Chapter 3

Kelvin Paul B. Panuncio

Disciplines and Ideas in the Social
Sciences

DOMINANT
APPROACH AND
IDEAS PART 1

Structural-Functional
Marxism
Symbolic Interactionism
Psychoanalysis

Function
The theory of function was developed by
Herbert Spenser lived in 19th and early 20th
century and Emile Durkheim in 19th century.
The whole point of this theory is to liken society
to a living organism complex body parts and
all whose objectives are self-preservation and
self-perpetuation.
Social cohesion and integration are a
matter of high importance in order to keep all
the parts functioning together as a single unit
toward a common goal or purposes.

The notion of Function

The ensuing paradigm became functionalism
a movement or school of thought pioneered by
British intellectual Bronislaw Malinowski
he develop in the British School of Social
Anthropology. He also served as the first chair
in Anthropology at London School of
Economics.
British social anthropologist also develop ideas
around the notion of function which is also
known as Structural Functionalism.

Functionalism
States that what keeps society together is the
function or role that all parts of a system
perform, assert and play in order to preserve,
maintain, and sustain society for prosperity.
No society would want to destroy itself so that
each and every part, institution and sector,
must perform expected roles and functions.
The indirect benefit for people would be the
promotion of a feeling of solidarity ad unity
among them, which lessen stress and thereby
make them happy and secure deeply inside.

As we say in Filipino,
Ang sakit ng kalingkinan, sakit ng buong
katawan.
Truly, in an organic analogy of society as a
human body, the whole unit will only
function well if all of their parts perform
their expected tasks. If there are
maladaptive parts, eventually they will
contribute to the collapse of society unless
checked by other units or sectors in charge
of correcting or penalizing the erring units.

 Structural functionalism,
or simplyfunctionalism, is
a framework for building
theory that sees society as
acomplex systemwhose
parts work together to
promote solidarity and
stability

Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

Structuralism as a mode of social

inquiry, is an entirely different way of
looking at social and cultural
phenomena.
Originally developed in Western Europe
France and Germany in the 1950s,
blossomed after 2nd WW with the
ideas of Ronald Barthes, Jacques
Lacan, and Louis Althusser

Dean Worcester
an Ayta
Examine the notion
of difference
between the two
subjects of the
photograph an
American and an
Ayta
How two subject
different?

Structuralism
Emile Durkheim
and Ferdinand de Saussure - SwissLinguist
who were contemporary thinkers of early 20 th century
They were ones who investigated and elaborated on
the so-called hidden structures of human life.
Durkheim basic classificatory structures the binary
categories life that human mind has created make
sense of the world: day/night, male/female,
white/black, life/death and sacred/profane.
Saussure, on the other, saw the basic distinction
between langue and the parole.

 The Langue is the internal structure and

logic of a particular language. The langue
is the overall system of thought linguistic
capacities of humans: words, rules,
grammar, syntax, logic and much mor.
One must able to understand langue in a
given point of time. The parole or
individual speech is simply dependent on
the ways of the language.

Langue consist of a basic element,

which called the sign.
It has two components the
signifier(symbol) and the signified(idea
or concept)
Signifier - be it a sound or visual symbols
representational tool.
Signified is a pure concept shaped and
determined by the existing langue.
A word or sound or symbol could not fully
stand for an idea because this idea is
independent of the symbols.

The signifier has no intrinsic or

natural relationship with the signified.
Homme
Hombre
Orang
Man
Tao
Those words are symbols of a concept
that is being referred to human
being, which purely a function of the
particular langue.

Words may change but the idea

remains the same.
Can you mention some more
examples where you can show that
the signifier has no natural
relationship with the signified but
intimately connected to each other,
EDSA.

Historical Materialism and Karl

Marx
19th century German social thinker
approached the nature of Western
society form the perspective of
economics.
He saw a modern society as not an
end in itself but a transitional phase
of what he beloved is a historically
shaped social order socialism
He drew from Hegelian concept of
Dialectics.

Georg Wilhelm Hegel

A German philosopher of the late 18 th to
early 19th century.
According to this notion of dialectics,
across history, there had been opposing
forces in human society the so called
thesis and antithesis that clash
with one another, shape one another, as a
consequence, create a new form that are
the synthesis of two diametrically
opposed forces.

 How Marx viewed modern society

from the perspective of the economy
the material condition of the people
- lies in the core of his social theory.
Imagine a simple production line in a
factory. Thus, the ensuing relations
are largely shaped by economic
situation characterized by
capitalism.
Marx called the owner of the factory as
the capitalist and the workers are
proletariat.

Anyone going into capitalist systems

enters a definite social relation
determined by relation of
production. Anyone control the
capital means become the ruling
class.
Moreover, society consist of two parts:
the base which the economy
the superstructure which consist
Social
Ideological
is subtly
ofsuperstructure
social structures
such asthat
religion,
representing the interest of
family, law cultures
the etc.
ruling class
Economic base

Consist of means of
production(materials) and the
social relation of products(owner)

Historical Materialism
Going back to Hegelian dialectics,
using a theory of how society evolves
by Marx
Story of conflict between classes
the haves and have-nots, the ruling
class and dominated class and the
elites and the worker

Modes of
production

Means of
production

Characteristics

History period

Primitive
communism

Foraging in nature Tribal society, no

ruling class,
egalitarian

Prehistory

Ancient mode of
production

Slave labor

Ancient society.
Ruling class exist

Ancient times

Feudalism

Land

Reciprocal
relations between
landlords and
peasants

Medieval Period

Capitalism

Machines, factory

Ruling class
exploiting the
worker class

Industrial,
capitalist society

Socialism

Publicly and
collectively
owned machines
etc.

Production
intended to
directly satisfy
human needs

Postcapitalism

Communism

Publicly and
collectively
owned machines,
factories, and
other productive

perfect and
ideal system of
human affairs

Hypothetical
future

Tatsulok
Discuss among your classmates the
message behind the song. Reflect
particularly on the following lines:
..habang may tatsulok, at silang nasa
tuktok, di mamatapos itong gulo
Can you sense a tinge of Maxist
framework in those lines and in the
content of the songs?

Symbolic Interaction
So every culture has its own
interpretation of an act
For example ang yes sa atin ay
nodding ng head
May ibang culture ang yes ay
swaying ng head

 The symbolic interaction perspective, also

called symbolic interactionism, is a major
framework of sociological theory. This
perspective relies on the symbolic meaning
that people develop and rely upon in the
process of social interaction. Although
symbolic interactionism traces its origins to
Max Weber'sassertion that individuals act
according to their interpretation of the
meaning of their world, the American
philosopherGeorge Herbert Mead
introduced this perspective to American
sociology in the 1920s.

 Symbolic interaction theory analyzes society by

addressing the subjective meanings that people
impose on objects, events, and behaviors.
Subjective meanings are given primacy
because it is believed that people behave
based on what they believe and not just on
what is objectively true. Thus, society is
thought to be socially constructed through
human interpretation. People interpret one
anothers behavior and it is these
interpretations that form the social bond.
These interpretations are called the
definition of the situation.

 For example, why would young people smoke

cigarettes even when all objective medical
evidence points to the dangers of doing so? The
answer is in the definition of the situation that
people create. Studies find that teenagers are well
informed about the risks of tobacco, but they also
think that smoking is cool, that they themselves
will be safe from harm, and that smoking projects
a positive image to their peers. So, the symbolic
meaning of smoking overrides that actual facts
regarding smoking and risk.

Classical Psychoanalysis and

Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud, the influential
German psychologist of the early 20th
century, provided not only a
revolutionary way of understanding
human personality but also how
society affects our psychology.
The famous neurologist (1856-1939)
is also known as the Father of
Psychoanalysis.

Based on Freuds
formulation
The individual mind is the source of
your subjectivity, created by social
and cultural forces that operate
beneath the level of the unconscious
self.
Saying that even within our minds,
there are facet of ourselves, our
inner selves that we cannot control
but others want to control.

 In Freudian perspective,
Socialization, the lifelong process
of learning the way and behavior
appropriate to a particular society, is
not only an external or structural
process but also an internal, mental
process.
is the product of interaction between
inner mind and the outside world.
Socialization reflects the ongoing
conflict.

ID

The unconscious self

EGO

The conscious and rational self

SUPEREGO

The conscience

To further understand this ongoing conflict, Freud

explained that the self consist of three parts;
ID in its natural state, the human being has
uncontrollable instinctual desires, say, things that
pertain to violence and sexual drives.
Ego, the conscious and rational part of the self,
just like the government. It is the executive branch,
the one executing and performing action and
decision.
It mediates between the biological and social needs
of the person.

Superego, it is the internalization of

social values and belief. It plays a
moralizing role for the individual
because it serves as the persons
conscience.
This leads to Freuds prescription for
modern society. That for social order
to be achieved and for chaos to be
avoided, the superego must tame the
ID.

Classical Psychoanalysis
One of the methods by Freud is
psychoanalysis which makes use of a
dialogue between the patient and
psychoanalysis
Bt the way of FREE ASSOCIATION, the
patient talk about his or her experiences as
freely as possible without interruption from
attending doctor.
Slip of tongue(Freudian Slip) expression
of the repressed desires of the ID.

Do some ethnography virtual

ethnography
Make a group and investigate and explore
the world of social media
(youtube,facebook,instragram,etc.) and
how they document, relay, report, and
communicate the stories and experiences
of the people in times of disaster as part
of the psychosocial dimension of the
situation. Pay particular attention to how
stories told by the victims themselves
have created the dilemma.

DOMINANT APPROACHES AND

IDEAS PART 2

Rational Choice
Institutionalism
Feminist Theory
Hermeneutical
Phenomenology
Human-Environment