Classical Sociology Theorists

9 Key excerpts on "Classical Sociology Theorists"

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  eBook - ePub

  The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Sociology

  • George Ritzer, Wendy Wiedenhoft Murphy(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Part I Introduction 1 Classical Sociological Theory Alan Sica Defining “The Classical” What is meant today by “classical theory”? Scholarly interests in the current period, like so much else in cultural life, are undergoing rapid change owing to the worldwide computerization of knowledge. Whereas nineteenth century theorists, writing mostly in German or French, might have expected reading audiences to number in the hundreds, perhaps a few thousand, today's potential “market” for sociological ideas is limitless, spanning much of the globe in English or another modern translation. Whereas early European theorists had to content themselves with a vague notion of what was being written in North and South America or Asia that might have influenced their thinking, daily interaction now among globalized scholarly groupings has become expected, even routinized. Though sometimes confusing the issues at hand, this cross‐fertilization has often deepened and broadened notions of “the classical.” Given all that, one would imagine that the canon long recognized as “classical theory” might have changed in fundamental ways over the last 20 years or so, as access to computerized knowledge proceeded apace. An exact metric reflecting this historic change in globalized enlightenment could conceivably be constructed using big data sources, but until that is done systematically, other, more traditional means of measuring scholars' enthusiasms might be used. Take, for instance, a British serial founded in 2001 called The Journal of Classical Sociology. Thus far, it has dealt far more with theory than with the actual historiography of sociology as an institutionalized discipline in universities (recalling that it was only named as such by Auguste Comte on April 27, 1839). Not surprisingly, many articles have appeared in recent issues of this journal that deal exclusively with the generally recognized founders of social theory: Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel

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  Cultural Theory

  An Introduction

  • Philip Smith, Alexander Riley(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER ONE Culture in Classical Social Theory

  In a letter of 1675, the scientist Isaac Newton wrote: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” The point he was making was that his own contribution to knowledge would not have been possible without those of his intellectual predecessors. Likewise, contemporary cultural theory has been made possible by significant earlier work. Coming to an understanding of this foundation is therefore a step of great importance. While we could begin this process with a discussion of thinkers extending back through the Enlightenment and on to Ancient Greece, perhaps the most useful place to start is in the body of literature generally thought of as classical social theory. More particularly, we begin with the work of four founding figures in sociology, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Simmel, and two other thinkers from roughly the same period, Friedrich Nietzsche and W. E. B. DuBois. While these last two have not traditionally been classified among the founding figures in the emergence of the discipline of sociology, they nonetheless made contributions to the sociological study of culture that have been widely and increasingly recognized in the past few decades. Many current debates are shot through with foundational themes, problems, and perspectives that originate in the works of these six scholars. As thinkers with powerful minds, they provided a set of core concepts and tools that are still serviceable 100 years or more after they were developed. When they are not drawing directly upon them, current authors as likely as not are revising, refining, or critiquing lines of thinking that originated around a century or so ago. We forget history at our peril, and so knowledge of these resources provides an essential starting point and common ground for all cultural theorists.

  Karl Marx

  One of the greatest minds of the Victorian era, Karl Marx is generally thought of as an anticultural theorist. This is certainly the case when we focus on his historical materialism. Such a position is most clearly advocated in his late masterwork Das Kapital (Capital ), the first volume of which was published in 1867 (Marx 1956). Here, he proposed what has become known as the base/superstructure model of society. According to this perspective, the real motor in capitalist society was the mode of production (very roughly, the economy) that was concerned with providing for material needs. He identified as key aspects of this sphere the private ownership of the means of production (e.g., factories, machine technology) and a system of relations of production

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  Understanding Law and Society

  • Max Travers(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Routledge-Cavendish

    (Publisher)

  Classical thinkers

    The classical sociologists and law

    Marx

    Durkheim

    Weber

    Sociological jurisprudence

    Savigny

    Sumner

    Petrazycki

    Erhlich

    The American realist tradition

    Holmes

    Pound

    Llewellyn

    The relevance of the classical tradition

    From classical to contemporary sociology

    Debates about method

    The legacy of sociological jurisprudence

    Questions

    Further reading

  Boxes 2.1     Marx’s base-superstructure model

            2.2     Llewellyn on the law school

            2.3     Weber on regulation

  The most difficult and least inviting part of introductory courses in any academic discipline is often the obligatory introduction to classical thinkers. This is, firstly, because the original writings are hard to follow, often simply because they were written in a different historical period. It requires some effort to obtain sufficient background on the political events and intellectual debates that made them interesting at the time. In my experience, students usually find no difficulty in summarising particular thinkers using the many helpful textbook accounts that have been published (for example, Adams and Sydie 2002). What they are often unable to do is make the imaginative leap that enables one to see that the ideas continue to be relevant to the problems and challenges we face today.

  When teaching sociology of law, there is the added problem that theorists have approached the relationship between law and society from within two academic disciplines. Law is the older discipline and was established in universities before the start of the modern period. Sociology was not taught in universities until the early twentieth century, partly through the intellectual and promotional efforts of Emile Durkheim. The term itself was invented in the 1800s by his predecessor Auguste Comte (1975) who was trying to make sense of a century of far-reaching changes in many areas of social life.

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  Sociology

  An Introductory Textbook and Reader

  • Daniel Nehring, Ken Plummer(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  These problems are obscured in established accounts of sociology’s history, as found in many older introductory textbooks you may read. Recently, however, sociologists around the world have begun to unravel and rework the story of their discipline. The work of Raewyn Connell has been crucial to these efforts. To conclude this chapter, we will examine an extract from her recent book Southern Theory (2007). Reading Connell, R. (2007), Southern Theory, Cambridge: Polity, pp. 4–9 Origin stories Open any introductory sociology textbook and you will probably find, in the first few pages, a discussion of founding fathers focused on Marx, Durkheim and Weber. The first chapter may also cite Comte, Spencer, Tönnies and Simmel, and perhaps a few others. In the view normally presented to students, these men created sociology in response to dramatic changes in European society: the Industrial Revolution, class conflict, secularisation, alienation and the modern state. This curriculum is backed by histories such as Alan Swingewood’s (2000) Short History of Sociological Thought. This well-regarded British text presents a two-part narrative of ‘Foundations: Classical Sociology’ (centring on Durkheim, Weber and Marx), and ‘Modern Sociology’, tied together by the belief that ‘Marx, Weber and Durkheim have remained at the core of modern sociology’ (2000: x). Sociologists take this account of their origins seriously. Twenty years ago, a star-studded review of Social Theory Today began with a ringing declaration of ‘the centrality of the classics’ (Alexander 1987). In the new century, commentary on classical texts remains a significant genre of theoretical writing (Baehr 2002). The idea of classical theory embodies a canon, in the sense of literary theory: a privileged set of texts, whose interpretation and reinterpretation defines a field (Seidman 1994). This particular canon embeds an internalist doctrine of sociology’s history as a social science

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  Sociological Theories of Health and Illness

  • William C Cockerham(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 4

  Classical Theory

  Durkheim and Weber

  A “canon” is a set of exemplary texts that defines a field. The three established canons in sociology are found in the work of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx (Connell 1997; Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018; Royce 2015). While there are other candidates from sociology’s classical era, these three have stood the test of time. They did not appear together as the most important canons of sociology in English-language introductory textbooks until the 1970s, but once it happened, their status has continued to the present day (see, for example, Giddens et al. 2018; Henslin 2019; Macionis 2018; Ritzer and Murphy 2019). While there is an inconclusive debate mentioned in the last chapter about who else’s work should be canonized, there is general agreement about these three scholars from sociology’s classical period (Royce 2015). Many classical theorists are, of course, only of historical interest since they no longer apply to our time; however, some of the theories of Durkheim, Weber, and Marx have persisted as authoritative sources for present-day theorizing in medical sociology.

  As will be seen in later chapters, theory construction in sociology tends to be cumulative and the classics provide building blocks and legitimacy for many current theories (Baert 2007), including those in medical sociology (Cockerham 2013c). As Patrick Baert (2007) points out, sociology takes its founders very seriously. Consequently, theory formation often proceeds in a cumulative fashion with present work building on the past. In this regard, sociology is much like the practice of case law in which the precedence set by prior court decisions is taken into account in determining present-day legal verdicts. Since Talcott Parsons, sociologists in all specialties have used the classics as authoritative foundations for new theories. “Underlying this intellectual genre,” states Baert (2007:121), “is the assumption that the classics need to be consolidated, combined, recycled and built upon—as if sociologists have taken on board Newton’s aphorism that ‘if I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’”

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  Class Stratification

  Comparative Perspectives

  • Richard Breen, David B. Rottman(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 2

  STRATIFICATION THEORISTS

       

  Introduction

  The study of stratification boasts an enviable pedigree within sociology. Virtually all the central figures in the development of the discipline were concerned to some degree with stratification, and for many it was the primary focus of their work. And today stratification and social class remain the objects of a great deal of theoretical and empirical endeavour on the part of sociologists. Later chapters of this book examine the application of approaches to the study of social class derived from current theorizing. In this chapter we begin to lay the groundwork for that by considering the work of a number of theorists of social stratification, selected on the basis of their relevance to the core issues around which debates in the area currently revolve. Thus we deal first with the so-called ‘classical’ theorists – Marx and Weber – and then with such contemporary writers on the topic of stratification as Michael Burawoy, Anthony Giddens, John Goldthorpe, Frank Parkin, Richard Scase, and Erik Olin Wright.

  The classical theorists: Karl Marx

  One characteristic of late capitalism is the explosion of choice that it offers to the consumer. This phenomenon is rarely better illustrated than in the vast array of books and articles that present, explain and interpret the writings of Karl Marx and, to a lesser extent, Max Weber. We do not wish to widen this wealth of choice by providing a comprehensive review of their work. Rather, our aim is to present a summary of the ideas of Marx and Weber as they have been carried forward to influence contemporary approaches to stratification, and, especially, class. We do this because, to a very considerable degree, these two writers established the context that continues to shape contemporary debate. In particular, we want to draw out two issues that retain particular importance in the study of stratification. These issues were highlighted in Chapter 1 : they are, first, the distinction between what we called an objective and a subjective commonality of position; in other words, the distinction between the fact (recognized by an observer) of a group that shares a common position on one of the bases of social power and the recognition of that fact and its significance by the members of that group themselves. And the second issue concerns how many bases of stratification can be said to exist in society. So in dealing with each issue we will be concerned to show how the broad approaches to stratification adopted by Marx and Weber illustrate the framework that we developed in Chapter 1

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  An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion

  Classical and Contemporary Perspectives

  • Inger Furseth, Pål Repstad(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3

  Classical sociologists and their theories of religion

  The aim of this chapter is to give an introduction to the classical sociologists and their theories of religion. Although Freud was a psychologist, he is included here because his theory of religion had a major impact on the sociology of religion. The chapter is organized chronologically and covers from 1850 to around 1950 – even if a few of the writers lived and wrote beyond 1950. We have attempted to organize each subsection by using a consistent scheme. After a brief presentation of a particular theorist, we describe his theory of individual and society, before we take a look at religion and refer to some of the critique that has been raised. We also attempt to offer suggestions as to how different theories may be used in empirical studies of religion.

  In this chapter and the following, we will in some instances look at possible connections between the context of the theorist under consideration, his Sitz im Leben, and his sociological interpretations. It should be noted that our review of sociologists only includes men: sociology of religion has, until recently, been a massively masculine affair. Towards the end of the chapter, we will attempt to relate the theorists to each other. In particular, focus is directed on the distinction between structural and actor-oriented theories and its consequences for the view of religion.

  3.1 Karl Marx: Religion as projection and illusion

  Karl Marx (1818–83) was born the son of a lawyer in Trier, Germany. His parents were Jewish, although his father later converted to Protestantism. In 1841 Marx finished his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Berlin. During the following decade, he moved between Cologne, Brussels, Berlin, and Paris. In Paris, he and Friedrich Engels participated in revolutionary groups. The Communist Manifesto was published here in 1848. Marx had to flee the following year, and he settled in London, where he lived the rest of his life. Through his writings, Marx introduced into social theory the concepts of historical materialism and social class theory, an emphasis on the significance of technology, the theory of human alienation, and the idea that collective actors can achieve control of nature and social relations. Though there is no systematic treatment of religion in Marx’s writings, it is possible to detect his view of religion by taking a look at his general social theory and his theory of alienation.

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  The History and Philosophy of Social Science

  • H. Scott Gordon(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Review, 1927). It is evident from our survey of Durkheim’s work, however, that he did not regard this precept as imposing much constraint on the domain or content of sociology. He felt that the academic scholar should distance himself from partisan politics; he himself joined no political faction and, except for the Dreyfus affair, avoided direct participation in contemporary political controversies. But politics in a larger sense of the term was in fact the inspiration of his life’s work. Social questions caught his attention as a young man, not primarily because of the intellectual challenge they presented to one who wished to be a pure scientist, but because the investigation of them promised to provide solutions to the profound problems of modern civilization and, more specifically, to furnish scientific guidance for policies that would reverse the decay of French culture. He wished to be both a scientist and a moral mentor. In the latter role he adopted a consequentialist stance, arguing that the moral quality of acts and institutions is to be determined by reference to the ends they serve. The role of scientific sociology is to clarify this relationship, thereby combating ignorance, wishful thinking, and deceit. He rejected the utilitarian consequentialism that had devolved from Bentham and the Mills because of its focus on the ends of the individual; in his view, society has ends of its own. Durkheim could be described as a ‘holistic utilitarian’, but he did not consider it necessary to devise a term to describe his philosophy, since, from his youth, he regarded his essential views on morality, and science, to be adequately represented by the word ‘socialism’.

  The last quarter of the nineteenth century was a transition period in European socialist thought. The modern conception of socialism as denoting the replacement of the market mechanism by an administrative system of economic planning centralized at the level of the nation-state, despite the clear expression of it by Saint-Simon several decades earlier, was then only in embryo and would not definitively appear in political philosophy until concrete examples of such a mode of economic organization had been provided by the military-oriented economies of the major European states in the first World War. Many who described themselves as socialists, such as the English Fabians, were concerned mainly with the inequality of the distribution of income, and took their inspiration from David Ricardo’s theory of rent, either directly, or indirectly via Henry George’s popularization of its thesis in Progress and Poverty (1879). Socialists who regarded themselves as followers of Marx and Engels focused their intellectual attention on the Marxian theories of value and exploitation, and their political energies on the promotion of the class struggle that was fated to destroy capitalism, without any substantial delineation of the socialist mode of social order that would succeed it. The older ideas of the utopian writers were reflected in socialist theories advocating a world composed of small autonomous communities in which the sense of social solidarity that had been eroded by capitalism and industrialism would be regenerated. Some writers, on the other hand, took socialism to denote a heretofore unknown liberation of the individual not only from the constraints imposed by institutions such as churches and governments, but from those mandated by less formal pressures to conform to communal standards of behaviour. Oscar Wilde, for example, one of the greatest eccentrics of the age, construed socialism as a world of sublime individualism, one in which everyone could indulge his personal idiosyncracies without fear of law or convention (‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, Fortnightly Review,

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  Theoretical Criminology from Modernity to Post-Modernism

  • Wayne Morrison(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge-Cavendish

    (Publisher)

  Rules of Sociological Methods, social science can be value free. The sociologist or criminologist is to be detached and objective in his analysis. Society and social phenomenon are actual entities existing ‘out there’, and it is possible for the observer to come to describe and explain them using various other indices.

  Social solidarity

  In The Division of Labour and Society Durkheim argues that there are two types of social solidarity which characterise societies. Durkheim uses these types, or models, in a similar way to a methodology that Weber had used in looking at the vast variations in human society, namely we need to develop ideal types or models which guide us in our understanding. Neither kind of social solidarity will exist in pure form. In modern societies, organic solidarity predominates. While in pre-modern, more simple societies, mechanical solidarity dominates.

  In Durkheim’s work there is always a duality of processes and functions in operation. For example, the very concept of society involves an almost positive notion of solidarity (ie the achievement of cohesiveness or integration) and regulation (ie restraints upon the pursuit of self-interest of people).

  In pre-modern societies mechanical solidarity is based on likeness and uniformity, on shared values, ideas and beliefs among the social body. These shared ideas, values and beliefs constitute what Durkheim calls the ‘conscience collective’. The life situation in pre-modern societies is a clear response to the homogeneity of groups which demonstrate similarities between individuals and the strength of the common moral symptoms. We may say that there is very little emphasis upon individuality or individual personal identity, on the contrary, the emphasis is on integration into the group and group identity.

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