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Review and Prospect
When and how did the three
classic figures of sociology
become classics?
We have argued that:
 The
classic figures are Marx, Durkheim,
and Weber
 Who stressed class, norms and
organization, respectively
 Conflict theories focus on positive
feedbacks, and functional theories on
negative feedbacks.
Prior to the 1960’s many other
figures would have been
considered more important.
 Parsons
from 1940-1970 made
Durkheim and Weber central figures.
 The critics of Parsons from 1960-1990
made Marx important.
 In Chicago sociology, figures such as
Spencer, Comte, or Glumpowitz were
considered more important.
Much of Chicago sociology
was directed against Spencer
“Mr. Sociology” from the 1840’s to the 1930’s
 “Social Darwinism” argued that progress was
driven by the “survival of the fittest.”
 Spencer wrote the first books in English on
sociology, arguing for “laissez faire” and the
importance of genetic differences.
 The Chicago sociologists argued that human
behavior was socially shaped.

Liberalism and Social
Darwinism
19th c. Liberals were not “liberal” but
“conservative”
 They stressed competition and genetic
variation,
 and so they opposed labor laws, income tax,
and social policy generally.
 In the US, Spencer was very popular with the
robber barons that controlled American
education, and William Graham Sumner was
an exponent
 Charles Murray is a contemporary example

Liberalism and Individualism

Popular explanations of crime, income,
educational success, addiction, etc. often
stress individual traits.
 One can always ask why this individual rather
than that one develops cancer, fails school or
abuses drugs.
 But such explanations may be useless in
explaining rates and structures relevant to
health, education or drug abuse.
Positivism
 Saint-Simon
and Comte developed a
project of a “social physics.”
 Saint-Simon was also one of the
founders of socialism.
 Their work does not look very scientific
today.
 In the US, Ward was a main exponent.
NeoKanianism

A variety of different bodies of thought
developed Kant’s ideas that our
conceptualizations make our knowledge
possible.
 Simmel was one form of neoKantian theorist,
who was most central to the Chicago school.
 And figures such as Mead or W.I.Thomas
insisted that the ways that people think about
reality is real in its consequences. (I.e. belief in
witchcraft creates witches.)
 This became one source of symbolic
interactionism
Historicism

Other European theorists developed historical
description and conceptualization of social
change.
 Toennies Community and Society was an
elaborate conceptualization of different kinds
of social structures.
 Ch. 5 of One World noted that there were
many analyses of social development that
were the basis of modern sociology.
The Chicago School
 The
set of pragmatist and empirical
theorists at the University of Chicago
established a very rich tradition of
empirical description of slums, ethnic
and racial groups, gangs, etc.
 Most of them studied in Germany.
 Robert Park promoted empirical studies:
sociologist as (wo)man with clipboard.