Marxist Sociology Wikipedia defines soci

Wikipedia defines sociology as "a social science [whose subject matter concerns] the study of the social lives of people, groups and societies, sometimes defined as the study of social interactions" (en.wikipedia.org/Wiki/Sociology). The word "sociology" was coined by Auguste Compte in 1838. He conceived it as the "queen of sciences", one that would discover the laws of human behavior. In his view, it should include the disciplines of history, psychology, and economics.

Compte's theoretical approach to sociology, known as positivism, was to treat it like the physical sciences, using the same methods on social phenomena. He hoped to establish its findings on the same rigorously empirical basis as the pre-existing natural sciences, to distinguish it from less precise fields of study such as philosophy.

The seminal figures in sociology's first century - Karl Marx, Ferdinand Toennies, Emile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, and Max Weber - worked in a variety of subjects, such as religion, economics, education, psychology, philosophy, and theology. Weber, and later Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Reikert, were part of a basic schism in the field, a rejection of the positivistic search for precise and unchanging laws governing human behavior in favor of a concentration on the unique aspects of human culture such as language, values, norms, symbols, and meaning, which, needless to say, are maddeningly difficult to objectify or quantify.

All the social sciences suffer from similar l

Related Essays

Mrs. Warren's Profession v. The Good Woman of Setzuan .... study analysis because it is a Marxist or economic .... 1). Social Conflict Theory - A sociology theory based .... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conflict_theory, 1. (2946 12 )

Ethics and Aesthetics of Post War France .... But the Marxist rhetoric is leaden and dull, so he .... All these threads of politics, history, sociology, culture, art .... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Godard, 2005. .... (3796 15 )

Vienna and Sicily to Warsaw shocked the elites of Europe, which fought back and defeated these revolutionary movements with extreme repression and cruelty. Marx gave voice to these widespread passionate and heartfelt protests against the conditions of the working class. While his frames of reference were derived from a by-gone era, later sociologists would not have taken up his works so enthusiastically if he had not put his metaphorical finger on social mechanisms that perpetuate inequality and social misery to this day. As Paul Strathern puts it in his Marx in 90 Minutes (p.8): "The cheek-by-jowl existence of luxury and pitiless destitution that can be found today in Bombay and Sao Paulo would be all too recognizable to the Marx who wandered the streets of Dickensonian London. Even in the heartlands of 21st century affluence created by capitalism, its contradictions are still evident in the urban ghettoes of New York and Los Angeles, the economic wastelands of northern England, and the slums of Naples. Capitalism has become the worldwide success story, but at a cost. In Marx's time, this cost was beginning to appear unbearable." Strathern sees Marx's influence on sociology in five major areas: The concept of the alienation

Category: Philosophy - M