Chapter1: Introduction: Sociological Theory


Functionalism and Positivism



Yüklə 1,31 Mb.
səhifə14/46
tarix09.08.2018
ölçüsü1,31 Mb.
#62198
1   ...   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   ...   46
    Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
  • SUMMARY

Functionalism and Positivism


Durkheim's focus on macro-level social facts was one of the reasons why his work played a central role in the development of structural functionalism, which has a similar, macro-level orientation (see Chapter 15 on Parsons). However, whether Durkheim was himself a functionalist is open to debate and depends upon how one defines functionalism. Functionalism can be defined in two different ways: a weak sense and a strong sense. When Kingsley Davis (1959) said that all sociologists are functionalists, he referred to the weak sense: that functionalism is an approach that attempts "to relate the parts of society to the whole, and to relate one part to another." A stronger definition of functionalism is given by Turner and Maryanski (1988), who define it as an approach that is based on seeing society as analogous to a biological organism and attempts to explain particular social structures in terms of the needs of society as a whole.

In this second sense, Durkheim was only an occasional and, one might say, accidental functionalist. Durkheim was not absolutely opposed to drawing analogies between biological organisms and social structures (Lehmann, 1993a: 15), but he did not believe that sociologists can infer sociological laws by analogy with biology. Durkheim (1898/1974:1) called such inferences "worthless."

Durkheim urged that we distinguish functions from the historical causes of social facts. The historical study is primary because social needs cannot simply call structures into existence. Certainly, Durkheim's initial hypothesis was always that enduring social facts probably perform some sort of function, but he recognized that some social facts are historical accidents. Furthermore, we see in Durkheim no attempt to predefine the needs of society. Instead, the needs of a particular society can be established only by studying that society. Consequently, any functionalist approach must be preceded by a historical study.

Despite this theoretical injunction, it must be admitted that Durkheim did sometimes slip into functional analysis (Turner and Maryanski, 1988:111-112). Consequently, there are many places where one can fairly criticize Durkheim for assuming that societies as a whole have needs and that social structures automatically emerge to respond to these needs.

Durkheim also is often criticized for being a positivist, and indeed, he used the term to describe himself. However, as Robert Hall notes, the meaning of the term has changed:

The term "positive" was needed to distinguish the new approach from those of the philosophers who had taken to calling their ethical theories "scientific" and who used this term to indicate the dialectical reasoning they employed. In an age in which one could still speak of the "science" of metaphysics, the term "positive" simply indicated an empirical approach.

(Hall, 1987:137)

Today, positivism refers to the belief that social phenomena should be studied with the same methods as the natural sciences, and it is likely that Durkheim would accept this. However, it has also come to mean a focus on invariant laws (Turner, 1993), and we find little of that in Durkheim. Social facts were, for Durkheim, autonomous from their substrate, but also autonomous in their relation to other social facts. Each social fact required historical investigation, and none could be predicted on the basis of invariant laws.



Other Criticisms

There are some other problems with Durkheim's theory- that need to be discussed. The first has to do with the crucial idea of a social fact. It is not at all clear that social facts can be approached in the objective manner that Durkheim recommends. Even such seemingly objective evidence for these social facts as a suicide rate can be seen as an accumulation of interpretations. In other words, whether a particular death is a suicide depends upon ascertaining the intention of a dead person (Douglas, 1967). This may be especially difficult in such cases as drag overdoses. In addition, the interpretation may be biased in a systemic manner so that, for example, deaths among those of high status may be less likely to be interpreted as suicides, even if the body is found clutching the fatal gun. Social facts and the evidence for them should always be approached as interpretations, and even the sociologist's own use of the social fact should be seen as such.

There are also some problems with Durkheim's view of the individual. Despite having made a number of crucial assumptions about human nature, Durkheim denied that he had done so. He argued that he did not begin by postulating a certain conception of human nature in order to deduce a sociology from it. Instead, he said that it was from sociology that he sought an increasing understanding of human nature. However, Durkheim may have been less than honest ~with his readers, and perhaps even with himself.

One of Durkheim's assumptions about human natur-one that we have already encountered--may be viewed as the basis of his entire sociology. That assumption is that people are impelled by their passions into a mad search for gratification that always leads to a need for more. If these passions are unrestrained, they multiply to the point where the individual is enslaved by them and they become a threat to the individual as well as to society. It can be argued that Durkheim's entire theoretical edifice, especially his emphasis on collective morality, was erected on this basic assumption about people's passions. However, Durkheim provides no evidence for this assumption, and indeed, his own theories would suggest that such an insatiable subject may be a creation of social structures rather than the other way around.

In addition, Durkheim failed to give consciousness an active role in the social process. He treated the actor and the actor's mental processes as secondary factors or, more commonly, as dependent variables to be explained by the independent and decisive variables--social facts. Individuals are. in general, controlled by social forces in his theories; they do not actively control those forces. Autonomy, for Durkheim, meant nothing more than freely accepting those social forces. However, even if we accept that consciousness and some mental processes are types of social facts, there is no reason to suppose that they cannot develop the same autonomy that Durkheim recognized in other social facts. Just as science has developed its own autonomous roles, making its religious roots almost unrecognizable, couldn't consciousness do the same?

The final set of criticisms that we will discuss have to do with the centrality of morality in Durkheim's sociology. All sociologists are driven by moral concerns, but for Durkheim, morality was more than just the driving force behind sociology, it was also its ultimate goal. Durkheim believed that the sociological study of morality would produce a science of morality. As Everett White (1961:xx) wrote, "To say that the moral is an inevitable aspect of the social--is a far c12~ from asserting, as Durkheim does, that there can be a science of morality."

Furthermore, even without the fantasy of a science of morality, a sociology that attempts to determine what should be done from what now exists is inherently conservative. This conservatism is the most frequently cited criticism of Durkheim (Pearce,1989). this is often attributed to his functionalism and positivism, but it is more correctly traced to the connection that he sees between morality and sociology. Whatever value there is in the scientific study of morality, it cannot relieve us of making moral choices. Indeed, it is likely that such study will make moral choice more difficult even as it makes us more flexible and responsive to changing social situations.

We should note, however, that Durkheim is not alone in having failed to work out the proper relation between morality and sociology. This problem disturbs modem sociology at least as much as it does Durkheim's theories. In an increasingly pluralistic culture, it is clear that we cannot just accept our moral traditions. For one thing, it is impossible to say whose moral traditions we should accept. It is equally clear, thanks in part to Durkheim's insight, that we cannot just create a new morality that is separate from our moral traditions. A new morality must emerge, and it must emerge from our moral traditions, but what role sociology can and should play in this is a question that appears to be both unanswerable and unavoidable.


SUMMARY


The two main themes in Durkheim's sociology were the priority of the social over the individual and the idea that society can be studied scientifically. These themes led to his concept of social facts. Social facts can be empirically studied, are external to the individual, are coercive of the individual, and are explained by other social facts. Durkheim differentiated between two basic types of social facts material and nonmaterial. The most important focus for Durkheim was on nonmaterial social facts. He dealt with a number of them, including morality, collective conscience, collective representations, and social currents.

Durkheim's first major work was The Division of Labor in Society, in which he argued that the collective conscience of societies with mechanical solidarity had been replaced by a new organic solidarity based on mutual interdependence in a society organized by a division of labor. He investigated the difference between mechanical and organic solidarity through an analysis of their different legal systems. He argued that mechanical solidarity is associated with repressive laws while organic solidarity is associated with legal systems based on restitution.

Durkbeim's next book, a study of suicide, is a good illustration of the significance of nonmaterial social facts in his work. In his basic causal model, changes in nonmaterial social facts ultimately cause differences in suicide rates. Durkheim differentiated among four types of suicide---egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic and showed bow each is affected by different changes in social currents. The study of suicide was taken by Durkheim and his supporters as evidence that sociology has a legitimate place in the social sciences. After all, it was argued, if sociology could explain so individualistic an act as suicide, it certainly could be used to explain other, less individual aspects of social life.

In his last major work, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim focused on another aspect of culture: religion. In his analysis of primitive religion, Durkheim sought to show the roots of religion in the social structure of society. It is society that defines certain things as sacred and others as profane. Durkheim demonstrated the social sources of religion in his analysis of primitive totemism and its roots in the social structure of the clan. Durkheim concluded that religion and society are one and the same, two manifestations of the same general process. He also presented a sociology of knowledge in this work. He claimed that concepts and even our most fundamental mental categories are collective representations that society produces, at least initially, through religious rituals.

In a number of works, Durkheim discussed the idea of a cult of the individual, which provides modem culture with a collective representation that is able to integrate and regulate society. This cult of the individual should be distinguished from egoism. In the latter individuals care only about their selfish interests, while in the former people are prepared to sacrifice their own interests in the name of an individuality that they believe all humans to have in common.

Although Durkheim was against any radical change, his central concern with morality led him to propose two reforms in society that he hoped would lead to a stronger collective morality. For children, he successfully implemented a new program for moral education in France that focused on teaching children discipline, attachment to society, and autonomy. For adults, he proposed occupational associations to restore collective morality and to cope with some of the curable pathologies of the modem division of labor.

We conclude the chapter by presenting some criticisms of Durkheim's theories. We find serious problems with his basic idea of the social fact, with his assumptions about human nature, and with his sociology of morality.


Chapter7 :Max Weber and Rationalization
METHODOLOGY

Ideal Types

SUBSTANTIVE SOCIOLOGY

What Is Sociology?

Social Action

Class, Stares, and Party

Structures of Authority

Rationalization

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism


Yüklə 1,31 Mb.

Dostları ilə paylaş:
1   ...   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   ...   46




Verilənlər bazası müəlliflik hüququ ilə müdafiə olunur ©genderi.org 2024
rəhbərliyinə müraciət

    Ana səhifə