The development trend of modern western sociology Western sociology is a new discipline that emerged in the19th century. After entering the 20th century, due to the emergence of various new social problems, great changes have taken place in the contents, methods and basic theories of promoting sociology. Its research field is expanding day by day, multi-disciplinary branches go hand in hand, schools are colorful, and practical tendency is strengthened; Theoretical research focuses on social structure analysis, social psychological analysis, social and cultural analysis, etc. , showing a diversified and diversified development trend. The wide application of computers has greatly improved the methods and means of sociological research, and social statistics, quantitative analysis and mathematical analysis have attracted great attention of sociologists.
In the study of western sociological theory, the main contribution of Europe lies in the emergence of a large number of sociologists such as Comte, Spencer, Durkheim and Weber in the early stage of sociological development, and their theories have had a great impact on the future development of sociology. After World War II, the development trend of western sociology is that American sociology is ahead. In the 1950s and 1960s, the advantages of American sociology almost reached the point of giving up.
According to the statistics in the early 1970s, there are more than 65,438+000 departments and structures in the United States that can award doctorate degrees in sociology. Sociology departments and sociological research institutions in universities such as Chicago, Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, California and Michigan are world-renowned. There are dozens of professional journals of sociology in the United States, and various foundations and private consortia have provided huge financial support for sociological research, and sociology has been widely valued.
However, no matter in Europe or the United States, no theory can affect the whole field of sociology.
Sociology in western Europe generally believes that the founder of western sociology is1Comte, a Frenchman in the 9th century (1798- 1857). He first used the word "sociology" to study human society with the scientific method of studying nature. Subsequently, Spencer in Britain, Durkheim in France and Weber in Germany all played a great role in the perfection and development of sociology.
Emile Durkheim (1858- 19 17) is regarded as one of the real founders of modern sociology, who made modern sociology a formal university course. 1887, the French authorities in charge of higher education formally agreed that Durkheim would offer formal courses in the Faculty of Arts of Bordeaux University. 1906 was appointed as the first French sociology professor at the University of Paris.
Durkheim is the representative of positivistic sociology. He believes that the research object of sociology is "social facts", which is a phenomenon that occurs at the social collective level, that is, "the reality of collective behavior and way of thinking that individuals do not abide by all the time and exist outside the individual". He believes that society itself is a unique entity and cannot be explained by individual behavior. He advocates that social facts exist as physical, chemical, biological and psychological facts. Therefore, he advocates that social facts should be studied by studying other natural phenomena, and should not be deduced from some abstract assumptions like philosophy.
Max Weber (1864-1920) is the main representative of understanding sociology. Contrary to Durkheim's point of view, he believes that only every specific individual and his social actions exist objectively, and society does not exist as an entity. Therefore, the study of society can only proceed from the individual and his social behavior as the object, not from the social structure or society itself. Because personal actions are closely related to subjective intention, motivation, purpose, will and interest. To explain individual action, we must first "understand" it. Subjective understanding is a unique feature of sociological knowledge. In the field of sociological research, Weber does not advocate the use of empirical and other natural science methods, but advocates the use of subjective understanding methods.
Positivistic sociology, represented by Durkheim, and sociology of understanding, represented by Weber, are two important schools of modern sociology, which have had an important influence on the development of western sociology in the future.
65438+At the end of 2009 and the beginning of the 20th century, European sociology deeply influenced American sociology. Affected by the war, many sociologists went into exile in the United States, which promoted the development of American sociology. After World War II, there appeared a situation in which American sociology deeply influenced European sociology. During this period, the research direction of European sociology has also changed. Before the war, European sociologists paid special attention to theoretical research, but after the war, they turned to the study of practical problems, and their professional division of labor became more and more detailed.
American Sociology American Sociology came into being at the end of 19 and was handed down from Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Because great changes were taking place in American society at that time, a large number of social problems appeared, which urgently needed sociologists to study and answer, thus promoting the development of American sociology. Yale, Chicago and other universities have successively offered sociology courses. The American Sociological Society was founded in 1905.
Soon after sociology was introduced into the United States, it was influenced by pragmatism, attaching too much importance to the study of practical problems and neglecting theoretical research. American sociologists strongly advocate that sociological research should be closely integrated with current social problems, which leads to the prosperity of micro-sociological research such as urban sociology, social psychology and cultural anthropology. In the early forties, American sociologists deeply felt that it was impossible to improve their research level without theoretical guidance. As a result, they began to pay attention to the theoretical research of sociology, and some new theories appeared. Parsons of Harvard University started the theoretical research of sociology earlier and put forward the theory of structure-functionalism. Under his influence, new theories such as exchange theory, conflict theory, symbolic interaction theory, phenomenological social theory, structuralist social theory and new structural functionalism appeared one after another after the mid-1960s. These theories have had a great influence on the development of sociology in Europe and other regions.
Structure-Functionalism is a term first put forward by Parsons in 1944, The Present Situation and Prospect of System Theory. It advocates a comprehensive study of the whole society from a theoretical perspective, focusing on the relationship between the social structure and its functional components. 1957, Parsons developed structural-functionalism into a social system theory in his book Social System, arguing that people have the ability to choose in the process of social action, but this choice is restricted by various norms and values that govern the social structure. Therefore, we must study the whole social system under the guidance of structural functionalism theory. Later, Merton, a student of Parsons, revised and perfected his theory, thinking that it is impossible to study the social system comprehensively and completely, and only a medium-sized theory can be established to analyze a series of limited empirical phenomena.
Structural-functionalism was very popular in the United States in 1950s and 1960s, but in the second half of 1960s, this theory was criticized by many people because they overemphasized social balance and integration and neglected social conflicts and social changes.
The development trend of modern western historiography originated at the beginning of the century. At that time, western traditional historiography was challenged as never before. On the one hand, with the development of modern science and technology, the political reference role of history has gradually decreased, and people have shifted from attaching importance to experience and the past to attaching importance to reality and the future. A large number of emerging disciplines crowded out ancient history, prompting some historians to explore the road of historical change; On the other hand, the disasters brought by the two world wars to human civilization have fundamentally shaken the progressive concept that science and reason will bring happiness and a bright future to mankind. Historians need to make new explanations and explanations for the future of mankind and civilization. It is in this situation that great changes have taken place in the contents, methods and basic theories of western history, especially in the middle and late 1950s, which made history change from "humanities science" to "historical science".
Modern western historiography puts anthropology. Sociology, economics, psychology. Apply the theories and methods of mathematics, system theory and other disciplines to historical research, and conduct interdisciplinary "scientific" or "regular inductive" research; In methodology, it has created new historical research methods such as quantitative history, comparative history, psychological history and oral history. In the research field, new disciplines such as new social history, new political history, new population history, new family history and new economic history have developed or are developing. At school, there are many influential new schools. Among the new schools of western historiography that emerged in the 20th century, cultural form historiography, yearbook school and new social history school have great influence. Quantify history, etc.
The history of cultural morphology was founded in the early 20th century, represented by Spengler in Germany and Toynbee in Britain.
Oswald Bingler (1880— 1936) is a famous German historical philosopher. At the end of the First World War, he officially published a book on historical philosophy with comparative cultural morphology as its theoretical system-The Decline of the West, which comprehensively expounded his historical theory of cultural morphology and caused great repercussions among the European people who survived the robbery at that time.
Bingler believes that the history of all mankind does not exist, only the history of various cultures. He listed eight self-contained high-level cultures in world history: Egyptian culture, Babylonian culture, Indian culture, China culture, Greek and Roman culture (classical culture), Islamic culture, Mayan culture and Western European culture. After a comparative study of them, he came to the conclusion that every culture has a process of rise and fall, just like the changes in all seasons, and every culture has its own spring, summer, autumn and winter.
Arnold toynbee (1889- 1975) is a famous British historian. It took him 40 years to write a brilliant masterpiece Historical Research with a volume of 12, which he inherited. Bingler's historical theory of cultural form has been revised and developed, which has been widely spread in the west and influenced many fields of social science.
Toynbee believes: "Historical research can explain that its own unit is neither a nation-state nor another extreme human being, but a group of human beings we call society." Such a unit is a society with a unique cultural form, which Toynbee calls civilization. He believes that there are already 37 civilizations in the world. Toynbee revised Bingler's "Four Seasons Theory" and developed it into a "five-stage theory" of origin, growth, decline, disintegration and extinction. He disagrees with Bingler's pessimistic argument that western civilization is doomed to perish, and thinks that the law of the origin and growth of human civilization is that human beings can successfully meet all kinds of challenges, and if handled properly, western civilization can still maintain its vitality.
Yearbook School Yearbook School was born in 1920s and 1930s in France, and its founders were faivre and Bloch. The name of this school comes from the magazine Yearbook of Economic and Social History. They advocate broadening the content of historical research and put forward the concept of "overall history", that is, understanding society as a whole and interrelated organic structure and paying attention to all human activities. They believe that historical works should not reproduce the past in a descriptive way, but should ask questions, analyze and elaborate systematically. The main content of historical research should be "people".
After World War II, a new generation of representatives of the Yearbook School further improved the theory of the Yearbook School. From 65438 to 0949, Fernand Braudel published an influential book, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, which opened up a new horizon for historical research and created a new concept, namely, the concept of three periods.
Braudel's works are divided into three parts. The first part discusses the geographical environment of the Mediterranean region; The second part discusses the economic situation of the Mediterranean region in the16th century. The third part discusses the political and military history of the region, especially the process of Spain and Turkey dominating the Mediterranean. He discusses it in three levels here, which embodies three different and related historical times: geographical time (long period), social time (middle period) and personal time (short period). He also put forward three corresponding concepts: structure, situation and event. He tried to reflect the scene of human life in the Mediterranean region at that time more comprehensively and profoundly. He believes that "structure" is a long-term influencing factor; "Situation" is an influential factor in a considerable period of time (medium term); "Events" refer to some unexpected events with short-term effects.
Braudel perfected the "overall history" theory of the Annales School with the theory of three periods, which was later adopted by many western historians, thus making the Annales School a historical school with extensive international influence. In the 1960s and 1970s, the research fields of this school were further broadened and the research methods were innovated.
Yearbook school is the most important and successful development model of international historiography in the 20th century, which has a great and far-reaching impact on the progress of historical science.
The New Social History School is a historical school that appeared in the United States in the late 1960s. Its main representatives and representative works are: Poverty and Progress by Seinstrom of Harvard University, Little Federation by Demos, Four Generations by grevin, and The Combination of Sociology and History by Charles Tilly, a New Englander from Lunge, Lockridge. The same characteristics and methods of these works are to use social science concepts and measurement methods, regard society as the basic object of historical research and take it as the organizational principle of research. For example, according to grevin, the new social history school explores the basic structure and characteristics of society by carefully and thoroughly examining the experiences of individuals, families and groups in specific fields. After the mid-1980s, after more than 20 years of heyday, the influence of the new social history school gradually declined.
As a method of studying history, econometric historiography can be traced back to Historical Records in ancient China, and examples of its application in modern times can also be found, but it really exerted its influence as a modern historiography school in the middle of last century. After World War II, due to the scientific and technological revolution and economic prosperity, European and American historians have been provided with both measuring tools and an environment for using them, enabling them to combine modern measuring means and methods with historical research. Different schools of contemporary historiography have used this research method to varying degrees. As a method, econometrics promotes the accuracy of historical research, changes many traditional concepts, makes up for the deficiency of qualitative and abstract analysis, and broadens the research field. It deepens the research level, simplifies the heavy manual work, and is conducive to the development and completion of collective cooperation projects.
As a research method, econometrics has three functions. One is to make a reflective econometric model, that is, to reveal the regularity of historical process by simulating historical phenomena and processes; The second is to make a counterfactual model, that is, to make a model of a historical process that has never happened but may happen, so as to explore the diversity of historical processes; Thirdly, econometric analysis methods are widely used, such as average, correlation and regression analysis, trend calculation, random variables and probability theory. The purpose is to obtain scientific and accurate historical conclusions.