Course Title: Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Week No. 001 / Module 001

Lesson I –Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Content of the Module
1. What is Sociology
• What Do Sociologists Study?
• The origins Sociology
2. Nature of Sociology
3. What is Anthropology
• Scope of Anthropology:
• Physical Anthropology:
o Human biology
o Human evolution
o Human variation and
o Human genetics.

Learning competencies:
The learner should be able to:
1. Define what is sociology, anthropology and political science
2. Explain the nature of sociology
3. Explain the scope of anthropology
4. Differentiate the difference between sociology, anthropology and pollical science.

What is Sociology?
Sociology is the scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships,
social interaction, and culture. The term sociology was first used by Frenchman
Auguste Compte in the 1830s when he proposed a synthetic science uniting all
knowledge about human activity.

What Do Sociologists Study?

Sociologists study all things human, from the interactions between two people to the
complex relationships between nations or multinational corporations. While sociology

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assumes that human actions are patterned, individuals still have room for
choices. Becoming aware of the social processes that influence the way humans think,
feel, and behave plus having the will to act can help individuals to shape the social forces
they face.

The Origins of Sociology

Sociologists believe that our social surroundings influence thought and action. For
example, the rise of the social sciences developed in response to social changes. In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans were exploring the world and voyagers
returned from Asia, the Americas, Africa, and the South Seas with amazing stories of
other societies and civilizations. Widely different social practices challenged the view
that European life reflected the natural order of God.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Western Europe was rocked by technical,
economic, and social changes that forever changed the social order. Science and
technology were developing rapidly. James Watt invented the steam engine in 1769,
and in 1865 Joseph Lister discovered that an antiseptic barrier could be placed between
a wound and germs in the atmosphere to inhibit infection. These and other scientific
developments spurred social changes and offered hope that scientific methods might help
explain the social as well as the natural world. This trend was part of a more general
growth in rationalism.

The industrial revolution began in Britain in the late eighteenth century. By the late
nineteenth century, the old order was collapsing “under the twin blows of industrialism
and revolutionary democracy” (Nisbet, 1966: 21). Mechanical industry was growing,
and thousands of people were migrating to cities to work in the new factories. People
once rooted in the land and social communities where they farmed found themselves
crowded into cities. The traditional authority of the church, the village, and the family
were being undermined by impersonal factory and city life.

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Capitalism also grew in Western Europe in the nineteenth century. This meant that
relatively few people owned the means of production—such as factories—while many
others had to sell their labor to those owners. At the same time, relatively impersonal
financial markets began to expand.

Finally, there was enormous population growth worldwide in this period, due to longer
life expectancy and major decreases in child death rates. These massive social changes
lent new urgency to the development of the social sciences, as early sociological thinkers
struggled with the vast implications of economic, social and political revolutions. All the
major figures in the early years of sociology thought about the “great transformation”
from simple, preliterate societies to massive, complex, industrial societies.

International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when René Worms founded

the Institute International de Sociologie, which was later eclipsed by the much
larger International Sociological Association (ISA), founded in 1949. In 1905,
the American Sociological Association, the world's largest association of professional
sociologists, was founded, and in 1909 the Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Soziologie (German Society for Sociology) was founded by Ferdinand
Tönnies and Max Weber, among others.

Nature of Sociology According to Robert Bierstedt:

Sociology is the branch of knowledge and it has its own characteristics.
Sociology has different nature in society. It is different from other sciences in
certain respects. The following are the main characteristics of sociology as
enlisted by Robert Bierstedt in his book ” The Social Order” and they are as
follows:

1) Sociology is an independent science:- Sociology has now emerged into an

independent science. It is not treated and studied as a branch of any other science, like

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philosophy or political philosophy, or history. As an independent science is has its
own field of study, boundary and method.

2) Sociology is a social science not a physical science:- Sociology belongs to the

family of social sciences, and not to the family of physical science. As a social
science, it concentrates its attention on man, his social behaviors, social activities and
social life. As a member of the family of social sciences it is intimately related to
other social science like history, political science, economic, philosophy,
anthropology etc. The fact that sociology deles with the social universe distinguishes
it from astronomy, physics, Chemistry, Geology, Mathematics and others physical
sciences.

3) Sociology is a categorical and not a normative discipline:- Sociology “confines

itself to statements about what is, not what should be or ought to be”. As a science,
sociology is necessary silent about question of value. It does not make any kind of
value-judgment. Its approach is neither moral nor immoral, but amoral. It is ethically
neutral, but does not mean that sociological knowledge is useless serves no purpose it
only means that sociology as a discipline can’t deal with problems of good and evil,
Right and wrong, and moral or immoral.

4) Sociology is a pure science and not an applied science: – A distinction is often

made between pure sciences and applied sciences. The main aim of pure sciences is
the acquisition of knowledge and it is not bothered whether the acquired knowledge is
useful or can be put to use on the other hand, the aim of applied science is to apply
the acquired knowledge into life and to put it to use. Each pure science may have its
own applied field. For example Physics is a pure science and engineering is it’s
applied field. Sociology as a pure science has its applied field. Such as administration
diplomacy, social work etc. Each pure science may have more than one application.
Sociology is a pure science, because the immediate aim of sociology is the acquisition
of knowledge about human society, not the utilization of that knowledge.

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5) Sociology is relatively an abstract science not a concrete science:- This does not
mean that sociology is an art and not a science. Nor does it mean, it is unnecessarily
complicated and unduly difficult. It only means that sociology is not interested in
concrete manifestations of human events. It is more concerned with the form of
human events and there patterns. For example sociology is not concerned with
particular war and revolutions but with war and revolution in general, as social
phenomena as types of social conflict. Similarly, Sociology does not confine itself to
the study of this society that particular society, or social organization, or marriage, or
religion, or group and so on. It is in this simple sense that sociology is an abstract not
a concrete science.

6) Sociology is a generalizing and not a particularizing or Individualizing Science:-

Sociology tries to find out the general laws or principles about human interaction or
situation, about the nature, From, Content, and structure of human group of societies.
It does not study each and every event that takes place in the society. It is not possible
also. It tries to make generalization on the basic of the study of some selected events.
For example, a sociologist makes generalizations about the nature of secondary
groups. He may conclude that secondary groups are comparatively bigger in size, less
stable, not necessarily specially limited and so on. This he does not by examine all the
secondary group but by observing and studying a few.

7) Sociology is a general Science and not a special Social Science:- The area of
inquiry of sociology is general and not specialize. It is concerned with human
interaction and human life in general other social sciences like political Science,
History, Economic etc, also study man and human interaction, but not all about
human interaction. They concentrate their attention on certain aspects of human
interaction and activities. Accordingly Economic specializes itself in the study of
economic activities. Political science concentrates on political activities and so on.
Sociology, of-course dose not investigate Economic, Religious, Political, Legal,
Moral or any other special kind of phenomenal in relation to human life and activities
as such. It only studies human activities in a general way.

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8) Finally, Sociology is both a Rational and an Empirical Science:- There are two
broad ways of approach to scientific knowledge. One, Known as Empiricism is the
approach that Empiricists experience and the facts that result from observation and
experimentation. The other, known as rationalism stresses reason and the theories that
result from logical inference. The Empiricists collects fact; the rationalist co-ordinates
and arranges them. Theories and facts are required in the construction of knowledge.
In Sociological inquiry both are significant. As Immanual Kant said, “Theories
without facts are empty, and facts without theories are blind”. All modern sciences,
there-for avail them-self of both Empirical and Rational Sciences. Sociology is not an
exception.

Meaning of Anthropology:
The word “anthropology” has been derived from two Greek words, anthropos (man) and
logus (study or science). Anthropology is, thus, the science of man. This etymological
meaning, of course, is too broad and general. More precisely, anthropology may be
called “the science of man and his works and behaviour”.
Anthropologists are interested in all aspects of the human species and human behaviour,
in all places and at all times, from the origin and evolution of the species through its
prehistoric civilizations down to the present situation.
Anthropologists study human behaviour not concerned with particular men as such but
with men in “groups”, with races and peoples and their happenings and doings. So,
anthropology may be defined briefly as the “science of groups of men”.

Scope of Anthropology:
Anthropology has two main branches:
a) Physical Anthropology; and
b) Cultural Anthropology.
But in Europe except in England, U.S.A., Australia and other English speaking
countries including India, Anthropology means both physical and cultural anthropology

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and the term ethnology is rarely used for cultural anthropology. Ethnography has been
known as merely a descriptive study of human culture.

Physical Anthropology:
Physical Anthropology deals mainly with :
• Human biology
• Human evolution
• Human variation and;
• Human genetics.

Human Biology:
The Physical anthropologist studies human biology as he is interested in Homo
sapiens alone. He studies man out of the vast range of creatures that claim the attention of
the general biologists. Therefore, there is close relationship between the Physical
Anthropology and the study of other living beings. The Physical anthropologist tells
about the man’s place in the animal kingdom by making a comparative study on the
different groups of man and his near relations like apes, monkey, etc. whom we call
primates.

Human Evolution:
Another object of Physical Anthropology is to deal with human evolution. Like
other creatures man is also a living organism. It is difficult to explain under what
conditions life had appeared on earth. But from the geological and palaeontological
evidences it has been known that the first living organism that had appeared on earth
consisted of one cell only, which is known as a unicellular organism or amoeba. In course
of time this simple homogeneous organism through the process of changes attained the
heterogeneous form at various stages. Ultimately, a complex form of animal called man
had emerged. All living forms of humanity today belong to the single genus and species

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of Homo sapiens. Man is said to have emerged during the quaternary epoch of Cenozoic
era. As time elapsed varieties of man had evolved from the date of his origin.

In analysis of human evolution palaeontology plays an important role. Anatomy is

essential for studying different human forms especially in the study of racial differences,
and no one can specialize Physical Anthropology without prior training in anatomy. On
the basis of geological evidences it has become possible to find out the age of the
different forms preserved under the earth.

Human Variation:
The physical anthropologist after having studies the origin, development and place of
evolution of man focuses his attention on the study of the different varieties of man.
Outwardly through they appear different, all men have some common characteristics and
belong to the species - Homo-sapiens. However, it is generally found that the common
hereditary does not resemble those of other groups in various ways. Each of these groups
is designated as race. So, in Physical Anthropology the different aspects of race are
studied. Somatology - Somatos-copic observation and anthropometry is useful for this
purpose.

Human Genetics:
The methodology of Physical Anthropology has now been changed. The days of
descriptive stage are gone and the analytical stage has taken its place. The classical
Physical Anthropology was mainly interested in the classification and not in the
interpretation. For example, a Negro has platyrrhine nose whereas the European has the
leptorrhine nose. Previously it was not interpreted why these two groups of people had
different types of noses. Now, explanations are being put forward why they have
different types of noses.
In recent times the attention of physical anthropologist has been diverted to Genetics a
branch of biology, which deals with descent, variation and heredity. They now study the
blood types, difference in musculature etc. They also study the group differences in time

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of sexual maturation, in growth rates and various disease immunities. These studies have
practical value and the results may be used in various ways.
The physical anthropologist studies also the influences of the natural environment on man
and trees to find out whether the physical traits of man are affected by environment.
Moreover, he studies the problems associated with physical changes, effects of food and
mode of life on racial and physical characteristics.

What are the relations between anthropology, sociology and political science?
Anthropology, sociology, and political science are related in that they all ultimately
observe human beings’ reactions to power. Anthropology observes people’s development
over time in relation to the family unit, technological inventions, and the advent of
civilizations, all three of which are heavily dependent on authoritative processes, namely
those that govern human households, the forming and implementations of ideas, and the
authority mechanisms that ensure a thriving civilization.

Sociology is the study of the collective psychology of demographics of people.

Sociology, being a fairly recent psychological course of study, observes these
demographics in depth, and it should be noted that the studies always ultimately show
how the subject demographics react to the governmental powers that are present during
their lifetime. The subject demographics of sociological studies in many respects, are
always linked to the socio-political environments that impact them.

In political science, the pure study of how citizens react to political power is on full
display. The political processes in countries all over the world are directly responsible for
the psychological mindset of the countries’ respective constituents. When it really comes
down to it, whether the government of a country is democratic, fascist, or a monarchy,
the reactions of the majority of the people to the conditions caused by these forms of
government eventually becomes the determining factor as to whether or not that
particular form of government continues to exist.

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References
• https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-relations-between-anthropology-sociology-and-
political-science
• http://www.lisbdnet.com/nature-of-sociology/
• http://content.inflibnet.ac.in/data-server/eacharya-
documents/5717528c8ae36ce69422587d_INFIEP_304/1/ET/304-1-ET-V1-S1__file1.pdf
• http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/introtosociology/Documents/Field%20of
%20sociology033108.htm

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