Sociology: Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Peter Berger

             Sociology deals with the ways that social structure and culture are related. Social structure is defined by a variety of ideas. The structure of a society can be seen as society's organization, such as its religious, political, or economic institutions, rules, routines, and relationships that create society. Social culture deals more with the beliefs and values of society. Sociology is seen by some as a science, where facts can be obtained by collecting data, and hypotheses can become theorems. As a science, sociology would have to be value-free, and sociologists, as scientists, should not be interested in changing society; rather, they must be interested in observing and explaining it. Others believe that sociology, as a study of the groups of people, should be used to aid in the creation of a better society, and therefore sociologists should be obliged to alter and possibly fix society. This paper will assert that sociology should remain a science that seeks to explain the world. The concept of sociology as a science is supported both by the founding fathers of the field and by contemporary minds. These leading sociologists, such as Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Peter Berger, support the scientific aspects of sociology. Also, sociology must remain neutral to the religious, political, and moral values which it seeks to describe. The field of cosmology-the study of the universe, in particular, its origin-can be used as a model for the movement of sociology into a universally accepted, value-free science. Stephen Hawking's best-seller A Brief History of Time, in particular, its first chapter, is an ideal source to back up this claim, as both fields-physics in the mid- and later parts of the millennium, and sociology beginning the late 19th century-had to endure the influence of cultural factors such as religion and politics.
             Emile Durkheim is considered to be the first "sociologist." His challenge in founding a new field of study w...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
Sociology: Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Peter Berger. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 01:11, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/84732.html