Herbert Spencer and Harold Garfinkel: Comparison

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Herbert Spencer was well known as a gifted amateur. During his early days, he attended a local school for four years but he started his studies when he was 7 years old. When he attained the age of 13 years, he decided to go and live with his uncle, who was pursuing a successful career at Cambridge University (Kendall, 203). When he was 16 years old his uncle offered him an offer at the University of Cambridge, but he declined the offer and got obliged to look for a job. In his life, he learned much from experience, where he used to roam the countryside to collect specimens and acquired knowledge of how animals and insects live, and finally got used to sketching from nature.

Harold Garfinkel was born in 1917 in New Jersey. He had initial interests in becoming a surgeon but this was later affected by great depression conditions. He decided to study business so that he can be in a position to help his father’s furniture business. He studied at the University of Newark where he specialized in accounting. During that period, his friends from Columbia University influenced him to study sociology (Stephens, 426).

It was in 1939 when he attended the University of North Carolina where he advanced in the description of race relations and homicide. His interests in the works of other theorists who were best on social actions developed a great deal.

Garfinkel was putting extra effort to make sociology a more scientific field whereby he was generating statistics and quantitative analysis to describe society and the issues in it. In 1948 he composed a dissertation proposal which was known as “prospectus for an exploratory study of communicative effort and the modes of understanding in selected types of dyadic relationships”. Although this proposal was incomplete it was distributed among graduate students of Harvard University. First-time readers of Garfinkel’s writings find it hard to understand because his approach to sociology is unconventional and most readers are used to the traditional approaches.

Writers describe his writing as complex (Slattery 124). Some of his colleagues like John Heritage and Michael lynch have expressed the ideas of Garfinkel in a simple way in their books. Before he expanded his sociology ideas, the field of sociology had undergone some revolutions. Other publications which Garfinkel made were studies in ethnomethodology, ethnomethodologys program, and seeing sociologically, the routine grounds of social actions.

Herbert Spencer lived between 1820 and 1903. Between 1790 and 1866 George Spencer who was Herbert’s father was an apolitical radical who worked hard to see re-order of the society. Herbert was considered more radical than his father, though they both acted with each other on good terms and corresponded with each other till the time his father died (Stolley, 98). Herbert’s radical status was greatly influenced by his uncle because he was in charge of his education. His uncle Thomas prioritized political actions and mostly favored the church reforms. At the age of 16 years, his uncle had already stated influencing Herbert’s decision of starting writing some short articles.

Between 1837 and 1841 Herbert worked as a railway engineer, but he was still determined to pursue his writing career. In his railway work, he got first-hand experience which he expressed in his article which was known as “Railway Morals and Railway policy in the Edinburgh Review of October 1854”. His work on the railways advanced his scientific knowledge. He published his first book in 1850 when he was at the age of 30 which was called “social static”. Other books which Herbert wrote included “Education intellectual, moral, and physical’, “Data of ethics”, “The principles of sociology volume 1”, and “Study of sociology among others”. This book was mainly focusing on the equal freedom doctrine (Kendall, 531).

Herbert’s interests in becoming a potential philosopher or a scientist were all along with limited by the lack of some components of formal education. Philosophers could not recognize him as a true philosopher and on the other hand, scientists would not recognize him as a professional scientist. Among the major accomplishments of Herbert Spencer is the development of the concept of evolution, and was referred to by the Victorians as the foremost philosopher during that period (Stephens, 470).

The major accomplishment of Harold Garfinkel is being associated with the foundation of ethnomethodology. He has defined ethnomethodology as the way in which ordinary people use to make sense out of the many aspects contained in the social world. Herbert Spencer has been referred to as the second founder of sociology, with many contributions to shaping sociology into what it is today (Stolley, 103). Harold’s ethnomethodology studies have contributed a lot to the development of sociology to the point it has reached today.

In conclusion, these two theorists are great contributors to what sociology is today especially in the efforts of making it a discipline. Through their publications, they brought many individuals to the understanding of what sociology should mean to them and assisted them to interpret many aspects of life. In several cases, they have also challenged many readers and writers in their day-to-day lives.

Works Cited

Kendall, D.E. Sociology in our times, (3^rd ed), ISBN053457078X, 978053457078. Thompson Learning, 2001.

Slattery, M. Key ideas in sociology, (2^nd ed), ISBN0748765654, 9780748765652. Nelson Thornes, 2003.

Stephens, P. and Leach, A. Think Sociology, ISBN0748725636, 9780748725632. Nelson Thornes, 2002.

Stolley, K.S. The basics of sociology, ISBN0313323879, 9780313323874. Publishing Group, 2005.

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Herbert Spencer and Harold Garfinkel: Comparison

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