Bauman, Zygmunt (1925– )
A Polish-born sociologist who was expelled by the Communist government of Poland and dismissed from Warsaw University. He left Poland in 1968, working in Israel (and briefly in Australia) and then in Britain, at Leeds University. Bauman is a prolific and highly influential writer whose work extends beyond academic sociology. His study of contemporary ‘liquid’ society and postmodernity, and the ethical and moral consequences of living in such a society, have made him one of the most influential social theorists of modern times.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1930–2002)
A French sociologist and anthropologist whose work attempted to deal with how people contribute to their own domination. Developing the concepts of ‘habitus’, ‘cultural capital’, and ‘field’, Bourdieu examined processes of subordination and resistance in a number of areas of social life, including education, art, literature, language, television, and the globalised economy. Bourdieu’s most famous book is Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1984).
Burke, Edmund (1729–97)
An English politician and writer, often seen as the father of modern conservatism for his hostile reaction to the chaos and violence of the French Revolution. For many, his defence of tradition and individual liberty is still highly relevant to today’s world.
Durkheim, Emile (1858–1917)
A French sociologist who argued that sociology should see social phenomena as ‘social facts’ that cannot be reduced to biological or psychological explanation. Such social facts endure over time—while particular individuals die and are replaced by others—and they have a coercive power that shapes individuals’ behaviour. This is mostly because they have a moral existence that affects people’s sense of right and wrong, order and chaos. He is famous for his study of suicide, the division of labour in society, social cohesion, and the sacred/profane dualism that pervades all religions and cultures, including modern ones. Key Durkheimian concepts include: anomie, the specialised division of labour in modern society, and mechanical (pre-modern) solidarity versus organic (modern) solidarity.
Freud, Sigmund (1856–1939)
An Austrian medical doctor who pioneered the development of psychoanalysis. This new science of the psyche attempted to understand the unconscious and its effects on human behaviour and social organisation. Freud’s most famous concepts include the ‘ego’, ‘superego’, ‘Id’, and the Oedipus Complex. Although many question the ‘scientific’ basis of Freud’s research, there is little doubt that he has radically altered how modern people think about themselves and their identity. His work continues to be an important source of contemporary biomedical, social psychological, and psycho-analytical political theories of modern societies, states, and individuals.
Locke, John (1632–1704)
A philosopher who developed an empiricist argument for knowledge, a natural rights doctrine of politics that defended the right to liberty and property against tyranny, while advocating religious tolerance. His most important legacy to sociology is his argument that pure knowledge comes through our senses (sight, smell, touching, hearing, taste) and that these give us various experiences. He argued that our mind is like white paper, or ‘TABULA RASA’ (blank table). The experiences of our life ‘write’ on this paper and thus shape how we think and who we come to be.
Marx, Karl (1818–83)
A German political activist and social scientist who analysed modern industrial capitalism and its consequences for humanity. Using Hegelian philosophy, British economic theory, and French socialist ideas, he developed the ‘materialist conception of history’ that saw the need for humans to reproduce themselves materially (food, shelter etc.) as the basic motor in historical development. Famous for his analysis of class, commodification, alienation, and fetishism, Marx pointed out that while capitalism should make life more comfortable, it makes it terrible for many. Such a situation could only be overcome, he believed, by the transformation of capitalism into communism, via the common ownership of the means of production, distributed equally among, for, and by the workers—deemed to be the true source of wealth and value in modern societies. Capitalism has made human history possible through the domination of nature by technological means. Communism was to fulfil its promise by distributing the riches for ‘commonwealth’ and the common good.
Montesquieu (1689–1755)
A French writer and philosopher who was a very important inspiration to the French Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. As one of the first ‘sociologists’, Montesquieu charted the factors that affected the development of different societies, and placed a great emphasis on law and the climate in which societies emerged.
Saussure, Ferdinand de (1857–1913)
A Swiss linguist who pioneered the development of structural linguistics and semiotics, based on the idea that the meaning of signs and therefore all language comes from the use of a series of rules and structures, such as grammar. This idea was taken up by others in anthropology and the social sciences, giving birth to the French structuralist movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Simmel, Georg (1858–1918)
A German sociologist famous for his analysis of modern urban life. He argued that society consists of a web of patterned interactions between individuals, and that it is the task of sociology to study the forms of these interactions as they occur and recur in diverse historical periods and cultural settings. The membership of groups shaped and constrained individuals’ behaviours, and all interactions had certain logics to them that the sociologist should track. In his own work, he engaged in what might be today described as ‘microsociology’—the study of interactions with strangers, flirting, walking in a metropolis, and exchanging money.
Taylor, F.W. (1856–1915)
Taylor argued that for industrial output to increase, managers needed to establish hierarchies at work, compartmentalise offices and jobs, increase the specialisation of workers, and further the division of labour. This form of management generally brought a loss of autonomy for workers and a more regimented work environment. Taylor is seen as the founding pioneer of modern industrial management and social psychology of workers, in the service of the capitalist employers.
Weber, Max (1864–1920)
A founding father of modern sociology for his contributions to conceptualising modernity; comparing Western European societies to America, and to Asian civilisations; developing key arguments about forms of culture and power in modern societies, and methods for measuring social action, interpreting power politics, and state formation. Keywords, concepts, and phrases associated with Weber include disenchantment, rationalisation, bureaucracy, protestant work ethic, spirit of capitalism, ideal type, authority. An admiring critic of Marx’s pioneering attempts to theorise the emergence of capitalism, he anticipated the rise of corporate capitalism in the twentieth century that usurped the family-based entrepreneurial forms of capitalism observed by Marx in the nineteenth century. Weber was also more interested in the quintessential social forms of power such as social status struggles. Important essays include ‘Class, Status, Party’, ‘Bureaucracy’, ‘Science as Vocation’, and ‘Politics as Vocation’. Intensely curious about modern subcultures and alternative religious, aesthetic, and community experiments, he nonetheless remained sceptical of their capacity to build alternative societies to the dominant rationalised spirit of modern industrial capitalism.
