Introduction to Sociology
In the ongoing process of life, we are part of lot many developed structures. Every human receives
cues from his atmosphere after birth turning up into information. Communication
is the process that never stops and human mind accepts the information around.
The received cues in the form of information build knowledge in everyone`s mind
as Who he is? Where does he live? What identity he has? What language can he
speak and how he can fulfil his basic needs? As a child grows up, he starts noticing
life on a bigger canvas. His boundaries of thoughts get more extended as he starts
experiencing life outside his home or family.
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| Introduction to Sociology |
Have you
ever thought why there are so diverse people and societies? Have you ever
wondered what social factors influenced multiple existences? The desire to
understand society is urgent and necessary, for we are more likely to be overcome
by it if we do not understand the social world. If we want to affect them, we
will need to consider social structures. When we live together in the form of
towns, villages or cities, we develop different groups. Simply, the formation
of a human society is very easy concept entailing any group of humans living
together. The study of different societies and form, nature, customs,
traditions is called Sociology.
So in
literal terms, Sociology examines how the outside environment influences how we
think, react, and act, and so helps us understand ourselves. It can also help us
make better decisions, both for ourselves and for larger organizations.
Sociologists are persons who research the function, development, and structure
of society. Sociologists should gather organized evidence from which to make
decisions, provide insight into what is happening in a case, and provide
alternatives as part of their work.
Sociology: Understanding the concept?
Dictionary
describes sociology as the study of culture and social collaboration in a
fundamental manner. The term "sociology" has been derived from the
Greek word logos meaning "reasoned speech on companionship" and a Latin
word socius meaning companion and. It questions that how will the sense of
friendship, mutual understanding or closeness be expressed or explained? And then
Sociology tries to provide the answer of this question with arguments. Even
though this is a beginning stage of the discipline, it employs a number of
methods to investigate a wide range of topics and to adjust these examinations
to this present reality.
People have been
intrigued since ancient times by the relationship and connection between people
and their cultures. The ancient Greeks are credited with establishing the basis
of sociology by distinguishing between nomosis (Custom or law) and physis (nature).
For Greeks, presence or physis was "what rises up out of itself"
while without human obstruction, nomos were human norms expected to manage human
activities as laws or customs.
The ethical problems
of this differentiation between human life and human norms can be drawn from
the moral problems of the later Greek philosophers Aristotle, Plato, and
Socrates with the best model of human culture presented under the name of the
‘‘polis or the city state’’. The contemporary sociological word
"norm" is gotten from the Greek expression nomos (i.e., a social law that
administers human behavior).
In his
pivotal reference book, General Study of Literary Remains, Ma Tuan-Lin, a
Chinese researcher, first distinguished social elements in the thirteenth
century as a fundamental part of historical development.
Scope of
Sociology - Sociology Book
Sociology,
normally reviewed as one of the Social sciences subjects alongside philosophy
and psychology was established as a subject in the late eighteenth century
through the work of researchers like Auguste Comte.
Notwithstanding,
just through the work of authors, for example, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Talcott
Parsons the subject really accomplished acknowledgment as a scholarly subject
in the twentieth century.
In 1780 the French
writer Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1748-1836) coined the word 'sociology' in an unpublished
book. In 1838, Auguste Comte (1798–1857) reinvented the term.
The first
academic department of discipline of sociology was established at the
University of Chicago by Albion W. Little, later in 1895, he published the
American Journal of Sociology.
One of the
pioneers of sociology was Karl Marx. His theories on social strife are still
relevant today. Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx co-authored one of the most powerful
political manuscripts in history, Communist Manifesto in 1848. It also introduces
Marx's theory of society in a strongly simplified manner, which varies from
what Comte suggested. Although Marx has established a critical study of
capitalism that considers relation between injustice and power as the source of
social chaos and confrontations as the material or economic ground. The aim of
sociology is to restock a cohesive, post-feudal spiritual order to help
establish a new era of social, political and cultural harmony, as Karl Marx
said to his friend Arnold Ruge in a letter, the emphasis of sociology, or what Karl
Marx called historical materialism (the "materialist conception of history"),
should be the "ruthless critique of everything existing." In this
context the purpose of sociology would not be merely to examine culture scientifically
or to describe it objectively, but to use a scientific analysis as a foundation
for reforming it. This framework has become the cornerstone of modern critical
sociology.
In the 19th century,
Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) was one of the first woman sociologists. There are
many other women, such as Beatrice Webb, Mary Wollstonecraft, Catherine
Macauley and Flora Tristan, who may contend with her for the title of the first
female sociologist, but Martineau's explicitly sociological credentials are high.
For a very long time, she was known primarily for her English translation of
Constructive Philosophy Course written by Comte. She brought to an English-speaking
audience the idea of sociology as a methodologically rigorous discipline in
this famous translation. But, in the spirit of the 19th century's major social reform
movements, she also created a body of work of her own and brought the
experience of a feminist notion that had been severely absent into the social
discussion.
One of the
founding fathers of sociology was Georg Simmel (1858–1918), but his position in
the discipline is not always remembered. The sociology of Simmel concentrated
on the central issue, "How is society possible?" His response led him
to establish formal sociology or what he called “the sociology of social
structures”. Simmel draws a strange point for a sociologist in his essay "The
Problem of Sociology": "There is no such thing as society as such."
"Society" is just the name we assign to the "extraordinary multitude
and variety of interactions [that] operate at any moment" (Simmel 1908).
This is a simple micro-sociological perspective. Simmel states that where a number
of people come into contact, "society exists." Simmel's emphasis on how
social types form proved particularly significant for microsociology, symbolic interactionism,
studies of hotel lobbies and street-corner cultures, which were popularized in the
mid-20th century by the Chicago School. His research on the emergence of new social
structures, in particular, was focused on portraying the fragmented everyday reality
of urban social life that was bound up with the contemporary city's unmatched presence
and scale. Dorothy Smith a renowned sociologist describes the social as “ongoing
concerting and coordinating of individuals’ activities”. In his book “The Study
of Society”, Ginsberg (1939) wrote that, “Sociology may be defined as the study
of society; that is of the web of human interactions and relationships”.
Although precise
definitions of the field are not always easy to come by, each of the following
is sufficient in general to draw a type of overarching inference on how to
explain sociology:
Definitions of Sociology
Ritzer (“Sociology”,
1979)
“Sociologyis the study of individuals in a social setting that includes groups,
organizations, cultures and societies. Sociologists study the interrelationships
between individuals, organizations, cultures and societies”.
Sugarman (“Sociology”,
1968)
“Sociology
is the objective study of human behaviour in so far as it is affected by the
fact that people live in groups”.
Giner (“Sociology”,
1972)
“The purpose
of Sociology is the scientific study of human society through the investigation
of people’s social behavior”.
Mex Weber (1864-1920)
“Sociology is
the study of social facts of collective behavior”.
Georg Simmel
(1858-1918)
“Sociology is
the study of social groups on the basis of social interaction”.
We may deduce
from the preceding definitions that, “sociology is the study of culture, human activities,
human activity, and relationships”.
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