Sociological Theories Class 2: The "Big Four" from Ku Leuven

Sociological Theories Overview

KU LEUVEN
Sociological Theories
Class 2: The "Big Four"
Dr. Jonas Nicolaï
18/2/2025Last week

• The "story" of the birth of sociology
• Critical analysis
• How the sociological 'canon' was retrospectively created
  . Reintroduction of classical thinkers into US sociological theory and curriculum
• The "sociological theories archipelago"
• A visualmetaphor to understand the history and interconnectedness of
  main sociological theories

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
2Overview of classes

Date
Topic 1
Topic 2
Assignment
11/02
Class 1: Intro and guidelines
History of the discipline of Sociology
Watch concept maps video
18/02
Class 2: The Big 4 (Marx, Durkheim,
Weber, Simmel)
Read text for class 3
25/02
Class 3: The "Modern" Era
Neo-Marxian Theory, Systems Theory and
Conflict Theory
Read text for class 4
Structural functionalism
04/03
Class 4: Big Macros
Globalization Theory
Read text for class 5
Structuralism, Structuration Theory
11/03
Class: Big Micros
Ethnomethodology
Read text for class 6
Symbolic Interactionism
18/03
Class 6: Subjective/Objective Epistemologies
Feminist and Queer Theory
Read text for class 7
Poststructuralism and Postmodernism
25/03
Class 7: Looking at the "Periphery"
The "Forgotten Isle" and Indigenous
Knowledge.
Read text for class 8
Postcolonial theory
1/04
Class 8: Science, Technology & Nature
Artificial Intelligence, Future Imaginaries
Prepare sample exam
questions for next lesson
Actor Network Theory, Theories of the
Anthropocene
EASTER BREAK
22/04< Class 9: Q&A
Prepare for Exam

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
3The Sociological Theories Archipelago

MICRO
MERIDAN
MACRO
MERIDAN
THE FORGOTTEN
ISLE
THE ISLE OF THE CANON
MARX
SIMMEL
WEBER
DURKHEIM
G
R
E
A
N
e
D
E
E
R
THEORIES
OF RACE &
COLONIALISM
CONTEMPORARY
FEMINIST THEORY
SYMBOLIC
INTERACTIONISM
GLOBALIZATION
THEORY
SUBJECTIVE
TROPIC
ETHNOMETHODOLOGY
POST-COLONIALISM,
POST-STRUCTURALISM
& POST-MODERNISM
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & NATURE
4
Faculty of Social Sciences
KU LEUVEN
NEO-MARXIAN
THEORY
STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM,
SYSTEMS THEORY
& CONFLICT THEORY
RATIONAL
CHOICE,
EXCHANGE &
NETWORK THEORY
STRUCTURATION THEORY
STRUCTURALISM
OBJECTIVEDurkheim, Marx, Weber & Simmel: Key
Sociological Thinkers

Key Sociological Thinkers

Introduction to Sociological Thinkers

• Each contributed unique perspectives to understanding the social:
• Durkheim (1858-1917): Positivist study of social solidarity, structural
  functionalism, norms and collective forces;
• Marx (1818-1883): Economic structures, class struggle, capitalism;
• Weber (1864-1920): Process of rationalization, erklärendes verstehen,
  social action, and bureaucracy;
• Simmel (1858-1918): Forms of interaction, individualism, and small-scale
  social processes.

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
5Durkheim

Émile Durkheim's Contributions

• Émile Durkheim (1858-1917)
• Important works:
  . The Division of Labor in Society (1893)
• The Rules of Sociological Method (1895)
• Suicide (1897)
• The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)
• Positivism: Sociology should study social facts scientifically (cf. Comte)
• Institutionalization of Sociology: Founded L'Année Sociologique in
  1898, a key force in developing sociological thought.

"It was not sufficient to establish that social facts are subject to laws. It had also to
be made clear that they have their own laws, specific in nature, and comparable to
physical or biological laws, without being directly reducible to the latter. Moreover,
to discover those laws the mind had to be applied directly to the social realm
considered by itself, without any kind of intermediary or surrogate, leaving all its
complexity untouched." (Sociology and the Social Sciences, 1903)

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
6Durkheim

Durkheim on Sociology as a Science

"Sociology is commonly said to be the science of social facts, that is to say, the science
of those phenomena which show the life of societies itself. Although this definition may
pass as a truism no longer disputed by anybody, the object of the science is far from
being determined by this alone. Indeed, those very facts which are ascribed as its
subject matter are already studied by a host of specific discipline? , such as the history
of religions, law and political institutions, and statistics and economics. We are
therefore seemingly faced with this alternative: either sociology has the same subject
matter as those sciences termed historical or social and is then merged with them,
being no more than the generic term which serves to designate them as a whole; or it is
a distinct science, possessing its own individual character." (Sociology and the Social
Sciences, 1903)

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
7The Division of Labor in Society (1893)

Durkheim's Division of Labor

Societies hinge on solidarity (social order), but division of labor
challenges this.
How can society still exist despite highly specialized roles?

• Mechanical Solidarity: Traditional societies, strong collective
  conscience, uniformity.
• Organic Solidarity: Modern societies, interdependence,
  specialization.

Metaphor of organs: Society functions like organs in a body-each
separate but necessary for survival.
"Social harmony does not result from a pre-established harmony of
interests but from the spontaneous consensus which arises from the
division of labor." (The Division of Labor in Society, 1893)

EMILE DURKHEIM
F
The Division
of Labor in
Society
B
D
With an Introduction by LEWIS COSER

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
8Durkheim's Theory of Social Facts

Social Facts and Their Evolution

Social Facts: Coerced by cultural group; symptoms of 'social currents'.
>Social currents
Distinct structural function

• Normal Facts: Necessary for social structures.
• Pathological Facts: Damaging to social structures.
• E.g. Crime is a normal fact because it serves as a force of positive change-society defines crime, and it
  evolves.

"There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No
people exists whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that
it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically
imply it." (Suicide, 1897)
Social facts are realities, but realities change.
>Sociology is the science not just of how we are as a society, but how we evolve.

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
9Durkheim's concept of anomie and suicide

Anomie and Suicide Types

Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897)

• Suicide as social fact
• Beyond explicitly individual-psychological nature of suicide
• Sociological case study: Protestant v. Catholic communities

Anomie: Breakdown of social norms due to rapid social change

• Conflict of belief systems; disrupting social bonds
• E.g., Economic crises, war, social media(?)

"At each moment of its history, therefore, each society has a definite aptitude for suicide ( ... ) For this permanence would be inexplicable if it were not the result of
a group of distinct characteristics, solidary with one another, and simultaneously effective in spite of different attendant circumstances; and this variability proves
the concrete and individual quality of these same characteristics, since they vary with the individual character of society itself. ( ... ) This predisposition may
therefore be the subject of a special study belonging to sociology". (Suicide, pp. 48, 51)

• Suicide Types:
• Egoistic Suicide: Weak social ties, integration Į (e.g., isolated individuals)
• Altruistic Suicide: Excessive collectivity, integration ¡ (e.g., suicide bombers, samurai ritual suicide)
• Anomic Suicide: Social instability, regulation Į (e.g., post-Soviet countries)
• Fatalistic Suicide: Oppressed by extreme norms, regulation 1 (e.g., female suicides in rural China)

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
10Suicide mortality rate (per 100 000 population)

Global Suicide Mortality Rates

Number of suicide deaths in a year, divided by the population and multiplied by 100 000.
Total
Female
Male
Country
World
V
Year
2019 v
World, Total
2000 - 2019
25
20
15
Slovenia
19.8
Micronesia (Federated States
of)
28.2
10
-. Total
5
0
2000
2005
2010
2015
2019
Belarus
21.2
Eswatini
29.4
40.3
Ukraine
21.6
Lesotho
72.4
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KU LEUVEN
Kazakhstan
17.6
South Africa
23.5
Mongolia
17.9
Russian Federation
25.1
Vanuatu
18
Suriname
25.4
Belgium
18.3
Lithuania
26.1
Latvia
20.1
Kiribati
28.3
Montenegro
21
Republic of Korea
28.6
Uruguay
21.2
Guyana
11Eur v

Marxism's Resurgence

The Guardian on Marxism

The
Guardian
Why Marxism is on the rise again
Capitalism is in crisis across the globe - but what on earth is
the alternative? Well, what about the musings of a certain
19th-century German philosopher? Yes, Karl Marx is going
mainstream - and goodness knows where it will end
The irony is scarcely wasted on leading Marxist thinkers. "The domination of
capitalism globally depends today on the existence of a Chinese Communist
party that gives de-localised capitalist enterprises cheap labour to lower
prices and deprive workers of the rights of self-organisation," says Jacques
Rancière, the French marxist thinker and Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Paris VIII. "Happily, it is possible to hope for a world less absurd
and more just than today's."
That hope, perhaps, explains another improbable truth of our economically
catastrophic times - the revival in interest in Marx and Marxist thought.
Sales of Das Kapital, Marx's masterpiece of political economy, have soared
ever since 2008, as have those of The Communist Manifesto and the
Grundrisse (or, to give it its English title, Outlines of the Critique of Political
Economy). Their sales rose as British workers bailed out the banks to keep
the degraded system going and the snouts of the rich firmly in their troughs
while the rest of us struggle in debt, job insecurity or worse. There's even a
Chinese theatre director called He Nian who capitalised on Das Kapital's
renaissance to create an all-singing, all-dancing musical.

KU LEUVEN
Faculty of Social Sciences
12The
Heritage Foundation

Cultural Marxism Threat

Heritage Foundation Report

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V
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REPORT Progressivism
f
How Cultural Marxism Threatens the
United States-and How Americans Can
Fight It
November 14, 2022 Over an hour read & Download Report
Authors:
Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Gorka

• SUMMARY
  The United States has successfully confronted Marxist attempts to derail it
  from its historic path of liberty and order. The multifaceted effort to defeat
  the enemy, generally referred to as the Cold War, concentrated many of the
  best minds in the country. In 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved, many
  Americans and others around the globe justifiably believed that
  communism had been defeated. However, American Marxists, making use
  of the complacency that victory often produces, have gained more influence
  than ever before. Cloaking their goals under the pretense of social justice,
  they now seek to dismantle the foundations of the American republic by
  rewriting history; reintroducing racism; creating privileged classes; and
  determining what can be said in public discourse, the military, and houses
  of worship. Unless Marxist thought is defeated again, today's cultural
  Marxists will achieve what the Soviet Union never could: the subjugation
  of the United States to a totalitarian, soul-destroying ideology.

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