12 Flashcards
(40 cards)
Among those who had studied
philosophy but been drawn to the
new branch of knowledge was
____, who believed that
sociology should be less of a grand
theory and more of a method that
could be applied in diverse ways to
understanding the development of
modern society.
Emile Durkheim
______ had laid the
foundations with his theory that
the study of human society is the
pinnacle of a hierarchy of natural
sciences.
Auguste Comte
Among those inspired by
Darwin was _____,
a philosopher and biologist who
likened the development of modern
society to an evolving organism,
with different parts serving
different functions. His writing
established the idea of an “____”
model for the social sciences.
Herbert Spencer, Organic
Durkheim argued that _____,
especially long-established faiths such
as Judaism, are fundamentally social
institutions that give people a strong
sense of collective consciousness.
Religions
Durkheim focused on society
as a whole and its institutions,
rather than the motivations and
actions of individuals within
society; above all, he was
interested in the things that hold
society together and maintain
social order. He argued that the
basis for sociological study should
be what he called “_____,” or
“realities external to the individual”
that can be verified empirically.
Social Facts
Durkheim connected the
development of modern society
with ________, and in
particular ________ that
came with it.
Industrialization, Division of Labor
What differentiates modern society
from traditional ones, according to
Durkheim, is a fundamental change
in the form of ___; the
advent of _____ has
evolved a new form of solidarity
Social Cohesion, Industrialization
Durkheim outlined his theory
of the different types of social
solidarity in his doctoral thesis,
“_____”
The Division of Social Labor
The similarity of individuals in such a society fosters what Durkheim
called “_____”
which is the basis of its solidarity. But as societies grew in size
and complexity, people began to
develop more specialized skills,
replacing self-reliance with
_______.
Collective Consciousness, Interdependence
The _____, as Durkheim refers to
it, of traditional society becomes
replaced by an _______
based not on the similarity of its
individual members, but their
complementary differences.
Mechanical Solidarity, Organic Solidarity
This division of labor reaches its
peak with industrialization, when
society has evolved to become a
complex “____” in which
individual elements perform
specialized functions, each of
which is essential to the well-being
of the whole.
Organism
The “____”—by which he
meant a thing that exists without
being subject to any individual will
upon it—that Durkheim identifies
as driving this evolution from
mechanical to organic solidarity
is the increase in “_____,” or population growth and
concentration
Social Fact, Dynamic Density
It caused social problems precisely because
it is built on the complementary
differences between people,
organic solidarity shifts the
focus from the community to the
individual, replacing the collective
consciousness of a society—the
shared beliefs and values that
provide _____
Cohesiveness
Organic solidarity
can only work if elements of
mechanical solidarity are retained,
and members of society have a
_____.
Sense of Common Purpose
The _____,
according to Durkheim, had forced
a division of labor so quickly
on modern society that social
interaction had not developed
sufficiently to become a substitute
for the decreasing collective
consciousness.
Speed of industrialization
Durkheim used the word
____ to describe this loss of
collective standards and values,
and its consequent sapping of
individual morale.
Anomie
Bureaucratic efficiency has stifled
traditional interactions, trapping us
in an “_____.”
Iron Cage of Rationality
_____ accepted that any
study of society should be rigorous,
he argued that it could not be truly
objective, because it is the study
not so much of social behavior but
of social action, meaning the ways
in which individuals in society interact.
Max Weber
This interpretive approach, also
called _____ (“______”),
was almost the antithesis of the
objective study of society. Whereas
Durkheim’s approach examined
the structure of society as a whole,
and the “organic” nature of its
many interdependent parts, Weber
sought to study the experience of
the individual.
Verstehen, Understanding
Weber synthesized ideas from both
Marx and Durkheim to develop
his own distinctive sociological
analysis, examining the effects of
what he saw as the most pervasive
aspect of modernity: _____.
Rationalization
In arguably his best-known work,
_____ (1904–05),
Weber describes the evolution of
the West from a society governed
by tribal custom or religious
obligations to an increasingly
secular organization based on
the goal of economic gain.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Industrialization had been
achieved through advances in
science and engineering, and the
capitalism that accompanied it
called for purely ____ decisions
based on _____ and _____ (assessing the benefits and
costs of projects).
Rational, Efficiency, Cost-Benefit Analysis
While the rise of capitalism had brought many
material benefits, it also had
numerous social drawbacks;
traditional cultural and spiritual
values had been supplanted by
_____, which brought
with it a sense of what Weber
called “_____” as the intangible, mystical side of many
people’s day-to-day lives was
replaced by cold calculation.
Rationalization, Disenchantment
_____, Weber believed,
was both inevitable and necessary
in modern industrial society. Its
machinelike effectiveness and
efficiency is what enables society
to prosper economically, which
meant its growth in scope and power was apparently unstoppable.
Bureaucracy
