Western Sociologists MCQ Quiz in मल्याळम - Objective Question with Answer for Western Sociologists - സൗജന്യ PDF ഡൗൺലോഡ് ചെയ്യുക

The correct answer is D only.Key Points

• Michel Foucault's works are known for their innovative and complex methodology, which challenges traditional approaches to the study of power, knowledge, and discourse.
  • While all of his major works contribute to his methodology in some way, "The Archaeology of Knowledge" is particularly significant as it outlines his method of discourse analysis.
• In this work, Foucault argues that discourse is not simply a set of ideas or language, but rather a system of statements that define the boundaries of what can be said, thought, and believed within a particular historical and cultural context.
• He suggests that discourse is a fundamental element of power, as it shapes how individuals and societies understand and experience reality.
• Foucault's method of discourse analysis involves examining the rules, institutions, and practices that produce and regulate discourse within a particular field of knowledge or social domain.
• He seeks to uncover the power relations that are embedded in discourse, and to show how these relations shape social relations and practices.

Additional Information

• While "The Archaeology of Knowledge" is an important methodological component in Foucault's works, it should be noted that all of his major works contribute to his approach to the study of power, knowledge, and discourse.
• For example:
  • "Discipline and Punish" analyzes the development of disciplinary power in modern society.
  • "The History of Sexuality" examines the emergence of sexuality as a key site of power relations.
  • "Madness and Civilisation" investigates the relationship between madness and reason. 
  • "The Order of Things" explores the historical conditions that made possible the emergence of modern epistemes.

The correct answer is Morgan."Key Points

• Kinship terminology is the system used in languages to refer to the persons to whom an individual is related through kinship.
• ​The systematic study of kinship terminology began with the American ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan.
• Kinship terminologies include the terms of address used in different languages or communities for different relatives.
• In India for instance North and south has different Kinship terminologies.

The correct answer is Maclver and Page.

Key Points

• In general, a community is a group of people living in a particular area and having a feeling of common living and identity. 
• Bogardus: Community is “a social group with some degree of we-feeling living in a given area.” 
• Ogburn and Nimkoff: “A community is a group or collection of groups that inhibit a locality.” 
• MacIver and Page: “A community is an area of social living marked by some degree of social coherence.”
• MacIver and Page have listed two bases of community: 
  • Locality: A community always occupies a territorial area. The strong bond of solidarity that we find among the members of a community is derived from the condition of locality (living in a definite geographic area). To some extent, this local bond has been weakened in the modern world by the extending facilities of communication. However, the extension of communication itself is responsible for the expansion of communities far and wide. 
  • Community Sentiment: Locality (though a necessary condition) is not enough to create a community. It needs a feeling of belonging together (we-feeling). There must be a common living with its awareness of sharing a way of life as well as the common earth.
• ​For a better understanding of the concept of community, the following are listed its main features (characteristics): 
  • A community is a group of people. 
  • It has a delimited geographic area or locality. 
  • It is marked by a common culture and social system. 
  • There exists a consciousness among the members about their unity and sense of belongingness. 
  • Members of a community act collectively in an organised manner. Mostly there exists a division of labour in a community. 
  • A community is not deliberately created, it establishes in a natural way. It is much more stable and permanent. 
  • Informal means of social control are used in a community.

The corrct naswer is Karl Mannheim.Key Points

• Karl Mannheim (born Károly Manheim, 27 March 1893 – 9 January 1947) was an influential Hungarian sociologist during the first half of the 20th century.
• In Mannheim's view, social conflict is caused by the diversity in thoughts and beliefs (ideologies) among major segments of society that derive from differences in social location. Ideas and beliefs are rooted in larger thought systems (Weltanschauungen), a phenomenon Mannheim called relationism.
• According to Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia argue that ideologies are mental fictions whose function is to veil the true nature of a given society. They originate unconsciously in the minds of those who seek to stabilize a social order.
• It was Karl Mannheim who said, All truths are ideologically biased, all truths ultimately reflect the interest and biases of social groups.
•  In ideologically charged situations, one's prejudices end up affecting one's factual beliefs.

Additional Information

• Charles Lemert is an American-born social theorist and sociologist. He has written extensively on social theory, globalization and culture.
• Clifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades... the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States."
• Karl Heinrich Marx FRSA was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, a critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the four-volume Das Kapital.

Thus, All truths are ideologically biased, all truths ultimately reflect the interest and biases of social groups, are the views of Karl Mannheim.

Organized Skepticism is considered Merton's methodological and institutional mandate.Important Points 

• Organized Skepticism is both the methodological and institutional mandate for scientific knowledge production
• It guarantees good quality while preserving the social contract between science and society.

Additional Information  

• Robert K. Merton described four sets of institutional imperatives taken to comprise the ethos of modern science which is as follows
  1. communism
  2. universalism
  3. Disinterestedness
  4. Organized skepticism 
• He elaborated this theory in his book "The Sociology of Science".

The correct answer is Four. Key Points

• According to Max Weber, "an Action is 'social' if the acting individual takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course". “Social action means taking steps to change the things that are wrong in our society and introducing new ideas and processes for doing things better in the future.”
• Types of social action by weber are:
  • Rational-purposeful Action
  • Value-rational Action
  • Affective Action
  • Traditional Action

Additional Information

• Rational action may be understood as the action of an 'outcome-oriented' kind in which certain requirements are met regarding the nature of, and the relations among: actors' goals, their beliefs relevant to the pursuit of these goals, and the course of action which, in given circumstances, they then follow.
• value-rational action" are terms scholars use to identify two kinds of behavior that humans can engage in. Scholars call using means that "work" as tools, instrumental action, and pursuing ends that are "right" as legitimate ends, value-rational action.
• Affective action fuses mean and end together so that action becomes emotional and impulsive. Such action is the antithesis of rationality
• Traditional action occurs when the ends and the means of action are fixed by custom and tradition. For example, some so-called primitive societies have very strict rites of succession for group leaders.

Thus, Four characteristics of social action have been given by Max Weber.

"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" was written by Thomas Kuhn.Important Points 

• Thomas Samuel Kuhn was an American historian and philosopher of science.
• His book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term paradigm shift.

Additional Information 

• Ram Roy Bhaskar was an English philosopher of science who is best known as the initiator of the philosophical movement of critical realism.
• John Urry was a British sociologist who served as a professor at Lancaster University. He is noted for his work in the fields of the sociology of tourism and mobility.
• Andrew Sayer is a professor of Social Theory and Political Economy at Lancaster University, UK. He is his known for significant contributions to methodology and theory in the social sciences.

Weber defined Sociology as a science that attempts the interpretative understanding of social action in order to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects.Important Points

• Max Weber is perhaps best known for his work on the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
• His views have been much debated but the key idea in Weber was that there was a link between the rise of capitalism and an ethos of self-control associated with the Protestant reformation

Additional Information 

• Georg Simmel was an early German sociologist and structural theorist who focused on urban life and the form of the metropolis. He was known for creating social theories that fostered an approach to the study of society that broke with the then-accepted scientific methodology used to examine the natural world.
• Pareto is most well-known for his 80/20 rule, which he developed in 1906 after a mathematical observation of Italy's income distribution. He is also famous for developing the first social cycle theory, the circulation of elites, as well as his welfare economic theory, Pareto efficiency.
• F. Tönnies was a German sociologist, economist, and philosopher. He was a significant contributor to sociological theory and field studies, best known for distinguishing between two types of social groups, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (community and society).

"Legitimation Crisis" of Habermas happens when the State fails to be the techno-manager in a Capitalist Society.Important Points 

• Legitimation crisis refers to a decline in administrative functions, institutions, or leadership confidence.
• The term was first introduced in 1973 by Jürgen Habermas, a German sociologist, and philosopher.
• Habermas expanded upon the concept, claiming that with a legitimation crisis, an institution or organization does not have the administrative capabilities to maintain or establish structures effective in achieving its end goals.

Additional Information 

• Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regulation over public and private life. 

Emile Durkheim said that the function of religious rituals is to affirm the moral superiority of the society over its individual members.Important Points

• Emile Durkheim is regarded as the academic father of Sociology.
• His work was concerned with how societies can maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity, an era in which traditional social and religious ties are much less universal, and in which new social institutions have come into being.
• Durkheim's conception of the scientific study of society laid the groundwork for modern sociology, and he used such scientific tools as statistics, surveys, and historical observation in his analysis of suicides in Catholic and Protestant groups.

Additional Information  

• James Frazer was a Scottish social anthropologist who was influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion.
• A.R Radcliffe-Brown was a social anthropologist who helped further develop the theory of structural functionalism.
• Brownislow Malinowski was an anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology.