Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

SOC201 - Theory 1 Notes

Good Essays
1427 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
SOC201 - Theory 1 Notes
!
!
!

Sociology
• A study of the human condition- all aspects of the human condition. There is nothing that humans do or say that is foreign to sociology
• Began in the earliest stages of history- even in the Paleolithic period where we were hunters and gatherers because even in this time, there were human relationships. • Safe to say that sociology is as old as history

!

Pre-Socratic Theorists
Heraclitus:
• Arguably the most important pre-Socratic writer
• Said that “one can never step into the same river twice”. In other words, everything changes. The entire universe is in a state of constant flux and change.
Nothing is static and everything is constantly changing. This means that the word process becomes important.
• When discussing human beings, we have to realize the importance of human history because this is the only way that we can understand how things have changed over time
Cratylus:
• Disciple of Heraclitus
• Said that “one cannot step into the same river once”. This language makes
Cratylus’ version of Heraclitus’ quote even more deliberate. He’s saying that you can’t even experience something once because even during that first experience, things are changing so much that you can’t experience the present tense because the present cannot really exist

!

Theory
• What is theory? Clear thinking about experience.
• Everything is learned. Even instinct is something that had to have been experienced and learned. Instinct refers to a biologically rooted mechanism that tells an individual how to behave in specific circumstances. According to Zeitlin’s school of thought, humans don’t have instinct because everything is learned. Even the survival instinct is proven wrong by suicide and mothers who kill their children prove the motherly instinct wrong.
• How are things learned? Through trial and error. All beings are subject to falibilism (failing). We only learn to succeed by failing, even if the failures are small. For example, you learn table manners by failing to use your fork properly.
• There is no way to learn anything at all except by experience- either our own or our predecessors. Most of what we have learned is from our predecessorsespecially things that are fatalistic.




























If we define human culture as the totality of designs for living (all the things that humans have to do to make a living and experience in any given day), the only test of any given theory is practical experience.
You therefore cannot have theory without practice and cannot have practice without theory because theory untested by practice is useless, and practice without some sound theory is blind, dangerous and destructive to yourself and/or others.
Theory should be seen as an ongoing process. Practices include science, scholarship, what happens in farming and industry etc.
Dialectical: the lion’s share of our learning comes from dialogues with others and literature. We have to recognize that the primary way that we learn what is said in conversation with others is by testing it.
Another term for this is philosophical pragmatism. Another term for this is common sensism. The key word there is common because it is common wisdom that humans have collected through history. If one or few believe something that the majority does not, we may not take them seriously. However, experience has taught us that one or few may be able to prove the masses wrong.
What accounts for the fact that some people still believe that the world is flat or that the earth is the center or the earth? The term is ideology and it contributes to ignorance and error. Our Ideologies can sometimes be so ingrained within our learned experiences that it causes us to make more errors.
Another term for pragmatism is “critical common-sensism”
Einstein’s theory of relativity:
Theories are more than just opinions because theories are based on some evidence
Einstein’s theory of relativity led to the Big Bang Theory
According to the big bang theory, if you go back far enough, there was no universe, time space- nothing existed.
The point here is that all of these theories (Darwin’s Theory, Einstein’s Theory, the Big Bang Theory) are not just guess work or opinions. They are based on some evidence and hold severe implications for how we understand life and develop future theories
Verstehen Soziologic: interpreted sociology. There is a fundamental difference between studying inanimate objects and studying human beings. We cannot understand a human being without understanding the mind, the human’s motives, desires, emotions etc.
In regards to human beings,
Empiricism: belief that sensory experience (the five senses) are the main source of valid knowledge. The criticism of this is that people experience things differently through their senses and that the senses are not always reliable
Epistemology: meaning knowledge. Branch of philosophy that questions how we know anything and come about knowing things.
Symbolic Interactionists agree with Weber
Democritus:




Zeitlin’s Definition of Mind: the presence of significant symbols in human action. !

!
Wednesday May 13, 2013
!

The Enlightenment
• The dark ages
• In Western Europe, the Catholic Church was dominated. Thus, the human mind and method of thought was dominated by Catholic theology. Everyone was taught that truth was revealed through monotheism.
• The human mind used revelation (the ultimate source of God’s message to us), tradition (knowledge passed down) and authority (hierarchical authority from the
Pope, to the Cardinals, Bishops and Parish Priests)
• Faith was the base of knowledge in the Catholic Church and it was not questioned
• It was said, “faith begins where thinking leaves off” by a man who himself subscribed to faith.
• Ideology is the opposite of theory because theory is the attempt to understand the human condition and everything about it in some objective sense based on logical evidence. Theory is the pursuit of truth and knowledge. Ideology is an attempt to indoctrinate, which means that people who are privileged and powerful are rationally entitled to more.
• Oligarchy: the rule of few
• Democracy: the rule of the people
• Some people have been indoctrinated to the point that they are involved in “selfdeceit” where they have not been taught any better. Extremists in a way have been indoctrinated because they haven’t been taught any better and this is why they hold particular views
• Before the enlightenment, all scholars were in some way attached to the church.
There was no such thing as a free-thinking scholar and when there was one, they often experienced trouble
• There were no real nation states yet in Europe. Countries like Germany and Italy did not exist
• Counter-factual thought/experiment is an important way to think about history.
Asks the question of what if this had happened or what if that had happened.
What if a brick fell on Hitler’s head as a child and he died? Using this method of thought, you can evaluate the importance that certain events/individuals had in the development of humanity
• 3 Processes that led to the Enlightenment
1. Capitalism/Commerce: Montesquieu and the Persian travelers. People who were travelling around the world for commerce and capitalist purposes, were being exposed to other cultures and this caused them to question their own home culture’s beliefs.

2. The Protestant Reformation: Under Martin Luther and John Kelp. When Luther visited Rome he noticed Simony where the religious leaders were actually buying and selling positions of power because these positions were so valuable. There was also a sale of indulgences with Tetzel, which was a document that you could buy that allowed you to be among the saved! if not entirely, at least you would go to purgatory. Luther was particularly upset that in the Catholic Church, the liturgy was in Latin (allowing only the educated people to understand the liturgy) and that meant that the majority of the people had no idea what was being preached to them. This meant that the people could not have a personal relationship with God because they could not understand God’s word. So, Luther translated the Bible into German and for the first time people could hear God’s word in their own language. Guttenberg invented the printing press and now
God’s word could be printed and distributed this way.
3. Science: In the renaissance period,
• These three factors led to a movement where epistemology became dominant.
• On the continent of Europe you had a movement called rationalism, which was led by Descartes (Cartesian philosophy) Leibniz and Spinoza. Three mathematical geniuses. The highest form of knowledge was mathematics for them.
• In Britain you had the movement of empiricism where the five senses are relied upon. Here you had Locke, Bishop Burkeley and David Hume.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Every premature thing goes through different phases of development, as far as humans are concerned, they have inherited earth more than four thousand years ago and have undergone various phases of development. Homo Sapiens which clearly resemble us, can be known as our ancestors disintegrated from Africa and allocated different parts of the earth and this time can be recalled as stone age because people at this time were not coherent with how to use any other things except for stone, bones and wood as they used such materials to make weapons and tools. Stone Age has been divided into parts such as Paleolithic which is Old Stone Age and Neolithic is new stone age ; In the Paleolithic age, people were basically nomads and were hunter gatherers as they lived in groups and moved from place to place in search of food and water where men would do the hunting and women and the young would forged for plants close to camp and provided the group with nourishment and we can confirm the fact of hierarchy in this period by the fact that their graves shows that hierarchy emerged in Paleolithic times as some graves contains weapons, tools, animal figures, ivory bears and seashells along with the corpses which indicated that some people had higher status then the others. Hierarchy emerged as men acquired prestige from bringing back meat from big hunts and from fighting in wars and women earned the same status from experience and longevity in age when illness killed most people before age thirty. Climate and Geography played a very important role in settlement of the Paleolithic period , the weather increased the amount of wild grains people could gather in the foothills of the fertile cresecent. The Paleolithic hunter gatherers settled where the wild grains grew and where animals gazed. After a period of time as people became to master new skills such as…

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    POL 201 Final Paper

    • 1580 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In this paper I will be deliberate on the history of Habeas Corpus and how it has matured over the years. I will describe the beginning of the Habeas Corpus and the position it takes part in the U.S. and what recent act is being used. The United States Constitution must be more effectively unified into the Guantanamo methods to give equal civil rights to inmates despite what their nationality maybe, but to also have more cordial ways of reviewing obstructive servicemen to absolutely verify if they really should be treated as extremists that we should fear.…

    • 1580 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the dawn of time, Homo Sapiens have developed and evolved in a short time, relative to Earth’s history, into a advanced and special civilization we know today as present day society. The beginnings of civilization 2.5 million years ago was known as the Paleolithic Age which ends at 12,000 BCE and leads directly into the Mesolithic Age which ends at 8,000 BCE. These two eras, Paleolithic Age and Neolithic Age, although share similar developments such as new technologies and dominion, they also differ in major new developments such as sedentary agriculture and pastoralization.…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Jared Diamond discusses how the ancestors of humans began to develop many years ago. Human ancestors began walking straight up around 4 million years ago. Archaeologists called this period of new technology and inventions the Great Leap Forward. After the Great Leap Forward, the human race started to expand its territory. Many humans stayed in Africa and Eurasia for many years.…

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Soc 120 Week 9 Final Paper

    • 1878 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The United States is known as the wealthiest nation in the world. When poverty is mentioned most people think of this occurring in developing countries. Everyone has come across someone in the United States suffering from hunger, homelessness and other forms of poverty, but few people may have realized it. [pic]Poverty in the United States is quite different from the images often[pic] seen on television [pic]in[pic] other [pic]developing[pic] countries (Cole, 2005). Instead of homelessness and starvation, [pic]poverty [pic]is a malnourished child whose parents do not have the earning to provide healthy food for their families. [pic]Another face of[pic] poverty [pic]is a hard working single parent that is working full time and still struggles to provide the family with food, [pic] [pic][pic]shelter, clothing or even a car. Although the United States is the wealthiest nation, poverty is still an issue (Freeman, 2005).[pic][pic]In the United States childhood poverty is said to be a very alarming problem. It affects [pic]every person in this country, regardless of economic status, age, race, or gender. In 2001, 11.7 million children, or 16.3% of children in the United States were poor[pic] (Freeman, 2005). [pic]Children represent a disproportionate percentage of the poor population. They make up 35.7 percent of the poor, but only account for 25.6 percent of the general population (U.S. Census Bureau,[pic] 2006). America must make it a priority to see that the adequate attention is being given to the problem of all the children that are living in poverty. These children are our future and need us to provide the resources, encouragement and resources they need to get out of poverty.[pic] [pic] Society categorizes an individual into the poverty group when there is not enough income to meet the basic need of food, clothing and shelter. Food, clothing and shelter are not…

    • 1878 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Soc 120 Final Paper

    • 1654 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In the recent past the image of our military has been tarnished in perspective of the public eye as a result of some officers not following ethical conduct of the force. They believe that their thoughts and ideas about what can come from their orders are the only thing that matters and what you feel shouldn’t matter because you are a subordinate and should follow orders. With that said I believe that there should be an ethical process involved when making certain decisions. I also believe that all subordinates should let their superiors know what they think of certain common situations so there is no need to question someone’s ethics when there isn’t time to do so.…

    • 1654 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    From what I found out nature versus nurture is one of the oldest debates in psychology and a really…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Your Inner Fish

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The beginning of the earth was approximately 4.5 billion years ago. From the very moment that this phenomenon occurred, the process of evolution on this planet began. Evolution is a very complex process involving change in traits over successive generations. Being discussed will be the processes of phylogeny, morphology, and development and the specific roles each play in evolution. The evolutionary process will serve as a road map to our origins as humans and more importantly how we became the complex organisms that we are today.…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The beginning of all civilizations started with the migration of humans out of Africa. The hunters and gatherers inhabited almost every region of the world less than 15,000 years ago. The groups traveled around as nomads for hundreds of years. During that time, they developed tools such as axes, knives, and needles. Fire was also utilized as a tool. Spoken language developed during…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A lot happened during the Paleolithic Age. Technological innovations, such as stone blades and tools made out of bones were created, along with the controlling of fire. Some people argue because there was no surplus and there was no specialization, life was more egalitarian back then. Men and women were thought to have a more equal relationship. Even then people were spiritual, marking their existence, and was trying to control natural forces with supernatural forces. Forces of nature beyond their control was feared. When people started migrating, people learned and invented ways to adapt to their environment. They started communicating through language, and in the Americas, it is evident from the discovery of Clovis point that people communicated in a large area. At the end of the Ice Age, the warmer and wetter climate made it easier to settle down, which lead to the Neolithic Revolution.…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Siddhartha Theme

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “Yes,” said the Ferry man, “ a very beautiful river, I love it more than anything. Often I have listened to it, often I have looked into its eyes and always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a river.”…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    * Human development - the scientific study of the changes that occur in people as they age from conception until death.…

    • 1604 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Another interesting theory that I have came up with is the “hunter and gatherer” theory. Way back in the…

    • 1335 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    SOC202 notes

    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Week 9 Representation I Representation and Framing Representation Meaning and language are connected to culture -Figuring out and understanding how meaning and language are connected Making claims -Aren’t always accurate or realistic The ‘what’ of texts…

    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Paleolithic Age- At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000 to 200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools have been found in association with the remains of what may have been the earliest human ancestors.…

    • 2340 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays