Social Theory For Greek Philosophers

Theory of Positivism

Discuss about the Social Theory for Greek Philosophers.

The term social theory deliberately goes to explain different phenomenon happening in the society along with different conclusive evidences which shows how the society works. Also, what are the different principles to which the society uses in order to establish a unique set up where people work and live together to make the best of the available resources. The coherent benefit and speculations which have been made by the social theories presented by many Greek philosophers have shown how these theories made way for other theories to seep in. The parent theory made different branches which further went on to explain different things such as how society operates on positivity and how different people view their social contract with the ruling government.

The social contract explains different ideological theories related to the people and the government. It predicts how the people have different set of rights which are associated with the government and how these rights are never to be infringed by the ruling parties. The social contract deals with different mutual collaborations which are done by the people and it provides the necessary promulgation where people submit different actions into obtaining these basic fundamental rights (Mallinson et al., 2013). The submission of the people involves different actions such as the obedience towards the state’s legislations and being good citizens by abiding the law and paying the implemented taxes. This provides the ripple effect where people get their rights by submission; these rights include the right to choice, the right to association of the people where they are allowed to associate with any organization they want. The right to free movement in the social contract allows the person to live independently in the society by being completely free and living their life.

This specific report deals with different child theories which are correlated to the Social theories and explain behavior of the society and its people in the reference points of cultures, languages and different ideologies. The theories which would be deal in this critical research analysis paper would be covering Positivism and anti positivism. The school of thought who would be provided in this report would be that used by different Greek philosophers and the philosopher dealing with the classical Social theories is Auguste Comte. The second philosopher who would be compared in this particular research paper is Herbert Spencer. The ground breaking works of these thinkers has much provided people about the prior knowledge of society and has laid down different attributes into finding out the reasoning behind different actions of the people. The theories laid out by Comte have been related to several other children theories which show society functionalism and the collaboration of Meta physics to the world.

The key factor which can be said which has been established through all the works of these researchers and their schools of thoughts can be explained as the involvement of science in every rational behavior and choice (Meyerhoff et al., 2015). It explains how these researchers have valid contributions to the world by incorporating sociology with other free thinkers and hence can relate these things in close patches.

The Process of Evolution in Society

The basic etymology of the word positivity revolves around a very simple definition which not only defines the word but rather sets out different precedence as to how these words are interlinked with the habits of the people (Payne et al., 2014). The word explains that positivity revolves around the society as a school of thought in people and sets out distinct amount of border lines for different things to be judged on. It is the optimistic point of approach towards every decision. Hence, states out its facts through careful implementation of principles which have been narrated by the father of sociology and the original presenter of this theory, Augustus Comte.

However, the theory of Positivism goes beyond the scope of other things into explaining the reasoning behind different actions. It goes to a point where it provides evidence to how knowledge is not only validated when it enters into the system of the human being but how knowledge defines the entire scope of the society. The empirical approach which has been taken by Augustus is that all knowledge which has the power of changing different decisions enters into the system of the person on the basis of different validations. These validations are often made by different senses in the person and thus the empirical approach is defined.

The relation and idea by Augustus into relating society all together with Positivism and knowledge validation has been explained because of the relative laws which are often used in Physics. Many notable Greek Researchers before the emergence of this theory explained the validation through poetic means and related society and positivism through the art of poem. Science has always acted out to be a liaison between different interpretations of the people regarding different things and hence makes it easy for understanding the behavior of the people (Hernández-Campoy and Conde-Silvestre, 2012).

This theory not only restricts different assumptions which are made by the people when perceived and received with new knowledge but also defines their evaluation based on pure logic. The theory explains that all knowledge should be considered logical through explanations and thus whatever does not hold a pure logic behind it can be defied and waved off as obsolete and insufficient. The prior knowledge without logical factors and scientific reasoning can never explain how the society works. This later caught in many different areas of the world, around different schools in the midst of the 20^th century.

The branches of positivism have been observed to be on the great rise ever since the emergence of the theories. It soon found its ways into the influential worlds and books of economics and psychological advancements (Kendall, 2013). This particular evidence not only screams out how Augustus explanation of knowledge being closely confined towards logic in the society soon caught on a larger platform. But it also shows how different people started to believe in the legitimacy of the belief itself. The cultural integration of positivism with different languages and people has also been observed. However, like every other socio logical theories around the world, positivism has also been met with different contradictions and debates. They have been purely focused on proving that how this is not they key explanation towards knowledge in humans and the society as a whole. The changing conditions of the scientific methods and belief as well as new economic beliefs have also predicted that how the rebuttal of this theory has raised in the form of theory of Anti positivism. It shows that it has not been narrated but has only came in the front due to the open rise to the existent form of belief.

The Theological Stage

The basic fundamental principles which were provided by Comte in the reference of more existence of rational and critical thinking in the society can be related to the different stages of evolutions which man has surpassed and reached to its full entirety. Comte in his theory of evolution of societies explains that there are crucial stages to where people gain more attributes and the human mind starts to accept the change that occurs within his self and the society around him (Reiter and Rojo, 2014). The three stages which relate positivism closely together with different actions of the society are mentioned below and hence establish strong principles together with other philosophers who had worked in the earlier stages.

Comte has explained the theological stage to be quite crucial in reference to different activities going around in the society. He explains how positivism can be reached and has been accomplished crucially through different people believing in a unified power which has defined different limitations on the people (Halfpenny, 2014). Comte believes the theological stage of man is the developing stages which ensure the belief in the existence of God and his supreme reign over the people as the commanding body in every aspect of a man’s life. The decisions are widely effected and changed by the different doctrines presented in the people’s belief of religion around different societies.   

The metaphysical stage has been explained by Comte as the second step in the ladder by the man into making different decisions based on the previous stages. Just like moving up different steps, Comte deducted that man needs different decision and to make the judgments against these decision require different analytical and critical analysis. Since the first stage explains how the belief in God is established in a person, the second explains the importance of practicing the established belief from the first stage. This belief when practiced throughout different platforms depending on the religion further provides the essential practice needed to move on to the third stage of self realization and to realize the importance of humanity and their rights in the society (Bleicher, 2014).

The final stage which is derived by the person while moving on the verge of achieving evolution in the society is explained as the positivism stage where the doctrines of different religious belief are realized by the people. It simply means where people begin to realize their duties as to other things other than just the guidance provided by the religious attributes. These stages also helps the people into establishing close encounters of making different decisions regarding humanity and hence guide the people to make different quantitative analysis towards the rational behaviors in the society.

Many researchers focusing on the theory of positivism in the later centuries and the prime of their careers have focused their specialized attention towards how the theories presented by Comte. It was set out by similar contradictions and assumptions which have been made by Mark’s theories regarding the human behavior in the society and how the evolution stages. They have been provided by the Comte which show development of the individual in three stages ideally makes him more self concerned and aware of his duties as an individual in the society. This sets out important precedence in the ambit of rational behavior in the society and shows how different people have different choices. Also, when it comes to validating information and making decisions based on the information which is purely empirical and derived from their own senses.

The anti positivism theories have long sprang up into the existence since the Greek philosophers lost their control of many dominant schools in the world. Hence, new German thinkers emerged with greater ideas and thus shaped different attributes of the people by providing more logical reasoning. It showed how the positivism shaped out of existence and how it is only limited towards a scope which cannot give further implementations to the people. The Germans extensively worked on developing completely new school of thoughts amongst the people and created avenues which allowed the people to finally question what they had believed in the earlier times. Philosophers like Robert Merton believed in strong critical analysis of their theories which gives out different aspects to the people. These Anti positivism theories not only challenge the overall evidences and implementations provided by the people in the theories. But also create different avenues for the people to give room to more questions, deliberations and the validity of the theory of positivism in to their lives and to make it essential enough to finally effect their decisions in the longer run (Geeslin and Long, 2014). The theories of positivism which have been made essential elements of the 19^th centuries have made the people to look at broader perspectives of the world and to belief. It does not mean that only the scientifically evidences can promote the validity of information, but rather there are other influential problems and critiques available in the society which helps the people to deduce the possibilities of new acceptance (Coulmas, 2013). Sociologist like Paul Lazarsfeld developed different methods to deviate the extensive use of sociology and the use of more science in the aspects of human life. It is done while making decisions so that the world operates on the principle of having broader visions instead of limited ones.

References

Bleicher, J., 2014. The Hermeneutic Imagination (RLE Social Theory): Outline of a Positive Critique of Scientism and Sociology. Routledge.

Coulmas, F., 2013. Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers' choices. Cambridge University Press.

Geeslin, K.L. and Long, A.Y., 2014. Sociolinguistics and second language acquisition: Learning to use language in context. Routledge.

Halfpenny, P., 2014. Positivism and Sociology (RLE Social Theory): Explaining Social Life. Routledge.

Hernández-Campoy, J.M. and Conde-Silvestre, J.C., 2012. The handbook of historical sociolinguistics. John Wiley & Sons.

Kendall, T., 2013. Speech rate, pause and sociolinguistic variation: studies in corpus sociophonetics. Springer.

Mallinson, C., Childs, B. and Van Herk, G., 2013. Data collection in sociolinguistics: methods and applications. Routledge.

Meyerhoff, M., Schleef, E. and MacKenzie, L., 2015. Doing sociolinguistics: A practical guide to data collection and analysis. Routledge.

Payne, G., Dingwall, R., Payne, J. and Carter, M., 2014. Sociology and Social Research (RLE Social Theory) (Vol. 74). Routledge.

Reiter, R.M. and Rojo, L.M., 2014. A sociolinguistics of diaspora: Latino practices, identities, and ideologies (Vol. 6). Routledge.