WHAT IS SOCIOLOGY?
Sociology is the intellectual discipline concerned with developing systematic reliable knowledge about human social relations in general, and about the product of such relationships. Auguste Comte first conceived of the word Sociology in 1838. He had intended to name the new science social physics; but he rejected the term after a Belgian Scholar, Adolph Quatelet began to make involved statistical studies of Society and to call his area of endeavour social physics.
The word Sociology is a combination of Latin and Greek, its two component parts aptly describe what the new science want to achieve.
„Logy‟ study of life and mind respectively. “socio” points to Society, bringing these two parts together. Sociology is the study of society on a
highly generalized or abstract level. This definition assumes that a person knows what society is. A society is defined as men (human
beings) in interdependence. Men in interdependence therefore may be taken as the subject matter of sociology. From this definition, it can be
inferred that sociologists study the group that man forms in his association with others. These groups include: families, tribes,
communities and government. They are studied along with a variety of social, religious, political, and other organizations. Sociologists study their behaviour and interaction, trace their origin and growth, and analyse the influence of group activities on individual members.
Sociology is generally regarded as being a branch of the social sciences as its name implies this group of subjects attempt to bring scientific attitude to bear upon various aspects of social life. This is not the way most people view the society (even if they are physical or biological scientists). The political revolutionist wants to overthrow the society, the reformer wants to change it; the evangelist want to save it. The viewpoint of the sociologist is basically that of curiosity. He wants to find out what a particular society (or part of it) is like.
The Meaning of Society
Society can be defined as the largest group of people inhabiting a specific territory. The people in a society share a common culture as a result of interacting on regular, continuous basis, and as a result of interacting according to patterns of behaviour on which all, more of less agree. This definition of society stresses social relationships or interaction, rather than individuals. Society differs from many other kinds of groups because within this group people can live a total, common life. Society is not an organization limited to a specific purpose as, for example Nigerian Medical Association or Nigerian Society of Engineers. It is the most self-sufficient group, and its independence is based on the techniques developed for fulfilling the needs of its members. Sociologically, society is the interrelated network of social relationships that exists within the boundaries of the largest social system. In the past, the largest social system was a clan, a tribe, or simply a family. Today, the largest social system is the nation-state.
In a nation-state, individuals are grouped and interrelated as families, communities, racial and ethnic groups, political parties, social classes, and so on. When we speak of Nigerian society, we are referring to 140 million individuals (grouped in families, communities, and countless other classifications) who inhabit Nigeria, and whose social relationships occur within its boundaries.
Every society organizes representative groups and positions to which it gives power of making decisions and settling conflicts. Each society requires that its members feel greater loyalty to it than any other group. Such loyalty is possible partly because the members share a language and a culture uniquely their own.
3.3 Why is there Society?
To answer this question, we must start with two basic observations about the nature of individuals:
At birth the human organism is helpless to meet his own needs. Others must protect and care for it or it will die. Also it needs others from whom it can learn how to do things necessary to live. Human life can be sustained only if the slowly growing human organism is cared for, while it learns how to do things necessary to take care of itself.
The human organism is not genetically programmed (that is its specific behaviour is not provided by some set of inherited instincts. Instead, all human beings must go through a prolonged complex learning process. We become human by this learning process, and this in turn, requires persistent association with other human beings.
The consequences which flow from these assumptions are fundamental to an understanding of why there is society.
i. Human beings have had to work out for themselves ways to survive. Possessing no instinctive knowledge and skills, human beings have learned from experience, have developed usefulskills, and have made tools and constructed shelter from whatever materials the environment made available.
ii. Human survival can only be accomplished if human beings act collectively. Cooperation can accomplish things no one person
could manage alone. From the earliest period of human existence,
providing food and shelter, while also bringing into being new generation, taking care of it and teaching it what to know, required that individuals cooperate with one another. They had to develop some organized way to see that what needed to be done got done. Some tasks need to be shared, some to be divided among different persons.
From this perspective, human society is the outcome of collective adaptation to a natural environment, a process of finding how to live cooperatively in such a way as to make nature yield enough to sustain life. By cooperative activity among human being learning from one another, skills are acquired, knowledge is accumulated, techniques, and tools are developed; and all are transmitted to the next generation. Human life must have been carried on in social groups, however small or simple, from the very beginning of human existence.
Sociology is the intellectual discipline concerned with developing systematic reliable knowledge about human social relations in general, and about the product of such relationships. Auguste Comte first conceived of the word Sociology in 1838. He had intended to name the new science social physics; but he rejected the term after a Belgian Scholar, Adolph Quatelet began to make involved statistical studies of Society and to call his area of endeavour social physics.
The word Sociology is a combination of Latin and Greek, its two component parts aptly describe what the new science want to achieve.
„Logy‟ study of life and mind respectively. “socio” points to Society, bringing these two parts together. Sociology is the study of society on a
highly generalized or abstract level. This definition assumes that a person knows what society is. A society is defined as men (human
beings) in interdependence. Men in interdependence therefore may be taken as the subject matter of sociology. From this definition, it can be
inferred that sociologists study the group that man forms in his association with others. These groups include: families, tribes,
communities and government. They are studied along with a variety of social, religious, political, and other organizations. Sociologists study their behaviour and interaction, trace their origin and growth, and analyse the influence of group activities on individual members.
Sociology is generally regarded as being a branch of the social sciences as its name implies this group of subjects attempt to bring scientific attitude to bear upon various aspects of social life. This is not the way most people view the society (even if they are physical or biological scientists). The political revolutionist wants to overthrow the society, the reformer wants to change it; the evangelist want to save it. The viewpoint of the sociologist is basically that of curiosity. He wants to find out what a particular society (or part of it) is like.
The Meaning of Society
Society can be defined as the largest group of people inhabiting a specific territory. The people in a society share a common culture as a result of interacting on regular, continuous basis, and as a result of interacting according to patterns of behaviour on which all, more of less agree. This definition of society stresses social relationships or interaction, rather than individuals. Society differs from many other kinds of groups because within this group people can live a total, common life. Society is not an organization limited to a specific purpose as, for example Nigerian Medical Association or Nigerian Society of Engineers. It is the most self-sufficient group, and its independence is based on the techniques developed for fulfilling the needs of its members. Sociologically, society is the interrelated network of social relationships that exists within the boundaries of the largest social system. In the past, the largest social system was a clan, a tribe, or simply a family. Today, the largest social system is the nation-state.
In a nation-state, individuals are grouped and interrelated as families, communities, racial and ethnic groups, political parties, social classes, and so on. When we speak of Nigerian society, we are referring to 140 million individuals (grouped in families, communities, and countless other classifications) who inhabit Nigeria, and whose social relationships occur within its boundaries.
Every society organizes representative groups and positions to which it gives power of making decisions and settling conflicts. Each society requires that its members feel greater loyalty to it than any other group. Such loyalty is possible partly because the members share a language and a culture uniquely their own.
3.3 Why is there Society?
To answer this question, we must start with two basic observations about the nature of individuals:
At birth the human organism is helpless to meet his own needs. Others must protect and care for it or it will die. Also it needs others from whom it can learn how to do things necessary to live. Human life can be sustained only if the slowly growing human organism is cared for, while it learns how to do things necessary to take care of itself.
The human organism is not genetically programmed (that is its specific behaviour is not provided by some set of inherited instincts. Instead, all human beings must go through a prolonged complex learning process. We become human by this learning process, and this in turn, requires persistent association with other human beings.
The consequences which flow from these assumptions are fundamental to an understanding of why there is society.
i. Human beings have had to work out for themselves ways to survive. Possessing no instinctive knowledge and skills, human beings have learned from experience, have developed usefulskills, and have made tools and constructed shelter from whatever materials the environment made available.
ii. Human survival can only be accomplished if human beings act collectively. Cooperation can accomplish things no one person
could manage alone. From the earliest period of human existence,
providing food and shelter, while also bringing into being new generation, taking care of it and teaching it what to know, required that individuals cooperate with one another. They had to develop some organized way to see that what needed to be done got done. Some tasks need to be shared, some to be divided among different persons.
From this perspective, human society is the outcome of collective adaptation to a natural environment, a process of finding how to live cooperatively in such a way as to make nature yield enough to sustain life. By cooperative activity among human being learning from one another, skills are acquired, knowledge is accumulated, techniques, and tools are developed; and all are transmitted to the next generation. Human life must have been carried on in social groups, however small or simple, from the very beginning of human existence.
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