The Breakdown Of Connections And The Birth Of Sociology

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The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe were a time of colossal change, out of which the foundations of Sociological thought were born. This essay will explore the birth of Sociology as a way of understanding modern society. It will assess the importance of the decline of religion, the Industrial Revolution, the 'Breakdown of Connections' and the 'Web of Interconnections'. It will also provide a background to some influential Sociological thinkers, namely Marx and Weber, and go on to use Marx's Alienation theory to exemplify the birth of Sociology as a way of understanding Modern society. This essay relies heavily on Bruce Mazlish's book A New Science: The Breakdown of Connections and the Birth of Sociology in its discussion.
In …show more content…

Mazlish explores a number of potential answers to this question in his book A New Science: The Breakdown of Connections and the Birth of Sociology. One possible answer is that the same questions that Sociology deals with were previously addressed through other disciplines, such as religion, which this essay will continue to discuss. Another theory is that there was simply no need for it. Indeed, Mazlish argues, the notion of 'society' was in itself relatively new. Previous thinkers could not develop a study of something that had yet to be conceptualized. Alexis de Tocqueville puts this into words in his Democracy in America, claiming that "A new science of politics is needed for a new world". This science of politics later came to be defined as …show more content…

Following the Enlightenment, science replaced religion in providing answers to questions about life. Many of the issues nowadays focused on in the study of Sociology might therefore previously have been explained using religion. The status and role of individuals in society that are today commonly attributed to societal structures or individual achievements, might instead have been justified by the will of God, the most famous example perhaps being the belief in the 'Divine right of Kings'. As religion ceased to be able to provide acceptable answers to such questions, the need arose for a scientific discipline that could. The answer became what is today known as

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