What is Society?

A
Sociological View

Prof. Premakumara De Silva

 What is the relevance of sociology in
engineering studies?
Its of much importance because engineering
students have to deal with the society especially for
those who work in the fields of civil engineering.
They have to understand society needs and design
their plans to solve problems of destitutes or
society needs. Engineers having knowledge about
sociology would have knowledge of the structure of
organisations and interpersonal relationships that
would help him/her develop a successful carrier.
 Society
The term society is most fundamental to sociology. It is derived
from the Latin word socius which means companionship or
friendship. Companionship means sociability. According to
George Simmel it is this element of sociability which defines
the true essence of society. It indicates that man always lives
in the company of other people. Man is a social animal said
Aristotle centuries ago. Man needs society for his living,
working and enjoying life.
Society has become an essential condition for human life to
continue. We can define society as a group of people who
share a common culture, occupy a particular territorial
area and feel themselves to constitute a unified and
distinct entity. It is the mutual interactions and interrelations of
individuals and groups.
 Types of Societies
All social thinkers have broadly divided society into
pre-industrial and post-industrial societies.
Sociologists like Comte based their classification of
societies on intellectual development. Most of them
concede the evolutionary nature of society- one type
leading to the other. One more way of dividing
societies is that of Marx. His classification of society
is based on the institutional framework of society as
determined by a group of people who control the
means of production. Marx distinguishes five
principal types of societies: primitive, Asiatic,
ancient, feudal and capitalist.
 Following these classifications, sociologists
often refer to societies as primitive or
modern, non-literate or literate. A more
recent kind of classification which is also
used while distinguishing societies into types
is the one between open and closed
societies. A closed society is the one which
is a traditional and simple society or a
totalitarian State tends to resist change,
while an open society admits change.
 Let me briefly introduce some of
the main ideas associated with
PREMODRN. MODERN and
POSTMODERN societies. Some
sociologists believe that human
societies have passed through
certain broad phases of
development.
PREMODERN
Societies took a number of forms.
Anthony Giddens (1997)
distinguishes between three main
types:
Hunting and gathering societies
Pastoral and agrarian societies
Non-industrial civilizations
MODERN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES

In the early nineteenth century there was widespread agreement

among observers and commentators at this time that Northern Europe
and North America were passing through the most profound
transformation of society in the history of mankind. The four main
transformations took place:

Industrialism (agriculture to manufacturing)

Capitalism (wage labour and business run for making profit)
Urbanism (massive movement from rural to urban)
Liberal democracy (the citizenship rights of individuals over the
right of kings and queens)
Taken together, the changes described above are often seen as
characterizing
MODERN SOCIETIES or MODERNITY. Modernity involves the
following concepts:

Human progress
Rational planning to achieve objects
A belief in rational thought (over emotion and faith)
Faith in the ability of technology and science to solve human
problem
A belief in the ability and rights of humans to shape their own lives
Reliance upon manufacturing industry to improve living standards.

However, some thinkers, including some sociologists, believe that

MODERNITY has been replaced by an era of POSTMODERNITY
POSTMODERNITY

Some sociologists suggest that human have begun to

lose their faith in science and technology. They have
become aware of the damaging effects of pollution,
the dangers of nuclear war, and the risks of genetic
engineering. Human have become more skeptical
about the benefits of rational planning. Lost faith in
political beliefs (e.g., communism) and grand
theories (ism) that claim to be able to improve
society. Some people have turned to non-rational
beliefs and religious cults as a reaction against
scientific rationalism.
According to some postmodernists, industrial society has
been superseded by post-industrial society:
Manufacturing to communication and information
technology
Narrowing gap between time and space
High consumerism
The media have become increasingly important in peoples
lives.

Although, some of these changes have undoubtedly taken

place, some sociologist do not believe that the changes are
sufficiently large and significant to justify to claim that there
has been a shift from modern to postmodern society
(information society, Network society or Risk Society).
 How Sociology explain society?
Origin of Sociology
What is Sociology?
 THE ORIGINS OF SOCIOLOGY
While "society" has been a topic of
thought and discussion since the beginning
of human history, sociological thinking is a
recent historical phenomenon. The
discipline of sociology is relatively young,
and itself emerged as a product of particular
social forces. Auguste Comte coined the
term sociology in 1838 during a period of
rapid social transformation.
 Science and Sociology
Emile Durkheim pointed out in the latter
part of the 19th century that the great
philosophers from antiquity through the first
half of the 19th century, using only
philosophical and theological perspectives
in their studies, concentrated on the
qualities of imaginary "ideal" societies
rather than on the analysis of what society
was really like. Sociology was born when
focus was given to understanding how
society actually operates.
 Historical Basis
Sociology emerged from enlightenment
thought, shortly after the French
Revolution(1789), as a positivist science of
society.
Its genesis owed to various key movements in
the philosophy of science and the
philosophy of knowledge.
The intellectual roots of sociology stretch
beyond the activities of the nineteenth century
to the political and social philosophers of
classical Greece, the social contract theories
of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau and the
Enlightenment of eighteenth century Europe.
 Origins
In 1838, the French-thinker August Comte
tweaked the meaning of the term sociology, to
give it the definition that it holds today. Comte had
earlier expressed his work as "social physics.
Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind
through the scientific understanding of the social
realm. His own sociological scheme was typical of
the 19th century humanists; he believed all human
life passed through distinct historical stages and
that, if one could grasp this progress, one could
prescribe the remedies for social ills.
Sociology was to be the "queen science" in
Comte's schema; all basic physical sciences had
to arrive first, leading to the most fundamentally
difficult science of human society itself
 Along with the industrial revolution in
England during the 18th century and the
rise of urbanisation and mass social
change, thinkers such as Comte,
Durkheim and Marx began to realise the
need to study society in its current form as
opposed to the tendency of past
philosophers on imagining the ideal
society.
 This period of history is often described as
the great transformation, which led to the
emergence of sociology. Around the late
18th century an intellectual period known
as the Enlightenment challenged many
of the established orders of society from
an analytical and scientific perspective.
 Modern Sociology
Modern academic sociology arose as a
reaction to modernity, capitalism, urbanization,
rationalization, and secularization, bearing a
particularly strong interest in the emergence of
the modern nation state.
An emphasis on the concept of modernity,
rather than the Enlightenment, often
distinguishes sociological discourse from that
of classical political philosophy
Sociology is a product of
modernity: a belief in the power of
human reason to create knowledge,
which can be used to achieve
progress.
 What is Sociology?
The simplest definition of
Sociology is that it is the
study of human society
and human social
behaviour.
Sociology looks at how
society works.
OR
Sociology is the study of
how society is organized
and how we experience
life.
 Sociology is the study of
group life and looks at the
things we hold in common
as well as the differences
between us.
Sociology is the scientific
study of social life, social
change, and the social
causes and consequences
of human behavior.

The essence of sociology

is not so much what is
studied but how it is
studied.
Whether we like it or not we
are born into groups and spend
most of our social lives in
those same groups. All of us
assimilate, at least in part, the
perspectives of these groups
and thereby acquire our
knowledge, language, values,
attitudes, beliefs and sense of
identity.

In a broad sense Sociology is a

distinct way of looking at the
individual and society
(collective).
 Sociology increases our understanding of
ourselves and our society by providing us
with concepts that describe and explain
our social creations and how they
influence us. We learn who we are and
why, and how we are similar to and
different from people with different social
arrangements.
 In addition, exposure
to Sociology opens our
minds, prompts us to
review the taken-for-
granted, and
encourages us to
entertain alternatives.
 As a discipline, Sociology involves the
description and explanation of social
structures, processes, and relations.
These range from two-person interactions
to relations between large social
institutions, such as politics and the
economy, to relations between nations.
 Beyond Common sense.
jHjydr {dkh
Sociology is a subject that appeals to
those who are ready to go beyond
common sense explanations and
challenge their assumptions. It asks of us
to look at the familiar with fresh eyes, to
interrogate accepted understandings of
the world and to critically evaluate widely
held ideas that might otherwise go
unquestioned.
 Sociology helps us move beyond common
sense to describe and explain more
accurately the categories of social
behavior and the relations between them.

It is true that common sense perspective

predominate in peoples minds. For
example, they may employ a biological
^joHd;aul& perspective in attempting
to explain family and marital arrangement:
women rear children because they have a
biologically determined maternal instinct
for this task
 People may use a pseudo-psychological
^ufkdaoHd;aul fkdjk& perspective in
explaining suicide: people commit suicide
when they are mentally unbalanced or a
moralistic ^iodpdruh& perspective in
explaining crime: criminals are sinners.
The common-sense explanations are
generally based on individualistic
^fm!oa.,sl& (an event or phenomenon can be understood
and explained through the behaviour of the individual) and
naturalistic ^iajdNdl& assumptions (God
given reasons for behaviour)
 Both types of explanation are rejected by
the sociologist: the individualistic because
it does not recognize the importance of
wider social forces acting on the individual
which he/she cannot control. The
naturalistic because it fails to recognize
that behavior patterns are not primarily
biologically determined but they are largely
socially determined.
Let me explain this with few examples
Individualistic and Sociological Explanation
of Poverty
People who are so Contemporary poverty
poor because they are is caused by the
afraid of work, come structure of inequality
from problem families, in society and is
are unable to budget experienced by those
properly, suffer from who suffer from a
low intelligence and chronic irregularity of
laziness work and low wages.
 Naturalistic and Sociological
Explanation of Marriage
It is only natural that a man
and woman should live
together for life because
they need each other and
want to raise children
Monogamy is only one
form of marriage,
predominant in most
societies. For example,
polygyny (a man with
more than one wife) and
polyandry (a woman with
more than one husband)
also exist in other
societies. The eligibility of
marriage partners
depends on the class,
caste and status position
of the individuals
 Until relatively recently (the nineteenth
century) interest in social aspects of
behaviour had been very limited; non-
social approaches (Individualistic and Naturalistic)
to human behaviour were predominant.
Sociology emphasis the importance of
social influences on human behaviour.
 What do sociologists do?

Sociologists examine how we are

shaped by the social world around us
but also how we shape and construct
the social and cultural world in which
we live. For sociologists the lives of
individuals can only be understood
through studying the wider social
context in which we live.