Functionalism and Structuralism
Sociology's first theoretical orientation was functionalism. In trying to legitimate the new discipline of sociology, Auguste Comte (1830–1842, 1851–1854) revived analogies made by the Greeks and, closer to his time, by Hobbes and Rousseau that society is a kind of organism. In so doing, Comte effectively linked sociology with the prestige of biological science. For functional theory, then, society is like a biological organism that grows, and as a consequence, its parts can be examined with respect to how they operate (or function) to maintain the viability of the body social as it grows and develops. As Comte emphasized (1851–1854, p. 239), there is a "true correspondence between Statical Analysis of the Social Organism in Sociology, and that of the Individual Organism in Biology" (1851–1854, p. 239). Moreover, Comte went so far as to "decompose structure anatomically into elements, tissues, and organs" (1851–1854, p. 240) and to "treat the Social Organism as definitely composed of the Families which are the true elements or cells, next the Classes or Castes which are its proper tissues, and lastly, of the cities and Communes which are its real organs" (pp. 211–212). Yet, since these analogies were not systematically pursued by Comte, his main contribution was to give sociology its name and to reintroduce organismic reasoning into the new science of society.
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