An important aspect of the study of sociology, like any other science, is the study of the history of its formation and development. Although sociology as a science took shape in the 19th century, even before that thinkers had been interested in the problem of society for many centuries.

There is no doubt that the views of these scientists need to be considered, since a single theoretical direction in sociology has not yet emerged, and their study can provide significant assistance in this process. Moreover, it would be simply stupid to discard the rich theoretical material created at the pre-scientific level of sociology.

During antiquity the first complete picture of society was given within the framework of social philosophy Plato (“Laws”, “On the State”) and Aristotle ("Politicians"). It was Plato who first developed the doctrine of social stratification in his works. He identifies three classes that should exist in an ideal society: rulers-philosophers; warriors and producers: traders, artisans and peasants.

Aristotle also proposed his theory of social stratification. According to it, society is divided into: the rich layer (plutocracy), the middle class and the propertyless class. Moreover, the philosopher notes that for the normal functioning of society, the majority must be the middle class. It is not difficult to see that in modern times this theoretical position has not lost its relevance.

The close attention to the problems of social stratification of ancient scientists was not accidental. The transition from a primitive communal system to an early class society was accompanied by a deepening of the processes of social differentiation of the population and an intensification of the struggle between different strata of society, which reached its apogee in Ancient Rome. As for the nature of knowledge itself, in antiquity it had primarily a mythological, idealistic and utopian meaning. The main goal of ancient socio-philosophical concepts was the desire to improve society, rid it of internal conflicts and prepare it to fight external dangers.

IN middle Ages social studies were heavily influenced by Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church, and were therefore exclusively theological in nature. The core of the worldview was the medieval Christian religion. In this regard, there was a reorientation of philosophical interest from the values ​​of earthly life to the problems of the absolute, supernatural world order.

Social antagonism is translated into the plane of struggle between two worlds: divine and earthly, spiritual and material, good and evil. Another important movement in medieval thought was Arab social thought. It also developed under the influence of the world religion – Islam. The second source of the formation of Arab social thought was the concepts of Plato and Aristotle.

The central themes were problems of state and government. Significant theoretical developments have appeared on the issue of the evolution of society and, above all, the state. A feature of Arab political thought was the study of various social communities. Thus, one of the most prominent thinkers of the Arab Middle Ages Ibn Khaldun closely studied the behavior of large social groups, compiling the “anatomy of human society.”

The largest and most significant events of the late Western Middle Ages were Renaissance and Reformation. In their socio-historical essence, they were anti-feudal, early bourgeois phenomena. This period was characterized by such social trends as the breakdown of feudal and the emergence of early capitalist relations, the strengthening of the positions of the bourgeois strata of society, and the secularization of public consciousness.

Of course, all this was reflected in the views of thinkers of that time. The concepts of self-worth, dignity and autonomy of each individual were developed. However, not all thinkers adhered to this concept. So, N. Macchiavelli , and after T. Hobbes noted the antisocial and antisocial nature of people, the asocial essence of man. However, in general, the era of the Renaissance and Reformation can be called the era of humanism. The main achievement of this period was the appeal to man, his motivation, his place in the social system.

IN new time The development of sociology is characterized by a change in previous irrational-scholastic views on man and society, which leave leading positions and are replaced by emerging concepts of a rational nature, focused on the principles of scientific (positive) knowledge.

During this period of development of social thought, ideas about the morals of people, public morality and traditions, the character of nations and peoples, social objects ( Voltaire, Diderot, Kant and etc.). At the same time, terms arose that determined the formation of the categorical and conceptual apparatus of future sociological science: society, culture, classes, structure, etc.

A distinctive feature of this period of social thought was the diversity of the spectrum of theories and concepts. One of these rational social theories was the general sociological theory developed by K. Marx And F. Engels .

The founders of this concept believed that the process of social development of society is based on materialistic and social-revolutionary principles.

Another direction of rational theories was positivism. The founders of this approach placed the spiritual aspects of social life in the first place.

An important trend that determined the development of social thought was the transition from the disciplines of the physical and mathematical cycle to biology, which had a significant impact on social philosophy (evolutionary theory, organicism, etc.).

So, sociology as an independent science arose in the late 30s - early 40s. XIX century In the 19th century European society is finally and irrevocably embarking on the path of capitalist development. It was a time of extreme instability in public life.

At this period it was characterized by social upheavals and a crisis of social relations. This was evidenced by the following phenomena: the uprising of the Lyon weavers in France, the Silesian weavers in Germany, the Chartist movement in England, the French Revolution of 1848. These trends acutely raised the question of the need to create a generalizing theory capable of predicting where humanity is moving, what guidelines can be relied upon , find your place and your role in this process. It was under the influence of social upheavals that one of the classical paradigms of sociology—Marxism—was formed.

The founders of this movement believed that such a generalizing theory should be the concept of scientific socialism, the core of which is the theory of socialist revolution.

In parallel, theories of a reformist path to resolving social conflict and developing society are emerging. Another important theoretical source for the formation of sociological theories was natural scientific discoveries (the discovery of the cell, the creation of the theory of evolution).

However, in addition to theoretical prerequisites, the formation of sociology was determined by the creation of a certain methodological base that made it possible to study social processes. The methodology and methods of concrete sociological research were developed mainly by natural scientists. Already in the XVII–XVIII centuries. John Graunt And Edmund Halley developed methods for quantitative research of social processes. In particular, D. Graunt applied them in 1662 to the analysis of mortality rates.

And the work of a famous physicist and mathematician Laplace “Philosophical Essays on Probability” is based on a quantitative description of population dynamics.

In the 19th century, in addition to social upheavals and revolutions, there were other social processes that required study using sociological methodology. Capitalism was actively developing, which led to a rapid increase in the urban population due to the outflow of the rural population. This trend has led to the emergence of such a social phenomenon as urbanization. This, in turn, led to sharp social differentiation, an increase in the number of poor people, an increase in crime, and an increase in social instability. Along with this, a new layer of society was formed at a tremendous pace - the middle class, which was represented by the bourgeoisie, advocating stability and order. The institution of public opinion is strengthening and the number of social movements advocating social reforms is growing.

Thus, on the one hand, the “social diseases of society” clearly emerged, on the other, the forces that were interested in their “treatment” objectively matured and could act as customers of sociological research that could offer a “cure” for these “diseases.” .

The work of one of the largest statisticians of the 19th century was of great importance for the development of the methodology and methodology of empirical sociological research. Adolphe Quetelet “On Man and the Development of Abilities, or Experience in Social Life” (1835). Some researchers believe that it is from this work that we can begin counting the existence of sociology or, as A. Quetelet put it, “social physics.”

This work helped social science move from the speculative derivation of empirically untested laws of history to the empirical derivation of statistically calculated patterns using complex mathematical procedures.

Finally, before becoming an independent science, sociology had to go through a process of institutionalization. This process includes the following stages:

1) formation of self-awareness of scientists specializing in this field of knowledge. Scientists realize that they have their own specific object and their own specific methods of research;

2) creation of specialized periodicals;

3) introduction of these scientific disciplines into the curricula of various types of educational institutions: lyceums, gymnasiums, colleges, universities, etc.;

4) creation of specialized educational institutions in these fields of knowledge;

5) creation of an organizational form of association of scientists in these disciplines: national and international associations.

Sociology has gone through all these stages of the process of institutionalization in various countries of Europe and the USA, starting from the 40s. XIX century.

Considered the founder of sociology Auguste Comte (1798–1857) - a French thinker who proposed a project to create a positive science, the essence of which is to study the laws of observable phenomena based on reliable facts and connections.

For Comte, sociology is a science that studies the process of improving the human mind and psyche under the influence of social life. He believed that the main method, the tool with which scientists will study society, is observation, comparison (including historical comparison) and experiment. Comte's main thesis is the need for strict verification of those provisions that sociology has considered.

He considered genuine knowledge to be that which was obtained not theoretically, but through social experiment.

Comte justified the need for a new science on the basis of what he put forward Law on the three stages of human intellectual development: theological, metaphysical and positive.

First, theological, or fictitious, the stage covers antiquity and the early Middle Ages (before 1300). It is characterized by the dominance of a religious worldview. On the second, metaphysical stage(from 1300 to 1800) man abandons the appeal to the supernatural and tries to explain everything with the help of abstract entities, causes and other philosophical abstractions.

And finally, on the third, positive stage a person abandons philosophical abstractions and moves on to observing and recording constant objective connections, which are the laws governing the phenomena of reality. Thus, the thinker contrasted sociology as a positive science with theological and metaphysical speculation about society. On the one hand, he criticized theologians who viewed man as different from animals and considered him the creation of God. On the other hand, he reproached metaphysical philosophers for understanding society as a creation of the human mind.

The transition between these stages in various sciences occurs independently and is characterized by the emergence of new fundamental theories.

So, the first social law put forward by Comte within the framework of the new science was the law on the three stages of human intellectual development. The second was law on division and cooperation of labor.

According to this law, social feelings unite only people of the same profession. As a result, corporations and intra-corporate morality arise, which can destroy the foundations of society - the sense of solidarity and harmony. This is another argument for the need for the emergence of such a science as sociology.

Sociology must perform the function of substantiating a rational, correct state and social order.

It is the study of social laws that will allow the state to pursue the correct policy, which should implement the principles that determine the structure of society, ensuring harmony and order. Within the framework of this concept, Comte considers the main social institutions in sociology: family, state, religion - from the point of view of their social functions, their role in social integration.

Comte divides the theory of sociology into two independent sections: social statics and social dynamics, in which it is easy to see the scientist’s obvious sympathy for physics. Social statics studies social connections, phenomena of social structure. This section highlights the "structure of the collective being" and examines the conditions of existence common to all human societies.

Social dynamics should consider the theory of social progress, the decisive factor of which, in his opinion, is the spiritual, mental development of humanity. A holistic picture of society, according to Comte, is provided by the unity of the statics and dynamics of society.

This is due to his representation of society as a single, organic whole, all parts of which are interconnected and can only be understood in unity.

Within the framework of these same views, Comte contrasted his concepts with the concepts of individualistic theories, which viewed society as a product of a contract between individuals.

Based on the natural nature of social phenomena, Comte opposed the overestimation of the role of great people and pointed to the correspondence of the political regime to the level of development of civilization.

The significance of Comte's sociological concept is determined by the fact that, on the basis of a synthesis of the achievements of social science of that period, he first substantiated the need for a scientific approach to the study of society and the possibility of knowing the laws of its development; defined sociology as a special science based on observation; substantiated the natural nature of the development of history, the general contours of the social structure and a number of the most important institutions of society.

At the beginning of the 20th century. Significant changes were taking place in social life, which could not but affect the development of sociological knowledge.

Capitalism entered its developed stage, which was characterized by revolutions, world wars, and unrest in society. All this required the development of new concepts of social development.

One of the most prominent representatives of sociology who influenced the creation of classical sociology was E. Durkheim(1858–1917). The French sociologist largely relied on the positivist concept of O. Comte, but went much further and put forward the principles of a new methodology:

1) naturalism– establishing the laws of society is similar to establishing the laws of nature;

2) sociologism– social reality does not depend on individuals, it is autonomous.

Durkheim also argued that sociology should study objective social reality, in particular that sociology should study social facts. Social fact- this is an element of social life that does not depend on the individual and has “coercive force” in relation to him (way of thinking, laws, customs, language, beliefs, monetary system). Thus, three principles of social facts can be distinguished:

1) Social facts are fundamental, observable, impersonal phenomena of social life;

2) the study of social facts must be independent of “all innate ideas,” that is, the subjective predisposition of individuals;

3) the source of social facts is in society itself, and not in the thinking and behavior of individuals.

He also proposed the use of functional analysis, which made it possible to establish a correspondence between a social phenomenon, a social institution and a specific need of society as a whole. Here another term put forward by the French sociologist finds its expression - social function.

Social function- this is the establishment of a connection between an institution and the need of society as a whole determined by it. A function represents the contribution of a social institution to the stable functioning of society.

Another element of Durkheim's social theory, which unites it with Comte's concept, is the doctrine of consent and solidarity as the fundamental principles of social order. Durkheim, following his predecessor, puts forward consensus as the basis of society. He identifies two types of solidarity, the first of which historically replaces the second:

1) mechanical solidarity inherent in undeveloped, archaic societies in which the actions and actions of people are homogeneous;

2) organic solidarity, based on the division of labor, professional specialization, and economic interconnection of individuals.

An important condition for the solidarity of people is the correspondence of the professional functions they perform to their abilities and inclinations.

At the same time, another prominent theorist of sociological thought lived with Durkheim - M. Weber (1864–1920) . However, his views on society differed significantly from the French thinker.

While the latter gave undivided priority to society, Weber believed that only the individual has motives, goals, interests and consciousness; the term “collective consciousness” is more of a metaphor than a precise concept. Society consists of a collection of acting individuals, each of whom strives to achieve their own, rather than social, goals, since achieving a specific goal is always faster and requires less costs. To achieve individual goals, people unite in groups.

For Weber, the tool of sociological knowledge is the ideal type. Ideal type is a mental logical construction created by the researcher.

They provide the basis for understanding human actions and historical events. Society is precisely such an ideal type. It is intended to denote in one term a huge collection of social institutions and connections. Another method of research for Weber is the search for the motives of human behavior.

It was he who first introduced this method into the category of sociological ones and clearly developed the mechanism for its application. Thus, to understand the motivation of a person's action, the researcher needs to put himself in the shoes of that person. Knowledge of the entire chain of events and how most people act in certain cases allows the researcher to determine exactly what motives guided a person when he performed a specific social action.

Only in conjunction with it can social statistics become the core of the methodological base of sociology. It was the method of studying the motives of human activity that formed the basis of the theory of social action.

Within the framework of this theory, Weber identified four types: goal-rational, value-rational, traditional, affective.

An important element of Weber's social teaching is also the theory of values. Values- this is any statement that is associated with a moral, political or any other assessment.

Weber calls the process of value formation the attribution to values.

Attribution to values is a procedure for both selecting and organizing empirical material.

Weber also paid considerable attention to the study of issues of the sociology of power. In his opinion, organized behavior of people, the creation and functioning of any social institutions is impossible without effective social control and management. He considered the ideal mechanism for implementing power relations to be bureaucracy - a specially created management apparatus.

Weber developed theories of ideal bureaucracy, which, according to the thinker, should have the following characteristics:

1) division of labor and specialization;

2) a clearly defined hierarchy of power;

3) high formalization;

4) extrapersonal character;

5) career planning;

6) separation of the organizational and personal lives of members of the organization;

7) discipline.

The founder of Marxism put forward a completely different approach to understanding society than Comte Karl Marx (1818–1883) . He, together with F. Engels (1820–1895) proposed a materialist theory of explanation of society and public life.

At the same time, they also proceeded in the creation of their sociological theory from positivist attitudes, focused on considering social phenomena by analogy with natural ones.

The materialist Marxist theory of society was based on a number of fundamental principles:

1) principle definitions of social existence of social consciousness, which is the main feature of the materialism of Marxist sociology;

2) principle patterns of social development, the recognition of which indicates the presence in society of certain connections and relationships between processes and phenomena;

3) principle determinism, recognition of cause-and-effect relationships between various social phenomena - changes in social life under the influence of a change in the means of production;

4) principle defining all social phenomena by economic phenomena;

5) principle priority of material social relations over ideological ones;

6) principle progressive progressive social development, which is realized through the doctrine of the change of socio-economic formations (in the natural sciences these are certain structures connected by the unity of conditions of education, similarity of composition, interdependence of elements), the basis of which is the method of production, i.e. a certain level of development of the productive forces and the corresponding level industrial relations;

7) principle natural-historical nature of the development of society, which reflects two opposing trends: the regularity of the process of development of society, on the one hand, and its dependence on the activities of people, on the other;

8) principle embodiment of social qualities in the human personality, determined by the totality of social relations;

9) principle coordination of empirical data and theoretical conclusions “with the historical interest of the era", i.e. the impossibility of abstracting scientific data from the subjective attitudes of the researcher. The creators of Marxist sociology themselves have repeatedly admitted that by its nature it was very fundamentally politically and ideologically aimed at expressing the interests of the working class.

Another important element of Marxism was the doctrine of social revolution. According to Marx, the transition from one formation to another is possible only through revolution, since it is impossible to eliminate the shortcomings of a socio-economic formation by transforming it.

The main reason for the transition from one formation to another is the antagonisms that arise.

Antagonism- This is an irreconcilable contradiction between the main classes of any society. At the same time, the authors of the materialist concept pointed out that it is these contradictions that are the source of social development. An important element of the theory of social revolution are the conditions under which its implementation becomes possible: it does not take place until the necessary social, primarily material, prerequisites have matured in society.

The doctrine of social revolution in Marxist sociology was not only theoretical, but also practical. Thus, it was closely connected with revolutionary practice.

Marxist sociology actually outgrows the framework of science in the generally accepted sense; it becomes a whole, independent ideological and practical movement of the masses, a form of social consciousness in a number of countries that adhered and adhere to a socialist orientation.

According to the Marxist vision of social progress, capitalism appears to be the final stage of development of an exploitative society, the basis of which is private property.

The completion of this stage and the transition to a new one is carried out in Marxist theory as a result of the proletarian revolution, which should lead to the elimination of the class division of society as a result of the nationalization of all property. As a result of the social revolution, a new type of society arises in which there is only one class - the proletariat. Development in such a society is based on the free development of each member.

The undoubted merit of Marxist sociology is the development within its framework of a number of basic categories of science: “property”, “class”, “state”, “social consciousness”, “personality”, etc. In addition, Marx and Engels developed significant empirical and theoretical material in the study of contemporary society, applying system analysis to its study.

Subsequently, Marxist sociology was more or less consistently and successfully developed by numerous students and followers of Marx and Engels: in Germany - F. Mehring, K. Kautsky and others, in Russia – G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Lenin etc., in Italy – A. Labriola, A. Gramsci etc. The theoretical and methodological significance of Marxist sociology remains to this day.

The first representative of the “formal” school of sociology is considered G. Simmel (1858–1918) . The name of this school was given precisely from the works of this German researcher, who proposed studying “pure form”, which captures the most stable, universal features in social phenomena, and not empirically diverse, transient ones. The definition of the concept of “pure form,” which is closely related to the concept of “content,” is possible through the disclosure of the tasks that, according to Simmel, it should perform.

There are three of them:

1) correlates several contents with each other in such a way that these contents form a unity;

2) taking form, these contents are separated from other contents;

3) the form structures the contents, which it mutually correlates with each other.

Thus, it is easy to see that Simmel’s “pure form” is closely related to Weber’s ideal type - both are tools for understanding society and a method of sociology.

Another connection between the theories of Simmel and Weber is that they prioritize the human factor, but they use different methods for this.

Thus, Simmel’s use of the concept of “pure form” allows the sociologist to exclude irrational factors from the process of studying human actions: feelings, emotions and desires.

If we exclude these psychological acts from the subject area of ​​sociology, it becomes possible to study exclusively the sphere of values ​​- the area of ​​the ideal (or ideosocial, as Simmel himself defined it). Moreover, the sociologist should study not the content of the ideal, but isolated values. This allows us to obtain “building material” for creating the geometry of the social world.

Simmel's formal geometric method made it possible to identify society in general, institutions in general and build a system in which sociological variables are freed from moralistic value judgments.

Based on this, it can be stated that pure form- These are relationships between individuals, considered separately from psychological aspects.

Social type- this is a set of essential qualities of a person that become characteristic of him due to his inclusion in a certain kind of relationship.

Another German sociologist also proposed his typology of sociality F. Tennis (1855–1936).

According to this typology, two types of human connections can be distinguished: community(community), where direct personal and family relationships dominate, and society where formal institutions predominate.

According to the sociologist, each social organization combines the qualities of both community and society, therefore these categories become the criteria for classifying social forms.

Tennis identified three such social forms:

1) social relations– social forms that are determined by the possibility of the emergence on their basis of mutual rights and obligations of participants and are objective in nature;

2) social groups– social forms that arise on the basis of social relations and are characterized by the conscious association of individuals to achieve a specific goal;

3) corporations– a social form with a clear internal organization.

Another major component of the sociological concept of Tennis was the doctrine of social norms. The sociologist also classified them into three categories:

1) norms of social order– norms based on general agreement or convention;

2) legal norms– norms determined by the normative force of facts;

3) moral standards- norms established by religion or public opinion.

Another representative of formal sociology V. Pareto (1848–1923) viewed society as a system constantly in a state of gradual disruption and restoration of equilibrium. The second fundamental element of the researcher’s sociological concept was the emotional sphere of man, considered by the author as the basis of the social system.

Based on this, Pareto developed the theory of residues, which the researcher divides into two classes. First class is remnants of the “instinct of combinations”. The remnants of this class underlie all social changes and correspond to the psychological tendency of man to combine various things. The second class includes remnants of the “permanence of aggregates", expressing the tendency to maintain and preserve connections once formed.

It is the opposition of these types of remnants that causes the struggle between tendencies to preserve and change social life.

Another important element of Pareto's teaching was the classification of social action. The sociologist distinguished two types of social action depending on the motivating factors:

1) logical social action carried out on the basis of reason and regulated norms;

2) illogical social action characterized by people's ignorance of the connections between phenomena that make them true objects.

Pareto's focus also included the processes of persuasion. Investigating this phenomenon, the Italian sociologist identified the following types:

1) “simple assurances”: “it is necessary because it is necessary”, “it is so because it is so”;

2) arguments and reasoning based on authority;

3) appeal to feelings, interests;

4) “verbal evidence”.

Another phenomenon of social life studied by Pareto was elite. The thinker himself defined it as a selected part of the population that takes part in the management of society. Pareto pointed out that the elite is not permanent and a process of its replacement is taking place in society - the cycle of elites.

The circulation of elites is a process of interaction between members of a heterogeneous society, as a result of which a change in the composition of a selected part of the population occurs through the entry into it of members from the lower system of society who meet two basic requirements for the elite: the ability to persuade and the ability to use force where necessary. The mechanism through which the ruling elite is renewed in peacetime is social mobility.

So, at the first stage of the formation of sociology (XIX - early XX centuries), the center of the development of science was three countries: France, Germany and England. However, already in the 20s. XX century the center of sociological research is shifting to the United States. Considerable assistance from the state and support from most universities played a huge role in this process. This was the main difference from European sociology, which mainly developed on an initiative basis. In the USA, sociology initially developed as a university science.

The world's first doctoral-granting sociology department was founded in 1892 at the University of Chicago. Another feature of American sociology was its empirical nature.

If in Europe sociologists tried to create universal theories reflecting all aspects of social life, and used general philosophical methods of cognition for this, then in the USA, already in 1910, more than 3 thousand empirical studies were conducted in the country.

The main subject of these studies was to study the process of socialization of people, most of whom were migrants from Europe, to new social conditions. The most famous of these studies was the work F. Znaniecki "The Polish peasant in Europe and America." It was in this work that the basic methodological principles of concrete sociological research were developed, which remain relevant to this day.

Another subject of empirical sociological research in the United States has been problems of labor and management. The main researcher in this area was Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) . This scientist was the first to conduct a comprehensive study of enterprises and created the world's first system of scientific organization of labor.

Based on his research, Taylor concluded that various production and organizational innovations in themselves are unprofitable, since they rely on the so-called “human factor.”

In Taylor's works the term " restrictionism" Restrictionism is a conscious restriction of production by workers, which is based on the mechanism of group pressure. Based on all the data obtained, Taylor has developed many practical recommendations for optimizing the production process, which are extremely popular.

Another researcher who significantly enriched the theoretical and empirical material of the sociology of labor and management was E. Mayo .

Under his leadership, in conditions of a severe economic crisis in the USA and Western Europe, the Hawthorne experiments were carried out. As a result of these studies, it was found that the main influence on labor productivity is exerted by the psychological and socio-psychological conditions of the labor process. Based on the Hawthorne experiments, sociologists developed doctrine of "human relations". Within the framework of this doctrine, the following principles were formulated:

1) a person is a social being, oriented towards others and included in the context of group interaction;

2) rigid hierarchy and bureaucratic organization are unnatural to human nature;

3) to increase labor productivity, it is necessary, first of all, to focus on meeting people’s needs;

4) individual rewards must be supported by favorable moral incentives.

The most famous sociological school was the Chicago School, which arose on the basis of the first department of sociology in the United States, organized since the creation of the new university in Chicago. The founder and first dean of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago was Albion Small (1854–1926) . Another “father” of American sociology was William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) .

These researchers were the first to establish liberalism as the main doctrine of the sociological school. Small and Sumner paid considerable attention to the study of customs, traditions and morals of peoples. Sumner's ideas about the mechanisms of formation of customs, their role in the development of society and strengthening connections between generations have still retained their significance; development of the concepts “we are a group” and “they are a group”, “ethnocentrism” as the basis of intergroup interaction.

The leaders of the second generation of the Chicago School were A park And Burgess . The main topic of research by these scientists was the problems of urbanization, family, and social disorganization. The park introduced a new term “social distance” into scientific circulation.

Social distance is an indicator of the degree of closeness or alienation of individuals or social groups. Another achievement of these studies was the development of the concept of marginality.

Another difference between American sociology and European sociology is its connection with social psychology. Instead of philosophical substance, Americans emphasized behavior and action. They were not interested in what is hidden inside the mind and what cannot be accurately measured. They were attracted to what manifests itself outwardly in so-called open behavior. This is how it appeared behaviorism(from the English behavior - behavior), which in the first half subjugated all social sciences (economics, psychology, sociology, political science).

The positive thing about the methodology of behaviorism is the desire for rigor and accuracy of sociological research. However, the absolutization of the behavioral aspect, external forms of research and quantitative methods of analysis leads to a simplified view of social life.

At the border of sociology and social psychology, the concept of needs was created Abraham Maslow . The scientist divided all human needs into basic ones (food, reproduction, safety, clothing, housing, etc.) and derivatives(in justice, prosperity, order and unity of social life).

Maslow created a hierarchy of needs from the lowest physiological to the highest spiritual. The needs of each new level become relevant, that is, urgent, requiring satisfaction only after the previous ones are satisfied. Hunger drives a person until he is satisfied. Once it is satisfied, other needs come into play as motives for behavior.

Sociological thought in Russia was initially part of global sociology. This was due to the fact that sociology penetrated into Russia in the 40s. XIX century from the West and soon acquired a specific character based on the characteristics of the historical development of society. The development of sociological thought in Russia in the period from the 40s to the 60s. XIX century can be described as pre-sociological stage.

At this stage, the programmatic field of Russian sociology was formed.

The further development of sociology in Russia can be divided into several stages: the first stage – 60-90s. 19th century, second – beginning of the 20th century. – 1918, third – 20-30s. XX century, fourth - from the 50s. XX century to the present day.

1st stage (1860–1900). This period of development of sociological thought is associated with the concepts of such thinkers as populists, representatives of the subjective school, naturalistic direction, psychological direction (Kovalevsky, Plekhanov). The development of sociology during this period of time was largely determined by social changes: the complication of the social structure of Russian society, the rapid growth of urban classes, differentiation in the peasant environment, and the growth of the working class. At this stage, the positivist theory of O. Comte, whose ideas in Russia were well known and developed, became the basis of sociological thought. In 1846, Serno-Solonevich, reflecting on the composition of the social sciences, posed the question: does the current state of knowledge require the emergence of a new science that will explore the laws of social development as natural science explores nature? As a result, in the mid-60s. XIX century In Russian literature, the term “sociology” appears, which was considered as the highest science, based on the synthesis of scientific knowledge and exploring universal social laws.

Initially, the accumulation of sociological information was facilitated by zemstvo statistics: surveys of peasants, studies of their lives.

At this stage, various directions and schools of sociological thought were formed, which were largely based on the achievements of Western sociology, but had an important influence on the specifics of Russian concepts. Among them are the following:

1) geographical (L. I. Mechnikov) – the progress of society is determined primarily by natural resources, in particular water resources. Thus, according to this theory, in the history of the development of societies, the most important role was played by those rivers that were the halo of their habitat;

2) organicism (A. I. Stronin) – society is a complex organism that functions on the basis of natural laws;

3) psychologism (P. L. Lavrov, N. K. Mikhailovsky) – the starting point of sociality is psychophysical relations, and the personality is placed at the center of study;

4) Marxism (G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Lenin) .

2nd stage (1900–1920). At this stage of its development, Russian sociology is going through a process of institutionalization. The following events were manifestations of this process: the opening in 1912 of a social section at the history department of St. Petersburg University; the formation in 1916 of the Russian sociological society named after M. M. Kovalevsky; the introduction of a degree in sociology in 1917; creation of the Department of Sociology at Petrograd and Yaroslavl Universities; in 1920, the first faculty of social sciences in Russia with a sociological department was opened at Petrograd University. Several years before the revolutionary events of 1917, scientists and enthusiastic teachers, under various pretexts, managed to include sociology as a subject of study in the programs of some secondary educational institutions, various schools, and courses.

In the last decade before the revolution, lectures on sociology were given at the Higher Women's Courses, in the biological laboratory of P. F. Lesgaft. The theoretical concepts of this period were characterized by the spread of neopositivism, combining functionalism and empirical research. Prominent representatives of this period of sociological thought were G. P. Zeleny, A. S. Zvonitskaya, K. M. Takhtarev, A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky and etc.

At the same time, a unique Christian sociology is taking shape in line with religious philosophy (N. A. Berdyaev, S. N. Bulgakov) , which does not accept neopositivism and behaviorism. Along with the development of theoretical questions, empirical sociological research was carried out. A central place in them is occupied by research on social and socio-psychological problems of labor and life of workers and peasants.

3rd stage (1920-1930s). At the third stage, the development of theoretical sociology continues. In the 1920s, extensive sociological literature was published: P. A. Sorokin (“Fundamentals of Sociology” in 2 volumes, 1922), V. M. Khvostov (“Fundamentals of sociology. The doctrine of the laws of the social process”, 1928), N. A. Bukharin (“The Theory of Historical Materialism, a popular textbook of Marxist sociology”, 1922), M. S. Salynsky (“The Social Life of People. Introduction to Marxist Sociology”, 1923), etc.

The main focus of these works was to identify the relationship between the history of Russian sociological thought and the sociology of Marxism, in an effort to formulate the original sociology of Marxism and determine its place in the system of Marxism. After a short period of academic freedom during the years of the NEP, a reaction was established, and a number of prominent sociologists and philosophers (P. Sorokin, N. Berdyaev) were forced to leave Russia forever.

The term “sociology” begins to acquire a negative connotation and is used mainly in connection with criticism of “bourgeois” sociology. Many journals and departments are closed, a considerable number of sociologists, economists and philosophers are subjected to repression and exile to camps. The expulsion of a large group of scientists from Russia in 1922 immediately affected the decline in the level of domestic sociology.

It was during this period that the scientific activity of one of the most prominent representatives of world sociological thought began Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin (1889–1968) .

This thinker, born in Russia, made a huge contribution to the development of sociology, which can only be compared with the contribution of Weber.

Sorokin developed the theory of stratification and social mobility. P. Sorokin views the world as a social universe, that is, a certain space filled not with stars and planets, but with social connections and relationships of people. They form a multidimensional coordinate system, which determines the social position of any person.

4th stage (since 1950s). During this period, a revival of interest in sociology began. Sociologists of the 50-60s, or, as they were later called, sociologists of the first generation, solved the difficult task of not only reviving, but also practically re-creating this science.

Largely thanks to the work B. A. Grushin, T. I. Zaslavskaya, A. G. Zdravomyslov, Yu. A. Levada, G. V. Osipova, V. A. Yadov and others, the scope of sociological research has expanded significantly in the country.

In the middle of 1960, the first sociological institution was created - the department of sociological research at the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the laboratory of sociological research at Leningrad State University.

Thus, it is not difficult to see that at this stage sociology acquires a mainly applied empirical character.

The subject of sociological research was the social structure of society, the time budget of workers, social problems of labor, education, and family.

However, the data obtained are not combined, and middle-level theories are not created on their basis.

Sociology departments are beginning to open across the country, and teaching aids on this discipline are being created. Sociology is undergoing a process of institutionalization, the result of which is the emergence of the sociological faculty of Moscow State University, which turned out to be the first sociological faculty in the USSR after a long break.

Today in Russia there are a huge number of sociological faculties that produce highly qualified sociologists.

Sociological research is being conducted in large quantities.

There are public opinion research centers in the country that conduct sociological research throughout Russia and create numerous reports and forecasts based on their data.

Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Pavlodar State University named after. S. Toraigyrova

Institute of Natural Sciences

Department of Philosophy and Socio-Political Disciplines

Course work

By discipline: Sociology.

On the topic of:"The main stages in the development of sociological thought."

Completed by: student gr. BM-22

Kudienko E. S.

Checked by senior teacher:

Soltaniyanova S.D.

Pavlodar, 2002

Plan

Introduction.

I. Social conditions and theoretical prerequisites for the emergence of sociology.

II. The main stages in the development of sociological thought.

1. The ancient world.

2. Middle Ages.

3. New time.

4. Modern stage:

4.1. O. Comte is the founder of sociology. The doctrine of three stages of development of society.

4.2. The classic type of scientific sociology.

The doctrine of the method of E. Durkheim.

4.3. Non-traditional type of science. "Understanding Sociology"

G. Simmel and M. Weber.

4.4. Basic principles of the materialist doctrine of society by K. Marx and F. Engels.

III. Modern paradigms of sociology.

Conclusion.

Bibliography.

Introduction.

This course work is aimed at highlighting the entire history of the development of sociological thought, from its origins to the current state of this science.

I chose this particular topic because I consider it the most important in understanding the entire discipline. After all, it is with the concept of sociology and the stages of its formation that the study of this science begins.

Since ancient times, man has been interested not only in the mysteries and phenomena of the natural world around him (river floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, the change of seasons or day and night, etc.), but also in problems associated with his own existence among other people. Indeed, why do people strive to live among other people and not alone? What makes them draw boundaries between themselves, divide into separate states and be at enmity with each other? Why are some allowed to enjoy many benefits, while others are denied everything?

The search for answers to these and other questions already in ancient times forced scientists and thinkers to turn their gaze to man and the society in which he exists.

In my work, I traced how their views changed over time, and what they are now.

I. Social conditions and theoretical prerequisites for the emergence of sociology.

Modern sociology as a science was not formed out of nowhere; it was preceded by many centuries of searching for the truth about what human society is and what place a person occupies in it. The effectiveness of sociology is based on the wide resonance of the results, a clear explanation of the current problems of everyday life.

This science comes at the end 30's- early 40s of the 19th century. In the social sphere it was a time of extreme instability. Insurrection Lyon weavers in France, Silesian weavers in Germany (1844) .), The Chartist movement in England, a little later, the revolution of 1848 in France testified to the growing crisis of social relations. In times of decisive and rapid change, people have a need for a generalizing theory that can predict where humanity is moving, what guidelines can be relied upon, and find one’s place and role in this process. As is known, K. Marx and F. Engels began their theoretical and practical activities at the same time and under the same circumstances. They, following the rationalist tradition formulated in German classical philosophy, and drawing on their experience of participation in the revolutionary movement, proposed to solve this problem on the basis of the concept of scientific socialism, the core of which is the theory of socialist revolution. O. Comte and other “founding fathers of sociology” - G. Spencer, E. Durkheim, M. Weber- proposed a reformist path to the development of society. The founders of sociology were supporters of stable order. In conditions of revolutionary upsurge, they were not thinking about how to ignite the fire of civil war, but, on the contrary, how to overcome the crisis in Europe, establish harmony and solidarity between different social groups. Sociology was precisely considered by them as a tool for understanding society and developing recommendations for its reform. The methodological basis of reformism, from their point of view, is the “positive method”.

These different ideological attitudes also dictated the difference in the interpretation of those scientific discoveries that were made in 30's- 40s of the XIX century. During this period, chemistry and biology came to the fore in the development of science. The most significant discoveries of that time were the discovery of the cell by the German scientists Schleiden and Schwann (1838-1839), on the basis of which the cellular theory of the structure of living matter was created, and the creation by Charles Darwin of the theory of the evolution of species. For K. Marx and F. Engels, these theories served as natural science prerequisites for the creation of dialectical materialism, the main element of which is the doctrine of dialectics - the “algebra of revolution,” as V. I. Lenin called it. For O. Comte, G. Spencer and E. Durkheim, these discoveries served as the basis for the creation of a doctrine of society based on the principles of biology - the “organic theory of the development of society.”

So far we have been talking mainly about the sociological conditions and natural science prerequisites for the emergence of theoretical sociology. However, long before this, the foundations of the empirical basis of sociology and its methods of knowledge were laid in Europe. The methodology and methods of concrete sociological research were developed mainly by natural scientists. Already in the XVII-XVIII centuries. John Graunt And Edmund Halley developed methods for quantitative research of social processes. In particular, D. Graunt applied them in 1662 to the analysis of mortality rates. And the work of the famous physicist and mathematician Laplace “Philosophical Essays on Probability” is based on a quantitative description of population dynamics.

Empirical social research in Europe began to develop especially actively at the beginning of the 19th century under the influence of certain social processes. Intensive development of capitalism at the beginning of the 19th century. led to rapid urban growth - urbanization life of the population. The consequence of this was a sharp social differentiation of the population, an increase in the number of poor (pauperization), an increase in crime, and an increase in social instability. At the same time, a “middle layer” and a bourgeois stratum are rapidly forming, always advocating order and stability, the institution of public opinion is strengthening, and the number of various kinds of social movements advocating social reforms is increasing. Thus, on the one hand, the “social diseases of society” clearly manifested themselves, on the other, those forces that were interested in their treatment and could act as customers of sociological research that could offer a “cure” for these “diseases” objectively matured.

II . The main stages in the development of sociological thought.

1. Ideas about society in the ancient world

The process of understanding society and public life begins at the origins of human history. Society becomes the object of analysis of people even before the individual himself - after all, in a primitive state, the individual almost does not distinguish himself from the clan, although the person begins to reflect and evaluate.

Ideas about society deepen as the individual develops, when the main question of social life is identified: “What is more important: society or the individual in its uniqueness, individual originality of perception and reflection of reality?” and ideas about social equality and inequality arise. These ideas were clearly dominated by the positive assessment of egalitarianism reflected in the myths and the denial of inequality. However, as human society develops and its structure becomes more complex, ideas emerge about the inevitability of social inequality.

In the middle of the first millennium BC. e. awareness of the inevitability of social inequality resulted in a conceptual justification for its necessity. In the East, a critical rethinking of the social attitudes embedded in the mythological consciousness was carried out in the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Zarathustra, which became a rational justification, and then a religious and ethical support that supported social stability in a society that had overcome primitive unstructuredness.

In the West, social thought reached its apogee in Athens in the 5th-4th centuries. BC e. in the works of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, in whose teachings two most important directions took shape that interacted throughout the history of social thought. The first one puts forward and substantiates the idea of ​​the priority of common, public interest. It is represented, first of all, by the teaching of Plato, who examines this idea in the famous work “The Republic”. In Plato, society is likened to a “huge man.” In an ideal state, the three principles of the human soul (reasonable, furious and lustful) are also analogous to three principles (deliberative, protective and business), which in turn correspond to three classes - rulers, warriors and producers (artisans, farmers). Justice, according to Plato, consists in each class doing its own thing. With the help of a “noble fiction,” inequality is justified as natural, initially predetermined: although all people are born of the earth, some have gold mixed in, which means they must rule; others have silver, and therefore they become warriors; Still others have iron and copper mixed in; they are called upon to be producers. All classes serve to preserve the unity and stability of society. The state, Plato believed, should not indulge the ambitions of individual, albeit strong, individuals, but should subordinate all members of society to serving the cause of its preservation. In an ideal state, social inequality is a means of maintaining social stability, but not of benefiting the upper strata. “For Plato, the subject of freedom and highest perfection is not an individual person, or even a class, but only the whole society, the whole state as a whole. Plato’s utopia is not a theory of individual freedom of citizens, but a theory of total freedom - the freedom of the state in its totality, integrity, indivisibility.” . The integrity of the state is based on the total responsibility of unequal members of society for the fate of this state.

The second direction defends the idea of ​​priority of the interest of the individual, the individual. It was developed by Epicurus, the Cynics, and Aristotle. The latter criticizes Plato's Republic, defending the priority of individual interests and defending the individual's right to individuality. An excessive desire for socialization, for example, the community of property, wives and children proposed by Plato, according to Aristotle, leads to the erasure of individuality, to mismanagement and laziness, aggravates social confusion, and prepares a political crisis.

In these directions, ancient Greek thought reflected the fundamental contradiction between social life and the inner life of the individual - the contradictory unity of the social and the individual. Representatives of each direction up to the present day defend their right to be a “guide” of humanity on the path to a better future, forming its specific image. If the thinkers of the first direction are characterized by the idea of ​​a better future as a stable, sustainable society, orienting its members towards responsibility for the fate of the whole, then the scientists of the second are characterized by the development of a social ideal, in which the better future is designated as a dynamic, rapidly improving society, orienting its members to openness, freedom, responsibility for one’s own destiny. Thinkers who defended the priority of public interest over personal interest in social policy emphasized the idea of ​​“equality of equals,” while supporters of the priority of individual interest over public interest considered it more important to solve the problem of ensuring “inequality of unequals.” Thus, both directions of social thought substantiated the justification of inequality, but placed different emphasis.

2. The Middle Ages.

During the Middle Ages, the development of social relations was carried out mainly under the control of a system of moral and religious norms, which also influenced the development of social thought.

The most prominent figure in theological socio-political thought of this period is Thomas Aquinas, who carried out the “modernization” of early medieval Christianity based on the comments of Aristotle. The teachings of Thomas (Thomism) became an important step in strengthening the spiritual power of Catholicism over the development of social life (in 1879 this teaching was declared “the only true philosophy of Catholicism”), but did not stop the Reformation of Catholicism. The Reformation received its ideological form in the teachings of M. Luther, W. Zwingli, J. Calvin, who represented the burgher-bourgeois trend, and T. Münzer, the leader of the popular Reformation. The most important idea of ​​the Reformation is the need for personal responsibility of a person, the denial of the mediation of the church hierarchy.

The Reformation had a serious influence on the development of social-critical thinking, theories of self-awareness, and the early bourgeois ideal of the “rule of law state.” It contributed to the destruction of feudal-religious ideas and the establishment of new, entrepreneurial orientations in economic practice. M. Weber revealed the impact on the process of formation of European capitalism of the Protestant religious-ethical complex, which ensured the education of such personality traits as hard work, frugality, honesty, and prudence. In social thought, the confrontation between the ideas of “individualism” and “collectivism” is being revived at a new level. The idea of ​​the priority of individual interest over public interest is established as the core ideology of the emerging class of entrepreneurs, the bourgeoisie.

Along with individualistic and private property ideas in the 16th century. The socialist socio-political movement is gradually taking shape as the ideology of the emerging proletariat. The founder of utopian socialism is considered to be T. More (1478-1535), who depicted in “Utopia” a society in which there is no private property, production and life are socialized, and labor is obligatory for everyone.

Criticizing capitalism and revealing its inhumane essence, utopian socialists considered the ideal society to be one in which state or public management of an economy that does not know commodity-money relations is carried out. But they could not find incentives to work in a society without competition, private property and self-organization of economic life. The main thing is the emphasis on direct government regulation and social control.

3. Social thought of modern times is the immediate predecessor of sociology.

The ideas about society that arise within the framework of theoretical directions of social and especially philosophical and political thought, starting from the 16th century, are considered to have directly prepared the conditions for the emergence of sociology. and until sociology acquired the status of an independent science in the 19th century. Philosophy paid the greatest attention to the problem of society in this period, followed by political economy, the science of state and law, and history. In historical science, essentially from the moment of its inception, elements of the empirical study of social phenomena have been developing.

The ideas about society that emerged during this period within the framework of philosophy, and then other sciences, marked in their own way the beginning of a new socio-economic formation - capitalism - and represented a superstructure over the economic basis of this formation, which, in its characteristics, acted as a negation of feudalism as a social -economic formation.

The capitalist mode of production, which in this period is increasingly becoming dominant, required the abolition of legal inequality between people. Legal equality and freedom for all citizens become more or less a common political ideal. Attempts to find the most adequate way to implement it lead to the emergence of numerous theories that consider the relationship between the state and the individual as a free person. At the same time, efforts are also being made to discover both the laws that dominate economic life and the laws of the historical development of society as the integrity of all social phenomena. As a result of these attempts, various theories arise. The common features of these theories are their rational-scientific character and their gradual liberation from the theological view of the world and, in particular, of society, as well as the desire not only to expand the scope of human understanding of society, but also to involve people in the implementation of social changes.

Philosophy in the 17th century. especially focused on studying the patterns of social development. This orientation led to the emergence philosophy of history as a separate philosophical discipline, which, given its substantive focus, can be considered the direct forerunner of general sociology. The philosophy of history emerges as a special scientific discipline that expresses the need to explain the development of society in a given period. At this time, European society - in the most developed countries - was in a phase of transition from feudalism to capitalism, which made it very mobile and dynamic, requiring a revision of the ideas about society characteristic of feudalism as something unchangeable. At the same time, various kinds of travelers and missionaries bring news about the peoples of distant countries, their customs, and their way of life, which is different from the European one. Science had to answer the question of why there are differences in the way of life of individual peoples, why different peoples have a different social system from others. In practice, the question arose about the driving forces of social development and the laws of this development. All this forced philosophers to turn to the problem of society and try to explain its history and patterns of development.

Science and social thought of this era, considering the state and law, sought to free themselves from the influence of the doctrine of the divine origin of power, characteristic of feudalism. The idea of ​​the divine origin of power fettered the young bourgeoisie in its political emancipation, and therefore in the newly emerging theories this idea was rejected, and the relationship between the state and the individual became a frequent, if not the main, topic of discussion. These theories expressed the desire to establish the causes of the emergence of human society, the basic laws and phases of its development and the essence of the relationship between society and the state. The most prominent thinkers who considered these problems in their works were: Niccolo Machiavelli, Jean Bodin, Charles Montesquieu, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes.

Niccolo Machiavelli(1469-1527) was in a certain sense the personification of the Italian Renaissance, for, in interpreting social problems, he drew inspiration from the secular ideals of ancient thought and rebelled against Christianity, since he believed that it made any social resistance impossible. His main works are “Discourses on the first decade of Titus Livius” and “The Prince”. N. Machiavelli did not deal with the problems of society as a whole, but studied the state and the art of politics. In his treatise “The Sovereign,” he paints a picture of the most merciless political struggle for power and shows all those base motives that push a person to this struggle. He explains political events, first of all, by the mental properties of a person and, on the other hand, by the coincidence of circumstances. Despite his largely idealistic ideas, N. Machiavelli strives for a realistic description of events, which he accepts as they are, even if they are negative.

Jean Bodin(1530-1596) is another thinker of this era, who, like N. Machiavelli, has a realistic approach to the study of the state. His most significant work was the essay “Six Books on the Republic,” in which he gives a holistic picture of the development of society and the state, mainly developing the thoughts of Aristotle. The state, according to J. Bodin, develops from the “state of nature” through the development of the family and its division into new families. New families retain a certain unity, and thus new social communities arise in which production, trade are carried out, religious rites are performed, etc.

Charles Montesquieu(1689-1755), known as the author of the theory of the separation of powers, was a proponent of some general sociological ideas that later influenced the development of sociology, and which he expounded in his “Reflections on the Causes of the Greatness and Fall of the Romans” and in the essay “On the Spirit of Laws” "

Within the framework of the science of state and law, as well as in the political doctrines of this era, the contractual theory of the origin of the state, originally developed by the Greek sophists, receives new life - the theory of the “social contract”. This theory received new development in connection with the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the feudal lords. The bourgeoisie, having taken a dominant position in the economic sphere of public life, sought to take political power from the feudal lords. In the process of the bourgeoisie’s struggle for political power, ideas based on the theory of “social contract” develop. According to these ideas, there is a difference between the contract on the basis of which human society is created and which is concluded by all individuals together, and the contract on which state power is based and which is concluded, on the one hand, by society and, on the other hand, by the ruler. This theory was used not only by those who advocated limiting the absolute power of the ruler, but also by supporters of absolutism. The main representatives of this theory are Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke(1632-1704) and Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778). T. Hobbes and Rousseau explain social development differently. T. Hobbes considers the natural pre-state existence of people negative, a “war of all against all,” and says about man that he is by nature evil and selfish , and society ennobles him. Rousseau has the opposite point of view, considering the pre-state, natural state of human life to be something like an earthly paradise. Man, in his opinion, is a good creature by nature, but society spoils him. Both points of view seem idealistic, since certain innate and eternal, unchangeable elements of human nature are taken as the basis for explaining society, whereas in reality it is man and the changes occurring with him that need to be explained starting from society.

Social contract theories contributed little to the development of the scientific view of society because they were based on abstract and a priori judgments about human society rather than focusing on real facts.

Along with the views that we spoke about as direct harbingers of sociology and which appeared within the framework of the philosophy of history, economic sciences and the science of state and law, we should also note a number of thinkers whose views and ideas anticipated the emergence of sociology and later influenced its development .

Eminent philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel(1770-1831) had a strong influence on the development of social theories. Being an idealist, Hegel, however, developed an understanding of the unity of the universe in all the diversity of its manifestations, and he understands society as an integral part of the universe, distinguished by its specific, qualitatively defined characteristics.

Hegel's significant contribution to the development of sociology is his ideas about the history of human society as a process associated with a holistic reality, and that history should be accepted as it is. Of great importance are Hegel's understanding of man as an active being, as well as Hegel's ideas about the state, which he understands idealistically. Cleared of the admixture of idealism, Hegel's dialectical understanding of society and individual social phenomena anticipates the emergence of sociology.

A significant role as a predecessor of sociology also plays Adam Ferguson(1723-1816) - historian, philosopher and political theorist, who in his “Essay on the History of Civil Society” tries to periodize the historical development of society. Based on the results obtained by ethnography, he divides the history of human society into three periods: savagery, barbarism and civilization.

A. Ferguson argued that a person is inherent in sociality from birth, from which social institutions and customs stem. He considered society to be an organic phenomenon and was one of the first to pose the problem of the social division of labor, emphasizing at the same time the mutual connection and conditionality of individual areas of social life. Likewise, he pointed out that competition and conflict are important for social development, as a result of which he is considered the pioneer of the idea of ​​the struggle between individual social groups as the driving force of social development.

Sociology as a science, as well as numerous sociological theories, was preceded by the teachings of utopian socialists. These teachings arose as a result of a critical attitude to the reality of bourgeois society and acquired their completed form in the works of Saint-Simon(1760-1825), who lived in France - a country in which not only the first full-fledged bourgeois revolution took place, but also the first systematic criticism of capitalism was carried out. Saint-Simon viewed the development of society as a strictly natural process, and he saw the task of the science of society in the discovery of laws different from those to which individuals are subject.

Particularly important are Saint-Simon's understanding of social structure, as well as his indication that the form of ownership determines all social relations - both economic and political.

The teaching of Saint-Simon, contradictory in many ways, had a significant influence both on the materialist understanding of society developed by K. Marx, and on the development - primarily through the efforts of O. Comte - of sociology.

These and a number of other teachings about society as a whole or about individual social phenomena directly preceded and ensured the emergence of sociology, since, with all their shortcomings, they posed a number of fundamental sociological problems and accumulated the amount of knowledge about society from which all significant sociological studies subsequently developed. theories.

4. The current stage of development of sociology.

4.1. O. Comte is the founder of sociology. The doctrine of three stages of development of society.

To answer the question about the time of the emergence of sociology, we must rely on the criteria put forward by scientific studies. And it argues that in order to resolve this issue, first of all, it is necessary to keep in mind from what time sociology began to be recognized by the scientific community as a separate special science. History shows that this happened in the 40s of the 19th century. village le publication ABOUT. Contome the third volume of his most important work "Course of Positive Philosophy" in 1839, where he first used the term "sociology" and put forward the task of studying society on a scientific basis. It was this claim - to put the doctrine of society on a scientific basis - that was the starting fact that led to the formation and development of sociology.

How exactly does O. Comte justify the necessity and possibility of the emergence of this new science? In O. Comte’s system, this justification is carried out on the basis of his formulated law of three successive stages intellectual development of man: theological, metaphysical and positive. On first, theological stage man explains all phenomena on the basis of religious ideas, using the concept of the supernatural. On the second, metaphysical stage he abandons the appeal to the supernatural and tries to explain everything with the help of abstract entities, causes and other philosophical abstractions. The task of the second stage is critical. Destroying previous ideas, she prepares the third stage - positive or scientific. At this stage, a person stops operating with abstract entities, refuses to reveal the causes of phenomena and limits himself to observing phenomena and recording permanent connections that can be established between them.

The transition from one stage to another in different sciences occurs sequentially, but not simultaneously. And here one principle applies - from simple to complex, from higher to lower. The simpler the object of study, the faster positive knowledge is established there. Therefore, positive knowledge first spreads in mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and then in biology. Sociology is the pinnacle of positive knowledge. She relies on the “positive method” in her research. The latter means the support of theoretical analysis on a set of empirical data collected in observation, experiments and comparative research, data that is reliable, verified, and beyond doubt.

Another important conclusion that led O. Comte to the need to form a science of society is associated with his discovery of the law of division and cooperation of labor. These factors have a huge positive significance in the history of society. Thanks to them, social and professional groups emerge, diversity in society increases and the material well-being of people increases. But these same factors lead to the destruction of the foundation of society, since they are aimed at the concentration of wealth and the exploitation of people, at one-sided professionalization that disfigures the individual. Social feelings unite only people of the same profession, forcing them to be hostile towards others. Corporations and intra-corporate egoistic morality arise, which, with a certain connivance, can destroy the basis of society - the sense of solidarity and harmony between people. Contribute to the establishment solidarity and harmony and is called upon, By opinion of O. Comte, sociology.

O. Comte, in accordance with his ideas about development, divides sociology into two parts: social statics and social dynamics. Social statics studies the conditions and laws of functioning of the social system. This section of Comtean sociology examines the main social institutions: family, state, religion from the point of view of their social functions, their role in establishing consent and solidarity. IN social dynamics O. Comte develops the theory of social progress, the decisive factor of which, in his opinion, is the spiritual, mental development of humanity.

4.2. The classic type of scientific sociology.

The doctrine of the method of E. Durkheim

As noted above, sociology emerged as an independent branch of knowledge due to its claim to the scientific study of society. However, in the history of sociology there has never been agreement on what the criterion of scientificity is. One of the largest historians of sociology, Yu. N. Davydov, considers it necessary to talk about the consistent emergence within the framework of sociology of at least three types of scientificity: classical, non-classical and intermediate, eclectic.

The classical type of scientificism, in his opinion, was represented by such prominent sociologists as O. Comte, G. Spencer, E. Durkheim. The basic principles of classical methodology are as follows:

1) Social phenomena are subject to laws common to all reality. There are no specific social laws.

2) Therefore, sociology should be built in the image of the natural “positive” sciences.

3) Social research methods must be equally accurate and rigorous. All social phenomena must be described quantitatively.

4) The most important criterion for scientific character is the objectivity of the content of knowledge. This means that sociological knowledge should not contain subjective impressions and speculative reasoning, but describe social reality, regardless of our attitude towards it. This principle is expressed in the requirement “sociology as a science must be free from value judgments and ideologies.”

The principles of the classical type of scientificity were most clearly formulated in the work of the French sociologist 3. Durkheim's Rules of Sociological Method (1895). Durkheimian sociology is based on the theory social fact. In this work, E. Durkheim sets out the basic requirements for social facts that would allow sociology to exist as a science.

First rule is to “consider social facts as things.” This means that: a) social facts are external to individuals; b) social facts can be objects in the sense that they are material, strictly observable and impersonal; c) the relationships of causality established between two or many social facts help to formulate permanent laws of the functioning of society.

Second rule is to “systematically disassociate ourselves from all innate ideas.” This means that: a) sociology must first of all break its ties with all ideologies and personal biases; b) it must also free itself from all prejudices that individuals have regarding social facts.

Third rule consists in recognizing the primacy (primacy, priority) of the whole over its constituent parts. This means recognizing that: a) the source of social facts is in society, and not in the thinking and behavior of individuals; b) society is an autonomous system governed by its own laws, not reducible to the consciousness or action of each individual.

So, sociology, according to E. Durkheim, is based on the knowledge of social facts. A social fact is specific. It is generated by the united actions of individuals, but is qualitatively different in nature from what happens at the level of individual consciousnesses because it has a different basis, a different substrate - collective consciousness. In order for a social fact to arise, Durkheim points out, it is necessary that at least several individuals combine their actions and that this combination gives rise to some new result. And since this synthesis occurs outside the consciousness of acting individuals (since it is formed from the interaction of many consciousnesses), it invariably results in the consolidation, establishment outside of individual consciousness of any patterns of behavior, methods of action, values, etc. that exist objectively . Recognition of the objective reality of social facts is the central point of the sociological method, according to Durkheim.

4.3. Non-traditional type of science. "Understanding Sociology"

G. Simmel and M. Weber.

The non-classical type of scientific sociology was developed by German thinkers G. Simmel (1858-1918) and M. Weber (1864-1920). This methodology is based on the idea of ​​the fundamental opposition of the laws of nature and society and, consequently, the recognition of the need for the existence of two types of scientific knowledge: the natural sciences (natural sciences) and the cultural sciences (humanitarian knowledge). Sociology, in their opinion, is a borderline science, and therefore it should borrow all the best from natural sciences and the humanities. From the natural sciences, sociology borrows its commitment to exact facts and a cause-and-effect explanation of reality, and from the humanities - the method understanding and reference to values.

This interpretation of the interaction between sociology and other sciences follows from their understanding of the subject of sociology. G. Simmel and M. Weber rejected such concepts as “society”, “people”, “humanity”, “collective”, etc. as the subject of sociological knowledge. They believed that only the individual can be the subject of sociologist’s research, since It is he who has consciousness, motivation for his actions and rational behavior. G. Simmel and M. Weber emphasized the importance of the sociologist understanding the subjective meaning that is invested in the action by the acting individual himself. In their opinion, observing a chain of real actions of people, a sociologist must construct an explanation of them based on an understanding of the internal motives of these actions. And here he will be helped by the knowledge that in similar situations most people act in the same way, guided by similar motives. Based on their understanding of the subject of sociology and its place among other sciences, G. Simmel and M. Weber formulate a number of methodological principles on which, in their opinion, sociological knowledge is based:

1) The requirement to eliminate from the scientific worldview the idea of ​​the objectivity of the content of our knowledge. The condition for the transformation of social knowledge into a real science is that it should not present its concepts and schemes as reflections or expressions of reality itself and its laws. Social science must proceed from the recognition fundamental difference between social theory and reality.

2) Therefore, sociology should not pretend to be anything more than finding out the reasons for certain events that have happened, refraining from so-called “scientific forecasts.”

Strict adherence to these two rules can create the impression that sociological theory does not have an objective, generally valid meaning, but is the fruit of subjective arbitrariness. To remove this impression, G. Simmel and M. Weber claim:

3) Sociological theories and concepts are not the result of intellectual arbitrariness, because intellectual activity itself is subject to well-defined social techniques and, above all, the rules of formal logic and universal human values.

4) A sociologist must know that the basis of the mechanism of his intellectual activity is the attribution of the entire variety of empirical data to these universal human values, which set the general direction for all human thinking. “Attribution to values ​​puts a limit on individual arbitrariness,” wrote M. Weber.

M. Weber distinguishes between the concepts of “value judgments” and “attribution to values.” Value judgment always personal and subjective. This is any statement that is associated with a moral, political or any other assessment. For example, the statement: “Belief in God is an enduring quality of human existence.” Attribution to value is a procedure for both selecting and organizing empirical material. In the above example, this procedure may mean collecting facts to study the interaction of religion and various spheres of a person’s social and personal life, selecting and classifying these facts, summarizing them, and other procedures. What is the need for this principle of reference to values? And the fact is that a sociologist in knowledge is faced with a huge variety of facts, and in order to select and analyze these facts, he must proceed from some kind of attitude, which he formulates as a value.

But the question arises: where do these value preferences come from? M. Weber answers like this:

5) The change in the value preferences of the sociologist is determined "interest of the era" that is, the socio-historical circumstances in which he operates.

What are the tools of cognition through which the basic principles of “understanding sociology” are realized? For G. Simmel, such an instrument is one that captures the most stable universal features in a social phenomenon, and not the empirical diversity of social facts. G. Simmel believed that he rises above the world of concrete existence world of ideal values. This world of values ​​exists according to its own laws, different from the laws of the material world. The purpose of sociology is the study of values ​​in themselves, as pure forms. Sociology must strive to isolate desires, experiences and motives, as psychological aspects, from their objective content, to isolate the sphere of value as the realm of the ideal, and on this basis to build a certain geometry of the social world in the form of a relationship of pure forms. Thus, in the teachings of G. Simmel pure form- this is the relationship between individuals, considered separately from those objects that are the objects of their desires, aspirations and other psychological acts. G. Simmel's formal geometric method allows us to distinguish society in general, institutions in general and build a system in which sociological knowledge would be freed from subjective arbitrariness and moralistic value judgments.

M. Weber’s main tool of cognition is “ideal types.” “Ideal types,” according to Weber, do not have empirical prototypes in reality itself and do not reflect it, but are mental logical constructs created by the researcher. These constructions are formed by identifying individual features of reality that are considered by the researcher to be the most typical. “The ideal type,” wrote Weber, “is a picture of homogeneous thinking that exists in the imagination of scientists and is intended to consider the obvious, the most “typical social facts.” Ideal types are limiting concepts used in cognition as a scale for correlating and comparing social historical reality with them. According to Weber, all social facts are explained by social types. Weber proposed a typology of social action, types of state and rationality. He operates with such ideal types as “capitalism”, “bureaucracy”, “religion”, etc.

What is the main problem that ideal types solve? M. Weber believes that the main goal of sociology is to make as clear as possible what was not so in reality itself, to reveal the meaning of what was experienced, even if this meaning was not realized by the people themselves. Ideal types make it possible to make this historical or social material more meaningful than it was in real life experience itself.

4.4. Basic principles of the materialist doctrine of society

K. Marx and F. Engels.

A unique synthesis of the classical and non-classical types of science in the field of sociology is the materialist doctrine of society by K. Marx (1818-1883), F. Engels (1820-1895) and their followers. When creating this doctrine, K. Marx and F. Engels proceeded from the naturalistic principles of positivism, which required viewing social phenomena as facts and building social science on the model of the natural sciences, with a cause-and-effect explanation of facts characteristic of them. The subject of sociology in Marxism, as noted above, is the study of society, the basic laws of its development, as well as the main social communities and institutions. What are the most important principles of the materialist doctrine of society?

1) One of the most important principles of historical materialism is the recognition of the laws of social development. F. Engels, speaking at the funeral of K. Marx, noted among his most important achievements: “Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of the organic world, Marx discovered the law of development of human history.” (Marx K., Engels F. Soch. T. 19.- P. 325). Recognition of a pattern means recognition of the action in society of general, stable, repeating, significant connections and relationships between processes and phenomena.

2) Recognition of regularity in the materialist concept of history is closely related to the principle of determinism, that is, recognition of the existence of cause-and-effect relationships and dependencies. K. Marx and F. Engels considered it necessary to single out the main, defining ones from the entire variety of natural structures, connections and relationships. This, in their opinion, is the method of production of material goods, consisting of productive forces and production relations. Recognition of causality, which determines the influence of the mode of production on social life, is another important provision of the Marxist doctrine of society. In progress “Toward a Critique of Political Economy” K. Marx wrote: “The production of direct material means of life and thereby each stage of the economy of a people and an era forms the basis from which state institutions, legal views, art and even the religious ideas of people develop, from which they must therefore be explained, and not vice versa, as this has been done so far" (Marx K., Engels F. Soch. T. 13.- P. 6-7).

3) The third important principle of the materialist teaching about society is the assertion of its progressive progressive development. The principle of progress is realized in Marxism through the doctrine of socio-economic formations as the main structures of social life. A socio-economic formation, according to K. Marx’s definition, is “a society at a certain stage of historical development, a society with a unique, distinctive character.” (Ibid. T. 6.- P. 442). K. Marx borrowed the concept of “formation” from contemporary natural science. This concept in geology, geography, and biology denoted certain structures connected by the unity of conditions of formation, similarity of composition, and interdependence of elements. In the Marxist doctrine of society, all these features refer to a social organism formed on the basis of similar laws, with a single economic and political structure. The basis of the economic formation is one or another mode of production, which is characterized by a certain level and nature of development production forces and corresponding to this level and character industrial relations. The totality of production relations forms the basis of society, its basis, above which state, legal, political relations and institutions are built, which, in turn, correspond to certain forms of social consciousness.

K. Marx and F. Engels represented the development of society as a progressive process, characterized by a consistent transition from lower socio-economic formations to higher ones: from primitive communal to slaveholding, then to feudal, capitalist and communist. V.I. Lenin, assessing the significance of this teaching for social science, wrote: “The chaos and arbitrariness that had hitherto reigned in views on history and politics were replaced by an amazingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, showing how from one way of life develops due to the growth of productive another, higher force" (Lenin V.I. PSS. T. 6.- P. 55). Since Marxism is about the inevitability of society’s movement along these stages of development to a higher formation, critics of Marxism point to the presence in it of a religious and philosophical concept providentialism- that is, the doctrine of predestination in the development of mankind. The difficulties of connecting this scheme with real history, including the current rejection of the “building of communism” by peoples, are also pointed out.

4) The application of the general scientific criterion of regularity and causality in development to the analysis of society is linked in Marxism with the recognition of the uniqueness of the development of social processes. This linkage found its clear expression in the concept of social development as natural historical process. The natural historical process is as natural, necessary and objective as natural processes. It not only depends on the will and consciousness of people, but also determines their will and consciousness. But at the same time, unlike the processes of nature, where blind and spontaneous forces act, the natural historical process is the result of human activity. In society, nothing happens except through the consciousness of people. In this regard, in Marxist sociology, much attention is paid to the study of the dialectics of objective law and the conscious activity of people.

5) All of the above shows that Marxist sociology is in line with the traditional type of science and is aimed at recognizing the objectivity of scientific knowledge about society, but there is also an opposite tendency in it, which is guided by what G. Simmel and M. Weber call the principle reference to value, that is, the coordination of empirical data and theoretical conclusions “with the historical interest of the era,” which meant exclusively the interests of the proletariat. This approach was transformed by V.I. Lenin into the principle of partisanship. According to this principle, sociological research and any theory of social life bear the imprint of the social and class positions of its authors. The following logic of reasoning was proposed: a social scientist acts under certain conditions and cannot be free from them. These conditions leave a corresponding imprint on his research. A social scientist belongs to a certain social class group, and he cannot ignore social class interests. In ordinary cases (most often when he adheres to conservative beliefs), he reflects the interests of the class to which he belongs. In other cases (when he develops revolutionary concepts), he leaves the position of his class and expresses the class interests of advanced social forces. Since social scientists who took Marxist positions declared that they reflected the interests of the proletariat, the working class, the question naturally arose whether their “engagement” did not contradict the principle of objectivity that they themselves proclaimed. In the works of Marxists, this contradiction was resolved according to the following scheme: since the proletariat is the most advanced, progressive class, it expresses the demands and interests of all humanity (the proletarian coincides with the universal), and, therefore, it is interested in an objective analysis of social processes. And this means that in the teachings of Marxism about society, partisanship coincides with objectivity. However, researchers note that as a result of the implementation of the partisan principle, scientific research about society was extremely ideological. They were one-sided and biased. The results and conclusions of these studies depended on the interests of the ruling political elite, the “party elite” in the countries of “real socialism”.

III Modern paradigms of sociology.

A new, modern stage in the development of sociology begins with a period of weakening interest in the development of a general sociological theory and the rapid development of empirical research - primarily in the USA, and then in other countries. This internal scientific process was provoked by a change in the model of economic development of Western society, which led to an increase in the role of consumer tastes in the development of the economy and the role of public opinion in the development of the political life of society. It is these questions that sociologists have focused on exploring. At the same time, it cannot be said that the development of intrascientific sociological problems has completely stopped. An important event in the development of sociology was the creation in the 20s of the 20th century. The Chicago school, which developed the “ecological” direction in the interpretation of social processes and phenomena. One of the leaders of this direction, R. Park (1864-1944), studied the behavior of people in close connection with the environment they create - primarily urban, and analyzed the interaction of biological and social factors that determine the structure of society.

Since the 20s, parallel to the development of industrial sociology and labor sociology, there has been the development of the doctrine of “human relations” - an alternative theory to Taylorism that develops the principles and tasks of managing people in organizations

The formation and development of sectoral sociologies is taking place. After the Second World War, a school of structural-functional analysis was formed, represented primarily by such American sociologists as T. Parsons (1902-1977) and R. Merton (b. 1910). It systematizes the results of concrete sociological research on the basis of the development of a general theory of human behavior as adequate to the principles of functioning of each element of the social structure.

The development of sociology in the 90s was characterized by the desire to overcome the opposition between structural functionalism and symbolic interactionism. The sociology of the end of the century, like philosophy, literature, and culture in general, demonstrates fatigue from the opposition of the positive and the existential, everyday life and being. Representatives of the postmodern concept of development see a way out of this situation in the rejection of choice, in the recognition of the equal right to exist of all existing sociological paradigms. However, one cannot ignore the need for a scientific synthesis of the main sociological theories of the 20th century, avoiding their banalization, but overcoming their mosaic nature. Globalization is often seen as a trend leading to such a synthesis. However, in the domestic literature, the globalization of sociology is not unreasonably viewed as a false response to the emerging challenge. Monocentrism in science, the emphasis on the only correct, universal sociological paradigm was proven in the 20th century. Its futility, danger for the development of the sociocultural process.

One of the most striking, original, fascinating social scientific constructions of the 20th century. The theory of ethnogenesis created by the outstanding Russian scientist L.N. Gumilyov is a theory. The theoretical possibilities revealed in Gumilyov's concept are only beginning to be used. The same can be said about the development of the sociology of culture and the sociology of language in the works of M. M. Bakhtin (1895-1975), who developed the concept of dialogue communication.

Conclusion.

Sociology is one of the sciences without which modern society cannot function and develop. Emphasizing this, P. Sorokin once wrote: “Thanks to our ignorance in the field of social phenomena, we still do not know how to deal with disasters that originate in the social life of people... Only when we thoroughly study the social life of people, when we know the laws , which it follows, only then can one count on success in the fight against social disasters” of living people.

The role of sociological knowledge, based on specific facts and research and being the basis of holistic social knowledge, increases with the growing importance of the social sphere of society, the formation of the ideology and practice of the welfare state, a socially oriented economy and social policy. The state of sociological knowledge and, even more broadly, social thinking depends on two interrelated factors. Firstly, from the education system, personnel training, and secondly, from the growth of “knowledge in depth” (P. Sorokin), that is, the development of scientific research.

So, we conclude with a brief analysis of the long historical path along which the formation and development of the science of society took place. From the many ideas and concepts put forward by outstanding thinkers of different eras, this science was gradually formed as a response to the objective needs of social development.

Sociology is not a frozen science. At each new stage of social transformations, it draws new social facts from reality, scientifically generalizes them and makes it possible to present the prospect of social development.

This suggests that the development of sociological thought will not stand still. Sociology will exist as long as man himself will exist.

Bibliography:

Kravchenko A.I. Sociology: a textbook for universities - M.: Academic Project, 2001. - 2nd edition, revised and expanded.

History of Sociology / Ed. A. N. Elsukova et al. Minsk, 1999.

Markovich D. General sociology. Rostov-on-Don, 1999.

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A.O.Boronoev. Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology, 1999, No. 2

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Asmug V.F. State // Plato. Op. M., 1971 T 3. Part 1. P. 608

Before the emergence of sociology as an independent science, the sociological vision of the world existed in the form social philosophy, which, under the influence of the rapid successes of mechanics and other exact sciences, was most often called social physics.

The predecessors of sociological teaching looked for patterns in historical development that would help explain the social structure and interaction of man with the environment.

One of the supporters of the idea of ​​law-like historical development, C. Montesquieu, in his work “On the Spirit of Laws,” explained that Laws in the broadest sense of the word are necessary relations arising from the nature of things, and in this sense, everything that exists has its own laws .

Although this approach to a certain extent reflected the theory of progressive changes in society, it could not fully meet the needs of the new relations on which capitalism was built. In order to more deeply understand the essence of social processes, it was necessary to rely not so much on philosophical postulates, but on their empirical evidence.

Social life itself required new approaches. And on social philosophy is being replaced by a sociological interpretation of social phenomena. This is when a sociological style of thinking arises, which assumes:

• - a view of society as a systemic whole, functioning and developing according to its own laws;
• - a conscious focus on studying really existing social relations, and not speculative utopias;
• -- reliance on empirical research methods.

All further development of sociology, including in its various directions, was associated with the implementation of these approaches.

Fully aware of the diversity of sociological schools and movements, the entire history of sociology can be divided into two main branches. One of them -- non-Marxist-- begins with the works of O. Comte and his Western European followers Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer, Max Weber and reaches modern Western European and American sociology; This also includes the sociological thought of Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Second branch Marxist associated with the names of the founders of Marxism, their interpreters in Russia - P. Lavrov, G.V. Plekhanov and with the works of V.I. Lenin, N.I. Bukharin, Marxist sociologists of the 20s and 30s; its development can be traced back to modern sociology of the 60s and 80s. Each of these branches is rich in its ideas and is represented by many outstanding thinkers, the analysis of whose teachings together constitutes the content of the development of sociological thought.

Concluding a historical overview of the development of sociological thought, characterizing its more than one and a half century existence, we can distinguish five more or less independent stages.

The first, when social processes were interpreted by transferring the laws of nature to social life, that is, an attempt was made to create some kind of universal science.

The second, when sociological knowledge developed in the bosom of national schools, mainly by scientists in Europe and at the beginning of the 20th century by sociologists in the United States.

The third, when sociological thought split into two opposite, sharply defined directions - Marxism and structural functionalism, within the framework of which there was an internal integration of scientific knowledge.

Fourth, when sociology became more active in the third world countries (Africa, India) and the sociological ideas of Western Europe and the USA were applied to the conditions of these countries, which served as the beginning of the formation of a world sociological tradition.

Fifth, when the awareness of the need to unite all schools and directions was initiated by the needs of world development and the solution of universal, global problems. This stage, experienced by modern world sociology, is characterized by the search for new methods of sociological analysis based on the renewal of theoretical knowledge, opposing dogmatism, eclecticism and nihilism in the science of society.

The development of sociology as a social and humanitarian science can be divided into three stages : First stage associated with the emergence of the first sociological theories. During this period, sociology developed mainly as theoretical science . The stage is represented by such prominent sociologists of the 19th – early 20th centuries as Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and a number of others. Second phase chronologically limited to the 20–40s of the twentieth century (approximately between the two world wars). During this period there is rapid development empirical sociology , methods of specific research are being introduced into the sphere of production, political practice, interpersonal and intergroup relations. Among the representatives of this stage: Ferdinand Tennys, Elton Mayo, George Herbert Mead, Charles Cooley, Gustave Le Bon. Third stage– modern, begins in the late 40s of the twentieth century, that is, after the Second World War. This stage is characterized by the strengthening of both theoretical and applied sociology. Attempts to bridge the gap between the theoretical and empirical levels of sociological knowledge are intensifying. For this purpose, so-called intermediate level theories . Representatives of the third stage include Robert Merton, Pitirim Sorokin, Talcott Parsons, Anthony Giddens and many others. In the history of sociology, there has never been agreement on what the criterion of scientificity is. Within the framework of sociology, there are at least three types of scientificity (stages): classical, non-classical, post-classical (electric). Classic type scientific character was represented by such prominent sociologists as O. Comte, G. Spencer, E. Durkheim. The basic principles of classical methodology boil down to the following: 1) Social phenomena are subject to laws common to all reality. There are no specific social laws. 2) Therefore, sociology should be built in the image of the natural “positive” sciences. 3) Social research methods must be equally accurate and rigorous. All social phenomena must be described quantitatively. 4) The most important criterion for scientific character is the objectivity of the content of knowledge. This means that sociological knowledge should not contain subjective impressions and speculative reasoning, but describe social reality, regardless of our attitude towards it. This principle is expressed in the requirement “sociology as a science must be free from value judgments and ideologies.” Non-traditional type of science. “Understanding Sociology” by G. Simmel and M. Weber. Non-classical type The scientific nature of sociology was developed by German thinkers G. Simmel (1858-1918) and M. Weber (1864-1920). This methodology is based on the idea of ​​the fundamental opposition of the laws of nature and society and, consequently, the recognition of the need for the existence of two types of scientific knowledge: the natural sciences (natural sciences) and the cultural sciences (humanitarian knowledge). Sociology, in their opinion, is a borderline science, and therefore it should borrow all the best from natural sciences and the humanities. From natural science, sociology borrows its commitment to precise facts and a cause-and-effect explanation of reality. Basic principles of the materialist doctrine of society by K. Marx and F. Engels:. A unique synthesis of the classical and non-classical types of science in the field of sociology is the materialist doctrine of society by K. Marx (1818-1883), F. Engels (1820 - 1895) and their followers. When creating this doctrine, K. Marx and F. Engels proceeded from the naturalistic principles of positivism, which required viewing social phenomena as facts and building social science on the model of the natural sciences, with a cause-and-effect explanation of facts characteristic of them. The subject of sociology in Marxism, as noted above, is the study of society, the basic laws of its development, as well as the main social communities and institutions.

1. Prerequisites for the emergence of sociology as an independent science.

2. Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer are the founders of sociology.

3. Classic stage in the development of sociology:

Social and philosophical concept of Marxism;

The main content of the sociological theory of E. Durkheim;

Integral sociology of Pitirim Sorokin, social stratification and social mobility;

- “understanding” sociology of Max Weber

4. Main schools and directions of modern sociology:

Empirical Sociology;

Structural functionalism;

Conflictology;

Phenomenology.

The beginning of the study of social life arose in Antiquity from the works of Plato’s “State” and Aristotle’s “Politics”. Then, for more than 2 thousand years, there were no noticeable concepts in the field of sociology. And finally, in the 16th and 17th centuries, quite serious sociological works appeared, the authors of which were N. Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Helvetius, C. Montesquieu, J. J. Rousseau, F. Bacon. And only in the middle of the 19th century the understanding of sociology as an independent science about society as an integral system was established. The merit of founding a new science and introducing the term itself into scientific circulation belongs to the French sociologist Auguste Comte.

The prehistory of sociology includes the works of ancient authors and modern times. Sociology proper refers to the period of the mid-19th century, when, along with Comte, the works of outstanding scientists such as Spencer, Karl Marx, M. Weber, etc. appeared. And only during this period did sociology become an exact science, based on empirical facts, scientific method and theory. The two preceding periods characterize the pre-scientific stage of sociology, when the explanation of the functioning and development of society was formed within the framework of social philosophy. The first sociologists of Antiquity are called social philosophers - Plato and Aristotle, who, like modern sociologists, studied traditions, mores, relationships between people in society and built scientific concepts for the purpose of practical recommendations for improving society.

Plato's merit is that he emphasized the special role of the division of labor and created the first theory of stratification in history, according to which any society is divided into three classes: higher, middle and lower. His works were continued by Aristotle, who believed that the backbone of any dynamically developing society is the middle class, and the imperfections of society are corrected not by equal distribution, but by the moral improvement of people. The legislator should strive not for universal equality, but for equalizing life chances.

The next step in the development of sociology was made in the New Age (16-17 centuries) and in the Age of Enlightenment (18 century). In the person of Machiavelli, sociology acquired a new dimension; it became the science of human behavior in society. Machiavelli is best known for his famous political maxim: “The end justifies the means.”

The next step was taken by Thomas Hobbes, who developed the theory of the social contract, which served as the basis for the doctrine of civil society). However, the development of sociology in the pre-scientific period was expressed in the fact that society was considered as a part of nature, and knowledge about it as an integral part of other already known sciences. And only by the middle of the 19th century the prerequisites for the emergence of an independent science of society arose. This is connected, first of all, with the name of O. Comte, who was a student of the French utopian sociologist Henri Saint-Simon, who substantiated the thesis that in the historical process, as well as in the development of nature, there are patterns, therefore he saw the task of science in revealing laws to which individuals are subject. Already in the 17th century, the theory of “social physics” first considered the idea of ​​society as a system that is an integral part of nature and is subject to natural scientific laws. The laws of natural sciences known by that time, especially in mechanics, geometry and astronomy, encountered social facts that contradicted them, and this led to an attempt to introduce formalization into social relations.

During the Age of Enlightenment, society was often compared to a machine (the so-called linear-mechanical model), in which each cog does its job. It was from such positions that the division of labor, interpersonal connections, and exchange theory were interpreted. But these and similar concepts could not, from a scientific point of view, explain the peculiarities of the functioning of society and its difference from natural systems. The emergence of sociology was prepared by the entire previous socio-political and spiritual development of mankind.

The first half of the 19th century, when sociology emerged, was a time of rapid industrial development in European countries, which was associated with the use of steam power and the introduction of industry by machine. Also during this period, fundamental discoveries were made in all areas of knowledge. In addition, this is a time of complex large-scale socio-political conflicts and changes.

The emergence of sociology was caused by the social need to understand the essence of the social changes that took place in the advanced countries of Western Europe and America in the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries (the American and French bourgeois revolutions, the industrial revolution in England and other European countries). These changes meant a civilizational shift towards an industrial and civil society. The ideology of human and civil rights, republican and democratic government, entrepreneurship and competition were the social environment in which social science had to turn to the study of a specific person. Against this background, a lag in people's knowledge about themselves and about the society in which they live was discovered. In addition, the second half of the 19th century in the intellectual history of the West was a time of fascination with the successes of natural science and the flourishing of the positivist-naturalistic worldview, under the influence of which the sociology of that time developed. The evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, based on the idea of ​​the unity of the laws of history, nature and man, as well as the unity of the methods of natural and social sciences, has become widespread.

The emergence of sociology as a separate science presupposed the emergence of the concept of “society” and the development of a theory of society, thanks to knowledge of the natural foundations of social development.

Thus, the emergence of sociology as an independent science was determined by the following prerequisites:

1. Ideas of a natural social order, which has its own laws of development, different from the laws of development of nature.

2. Development of a market economy, the carrier of which is not the state, but civil society.

3. Ideas of historicism and the direction of the historical process.

4. Development of a modern concept of science and scientific progress.

Thus, the emerging civil society constituted the social basis of sociology, and the positivist school - the theoretical basis. The immediate prerequisite for its birth was the highest level of development of socio-political relations of that time.

Thus, from the moment of its inception, sociology began to claim the status of scientific knowledge. Information about society was selected, studied and analyzed in accordance with the principles and methods of modern science. O. Comte first used the term “sociology” in 1839. Comte himself called sociology “a child of the post-revolutionary time in France,” therefore the specific understanding of society characteristic of the French Enlightenment and revolutionary ideals forms its basis. Comte's sociology arose in the era of spiritual and political dominance of the bourgeoisie. It reflects the rise of industry and science, and also contains the hope of resolving social conflicts through reason.

Auguste Comte came from a petty bourgeois Catholic family. His studies at the Polytechnic School had a great influence on the formation of his views. The principles of this school were the idea of ​​the universality of science and the ideal of an encyclopedic system of all sciences, with mathematics being considered as its basis. The version of the encyclopedic system of all sciences proposed by Comte reflects these principles. As Henri Saint-Simon's secretary and student, Comte shared his ideas for a long time. Like Saint-Simon, he believed that industrial society should be organized on a scientific basis. In the last period of his life, he adhered to a mystical-religious orientation, wanted to give positivism the status of a unique religion. His main works: “Course of Positivist Philosophy”, 6 volumes, “System of Positivist Politics”, 4 volumes, “Testament of Comte”, 4 volumes. In his work, he expressed the ideals of progress, political and economic freedom, and the hope that with the help of science all social problems can be solved. In order to transform society, he considered it necessary to create the same exact and objective science about the laws of its development as natural science. Comte believed so much in the science he created that in the universal classification of sciences he placed sociology at the very top, above mathematics, physics, biology, etc. He believed that the transformative role of sociology should be to bring about a revolution in the minds of people, it should become a new unique religion! Sociology must discover universal laws of the functioning and development of communication, inseparable from the laws of nature. Discoveries in sociology must be based on the methods of the natural sciences: observation, comparison, experiment, as well as the comparative historical method. Moreover, these methods must be applied objectively and independently of the value judgments of the study.

Comte's main idea is the liberation of sociology from speculative philosophy, metaphysics, and theology. In his opinion, true science must abandon insoluble questions, i.e. those that can neither be confirmed nor rejected, based on facts accessible to empirical observation and verification. This approach to understanding science is called positivism.

Comte's social theory consists of two parts: social statics and social dynamics. Statics studies the conditions of existence of social systems, and dynamics studies the laws of their development and change. Social statics - anatomy of society, theory of social order. Comte compares society itself to a living organism. According to Comte, in society, as in a living organism, the parts are organically coordinated with each other. But, being confident that society is more characterized by stability, Comte nevertheless does not deny the processes of social change.) He believed that social change, i.e. social dynamics, promotes reforms and helps natural changes that occur as a result of the collapse or reconstruction of social systems. He believed that the primary element in the development of society is the spiritual, mental element - this is the first factor in social dynamics, which he calls “the state of human minds.” This factor determines the direction of development of society at each historical stage. Comte considered all other factors (climate, race, population growth, life expectancy, etc.) to be secondary. To the three stages of mental development of mankind: theological, metaphysical and positive, there correspond the three stages of historical progress. He considered the law of intellectual evolution of mankind discovered by him to be the central link of his views.