First Family Activity: Resurrecting Overlooked Concepts or Ideas

In covering the first four chapters in our text in class lecture, which we will have done by the end of next week, I have glossed over any number of concepts, ideas, arguments which you may have felt were significant and insightful. For this exercise I want each of the families to identify, discuss, and write up a brief description (no more than one page) of an overlooked concept, idea, or argument from the text. In your write-up you should briefly describe the concept, idea, or argument, tell why you believe it is significant, and how it relates to some aspect of what I have already presented in class. For example, if it was a point from Spencer, who we just covered, you should be able to relate it to something I did present about Spencer in class. Designate a spokesperson for your family who will present this to the class at some point in the near future (probably after we finish Chapter 4 in the text). I will give you some time in class next week to discuss this with your family members, but you may need to do a little work outside of class. Finally, I will consider each of the family submissions for possible inclusion on the midterm exam. This activity is worth 5 points, and I may consider some extra credit for those submissions I deem worthy of inclusion on the midterm.

What Constitutes "Theory" in the Context of the First Essay on Harriet Martineau

The following comment is intended to clarify, as best I can, some confusion regarding your first essay assignment. As many of you have probably observed in reading that section of the text on Harriet Martineau, the authors seem to focus almost entirely on her methodological insights and it is harder to pick out her "theories." Of course, it was the authors of the text who entitled this section "Martineau's Central Theories and Methods." And I believe they are using "theory" in a very broad sense to refer to any ideas or statements ABOUT society (as opposed to ideas or statements on HOW to study or look at society). Now these two questions are not always easy to separate. Indeed, their definition of sociological theory seems to include both ABOUT & HOW: "Sociological theory is an abstract, symbolic representation of, and explanation of, social reality. But when we talk about sociological theory, we are talking about guidelines for thinking in a disciplined manner about the social world." (p. 4) The latter sentence in that definition seems to include methods as well. This is a pretty deep issue which I am not fully prepared to address in this blog; however, if you keep in mind the distinction I made above between ABOUT & HOW, I believe you should be able to complete this essay. In general, I am interested in seeing how well you understand some of Martineau's ideas and can see their relevance to modern society.

Finally, let me remind you this first essay is due on Tuesday, 2/26. Good luck.

EXTRA CREDIT Follow-up to "are you already a social theorist" exercise

Before I describe this extra credit follow-up to our first exercise, just a couple reminders for next week. First, there are still a few of you who have not posted a comment on that first exercise and you need to do so ASAP. On Tuesday, I will hand out a write-up of our first essay which will be out-of-class. I'll be talking mainly about Auguste Comte on Tuesday.

EXTRA CREDIT follow-up to first exercise:

At some point during the remainder of the semester, you may briefly discuss (one or two paragraphs) how what you wrote about in your first exercise relates to anything you encounter in the text or class lecture. You may run across a concept or perhaps a broad theoretical perspective which helps shed light on the question you posed and your tentative answer. You may respond to this at ANY time during the semester. The deadline will be the last day of classes,FRIDAY, MAY 9. This is worth 3 points.

"Explanation" & A Reminder

As of 8:15AM this morning (Wed. 2/13) it appears that only five people have posted a comment in response to the activity, "Are you already a social theorist?". If you have not done this, try to do so by tomorrow. It is 3 easy activity points designed mainly to get you accustomed to commenting on the blog.

Below, as promised in class, are some thoughts from an unpublished manuscript of Prof. Erich Ahrens on the nature of explanation.

"We are sometimes inclined to fall into a very primitive idea of explanation. We think that a thing is explained by some force or power back of it. Wind is explained by a wind spirit, an instinctive act by instinct, or any thought or act is explained by some power in us or outside us which accounts for its existence. We should like to point out that there is nothing back of anything. That is not the function of explanation to tell us what causes space, time, life, thinking, acting, society, or even cause itself. The essence of explanation is to say what things are and to define them in and through their relations to other phenomena or forms of phenomena. We cannot be magicians in our explanations and pull things into being out of the void. Biologists explain one function of the body in relation to other functions. They relate the form of one animal body to that of other animal bodies, even to plants and inorganic compounds. But they do not ask for the cause of animal bodies, do not assume some entity back of that class of things which brought them into existence. Why, then, do we assume that there is something separate from and back of action? Thought, action, personality, life, society, etc., are categories as ultimate as space, time, and cause. They are the ground of explanation. It is in relation to these categories that life phenomena are made intelligible. Ignore them and you fall into the blue of empty abstractions and purely fictive explanations."

E.A. Ahrens
University of Illinois
Unpublished manuscript

Something to think about. The key passage being: "The essence of explanation is to say what things are and to define them in and through their relations to other phenomena or forms of phenomena."

"Are you already a social theorist?"

The title of this first individual exercise comes from "A Note to Students" in the opening of our text. What I want you to do is state a question about our world, other than ones mentioned in the text (p. xxix) that you have pondered and tried to answer in your own mind (not necessarily something you've researched or written a paper for in another class). In addition to stating the question, briefly describe how you tried to answer it.

I am only looking for a paragraph (or two) at the most. This first exercise is worth 3 points. And please try to post it no later than next Thursday, 2/14.