EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL

THOUGHT
 INTRODUCTION
• Man faces a world of complex social problems. As
a result he is perplexed beyond description.
• His thinking often ends in confusion. In thinking
about social problems the so-called practical
person has proceeded in his own way.
• In the strict sense, social thought is the product
of the thinking together of associates. Most social
thought is of the ordinary dinner table variety,
that is casual and desultory.
 introduction
• Social thought usually finds its initial expression
during social crises. When “prosperity” reigns
and people are – in general, satisfied, new social
thought is at ebb tide.
• But when social conditions are marked by gross
injustices or when social changes come rapidly
due to inventions, wars or other basic
disturbances, then thinking about social life and
problems is highly stimulated and new ideas or
systems of ideas, that is ideologies are originated.
 Definition:

• Social thought is that branch of thought which

is primarily concerned with man’s general
social life and its problems as created,
expressed and endured by human
interrelations and interactions.
• Generally Social Thought essential refers to
the thought concerning the social life and
activities of man.
 Definition:

• Bogardus “Social Thought is thinking about

social problems by one or a few persons here
and there in human history or at the present”.

• Rollin Chambliss told that “Social thought is

concerned with human being in their relations
with their fellows
 Definition:

• William P. Scott define that “Social thought refers to

any relatively systematic attempt to theories about
society and social life whether it be classical or
modern, scientific or unscientific”.
•
• Social thought is a philosophical and intellectual ideas
of a person or persons regarding to a particular time,
place and about the growth, development and decay of
human societies. Social thought is a currentsocial
thinking about the structure and functions of
a socialsystem
 Characteristics of Social thought
• According to Bogardus, social thoughts have the
following characteristics:
• 1. Social thoughts are originated from social
problems.
• 2. Social thoughts are also related to the human
social life.
• 3. It is the result of social interactions and
interrelations.
• 4. Social thoughts are influenced by the time and
also place.
 Characteristics
• 5. Here; thinkers are very much influenced by
their social life, and personal experiences.
• 6. It inspires the development of civilization and
culture.
• 7. Social thoughts are based on abstract thinking.
• 8. It is an integral part of social utility.
• 9. It helps in promoting social relationships.
• 10. It is neither absolute nor static. It is
evolutionary
 Characteristics
• Social Thought is societal thought.
• Social Thought need not necessarily be
scientific always.
• Social Thought is not the same everywhere.
• Each Society and Each community has
contributed to the development in society.
• Social Thought is a continuous process.
 Characteristics
• Crises are hardly always provided motivation for
social thought.
• Social Thought is an abstract concept.
• Though social thought is continuous it is very
gradual in process.
• Most portion is preserve in unwritten for
mankind.
• Social Thought is not the sum of total thought is
all members in society.
•
 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental
problems concerning matters such as the nature
knowledge, truth, justice, beauty, mind and language.
• Philosophy is the root of all knowledge. It is
considered as mother of all sciences. Philosophy helps
to coordinate the various activities of the individual
and the society.
• It helps us to understand the significance of all human
experience. Philosophy critically evaluates and analyses
the variety of human experiences. It develops a
comprehensive system of thoughts about the universe
and the life as a who
 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
• The word ‘Philosophy’ is of ancient Greek origin
meaning “Love of Knowledge” or “Love of Wisdom”
• Social Philosophy is one of the main and important
branches of Philosophy. It is the thoughtful
consideration of human society. It gives insight into the
actual activities of human beings in the society.
• A Social Philosopher tries to study society from
philosophical point of view and tries to find out the link
between human society and the basic nature of
Ultimate Reality.
 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
• According to Morris Ginsberg, ‘Social
Philosophy aims at the formulation of the
general principles of human behavior through
speculation on social phenomena’.
• “Social philosophy studies the interactions and
inter-relations that exist among men and their
groups”.
 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
• According to Mackenzie, ‘Social Philosophy seeks
to explain the nature of society in the light of the
principle of social solidarity’. Social Philosophy
aims at interpretation of society with reference to
the norm of ‘social unity’.
• F W Blackmar maintained that Social Philosophy
is based upon the general facts of society. It
makes general observations on the nature of
society. Social Philosophy and Social sciences are
closely connected.
 ENLIGHTENMENT
• The Enlightenment was a period of remarkable
intellectual development and change in
philosophical thought.
• A number of ideas and beliefs, some of which
were related to social life were overthrown and
replaced during the Enlightenment.
• The most prominent thinkers associated with
Enlightenment were the French philosophers
Charles Montesquieu (1689 – 1755) and
• Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778).
 ENLIGHTENMENT
• The thinkers associated with Enlightenment
were influenced by two intellectual currents –
seventeenth century philosophy and science.
• Seventeenth century philosophy was
associated with the work of Rene Descartes,
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
• they tried to combine empirical research with
reason.
 ENLIGHTENMENT
• The model for this was science. And we see
the emergence of the application of the
scientific method to social issues.
• Moreover, the Enlightenment thinkers wanted
their ideas of least in part, to be derived from
the real world. They also wanted them to be
useful to the social world, especially in the
critical analysis.
 ENLIGHTENMENT
• The Enlightenment was characterized by the belief that
people could comprehend and control the universe by
means of reason and empirical research. The physical
world was dominated by natural laws, and it was likely
that the social world was also.
• Thus, it was up to the philosophers to use reason and
research to discover these social bus. Once the
philosophers understood how the social world worked,
the Enlightenment thinkers could work for the creation
of a better and more rational world
 ENLIGHTENMENT
• With an emphasis on reason, the Enlightenment
philosophers were inclined to reject beliefs in
traditional authority.
• When these thinkers examined traditional values
institutions, they often found them to be
irrational, that is, contrary to human nature and
an obstacle to human growth and development.
The mission of the philosophers of Enlightenment
was to overcome these irrational systems
 French Revolution :

• The French Revolution changed the structure of

society, and created new ideologies to explain its
course when nothing could be adopted from the past
produced the modern doctrine of nationalism, and
spread it directly throughout Western Europe. It had an
enormous indirect consequence up to the present.
• The European wars of 1792 – 1815, sparked off by the
French Revolution spread both revolutionary ideas and
nationalism. The French Revolution also provided the
empirical origin of modern theories of revolution
 French Revolution :
• The French revolution challenged and
overthrew the old order of society.
• It was a revolution that strengthened the
state which aimed to represent the will of the
people.
• It is important to recognise that the political
and cultural climate that existed before the
revolution was dominated by the church and
the monarchy.
 French Revolution
• The French Revolution was a period of radical social
and political upheaval in France that had a major
impact on France and throughout the rest of Europe.
• The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for
centuries collapsed in three years. French society
underwent drastic transformation.
• Feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges were
removed from the society. Old of monarchy,
aristocracy, and religious authority were overthrown by
new Enlightenment principles of equality and
citizenship.
 empiricism
• the theory that all knowledge is based on
experience derived from the senses.

• Stimulated by the rise of experimental

science, it developed in the 17th and 18th
centuries, expounded in particular by John
Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume.
 empiricism
• Empiricism in the philosophy of
science emphasizes evidence, especially as
discovered in experiments.
• It is a fundamental part of the scientific
method that all hypotheses and theories must
be tested against observations of the natural
world rather than resting solely on a
priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation
 empiricism

• Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, says

that "knowledge is based on experience" and that
"knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject
to continued revision and falsification."
• One of the epistemological tenets is that sensory
experience creates knowledge. The scientific
method, including experiments and validated
measurement tools, guides empirical research.
 Idealism
• In philosophy, idealism is the group of
philosophies which assert that reality, or
reality as we can know it, is fundamentally
mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise
immaterial.
• Epistemologically, idealism manifests as
a skepticism about the possibility of knowing
any mind-independent thing.
 idealism
• In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes
how human ideas—especially beliefs and
values—shape society .
• As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes
further, asserting that all entities are
composed of mind or spirit
 Rationalism
• the practice or principle of basing opinions
and actions on reason and knowledge rather
than on religious belief or emotional
response.
• the theory that reason rather than experience
is the foundation of certainty in knowledge.
 Theory
• Definition A Theory is a set of interrelated concepts used to
describe, explain, and predict how society and its parts are
related to each other.
• Theories are sets of inter-related concepts and ideas that
have been scientifically tested and combined to clarify, and
expand our understanding of people, their behaviors, and
their societies.
• Without theories, science would be a futile exercise. A
theory is a set of propositions that provide an explanation
by means of a deductive or inductive system.
• The three major functions of theory are description,
explanation and prediction.
 Nature and Characteristics of Theory
• A theory is a proposed relationship between
two or more concepts. In other words, a
theory is explanation for why a phenomenon
occurs.
• Without theories to explain the relationship
between concepts, we would not be able to
understand cause and effect relationships in
social life.
The major characteristics of theory
• Time boundedness: Scientific theories always
seek to transcend the particular and the time
bound. Scientific theories are therefore about the
generic, the fundamental, the timeless, and the
universal.
• Objectivity: Another characteristic of scientific
theories is that they are stated more formally
than ordinary language. Theory is stated in
neutral, objective, and unambiguous terms so
that the theory means the same thing to all who
examine it.
• Reliability and Verifiability: A final
characteristic of scientific theories is that they
are designed to be systematically tested with
replicable methods against the facts of
particular empirical settings.
 Definition and Characteristics of
Sociological theory
• The social world consists of the behaviors,
interactions, and patterns of social
organization among human beings.
Sociological theory tends to focus on
interaction and organization more than
behavior as such, but interactions are
interpersonal behaviors, and patterns of social
organization are ultimately built from
interactions among individuals.
• Sociological theory is a set of assumptions,
assertions, and propositions, organized in the
form of an explanation or interpretation, of
the nature, form, or content of social action.
Sociological theory is defined as a set of
interrelated ideas that allow for the
systematisation of knowledge of the social
world. This knowledge is then used to explain
the social world and make predictions about
the future of the social world
 The important characteristics of
sociological theory
• 1. Sociological theories are abstract
generalisations.
• 2. Sociological theories are logical
prepositions.
• 3. Sociological theories are conceptulisations
regarding social phenomena.
• 4. Sociological theories are empirical
generalisations.
• 5. Sociological theories are factual based.
• 6. Sociological theories are provisional in
nature.
• 7. Sociological theories are verifiable
 Types of Sociological Theory-
• Speculative Theories Vs. Grounded Theories

• Speculative theories are abstract, impressionistic and

rooted in a philosophical system. The encyclopedic minds
of Comte and Spencer have synthesized the findings of a
variety of disciplines to formulate a formidable array of
theoretical statements to explain social processes and
organisations.
• These are essentially theories generated by logical
deduction from a priori assumptions. They are based on
certain methodological and philosophical assumptions and
generated theoretical entities and conceptual schemes
 Grounded theories
• Grounded theories, on the other hand, are based on the
findings of empirical research and they are suited to their
specific uses.
• They produce specific sociological laws, principles and
empirical generalizations. Grounded theory is part
theoretical framework and part research methodology.
• It combines theory and research and serves as a guide for
many social science researchers in their projects.
• Grounded theory is an attempt to develop theories from an
analysis of the patterns, themes, and common categories
discovered in observational research. It emphasizes
research procedures when developing theories.
 Grand Theory
• A grand theory is a broad conceptual scheme with systems
of interrelated propositions that provide a general frame of
reference for the study of social processes and institutions.
However, it is different from speculative theory. The grand
theory is rooted in the empirical world - however loosely
whereas speculative theories are based on philosophical
systems.
• The difference between them, of course, is only a matter of
degree, not kind. The grand theory is a comprehensive
formulation. It provides a master scheme of general
sociological orientations.
• Grand theories are full of jargon and intuitive statements.
Parson's system theory and Sorkin's theory of socio-cultural
dynamics are examples of grand theories
 Miniature Theory
• Miniature theories are what Merton called as Middle
range theories: Theories intermediate to the minor
working hypotheses evolved during the day-to-day
routines of research, and the all inclusive speculations
comprising a master speculative scheme from which it
is hoped to derive a very large number of empirically
observed uniformities of social behaviour.
• The miniature theories are partial, more specific and
their frame of reference is considerably limited. They
are less pretensions than the grand theories. Merton's
theory of reference groups is an example of such a
theory.
 Macro Theories
• Macro theories are broader in scope and
encompass in array of laws while micro
theories have a narrower frame of reference.
Macro theories are concerned with total
societal patterns. Theories of society culture
and institutions constitute the tradition of
macro-sociology
 Micro Theorie
• Micro sociology is concerned with interactions
among the atoms of society. Small group
theories represent the micro tradition in
contemporary sociology.
• The distinction between the two types of
theories is based on the size of the unit of
analysis rather than the level of analysis.
• Macro theories deal with society as a whole.
Micro theories deal with the sub-systems that
make up the whole.
• Parsons System theory is macro whereas Ho-
man's exchange theory is molecular.
• Macro theories belong to grand theory
category; Micro theories come under
miniature theories.