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A Redefinition of Social Phenomena: Giving a Basis for Comparative Sociology
John Fordyce Markey
University of Minnesota
ABSTRACT
Social phenomena are considered as including all behavior which influences or is influenced by organisms sufficiently alive to respond to one another. This includes influences from past generations. Developments in social study which furnish a basis for this concept are the behavioristic trend and the emphasis upon the objective nature of social life, study of groups, and group life, environmental, and ecological study. The validity of the concept which limits social phenomena to the interaction of human beings is questioned. The outstanding basis for this distinction is the psychological one of the so-called "conscious" or "consciousness." Conscious activity, or consciousness used as a general term, is not limited to human organisms, and does not furnish a basis. Conscious interaction, in the sense of "thinking" or conceptual activity, is questioned as a scientific basis for such limitation of the social. First, we are
