MEANING AND NATURE OF SOCIAL THOUGHT

• Man is distinct from other animals due to his extraordinary abilities and capacities.
• He is the final product of organic evolution and has greater capacities to adjust to and modify the environment.
• Other animals can only adjust to their environment; failure to do so leads to death or escape.
• Man’s life is multifaceted; he is considered a “social animal,” “political animal,” “cultural being,” and a “reasoning animal.”
• With an evolved brain and intelligence, man has been thinking about various things, including physical phenomena(e.g., birth, death, day and night, seasons).
• Over time, man’s thinking extended beyond the physical world to non-physical things.
• It is difficult to list all the things man’s mind is preoccupied with.
• Social interaction is essential to man’s life, and he does not live in isolation.
• Sociability is an integral part of human nature, and individuals are inseparable from society.
• The relationship between the individual and society is complex and intertwined.
• Sociality has been a central problem in sociological discussions.
• Various explanations exist for why man depends on society, with contradictory views.
• Social life results from people’s experiences, mutual adjustments, and experiments.
• Early humans must have thought about how to share their emotions, problems, and challenges.
• They attempted to find ways to face life’s challenges and achieve social stability and individual contentment.
• Social thought refers to the thinking about social life and human relationships.
• Sociologists have provided definitions of social thought:
  • Bogardus: “Social thought is thinking about social problems by one or a few persons in human history or at the present.”
  • Rollin Chambliss: “Social thought is concerned with human beings in their relations with their fellows.”
  • H.E. Jenson: “Social thought is the totality of man’s thought about his relationship and obligations to his fellowmen.”
  • William P. Scott: “Social thought refers to any relatively systematic attempt to theorize about society and social life, whether classical or modern, scientific or unscientific.”