858–1918)

Georg Simmel was a German art critic who wrote widely on social and political issues as well. Simmel took an anti-positivism stance and addressed topics such as social conflict, the function of money, individual identity in urban center life, and the European fearfulness of outsiders (Stapley 2010). Much of his work focused on the micro-level theories, and it analyzed the dynamics of two-person and iii-person groups. His work also emphasized individual civilization as the creative capacities of individuals. Simmel'south contributions to folklore are not often included in bookish histories of the discipline, perhaps overshadowed by his contemporaries Durkheim, Mead, and Weber (Ritzer and Goodman 2004).

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917)

Durkheim helped establish sociology as a formal academic bailiwick by establishing the first European section of sociology at the Academy of Bordeaux in 1895 and by publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method in 1895. In another important work, Division of Labour in Social club (1893), Durkheim laid out his theory on how societies transformed from a archaic state into a backer, industrial society. According to Durkheim, people rise to their proper levels in lodge based on merit.

Durkheim believed that sociologists could study objective "social facts" (Poggi 2000). He also believed that through such studies it would be possible to make up one's mind if a social club was "good for you" or "pathological." He saw healthy societies as stable, while pathological societies experienced a breakdown in social norms betwixt individuals and society.

In 1897, Durkheim attempted to demonstrate the effectiveness of his rules of social research when he published a work titled Suicide. Durkheim examined suicide statistics in different law districts to research differences between Catholic and Protestant communities. He attributed the differences to socioreligious forces rather than to private or psychological causes.

George Herbert Mead (1863–1931)

George Herbert Mead was a philosopher and sociologist whose piece of work focused on the ways in which the mind and the self were developed equally a outcome of social processes (Cronk due north.d.). He argued that how an individual comes to view himself or herself is based to a very large extent on interactions with others. Mead chosen specific individuals that impacted a person'southward life significant others, and he also conceptualized "generalized others" as the organized and generalized attitude of a social grouping. Mead'southward piece of work is closely associated with the symbolic interactionist approach and emphasizes the micro-level of analysis.

Max Weber (1864–1920)

Prominent sociologist Max Weber established a folklore department in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians Academy of Munich in 1919. Weber wrote on many topics related to folklore including political change in Russia and social forces that touch on manufacturing plant workers. He is known best for his 1904 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The theory that Weber sets forth in this book is still controversial. Some believe that Weber argued that the behavior of many Protestants, especially Calvinists, led to the cosmos of capitalism. Others interpret it as only challenge that the ideologies of capitalism and Protestantism are complementary.

Weber believed that it was difficult, if not incommunicable, to utilize standard scientific methods to accurately predict the beliefs of groups as people hoped to practise. They argued that the influence of culture on human behavior had to be taken into account. This even practical to the researchers themselves, who, they believed, should be aware of how their own cultural biases could influence their research. To deal with this problem, Weber and Dilthey introduced the concept of verstehen , a High german give-and-take that means to understand in a deep way. In seeking verstehen, exterior observers of a social globe—an entire civilization or a pocket-sized setting—try to sympathise information technology from an insider's indicate of view.

In his book The Nature of Social Action (1922), Weber described sociology as striving to "interpret the meaning of social activeness and thereby give a causal caption of the mode in which activity proceeds and the furnishings information technology produces." He and other similar-minded sociologists proposed a philosophy of antipositivism whereby social researchers would strive for subjectivity as they worked to represent social processes, cultural norms, and societal values. This approach led to some research methods whose aim was not to generalize or predict (traditional in science), but to systematically gain an in-depth understanding of social worlds.

The unlike approaches to inquiry based on positivism or antipositivism are often considered the foundation for the differences found today between quantitative sociology and qualitative sociology. Quantitative sociology uses statistical methods such every bit surveys with big numbers of participants. Researchers analyze data using statistical techniques to come across if they can uncover patterns of human behavior. Qualitative sociology seeks to empathize human behavior by learning about it through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and analysis of content sources (like books, magazines, journals, and popular media).

Should We Enhance the Minimum Wage?

In the 2014 State of the Spousal relationship Address, President Obama called on Congress to raise the national minimum wage, and he signed an executive order putting this into result for individuals working on new federal service contracts. Congress did not pass legislation to change the national minimum wage more broadly. The result has go a national controversy, with various economists taking different sides on the issue, and public protests being staged past several groups of minimum-wage workers.

Opponents of raising the minimum wage contend that some workers would go larger paychecks while others would lose their jobs, and companies would be less likely to hire new workers because of the increased price of paying them (Bernstein 2014; cited in CNN).

Proponents of raising the minimum wage debate that some job loss would be greatly beginning past the positive effects on the economy of low-wage workers having more income (Hassett 2014; cited in CNN).

Sociologists may consider the minimum wage outcome from differing perspectives likewise. How much of an impact would a minimum wage raise take for a single mother? Some might report the economic effects, such as her power to pay bills and keep nutrient on the table. Others might expect at how reduced economic stress could improve family relationships. Some sociologists might research the impact on the status of modest business owners. These could all be examples of public sociology, a branch of folklore that strives to bring sociological dialogue to public forums. The goals of public sociology are to increase understanding of the social factors that underlie social problems and assist in finding solutions. According to Michael Burawoy (2005), the challenge of public sociology is to appoint multiple publics in multiple ways.

Summary

Sociology was developed every bit a way to report and endeavor to understand the changes to society brought on by the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of the primeval sociologists thought that societies and individuals' roles in club could be studied using the same scientific methodologies that were used in the natural sciences, while others believed that is was impossible to predict human behavior scientifically, and still others debated the value of such predictions. Those perspectives continue to be represented within folklore today.

Curt Reply QUESTIONS

What do yous make of Karl Marx's contributions to folklore? What perceptions of Marx accept you been exposed to in your society, and how practice those perceptions influence your views?
Do you tend to identify more value on qualitative or quantitative research? Why? Does it affair what topic yous are studying?

Glossary

antipositivism: the view that social researchers should strive for subjectivity every bit they worked to correspond social processes, cultural norms, and societal values

generalized others: the organized and generalized mental attitude of a social group

positivism: the scientific study of social patterns

qualitative folklore: in-depth interviews, focus groups, and/or analysis of content sources as the source of its data

quantitative sociology: statistical methods such as surveys with large numbers of participants

pregnant others: specific individuals that impact a person's life

verstehen: a German word that ways to understand in a deep way

Further Research

Many sociologists helped shape the discipline. To learn more about prominent sociologists and how they inverse sociology check out http://openstaxcollege.org/l/ferdinand-toennies.

References

Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Loma, and Bryan Southward. Turner. 2000. The Penguin Lexicon of Sociology. London: Penguin.

Buroway, Michael. 2005. "2004 Presidential Address: For Public Sociology." American Sociological Review lxx (February): 4–28. Retrieved December 30, 2014 (http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Public%20Sociology,%20Live/Burawoy.pdf).

Cablevision Network News (CNN). 2014. "Should the minimum wage be raised?" CNN Money. Retrieved Dec 30, 2014 (http://money.cnn.com/infographic/pf/depression-wage-worker/).

Cronk, George. northward.d. "George Herbert Mead." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Resource. Retrieved Oct 14, 2014 (http://www.iep.utm.edu/mead/).

Durkheim, Émile. 1964 [1895]. The Rules of Sociological Method, edited by J. Mueller, E. George and East. Caitlin. 8th ed. Translated by S. Solovay. New York: Gratuitous Press.

Fauré, Christine, Jacques Guilhaumou, Jacques Vallier, and Françoise Weil. 2007 [1999]. Des Manuscrits de Sieyès, 1773–1799, Volumes I and Ii. Paris: Champion.

Hannoum, Abdelmajid. 2003. Translation and the Colonial Imaginary: Ibn Khaldun Orientalist. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University. Retrieved Jan xix, 2012 (http://www.jstor.org/pss/3590803).

Colina, Michael. 1991. "Harriet Martineau." Women in Sociology: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook, edited by Mary Jo Deegan. New York: Greenwood Press.

Johnson, Bethany. 2003. "Harriet Martineau: Theories and Contributions to Sociology." Teaching Portal. Retrieved October xiv, 2014 (http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/harriet-martineau-theories-and-contributions-to-sociology.html#lesson).

Poggi, Gianfranco. 2000. Durkheim. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Ritzer, George, and Goodman, Douglas. 2004. Sociological Theory, 6th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill Education.

Stapley, Pierre. 2010. "Georg Simmel." Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. Retrieved October 21, 2014 (http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/undergraduate/introsoc/simmel.html).

U.Southward. Congress Joint Economic Committee. 2010. Women and the Economy, 2010: 25 Years of Progress Simply Challenges Remain. Baronial. Washington, DC: Congressional Printing Office. Retrieved January nineteen, 2012 (http://jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=8be22cb0-8ed0-4a1a-841b-aa91dc55fa81).

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