Foundations of Modern Social Theory - Video

Durkheim understood life sciences as divided into three branches: biology, which is interested in the body, psychology, ... Read more

Durkheim's Suicide is a foundational text for the discipline of sociology, and, over a hundred years later, it remains i... Read more

In the transition from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity, brought on by increasing division of labor, industri... Read more

Along with the macro-level shift from traditional forms of authority to legal-rational authority, Weber's theory of clas... Read more

Emile Durkheim, a French scholar who lived from 1858 until 1917, was one of the first intellectuals to use the term "soc... Read more

Charismatic authority, unlike traditional authority, is a revolutionary and unstable form of authority. Weber borrows th... Read more

The purest form--the ideal type--of Weber's legal-rational type of authority is bureaucracy. Legal-rational authority in... Read more

John Stuart Mill made important and influential amendments to Bentham's ideas of utilitarianism. Perhaps most influentia... Read more

Adam Smith's ideas about self-interest should be understood as a precursor in some ways to John Stuart Mill's thinking o... Read more

The general will--dangerous if taken too far--operates in many elements of our social and civic life. Immunizations that... Read more