Ideas About Society in the Ancient World
Society becomes an object of analysis even before the personality itself. After all, in the primitive state, the personality almost does not distinguish itself from the genus, although the person begins to reflect and evaluate. In the middle of the first millennium BC, the awareness of the inevitability of social inequality resulted in a conceptual justification of its necessity. In the East, a critical rethinking of the social attitudes embedded in the mythological consciousness was carried out in the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, and Zarathustra. Their teachings became a rational justification and then religious and ethical support that supports social stability in society.
The first direction is represented by the teaching of Plato, who considers this idea in the famous work “The State.” He believed that in an ideal state, social inequality is a means of maintaining social stability but by no means obtaining benefits for the upper strata. The second direction was developed by Epicurus and Aristotle and defended the priority of individual interests and protecting the individual’s right to individuality. In these directions, ancient Greek thought reflected the fundamental contradiction of social life and the individual’s inner life – the contradictory unity of the social and individual.
Ideas About Society in the Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, the development of social relations was carried out mainly under a system of moral and religious norms, which also influenced the development of social thought. The teaching of Thomas Aquinas was an essential step in strengthening the spiritual power of Catholicism over the story of social life. Still, it did not stop the Reformation of Catholicism. The Reformation had a severe impact on the development of socio-critical thinking, theories of self-consciousness, and the early bourgeois ideal of the “rule of law.” It contributed to the destruction of feudal-religious ideas and the establishment of new, entrepreneurial orientations in economic practice.
The Reformation contributed to the destruction of feudal-religious ideas and new entrepreneurial orientations in economic practice. Weber revealed the impact of the Protestant religious and ethical complex on the process of the formation of European capitalism. This complex provided the education of such personality traits as diligence, thrift, honesty, and prudence. The concept of the priority of individual interest over the public is the core of the ideology of the emerging class of entrepreneurs, the bourgeoisie. Along with individualistic, private-property ideas, the socialist socio-political trend gradually took shape in the XVI century as the ideology of the nascent proletariat. Utopian socialists considered an ideal society where state or public management of an economy that does not know commodity-money relations is carried out.
The Development of Sociology in the XIX-XX Centuries
The idea of sociology as a separate science owes its origin to several conditions developed in France in the first decades of the XIX century. Another important conclusion that led Comte to the need to form a science of society is related to his discovery of the law of division and cooperation of labor. Thanks to these factors, social and professional groups appear, diversity in culture grows, and people’s material well-being increases. Comte, in accordance with his ideas about development, divides sociology into two parts: social statics and social dynamics. Sociology, according to Comte, is designed to promote the establishment of solidarity and harmony.
Comte’s works have had a significant influence on many outstanding sociologists. Spencer believed that society has several strong similarities with biological organisms. Tarde considered the transmission or attempted to transmit a belief or desire to be an elementary social relationship. The” crowd ” phenomenon consists of the irrational mass consciousness that suppresses the rational critical principle embodied in the personality. Tennis identified will and reason, so in his opinion, the motivation for action is not carried out by the state or God but by rationalism.
The current stage of the development of sociology
The current stage in the development of sociology begins with a period of weakening interest in the development of a general sociological theory and the rapid growth of empirical research. This internal scientific process was provoked by a change in the model of economic development of Western society. An important event in the development of sociology was the creation of the Chicago School in the 20s of the XX century. One of the leaders of this direction, Robert Park (1864-1944), studied people’s behavior in close relationship with the environment that they create.
After World War II, a school of structural and functional analysis was formed, represented primarily by such American sociologists as Talcott Parsons (1902-1977) and Robert King Merton (1910 – 2003). It systematizes the results of concrete sociological research based on developing a general theory of human behavior as adequate to the principles of functioning of each element of the social structure. Currently, sociology is represented by many scientific directions. Within the framework of modern sociology, many theories have been formulated, and a vast arsenal of methods for collecting and processing sociological information has been worked out.
References
Steinmetz, G. (2017). Field theory and interdisciplinary: History and sociology in Germany and France during the twentieth century. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 59(2), 477-514. Web.
Warburg, M. (2018). Citizens of the world: A History and sociology of the Baha’is from a globalization perspective. Brill.
Panayotova, P. (Ed.). (2019). The History of sociology in Britain: New research and revaluation. Springer.