Compare and contrast the theories and methods of Emile Durkh

Compare and contrast the theories and methods of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber regarding social behaviour

1. Introduction

It is well known that Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Max Weber (1864-1920) are two of the most significant philosophers and sociologists. However, they belong to two different schools. Emile Durkheim is an extremely important French sociologist who believes p ositivism. He completed his magnum opus, “on suicide” and “the rules of sociological method”, which have a profound effect on the sociology. He used scientific method including collecting, analyzing data and discussing those date to study the society (Hynes, 1975). On the other hand, Weber believes interpretivism and he spent his entire adult life to study the society. He thought to have knowledge is to give meaning to the social world and interpret the social phenomena in some way (Stones, 2011). His famous method of studying the

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Module Code: PM001V3 Principles of Social Science

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society is “ideal types” and “verstehen” (Goldman, 1993). As both of them are chief delegates in their respective areas of schools,combing their thoughts and views of the sociology will gain our knowledge of the world more fully. This paper will show the differences between their objects of their study and principles of social research methodology. In addition, this essay will illustrate their theories belong collectivism and inpidualism respectively and take “liberty”for example to contrast their opinions. This paper has three sections. The first two sections are to show the two men?s theories and methods. The third section will compare their theories and methods.

2. Durkheim’ positivism theory and methods

In the 1880s and 1890s, the intellectual climate was dominated by positivism and positive philosophy (Prager, 1981). Positivists advocate realism. They regard the positivism as the core of their studies and research. Realists focus on what people can be observed and what really exists in the world (Stones, 2011). During that period, positivists believed they could study the social world as the way to study natural world (Prager, 1981). Durkheim was one of the

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represents in positivism. In 1987, he completed his classical writing, “the rules of sociological method”. When he did research on this social phenomenon, he selected statistics on suicide rates. Then Durkheim analyzed these data and looked at the differences in suicide rates among countries and different categories of people. In this issue, he used scientific methods to solve the social problems.

Another one of the most famous writings of Durkheim is “on suicide”. In this publication, he thought the social structures including institutions, traditions and beliefs, patterns of behaviour existed inpidually in the world. In another words, these …social facts? already existed when we were born- we were born into an already existing society(Emirbayer,1996). General speaking, social facts were collective of acting, thinking, or feeling. Most of them are kind of obligation for us (Morrsion, 1990). Some people may think they can choose what to learn, how to think and how to act. However, Durkheim clamed that people just followed the patterns of the society they are living. What they want to be and how to live had been

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Module Code: PM001V3 Principles of Social Science

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decided in their early lives. Our expectation has been infused by our experience of life (Hynes, 1975). People have some similar behaviors from generation to generation. At the same time, these structures also have a …coercive power? over the inpidual – we are coerced into following the established rules of our society (Morrsion, 1990). That is to say, the social facts have both “pull” and “push” effects on us. For example, if a man breaks the law by murder another person, he will face to arrest, trail, and imprisonment or execution. At the same time, in general, people will not break the law because the punishments forced him to dare not commit a crime.

3. Weber’s interpretive theory and methods

Weber is one of the most famous sociologists who are belonged to the interpretive tradition. Interpretivists advocate the idealism. Unlike positivists, idealists believe the natural world and social world is fundamentally different(Stones, 2011). In their views of the object in the social world, the objects of research of the social sciences including people and their institutions are fundamentally different

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from those of the natural sciences because human beings

haveself-consciousnessand reflection, and humans can reflect on themselves and their situations (Stones,2011). Weber did believe that social behavior could have causal explanations (Mcintosh, 1977). That was to say, even though the social world was so complicated and it was hard to use general and common rules to understand those persity social behaviors, these social phenomena have their own reasons which could be interpreted. Furthermore, Weber claimed that we should understand the historical and social background before studying a social phenomenon (Goldman, 1993). For example, if anAmerican sociologist judges the social behavior and events in India by American values, the results will be hard to understand by the Indians or totally unreasonable. Instead they should seek to understand behavior according to the values of Indian culture.

Weber created a special method called “verstehen” to interpret the social behaviors. …… 此处隐藏：16303字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……