Contents

1. Modernity and social changes in Europe and emergence of sociology
2. Scope of the subject and comparison with other social sciences
3. Sociology and common sense

1. Modernity and social changes in Europe and emergence of sociology

Modernization

1. Cultural historical specific meaning: According to it modernization means the appearance of modes of social life or organization in Europe from about the 17^th century onwards.
2. Universal meaning:

• Structural approach: It seeks to analyze modernization with the help of selected social or normative variables such as social mobilization, growth of communication, media exposure, democratic political institutions and values, morals and norms conducive to modernization, technological and economic resources of society and initial conditions of society with respect to the presence of cultural and structural autonomy of parts within the social system.
• Evolutionary approach: Treats modernization as an evolutionary stage in the life of human society.

• Dialectical evolutionary: Treats breakdown in the established political, economic and structural framework of a society as a necessary and inevitable condition for development towards modernization.
• Structural functional evolutionary: Treatment of modernization is drawn primarily from organismic analogy where evolution is treated as continuity from the sub human to human phase and beyond.

Events of Europe which led to modernization of Europe

1. Renaissance (cultural movement spanning 14^th through 17^th century)

Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in early modern period. Its influence was felt in literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, religion and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Characteristics of renaissance:

• Humanism: Humanist scholars like Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas More revived the ideas of Greek and Roman thinkers and applied them in critique of contemporary government. Theologians notably Erasmus and Martin Luther challenged the Aristotelian status quo, introducing radical new ideas of justification and faith.
• Art: Painters also developed other techniques, studying light, shadow and famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, human anatomy. Underlying these changes in artistic method was a renewed desire to depict the beauty of nature.
• Science: Significant changes in the way the universe was viewed and the methods with which philosophers sought to explain natural phenomenon. The most significant development was not a specific discovery, but rather a process for discovery, the scientific method.
• Religion: Churchmen such as Erasmus and Luther proposed reform to the church, often based on humanist textual criticism of the New Testament.
• Self-awareness: By the 15^th century, writers, artists and architects in Italy were all aware of the transformations that were taking place.

2. Enlightenment (philosophic movement of 18^th century)

Enlightenment is a general term applied to loosely organized movement of intellectual liberation, secular, rationalist and egalitarian in outlook and values that developed in Western Europe from the 17^th century to the late 18^th century, the period often called the age of reason.

Enlightenment thinking encouraged rational scientific inquiry, humanitarian tolerance and the idea of universal human rights. In religion it usually involved the skeptical rejection of superstition, dogma and revelation in favour of Deism.

Ideas inherent in enlightenment:

• Science: Demotion of religion in enlightenment went hand in hand with the promotion of science.
• Politics: By the mid 18^th century, the basic conceptual vocabulary of the natural rights tradition like the natural rights, state of nature, civil society, and social contract had entered the mainstream of enlightenment political thought, which embraced, nearly unanimously, the belief that the only legitimate basis of political authority was consent.
• Religion: Hostility towards established forms of religion – at least one major religion – Christianity.
• Social science: Montesquieu in his book ‘The Spirit of the Law’ held that there should not be concentration of authority, such as executive, legislative and judicial, at one place. He believed in the theory of the separation of powers and the liberty of the individual.

Voltaire, a French philosopher, advocated religious toleration and freedom of speech. He also stood for the rights of individuals, for freedom of speech and expression.

Rousseau wrote in his book ‘The Social Contract’ that the people of a country have the right to choose their sovereign. He believed that people can develop their personality best only under a government which is of their own choice.

3. French Revolution

It put an end to the age of feudalism and ushered in a new order of society. It replaced the age of feudalism by heralding the arrival of democracy. It changed the philosophy of history from being static to dynamic.

Impact of French revolution:

1. Asserted the reality of individual freedom and right.
2. Economic and political consequences of the revolution rocked the foundation of feudal society in its social and economic existence.
3. Political and social changes of the revolution shook the framework of philosophy in its inward looking and introspective existence.

4. Industrial Revolution

Industrial revolution is an outcome of development of new technical forces, new tools and techniques which changed feudal economy into capitalist economy.

The significant themes of industrial revolution which concerned the early sociologists:

1. The condition of labour
2. The change in property system
3. The industrial society
4. The technology and factory system

2. Scope of the subject and comparison with other social sciences

Scope of sociology

Formal / formalistic / specialistic school of sociology

Formal school argued in favour of giving sociology a definite subject matter to make it a distinct discipline. According to George Simmel, sociology is a specific social science which describes, classifies, analyses and delineates the forms of social relationships — in other words, social interactions should be classified into various forms or types and analyzed.

Criticism: Ginsberg says that a study of social relationships would remain barren if it is conducted in the abstract without the full knowledge of the terms to which in concrete life they relate.

Synthetic school of sociology

Synthetic school wanted sociology to be a synthesis of the social sciences and thus wanted to widen the scope of sociology. According to Durkheim, sociology has 3 principal divisions:

1. Social morphology
2. Social physiology
3. General sociology

Hobhouse perceived Sociology as a Science which has the whole social life of a man as its sphere. Its relations with other social sciences are considered to be one of mutual exchange and mutual stimulation.

Encyclopedic view

The scope of the subject which was limited by these discourses was given an encyclopedic view once again by Talcott Parsons in the 1950s through his elaborate conceptual schemes of social system theory.

Comparison with other social sciences

Sociology and history

History is a study of the past which people have already lived.

Similarities: History is a collection of facts which provides material which sociologists use. Historians also use ideas and concepts of sociology. In both historiography and sociology the same basic reference — that is, type of society — is employed.

Differences: History is description of unique events while sociology produces generalization. Historian examines particular sequences of events; whereas a sociologist tests a generalization by examining the sequence of events.

As per A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, sociology is nomothetic, history is idiographic. The historian is concerned with the inter-play between personality and social forces; whereas the sociologist is largely concerned with the social forces themselves.

History is primarily concerned with the past and essentially tries to account for the change over time, while the main focus of sociology continues to be to search for recurrent patterns and to build generalizations.

H.R. Trevor-Roper — the historian is concerned with the interplay between personality and massive social forces, and the sociologist is largely concerned with these social forces themselves.

The historical work of Toynbee invades the field of sociology and Weber’s spirit of capitalism greatly contributes to the historical understanding of the past. Marx’s historical materialism is nothing but the generalization of historical facts.

Sociology and anthropology

Differences: Sociology means a systematic study of the interactions of individuals and groups, social institutions and the values and norms of society. Anthropology studies human development. Sociology grew out of the philosophy of history, political thought and social survey. Anthropology has its origin in archaeology, physical anthropology, and cultural and linguistic anthropology. The major difference is the field of study and the method of study.

Similarities: Convergence due to the fast disappearance of primitive societies under the influence of technology and western ideologies.

Sociology and psychology

Differences: Psychology studies an individual’s mental process, emotion and perceptions. Sociology studies the behaviour of individuals in collectivities.

Durkheim — sociology is the study of social facts, and the explanation of a social fact should be sought in another social fact and not in a psychological fact. Society is not a simple aggregate of individuals.

J.S. Mill — social science could not be considered firmly established until its inductively established generalizations could be shown to be also logically deducible from the laws of mind.

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown says that sociology studies social systems and psychology studies mental systems. Sociology is compared to the science of mechanics, which considers masses of matter and their properties, and social psychology to molecular physics, which deals with molecules and their interactions.

Similarities: Ginsberg — many sociological generalizations can be more firmly established by being related to general psychological laws, but there may also be sociological laws sui generis.

Max Weber — even where a strictly sociological explanation is possible, the sociologist gains an additional satisfaction in being able to understand the meaning of social actions which he explains in causal terms.

Sociology and economics

Differences: Economics is restricted to economic activities and concerned with material happiness; it is older and hence has attained an advanced degree of maturity. Sociology is concerned with all relationships and hence has a wider scope, is concerned with social aspects, and is a more recent growth.

Similarities / convergence: Barbara Wootton analyses the classical economic theory of wages and presents a sociological analysis of the determinants of wage and salary differences based on British data. Sociologists such as Marx, Max Weber and Hobson have explored aspects of economic behavior neglected or treated in a hurried manner by economists.

There is common interest for both subjects — both look at the same issues from different viewpoints. Adam Smith’s division of labour is an economic fact; Durkheim’s division of labour is a social fact. Class relates to income levels, class status, power, and class behaviour.

Sociology and political science

Differences: Political science is the science of the state or political society. It is a specialized science, studies state and government only, deals only with the conscious activity of men, and assumes man is a political being.

Sociology is the study of society as a whole; its scope is much wider. It is a general science, studies all social institutions, deals with unconscious activities of men also, and tries to find how and why men became political beings.

Similarities: Direct borrowings of explanatory schemes and models like functionalism in the works of G.A. Almond or the idea of the social system in David Easton’s work.

Marxist thought provoked the political sociology of Weber and Pareto and led to studies of political parties, political elites, voting behaviour, bureaucracy and political ideologies.

Sociology and Philosophy

Philosophy is the enquiry or search for knowledge about life and the universe. Sociology originated largely in a philosophical ambition — to account for the course of human history, to explain the social crisis of the European nineteenth century, and to provide a social doctrine which would guide social policy. Connections between sociology and philosophy:

1. There can be, and is, a philosophy of sociology in the sense of philosophy of science — that is, an examination of the methods, concepts, and arguments used in sociology.
2. There is a close relationship between sociology and moral and social philosophy.
3. It may be held that sociology leads on directly to philosophical thought. Sociology raises, to a greater extent than other social sciences, philosophical problems, and consequently the sociologist who is at all concerned with the larger aspects of his subject is led on to consider philosophical issues which are always in the background of sociological reflection.

Sociology is a child of philosophy — early sociologists were philosophers, from Aristotle to Spencer. Receiving inputs from political and economic philosophers, sociology emerged. Sociology and philosophy explain the same subject matter in different dimensions.

Example: Religion — philosophy examines the abstract ideology of religion, while sociology examines the impact of religion on society.

3. Sociology and common sense

Sociology has a questioning approach. Common sense does not question its own origin.

Common sense: Common sense claims to represent things that everyone knows about the social world and human behaviour. These ideas and explanations are considered true not because they are, but because they are believed to be true by people in common. Thus common sense equates to the knowledge and experience which most people allegedly have, or which the person using the term believes they do or should have. There is no argument about their validity — it is based on very limited observation and seldom examined.

Sociology: Sociological knowledge has greater validity. It has been tested in some way. Statements are based on evidence rather than assumptions, and it is concerned with arguments and proofs. Sociological research might confirm common sense observation.

Examples of common sense statements and the outcome of sociological studies of those ideas

1. Common sense: Men are naturally more aggressive than women. — Sociological finding: All humans have the capacity to be aggressive.
2. Common sense: By teaching children about sexual relationships, the education system encourages young people to experiment sexually, leading to an increase in teenage pregnancy. — Sociological finding: Teens who have had sex education classes tend to wait until they are older to have sex and are more likely to practice safer sex.
3. Common sense: Making contraceptives available to teenagers will encourage them to be more sexually active because they will not have to worry about unwanted pregnancy. — Sociological finding: Moore and Caldwell, in a review of the relevant studies, argue that, if anything, this practice reduces the level of teenage sexual activity and significantly reduces the level of teenage pregnancy.