Many sciences, in addition to the theoretical development of the problems facing them, solve problems related to practice; usually areas dealing with this are called applied . There is also an applied sociolinguistics. The term “sociolinguistics” arose not so long ago. The term “sociolinguistics” was first introduced into scientific circulation by an American sociologist. Herman Curry in 1952. However, this does not mean that the science of the social conditioning of language originated in the early 1950s. Sociolinguistic studies, like those carried out under the name "sociology of language", deal with the relationship between language and society.

Functionalism by Robert King Merton(1910 – 2003) is based on an analysis of social reality. The attractive aspects of his functional theory are that it allows one to maintain theoretical scientific character, reflects the pressing problems of individuals, it is an understandable theory, it can be easily conveyed to all subjects who are not professionally involved in sociology, since it is a good tool in managing social processes.

The main concepts of Merton's theory of structural functionalism are “function” and “dysfunction”. Functions- according to Merton, those observable consequences that serve the self-regulation of a given system or its adaptation to the environment. Dysfunctions- those observable consequences that weaken the self-regulation of a given system or its adaptation to the environment. Three conditions included in the requirements of R. Merton's functional analysis: functional unity, functional universality, functional obligation (coercion). R. Merton placed the concept of “functionality” at the heart of his middle-range theory.

Structuralism in sociology- the concept of applying structural analysis to social phenomena, mainly cultural phenomena. Structuralism became most widespread in the 60s. XX century in the works of French researchers Lévi-Strauss, Fuchs, M. Locan and others.

Proponents of the theory of structuralism claim the possibility of building a new model of social reality. Such a model for structuralists was language as an initially and transparently structured formation. This defined the methodological apparatus of structuralism as a mechanism associated with the structural properties of sign systems (natural, colloquial, programming language, etc.), using some methods used by the exact and natural sciences.

Somewhat earlier than functionalism, a different approach to the study of society began to develop in the United States - structural-functionalist, having reached greatest influence in the 1950-60s Society is considered as an integral system, the study of which takes place on the structural division of its social integrity. Each element must be assigned a specific functional purpose. The concept of function was given two meanings: service role, i.e. the purpose of one element in relation to another or to the system as a whole; the role of dependence, in which changes in one part are derived from changes in another part. According to the structural-functionalist approach, the main task of sociology is to study the mechanisms and structures that ensure the stability of the social system. The author of the theory is Talcott Parsons(1902-1970), who called his theory “systemic functionalism.” The main thing for T. Parsons was the principle of the systemic structure of society. He argued that all social systems perform four basic functions: adaptation, when the system adapts to any internal and external changes; goal achievement- the system sets and achieves its goal; integration- the system connects all its elements and functions; sample retention- the system creates, preserves, and improves patterns of behavior of subjects, their motivation and cultural rules. The key to T. Parsons's entire concept is the category of equilibrium. Society, in his opinion, can only exist in balance. Its violation leads to destabilization of the system and its death. The main task of sociology is to give recommendations for maintaining the balance of the system and society. Balance is ensured by social action. Starting points social action are: the actor, the situation, the actor’s orientation to the situation.

Thus, T. Parsons’ model of the action system assumes four subsystems: social, cultural, personal, organic. He believed that social systems have certain levels. The higher level consumes the “energy” of the lower level. For example, a person can exist only on the basis of the energy of a biological organism. Higher levels of the system control lower ones. Actually high level(indicated by the vague concept " ultimate reality") are the ideals and humanity of society. This level seems to be devoid of physical energy, but, nevertheless, it exercises the most effective control. A social system integrates the actions of many individuals; culture contains the most common patterns of actions, values, beliefs, mania, and choice of goals. The development of society and humanity in T. Parsons is of an evolutionary nature. The forces of differentiation (heterogeneity within the system increases) and integration (the integrity of the system grows as a consequence of the emergence of new complementary connections, their strengthening and coordination of parts) are more active in it. For systems to function successfully, according to T. Parsons, it is necessary to have a high degree of organization, compatibility with other systems, and mutual support; the system must satisfy most of the needs of those subjects who maximally support it with their participation in it; the system must have control over the behavior of its elements; if it occurs conflict situation and can destroy the system, then it must strictly control it; To function, the system must have a common language and rules of communication.

In the concept of T. Parsons, three types of society are identified and developed: primitive (there is no differentiation in it), intermediate (when writing appears, social stratification, culture stands out as an independent sphere human activity), modern (its main property is the formation of a legal system from a religious one, the emergence of bureaucracy, a market economy, and a democratic electoral system). Towards the end of his life, T. Parsons argued that the creation of a general theory of the processes of change in social systems is impossible with the existing level of knowledge.

In the 20th century it develops phenomenological sociology. Its founders: Edmund Husserl (1859 – 1938), Alfred Schutz(1899 – 1959). They argued that a phenomenon is something that is observed and described, but about which one should refrain from making unfounded judgments. There are many worlds of human experience - the worlds of dreams, mental illness, games and fantasies, scientific theories, religious faith, art, calling them finite areas of meaning. Everyday life is just one of these “spheres of reality”, distinguished by special characteristics. The social world of an individual is a certain semantic space that is formed by his social actions. In this world there is not only the individual himself, but also other people with whom his social actions relate. But this social space is centralized, it is his space that he constructs, not the universal space in which he is placed. The typification of the perception of other people, their movement to the center or horizon of his space depends on the meaning of the individual’s actions, on his goals.

Within the framework of this concept, a theory was developed ethnomethodology, based Harold Garfinkel(b. 1917). He shares many of the ideas of symbolic interactionism and phenomenological sociology. The very name “ethnomethodology” comes from the words “ethnos” (people, people) and methodology (the science of rules, methods) and means “the science that studies the rules Everyday life of people". In ethnomethodology we're talking about, first of all, not about the methods of science itself, but about the methods of describing and constructing social reality that are used by people in their everyday life. Moreover, ethnomethodologists especially emphasize the fact that the description of social reality is identical to its construction.

Garfinkel clarifies, central theme ethnomethodology, considering its three, as he calls them, “constituent problematic phenomena. When it comes to studies of practical reasoning, they include the following:

An unfulfilled program of distinguishing between objective (context-free) and indexical expressions and replacing the latter with the former;

- “uninteresting” essential reflexivity of descriptions of practical actions;

Analyzability of actions in context as a practical implementation.”

Along with the theoretical procedure of phenomenological reduction, G. Garfinkel comes up with experimental situations in which the usual definition of situations is destroyed, revealing expectations that correspond to common sense. If phenomenological reduction allows you to mentally abstract from common sense, then G. Garfinkel’s experiments allow you to really look at it from the outside. For example, G. Garfinkel recommended, as an experiment, to behave at home as if you were visiting: asking permission to wash your hands, excessively praising everything that is served at the table, etc. Another experimental technique is to pretend that you don’t understand the meaning of the simplest everyday calls. For example, an experimenter is asked: “How are you?”, and he clarifies: “How are you? What do you mean how? Which of my affairs specifically are you interested in?” Another technique is that during a conversation with a person, the experimenter brings his face closer to him, without explaining anything.

Such behavior destroys the usual situation, reveals the peculiarities of behavior, which, being everyday and familiar, is not always realized, being a kind of background against which our interactions unfold. The set of habitual, not always conscious ways (methods) of behavior, interaction, perception, description of situations is called background practices. The study of background practices and their constituent methods, as well as an explanation of how, on the basis of these practices, ideas about objective social institutions, hierarchies of power and other structures arise is the main task of ethnomethodology.

Human interactions themselves and the social reality that results from them can be not only subjective, but also irrational. However, the methods of interpretation used by people and the language of description are such that the properties of objectivity and rationality are inevitably introduced into them. When participating in an interaction, an individual inevitably analyzes everything that happens and expresses the results of his analysis in generally understandable terms. The features of social reality that we accept as objective are objective only because we express them in terms of their general properties. These general properties are not necessarily inherent in the objects themselves, but are attributed to them in the course of their description. Verbal expression gives the described experience a rational, coherent and systematic character, making it meaningful and rational. Social order therefore arises only situationally, as a result of the described elementary interactions.

In everyday life, we treat the social world not just as common to all of us, but also as independent of our ideas. However, from a phenomenological and ethnomethodological point of view, social institutions and other social phenomena“real” only insofar as we organize our activities in such a way that we constantly confirm their real existence.

Symbolic interactionism- arose in the 20s of the 20th century and determined the emergence of many modern sociological schools. The category “symbolic” means that this concept places emphasis on the “meaning” that subjects make when they interact (“interaction”), i.e. this theory views society in terms of how people behave during interactions. The founder of symbolic interactionism is George G. Mead(1863-1931) - American sociologist. He assumed that by considering the basic rules of human behavior, the principles of the functioning of society can be explained.

Social exchange theory- a direction in modern sociology that considers the exchange of various social benefits (in the broad sense of the word) as a fundamental basis public relations, on which various structural formations grow (power, status, etc.). Its prominent representatives are George Homans and Peter Blau. The essence of this theory is that people interact with each other based on their experience, weighing possible rewards and costs. A person's behavior is determined by whether his actions were rewarded in the past. This approach to explaining social interaction is also called behavioristic. Rewards in the process of social interaction can be social approval, respect, status, as well as practical help.

Behaviorism(from English - behavior, literally - the science of behavior) - a direction in positivist sociology, which is based on the understanding of human behavior as a set of long-term reactions to the influence of the external environment (stimuli). The basic formula of behaviorism: stimulus - response. This trend originated in American psychology in late XIX- early 20th century and reached its peak by the middle of the 20th century. As its main method, behaviorism uses the description, recording and measurement of external manifestations of behavior under controlled conditions. Behaviorism absolutizes the direct connection between stimulus and response, considering it as a universal explanatory principle.

SOCIAL SYSTEM

LECTURE 7.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC SCIENCES:

1. Social system.

2. Basic concepts of sociology.

3. Basic socio-economic theories.

System- (from the Greek systema - a whole made up of parts; connection), a set of elements that are in relationships and connections with each other, which forms a certain integrity, unity. Having undergone a long historical evolution, the concept of “system” has become one of the key philosophical, methodological and special scientific concepts since the mid-20th century. In modern scientific and technical knowledge, the development of problems related to the research and design of systems of various kinds is carried out within the framework of the systems approach, general theory of systems, various special theories of systems, in cybernetics, systems engineering, systems analysis, etc.

Social system- a complex, ordered whole, including individual individuals and social communities, united by various connections and relationships, social in nature.

Social systems are groups of people who have been in direct contact for quite a long time; organizations with a clearly defined social structure; ethnic or national communities; states or groups of interconnected states, etc.; some structural subsystems of society: for example, economic, political or legal systems of society, science, etc.

Each social system, to one degree or another, determines the actions of the individuals and groups within it and in certain situations acts in relation to the environment as a single whole.

From the standpoint of a materialistic understanding of history, the emergence, functioning, development and change of social systems is considered as a naturally historical process.

The initial connections of social systems are relations of production; as historical development other types of social relations (political, ideological, etc.) are also formed, which increases the quantity and enriches the content of social connections between people, and also serves as the basis for the formation of new types of social systems.

In the course of historical development, as trade, economic, political, and cultural relations between individual countries and regions intensify, a gradual and contradictory process of formation of the world social system occurs.

Sociology(from French sociologic, from Latin societas - society and Greek logos - word, doctrine; literally - the doctrine of society), the science of society as an integral system and of individual social institutions, processes and groups, considered in their connection with society whole.

A necessary prerequisite for sociological knowledge is a view of society as an objectively interconnected whole, “...and not as something mechanically linked and therefore allowing all sorts of arbitrary combinations of individual social elements...” (V.I. Lenin).

Sociology as an independent science developed in the 19th century(the term was introduced by the French philosopher O. Comte) as a result of concretizing the problems of traditional social philosophy; specialization and cooperation social sciences; development of empirical social research.

The revolution in social science that laid the foundation scientific sociology , was carried out by K. Marx: “Just as Darwin put an end to the view of animal and plant species as unconnected, random, “created by God” and unchangeable, and for the first time put biology on a completely scientific basis... so Marx put an end to the view of society as a mechanical unit individuals, allowing any changes at the will of the authorities (or, anyway, at the will of society and the government), arising and changing by chance, and for the first time put sociology on a scientific basis, establishing the concept of socio-economic formation as a set of given production relations, establishing that the development of such formations is a natural historical process” (V.I. Lenin).

Bourgeois sociology developed in the 19th century in two (at first almost unrelated to each other) directions - theoretical sociology and empirical social research.

Theoretical sociology tried to reconstruct the main phases of historical evolution and at the same time describe the structure of society. However, the development of society was presented to positivist sociologists in the form of a more or less straightforward evolution, and the structure of society was reduced to the mechanical subordination of various “factors.” Depending on which side public life was given highest value, in sociology of the 19th century. There are several different directions.

There are different schools of thought in sociology.

Geographical school emphasized the influence of the geographic environment and its individual components (climate, landscape, etc.). The demographic school considered the main factor social development population growth.

Racial-anthropological school interpreted social development in terms of heredity, “racial selection” and the struggle of “higher” and “lower” races.

Bioorganic school viewed society as a semblance of a living organism, and the social division of society as a similar division of functions between various organs. Social Darwinism saw the source of social development in the “struggle for existence.”

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. Various varieties have become widespread psychological sociology – instinctivism ; behaviorism ; introspectionism (explanation of social life in terms of desires, feelings, interests, ideas, beliefs, etc.. Along with attempts to explain social life in terms of individual psychology, theories have appeared that highlight collective consciousness, as well as processes and forms of social interaction.

Psychological sociology contributed to the study of issues such as public opinion, the specifics of collective psychology, the relationship between rational and emotional aspects in societies. consciousness, mechanisms for transmitting social experience, psychological foundations and the conditions for the formation of social self-awareness of the individual and group. However, the reduction of sociology. to psychology led to ignoring material social relations, their structure and dynamics.

The second line of development of sociology in the 19th century was empirical social research. The need for information about population and material resources for administrative purposes gave rise to periodic censuses and government surveys. Urbanization and industrialization also gave rise to a number of new social problems (poverty, housing issues, etc.), which were studied back in the 18th century. started studying public organizations, social reformers and philanthropists. The first empirical social studies (works of English political arithmeticians of the 17th century, French government surveys of the 17th-18th centuries) were not systematic. In the 19th century Quetelet developed the foundations of sociology. statistics, Le Play - a monographic method for studying family budgets. The first centers for social research appeared (London Statistical Society, Society for Social Policy in Germany, etc.).

In modern sociology, there are three main directions in defining the concept of “society”: functionalism, the conflict paradigm and the interactionist direction.

Functionalists base their approach on the assertion that society is a stable and orderly system, the stability of which is achieved through common values, beliefs, and social expectations 1 .

Thus, from the point of view of this theory, society consists of interconnected parts, each of which performs certain functions and responsibilities, contributing to maintaining the sustainability and stability of the entire system.

Until about the 1950s, functionalism was the most influential approach in sociology. The first representative of this trend is considered to be an English sociologist Herbert Spencer, who viewed society as an organism in which the individual parts must function harmoniously. The same view is proposed in many of the works of E. Durkheim. Modern functionalists talk about society as a system rather than an organism, but the approach to how the various elements of a system are interconnected is much the same. Prominent representatives of this school are T. Parsons and R. Merton.

Modern functionalism in its approach to society is based on the following principles.

Society is a system of integrated parts.

The social system is characterized by stability, since it has built-in control mechanisms, such as prosecutorial supervision, court, etc.

The social system has not only functions, but also dysfunctions, which indicates the possibility of the system deviating from the accepted normative model. However, such deviations usually overcome themselves or, in the end, take root in society. For example, the radicals of the 60s greatly changed our society, introducing a new environmental consciousness, distrust of government, and casual clothing.

Change usually occurs gradually rather than in a revolutionary way.

Social integrity is formed as a result of the agreement of the majority of the population with the system of values ​​​​accepted in a given society 1 .

Functionalist sociology thus emphasizes the functions of various elements of a social system. In practice, this usually means a closer analysis of social institutions such as politics, economics, law, religion, etc., establishing connections between them and clarifying the functions they perform in society.

Recent years have been marked by fairly strong criticism of this approach to viewing society among sociologists. Rejection is primarily caused by functionalist ideas about the value of social cohesion and the desire for social order. These assumptions do not reflect the diversity and contradictions inherent in most complex societies. The functionalist point of view masks the conflicts and contradictions that exist in every society and underestimates the importance of social change. In addition, functionalists do not explain how social institutions arose in the first place and what causes them to change over time 1 .

Conflict theory is also based on ideas about the role and influence of social structures, but it does not recognize solidarity and cooperation as a way to achieve social change and social progress. It is conflict, and not cohesion, according to supporters of this theory, that personifies the relations between different groups in society.

The origins of the theory of social conflict were the American sociologist Charles Wright Mills. He argued that any macrosociological analysis is worth anything only if it deals with the problems of the struggle for power between conflicting social groups 2. The theory of social conflict received a clearer formulation in the works of the American sociologist Ralph Dahrendorf, who argues that all complex organizations are based on the redistribution of power, that people with power are able, through various means, among which the main one is coercion, to achieve benefits from people with less power. The possibilities for distributing power and authority are limited, so members of any society struggle to redistribute them. This struggle may not manifest itself openly, but the grounds for it exist in any social structure.

Thus, according to R. Dahrendorf, the basis of conflicts is not economic interests, but the desire of people to redistribute power. The source of conflicts becomes the so-called homo politicus (political man). Therefore, social conflicts are inherent in any society. They are inevitable and constant, they serve as a means of satisfying interests, a way to soften the manifestations of various human passions 1 .

However, modern adherents of the conflict theory argue that society is characterized by inequality not only in the political sphere, but also in the economic and social sphere, and they interpret social life as a struggle between different social groups due to a lack of resources. Therefore, conflictologists place their main emphasis on the problems of inequality in society and the analysis of its negative impact on people.

Within this direction, the Marxist concept should be highlighted. From the point of view of Marxism, society - this is a relatively stable system of social connections and relationships of both large and small groups of people that has developed in the process of historical development of mankind, supported by the power of custom, tradition, law, social institutions, etc., which is built on a certain method of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material and spiritual goods. Society, from the point of view of scientists of this direction, follows from the natural desire of man to unite through property 2. Society is gradually evolving, but social progress associated with revolutionary events, during which one social system is replaced by another as a result of a clash of interests of various groups.

Interactionism (action concept) studies not the macrosystems and structures of society, but the ways in which individuals and small groups in society are connected. The focus of attention of scientists in this area is on interpersonal relationships between individuals, how others treat them, how they perceive and evaluate each other’s behavior. These views are based on the belief that a person needs to determine what is happening in life and then decide how to act.

Thus, theorists with an interactionist orientation focus their attention on the micro level of social life, on elucidating the role of specific interpersonal interactions in the creation and functioning of the structures of the social world. Among the many microtheories developed by sociological science, the most famous are the social exchange theory of George Homans and Peter Blau, as well as the concept of symbolic interactionism of George Herbert Mead and Herbert Bloomer.

Initial position social exchange theories is that people need multiple types of rewards, which they can only receive by interacting with other people. Individuals enter into social relationships because they expect to be rewarded and continue in those relationships because they get what they want. Rewards can be social approval, respect, status, authority, etc., as well as practical and material assistance. In the event that the relationship between individuals in the process of interaction is unequal, a person who has the means to satisfy the needs of other people can use them to gain power over them. This is possible under four conditions: 1) if those in need do not have the necessary funds; 2) if they cannot obtain them from another source; 3) if they do not want to get what they need by force; 4) if such changes do not occur in their value system, as a result of which they will not be able to do without what they previously needed. 1

Characteristics symbolic interactionism are, firstly, the desire to proceed when explaining behavior not from individual drives, needs, interests, but from society, understood as a set of inter-individual interactions, and, secondly, an attempt to consider all the diverse connections of a person with things, nature, other people, groups of people and society as a whole as connections mediated by symbols. In this case, special importance is attached to linguistic symbolism. Thus, the basis of symbolic interactionism is the idea of ​​social activity as a set of social roles, which is fixed in a system of linguistic and other symbols. 1

As a result, based on various concepts in modern sociology, a definition of society has emerged as a relatively independent or self-sufficient population characterized by internal organization, territoriality, cultural differences and natural reproduction.

For the first time the word "sociology" denoting the field scientific knowledge was introduced into scientific circulation by a French thinker O. Kontome(1798 - 1857) in 1842 in his main work "Course of Positive Philosophy."

Comte originally called sociology “social physics.” He believed that sociology should consider society as a kind of organism with its own structure, each element of which should be examined from the point of view of its usefulness for public good. This organism acted in accordance with cruel laws, like the law of universal gravitation in physics. In this regard, O. Comte divided all sociology into social statics (describing the relationship between social institutions) And social dynamics (revealing the laws of change in society) and allowed the application of the laws of mechanics to the study of society and its basic elements. Society, according to Comte, is an organic whole, each member of which is inconceivable without connection with the whole.

O. Comte believed that with the help of science it is possible to understand the hidden laws that govern all societies. Sociology should use, according to Comte, the following methods:

· observation over the course of social processes;

· experiment, monitoring changes caused specifically;

· comparison the life of mankind with the animal world;

· comparison life different countries and peoples according to certain indicators;

· historical analysis.

Speaking about obtaining knowledge about society and the laws of its functioning and development, O. Comte almost completely denied the role of general theory in sociology. This approach to obtaining and using scientific knowledge is usually qualified as empiricism in sociology.

Comte opposed considering society as a simple collection of individuals and proceeded from the priority of society over the individual. Only society is real, and individual person there is a simple abstraction (the so-called " sociologism"in views on society). Comte believed that “society makes itself and makes man.” From his point of view, the very qualities of people develop depending on such social institutions as upbringing and education, thanks to which people can master the knowledge and experience of previous generations and develop appropriate social qualities.

Comte's historical and scientific role lies in the fact that he placed the problem of studying society and the relationships within it within the framework of a separate science, which he called sociology. But O. Comte was unable to clearly define the subject of the new science and find a scientific method that would allow a comprehensive study of the laws of social development.

However, two ideas originating in the work of Comte are clearly visible in the development of sociology:

1) application of scientific methods to study society;

2) practical use of science to implement social reforms.

Sociology received its real development and recognition after the development and formulation of basic scientific concepts and the creation of theoretical foundations for the study social phenomena. Outstanding thinkers Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Herbert Spencer made a huge contribution to the development and development of sociology as a science.

Made a significant contribution to the development of sociology Karl Marx(1818-1883). The ideological prerequisites for the work of K. Marx were:

· G. Hegel’s idea of ​​contradiction as a source of development of society;

· the philosophy of Feuerbach, thanks to which K. Marx arose the concept of alienation of labor;

· English political economic thought, from which K. Marx borrowed the understanding of labor as the main source of product value;

· ideas of utopian socialism.

One of his main achievements is considered to be a scientific analysis of the capitalist society of his time. As a tool for such analysis, K. Marx used class structure of society: all individuals belong to certain social classes, the division into which occurs on the basis of ownership of the means of production. Class division is based on inequality, and this means that one class is in a more advantageous position than the rest, and appropriates part of the results of the labor of another.

According to K. Marx, exploitation cannot be reformed, it can only be destroyed by replacing class society with a classless one. Thus, K. Marx put forward a completely different approach to understanding society, and the process of replacing the old with the new.

K. Marx advocated a revolutionary way of changing society, and other sociologists advocated a reformist one. K. Marx is the founder of the so-called conflict theories, resulting from inequality, which is constantly increasing with the dominance of some classes over others. He identified contradictions and conflicts as the most important factor in social change, as a driving force in history.

K. Marx first presented society as a product of historical development. He substantiated the emergence social inequality and analyzed social conflicts as a phenomenon necessary for social development and progress in the work “Capital” (1843 - 1883).

Gerber Spencer(1820 – 1903). To shape his worldview big influence had Darwin's evolutionary theory. He compared societies with biological organisms, and individual parts (state, church) with parts of the organism (heart, nervous system etc.). Each part, in his opinion, brings some benefit to the whole and performs vital functions.

The basic law of social development, according to G. Spencer – the law of survival of the fittest individuals. The foundation laid by G. Spencer received scientific recognition theory of social evolution. The concept of survival of the fittest applied to the social world is called social Darwinism, which has found wide application in England and the USA as a theoretical basis justifying the existence of “wild” capitalism.

G. Spencer contributed to the introduction into science and widespread dissemination of the concept "social institution" highlighting and describing its main varieties. G. Spencer is an adherent of the theory of functionalism, which competes with the Marxist theory of conflict.

Max Weber(1864-1920), under the influence of K. Marx and F. Nietzsche, developed his own sociological theory, which to this day has a decisive influence on all scientific sociological theories.

The views of K. Marx and M. Weber differed significantly. M. Weber put the individual above all else and called it the reason for the development of society cultural values. Weber does not accept the path of revolutionary transformation of capitalist society. Sociology, according to M. Weber, is "understanding" because it studies the behavior of the individual who invests in his actions certain meaning. In order to identify motives, a sociologist must mentally put himself in the place of the person he is studying and figure out why he acted this way and not otherwise, what guided him.

One of the central points of his theory was his identification of the elementary particle of individual behavior in society - social action, which is the cause and consequence of a system of complex relationships between people.

M. Weber introduced the concept ideal type, claiming that in real life“entrepreneur” or “king” does not exist at all. This is an abstraction invented in order to designate entire sets of facts, people, and phenomena with one name.

He considered the ideal mechanism for implementing and maintaining power relations in an organization bureaucracy- an artificially created management apparatus that controls and coordinates the activities of all its employees. Weber's works defined the subject of sociology and laid the foundations for its development in both theoretical and practical terms. Thanks to the theoretical contributions of M. Weber and his colleagues, the German sociological school dominated world sociology until the First World War.

Georg Simmel (1868-1918) proposed his own version of the interpretation of the subject, the main method and the basic theoretical structure of sociology. The object of sociology, in his opinion, is society, which he understood as a process of social interactions and the result of these interactions. The subject area of ​​sociology is limited to the study "societies"– stable forms social life that give integrity and stability to society. These are forms of human society - domination, subordination, culture, division of labor, competition, conflict, morality, fashion, etc.

The historical-comparative method according to G. Simmel is the main method of sociological analysis. He did not exclude other methods (observations, surveys, experiments), but regarded them as additional.

Emile Durkheim(1858-1917) - founder of the French sociological school. At the initial stages, E. Durkheim, relying on the positivist philosophy of O. Comte, put forward the principles of a new methodology: naturalism– understanding the laws of society by analogy with the laws of nature and sociologism– social reality exists independently of a person. Durkheim, the first professor of sociology in France, formulated principles in sociology that became textbook and defined the subject of sociology social facts, making up the system of social reality.

Durkheim paid much attention to the study of behavior that deviates from generally accepted rules and norms. The term he introduced "anomie" (from fr. anomie- lawlessness, disorganization) serves to explain the causes of deviant behavior, defects in social norms, and allows for a detailed classification of the types of such behavior. His work “Suicide” became a model for justifying sociology as empirical science. In it, Durkheim painstakingly collected and analyzed data to test the correctness of his theory. They also used statistical methods for population research.

E. Durkheim's doctrine of society formed the basis of many modern sociological theories and, above all, structural-functional analysis. Modern sociologists recognize E. Durkheim as a classic in the field of sociology.

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