مبادئ علم الاجتماع (The Principles of Sociology)

مقدمة

The Principles of Sociology appeared in three volumes between 1876 and 1896 as part of Spencer’s “System of Synthetic Philosophy”, which applied one law of evolution, from the simple to the complex, to everything from the cosmos to ethics. It treats society as an organism that grows and differentiates its structures and functions, with one decisive difference: consciousness exists only in its members, so “the society exists for the benefit of its members, not its members for the benefit of the society”. Later parts survey domestic, ceremonial, political, ecclesiastical, professional and industrial institutions, drawing on material that assistants compiled for his Descriptive Sociology, and contrast “militant” societies, held together by compulsion, with “industrial” ones based on voluntary cooperation and contract. Spencer’s sociology was read widely in the United States and in Meiji Japan. Durkheim criticised its contractual view of social order in 1893, and in 1937 Talcott Parsons opened The Structure of Social Action by quoting the historian Crane Brinton: “Who now reads Spencer?”

الصلات

ينتقد

• دروس في الفلسفة الوضعية (Cours de philosophie positive)1830 · أوغست كونت

جرى تناوله في

• في القوة (Yuán qiáng)1895 · ين فو
• في التطور (تيانيان لون)1898 · ين فو

انتُقد في

• تقسيم العمل الاجتماعي (De la division du travail social)1893 · إميل دوركايم