Ontology & epistemology

• Ontology: a specification of a conceptualization1 o E.g., What is society? What do we mean when we invoke “society”? Who

does it contain? What are its boundaries?o Generally understood as a theory of what is, of being, existence

• Epistemology: the study of knowledge and justified belief 2o What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are

its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? o How we are to understand the concept of justification? What makes

justified beliefs justified? Is justification internal or external to one's own mind?

o Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry

1.T. R. Gruber. A translation approach to portable ontologies. Knowledge Acquisition, 5(2):199-220, 1993.2. Steup, Matthias, "Epistemology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/epistemology/>.

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Metatheoretical MapNonrational

Rational

Individual Collective

ACT ION

ORDER

surplus value

class conflict

class interests

labor exploitation

forces & relations of production

commodity festishism

alienation/estrangement

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Metatheoretical MapNonrational

Rational

Individual Collective

ACT ION

MARX

DURKHEIM

ORDER

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

There can be no society which does not feel the need of upholding and reaffirming at regular intervals the collective sentiments and the collective ideas which makes its unity and personality. Now this moral remaking cannot be achieved except by the means of reunions, assemblies and meetings where the individuals, being closely united to one another, reaffirm in common their common sentiments.

(Durkheim 1912/1995: 474-75)

Intellectual influences• Auguste Comte (1798-1857), founder of French

positivism, coined the term “sociology”o Through systematic collection, the patterns behind and within individual

behavior can be uncoveredo positivism: the idea that the study of social phenomena should employ the

same scientific techniques used in the natural scienceso Comte saw "social physics" or sociology as a means to combat anarchy in

the wake of the French Revolutiono Society is sui generis (an objective reality that is irreducible to the

individuals that compose it) and amenable to scientific investigation• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), British philosopher,

shared organic view of societyo as social organism grows, it becomes more complex, due to differentiationo differentiation: in essence, any change that increases the variety of social

forms having durable connections to each other • e.g., variations among people based on selected social characteristics

such as age, sex, race, educational attainment, occupational status, etc.

Influences and core ideas • Sense of moral crisis in turn of the century France

o ED defended Captain Alfred Dreyfus at center of "Dreyfus Affair," who was falsely charged w/treason

o ED considered antisemitism a "moral sickness of society”• ED was a reformist, not a revolutionary

o described Marxism as a “disputable set of outdated hypotheses“o ED did not support agitation, feared and hated social disorder, but did not

believe social disorder was inherent in capitalism or a necessary part of modern world

o Disorder could be reduced through social reforms• Critique of individualism

o society, not the individual, is primaryo ED was critical of utilitarian individualism, economism

Core ideas in Durkheim’s early work

• role of ideals & moral unity in the continuity of society

• individual as active agent & passive recipient of social influence

• society is more than sum of its parts• society as an organism, which can be healthy or

pathological• change from traditional to modern society likened to

biological processes involving differentiation of cells

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Metatheoretical MapNonrational

Rational

Individual Collective

Marx

DURKHEIM

Du Bois

Weber

Gilman

Mead

Simmel

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Metatheoretical MapNonrational

Rational

Individual Collective

ACT ION

ORDER

anomiecollective consciencecollective representations sacred & profanesocial solidarity mechanical solidarity organic solidarity

division of labor

The Division of Labor in

Society1893

The modern division of labor – Marx vs. Durkheim

• Marx claimed the division of labor (or economic specialization) in capitalism inevitably resulted in alienation

• Durkheim, by contrast, argued that economic specialization was not necessarily bad for the individual or societyo It depends on the conditions, whether it’s voluntary or not

Division of labor & social solidarity

• The Division of Labor in Society challenged claim that modern society was headed towards disintegration

• Despite declining significance of traditional moral beliefs (rooted in religion), a new system of moral regulation could be found in the differentiated DOLo Not based on formal contracts, as utilitarians suggesto Social norms upholding contracts give them force - "noncontractual basis of

contract"

• Contemporary society still has a moral order!

A new type of solidarity

• social solidarity: the cohesion of social groups

• In modern societies, mechanical solidarity is supplanted by a new type of social cohesion: organic solidarity

contemporary society still has a moral order!

There are two types of positive solidarity:

mechanical & organic

• mechanical solidarity, links the individual to society without any intermediaryo Society is organized collectively and is composed

of beliefs common to all members of the groupo The individual consciousness depends on the

collective consciousness• collective conscience: “the totality of beliefs and

sentiments common to average citizens of the same society” that “forms a determinate system which has its own life”

Mechanical vs. organic solidarity

• Where mechanical solidarity is the main basis of societal cohesion, collective conscience completely envelops the individual conscience and therefore presumes an identity between individuals in their beliefs and actions

• With organic solidarity, society is a system of different functions united by definite relationships, which bring about the DoL

DoL & social solidarity• In modern DoL, each individual must have a sphere

of action and a personality which is his own• Individuality grows at the same time as the parts of

societyo Society becomes more effective at moving in concert though at the same

time each of its elements has more movements that are peculiarly its own• Solidarity stems not simply from acceptance of

common set of beliefs but from functional interdependence in DoL

• The growth of organic solidarity and the expansion of the DOL are associated with increasing individualism

• The progress of organic solidarity is depends on the declining significance of the collective conscience

The Rules of the

Sociological Method

1895

A science of morality

• ED sought to treat the facts of moral life according to the method of the positive scienceso vs. the moral philosophers who began with a priori postulates about

essential human natureo & vs. psychology, where propositions are applied through a process of

logical deduction• ED sets out not to extract ethics from science, but

to establish a science of moralityo moral rules develop in society and are bound up with the conditions of

social life pertaining in a given time and placeo science of moral phenomena thus sets out to analyze how changing

forms of society effect transformations in the character of moral norms and to observe and classify these

Sociology is the study of social facts

(1)Sociology is a distinct field of study(2)Although the social sciences are distinct from the

natural sciences, the methods of the latter can be applied to the former

(3)The social field is also distinct from the psychological realm

social facts: conditions and circumstances external to the individual that, nevertheless, determine the individual’s course of action

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Crime is normal• Crime is present in all societies of all types• Its form changes

o acts thus characterized are not the same everywhere but everywhere and always there have been people whose behavior draws punishment

• Crime is not only inevitable, it is necessary - an integral part of all healthy societies

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What is crime? • Crime consists of an act that offends certain very

strong collective sentiments

• It is not the intrinsic quality of a given act that makes it a crime, but the definition which the “collective conscience” of society gives it

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Crime plays role in social evolution

• Where crime exists, collective sentiments are sufficiently flexible to take on a new form, and crime sometimes helps determine the form they will takeo ED: “Socrates’ crime, independence of

thought, provided a service not only to humanity but to his country, preparing the ground for a new morality & faith in Athens, since traditions were no longer in harmony with current conditions”• his violation was a crime, but it was useful as a

prelude to necessary reforms

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Crime has a social function

• Crime must no longer be conceived as an evil to be suppressed

• Instead, we should attempt to discern its social function, the purpose it serves for society