A Sociology Timeline from 1600

1620 Apr 24
John GRAUNT born London
1623 May 26
William PETTY born Hampshire
1632 Aug 29
John LOCKE born Wrington, Somerset
1632 Nov 24
Benedict (or Baruch) SPINOZA born Amsterdam
1642
Thomas HOBBES: De Cive, Aubrey's 'Life'
1651
Thomas HOBBES:Leviathan
1662
John GRAUNT: Observations on the Bills of Mortality
1668 Jun 23
Giambattista VICO born Naples
1670
SPINOZA: A Theologico-Political Treatise
1670
Bernard MANDEVILLE born Dordrecht, Holland
1671
SHAFTESBURY (Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl) born
1674 Apr 18
John GRAUNT died
1676
William PETTY: Political Arithmetick
1677 Feb 21
Baruch SPINOZA died
1677
SPINOZA: Ethics
1677
SPINOZA: On the Improvement of the Understanding
1679 Dec 4
Thomas HOBBES died
1682
William PETTY: (Another) Essay on Political Arithmetick
1683
William PETTY: Observations on the Dublin Bills of Mortality
1685 Mar 12
George BERKELEY born Dublin
1687 Dec 16
William PETTY died
1689 Jan 18
Charles de Secondat, Baron de MONTESQUIEU born Château La Brède, near Bordeaux
1690
John LOCKE: Essay Concerning Human Understanding
1690
John LOCKE: Second Treatise on Government
1694
Francis HUTCHESON born
1700
1600 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950
1704 Oct 28
John LOCKE died
1710
BERKELEY: Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
1711 Apr 26
David HUME born Edinburgh; 2nd site
1711
SHAFTESBURY: Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Etc.
1712
Jean Jacques ROUSSEAU born in Geneva, Switzerland
1713
SHAFTESBURY died
1714
MANDEVILLE: The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vises, Public Benefits
1721
MONTESQUIEU: Persian Letters
1723 Jun 5
Adam SMITH born Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland
1723 Jun 20
Adam FERGUSON born
1724
Immanuel KANT born Königsberg (Kaliningrad) , East Prussia
1726
John HOWARD born Enfield, England
1725
HUTCHESON: An Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue
1727 May 10
Anne-Robert-Jacques TURGOT born Paris
1728
HUTCHESON: Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections
1729 Jan 12
Edmund BURKE born Dublin
1733
Bernard MANDEVILLE died
1732
MANDEVILLE: An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour
1734
MONTESQUIEU: Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their decline
1735
BERKELEY: The Querist
1737 Jan 29
Thomas PAINE born Thetford, Norfolk, Eng.
1739
HUME: Treatise on Human Nature
1743 Sep 17
Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de CONDORCET born Ribemont, France
1744 Jan 23
Giambattista VICO died
1746
Francis HUTHESON died Glasgow
1747
HUTCHESON: Short Inroduction to Moral Philosophy
1748 Feb 15
Jeremy BENTHAM born Houndsditch, London
1748
HUME: Philosophical Essays
1748
HUME: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding text
1748
MONTESQUIEU: Spirit of Laws
1750
1600 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950
1750
ROUSSEAU: First Discourse
1751
HUME: Enquiry Concering the Principles of Morals
1751
ROUSSEAU: Discourses on the Sciences and the Arts
1753 Apr 1
Comte Joseph Marie de MAISTRE born
1754 Oct 2
Louis G. de BONALD born
1755 Feb 10
Charles de MONTESQUIEU died
1755
HUTCHESON: System of Moral Philosophy
1755
ROUSSEAU: A Discourse upon the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind (aka Second Discourse)
1756 Mar 3
William GODWIN born
1757
HUME: The Natural History of Religion
1759 Apr 27
Mary WOLLSTONECRAFT born London
1759
SMITH: Theory of Moral Sentiments, discussion of
1760 Oct 17
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de SAINT-SIMON born Paris
1762
ROUSSEU: Emile, a Treatise on Education
1762
ROUSSEAU: The Social Contract
1766 Feb 17
Thomas MALTHUS born
1766
TURGOT: Reflections on the Formation of Riches
1767
FERGUSON: An Essay on the History of Civil Society; a discussed
1770 Aug 27
Georg Frederick HEGEL born
1771 May 14
Robert OWEN born
1772 Apr 7
(François Marie) Charles FOURIER born
1775 Mar 8
PAINE: African Slavery in America
1776 Jan 10
PAINE: Common Sense
1776
BENTHAM: Fragment on Government
1776
SMITH: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
1777 Aug 25
David HUME died
1777
HOWARD: The State of Prisons (description)
1779
HUME: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
1779
John MILLAR: The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks
1781 Mar 20
Jacques TURGOT died
1781
KANT: Critique of Pure Reason
1782-89
ROUSSEAU: Confessions
1784
KANT: Idea for a Universal History...
1784-91
Johann Gottfried von HERDER: Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind
1785
KANT: Grundlegung
1786
WOLLSTONECRAFT: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (pamphlet)
1787
BENTHAM: Defense of Usury
1788 Feb 22
Arthur SCHOPENHAUER born
1788
KANT: Critique of Practical Reason
1789
BENTHAM: Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
1790 Jan 20
John HOWARD died, Kherson, Ukraine, Russia
1790 Mar 1
first United States census began
1790 Jul 17
Adam SMITH died
1790
United States conducts first regular census
1790
BURKE: Reflections on the Revolution in France
1790
WOLLSTONECRAFT: A Vindication Of The Rights Of Men (response to BURKE)
1792
FERGUSON: Pricniples of Moral and Political Science
1792
PAINE: The Rights of Man
1792
WOLLSTONECRAFT: Vindication of the Rights of Women
1793 Dec 15
Henry Charles CAREY born
1793
CONDORCET: Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind
1793
GODWIN: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
1794 Mar 29
Marie-Jean, Marquis de CONDORCET died
1795 Dec 4
Thomas CARLYLE born
1795
CONDORCET: History Essay on the Progress of Human Reason
1795
PAINE: The Age of Reason
1795
SMITH: Philosophical Essays
1795-1809
HEGEL: On Christianity: Early Theological writings
1796 Feb 22
Adolphe QUETELET born
1796
BONALD: Theory of Political and Religious Authority in Civil Society
1797 Mar 29
WOLLSTONECRAFT & GODWIN marry privately
1797 Sep 10
Mary WOLLSTONECRAFT died (Mary born Aug 30
1797 Jul 9
Edmund BURKE died
1797
MAISTRE: Considérations sur la France
1798 Jan 17
Auguste COMTE born (birth registered Jan 19)
1798 Jun 7
MALTHUS: Essay on the Principle of Population
1798
GODWIN: Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft
1798
WOLLSTONECRAFT: Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman
1800
1600 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950
1802 Jun 12
Harriet MARTINEAU born, Norwich, England
1804 Jul 28
Ludwig FEUERBACH born
1724
Immanuel KANT died Königsberg, East Prussia
1805 Jul 29
Alexis de TOCQUEVILLE born
1806 Apr 11
Fréderic LE PLAY born
1806
John Stuart MILL born
1806
Johann Gottlieb FICHTE: Characterstic of the Present Age
1807
HEGEL: The Phenomenology of Mind
1809 Feb 12
Charles Robert DARWIN born, Shrewsbury, England
1809 Jun 8
Thomas PAINE died
1812-1816
HEGEL: Science of Logic
1813
SAINT-SIMON: Essay on Science of Man
1813
OWEN: A New View of Society
1814
MAISTRE: Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions
1814
SAINT-SIMON: The Reorganization of European Society
1816 Feb 22
Adam FERGUSON died
1816 Jul 14
Arthur de GOBINEAU born
1817
HEGEL: Encyclopedia of Philosophy
1817
RICARDO: Principles of Political Economy
1818
(Mary WOLLSTONECRAFT) Shelley: Frankenstein
1818 May 5
Karl MARX born
1818 Nov 21
Lewis Henry MORGAN born
1818
SCHOPENHAUER: The World as Will and Idea
1818-31
HEGEL teaches in Berlin
1820 Apr 27
Herbert SPENCER born
1820 Nov 28
Friedrich ENGELS born, Barmen, Germany
1820
MALTHUS: Principles of Political Economy
1821 Feb 26
Comte Joseph Marie de MAISTRE died
1821 Nov 21
Henry T. BUCKLE born
1821
HEGEL: The Philosophy of Right
1821
James MILL: Principles of Political Economy
1822 Feb 16
Francis GALTON born
1822
COMTE: Plan of the Scientific Operations Necessary for Reorganizing Society
1823-33
Utilitarian Society flourishes in Britain
1825 May 19
Henri de SAINT-SIMON died
1825
SAINT-SIMON: New Christianity
1825-35
Saint-Simonians flourish in France
1826 Feb 3
Walter BAGEHOT born
1830-42
COMTE: The Positive Philosophy (6 vols), 1830, 1835, 1838, 1839, 1841, 1842
1831 Feb 24
Albert SCHÄFFLE born
1831 Nov 14
Georg Frederick HEGEL died
1831
DARWIN: sails on the H.M.S. Beagle
1832 Jun 6
Jeremy BENTHAM died
1832 Oct 2
Edward B. TYLOR born
1832-4
MARTINEAU: Illustrations of Political Economy
1833
MARTINEAU: Poor Laws and Paupers
1833-43
Young Hegelians flourish in Germany
1834 Dec 23
Thomas MALTHUS died
1834
MARTINEAU: Illustrations of Taxation
1834
MARTINEAU settled in London, consulted by cabinent ministers
1834 Sep-1836 Aug
MARTINEAU visits America, gives offense through abolitionist views
1835
CAREY: Essay on the Rate of Wages
1835
QUETELET: On Man and the Development of Human Faculties: An Essay on Social Physics
1835-40
TOCQUEVILLE: Democracy in America
1836 Apr 7
William GODWIN died
1837 Oct 10
(François Marie) Charles FOURIER died
1837
CARLYLE: French Revolution
1837
HEGEL: The Philosophy of History
1837
MARTINEAU: Society in America note
1837-1840
CAREY: Principles of Political Economy
1838 Mar 9
Ludwig GUMPLOWICZ born
1840 Nov 23
Louis G. de BONALD died
1840
PROUDHON: What is Property?
1841 Jun 18
Lester Frank WARD born
1841
CARLYLE: On Heroes
1841
FEUERBACH: The Essence of Christianity
1842 Jan 11
William JAMES born
1842 May 5
MARX writes first article for Rheinische Zeitung
1842
FEUERBACH: Preparatory Theses on the Reform of Philosophy
1842
SPENCER: "The Proper Sphere of Government," The Nonconformist
1842
Lorenz von STEIN: Socialism and Communism in France
1843 Mar 12
Gabriel TARDE born
1843
FEUERBACH: Principles of the Philosophy of the Future
1843
MARX: Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
1843
J.S. MILL: System of Logic
1844 Oct 15
Friedrich Wilheim NIETZSCHE born
1844
FEUERBACH: The Essence of Religion
1844
MARX: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel'S Philosophy of Law
1844
ENGELS: Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy
1844
ENGELS: Review of Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present
1844-5
MARX: The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
1845
MARTINEAU settles at Ambleside in English Lake District
1844
MARX: Theses on Feuerbach
1845-55
Positivist Society flourishes in France
1845-46
MARX: The German Ideology
1847
ENGELS: The Principles of Communism
1847
MARX: The Poverty of Philosophy
1848 Jul 15
Vilfredo PARETO born
1848
CAREY: The Past, the Present, and the Future
1848
MARTINEAU: Eastern Life, Present and Past (expounds philosophical atheism)
1848
MARX: Communist Manifesto
1848
J.S. MILL: Principles of Political Economy
1849 Sep 26
Ivan Petrovich PAVLOV born, Ryazan, Russia [Sep 14 Old style]
1849
MARTINEAU: History of England During the Thirty Years' Peace 1816-46
1849
MARX: Wage-Labor and Capital
1850
1600 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950
1850
ENGELS: The Peasants' War in Germany
1850
MARX and ENGELS: England's 17th c. Revolution
1850
MARX: The Class Struggle in France, 1848 to 1850
1850
SPENCER: Social Statics
1850
Lorenz von STEIN: The History of the Social Movement in France, 1789-1850
1851
CAREY: The Harmony of Interests
1851
MARTINEAU: Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development (agnostic views which aliented her friends)
1851-1854
COMTE: System of Positive Polity (4 vols)
1852
MARX: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
1852 Aug 23
Arnold TOYNBEE born (sociologist uncle of THE Arnold Toynbee)
1853
CAREY: The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why it Exists and How it May be Extinguished
1853
MARTINEAU translates and extensively edits Comte's Positive Philosophy
1853-5
GOBINEAU: Essay on the Inequality of Human Races
1854 May 11
Albion Woodbury SMALL born, Buckfield, Maine
1855 Mar 23
Franklin H. GIDDINGS born
1855
Achille GUILLARD coins "demographie"
1855 Jul 26
Ferdinand TOENNIES born near Oldenswort, Schleswig
1855
LE PLAY: The European Workers, (6 vols)
1856 May 6
Sigmund FREUD born
1856
TOCQUEVILLE: Old Regime
1857 Mar 23
Karl PEARSON born, London, England
1857 Jul 30
Thorstein VEBLEN born
1857 Sep 5
Auguste COMTE died
1857-61
BUCKLE: The History of Civilization in England
1857
MARX: Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations
1857-8
MARX: Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy
1858 Mar 1
Georg SIMMEL born
1858 Apr 1
Gaetano MOSCA born, Palermo, Sicily
1858 Apr 15
(David) Emile DURKHEIM born
1858 Jul 9
Franz BOAS born, Minden, Westphalia, Prussia [Germany]
1858 Nov 17
Robert OWEN died
1858-1860
CAREY: The Principles of Social Science
1859 Apr 16
Alexis de TOCQUEVILLE died
1859
DARWIN: The Origin of Species
1859
MARX: A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
1859
J.S. MILL: On Liberty
1860 Sep 6
Jane ADDAMS born, Cedarville IL
1860 Sep 21
Arthur SCHOPENHAUER died
1861
Henry Sumner MAINE: Ancient Law
1862 May 29
Henry T. BUCKLE died
1862
SPENCER: First Principles text version
1863 Jan 19
Werner SOMBART born, Ermsleben, Saxony, Prussia
1863 Aug 13
William Isaac THOMAS born
1863 Feb 27
George Herbert MEAD born
1864 Apr 21
Max WEBER born
1864 Aug 17
Charles Horton COOLEY born
1864 Feb 14
Robert Ezra PARK born
1864
Fustel de COULANGES: The Ancient City
1864
LE PLAY: Social Reform in France (3 vols)
1864
SPENCER: Reason for Dissenting from the Politivist Philosphy of M. Comte
1864-67
SPENCER: Principles of Biology (2 vols)
1865 Mar 19
Joseph WHEELER born, Milwaukee WI
1865
GOBINEAU: The Religions and Philosophies of Central Asia
1865
MARX:Value, Price, and Profit
1865
J.S. MILL: Auguste Comte and Positivism
1867-8
MARX: Capital (vol I)
1868 Feb 23
(William Edward Burghardt) W.E.B. du BOIS born, Great Barrington, Massachusetts
1869
GALTON: Hereditary Genius
1869
RENOUVIER: Science of Ethics
1870-72
SPENCER: Principles of Psychology (2 vols)
1871 Mar 5
"Blutige (Bloody)" Rosa LUXEMBURG born, Zamoshc, Poland
1871
DARWIN: The Descent of Man
1871
GALTON: A Statistical Enquiry into the Efficacy of Prayer
1871
MARX: The Civil War in France
1871
LE PLAY: Organization of the Family
1871
TYLOR: Primitive Culture
1872 Sep 13
Ludwig FEUERBACH died
1872
DARWIN: Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals
1872
BAGEHOT: Physics and Politics
1872
CAREY: The Unity of Law
1872
LE PLAY: Organization of Labor
1872
John Stuart MILL died
1873
SPENCER: Study of Sociology
1873-81
LILIENFELD: Ideas about the Social Sciences of the Future, (5 vols)
1874 Feb 17
Adolphe QUETELET died
1874
GALTON: English Men of Science
1875
GUMPLOWICZ: Race and State
1875
MARX: Critique of the Gotha Program
1875-78
SCHÄFFLE: Structure and Life of the Social Body (4 vols)
1876-8
ENGELS: The Part Played by Labour in the Transition From Ape to Man
1876 Jan 9
Robert MICHELS born, Cologne
1876 Jun 11
Alfred Louis KROEBER born, Hoboken NJ
1876 Jun 13
William Sealey GOSSET ("Student") born, Canterbury, England
1876 Jun 27
Harriet MARTINEAU died, near Ambleside, England
1876-96
SPENCER: Principles of Sociology (3 vols: 76, 82, 96)
1877 Mar 24
Walter BAGEHOT died
1877
ENGELS: Anti-Dühring
1877
MARTINEAU: Autobiographical Memoir
1877
MORGAN: Ancient Society
1879 Jun 3
Raymond PEARL born, Farmington NH
1879 Oct 13
Henry Charles CAREY died
1879-93
SPENCER: Principles of Ethics (2 vols)
1880 May 29
Oswald SPENGLER born
1880
ENGELS: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
1880
FOUILLEE: Contemporary Social Science
1881 Dec 17
Lewis Henry MORGAN died
1881 Feb 5
Thomas CARLYLE died
1881
LE PLAY: Essential Constitution of Humanity
1882 Apr 5
Fréderic LE PLAY died
1882 Apr 17
Robert M. MACIVER born
1882 Apr 19
Charles Robert DARWIN died, Down, Kent, England
1882 Oct 13
Arthur de GOBINEAU died
1883 Mar 14
Karl MARX died
1883
Francis GALTON: Inquiries into human faculty and its development
1883
GUMPLOWICZ: Race Struggle
1883
SUMNER: What the Social Classes Owe to Each Other
1883
WARD: Dynamic Sociology (2 vol)
1883 Mar 9
Arnold TOYNBEE died (sociologist uncle of THE Arnold Toynbee)
1884 Jan 26
Edward SAPIR born, Lauenburg, Pomerania, Germany
1884 Apr 7
Bronislaw Kasper MALINOWSKI born, Krakow, Poland
1884 May 23
Corrado GINI born, Motta de Livenza, Treviso, Italy
1884
ENGELS: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
1884
TOYNBEE: Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England
1884
SPENCER: The Man versus the State
1885 Jun 5
Warder Clyde ALLEE born, near Bloomingdale IN
1885
GUMPLOWICZ: Outline of Sociology
1885
MARX: Capital, Vol. II (post.)
1886 Jan 14
Alexander Morris Carr-Saunders born, Reigate, Surrey, England
1886 Jun 29
William Fielding OGBURN born
1886 May 16
Ernest Watson BURGESS born
1886
Achille LORIA: Economic Foundations of Society
1887 Jun 5
Ruth BENEDICT born, New York NY
1887
Karl KAUTSKY: The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx
1887
TOENNIES: Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft
1889 Jan 21
Pitirim SOROKIN born
1889 Apr 14
Arnold Joseph TOYNBEE born in London
1889
ADDAMS founds Hull House settlement in Chicago
1889
Franz BOAS: The Aims of Ethnology
1889
Francis GALTON: Natural inheritance.
1890 Feb 17
Ronald Aylmer FISHER born, London, England
1890
FOUILLEE: The Evolution of Idea-Forces
1890
William JAMES: Principles of Psychology
1890
MARSHALL: Principles of Economics
1890
TARDE: Laws of Imitation
1891
Georg SIMMEL: On Social Differentiation
1892
DURKHEIM: Montesquieu - Quid Secundatus Politicae Scientiae Instituendae Contulerit (latin thesis)
1892
SMALL: First Sociology Department (University of Chicago
1892
PEARSON: Grammar of Science

1892
George SIMMEL: Problems of the Philosophy of History
1893
DURKHEIM: On the Division of Labor in Society
1893
FOUILLEE: The Psychology of Idea-Forces
1893
Jacques NOVICOW: The Struggles between Human Societies and Their Necessary Phases
1893
RATZENHOFER: Nature and End of Politics
1893
WARD: Psychic Factors of Civilization
1894
Benjamin KIDD: Social Evolution
1894
MARX: Capital, Vol III (post.)
1894
SMALL: first textbook in Sociology
1894
SUMNER: The Absurd Effort to Make the the World Over
1894
TARDE: Social Logic
1895
DURKHEIM: Rules of Sociological Method
1895 Aug 5
Friedrich ENGELS died, London, England
1895 Oct 3
George A. LUNDBERG born, Fairdale, North Dakota
1896
W.E.B. du BOIS receives Ph.D., Harvard, dissertation: The Suppression of the African Slave Trade; becomes instructor of Sociology, the University of Pennsylvania
1896
W.E.B. du BOIS: The Philadelphia Negro [first sociological analysis of African Americans in the US]
1896
Gustav Le BON: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
1896
John DEWEY: The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology
1896
GIDDINGS: Principles of Sociology
1896
WEBER: The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations
1896
Rene WORMS: Organism and Society
1897 Apr 24
Benjamin Lee WHORF born, Winthrop MA
1897 Jun 2
Norbert ELIAS born, Breslau, Germany (Wroclaw, Poland)
1897 Aug 28
Louis WIRTH born, Gemunden, Germany
1897
DURKHEIM: Suicide
1897
PARETO: Course in Political Economy
1897
TARDE: Universal Opposition
1898 Jul 19
Herbert MARCUSE born, Berlin, Germany
1898
John DEWEY: Evolution and Ethics
1898-00
DURKHEIM: Professional Ethics and Civic Morals
1898
GIDDINGS: Elements of Sociology
1898
KAUTSKY: The Agrarian Problem
1898
RATZENHOFER: Sociological Studies
1898
TARDE: Social Laws
1898
WARD: Outline of Sociology
1899
Eduard BERNSTEIN: Evolutionary Socialism: a Criticism and Affirmations
1899
CHAMBERLAIN: The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
1899
COSTE: Principles of Objective Sociology
1899
DURKHEIM: Collective and Individual Representations
1899
VEBLEN: Theory of the Leisure Class
1900
1600 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950
1900 Mar 23
Erich FROMM born, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
1900 Aug 25
Friedrich Wilheim NIETZSCHE died
1900
COSTE: Expriences of the Peoples
1900
DURKHEIM: Two Laws of Penal Evolution
1900
Stuart C. DODD born
1900
FREUD: The Interpretation of Dreams
1900
Karl PEARSON: The grammar of science
1900
George SIMMEL: Philosophy of Money
1901 Feb 13
Paul Felix LAZARSFELD born, Vienna, Austria
1901 Nov 18
George Horace GALLUP born, Jefferson IA
1901 Nov 19
Karl PEARSON: National life from the standpoint of science
1901 Dec 16
Margaret MEAD born, Philadelphia PA
1902 Dec 13
Talcott PARSONS born
1902
COOLEY: Human Nature and Social Order
1902-03
DURKHEIM: Moral Education
1902
KAUTSKY: The Social Revolution
1902
LENIN: What is to be done?
1903 Dec 8
Herbert SPENCER died
1903 Dec 25
Albert SCHÄFFLE died
1903
WARD: Pure Sociology
1903
du BOIS: The Souls of Black Folk
1904 May 13
Gabriel TARDE died
1904
PARK: The Crowd and the Public
1904
SPENCER: An Autobiography (2 vols)
1904
VEBLEN: The Theory of Business Enterprise
1904
WEBER: Objectivity in Social Science & Social Policy
1904 Sep-Dec
WEBER visits United States (St. Louis Exposition)
1905
SMALL: General Sociology
1906
HOBHOUSE: Morals in Evolution
1906
SCHÄFFLE: Outline of Sociology
1906
SUMNER: Folkways
1906
WARD: Applied Sociology
1906
WEBER: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
1907
William JAMES: Pragmatism
1907
WEBER: Critique of Stammler
1908 Aug 20
Kingsley DAVIS born, Tuxedo TX
1908
RATZENHOFER: Sociology
1908
SIMMEL:Soziologie
1909 Aug 19
Ludwig GUMPLOWICZ died
1909
COOLEY: Social Organization
1909
THOMAS: Source Book of Social Origins
1910 Jul 5
Robert King MERTON born, Philadelphia PA
1910 Aug 26
William JAMES died
1910
WHEELER: Ants: Their Structure, Development, and Behavior
1911 Jan 17
Francis GALTON died
1911
DURKHEIM: Judgments of Reality and Judgments of Value
1912
DURKHEIM: Elementary Forms of Religious Life
1912
GINI: Demographic Factors in the Evolution of Nations
1913 Apr 18
Lester Frank WARD died
1913
MEAD: The Social Self
1914-30
Karl PEARSON: The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton
1915
Robert MICHELS: Political Parties
1915
PARETO: General Treatise on Sociology
1916 Aug 28
C. Wright MILLS born
1916
LENIN: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism
1916
WEBER: The Religion of China
1916-7
WEBER: The Religion of India
1917 Jan 2
Edward B. TYLOR died
1917 Nov 15
Emile DURKHEIM died
1917-9
WEBER: Ancient Judaism
1918 Sep 26
Georg SIMMEL died
1918
COOLEY: Social Process
1918-21
THOMAS & ZNANIECKI: The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (5 vols)
1919 Jan 15
"Blutige (Bloody)" Rosa LUXEMBURG died, Berlin, Germany
1919
SOROKIN: System of Sociology (2 vols)
1919
A.J. TOYNBEE: delegate to Paris Peace Conference
1919
John B. WATSON: Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist
1920 Jun 14
Max WEBER died
1921 Dec 2
Otis Dudley DUNCAN born, Nocona TX
1921
Martin BUBER: I and Thou
1921
BURGESS: The Science of Sociology (w/ Park)
1921
PARK: (w/ Burgess) An Introduction to the Science of Sociology
1921
SAPIR: Language: an Introduction to the Study of Speech
1921
WEBER: The City
1922 Mar 18
Seymour Martin LIPSET born, New York NY
1922
CARR-SAUNDERS: The Population Problem
1922
John DEWEY: Human Nature and Conduct
1922
Robert PARK: The immigrant press and its control
1822
RADCLIFFE-BROWN: The Andaman Islanders
1922
WEBER: Economy and Society (2 vols)
1923
Karl MANNHEIM: On the interpretation of Weltanschauung
1923
William F. OGBURN: Social change with respect to culture and original nature
1923 Aug 20
Vilfredo PARETO died
1923
LUKACS: History and Class Consciousness
1923
MEAD: "Scientific Method and the Moral Sciences"
1923
OGBURN: Social Change
1923
THOMAS: The Unadjusted Girl
1923
WHEELER: Social Life Among the Insects
1924
Max SCHELER (1874-28): Essays toward a Sociology of Knowledge
1924
MEAD: "The Genesis of the Self and Social Control"
1924
SMALL: Origins of Sociology
1925
BURGESS: The City (w/ Park)
1925
LOTKA: Elements of Physical Biology
1925
Karl MANNHEIM: The Problem of a Sociology of Knowledge
1926 Mar 24
Albion Woodbury SMALL died
1926 May 12
James Samuel COLEMAN born, Bedford IN
1926-8
SPENGLER: The Decline of the West (2 vols)
1927
John DEWEY: The Public and its Problems
1927
SOROKIN: Social Mobility
1928
William F. OGBURN: American marriage and family relationships [w/ Ernest Rutherford Groves]
1928
SOROKIN: Contemporary Sociological Theories
1928
THOMAS: The Child in America
1928
WIRTH: The Ghetto
1929 Aug 3
Thorstein VEBLEN died
1929 May 8
Charles Horton COOLEY died
1930
COOLEY: Sociological Theory and Social Research
1931 Apr 26
George Herbert MEAD died
1931 Jun 11
Franklin H. GIDDINGS died
1931
ALLEE: Animal Aggregations
1933
OGBURN: Recent Social Trends in the United States
1933
W.S. THOMPSON and P.K. WHELPTON: Population Trends in the United States
1934
BENEDICT: Patterns of Culture
1934
William F. OGBURN: You and machines
1935 May 21
Jane ADDAMS died, Chicago IL
1935
Houston Stuart CHAPIN: Contemporary American Institutions
1935-61
TOYNBEE: A Study of History (12 vols)
1936 Feb 27
Ivan Petrovich PAVLOV died, Leningrad [St. Petersburg]
1936
TOENNIES: Introduction to Sociology
1936 Apr 9
Ferdinand TOENNIES died, Kiel, Germany
1936 Apr 27
Karl PEARSON died, London, England
1936 May 3
Robert MICHELS died, Rome
1936 May 8
Oswald SPENGLER died
1936
OGBURN: The Social Effects of Aviation
1936
TOENNIES: Introduction to Sociology
1936
WIRTH: Ideology and Utopia (w/ Mannheim)
1937 Apr 19
Joseph WHEELER died, Cambridge MA
1937 Oct 16
William Sealey GOSSET (Student's t-test) died, Beaconsfield, England
1937
PARSONS: Structure of Social Action
1937-41
SOROKIN: Social and Cultural Dynamics (4 vols)
1938
ALLEE: The Social Life of Animals
1939 Feb 4
Edward SAPIR died, New Haven CT
1939 Sep 23
Sigmund FREUD died
1939 Dec 27
Ed STEPHAN born, Los Angeles CA
1939
LUNDBERG: Foundations of Sociology
1939
PEARL: The Natural History of Population
1939
ELIAS: The Civilizing Process
1940 Nov 17
Raymond PEARL died, Hershey PA
1940
OGBURN: Sociology (w/ Nimkoff)
1941 Mar 18
Werner SOMBART died, Berlin, Germany
1941 Jul 26
Benjamin Lee WHORF died, Wethersfield CT
1941 Nov 8
Gaetano MOSCA died, Rome, Italy
1942 May 16
Bronislaw Kasper MALINOWSKI died, New Haven CT
1942 Dec 22
Franz BOAS died, New York NY
1942
DODD: Dimensions of Society
1943
William F. OGBURN: American society in wartime
1943
SOROKIN: Sociocultural Causality, Time and Space
1944 Feb 7
Robert Ezra PARK died
1945
BURGESS: Predicting Success or Failure in Marriage (w/ L Cottrell, Jr.)
1945
BURGESS: The Family (w/ H. Locke)
1945
Gladys BRYSON: Man and Society: the Scottish Inquiry of the Eighteenth Century
1947 Dec 5
William Isaac THOMAS died
1947
LUNDBERG: Can Science Save Us?
1947
Nicholas RASHEVSKY: Mathematical Theory of Human Relations
1947
SOROKIN: Society, Culture and Personality
1948 Sep 17
Ruth BENEDICT died, New York NY
1948
Kinglsey DAVIS: Human Society
1948
MILLS: The new men of power, America's labor leaders
1949
George ZIPF: Human behavior and the principle of least effort; an introduction to human ecology
1949
OGBURN: Technology and International Relations
1949
PARSONS: Essays in Sociological Theory, Pure and Applied
1950
1600 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950
1950
Amos HAWLEY: Human ecology; a theory of community structure.
1950
James A. QUINN: Human Ecology
1950
George Casper HOMANS: The Human Group
1950
PARK: Race and Culture
1951
Rosa LUXEMBURG: The Accumulation of Capital
1951
MILLS: White Collar
1951
PARSONS: The Social System
1951
PARSONS: Toward a General Theory of Action
1951
THOMAS: Social Behavior and Personality
1952 May 3
Louis WIRTH died, Buffalo, NY
1952
Marion LEVY: The Structure of Society
1952
PARK: Human Communnities
1953
MILLS: Character and social structure: the psychology of social institutions [w/ Hans Gerth
1954
Lewis COSER: The Functions of Social Conflict
1954
Amos HAWLEY: Papers in demography and public administration
1954
MILLS: Mass Society and Liberal Education
1955 Mar 18
Warder Clyde ALLEE died, Gainesville FL
1955
PARK: Society
1955
PARSONS: Family, Socialization and Interaction Process
1956
MILLS: The Power Elite
1956
Ralf DAHRENDORF: Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society
1958
MILLS: The causes of World War Three
1959
DAVIS: "The myth of functional analysis" ASR
1959
MILLS: The Sociological Imagination
1959 Apr 27
William Fielding OGBURN died
1960 Oct 5
Alfred Louis KROEBER died, Paris, France
1960
MILLS: Images of Man; the classic tradition in sociological thinking
1960
MILLS: Listen Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba
1961
HOMANS: Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms
1962
MILLS: The Marxists
1962 Mar 20
C. Wright MILLS died
1962 Jul 29
Ronald Aylmer FISHER died, Adelaide, Australia
1962
V.C. WYNNE-EDWARDS: Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour
1963 Aug 27
W.E.B. du BOIS dies, Accra, Ghana
1963 Aug 28
W.E.B. du BOIS eulogized by Martin Luther King, Jr., as the March on Washington begins
1963
MILLS: Power, politics, and people; the collected essays of C. Wright Mills [Edited I.L. Horowitz]
1964
Peter M. BLAU: Exchange and Power in Social Life
1964
MACIVER: Social Causation
1964
MILLS: The new sociology; essays in social science and social theory, in honor of C. Wright Mills.
1964
MILLS: Sociology and pragmatism: the higher learning in America [Edited I.L. Horowitz]
1964
William F. OGBURN: On culture and social change; selected papers [Ed. Otis Dudley Duncan]
1965 Mar 13
Corrado GINI died, Rome
1965
Ralph THOMLINSON: Population Dynamics
1965
George ZIPF: The psycho-biology of language; an introduction to dynamic philology.
1966 Oct 6
Alexander Morris Carr-Saunders died, Thirmere, Cumberland, England
1966 Dec 27
Ernest Watson BURGESS died
1966 Apr 14
George A. LUNDBERG died, Seattle, WA
1967
COSER: Continuities in the Study of Social Conflict
1967
HOMANS: The Nature of Social Science
1967
Alfred SCHUTZ: The Phenomenology of the Social World
1968 Feb 10
Pitirim SOROKIN died
1968
Ralf DAHRENDORF: Essays in the Theory of Society
1968
Amos HAWLEY: Roderick D. McKenzie on human ecology; selected writings. [ed]
1968
Robert K. MERTON: Social Theory and Social Structure
1969
BOGUE: Principles of Demography
1969
Herbert BLUMER: Symbolic Interactionism: Perspectives and Methods
1970 Jun 15
Robert M. MACIVER died
1970
Amos HAWLEY: The metropolitan community; its people and government [W/ Basil G. Zimmer]
1970
Robin WILLIAMS: American Society: A Sociological Interpretation
1971
Henry S. SHRYOCK and Jacob S. SIEGEL: The Methods and Materials of Demography (2 vols)
1975 Oct 22
Arnold Joseph TOYNBEE died
1976 Aug 30
Paul Felix LAZARSFELD died, New York NY
1976 Nov 15
Margaret MEAD died, New York NY
1979 May 8
Talcott PARSONS died
1979 Jul 29
Herbert MARCUSE died, Starnberg, Germany
1980 Mar 18
Erich FROMM died, Muralto, Switzerland
1984 Jul 26
George Horace GALLUP died, Tschingel, Switzerland
1985
Roland PRESSAT: The Dictionary of Demography [French, 1979]
1986
Amos HAWLEY: Human ecology : a theoretical essay / Amos H. Hawley.
1990
Norbert ELIAS died, Amsterdam
1995 Mar 25
James Samuel COLEMAN died, Chicago IL
1995 Aug 18
STEPHAN:The Division of Territory in Society

History of Western Philosophy

Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

Speculation and Dispute: The Presocratics ][ Socrates
Plato: Soul and Forms ][ Society and Virtue ][ Education and Justice ][ Love
Aristotle: Logic and Physics ][ Reality and Knowledge ][ Ethics ][ Politics
Hellenistic Thought: Cosmos and Morality
Philosophy and Religion: Augustine ][ Scholasticism ][ Arab and Jewish Thought
Late Scholasticism: Bonaventure and Aquinas ][ Scotus and Ockham

..........................................................
Early Modern Philosophy

The Renaissance: Humanism and Science ][ Machiavelli ][ Hobbes
Descartes: Method ][ Doubt and Existence ][ Mind and Body ][ Cartesianism
Variations: Spinoza and Unity ][ Leibniz and Plurality
Locke: Origin of Ideas ][ Human Knowledge ][ Government
Extensions: Moralists and Bayle ][ Berkeley and Immaterialism
Hume: Mitigated Skepticism ][ Self and Morality ][ Religion

..............................................................
Recent Modern Philosophy

The Enlightenment: British ][ Continental
Kant: Synthetic A Priori ][ Experience and Reality ][ The Moral Law
Absolute Idealism: Fichte and Hegel ][ Later Idealists
Social Concerns: Bentham and Mill ][ Marx and Engels
Other Reactions: Kierkegaard ][ Nietzsche
Pragmatism: Peirce ][ James ][ Dewey, Mead, & Addams
Contemporary Philosophy
Beginnings: Logic and Mathematics ][ Phenomenology
Philosophical Analysis: Moore ][ Russell
Alternatives: Realism ][ Logical Positivism
Linguistic Analysis: Wittgenstein ][ Ryle and Austin ][ American Analysis
Existentialism: Heidegger ][ Sartre ][ de Beauvoir
Postmodernism: Critical Theory ][ Deconstruction
Feminism: Theory ][ Ethics ][ MacKinnon

........................

........................

........................

LNG
250207

........................

ps: the underlined clickable words will lead you to further explainations....

Social Research: A Short Introduction

Social research refers to research conducted by social scientists (primarily within sociology and social psychology), but also within other disciplines such as social policy, human geography, political science, social anthropology and education. Sociologists and other social scientists study diverse things: from census data on hundreds of thousands of human beings, through the in-depth analysis of the life of a single important person to monitoring what is happening on a street today - or what was happening a few hundred years ago.

Social scientists use many different methods in order to describe, explore and understand social life. Social methods can generally be subdivided into two broad categories. Quantitative methods are concerned with attempts to quantify social phenomena and collect and analyse numerical data, and focus on the links among a smaller number of attributes across many cases. Qualitative methods, on the other hand, emphasise personal experiences and interpretation over quantification, are more concerned with understanding the meaning of social phenomena and focus on links among a larger number of attributes across relatively few cases. While very different in many aspects, both qualitative and quantitative approaches involve a systematic interaction between theories and data.

Common tools of quantitative researchers include surveys, questionnaires, and secondary analysis of statistical data that has been gathered for other purposes (for example, censuses or the results of social attitudes surveys). Commonly used qualitative methods include focus groups, participant observation, and other techniques.

....................................................................................................................................................................

Ordinary Human Inquiry

Before the advent of sociology and application of the scientific method to social research, human inquiry was mostly based on personal experiences, and received wisdom in the form of tradition and authority. Such approaches often led to errors such as inaccurate observations, overgeneralisation, selective observations, subjectivity and lack of logic.
....................................................................................................................................................................

Foundations of Social Research

Social research (and social science in general) is based on logic and empirical observations. Charles C. Ragin writes in his Constructing Social Research book that "Social research involved the interaction between ideas and evidence. Ideas help social researchers make sense of evidence, and researchers use evidence to extend, revise and test ideas". Social research thus attempts to create or validate theories through data collection and data analysis, and its goal is exploration, description and explanation. It should never lead or be mistaken with philosophy or belief. Social research aims to find social patterns of regularity in social life and usually deals with social groups (aggregates of individuals), not individuals themselves (although science of psychology is an exception here). Research can also be divided into pure research and applied research. Pure research has no application on real life, whereas applied research attempts to influence the real world.

There are no laws in social science that parallel the laws in the natural science. A law in social science is a universal generalization about a class of facts. A fact is an observed phenomenon, and observation means it has been seen, heard or otherwise experienced by researcher. A theory is a systematic explanation for the observations that relate to a particular aspect of social life. Concepts are the basic building blocks of theory and are abstract elements representing classes of phenomena. Axioms or postulates are basic assertions assumed to be true. Propositions are conclusions drawn about the relationships among concepts, based on analysis of axioms. Hypotheses are specified expectations about empirical reality which are derived from propositions. Social research involves testing these hypotheses to see if they are true.

Social research involves creating a theory, operationalization (measurement of variables) and observation (actual collection of data to test hypothesized relationship).

Social theories are written in the language of variables, in other words, theories describe logical relationships between variables. Variables are logical sets of attributes, with people being the 'carriers' of those variables (for example, gender can be a variable with two attributes: male and female). Variables are also divided into independent variables (data) that influences the dependent variables (which scientists are trying to explain). For example, in a study of how different dosages of a drug are related to the severity of symptoms of a disease, a measure of the severity of the symptoms of the disease is a dependent variable and the administration of the drug in specified doses is the independent variable. Researchers will compare the different values of the dependent variable (severity of the symptoms) and attempt to draw conclusions.

....................................................................................................................................................................

Types of Explanations

Explanations in social theories can be idiographic or nomothetic. An idiographic approach to an explanation is one where the scientists seek to exhaust the idiosyncratic causes of a particular condition or event, i.e. by trying to provide all possible explanations of a particular case. Nomothetic explanations tend to be more general with scientists trying to identify a few causal factors that impact a wide class of conditions or events. For example, when dealing with the problem of how people choose a job, idiographic explanation would be to list all possible reasons why a given person (or group) chooses a given job, while nomothetic explanation would try to find factors that determine why job applicants in general choose a given job.

....................................................................................................................................................................

Types of Inquiry

Social research can be deductive or inductive. The inductive inquiry (also known as grounded research) is a model in which general principles (theories) are developed from specific observations. In deductive inquiry specific expectations of hypothesis are developed on the basis of general principles (i.e. social scientists start from an existing theory, and then search for proof). For example, in inductive research, if a scientist finds that some specific religious minorities tend to favour a specific political view, he may then extrapolate this to the hypothesis that all religious minorities tend to have the same political view. In deductive research, a scientist would start from a hypothesis that religious affiliation influenced political views and then begin observations to prove his theory.

....................................................................................................................................................................

Quantitative/Qualitative Debate

There is usually a trade off between the number of cases and the number of their variables that social research can study. Qualitative research usually involves few cases with many variables, while quantitative involves many phenomena with few variables.

There is some debate over whether "quantitative research" and "qualitative research" methods can be complementary: some researchers argue that combining the two approaches is beneficial and helps build a more complete picture of the social world, while other researchers believe that the epistemologies that underpin each of the approaches are so divergent that they cannot be reconciled within a research project.

While quantitative methods are based on a natural science, positivist model of testing theory, qualitative methods are based on interpretivism and are more focused around generating theories and accounts. Positivists treat the social world as something that is 'out there', external to the social scientist and waiting to be researched. Interpretivists, on the other hand believe that the social world is constructed by social agency and therefore any intervention by a researcher will affect social reality. Herein lies the supposed conflict between quantitative and qualitative approaches - quantitative approaches traditionally seek to minimise intervention in order to produce valid and reliable statistics, whereas qualitative approaches traditionally treat intervention as something that is necessary (often arguing that participation can lead to a better understanding of a social situation).

However, it is increasingly recognised that the significance of these differences should not be exaggerated and that quantitative and qualitative approaches can be complementary. They can be combined in a number of ways, for example:

Qualitative methods can be used in order to develop quantitative research tools. For example, focus groups could be used to explore an issue with a small number of people and the data gathered using this method could then be used to develop a quantitative survey questionnaire that could be administered to a far greater number of people allowing results to be generalised. Qualitative methods can be used to explore and facilitate the interpretation of relationships between variables. For example researchers may inductively hypothesize that there would be a positive relationship between positive attitudes of sales staff and the amount of sales of a store. However, quantitative, deductive, structured observation of 576 convenience stores could reveal that this was not the case, and in order to understand why the relationship between the variables was negative the researchers may undertake qualitative case studies of four stores including participant observation. This might abductively confirm that the relationship was negative, but that it was not the positive attitude of sales staff that led to low sales, but rather that high sales led to busy staff who were less likely to be express positive emotions at work!Quantitative methods are useful for describing social phenomena, especially on a larger scale. Qualitative methods allow social scientists to provide richer explanations (and descriptions) of social phenomena, frequently on a smaller scale. By using two or more approaches researchers may be able to 'triangulate' their findings and provide a more valid representation of the social world.

A combination of different methods are often used within "comparative research", which involves the study of social processes across nation-states, or across different types of society.
....................................................................................................................................................................

Paradigms

Social scientists usually follow one or more of the several specific sociological paradigms (points of view):

• conflict paradigm focuses on the ability of some groups to dominate others, or resistance to such domination.
• ethnomethodology paradigm examines how people make sense out of social life in the process of living it, as if each was a researcher engaged in enquiry.
• feminist paradigm focuses on how male dominance of society has shaped social life.
• Darwinism paradigm sees a progressive evolution in social life.
• positivism paradigm was an early 19th century approach, now considered obsolete in its pure form. Positivists believed we can scientifically discover all the rules governing social life.
• structural functionalism paradigm also known as a social systems paradigm addresses what functions various elements of the social system perform in regard to the entire system.
• symbolic interactionism paradigm examines how shared meanings and social patterns are developed in the course of social interactions.

Of these, the conflict paradigm of Karl Marx, symbolic interactionism of Max Weber and structural functionalism of Emile Durkheim are the most well known.

....................................................................................................................................................................

The Ethics of Social Research

Two main assumptions of the ethics in social research are:

• voluntary participation
• no harm to subjects

(Source: Wikipedia)

LNG

250207

History of Sociology: Longer Explaionation

Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline among other social sciences including economics, political science, anthropology, and psychology. The ideas behind it, however, have a long history and can trace their origins to a mixture of common human knowledge, works of art and philosophy.

Precursors and foundations

Sociological reasoning can be traced back to Ancient Greece (cf. Xenophanes' remark. "If horses would adore gods, these gods would resemble horses."). Ibn Khaldoun, a 14th century historian, in his Muqaddimah, the introduction to a seven volume analysis of universal history, arguably advanced social philosophy in formulating theories of "social cohesion" and "social conflict." (See Early Muslim sociology.)

Sociology as a scientific discipline emerged in the early 19th century as an academic response to the challenge of modernity: as the world is becoming smaller and more integrated, people's experience of the world is increasingly atomized and dispersed. Sociologists hoped not only to understand what held social groups together, but also to develop an "antidote" to social disintegration and exploitation.

The term was coined by Auguste Comte in 1838 from Latin socius (companion, associate) and Greek logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind--including history, psychology and economics. His own sociological scheme was typical of the 19th century; he believed all human life had passed through the same distinct historical stages and that, if one could grasp this progress, one could prescribe the remedies for social ills.

"Classical" theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, and Max Weber. Like Comte, these figures did not consider themselves only "sociologists". Their works addressed religion, education, economics, law, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and theology, and their theories have been applied in a variety of academic disciplines. Their influence on sociology was foundational.

Early works

The first books with the term 'sociology' in the title were A Treatise on Sociology, Theoretical and Practical by the North-American lawer Henry Hughes and Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society by the North-American lawyer George Fitzhugh. Both books were published in 1854, in the context of the debate over slavery in the antebellum US. The Study of Sociology by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer appeared in 1874. Lester Frank Ward, described by some as the father of American sociology, published Dynamic Sociology in 1883.

Institutionalizing Sociology

The discipline was taught by its own name for the first time at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 by Frank Blackmar, under the course title Elements of Sociology (the oldest continuing sociology course in America). The Department of History and Sociology at the University of Kansas was established in 1891, and the first full fledged independent university department of sociology was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion W. Small, who in 1895 founded the American Journal of Sociology.

The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895 at the University of Bordeaux by Émile Durkheim, founder of L'Année Sociologique (1896). In 1919 a sociology department was established in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber and in 1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki. The first sociology departments in the United Kingdom were founded after the Second World War.

International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when Rene Worms founded the small Institut International de Sociologie, eclipsed by much larger International Sociological Association from 1949. In 1905 the American Sociological Association, the world's largest association of professional sociologists, was founded, and Lester F. Ward was selected to serve as the first President of the new society.

Positivism and anti-positivism

Early theorists' approach to sociology, led by Comte, was to treat it in much the same manner as natural science, applying the same methods and methodology used in the natural sciences to study social phenomena. The emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method sought to provide an incontestable foundation for any sociological claims or findings, and to distinguish sociology from less empirical fields such as philosophy. This methodological approach, called positivism, became a source of contention between sociologists and other scientists, and eventually a point of divergence within the field itself.

While most sciences evolved from deterministic, Newtonian models to probabilistic models which accept and even incorporate uncertainty, sociology began to cleave into those who believed in a deterministic approach (attributing variation to structure, interactions, or other forces) and those who rejected the very possibility of explanation and prediction. One push away from positivism was philosophical and political, such as in the dialectical materialism based on Marx's theories.

A second push away from scientific positivism was cultural, even sociological. As early as the 19th century, positivist and naturalist approaches to studying social life were questioned by scientists like Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert, who argued that the natural world differs from the social world because of unique aspects of human society such as meanings, symbols, rules, norms, and values. These elements of society inform human cultures. This view was further developed by Max Weber, who introduced antipositivism (humanistic sociology). According to this view, which is closely related to antinaturalism, sociological research must concentrate on humans' cultural values (see also: French pragmatism. This has led to some controversy on how one can draw the line between subjective and objective research and has also influenced hermeneutical studies. Similar disputes, especially in the era of the Internet, have led to variations in sociology such as public sociology, which emphasizes the usefulness of sociological expertise to abstracted audiences.

Twentieth century developments

During the interwar period sociology continued to expand in United States, but made much less progress in Europe, where it was attacked both by increasingly totalitarian governments and rejected by conservative universities. Meanwhile, in United States, the focus of sociology changed from macrosociology interested in evolution of societies towards microsociology, eventually resulting in the development of the structural-functional theory by Talcott Parsons in the 1930s.

Since World War II sociology has been revived in Europe, although during the Stalin and Mao eras it was suppressed in the communist countries. In the second half of the 20th century, sociology has been increasingly employed as a tool by governments and businesses. Sociologists made efforts to integrate macro- and microsociology and developed new types of quantitative research and qualitative research methods.

In the late 20th century, some sociologists embraced postmodern and poststructural philosophy. Others began to debate the nature of globalization. These developments have led to the reconceptualization of basic sociological categories and theories. For instance, inspired by the thought of Michel Foucault, power may be studied as dispersed throughout society in a wide variety disciplinary cultural practices. In political sociology, the power of the nation state may be seen as transforming due to the globalization of trade (and cultural exchanges) and the expanding influence of international organizations (Nash 2000:1-4).

Throughout the development of sociology, controversies have raged about how to emphasize or integrate concerns with subjectivity, objectivity, intersubjectivity and practicality in theory and research. One outcome of such disputes has been the formation of multidimensional theories of society, such as critical theory. Another outcome has been the formation of public sociology, which emphasizes the usefulness of sociological analysis to various social groups.

(Source: Wikipedia)

LNG
250207

HIstory of Sociology

Max Weber was a strong influence in the history of sociology. Ibn Khaldun is regarded as the founder of modern sociology. As a scientific discipline, sociology emerged in the early 19th century as the academic response to the modernization of the world. Among many early sociologists (e.g., Émile Durkheim), the aim of sociology was in structuralism, understanding the cohesion of social groups, and developing an "antidote" to social disintegration. Max Weber was concerned with the modernization of society through the concept of rationalization, which he believed would trap individuals in an "iron cage" of rational thought. Some sociologists, including Georg Simmel and W. E. B. Du Bois, utilized more microsociological, qualitative analyses. This microlevel approach played an important role in American sociology, with the theories of George Herbert Mead and his student Herbert Blumer resulting in the creation of the symbolic interactionism approach to sociology.

American sociology in the 1940s and 1950s was dominated largely by Talcott Parsons, who argued that aspects of society that promoted structural integration were therefore "functional". This structural functionalism approach was questioned in the 1960s, when sociologists came to see this approach as merely a justification for inequalities present in the status quo. In reaction, conflict theory was developed, which was based in part on the philosophies of Karl Marx. Conflict theorists saw society as an arena in which different groups compete for control over resources. Symbolic interactionism also came to be regarded as central to sociological thinking. Erving Goffman saw social interactions as a stage performance, with individuals preparing "backstage" and attempting to control their audience through impression management. While these theories are currently prominent in sociological thought, other approaches exist, including feminist theory, post-structuralism, rational choice theory, and postmodernism.

(Source: Wikipedia)

LNG
250207

The Later Years of Sociological Theory (2)

Early American Sociology

Much of early American sociology was defined by the influence of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903); various strands of Social Darwinism; and political liberalism — with the latter paradoxically contributing to the discipline's conservativism. William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) and Lester F. Ward (1841-1913) exemplify these tendencies in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American sociological theory, but their work has certainly not passed the test of time. Other early American sociologists, especially from the Chicago School, did have an enduring impact on sociological theory. W.I. Thomas (1863-1947), Robert Park (1864-1944), Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929), and George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) profoundly shaped the theoretical landscape of symbolic interactionism, and their ideas predominated until the institutionalization of sociology at Harvard University in the 1930s. While for many years sociologists have emphasized these three theoretical orientations, scholars of sociology have recently pointed to the significance of early women sociologists such as Jane Addams (1860-1935), Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), and Beatrice Potter Webb (1858-1943), as well as the race theory of W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963).

Sociology at Harvard, Marxian Theory, and the Rise and Decline of Structural Functionalism

Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968) was a central figure in the founding of sociology at Harvard University during the 1930s. Sorokin was soon overshadowed, however, by Talcott Parsons (1902-1979). Parsons is a key figure in the history of sociological theory in the United States because he introduced European thought to large numbers of American sociologists and developed a theory of action and, eventually, structural functionalism. Parsons helped to legitimize grand theory in the United States, and produced many graduate students who carried his ideas to other departments of sociology in the U.S. The rise of structural functionalism to a dominant position in the 1940s and 1950s led to the decline of the Chicago School.

While structural functionalism was gaining ground in the United States, the Frankfurt school of critical theory was emerging in Europe. With the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists in Germany, many of the critical theorists fled to the United States, where they came into contact with American sociology. Thinkers such as Max Horkheimer (1895-1973), Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), and Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) propounded a kind of Marxian theory that was heavily influenced by the work of G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), Max Weber (1864-1920), and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Much of the critical theorists' work, however, was neglected until the 1960s.

During the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, many criticisms and challenges to structural functionalism emerged. Radical sociologists such as C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) and conflict theorists attacked structural functionalism for its grand theory, purported political conservatism, inability to study social change, and lack of emphasis on social conflict. Other theorists, such as Erving Goffman (1922-1982) and George Homans (1910- ), developed dramaturgical analysis and exchange theory, respectively. The sociological phenomenology of Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) prompted a great deal of interest in the sociology of everyday life, which is exemplified by Harold Garfinkel's (1917- ) ethnomethodology.

The Rise and Fall of Marxian Theory

During the 1970s and 1980s, a number of scholars revived Marxist perspectives in studies of historical sociology and economic sociology, while others began to question the viability of Marxian theory given the atrocities committed in the name of Marxism and the collapse of the Soviet Union and other Marxist regimes. Ritzer and Goodman suggest that neo-Marxian theory will see something of a renaissance as a consequence of the inequalities of globalization and the excesses of capitalism.

Late Twentieth-Century Social Theory

In the last thirty years or so, a number of theoretical perspectives have emerged. First, and perhaps most significant, is the rise of feminist theory. Second, structuralism, post-structuralism, and post-modernism gained considerable ground — most notably in the work of Michel Foucault (1926-1984). Third, in the United States, many sociological theorists have developed an interest in the micro-macro link. Fourth, the debate over the relationship between agency and structure — which developed mainly in Europe — has made its way into sociological theory in the U.S. Finally, in the 1990s a number of sociological thinkers have taken an interest in theoretical syntheses.

Early Twenty-First-Century Theory

While the future of sociological theory is unpredictable, a number of perspectives have come to the forefront in recent years. Multicultural social theory, for example, has exploded in the past 20 years. Post-modernism continues to be influential, though some post-post-modernists are making headway. Finally, theories of consumption are shifting the focus of sociology away from its productivist bias and toward consumers, consumer goods, and processes of consumption.

---

LNG

230207

The Later Years of Sociological Theory

I. Early American Sociological Theory

A. Politics
B. Social Change and Intellectual Currents
C. The Chicago School
1. Biographical Sketch: Thorstein Veblen
2. Biographical Sketch: Robert Park

II. Women in Early Sociology

III. W.E.B. Du Bois and Race Theory

A. Biographical Sketch: W.
E.B. Du Bois

IV. Sociological Theory to Mid-Century

A. The Rise of Harvard, the Ivy League, and Structural Functionalism
B. The Chicago School in Decline
C. Developments in Marxian Theory
D. Karl Mannheim and the Sociology of Knowledge

V. Sociological Theory from Mid-Century

A. Structural Functionalism: Peak and Decline
B. Radical Sociology in America: C. Wright Mills
1. Biographical Sketch: C. Wright Mills
C. The Development of Conflict Theory
D. The Birth of Exchange Theory
E. Dramaturgical Analysis: The Work of Erving Goffman
F. The Development of Sociologies of Everyday Life
G. The Rise and Fall (?) of Marxian Sociology
H. The Challenge of Feminist Theory
I. Structuralism and Poststructuralism

VI. Recent Developments in Sociological Theory

A. Micro-Macro Integration
B. Agency-Structure Integration
C. Theoretical Syntheses

VII. Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity

A. The Defenders of Modernity
B. The Proponents of Postmodernity

VIII. Theories to Watch in the Early Twenty-First Century

A. Multicultural Social Theory
B. Postmodern and Post-Postmodern Social Theories
C. Theories of Consumption
D. Others


---
LNG
230207

The Early Years of Sociological Theory

A. Daya-Daya Sosial yang Mendorong Perkembangan Teori Sosiologi

Revolusi Politik
Revolusi Industri dan Lahirnya Kapitalisme
Lahirnya Sosialisme
Feminisme
Urbanisasi
Perubahan Religius
Perkembangan Sains

B. Daya-Daya Intelektual dan Lahirnya Teori Sosiologi

Zaman Pencerahan dan Reaksi Konservatif yang Menyertai
Perkembangan Sosiologi di Perancis
Perkembangan Sosiologi di Jerman
Asal-usul Sosiologi di Inggris Raya
Tokoh-Tokoh Sosiologi Italia
Perkembangan Turn-of-the Century dalam Marxisme Eropa

C. Relevansi Kontemporer Teori-Teori Sosiologi Klasik

Keep reading below:

Classical sociological theories are theories of great scope and ambition that either were created in Europe between the early 1800s and the early 1900s or have their roots in the culture of that period. The work of such classical sociological theorists as Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Vilfredo Pareto was important in its time and played a central role in the subsequent development of sociology. Additionally, the ideas of these theorists continue to be relevant to sociological theory today, because contemporary sociologists read them. They have become classics because they have a wide range of application and deal with centrally important social issues.

This chapter supplies the context within which the works of the theorists presented in detail in later chapters can be understood. It also offers a sense of the historical forces that gave shape to sociological theory and their later impact. While it is difficult to say with precision when sociological theory began, we begin to find thinkers who can clearly be identified as sociologists by the early 1800s.

--

A. Social Forces in the Development of Sociological Theory

The social conditions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were of the utmost significance to the development of sociology.

The chaos and social disorder that resulted from the series of political revolutions ushered in by the French Revolution in 1789 disturbed many early social theorists. While they recognized that a return to the old order was impossible, they sought to find new sources of order in societies that had been traumatized by dramatic political changes.

The Industrial Revolution was a set of developments that transformed Western societies from largely agricultural to overwhelmingly industrial systems. Peasants left agricultural work for industrial occupations in factories. Within this new system, a few profited greatly while the majority worked long hours for low wages. A reaction against the industrial system and capitalism led to the labor movement and other radical movements dedicated to overthrowing the capitalist system. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, large numbers of people moved to urban settings. The expansion of cities produced a long list of urban problems that attracted the attention of early sociologists.

Socialism emerged as an alternative vision of a worker's paradise in which wealth was equitably distributed. Karl Marx was highly critical of capitalist society in his writings and engaged in political activities to help engineer its fall. Other early theorists recognized the problems of capitalist society but sought change through reform because they feared socialism more than they feared capitalism.

Feminists were especially active during the French and American Revolutions, during the abolitionist movements and political rights mobilizations of the mid-nineteenth century, and especially during the Progressive Era in the United States. But feminist concerns filtered into early sociology only on the margins. In spite of their marginal status, early women sociologists like Harriet Martineau and Marianne Weber wrote a significant body of theory that is being rediscovered today.

All of these changes had a profound effect on religiosity. Many sociologists came from religious backgrounds and sought to understand the place of religion and morality in modern society.
Throughout this period, the technological products of science were permeating every sector of life, and science was acquiring enormous prestige. An ongoing debate developed between sociologists who sought to model their discipline after the hard sciences and those who thought the distinctive characteristics of social life made a scientific sociology problematic and unwise.

--

B. Intellectual Forces and the Rise of Sociological Theory

The Enlightenment was a period of intellectual development and change in philosophical thought beginning in the eighteenth century. Enlightenment thinkers sought to combine reason with empirical research on the model of Newtonian science. They tried to produce highly systematic bodies of thought that made rational sense and that could be derived from real-world observation. Convinced that the world could be comprehended and controlled using reason and research, they believed traditional social values and institutions to be irrational and inhibitive of human development. Their ideas conflicted with traditional religious bodies like the Catholic Church, the political regimes of Europe's absolutist monarchies, and the social system of feudalism. They placed their faith instead in the power of the individual's capacity to reason. Early sociology also maintained a faith in empiricism and rational inquiry.

A conservative reaction to the Enlightenment, characterized by a strong anti-modern sentiment, also influenced early theorists. The conservative reaction led thinkers to emphasize that society had an existence of its own, in contrast to the individualism of the Enlightenment. Additionally, they had a cautious approach to social change and a tendency to see modern developments like industrialization, urbanization, and bureaucratization as having disorganizing effects.

--

The Development of French Sociology

Claude Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was a positivist who believed that the study of social phenomena should employ the same scientific techniques as the natural sciences. But he also saw the need for socialist reforms, especially centralized planning of the economic system.

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) coined the term "sociology." Like Saint-Simon, he believed the study of social phenomena should employ scientific techniques. But Comte was disturbed by the chaos of French society and was critical of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Comte developed an evolutionary theory of social change in his law of the three stages. He argued that social disorder was caused by ideas left over from the idea systems of earlier stages. Only when a scientific footing for the governing of society was established would the social upheavals of his time cease. Comte also stressed the systematic character of society and accorded great importance to the role of consensus. These beliefs made Comte a forerunner of positivism and reformism in classical sociological theory.

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) legitimized sociology in France and became a dominant force in the development of the discipline worldwide. Although he was politically liberal, he took a more conservative position intellectually, arguing that the social disorders produced by striking social changes could be reduced through social reform. Durkheim argued that sociology was the study of structures that are external to, and coercive over, the individual; for example, legal codes and shared moral beliefs, which he called social facts. In Suicide he made his case for the importance of sociology by demonstrating that social facts could cause individual behavior. He argued that societies were held together by a strongly held collective morality called the collective conscience. Because of the complexity of modern societies, the collective conscience had become weaker, resulting in a variety of social pathologies. In his later work, Dukheim turned to the religion of primitive societies to demonstrate the importance of the collective consciousness.

--

The Development of German Sociology

German sociology is rooted in the philosopher G.F.W. Hegel's (1770-1831) idea of the dialectic. Like Comte in France, Hegel offered an evolutionary theory of society. The dialectic is a view that the world is made up not of static structures but of processes, relationships, conflicts, and contradictions. He emphasized the importance of changes in consciousness for producing dialectical change. Dialectical thinking is a dynamic way of thinking about the world.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) followed Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) in criticizing Hegel for favoring abstract ideas over real people. Marx adopted a materialist orientation that focused on real material entities like wealth and the state. He argued that the problems of modern society could be traced to real material sources like the structures of capitalism. Yet he maintained Hegel's emphasis on the dialectic, forging a position called dialectical materialism that held that material processes, relationships, conflicts, and contradictions are responsible for social problems and social change.

Marx's materialism led him to posit a labor theory of value, in which he argued that the capitalist's profits were based on the exploitation of the laborer. Under the influence of British political economists, Marx grew to deplore the exploitation of workers and the horrors of the capitalist system. Unlike the political economists, his view was that such problems were the products of an endemic conflict that could be addressed only through radical change. While Marx did not consider himself to be a sociologist, his influence has been strong in Europe. Until recently, American sociologists dismissed Marx as an ideologist.

The theories of Max Weber (1864-1920) can be seen as the fruit of a long debate with the ghost of Marx. While Weber was not familiar with Marx's writings, he viewed the Marxists of his day as economic determinists who offered single-cause theories of social life. Rather than seeing ideas as simple reflections of economic factors, Weber saw them as autonomous forces capable of profoundly affecting the economic world. Weber can also be understood as trying to round out Marx's theoretical perspective; rather than denying the effect of material structures, he was simply pointing out the importance of ideas as well.

Whereas Marx offered a theory of capitalism, Weber's work was fundamentally a theory of the process of rationalization. Rationalization is the process whereby universally applied rules, regulations, and laws come to dominate more and more sectors of society on the model of a bureaucracy. Weber argued that in the Western world rational-legal systems of authority squeezed out traditional authority systems, rooted in beliefs, and charismatic authority, systems based on the extraordinary qualities of a leader. His historical studies of religion are dedicated to showing why rational-legal forms took hold in the West but not elsewhere. Weber's reformist views and academic style were better received than Marx's radicalism in sociology. Sociologists also appreciated Weber's well-rounded approach to the social world.

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) was Weber's contemporary and co-founder of the German Sociological Society. While Marx and Weber were pre-occupied with large-scale issues, Simmel was best known for his work on smaller-scale issues, especially individual action and interaction. He became famous for his thinking on forms of interaction (i.e., conflict) and types of interacts (i.e., the stranger). Simmel saw that understanding interaction among people was one of the major tasks of sociology. His short essays on interesting topics made his work accessible to American sociologists. His most famous long work, The Philosophy of Money, was concerned with the emergence of a money economy in the modern world. This work observed that large-scale social structures like the money economy can become separate from individuals and come to dominate them.

--

The Origins of British Sociology

British sociology was shaped in the nineteenth century by three conflicting sources: political economy, ameliorism, and social evolution.

British sociologists saw the market economy as a positive force, a source of order, harmony, and integration in society. The task of the sociologist was not to criticize society but to gather data on the laws by which it operated. The goal was to provide the government with the facts it needed to understand the way the system worked and direct its workings wisely. By the mid-nineteenth century this belief manifested itself in the tendency to aggregate individually reported statistical data to form a collective portrait of British society. Statistical data soon pointed British sociologists toward some of the failings of a market economy, notably poverty, but left them without adequate theories of society to explain them.

Ameloirism is the desire to solve social problems by reforming individuals. Because the British sociologists could not trace the source of problems such as poverty to the society as a whole, then the source had to lie within individuals themselves.

A number of British thinkers were attracted to the evolutionary theories of Auguste Comte. Most prominent among these was Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who believed that society was growing progressively better and therefore should be left alone. He adopted the view that social institutions adapted progressively and positively to their social environments. He also accepted the Darwinian view that natural selection occurred in the social world. Among Spencer's more outrageous ideas was the argument that unfit societies should be permitted to die off, allowing for the adaptive upgrading of the world as a whole. Clearly, such ideas did not sit well with the reformism of the ameliorists.

--

Other Developments

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) thought that human instincts were such a strong force that Marx's hope to achieve dramatic social changes with an economic revolution was impossible. Pareto offered an elite theory of social change that held that a small elite inevitably dominates society on the basis of enlightened self-interest. Change occurs when one group of elites begins to degenerate and is replaced by another. Pareto's lasting contribution to sociology has been a vision of society as a system in equilibrium, a whole consisting of balanced independent parts.

After his death, Marx's disciples became more rigid in their belief that he had uncovered the economic laws that ruled the capitalist world. Seeing the demise of capitalism as inevitable, political action seemed unnecessary. By the 1920's, however, Hegelian Marxists refused to reduce Marxism to a scientific theory that ignored individual thought and action. Seeking to integrate Hegel's interest in consciousness with the materialist interest in economic structures, the Hegelian Marxists emphasized the importance of individual action in bringing about a social revolution and reemphasized the relationship between thought and action.

--

The Contemporary Relevance of Classical Sociological Theory

Classical sociological theories are important not only historically, but also because they are living documents with contemporary relevance to both modern theorists and today's social world. The work of classical thinkers continues to inspire modern sociologists in a variety of ways. Many contemporary thinkers seek to reinterpret the classics to apply them to the contemporary scene.

---

LNG

230207