Sociology Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Subject matter emerged from enlightenment thought, shortly after the French Revolution The French Revolution was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from liberal political, as a positivist Positivism refers to a set of epistemological perspectives and philosophies of science which hold that the scientific method is the best approach to uncovering the processes by which both physical and human events occur. Though the positivist approach has been a 'recurrent theme in the history of western thought from the Ancient Greeks to the science Science is, in its broadest sense, any systematic knowledge that is capable of resulting in a correct prediction or reliable outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique, technology, or practice of society A society or a human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as social status, roles and social networks. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Without an article, the term refers either to the entirety of. Social analysis, however, has origins in the common stock of Western knowledge and necessarily pre-dates the field. Modern academic sociology arose as a reaction to modernity Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, in particular, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialisation, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance (Barker 2005, 444). Conceptually, modernity relates to the modern, capitalism Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned and operated for a private profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are made by private actors in the market rather than by central planning; profit is distributed to owners who invest in businesses, and, urbanization Urbanization or Urbanisation is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. Urbanization is also defined by the United Nations as movement of people from rural to urban areas with population growth equating to urban migration. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end, rationalization, and secularization Secularisation is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. Secularisation thesis refers to the belief that as societies "progress", particularly through modernization and rationalization, religion loses its authority in all, bearing a particularly strong interest in the emergence of the modern nation state The nation-state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a country as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and; its constituent institutions, its units of socialization Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, politicians and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. It may provide the individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society; a society itself is formed through a plurality of, and its means of surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people and often in a surreptitious manner. It most usually refers to observation of individuals or groups by government organizations, but disease surveillance, for example, is monitoring the progress of a disease in a community. An emphasis on the concept of modernity, rather than the Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment is the era in Western philosophy and intellectual, scientific and cultural life, centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority, often distinguishes sociological discourse from that of classical political philosophy Political philosophy is the study of such as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a.[1]
Within a relatively brief period of time the discipline greatly expanded and diverged, both topically and methodologically, particularly as a result of myriad reactions against empiricism. Historical debates are broadly marked by theoretical disputes over the primacy of either structure or agency The debate concerning the primacy of structure and agency on human thought and behaviour is one of the central issues in sociology, political science, and the other social sciences. In this context, "agency" refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. "Structure", by contrast,. Contemporary social theory has tended toward the attempt to reconcile these dilemmas. Whilst postmodernist Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus trends in recent years have seen a rise in highly abstracted theory, new quantitative data collection methods have also emerged, and remain common tools for governments, businesses and organizations.
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Precursors
Ancient times
Sociological reasoning may be traced back at least as far as the ancient Greeks Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian (cf. Xenophanes Xenophanes of Colophon was a Greek philosopher, poet, and social and religious critic. Knowledge of his views comes from fragments of his poetry, surviving as quotations by later Greek writers. To judge from these, his elegiac and iambic poetry criticized and satirized a wide range of ideas, including Homer and Hesiod, the belief in the pantheon′ remark: "If horses would adore gods, these gods would resemble horses"). Proto- sociological observations are to be found in the founding texts of Western philosophy (Herodotus Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC). He was born in Caria, Halicarnassus (modern day Bodrum, Turkey). He is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture. He was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain, Thucydides Thucydides (Greek Θουκυδίδης, Thoukydídēs) was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and, Plato Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a, Polybius Polybius , Greek Πολύβιος) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his book called The Histories covering in detail the period of 220–146 BC. He is also renowned for his ideas of political balance in government, which were later used in Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws and in the drafting of the United States and so on), as well as in the non-European thought of figures such as Confucius His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. These values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Legalism or Taoism (道家) during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Confucius' thoughts have been developed into a system of philosophy known as.[2] The characteristic trends in the sociological thinking of the ancient Greeks can be traced back to the social environment. Because there was rarely any extensive or highly centralized political organization within states this allowed the tribal spirit of localism and provincialism to have free play. This tribal spirit of localism and provincialism pervaded most of the Greek thinking upon social phenomena. [3]
In medieval Islam
Main article: Sociology in medieval Islam Medieval Islamic sociology refers to the study of sociology and the social sciences in the medieval Islamic world. Early Islamic sociology responded to the challenges of social organization of diverse peoples all under common religious organization in the Islamic Caliphate, including the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid periods, as well asThere is evidence of early Muslim sociology Medieval Islamic sociology refers to the study of sociology and the social sciences in the medieval Islamic world. Early Islamic sociology responded to the challenges of social organization of diverse peoples all under common religious organization in the Islamic Caliphate, including the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid periods, as well as from the 14th century As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century which lasted from 1301 to 1400. Ibn Khaldun Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun was a North African polymath — an astronomer, economist, historian, Islamic jurist, Islamic lawyer, Islamic scholar, Islamic theologian, hafiz, mathematician, military strategist, nutritionist, philosopher, social scientist and statesman—born in North Africa in present-day Tunisia. He is considered a forerunner of (1332-1406), in his Muqaddimah The Muqaddimah , also known as the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun or the Prolegomena (Greek: Προλεγόμενα), is a book written by the North African historian Ibn Khaldun in 1377 which records an early view of universal history. Some modern thinkers view it as the first work dealing with the philosophy of history or the social sciences of (later translated as Prolegomena in Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native speakers, a small number of scholars can fluently speak it and it continues to be taught in schools and universities and has been, and currently is, used in the process of), the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history Universal history is basic to the Western tradition of historiography, especially the Abrahamic wellspring of that tradition. Simply stated, universal history is the presentation of the history of mankind as a whole, as a coherent unit, was the first to advance social philosophy Social philosophy is the philosophical study of questions about social behavior . Social philosophy addresses a wide range of subjects, from individual meanings to legitimacy of laws, from the social contract to criteria for revolution, from the functions of everyday actions to the effects of science on culture, from changes in human demographics and social science The social sciences are the fields of academic scholarship that explore aspects of human society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences. These include: anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, political science, international in formulating theories of social cohesion Structural cohesion is the sociological and graph theory conception and measurement of cohesion for maximal social group or graphical boundaries where related elements cannot be disconnected except by removal of a certain minimal number of other nodes. The solution to the boundary problem for structural cohesion is found by the vertex-cut version and social conflict Social conflict is a conflict or confrontation of social powers. He is thus considered by many to be the forerunner of sociology.[4][5][6][7][8][9] Early Islamic sociology responded to the challenges of social organization of diverse peoples all under common religious organization in the Islamic Caliphate The term caliphate refers to the first system of governance established in Islam. The most common translation for the word which appears in the Quran is vicegerency (or caretaker). It is a constitutional republic, which means that the rulers are bound by a set of laws which they cannot break at a whim, and the people have the right to appoint, including the Rashidun The Rashidun Caliphate , also known as the Rightly-Guided Caliphate, comprising the first four caliphs in Islam's history, was founded after Muhammad's death in 632. At its height, the Caliphate extended from the Arabian Peninsula, to the Levant, Caucasus and North Africa in the west, to the Iranian highlands and Central Asia in the east. It was, Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the city of Mecca, Damascus was the capital of their, Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic Caliphates of the Islamic Empire [disambiguation needed]. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs from all but Al Andalus and Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate or al-Fātimiyyūn was an Arab Shi'a Muslim caliphate first centered in Tunisia and later in Egypt that ruled over varying areas of the Maghreb, Sicily, Malta, the Levant, and Hijaz from 5 January 909 to 1171. The caliphate was ruled by the Fatimids, who established the Tunisian city of Mahdia and made it their capital city, periods, as well as the Mamluk A Mamluk (Arabic: مملوك , مماليك mamālīk (plural), "owned"; also transliterated mamluq, mamluke, mameluk, mameluke, mamaluke or marmeluke) was a soldier of slave origin who had converted to Islam. The "mamluk phenomenon," as David Ayalon has called it, was of great political importance and was extraordinarily long- period in Egypt. It was rooted in methods from early Islamic philosophy Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH (late 12th century CE). The period is known as the Islamic Golden Age, and the achievements of this period had a crucial influence in the development and science in medieval Islam Science in medieval Islam, also known as Islamic science, is a term used in the history of science to refer to the science developed in the Islamic world between 7th and 16th centuries, a period also known as the Islamic Golden Age. Scientists from the region were also known to develop many remedies that contributed much to the modern world of.
Foundations
Modern sociology: After the French revolution
Auguste Comte Auguste Comte was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the termThe term ("sociologie") was first coined by the French essayist Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès or Abbey Sieyes was a French Roman Catholic abbé and clergyman, one of the chief theorists of the French Revolution, French Consulate, and First French Empire. His liberal 1789 pamphlet What is the Third Estate? became the manifesto of the Revolution that helped transform the Estates-General into the National Assembly in (1748-1836).[10] (from the Latin: socius, "companion"; and the suffix -ology, "the study of", from Greek λόγος, lógos, "knowledge" [11][12]).
The term was independently re-invented, and introduced as a neologism, by the French France is a founding member state of the European Union and is the largest one by area. France has been a major power for several centuries with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and in the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America; during the 19th and early 20th thinker Auguste Comte Auguste Comte was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term (1798–1857) in 1838.[13] Comte had earlier expressed his work as "social physics", but that term had been appropriated by others, most notably a Belgian statistician, Adolphe Quetelet Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. His name is sometimes spelled with an accent as Quételet (1796-1874). Writing after the original enlightenment political philosophers This is a list of political philosophers, including some who may be better known for their work in other areas of philosophy. Note, however, that the list is for people who are principally philosophers. The philosophers are listed in order by year of birth to show rough direction of influences and of development of political thought. See also, of social contract Social contract describes a broad class of theories that try to explain the ways in which people form states to maintain social order. The notion of the social contract implies that the people give up sovereignty to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order through the rule of law. It can also be thought of as an, Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind through the scientific understanding of the social realm. His own sociological scheme was typical of the 19th century The 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Holy Roman and Mughal empires. This paved the way for the growing influence of the British Empire, the German Empire and the United States, spurring military conflicts but also advances in science and exploration humanists; he believed all human life passed through distinct historical stages and that, if one could grasp this progress, one could prescribe the remedies for social ills. Sociology was to be the "queen science" in Comte's schema; all basic physical sciences had to arrive first, leading to the most fundamentally difficult science of human society itself.[13] Comte has thus come to be viewed as the "Father of Sociology".[13]
The Positivist temple in Porto AlegreComte was for a long time a student of the utopian socialist thinker Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825). As a reaction to the perceived breakdown in the authority of Catholicism after the French Revolution, and a fear this would lead to further social malaise, Comte devised a positivist 'religion of humanity' in his old age. Though largely unsuccessful, it proved influential in the work of secularists such as George Holyoake and Richard Congreve, and the proliferation of secular humanist organizations later in the 19th century. Several of those involved in the military coup d'état that deposed the Brazilian monarchy and proclaimed Brazil a republic were followers of the ideas of Comte: The Brazilian flag is inscribed with his positivist motto L'amour pour principe et l'ordre pour base; le progrès pour but ("Love as a principle and order as the basis; Progress as the goal").[14]
Many other philosophers and academics were influential in the development of sociology, not least the Enlightenment theorists of social contract, and historians such as Adam Ferguson (1723-1816). For his theory on social interaction, Ferguson has himself been described as "the father of modern sociology"[15] Other early works to appropriate the term 'sociology' included A Treatise on Sociology, Theoretical and Practical by the North American lawyer Henry Hughes and Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society[16] by the American lawyer George Fitzhugh. Both books were published in 1854, in the context of the debate over slavery in the antebellum US. The Study of Sociology by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer appeared in 1874. Lester Frank Ward, described by some as the father of American sociology, published Dynamic Sociology in 1883.
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