Sociology as a science began to develop in the 19th century thanks to the works of the French scientist Auguste Comte. The founder of sociology, O. Comte, was the first to declare the need to create a science about society. He is the founder of the positivist trend.
Stages of sociology
Problems associated with social organization were considered by Plato and Aristotle in Ancient Greece, T. More, F. Bacon and Machiavelli in the Renaissance, T. Hobbes, J. Locke, J. Russo, Montesquieu in New Time.
In the 19th century, sociology began to develop actively. The works of G. Spencer, O. Comte, K. Marx, F. Engels appear. This time can be called the first stage in the development of sociological science (1840-1880).
The second stage (1890-1920) of the evolution of the science of society was associated with the development of methods of sociological analysis and the development of the categorial apparatus. The positivistic concept of G. Spencer and O. Comte continued to develop in the works of the French scientist E. Durkheim, the author of a theory based on a functional analysis of social institutions. Around this time, the scientific school of M. Weber, the founder of “understanding” sociology, which, in his opinion, should understand social action and try to explain its development and results, begins to take shape.
The third stage (from 1920 to 1960) is characterized by the beginning of the active development of sociology in the United States, and its empirical component. The most significant at this stage was the theory of T. Parsons, which made it possible to represent society as a kind of dynamic functional structure. C. Mills created the so-called "new sociology", which gave the development of action and critical sociology.
The fourth stage in the development of science, which began in the 1960s, is represented by a wide variety of approaches, concepts, many authors: the theory of R. Merton, ethnomethodology of G. Garfinkel, the theory of symbolic interactionism of G. Mead and G. Bloomer, the theory of conflict Coder others.
Modern sociological theories
The first to apply structural-functionalistic analysis to the study of society was A. Radcliffe-Brown. He regarded society as a kind of superorganism, having all the necessary conditions for existence, because of which, in fact, social institutions arise . B. Malinovsky clarified the concept of function and applied a functionalistic approach to the study of culture. T. Parsons is considered the founder of the system-functional concept. It was further developed by R. Merton, who introduced the concept of mid-level theories.
Modern sociological theories also include the theory of symbolic interactionism, which was developed by J. G. Mead and C. Cooley. Personality, according to C. Cooley, is the result of communication. A person becomes a person through interactions (interactions) between individuals. J. G. Mead proposed the idea that the individual, as well as social action, should be formed with the help of symbols acquired by individuals in the process of their socialization.
Modern sociological theories cannot be imagined today without the phenomenological sociology of A. Schütz, who says that phenomena exist directly in the mind and are not connected with logical conclusions. P. Berger and T. Luckman became known for their work on the social construction of reality. According to P. Berger and T. Luckman, society can simultaneously exist as an objective and subjective reality.
The leading representatives of neo-Marxism were T. Adorno, G. Marcuse, J. Habermas, E. Fromm. The main methodological principles of neo-Marxists: commitment to humanism, the negation of positivism with its separation of values and facts, the liberation of the individual from a wide variety of forms of exploitation.
P. Bourdieu, the founder of constructive structuralism, made an attempt to avoid the confrontation of theoretical and empirical sociology.
These are the main modern sociological theories.