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Sociology- The Discipline

a) MODERNITY AND SOCIAL CHANGES IN EUROPE AND EMERGENCE OF SOCIOLOGY.

SOCIAL CHANGES IN EUROPE

Today, all of us believe in a system where everyone is treated equally by the law, but back in
the Middle Ages, there was neither the concept of equality nor the concept of law.
Europe had gone through a long chain of events and intellectual currents which not only
transformed European society but also brought the concept of Modernity.

ORIGIN OF INTELLECTUAL IDEAS

Intellectual ideas /currents: defined as those that led to the changes in the ideas and
thinking.

RENAISSANCE (1400-1600)

For 1000s of years, church had been telling the

people of Europe that their lives on Earth were
inconsequential and they should only worry
about going into heaven when they died. As a
result, most European peasants, artisans, and
even Kings spent their entire lives trying to follow
Vatican law (the rule of church). This devotion to
the church left little time for Europeans to do
anything else.

Medieval Art & Literature was all about church & salvation. However, the Church’s
domination of European culture soon ended when the Renaissance began, and humanism
spread throughout the land.

Renaissance was the period of artistic, scientific, and cultural growth for the people of
Europe. Artists and scientists worked hard every day to improve their lives and the lives of
the people around them. This movement ushered in the era of Humanism, individualism,
and secularism: set of philosophies that stood against the medieval writers & artists who
mostly used religious themes in their writing and art works.

• Humanism: a philosophy which questioned the teachings of catholic church and

concentrated on the significance of human activity, learning, and bettering oneself
which spawned individualism. It emphasizes that the rights and responsibilities of
each individual person are more important than the spiritual destiny of the soul.
Scholars began to believe that what we do with our time on earth is more important
than what we do in the afterlife.
• Secularism: came as a challenge to Vatican law. Secularism was the act of living and
customs written and created by people without the use of religious texts to guide

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them. It was the first-time people started following laws that were written by
humans for humans.
• Individualism: Many educated scholars that lived during the Renaissance used
Humanism to come up with their own ideas that might upset members of the church.

MIDDLE AGES (Before Humanism) RENAISSANCE (After Humanism)

Centered around GOD Centered around Individual
Restricted individual expression Rebirth of Individualism. The spirit of
individualism incited the Protestant revolt
Protestant Reformation: was about
reforms in catholic church.
Characterized by Christian view of Philosophy that people are rational beings
Humans as sinful became popular. Faith in God weakened &
dignity of mankind restored.
Celebration of divine agency Contribution of individuals in science
(Galileo Galilei), arts (Leonardo Da Vinci), &
literature (Shakespeare) was recognized.
Medieval art & Architecture: Renaissance Art & Architecture:
• Focused on • Focused on
religious Human, its anatomy,
theme like expressions, nature,
Jesus. Saints, and everyday life.
and scenes • Expressive
from the Bible. faces
• Faces were • Individuality
similar and in faces and
serious emotions.
without • Nude images
emotion. and individual
• People fully clothed portraits.
• 2D figures with one color • Used Perspective (A technique to
Background (mostly gold). introduce depth/3 Dimensional)
• No signature of artists. • Author’s signature

Thereafter, we saw birth of:

• Renaissance Art & Literature: In Architecture, painting, literature and scripture,
the focus was less on religion and church, and more on human centered world.
o Renaissance Art characterized by Realism, perspective and
Individualism. Education had become increasingly secular and split into
different subjects (birth of humanities)
• Scientific Renaissance
These 3 implied nothing but contribution of humans in different fields.

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Scientific Renaissance
Nicholas Copernicus came up with
Heliocentric theory to counter geo-
centric theory proposed by Church.
This marked the beginning of
Scientific Renaissance/Scientific
Revolution: A period characterized by
developments in mathematics,
physics, chemistry, astronomy,
biology or emergence of modern
science which transformed societal
views about nature.
Kepler: planets orbit earth in an
elliptical manner.
Galileo Galilei: built and used his own
telescope to support Copernicus.
Renaissance Art & Literature
Artists developed their abilities developed
techniques like perspective to add realism to
their painting (unlike one dimensional religious
art).
Leonardo Vinci began studying
anatomy to gain a better
understanding of how the human
body work (Catholic church did not
encourage the study of human body).
E.g. Monalisa.
Michaelangelo’s statue of Biblical
hero DAVID is a declaration of the
perfection of the human form.
Cartography became popular as individuals
started to become more curious about the world
around them.

Declared heretic by church

authorities.

Newton demonstrated the universal

law of gravitation and the fact that
universe was one huge uniform
system.
Francis Bacon: emphasized that Shakespeare: Hamlet (written just after
knowledge can be gained by renaissance) celebrated the mankind.
experiencing the world i.e. make
observation, collect data, conduct
experiments (empiricism). This was
Baconian method or Inductive
method of scientific investigation.
Basically, one starts with specific
observation and then goes on to make
generalized statement.

The inductive method of inquiry was

in opposition to the dogmatic Francesco Petrarch wrote poems called
teaching of church because it Sonnets about a girl called Laura.
assumes that only religious
knowledge is true and can be used to

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derive truths; the church uses Niccolo Machiavelli: wrote the Prince as a
deductive reasoning. guidebook for politicians and rulers.

Rene
Descartes
He found no
evidence of
soul
(something
that catholic
church emphasized on). He
emphasized on the thinking aspect of
human being, a man who thinks and
doubts. In effect, the evidence of
thought proves the hypothesis of
existence.

Their ideas developed into scientific

method (long procedure for gathering
and testing ideas). Don’t worry Guys.
We will deal with Scientific method in
UNIT 2.

In conclusion, scientific revolution involved questioning traditional beliefs about the working
of the universe through observation, reason and experimentation. Greater knowledge of the
world & weakened superstition encouraged learning and the search for better and newer ways
of doing things. Scientists like Copernicus and Galileo had explained that the world did not
work exactly the way church explained it.
But scientific revolution was not a complete rejection of the previous knowledge. Galileo,
Newton, Copernicus, Kepler, used Aristotle and Ptolemy’s theory for their own
heliocentric theories, that made the Sun the center of the Solar system.

ENLIGHTENMENT (1700-1800)-The Age of Reason

An intellectual movement in which thinkers applied reason to fix anomalies in governance,
economy, and science to make the world better for humans.

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• These philosophers, inspired by Scientists like Newton & Galileo, observed natural
laws which were superior to religion and state.
• They believed that just like universe was governed by some established laws, so is
society.

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that promoted the power of human
reason to to solve all human problems, including unfair government, regressive
economy or any social issue. Philosophers of this time believed that reason & laws of
nature could be applied to even make society better.

While the Scientific Revolution focused on the physical world, the Enlightenment attempted to
explain the purpose of government, and describe the best form of it.

The most influential Enlightenment thinkers were Thomas Hobbes, John Lock, Voltaire,
Montesquieu, Thomas Paine and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Reason. Karl Marx was highly
influenced by enlightenment thinking.

Thomas Hobbes:
• He really begun the divorce of political thought from
theology by simply no longer speaking of God in matters of
statecraft.
• He focused on a form of governance which can cater to the
needs of humans (human centric governance).
• According to him, Humans in their original state of
nature were greedy, selfish, and cruel. In his book,
Leviathan, Hobbes states that life would be a state of
constant warfare without a strong government to control
man's natural impulses.
• He supported absolutism (a system which placed
control of state in the hands of individual/absolute monarch). However, he
rejected Divine Right Theory of government.
• Thus, people enter a social contract to give up their freedom in exchange for
protection for all. The subject could never rebel and the monarchs had the right to
put down any rebellion by any means possible.

John Locke: Locke believed that humans could be reasonable and

moral and all men have natural rights of life, liberty, and
property.

People voluntarily give government some of their power through a

“social contract” in order to protect their “natural rights” of life,
liberty, and property. If not protected, the people have a right to
revolt, if necessary.

Hobbes, on the other hand, did not believe in revolutions, and supported the idea of absolute
monarchs.

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Montesquieu: He believed human rights are best protected when we have
separation of power into 3 branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.
o Each branch would check the other branches, thus
preventing despotism and preserving freedom.
Montesquieu was critical of French Monarchy because
all power was concentrated in one person.
o His theory of the separation of powers greatly influenced
the framers of the United States Constitution.

Voltaire: He challenged the authority of Catholic church and

advocated freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and separation
of church and state.
o He believed that freedom of speech was the best weapon
against bad government ("I do not agree with a word that you say, but
I will defend to the death your right to say it).
o Voltaire thought that religion crushed the human spirit
because it exploited people’s ignorance and superstitions. His most
famous anti-religious statement was “écrasez l’infâme” (“crush the
horrible thing”). People began to question divine right monarchies.

Rousseau: believed that government should be run according to the will of

the majority, which he called the General Will, which would always act in
the best interest of the people.

• Rousseau gave the people of France the concept of

democracy through his book Social Contract.
o He criticized the tyrannical rule of the kings of France
and held them responsible for bringing the country to the
brink of revolution by their despotic and arbitrary acts.

Adam Smith: Scottish enlightenment was a part of European

Enlightenment.
o He wrote Wealth of Nations (1776) and believed in
Laissez- Faire (free market) economy without
government intervention. E.g. Free trade with no Tariff
is something he would support.
o He also believed that free market economy should rest
in the hands of self-interested individuals (or
capitalists). He attacked mercantilism and
supported Capitalist system where the law of supply and demand
would determine prices.
o He saw market as a ‘positive force’, as a source of order, harmony, and
integration in society, characterized by an ‘Invisible hand’ (indirect
benefits accrued to the society with the operation of free market economy)
that shaped the market for labor and goods.

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David Hume: Scottish Enlightenment philosopher in his book ‘Enquiry
concerning human understanding’ questioned the existence of God and
developed ‘science of man’.
o He emphasised on empiricism and scepticism. It was never
reasonable to believe in miracles. A miracle is anything that violates laws
of nature (like law of gravity).

Mary Wollstonecraft: Many Enlightenment thinkers held

traditional views about women. In her book Vindication of the
rights of woman, she demanded equal rights for women.
o She believed that the men who thought that the
power of kings over mankind was wrong were
hypocritical not seeing the power of men over
women as the similar relationship. Although
Philosophers like Rousseau argued strongly for
education but said that girls should be educated on how to be helpful wife
& mother.
o She urged women to read and enter male dominated field to bring change
in society. Enlightenment should apply to both men & women.

In conclusion, The Enlightenment stands as the moment the West withdrew from religion
and superstitions and found its faith in REASON. The Scientific revolution & the
enlightenment lead to many political and social revolutions throughout the world….. Starting
with American Revolution (1776) and then French Revolution (1789)

REFER THE FLOWCHART FOR SUMMARY:

IMPACT OF ENLIGHTENMENT ON FRENCH SOCIETY:

To understand the impact of Enlightenment on Europe, specifically France, we need
to understand what the pre-enlightenment French society (Old European order) looked
like.

Well, the Old European order was stratified on the bases of Estates. This system of
stratification in Feudal European societies was based on status, privileges, and restrictions,
wherein, higher status and privilege was enjoyed by people who belonged to first and second
estate, and the restrictions were imposed on people belonging to third estate.

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This old order was soon to be

overthrown by the revolutionary
forces fueled by economic, social,
political and intellectual causes.

THE CAUSES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION:

• Economic causes:
o First and second estate paid no taxes and all the taxes were borne by third
estate (Regressive Taxation)
o heavy layout of Soldiers, system of mercantilism which restricted trade,
o Increased debt due to 7 years war and American revolution, Famine/poor
harvest, and
o excessively extravagant lifestyle (madame deficit).
• Political causes:
o Absolutism,
o Undemocratic Estates General (Read the explanation below),
o Nepotism,
o No freedom to common men
• Intellectual causes:
o Age of reason,
o Growth of new ideas as to how the state should run led to summon of the
Estates General-> 3 Estates met and voting was conducted.

Brief Summary of French Revolution

TYPE OF REPRESENTATION
• THE ESTATES GENERAL RARELY MET.
• Each Estate had one vote.
• Ist & IInd Estate always used to outvote IIIrd Estate,

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Declaration of the
Rights of Man &
Citizen:
Natural rights are liberty,
property, security and
resistance to oppression.
Men are born & remain
free, Law is expression of
General will)
Citizen applied to all people
irrespective of Class
National Assembly Proposals:
• Constitutional Monarchy
• Law of Clergy: religion to be subordinated to
state
• Nationalization of confiscated lands of Church
and Lords(socialism/communism)
• Declaration of the Rights of Man & Citizen
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen

Old French New French

Society Society
Centralization of
Decentralization of
Power
Power (National
(Absolutism)
Assembly)
Religion was
Secularism
sacrosanct
Merit system
Nepotism in
appointments to Capitalism
office
Republic
Feudalism

Estate system

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (Post 1750s)

At least as important as political revolution in shaping of sociology was the Industrial
Revolution, which swept through many western societies, mainly in the nineteenth and early
Twentieth century.
Industrial Revolution: was a fundamental change in the way goods were produced, from
human labor to machines. The efficient means of production and higher level of production
triggered far-reaching changes to Industrialized societies.

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Material issues:
The new industrial capitalism, although
improved the quality of life, led to creation
of urban centers, population boost and
problems such as exploitation,
housing, health, slum development etc.
which became issues/subject matter of
sociology.
• Conditions of labor: degradation of
labor, wrenching of work from protective
guild, village, and family (mass of Indian
handicraftsmen ruined as a result of the
influx of machine-made goods of British
industries.
• Transformation of property:
Transformation implies shift of property
from Land to capital, landlords to
capitalist.
• Urbanization: new cities became
repositories of misery and inhumanity
(traffic, pollution, poverty, overcrowded
slums of new industrial working class, bad sanitation, emotional deficit, blasé
attitude, normless-ness, and increase in the crime rate).
• Technology and factory system: large scale migration, Bureaucratization of work,
clockwork, product of labor belonged to factory owner, machines dominated work etc.

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