ide validation on the basis of quantitative analysis.
Durkheim rejected the contention that any given social event may have different causes (Smelser, p. 141). Because Durkheim assumed that variations in social phenomena were not amenable to researcher control, correlation was accepted as a validation of a causal relationship between variables. This approach to analysis is referred to as concomitant variation. Durkheim's sociological method essentially was positivistic in character (p. 149). Durkheim's comparative sociology gave salience to the sources, nature, and consequences of social solidarity (p. 73).
2. Discuss Weber's comparative sociology.
Weber's comparative sociology was formulated primarily within the contexts of religion, political authority, and economics (Smelser, p. 115). With respect to religion, Weber examined the predilections of different social groups as explanations for the rise, propagation, development, and spread of specific religious doctrines. The effects of the process of rationalization on religion, political, authority, and economics was a common thread in Weber's comparative sociology. By rationalization, Weber essentially meant a demystifying of a social phenomenon.
In his comparative sociology, Weber was hostile to both universal and monocausal explanations for social phenomena (Smelser, p. 123). Weber emphasizes the interactive effects of independent variables on social outcomes. Weber frequently tended to arrive at a conclusion, and then provide a theoretical and empirical justification for the conclusion, as opposed to arriving at a conclusion based on the findings of theoretical and empirical analysis (p. 126). These pre-determined conclusions are referred to as ideal-type phenomena in Weber's comparative sociology. Within the context of the ideal-type phenomenon, Weber posited that involvement by an individual in any given ideal-type social relationship constituted a program ...