Lesson1

SOCIETY AS AN
OBJECTIVE REALITY
Society
- Latin word Societas
- derived from the noun socius means comrade or
friend.
 - Greek Philosopher

- Human beings are zoon

politikon or political animals.
That is, human beings are
creatures whose nature is for
them to live in a society or
group.
Society to sociologist
Refer to bounded theory called nation states like Philippine society
However sociologist question the fundamental importance given to society as a unit of
analysis
Society to ordinary people
Society does not exist except for the individuals who compose it.
METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM
This view states that collective concepts such as groups, associations, and societies do
not exist, but only individual members
 Emile Durkheim (1858 1917)
Founding father or French
sociology
Has a theory called :p
SOCIOLOGICAL REALISM
Society is reality sui generis and cannot be reduced to individual aggregates or parts.
He argued that one cannot invent new language out of nowhere. One has to use the
language system that is already in use in a particular society where the individual is
born.
One can deny the existence of the banking system, but one cannot go to a bank and
deposit scratch papers without experiencing formal sanctions.
 Durkheims Classic work
SUICIDE(1897)
 Avoided the use of psychological and individualistic explanation
He looked into the statistics of suicide rates and provided a
sociological explanation
The external constraints of society worked through control
mechanism that prevented people from committing suicide.

A strong regulation of the individuals in a society or a group

ensures that the members properly follow the norms and
prescribed moral behavior
Anomie
The situation in which society lacks social regulation through
social norms
Durkheim
Our actions are constrained by the norms and sanctions
imposed by society and these norms are internalized
through collective conscience.
 SOCIAL REPRODUCTION OR HOW
SOCIETIES PERSIST

Society defines as organization of groups that is

relatively self contained
How Societies Manage To Exist And
Persist Across Time And Space
REPRODUCTIOn
 French Philosopher
No society can endure over time if it
does not support its very own
reproduction. To do this, all societies
require the creation of institutions to
perpetuate the existence of society
Types of institutions that reproduce
the condition of social life
Ideological State Apparatuses
that created and used by society to mold its members to share the same values and beliefs
that a typical member of that society possesses

Repressive Ideological State Apparatuses

Refer to those coercive institutions that use physical force to make the members conform by
critical sociologist to explain the persistence of societies and social systems across time and
space.
 Talcott parsons
All societies will have to take care of its
own reproduction if they are persist
across time and space
Four general functional prerequisites
that all societies must attend to in order
to survive+
Adaptation
Is the capacity of society to take resources from society and distribute them
accordingly
Gathering resources
Producing commodities to social redistribution
Goal Attainment
Capability to set goals and mobilize the resources and energies necessary to achieve
the goals set forth by society
Political subsystem
Political resolution
Societal objectives
Intergration
Coordination, adjustment and regulation of the rest of the subsystem so that society will
continue to function smoothly
Religious system
Common language
Latency
Latent pattern maintenance
It requires that society is able to constantly produce and socialize actors who will follow
the norms and roles given to them by society.