Seymour Martin Lipset edited and introduced new edition of Martineau’s Society in America in 1962 (NY: Doubleday). Yet having one of the most famous white, male, sociologists of the era argue for the importance of her work was not enough to get it well-integrated into how sociologists thought about classical theory. And indeed, though it is more perceptive than Tocqueville on some key points, it hardly replaces his overall theory.
7 7 On Addams, and more directly on the role of women in founding modern sociology, see Patricia Madoo Lengerman and Gillian Niebrugge, The Women Founders: Sociology and Social Theory 1830-1930. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2007.
8 8 Aldon Morris, W.E.B. Du Bois: The Scholar Denied. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014.
9 9 See Patricia Hill Collins, Intersectionality as Social Theory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. In this, Du Bois was greatly influenced by the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. This is a reminder that though sociological theory is a disciplinary project, it is also importantly interdisciplinary. The concept of intersectionality was formulated by a Black feminist legal scholar, Kimberlé Crenshaw. Sociological theory has been central to, and also received influences from, both Black studies and feminism.
10 10 The Sociology of Science, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973; Part 3.
11 11 Popper, Karl R., Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1992).
12 12 C.B. Macpherson, Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
13 13 Adam Ferguson, a Scottish founder of sociology, wrote that society had its own history, distinct from that of politics. An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; orig. 1767).
14 14 Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1966.
15 15 The term “industrial revolution” was first used by French writers in the early 19th century and rapidly appropriated into English thought; Raymond Williams, Culture and Society, 1780–1950 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958).
16 16 See David A. Reissman, Adam Smith’s Sociological Economics (London: Croom Helm, 1976).
17 17 This change was variously described as a move from status to contract or ascription to achievement.
18 18 On the early history of individualism as a sociological concept, see Steven Lukes, Individualism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973).
19 19 Cooley, Social Organization, NY: Scribner’s, 1909, p. 4.
20 20 Tönnies, Community and Civil Society, orig. 1887; this ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
21 21 Marion Goldman and Steven Pfaff, The Spiritual Virtuoso, London: Bloomsbury, 2017.
22 22 David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570–1215. New York: Norton, 2008.
23 23 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History (abridged edition, translated by Franz Rosenthal). Princeton University Press 2015.
24 24 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, orig. 1939; this ed. Oxford: Blackwell 1994.
25 25 Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Persian Letters, orig. 1721; this ed., Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973. The Spirit of Laws (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978; orig. 1748).
26 26 Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
27 27 Hannah Arendt, On Totalitarianism, NY: Harcourt, 1951.
Part I
Precursors to Sociological Theory
Introduction to Part I
1 1 “Of the Natural Condition and the Commonwealth”
Introduction to Part I
The word “sociology” was coined by Auguste Comte in the 1830s; however, the idea of sociology had been developing for more than a century. Indeed, sociological theory drew on an intellectual heritage stretching back to the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Greece, and Rome, and the birth of Christianity. The roots of modern sociological theory may be traced to changes starting in the 17th century that built on these traditional philosophical foundations.
The Idea of Society
One set of changes had to do with the very idea of society itself. Today, it seems obvious to think society exists and it is important. We may define it as a functional system, the product of meaningful interaction among individuals, or the sum of social institutions. However, although there are debates over its definition, there is a widespread agreement about the importance of the ways in which people are related to each other from love and friendship, family and community to large-scale organizations, such as schools, businesses, and governments to the growing social connections linking the whole world. For society to become the focus of attention and the object of a new science, however, people had to see the world in somewhat different ways.
First, there had to be a separation of the idea of society from government. Early modern thinkers emphasized all the links connecting the members of society to each other, including the culture they shared, the markets in which they exchanged goods, and their communication networks. They distinguished these social relations from control by kings or government officials. This is the basis for the idea of civil society, which remains prominent even today. When we say there is a “civil society” response to an emergency or social problem, we mean that churches and synagogues, non-governmental organizations, and volunteer groups have responded – which are distinct from government agencies. This distinction is rooted directly in the 17th- and 18th-century rise of the idea of society at least partially independent of government.
Second, there had to be an idea that what happened in society was valuable in itself. Early modern