The document provides an overview of classical social theories and theorists. It discusses the Enlightenment period and the birth of sociology. Some of the major classical sociological theorists discussed include Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. For each theorist, it provides a brief biographical sketch and overview of their major works and contributions to classical sociological thought.

1. OVERVIEW OF CLASSICAL THEORIES
By
Rizwan Abbas
Ghazi University Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan

2. OUTLINE
• The Enlightenment Period
• The Birth of Sociology
• Types of Sociological Theory
• What is “Classic” Social Theory
• Classical Sociological Theorists

4. WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT
• Occurred 1600 to 1800
• Ideas of relationship between society and man evolved.
• Philosophes that happened across Paris; extending to Scotland
and other countries in Europe.
• French for philosophers were the intellectuals in the
Enlightenment period.
• “Have courage to use your own reason” -Immanuel Kant

5. KEY CONCEPTS
• Favoring Science over Religion; it was a time that
rejected ‘supernatural’ ideas.
• Philosophers ideas had importance over Priests.
• Belief that men-society relationship could be perfect
and productive.
• Science was a superior concept.

6. Key Philosophies
1. Ibn-e-Khaldun (1332-1406)
2. Montesquieu (1689-1755)
3. Voltaire (1694-1788)
4. David Hume (1711-1776)
5. Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
6. Immanuel Kant (1724 -1804)
7. Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)
8. Adam Ferguson (1723-1816)
Timeline
Industrial Revolution/ Urbanization
American War of Independence
French Revolution
1760
1776
1789

7. THE BIRTH OF SOCIOLOGY
• “The Philosophy of the Eighteenth Century had
been critical and revolutionary, that of the
nineteenth century will be inventive and
constructive”- Saint-Simon (1760-1825).
Sociology is the idea that rational Science can be
applied to the social world to create progress and
an improved life

9. What is “Classic” Social Theory
• Classic Social Theory refers to the work of a variety of
theorists who crafted pivotal theories in sociology that
went on to…
– Form important frameworks that sociologists today
still use to understand the world
– Inspire and develop important subfields in contemporary
sociology

10. The major question for social thinker were
• How societies actually operates?
• What holds society together?
• How and why do societies change?
• How societies can be improved?

11. Area of concern for classical sociological theorists
• The nature of capitalism
• The basis of social solidarity
• The role of authority in social life
• The benefits and dangers posed by modern
bureaucracy
• The issue of gender

12. CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORISTS
A) August Comte
B) Emile Durkheim
C) Herbert Spenser
D) Max Weber
E) Karl Marx
F) George Simmel

13. August Comte (1798 – 1857)
• Introduction
• Biographical Sketch
• Major Works

14. Introduction
• French Philosopher
• Disturbed by French revolution and enlightenment.
• Positive Philosophy
• French counterrevolutionary Catholics (especially
Bonald and Maistre)
• Early Social Physics later sociology in 1839
• Social static and social dynamics
• Believe in evolution.

15. Biographical Sketch
• Born January 19, 1798 (Montpelier, France)
• Worked as secretary of saint Simon (1817-1823)
• Married to “Caroline Massin” (1825-1842)
• Nervous breakdown problem (1826)
• Tried to suicide (1827)
• Cours de Philosophie Positive in Six Volumes (1830-1842)
• Systeme de politique positive in four volumes (1851-1854)
• Died on September 5, 1857

16. Major Works
1- Social Physics/ sociology
2- Law of Three Stages
3- Types of Science
4- Hierarchy of Sciences
4- Theory of Social Static and Social Dynamics
5- Positive Philosophy
6- Positive Polity

17. 1- Social Physics/ Sociology
• He first named the new science “social physics.” He
later changed this to “sociology (1839).” The word
comes from the Greek “socius” which means
“companion” and the Latin “logos” which means
“knowledge.”

18. 2- LAW OF
THREE
STAGES
Theological
/ Fictitious
Stage
Meta-
physical:
abstract
Positivistic:
ex: apple fall
Fetishism
Ex: rocks,
trees
Polytheism Monotheism

19. 3- TYPES
OF
SCIENCE
1-Theoretical:
Principles,
hypothesis,
concepts
2- Applied:
Practical
Shape

20. 4- Hierarchy of Sciences
Sociology
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Astronomy
Mathematics

21. 4- Theory of Social Static and Social Dynamics
i) study of conditions and pre-conditions of social
order (Social Static)
ii) study of human progress and evolution (Social
Dynamics) (Coser, 1971: 10-12)
5- Positive Philosophy
6- Positive Polity

22. Emile Durkhiem (1858 – 1917)
• Introduction
• Biographical Sketch
• Major Works

23. Introduction
• Worked on two main themes i.e. collectiveness and
scientific study of society.
• Social dimension of human phenomena
• Introduce sociology as a discipline
• Separate from philosophy on the basis of empirical
research
• Termed social facts as is “sui generis”

24. Biographical Sketch
• Birth, April 15, 1858 (Epinal, France)
• Studied philosophy in ‘Ecole normale superieure’ (1879)
• Graduated (1882)
• Joined University of Bordeaux as teacher (1887)
• Married to Louise Dreyfus (1887)
• Published The Division of Labour (1893), The Rules of
Sociological Method (1895) and Suicide (1897)
• founded the journal L'Année Sociologique (1896).
• Death, November 15, 1917

25. Major Works
• Social Facts
• The Division of Labor in Society
• Suicide
• The elementary form of religious life

26. Social Facts
• Force external and coercive to individual.
• Provides social structure, norms, values and rules.
• Classified into material and non-material social facts.
• Material: Things directly observable.
• Non-material: ex. Norms and values.
• Types of non-material social facts: i) Morality ii)
Collective Conscience iii) Collective Representations
iv) Social Currents

27. The Division of Labor in Society
• August comte pseudo-religion for social cohesion.
• Durkhiem counter with new form of morality.
– Mechanical and Organic Solidarity
– Dynamic Density
– Repressive and Restitutive Law
– Normal and Pathological societies
– Justice

28. Suicide
• Four Types of Suicide
• Egoistic
• Altruistic
• Anomic
• Fatalistic

29. Suicide
Integration
Egoistic Altruistic
Regulation
Anomic Fatalistic

30. The elementary form of religious life
• Published in (1912)
• Analysis of totemism and clan system of Arunta tribes.
• Religion is a group phenomena
• Role of religion in social solidarity/ cohesion.
• Concept of sacred and profane.

31. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
• Biographical Sketch
• Major Works

32. Biographical Sketch
• Born, April 27, 1820 (England)
• Educated at home in mathematics.
• Worked an engineer at London and Birmingham
Railroad (1837)
• Discharged from duty in 1841
• Died, December 8, 1903

33. Major Works
• Evolutionary Theory

34. Evolutionary Theory/ Social Darvanism
• Identify two major evolutionary perspective
•Increasing size of society
»Increases biologically and union of groups
»Society turns from simple to compound
•Survival of the fittest (from Darwin)

35. Max Weber (1864-1920)
• Introduction
• Biographical Sketch
• Major Works

36. Introduction
• Influential theorist
• Arguing for the study of social action based on
meaning and actions of individuals.
• Focused on methodological issues of social sciences.

37. Biographical Sketch
• Born, April 21, 1864 (Erfurt, Germany)
• Joined University of Berlin as student (1884)
• Joined as professor of economics at Heidelberg (1896)
• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904)
• Economy and Society (1921/1968)
• Death, June 14, 1920.

38. Major Works
• Methodology
• Substantive Sociology
• Rationalization
• Religion and the rise of capitalism

39. Methodology
• History and Sociology
• Difference is empiricism and generalization.
• Versthen
• German word understanding.
• Difference in understanding of social and natural
scientists.
• Involves systematic and rigorous research.

40. • Causality
• Causes of social phenomena
• Sought to combine nomothetic and idiographic
approach.
• Idea Types
• Mental construct.
• Used as Yard Stick (Kalberg)
• Listed four Ideal Types
• Values
• Value free research (free from biaseness)
• Value and teaching, value and research

41. Substantive Sociology
• What is sociology
• Interpretive study of social action.
• Causal explanation of consequences
• Social Action
–Differentiate between action and reactive behavior.
–4 types of social Action
• Purposeful/ logical Action: Goal oriented
• Value oriented actions: Rational Actions
• Affective actions: Emotions
• Traditional Action:

42. • Class, Status and Party
• Societal stratification is based
• Estimate honor on these indicators.
• Structures of Authority
–Following are the structures of authority
• Rational Legal Authority: Ideal Typical bureaucracy
• Traditional Authority: example Chaudhary, landlord
• Charismatic Authority: examples political leaders

43. Theory of Bureaucracy
• Form of rational-legal authority which according to
weber is “the purest type of exercise of legal authority”
• Express reservation by calling it “red tape”
• Bureaucracy has offices as basic unit with rules,
functions, written documents, and means of
compulsion

44. Characteristics of Bureaucracy
• Rule bounded functions.
• Functions according to competence.
• Hierarchy
• Carry suitable education and trainings
• Does not own the means of production.
• Remains part of organization.
• Acts, decision and rules in writings

45. Rationalization
• Pattern of action within civilization, group etc.
–Four Types of Rationalization
• Practical Rationality: practice
• Theoretical Rationality: construct, concept
• Substantive Rationality: exist in trans-civilization
• Formal Rationality: universally applied rules

46. Religion and the rise of capitalism
• Concern about relationship among a variety of the
world’s religions and the development only in the West
of a capitalist economic system

47. Freund summarized the complicated
interrelationships involved in this research
• Economic forces influenced Protestantism.
• Economic forces influenced religions other than
Protestantism.
• Religious idea systems influenced individual thoughts
and actions.
• Religious idea systems have been influential
throughout the world.

48. • Religious idea systems (particularly Protestantism)
have had the unique effect in the West of helping to
rationalize the economic sector and virtually every
other institution.

49. Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Introduction
• Biographical Sketch
• Major Works

50. Introduction
• Influenced by Hegal’s philosophy.
• Marx is widely referred to as a Philosopher, Political-
Economist and a Journalist.
• Marx was married to Jenny von Westphalen.
• Marx`s close friend and fellow scholar was Friedrich
Engels.
• The message carved on his symmetry was written as
“WORKERS OF ALL LANDS, UNITE”

51. Biographical Sketch
• Born on May 5th, 1818.
• Forced to leave Germany (1843)
• The Communist Manifesto (1848)
• Moved to London (1849)
• Died on March 14th, 1883.

52. Major Works
• The dialectic
• The Dialectic Method
• Human Potential
• Alienation
• The Structure of capitalist society
• Materialist conception of history
• Cultural aspects of capitalist society
• Religion

53. The dialectic
• Basic idea is centrality of contradiction.
• Appropriate way to understand reality.
• Can be solved by life and death struggle.
• Example: relationship b/w workers and capitalist and
exploitation to gain the ends.

54. The Dialectic Method
• Facts and Value
–Can not be separable.
• Reciprocal Relations
–Not study one way cause and effect.
–Example: humiliation in workers and also bourgeois.

55. • Past, present and future
–Dialecticians not only study the relationship of
contemporary phenomena but also its
historical roots and the current situation.
• No inevitabilities
–Dialectic-thesis, antithesis, Synthesis
–Clash of two leads to synthetic social form.
• Actors and structure
–Inevitable for each other

56. Human Potential
• Contradiction between human potential and work in
capitalistic society.
• Species being and human potential related to labor.
• Human powers and potential develop labor.

57. Alienation
• The condition of which estranges a person from
their skills.
• Assumptions of alienation:
–Productive activity: No workers will for design
–The Product: use of product
–Fellow workers: strangers
–Human Potential: worked as machine

58. The Structure of capitalist society
• Few owned means of production. (Land, Labor, Capital)
• Bourgeois and proletariat.
• Exploitation
• Class Conflict

59. Materialist conception of history
• "materialist conception of history" based on Hegel's
claim of history occurs through a clash, of opposing
forces.
• Distinction between means of production and social
relations people enter to use mean of production
• Difference between changes in means of production
and relation of production causes conflict

60. Cultural aspects of capitalist society
• Talk about ideology
• Ideas that emerge out of daily activities.
• Other concept for ideology refers ruling ideas in
capitalistic system

61. For hiding the contradiction
1- creation of sub-system of ideas. i.e religion,
philosophy, literature, legal system
2- explain away problems that reveals contradictions.
3- Contradiction in capitalist system that can not be fixed
by social change

62. Religion
• Opiate (Opium) of the people.
• Itself distress but also protest against the real distress.

63. George Simmel (1858-1918)
• Introduction
• Biographical Sketch
• Major Works

64. Introduction
• German and Micro-sociologist
• Symbolic interactionist
• Small group research
• Exchange theory

65. Biographical Sketch
• Birth, March 1st, 1858
• Ph.D from university of Berlin (1881)
• Remained in university as teacher (1914)
• Got regular position in University of Strasbourg (1914)
• Death, 1918

66. Major Works
• Primary Concerns
• Individual Consciousness
• Social Interactions
• Social Structures
• Objective Culture
• The Philosophy of Money

67. Primary Concerns
• Worked on Ethics
• Form of interactions.
• Level of concerns
–Four level of concerns
–Psychological Components of social life: Micro
–Sociological components of interpersonal relationships
–Structure of and changes in social and cultural spirit:
Macro
–Principles of life: meta-physical

68. • Dialectic Thinking:
•Stressed on connections and conflict b/w
individual and society
•Socialized individual remained in society as
well as outside society.
• Fashion
•Dualism in everybody
•Benefit at low cost

69. • Individual (Subjective) and Objective Culture
• Increasing division of labor created different component of cultural
world
• As objective culture grows, individual culture atrophies/ weaken.
• Changes lead to expansion in objective culture.
• Example: Effective and efficient means of communication. E-mail
and telephone service.

70. Individual Consciousness
• For interaction
• Actor take external stimuli, assess them, try out
different course of actions and decide his own action.
• Relationship b/w mental capacity and external forces.

71. Social Interactions (Associations)
• Interaction: Forms and Types
– Subjective
– Formal and Informal: Superordinate and Subordinate
• Social Geometry
– Group Size
– Talks about Social relations
– Dyad and Triad groups

72. • Social Types:
– The poor: Not only by money but in terms of interaction
patterns.
– Poverty is found in all social starta: Relative depriviation

73. Social Structures
• Society is merely a name for a number of individuals
connected by interaction.
• Society as independent and part of objective culture
worried him.

74. Objective Culture
• Interaction creates and recreates culture.
• Modern arena witness the growth of objective culture
and decline the individual culture.

75. The Philosophy of Money
• Money and Value:
– Difficulty in obtaining a thing assigned greater value.
– Attaining has lower and upper limit.
– Context of value money served as both creation of distance
from object and also to overcome.
– Effects actors and culture also.

76. Reference Books
Book : Sociological Theory
Author: George Ritzer
Book: Classical Sociological Theory
Pub. Source: UTKAL UNIVERSITY, Vani
Vihar Bhubaneswar, India
Book: Classical Sociological Theory
Author: Dr. Bart Van Heerikhizen

77. Refernces
• Slideshare
• Classical Sociological Theory BY Chrissi Keogh
• PowerShow
• Contemporary Sociological theory By Hazir Ullah