The document discusses key concepts in sociology including the definition of society and theories about its origin. It defines society as a group of people who share common culture, territory, and identity. Two main theories are outlined - the organic theory, which views society as a social organism similar to a body, and the social contract theory, which postulates that individuals came together through an agreement to form societies for protection and cooperation. The document also examines the relationship between individuals and society, noting that individuals exist within and are shaped by social frameworks and norms but may sometimes act in ways that undermine collectivism.

1. Human Society

2. Contents
Introduction
Meaning
Definitions
Characteristics
Theories of Origin of Society:
• Organic Theory
• Social Contract Theory
Relationship between Individual and Society

3. Introduction:
• The term ‘Society’ is the most fundamental one in
Sociology.
• It is derived from the Latin word ‘Socius’, which means
companionship or friendship. Companionship means
sociability.
• It is this element of sociability which defines the true
essence of society.
• Aristotle said that ‘Man is a social animal.’
• He cannot live alone i.e. he always lives in the company
of other people. Both nature and necessity compel him to
live in a society.
• Human life and society always go together. Contd...

4. Meaning:
For a common man, society implies a group of some
people.
But for Sociologists, it is not just a group of people but it
is a set social relationships which exists when the
members are aware of each other’s existence and have
some interests or objects in common.
It is a group of people who share a common culture,
occupy a particular territorial area and feel themselves to
constitute a unified and distinct entity. It is the mutual
interactions and interrelations of individuals and groups.
contd…

5. Definitions:
 Society is “a web of social relationship”. - MacIver
 “A society is a collection of individuals united by certain
relations or mode of behavior which mark them off from
others who do not enter into these relations or who differ from
them in behavior”. - Morris Ginsberg
 “Society is a system of usages and procedures of authority and
mutual aid of many groupings and divisions, of controls of
human behavior and liberties. - MacIver and Page
 “The term society refers not to group of people, but to the
complex pattern of the norms of interaction, that arise among
and between them”. - Lapiere
contd…

6. Characteristics:
Society consists of people.
Social relationships.
Mutual interaction and
mutual awareness.
Society depends on
likeness.
Society rests on
difference too.
Co – operation.
Conflict.
Society implies
interdependence.
Society is dynamic.
Social control and norms.
Society is abstract.
contd…

7. Theories of Origin of Society:
Organic Theory:
Herbert Spencer is the main exponent of this theory:
• He tried to establish an analogy between the society and
an individual organism.
• The origin of societies is the same as the origin of
species.
• The society is subject to the same laws of growth and
decay to which the human body is.
• Society as well as individual organism grow in size.
Contd…

8. • They grow from comparatively a simple structure to that of an
increasingly complex one.
• Increasing differentiation leads to increasing mutual
dependence of the component parts. The life and normal
functioning of each becomes dependent on the life of the
whole.
• The life of the whole becomes independent and lasts longer
than life of the component parts.
Hence, society is like a social organism. Individuals are the
limbs of the society and behave as cells of the body whose activity
and life are meant for the sake of the whole. Limbs separated
from body have no life, and similarly individuals separated from
society have no life. The individual exist in and within society.
Contd…

9. Criticism:
• In human body, there is continuity and unity between
the cells of the body. Such unity is completely missing in
society.
• Further, the way in which human bodies are born and
die cannot be compared with the birth and death of
society.
• Society does not show physical unity but indicates a
social and mental state of affairs.
contd…

10. Social contract theory:
Thomas Hobbes, J. Locke, J.J.Rousseau are the
main advocates of this theory.
• According to Hobbes, early man was nasty and brutish
and did not know about society. To end the uncertainty
in life and to pass days happy, he decided to live in
society and thus society was found.
• Locke believed that in the society he was leading a
peaceful life. There were also certain social laws which
the people had made for themselves and which they were
Hobbes Locke

11. willing to obey as well. But the people had no recognized
system of justice with the result that they entered into an
agreement to sacrifice their liberty and became members
of a regular society. It was with this agreement that the
society originated.
• According to Rousseau, need and necessity of the
society was realized only to serve increasing social
problems and in order to live peacefully in the society,
people entered into an agreement, which brought society
into being.
contd…
Rousseau

12. Criticism:
• Society did not come into being by virtue of any contract,
it emerged spontaneously and followed its own line of
development.
• It gives freedom to the individual with regard to the
membership of society.
• The very fact of our birth establishes that we are born in
a society.
• It raises the controversy: who was born first, individual
or society.
contd…

13. Relationship between Individual and
Society:
The individual is a unit of society.
His very existence is woven into the fabric of society.
He knows himself and his fellow – beings within the
framework of society.
Individual potentialities unfold and take on form only in
course of experience in a social environment.
Individual learns to satisfy the needs in a socially
approved fashion.
His likes and dislikes, hopes and ambitions, his
interpretations of society itself are derived from the
social world around him or society. Contd…

14. The society guides individuals’ action or human
behavior.
However, it does not mean that individual and society
are always in harmony. When individualism overpowers
the thought process of individuals, it destroys the very
spirit of society which is based on collectivism.

15. Thank you
Compiled by
Ms.Amrit Deep Kaur
Department of Sociology
PGGC for Girls, Sector – 42,
Chandigarh