Sociology - Theorists

Auguste Comte

• First to see that society was made up of different parts

• Three Stages of thinking: Theological, Metaphysical, Positivist

Herbert Spencer

• Interested in biology

• Saw the different parts of society as being interconnected and work together to function just like the human body

Emile Durkheim (structural functionalist)

• Social facts: external to the individual / coercive power , things that you did not come up with or particularly believe in but you still follow them, eg gifts at Christmas, laws,

• Rules of Sociology Methods

• The division of labour in society (1893)

• To achieve social order: there is collective consciousness which is his term for a social and moral order made possible when members of a society have shared sentiments, values and beliefs (social facts)

• Social solidarity/concensus: shared values, beliefs. Two types: mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity

• Anomie: disconnection or alienation from society and it's moral values and norms. OR a breakdown of the social structure of society causing a sense of hopelessness, disorder and a pack of social consciousness among individuals

• Social cohesion has two dimensions – the relationships between members of a community and the sense of belonging to a community

• Suicide study identifing two types: integration - too much altruistic & too little egoistic regulation - too much fatalistic & too little anomic

• Sacred and Profane

• Crime serves a purpose of strengthening social consciousness

Talcott Parsons

• Came up with structural defrentitation where institutions in modern society carry out specialized roles

• marrying structure with function which gave arise to structural functionalism

• Social equilibrium where the interdependent parts of society adjust to disturbances to maintain a theoretically state of balance

• Social change comes through a mix of adaptation and integration

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Functionalists mutual beliefs

• Social change is a gradual process therefore is evolutionary

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