Transcript Comte Saint-Simon (1760

► What
is a theorist?
► Observes
►Seeks order
 Need

Impose order

Prediction & control
 Same experiences theorized in
different ways
 Example: The Universe

Humility –Carl Sagan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8GA2w
-qrcg

Organized, verifiable ideas to explain society
& social behavior

Creates order

Makes sense of world & our place in world

Historical Context
 French Revolution (1789) to WWI 1919
 Dramatic Changes
▪ Economic
▪ Social
▪ Political
▪ Intellectual
 Feudalism
 Industrialization
 Capitalism
 Socialism
 Urbanization
 Religion
 Revolutions
 Democracy
 Feminism
 Abolition
 The Enlightenment
 Science
 Biology
 Psychology
 Change
 How people made sense of world
 Change after decades of little
change
 Cause of change
God’s will
 Linear (progress)
 Cyclical
 Dialectic
Linear Change
Cyclical Change
Thrive
Rise
Decline

Absolute monarchy/divine right

Church-centered
 Original sin
 Religious warfare

Church and state linked

Most Europeans’ daily lives  survival

Importance of the Individual
 Turned away from Church & aristocracy
 Looked to themselves
Used scientific method to understand
social and political relationships
 Religious toleration
 Freedom of press and speech

 Happiness – Not in hereafter but in this world
 Progress – Humankind could improve
 Reason – Truth discovered (not given)

1500-1700: European scientists used reason
to discover laws of nature

Astronomy
▪ Galileo discovered Moon’s craters (1609)
and Milky Way Galaxy

Biology
▪ Robert Hooke-> Discovered cell (1665)

Chemistry
▪ Edward Jenner-> Vaccine for smallpox
(1796)

Early 1700s: People used reason to find
laws of physical world.

Why not use reason to discover laws that
govern human nature—social world?
▪ Ex: Solutions to societal problems

Solve social, political, and economic
problems Reason

Governments create->orderly society

All men created “free and equal”

Free market regulate trade
Thomas
Hobbes
1588-1679
John
Locke
1632-1704
Thomas Hobbes
John Locke
•Humans are naturally cruel, •Humans are naturally
greedy, and selfish.
reasonable, moral and good
•To escape “brutish” life
people enter into a social
contract.
•Humans have natural rights:
life, liberty, and property
•Only absolute monarchy
keep society completely
orderly.
•If government violates
people’s natural rights,
people have right to
overthrow government
•People form governments
•Only powerful government to protect natural rights
could ensure orderly society. •Government-limited power
 Ways of knowing
▪Ideology
▪Reason
▪Science

Justifies existing social conditions
(Value-laden)

Examples:
 “Divine right of kings”
 Colonialism
 Racism
 Sexism


Knowledge through rational processes
Universe operates based on “laws”
 Humans have:
▪Free will
▪Intelligence
▪Control destiny & environment
 Scientific methods
 Guidelines for:
▪ Gathering
▪ Interpreting information
 (Value free)
(1805-1859)

Born in Paris July 29, 1805

Father was royalist who supported the
Bourbon Monarchy

Age 16 -> college to study philosophy

Finished College at age 18

1831, obtained assignment to examine
prisons and penitentiaries in America





Did visit some prisons
Also traveled widely
Returned in less than two years
Published a report on prisons
“Democracy in America” (1835)

Tocqueville recognized that America was
unique

America never had a:
 Monarchy
 Feudalism
 Established church
 Or other privileged classes

Absence of these conditions, and an
abundance of land made American democracy
possible.

One great agrarian middle class

Also extremes of wealth and poverty
 Extremes were relatively rare (in Tocqueville’s
time)
“What is most important for democracy is
not that great fortunes should not exist,
but that great fortunes should not remain
in the same hands.
In that way there are rich men, but they do
not form a class.”
--Alexis de Tocqueville

According to Tocqueville, American Revolution
produced high degree of social equality

American democracy gave considerable power
to the middle and lower classes.

Democracy, individuals free to move up and
down the social structure becoming rich or

Poor according to their abilities and efforts

Aristocracy means that positions are ascribed
and fixed for all time

Tocqueville believed in the inevitable
advance of democracy and equality.

This advance was part of modernization.

Democracy--the extension of the political
franchise from a few aristocrats to the people.

People were becoming more equal in wealth,
education, and culture.

In short, democracy leads to equality.

Tocqueville--One of first casualties of advance
of equality was decline of primogeniture.

Primogeniture is the common law that eldest
son inherits entire estate.

With its end, equality had spread to the
relations between fathers and sons and among
brothers.

Previously, family held together by bonds
of property and inheritance.

Eldest male would take care of the elderly
to inherit the estate.

As the property bond declined, it was
replaced by bonds of personal loyalty and
affection.

Pervasive nature of commodification in
American life

Equality leads to ceaseless striving for
social position.
“As one digs deeper into the national
character of the Americans, one sees that
they have sought the value of everything in
this world only in the answer to this single
question: how much money will it bring
in?”
“If democratic peoples substituted the
absolute power of a majority for all the
various powers that used excessively to
impede or hold back the upsurge of
individual thought, the evil itself would
only have changed its form...
“For myself, if I feel the hand of power heavy
on my brow, I am little concerned to know
who it is that oppresses me;
I am no better inclined to pass my head under
the yoke because a million men hold it for
me.”
--Alexis de Tocqueville

French social philosopher

American Revolution
 Served on side of colonists

French Revolution
 Made a fortune in land speculation

Increasing industrialization

The Enlightenment
Promoted study of nature
 Nature & society governed by laws


Reorganize society
 Wise men
 Scientific division of labor
 Spontaneous social harmony

State’s 3 responsibilities
1.Public works
2.Free education
3.Uplifting recreation

“Industrial army”
 Construction of roads, bridges, canals,
planting forests

Organism as metaphor for society

Science-> replace religion


After Saint-Simon’s death
Small group of follower’s organized called
for:
 Abolition of inheritance rights
 Public control of means of production
 Gradual emancipation of women

Became a moral-religious cult
 Sociologists as high priests*