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Definitions of Society

August Comte the father of sociology saw society as a social organism possessing a harmony of structure and function.Emile Durkheim the founding father of the modern sociology treated society as a reality in its own right.

According to Talcott Parsons Society is a total complex of human relationships in so far as they grow out of the action in terms of means-end relationship intrinsic or symbolic.G.H Mead conceived society as an exchange of gestures which involves the use of symbols.

Morris Ginsberg defines society as a collection of individuals united by certain relations or mode of behavior which mark them off from others who do not enter into these relations or who differ from them in behavior. Cole sees Society as the complex of organized associations and institutions with a community. According to Maclver and Page society is a system of usages and procedures of authority and mutual aid of many groupings and divisions, of controls of human behavior and liberties. This ever changing complex system which is called society is a web of social relationship



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