Sociology Lecture 2: General Introduction
General sociology: introduction
• The science of social life and society
• The social: set of direct and indirect relationships people engage in with each other at specific
times and contexts
• Society: complex network of all possible relationships people and groups enter and maintain
across time and space
• Sociology studies:
• How people relate to each other
• At specific times and contexts
• More general scale through time and space
• Study object: questions of society
• How people live and their problems
• How is social order possible?
• Sociological knowledge is scientific knowledge
• Nor common sense
• May clash with common (mis)conceptions
• Interaction between
• Sound and reliable research
• Theoretical models of explanation
• Sociology has many ways of operating (paradigms)
• Many sub disciplines
Sociology of arts: introduction
• Humanities
• View from the inside —> “the unique”
• Analysis of intrinsic qualities and autonomous characteristics
• Artistic quality —> Expression of genius of an individual artist
• Sociology
• View from the outside —> “the general”
• Analysis of collective process of production, distribution, reception
• Artistic quality is a social construction (power)
• What are arts and culture?
• One of the most complicated words in English language
• Distinction between
• Culture as a way of life (cultural sociology)
• Culture as a form of artistic expression and communication (sociology of culture)
• What is art (Alexander)
• Artistic product
• Tangible, visible, audible
• Communicates publicly
• Touched, seen, heard
• Experienced for enjoyment
• Pleasure, escape
• Expressive form
• Fictional to some extent
• Art is deigned by its context
• Both physical and social
• Fine arts vs. Popular/mass art vs. Folk arts
• Excluded: popular (youth) culture, non fiction media
• Arts and culture are a social construction
• Highly context dependent
• Time (example: jazz as a folk music vs. Jazz as actual music genre)
• Institutional legitimisation
• Studying how these distinctions are made
, 4 approaches to sociology
1. Positivism
• Emile Durkheim
• Modelled after natural sciences
• Nomothetic knowledge: laws and patterns, empiricism
• Reductionist: measurable variables
• Often causal relationships
2. Interpretive sociology
• Max weber
• Origin in hermeneutics
• Ideographic knowledge
• Know and understand the particular
• Holistic: meaning making in situations as a whole
• Understanding rather than predicting
3. Critical sociology
• Karl Marx
• Class struggle
• Proletariat versus capitalists
• Subjective opinion about what is wrong and needs fixing
• Praxis: point of sociology is to change society
• Hegemony, criticism on mass culture, quality is class
4. Postmodern sociology
• Michel Foucault
• All knowledge is relative
• Reflexivity
• Deconstruction
• Cultural studies
General sociology
• Sociology emerged during an era of massive change
• Relatively young science
• French and industrial revolution
• Great impact on daily life
• Different way of thinking about society
• How is social order possible in societies that are subject to such great changes?
• From the 16th century onwards social philosophers have trued to answer this question
• Initially a quest for an ideal society
• 19th century: try and understand contemporary society and how it functions
• Sociology reflected new thinking about society
• Process related to: renaissance, reformation, enlightenment, social research
• Pre-disciplinary phase
• Auguste Comte
• Introduced the term sociology
• Sociology is a science
• Looking for universal laws in society
• Social statics
• Social dynamics
• Law of 3 stages: theological, metaphysical, scientific/positivist
• Conservative: need for moral consensus and solid state
• Herbert Spencer
• Social darwinism: survival of the fittest
• Meritocracy
• Social allocation of people by achievement
• Own effort and merit not ascription
• People owe their position to themselves
• Inequality
• Emphasis on functional differentiation
• We cannot all be the same/equal
• Emphasis on individual and laissez faire + self regulation
General sociology: introduction
• The science of social life and society
• The social: set of direct and indirect relationships people engage in with each other at specific
times and contexts
• Society: complex network of all possible relationships people and groups enter and maintain
across time and space
• Sociology studies:
• How people relate to each other
• At specific times and contexts
• More general scale through time and space
• Study object: questions of society
• How people live and their problems
• How is social order possible?
• Sociological knowledge is scientific knowledge
• Nor common sense
• May clash with common (mis)conceptions
• Interaction between
• Sound and reliable research
• Theoretical models of explanation
• Sociology has many ways of operating (paradigms)
• Many sub disciplines
Sociology of arts: introduction
• Humanities
• View from the inside —> “the unique”
• Analysis of intrinsic qualities and autonomous characteristics
• Artistic quality —> Expression of genius of an individual artist
• Sociology
• View from the outside —> “the general”
• Analysis of collective process of production, distribution, reception
• Artistic quality is a social construction (power)
• What are arts and culture?
• One of the most complicated words in English language
• Distinction between
• Culture as a way of life (cultural sociology)
• Culture as a form of artistic expression and communication (sociology of culture)
• What is art (Alexander)
• Artistic product
• Tangible, visible, audible
• Communicates publicly
• Touched, seen, heard
• Experienced for enjoyment
• Pleasure, escape
• Expressive form
• Fictional to some extent
• Art is deigned by its context
• Both physical and social
• Fine arts vs. Popular/mass art vs. Folk arts
• Excluded: popular (youth) culture, non fiction media
• Arts and culture are a social construction
• Highly context dependent
• Time (example: jazz as a folk music vs. Jazz as actual music genre)
• Institutional legitimisation
• Studying how these distinctions are made
, 4 approaches to sociology
1. Positivism
• Emile Durkheim
• Modelled after natural sciences
• Nomothetic knowledge: laws and patterns, empiricism
• Reductionist: measurable variables
• Often causal relationships
2. Interpretive sociology
• Max weber
• Origin in hermeneutics
• Ideographic knowledge
• Know and understand the particular
• Holistic: meaning making in situations as a whole
• Understanding rather than predicting
3. Critical sociology
• Karl Marx
• Class struggle
• Proletariat versus capitalists
• Subjective opinion about what is wrong and needs fixing
• Praxis: point of sociology is to change society
• Hegemony, criticism on mass culture, quality is class
4. Postmodern sociology
• Michel Foucault
• All knowledge is relative
• Reflexivity
• Deconstruction
• Cultural studies
General sociology
• Sociology emerged during an era of massive change
• Relatively young science
• French and industrial revolution
• Great impact on daily life
• Different way of thinking about society
• How is social order possible in societies that are subject to such great changes?
• From the 16th century onwards social philosophers have trued to answer this question
• Initially a quest for an ideal society
• 19th century: try and understand contemporary society and how it functions
• Sociology reflected new thinking about society
• Process related to: renaissance, reformation, enlightenment, social research
• Pre-disciplinary phase
• Auguste Comte
• Introduced the term sociology
• Sociology is a science
• Looking for universal laws in society
• Social statics
• Social dynamics
• Law of 3 stages: theological, metaphysical, scientific/positivist
• Conservative: need for moral consensus and solid state
• Herbert Spencer
• Social darwinism: survival of the fittest
• Meritocracy
• Social allocation of people by achievement
• Own effort and merit not ascription
• People owe their position to themselves
• Inequality
• Emphasis on functional differentiation
• We cannot all be the same/equal
• Emphasis on individual and laissez faire + self regulation
