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SOC473 - Classical Sociological Theory - Notes
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SOC 473 - Classical Sociological TheoryJanuary 18 - Introduction
Classical sociological theory is about the ideas that have been written in the 19 th century when scholars tried to
understand the emergence of modern urban societies in Western Europe.
A subject in sociology means person.
Durkheim, Marx, and Weber are the three main founders and important in classical sociological theory, they are ‘the
Canon’.
Classical usually refers to ancient Greece and Romans, this term is used in sociology because this is a western subject.
It’s a “modern” concept, it’s about scholars during and after Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, and the French
revolution. This is what “modernity” indicates.
Modernity is a concept and a constructed idea and indicates the period after Enlightenment (17 th to 18th - the world can
be explained with reason), the industrial revolution (the 1830s), and the French revolution (1783-1799). Those three
events radically change society.
The theories of the founding fathers are good, but they might be a bit old lol. We need to question them and challenge
them, people did it and found gaps in those when applying them to different societies. In the reading, we talk about this.
The funders helped create what sociology is today and shaped society. They are important but they also have some
weaknesses in their theories, they were:
- Eurocentric: Europe is central in the world, not geographically but as the norm. Everything is seen through
European lenses. Europe is superior. The concept of eurocentrism is associated with the work of Marxist
economist Samir Amin who theorized it as an ideology that emerged due to European colonialism and the
predominance of capitalism.
For example, Durkheim talks about modern and primitive societies.
This is where anthropology was created. They came from a “modern” society and they used to go to “primitive”
societies to study them and try to find out how they’ll become “modern” too.
- Androcentric: men and masculine views are the norms.
- Anthropocentrism: the human specie is superior to other species. Humans are the norm and the standard.
Another critique that scholars are making of classical theories is that there is no mention of colonialism. European
political and cultural domination has been going on since the 15 th century. While in France they made the Declaration of
rights of men they were massacring people in colonies. Colonialism is the conquest and control of other peoples, their
land, and resources. Settler colonialism is colonialism that includes also ongoing dispossession and genocide of the
native population.
The three sociologists saw the effects of the revolutions on European societies but not on other societies. They also
participated in the creation of the Eurocentric view.
, January 25 - Stuart Hall (1932-2014)
Notes about the readings from Jennifer:
The underlying premise of this chapter is that “the west” is a historical, not geographical, construct. By “western”
we mean the type of society discussed in this book: a society that is developed, industrialized, urbanized,
capitalist, secular, and modern.
o The term is identical to the term “modern”, the west is therefore also an idea or concept.
The concept or idea of the “west” can be seen to function in the following ways:
o First, it allows us to characterize western and non-western
o Second, it is an image, or set of images. It functions as part of a language, a “system of representations”.
o Third, it provides a standard or model of comparison, and helps to explain the difference between what
is considered western and what is not considered western.
o Fourth, it provides criteria of evaluation against which other societies are ranked and around which
powerful positive and negative feelings cluster. (For instance, west is associated with being desirable,
whereas non-western is considered with being undesirable)
However, in this chapter we argue that the rise of the West is also a global story. As Robert observes, “Modern
history can be defined as the approach march to the age dominated by the West. “The West and the Rest
became two sides of a single coin.
The West’s sense of itself– its identity— was formed not only by the internal process that gradually molded
Western European countries into a distinct type of society, but also through Europe’s sense of difference from
other worlds– how it came to represent itself in relation to these “others”.
o It is also important to acknowledge that as well as treated non-Europeans cultures as different and
inferior, the West had its own internal “others”. Jews, in particular, though close to western religious
traditions, were frequently excluded and ostracized. West Europeans often regarded Eastern Europeans
as ‘barbaric’ and throughout the West, western women were represented as inferior to western men.
Karl Marx: his theory that society is propelled forward by the class struggle; that it progresses through a series of
stages marked by different modes of production, the critical one for capitalism being the transition from
feudalism to capitalism.
Notes about the lecture:
There is a difference between thinking of “the west” socially and geographically. “The west and the rest”
Hall tries to look at the significance of the language that we use because it has an impact on our lives. He says that
colonialism it’s still embedded in our interactions
He was a theorist of the school of thought of the Center for Contemporary Cultural studies.
The discourse of the west is not simply talking about something but a way of talking about something, it’s a group of
statements that establish a ‘normative’ way of talking about something. It limits the possibilities of talking about things
in other ways. It’s about social structures. People do things from coercion and consent.
Discourse is always linked to power. We have to change the discourse about a specific topic (change the discourse about
family to include friends, other members, straight couples, etc.)
Hall says that we need to study Western history as a global story, colonialism has to be seen as an encounter. This is
because Europeans saw other people in comparison with themselves, those populations were not normal because
Europeans were developed. They made categorizations of others. In defining others in specific ways, the west was also
defining itself. The west needed the rest to introduce a discourse about its power. Without the rest, the west wouldn’t
be the west.
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