In the sociology, there are important concepts used to analyze social phenomena in order to reveal their contingency. Modern sociological concepts are mainly compared to a set of analytical tools. These are in turn used to evaluate epiphenomena in order to reveal underlying forces and categories. Therefore, postmodern concepts can be viewed as a set of special effects used to reveal the contingency of the phenomena. As seen in the special effects of various films, the audience is not asked to believe in the reality of the effect, but they are suspended on the belief in the reality.
The difference between the concepts and phenomena can be illustrated in the film, which many regard as the epitome of postmodernism. The “blade Runner” firm concerns the difference between definite humans and the manufactured simulations referred to as replicants. In this film, an analytical tool that allegedly magnifies the eye of the subject in order to examine emotional response to match the preselected questions (Turner 160) establishes the difference. However, by watching this firm closely one realizes that the eye being examined is not so much magnified as simulated. At the end of the film, it is evident that the replicants are more human than the originals.
Therefore, if modern sociologists appeared in this film, people could imagine them refining the analytical test, enhancing the preselected questions and perfecting the eye’s simulation. However, the sociologist would not notice the inevitable contingency of the differences that they are evaluating. The differences between humans and their simulation is a cruel contingency with severe consequences for those on the wrong side of the historical accident. Hence, any search for an underlying concept used to distinguish between the real and the fake mainly tend to justify the contingency and its brutality. Sociologist investigations can apply the concepts such as race, gender and class while phenomena take these concepts, and investigate their consequences in order to reveal the contingency of the concepts (Turner 163).
Similarly, sociologists insist that the differences between the natural and social sciences is due to indifference that people have toward the individuality of phenomena, which make up the natural world and the intense interest that people take. Thus, to talk about what matters to someone is to speak of the values they hold, their ideas of what is relevant and worthwhile. This indicates that both the phenomena and the concepts have relative value. This is so because it is the difference between the values that individual natural phenomena and individual human beings that make the difference between the two categories of inquiry (Hughes, Peter and Wes 125).
Moreover, the difference between the phenomena and concept is relevant to the extent which they can develop a general system of concepts. There can be much continuity of purpose among phenomena and therefore much coherence to the concepts they develop. Therefore, natural scientists are mainly interested in natural phenomena depending on whether these phenomena are similar. Therefore, the study of an individual instance is the only way of studying such phenomena in general. Similarly, the natural scientists studying different individual phenomena can have interests, which coincide, which abstract mutual aspects of the phenomena from their particular traits. On the other hand, the selective nature of abstract concepts ensures that people with a different general interest would have different problems, which requires diverse selections in formulating abstractions (Hughes, Peter and Wes 125). Therefore, from this analysis, it is clear that phenomena are something that has definite like an individual who exist in reality while the concept is a general idea, which comprises phenomena.
Works Cited
Hughes, John, Peter Martin, and Wes Sharrock. Understanding Classical Sociology: Marx, Weber, Durkheim. London [u.a.: Sage, 2003. Print.
Turner, Jonathan H. Handbook of Sociological Theory. New York: Springer, 2001. Print
