1. + Philosophers of Sociology

2. + Auguste Comte (1798-1857) Comte is credited with being the founder of sociology First to apply the scientific method to the social world, known as positivism. He was French. He migrated from a small town to Paris. The changes he himself experienced, combined with those France underwent in the revolution, led Comte to become interested in the two interrelated issues: social order (social static) and social change (social dynamics). What holds the society together (Why is there a social order)? And once the society is set then what causes it to change? Why its directions change? Believed there must be laws that underlie the society. Therefore we should discover these principles by applying scientific method to social world. Once these principles discovered then we could apply these for social reform. He advocated for building new societies on twin foundations of science and industry rather than on religion and landowner-serf relationship. This new science was named Sociology (1838) – the study of society.

3. + Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) He was an Englishman and is sometimes called second founder of sociology. He too believed that society operates under some fixed laws. Social Darwinist - Social Darwinism grew out of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. When the favorable traits of the species are passed on to an individual in the next generation, then that individual thrives. He called the “natural selection” because only the best suited individuals survived. In the late 1800s, this theory was applied to human society to explain why some people became millionaires and other did not. Those who were poor were lazy. By following the basic principle of Social Darwinism Spenser advocated that ‘let the fittest survive’. There should be no reform because it will help in the survival of lower order individuals. (Charity and helping the poor were considered to be wrong).

4. + Karl Marx (1818-1883) Karl Heinrich Marx was born into a comfortable middle-class home in Germany on May 5, 1818. Founder of Marxism Marxism is the political and economic philosophy in which the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society's allegedly inevitable development from bourgeois (property owning class) oppression under capitalism to ultimately classless society. Marx argues that in capitalist society, an economic minority (the bourgeoisie) dominate and exploit an economic majority (the proletariat). Marx argues that capitalism is exploitative.

5. + Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) He was French. His primary goal was of getting sociology recognized as a separate academic discipline. His systematic study comparing suicide rates among several countries revealed an underlying social factor: People were more likely to commit suicide if their ties to others in their communities were weak.

6. + Max Weber (1864-1920) Was German. Used cross-cultural and historical materials in order to determine how extensively social groups affect people’s orientations to life

7. + Group Work Rank philosophers in order of importance

8. + Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner and prison guard. Conducted at Stanford University August 14 – 20 1971 Funded by US Office of Naval Research to understand conflict between military guards and prisoners Twenty-four male students out of 75 were selected to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock.

9. + Your Experiment Come up with a topic you want to study, a question you want answered and an experiment to conduct Be prepared to answer the following questions: What did you decide? Why did you pick that? What supplies will you need? What would you expect to see during the experiment? Could it be consider unethical?