Introducing Western Sociologists

The Enlightenment was important because it introduced reason, critical thinking, and a scientific attitude to understand the world. It placed the human being at the centre and treated society as something that could be studied rationally. It also weakened the earlier dominance of religion, nature and the divine in explaining social life. These ideas made possible a secular, scientific and humanistic way of thinking, which is the basis of sociology.

The Industrial Revolution gave rise to sociology because it transformed society very rapidly. It created factory production, mass manufacture, new forms of labour organisation, and large urban centres. Many people were uprooted from villages and had to work in difficult conditions in cities. This produced problems like poverty, slums, low wages, child labour, and inequality. Such changes created a need for new knowledge about society, and sociology emerged as a response to understand these new industrial conditions.

According to Marx, a mode of production has two main components:

1. Productive forces — the means of production such as land, labour, technology, and sources of energy.
2. Relations of production — the social and economic relations involved in production, including property relations, ownership or control of the means of production, and forms of labour organisation.

Together, these form the economic base of society.

According to Marx, classes come into conflict because the mode of production creates contradictions between groups with different positions in the production process. People who share the same location in production have common interests, while opposing classes have conflicting interests over property, labour, and profits. In capitalism, for example, the bourgeoisie owns the means of production, while the working class has only its labour to sell. This exploitation and inequality lead to class struggle, and under favourable political and social conditions, this may result in revolution.

Social facts are aspects of social reality that are external to individuals but also constrain their behaviour. They are collective realities such as law, education, religion, norms, values and shared practices. We recognise them by observing patterns of social behaviour. Even though social facts cannot always be seen directly, they can be identified through regular behaviour, social rules, and especially aggregated patterns like the suicide rate or common ways of acting in a group.

Mechanical solidarity is found in primitive or small societies. It is based on the similarity of members, close personal relations, and strong community life. It uses repressive laws to punish those who break group norms.

Organic solidarity is found in modern societies. It is based on difference, interdependence, and specialization. People depend on one another through division of labour, and the law is mainly restitutive, meaning it aims to repair social wrongs rather than simply punish them.