French sociological school is considered to be one of the areas of sociological research, the founder of which is E. Durkheim. In European sociology, this section occupies a special place, since it had a huge impact on subsequent scientific trends. You can briefly learn about the ideas of the French sociological school, its representatives and their concepts by reading this article.
Basic concepts
Adherents of the French sociological school regard society as a system of moral interconnection between people. Moreover, all social relations for the predominant part of society are imposed and are of a coercive nature. In their opinion, the laws of society should be studied only through the prism of socio-psychological factors. Supporters of these ideas adhered to positions according to which any events, phenomena, circumstances often occur at the behest of individualsubjects who have the power of coercion against other members of society.
If we consider the French sociological school briefly, we should also note the role of the consciousness of each individual and collective ideas, without which it is impossible to guarantee the stability of social relations, views, interests, goals. Of great importance in this matter is culture and religion, which serve as a link that unites society.
Individuality and society
Representatives of the French sociological school studied the customs, moral and legal norms, worldview of uneducated individuals. In particular, Emile Durkheim was sure that traditions and cultural patterns predetermine the commonality and unity of the people, and this is its main strength. Customs dominate the consciousness of each person individually. The scientist came to this conclusion, because his judgments were based on the idea of a person as an individual, biological and social unit.
The position of the famous French sociologist, the founder of the French sociological school, has much in common with the opinions of other representatives of this scientific movement. The main element that is displayed on the relationship of the individual with the people around him is the biological nature of his psyche and psycho-emotional balance. If we consider a person as an individual from a material point of view, he looks like an isolated and independent being, but at the same time his consciousness is under the influence of public opinion and the influence of various socialfactors.
Representatives of the French sociological school identify individuality with biological uniqueness, but at the same time, the social essence of a person, in their opinion, is formed in the environment. Therefore, it is more correct to consider the human psyche not only from a biological, but also from a social point of view.
When this scientific movement started
As already noted, the founder of the French sociological school is Emile Durkheim. At the heart of the scientific movement lies the journal L'Année Sociologique ("The Sociological Yearbook") created by the scientist. The following theoretical researchers are also considered representatives of the French sociological school in psychology: M. Moss, P. Lapi, S. Bugle, P. Fauconnet, J. Davi, Levy-Bruhl.
As an independent scientific movement, the school arose at the beginning of the last century. The origin of the French sociological school of Durkheim took place during the period of publication of the Sociological Yearbook, that is, from 1898. During the First World War, the publication of the magazine was suspended. The publication of scientific articles, monographs, and reviews by French sociologists resumed only in 1925. And although the publication of the journal was officially discontinued in 1927, the French sociological school continued its activities until the outbreak of World War II.
Emile Durkheim was the leader of this scientific movement until 1917. After the death of the founder, the French sociological school was actually headed by M. Mauss. In addition to sociologists and psychologists in the publication of the journalwell-known economists, ethnographers, historians, lawyers took part.
Characteristic features of the French trend in sociology
A distinctive feature of this school from other scientific courses is the use of the method of analysis in the course of sociological research. Moreover, adherents of the ideas of the French school used it within the framework of philosophical positivism - this became a converging, integrating concept in the development of the theoretical sphere.
In addition, special attention was paid to issues of social solidarity. Durkheim (as the founder of the French sociological school) openly adhered to liberal positions, striving for a peaceful settlement of problems related to class differences and contradictions. Without taking into account the interests of the poor classes of the population, social conflicts could not have a solution. The main features of the French sociological school (as a scientific direction) are:
- determining the current circumstances as a social reality in relation to changes in the biological or mental nature of the individual;
- the value of society in shaping the individual behavior and character of a person;
- assertion of sociology as an objective, independent positive discipline, which includes various anthropological directions.
Structure of the scientific industry
Adherents of the French sociological school were able to prove that sociology combines several sections:
- general sociology;
- topical theoretical problems;
- society, structure of society;
- religious studies;
- legal sociology.
The close interweaving of scientific areas suggested the need to involve economists, lawyers, linguists, historians, philosophers, cultural scientists in research. A separate place in this system of sciences belongs to psychology. The French sociological school has a high level of scientific, theoretical and practical integration.
Durkheim's concept
Dualism is the fundamental idea of the concept of the founder of the French school. The sociologist considered man as a dual being: on the one hand - a biological organism endowed with a psyche, on the other hand - a social organism. Moreover, in both cases, a person is perceived as an individual, an independent unit of society. However, it is society, according to Durkheim, that plays a primary role in the formation of a social essence and is reflected in the formation of mental he alth.
Emile Durkheim, who is the founder of the French sociological school, believed that due to dualism it is possible to distinguish people from animals, which by their nature cannot have social experience. The scientist considers society as a separate reality. Society is a spiritual system, a complex consisting of different opinions, knowledge, methodology of collective ideology. Society serves as a natural reflector of mass opinion.
Main factorsassociations of the social environment are: speech, language, communication skills of each member of the group. These are collective forms of communication that have become the result of a long development of the social environment as a whole, and not of the individual individually. The speech surrounding a person forcibly affects him, but he accepts it without resistance and searching for an alternative.
At the same time, Durkheim accepted society as a one-sided structure in the system of collective ideas and public consciousness. Consequently, the development of thinking has no connection with human activity. The direct process of implanting the collective ideas of society into the consciousness of each individual is interpreted as the interaction of the personal and the social.
Lévy-Bruhl Ideas
Unlike the previous sociologist, the founder of the French sociological school of Durkheim, Levy-Bruhl adhered to the thesis about the types of human thinking and about some aspects of the thinking of primitive people. He devoted many scientific articles to the topic of the formation of human society, the interaction of individual subjects in it. According to Levy-Bruhl, by accumulating knowledge about the world, the laws of the existence of the Universe, a person constantly changes the form of thinking. Today it is logical, replacing the primitive or prelogical type of thinking.
Internal reasoning of ancient people is illogical, because it has a magical orientation. Primitive man could not explain those things that seem elementary to modern man and do not requireinterpretation. In ancient times, human thinking was subject to the laws of participation, that is, people believed that any similar objects were connected by some kind of magical force that was transmitted by contact.
Alogical thinking is reflected today, manifested by various superstitions and prejudices. Pralogical thinking is etiological in nature, which means that primitive people did not recognize accidents, but at the same time they did not pay much attention to contradictions and did not need argumentation.
Lévy-Bruhl did not consider illogical thinking a stage preceding logic in the modern sense. Then it was only a structure functioning in parallel with logical thought. During the period of development of society and the emergence of labor activity, a transition began from pralogical thinking, which was to a greater extent the product of intuition and instinct, to consistent reasoning with the search for patterns. Here you can also detect the impact of society on human consciousness through a system of collective experience and ideas (religion, traditions, various ritual rites, etc.).
Thoughts of Claude Levi-Strauss
The representative of the late period of the French sociological school is the scientist Claude Levi-Strauss. He was engaged in a detailed study of not only sociology, but also ethnography, and was one of the adherents of the idea of structuralism. The theory of thinking of primitive people, created by Claude Levi-Strauss, runs counter to the arguments of Levi-Bruhl. The ethnographer was of the opinion thatthe main condition for the development of the culture of society is the desire of individuals for unity, the combination of sensual and rational principles, which is not characteristic of representatives of modern civilization.
Ethnological studies of Claude Levi-Strauss made it possible to determine the principles of structural anthropology in all areas of human activity:
- study of customs, traditions, cultural phenomena in the context of national characteristics;
- research of these phenomena as a multilevel and integral system;
- conducting a culture variation analysis.
The end result of the study is the modeling of the structure, which determines the hidden logic inherent in both individual variants of the phenomenon and virtual transitions from one object to another. At the same time, the author considered primitive thinking as a manifestation of the collective unconscious mind, common for ancient and modern people. It consists of several stages and operations: combining binary positions and conducting an analysis of the correspondence between the general and specific opposition.
Pierre Janet: key messages
Pierre Janet is the author of many works on psychology. The French sociological school includes his name in the list of adherents of the theory of society and individuals. The scientist did a great clinical work, during which he tried to find the causes of the imbalance between mental functions. His observations have much in common with those of Sigmund Freud, but Janet was not a psychoanalyst. The Frenchman sought to draw a line between the norm and pathology in the mentalhuman he alth, but without taking into account the consciousness of the human psyche, and considering the unconscious, Janet limited it to the simplest forms of mental automatism.
Jane is a representative of the French sociological school in psychology, who was one of the first to try to build a general psychological line, within which he gave an interpretation of all existing mental phenomena. The scientist considered the facts of consciousness in the context of objective psychology. Pierre Janet used the observable as the subject of his research, avoiding behaviorism. He noted that it would be more correct to consider consciousness as an act of a special form of elementary behavior.
The psychologist has developed his system of hierarchy of reflex actions - from primitive to higher intellectual acts. Janet's work played a major role in the development of sociology and psychology. The Russian scholar Vygotsky subsequently adhered to Janet's theory while studying a number of cultural-historical theories.
The researcher believed that the behavior of the individual is not reduced to a mechanism that automatically responds to a stimulus, a signal coming from outside. At the same time, behaviorists excluded consciousness from the field of study of psychology. Pierre Janet called two fundamental conditions for the psychology of behavior:
- the phenomenon of consciousness as a special form of behavior;
- Maximum attention should be paid to the formation of beliefs, reflection, reasoning, experiences.
According to the scientist, one cannot ignore the definition of the modelverbal communication. In his theory, Janet moved away from elementarism towards behaviorism, expanding the fields of psychology to include human phenomena. The researcher proved that the direct connection between motivation and response indicates the adjustable behavioral line and the possibility of differentiating roles in society.
The importance of research in today's world
The result of the high degree of influence of the research of the French sociological school on international relations is a combination of conservative and the latest theoretical trends. In France and many other modern states, there are manifestations of idealism, modernism, political realism and transnationalism, as well as Marxism and neo-Marxism. The main ideas of these trends are mentioned in the works of representatives of the French school.
Historical and sociological approach to the study of established international relations involves a detailed analysis of the work of historians, lawyers, geographers, political scientists who have studied the problems of this area. Philosophical, sociological and historical thought, including Comte's positivism, played a role in the formation of the fundamental methodological principles typical of French theorists. In the works of the French philosopher, attention is focused on the structure of social life.
Studies by authors of subsequent generations demonstrate the modifications that have occurred in the course of sociological thoughts, based on the theoretical developments of Durkheim and proceeding frommethodological principles of Weber. In the sociology of international relations, the approach of both authors is extremely clearly formulated by well-known political scientists and publicists. In general, Durkheim's sociology, according to Raymond Aron, makes it possible to understand the behavior of people living in modern society, and "neo-Durkheimism" (as the ideas of the followers of the French sociological school are called) is the opposite of Marxism. If under Marxism the division into classes is understood as a political ideology of the centralization of power, which subsequently leads to the leveling of the role of moral authority, then neo-Durkheimism aims to restore the superiority of morality over thinking.
At the same time, it is impossible to deny the presence of a dominant ideology in society, as well as the irreversibility of the process of ideologization itself. Different segments of the population have different values, just like the totalitarian and liberal societies are based on different theories. Reality, being an object of sociology, does not allow one to ignore rationality, which is indispensable for the practical activities of public institutions.
If a person recognizes the influence of collective ideas on him, his consciousness changes. It is no coincidence that the works of representatives of French sociology are permeated with a single thought: everything that is human in a person has been inherited from society. At the same time, the idealistic perception of society cannot be called objective because of its identification with the system of collective views and ideas. The development of thinking has no connection with the development of labor activity, and the process of rooting itselfcollective representations in the mind of the individual is interpreted as the unity of the individual and the public.
