Comparison of the views of Marx, Weber and Durkheim

Differences in the views of the object of study of sociology and its categorization

(1) Focus on society and social phenomena as the object of study. The main representatives of this view in the Western sociological tradition are Comte, Spencer, Durkheim and others, forming the positivist line in sociology;

(2) focusing on the individual and his social action as the object of study. This viewpoint in the Western sociological tradition is mainly represented by Weber and others, forming the anti-positivist line in sociology. These two types of views have had a profound impact, and many of the later definitions of these two types of views are deformed or mixed.

(3) Among the scholars belonging to the Marxist sociological tradition, there are both those who advocate the first type of view and those who favor the second type.

But they are all guided by the unity of the social and the individual, and they all agree with Marx's view that the individual is a social being, and that "society" should be avoided as an abstraction opposed to the individual; on the other hand, society is the product of the interactions of people, and is the sum total of the social relations through which each individual produces.

Expanded:

Over the past one hundred years, the Chinese sociological community has had the following views on the object of study of sociology:

Firstly, it focuses on society as the object of study. The representative points of view are:

(1) Sociology is the study of the causes of rule and disorder, prosperity and decline of society by scientific methods, and the study of the methods and laws that reveal the ways and laws by which society is ruled. This was first put forward by Yan Fu in the preface of his book "The Understanding of Group Learning" published in 1903, and more than 80 years later, Zheng Hangsheng put forward and systematically argued for the following definition in a series of treatises: "Sociology is a comprehensive and specific social science that studies the regularities of the functioning and development of modern societies, especially the regularities of benign functioning and coordinated development of the societies (i.e., the conditions and mechanisms). ." This definition can be said to develop along the lines of Yan Fu.

(2) The view that sociology, like historical materialism, is the study of the universal laws of social development was held by Chinese Marxist sociologists before 1949, such as Li Dazhao, Qu Qiubai, Li Da, Xu Deheng, and Chen Hansheng.

(3) The view that sociology is the study of society as a whole and its regularities. The Introduction to Sociology (Trial Text), presided over and directed by Fei Xiaotong, defines it in this way: "Sociology is a comprehensive social science that starts from the whole of the moving social system, and studies the structure, function, occurrence, and development of the laws of the society through people's social relations and social behaviors." Some sociologists in Taiwan Province of China (e.g., Yang Mao-chun) hold similar views. In the definition of society, which focuses on society as the object of study, we can generally see the two aspects of "order and progress", "operation and development", "structure and process".

Secondly, it focuses on individuals and their social behavior.

(1) Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, mainly represented by Sun Benwen, who, starting from the psychological behavioral theory of the Chicago School of Interaction, criticized the first eight definitions listed by him as appropriate definitions, although there is no error, but none of them can be regarded as appropriate definitions, and appropriate definitions are: "sociology as a science of social behavior".

(2) Long Guanhai, a Taiwanese scholar, also believes that the main interest of sociology "is the human being in social interaction or in social relations".

(3) After 1979, some scholars believed that "sociology is the science of studying the laws of people's social behavior" (e.g., Yang Xinheng, etc.), and some believed that "sociology should focus on the study of the process of fixation of people's social activities and the forms of fixation "(e.g. Pang Shuqi).

Thirdly, the third type of viewpoints, its representative views are:

①"Residualism", that is, that sociology is a "residual social science", its object of study is the other social sciences do not study the "residual field". "residual field";

② "group theory", that is, sociology is "not a science, but a group of sciences, a scientific group";

③ "Survey", that is, that sociology is a discipline about social survey research;

4 "Problem", that is, that sociology is the study of social problems;

5 "Undecided ", i.e., that the object of sociology is now undetermined.