The Concept in Sociology: How is it Form and what is Its Function?
Volume 16, Issue 1, Winter 2016, Pages 5-40
S. H. Nabavi
Abstract The concept in sociology and social theories plays an important role. Many concepts have been coined and explained. The questions are, what are the concepts, how are they formed, and what functions do they have for science? In addition, how did the thinkers explain their own concepts? Kant speaks of categories as priori concepts, Hegel emphasize self-evolutionary of concept, Marx, unlike Hegel, considers concept and the dialectic of concepts as a reflection of the real world. Nietzsche focuses on the metaphorical nature of concepts and sees them as the cemetery of perceptions. Durkheim, on the contrary, emphasizes a posteriori and social nature of concepts, and Blumer focuses on a key role of concepts in science and its functions. Although these thinkers are the philosophers or sociologists, but their approaches to the analysis of the concepts are in the first instance, logical, then, psychological and literary, social or cultural.