Transcript Comte Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

► What
is a theorist?
► Observes
►Seeks order

Organized, verifiable ideas to explain society
& social behavior

Creates order

Makes sense of world & our place in world
 Need

Impose order

Prediction & control

COOPERATION OR COMPETITION
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=basic+assumptions+about+human+nature&vid=ba57c9d8ca395f4442800ea0aa9b2a73
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w.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D5aL5O84GKeI&tit=What+Is+Human+Kinds+Basic+Nature&c=1&sigr=11bcn5plb&sigt=1108n6l6a&sigi=11r
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
 Same experiences theorized in
different ways
 Example: The Universe

Earth in the universe-size

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=earth+in+t
he+universe&vid=4681e4e55811069ee8be9edda52b7bee
&l=2%3A34&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts3.mm.bing.net%2Ft
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
560

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
 Reason
 Perfectibility
 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

Sovereign will of God
 God's ultimate plan and purpose for mankind

Moral will of God
 His desire for the way that mankind lives, acts, and
thinks
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

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: Royalist who supported Bourbon
Monarchy

Age 16 -> college to study philosophy

Finished College at age 18

25-year-old French apprentice magistrate
 Aristocratic background

1831-32: Assigned to examine prisons in
America
 9 month tour of U.S.
 Traveled widely--17 of America’s 24 states
 Published a report on prisons—2 main kinds of
prisons

Auburn plan:
 Prisoners worked together for 11 hours a day
 Not allowed to speak or look at one another

Philadelphia system:
 Perpetual solitary confinement
 Only a chaplain who visited occasionally

Many topics:
 Government
 Commerce
 Law
 Literature
 Religion
 Newspapers
 Customs

Tocqueville: America unique

America never had:
 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

Tocqueville--American Revolution:
 Produced high degree of social equality
 Gave power to middle and lower classes
 Aristocracy—Positions ascribed and
fixed
 Democracy—Social Mobility
 According to abilities and efforts
 Tocqueville—Inevitable advance
of democracy and equality
 Part of modernization

Democracy—Extend political franchise from
few aristocrats to “the people”.

People becoming more equal in wealth,
education, and culture

In short, democracy leads to equality.

Tocqueville--One of first casualties of equality
was decline of primogeniture

Primogeniture: Common law that eldest son
inherits entire estate

Equality spread to relations between fathers
and sons and among brothers

Previously, family held together by bonds
of property and inheritance.

Eldest male takes care of elderly to inherit
the estate
 Property bond declined
 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?”

French social philosopher

American Revolution
 Supported colonists

French Revolution
 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 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*