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Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 18th century.
- Overview
- Effects of theology
- Effects of the classics and of Cartesianism
A social science is any branch of academic study or science that deals with human behaviour in its social and cultural aspects. Usually included within the social sciences are cultural (or social) anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and economics.
What is the relationship between the terms behavioral science and social science?
Beginning in the 1950s, the term behavioral sciences was often applied to disciplines categorized as social sciences. Some favored this term because it brought these disciplines closer to some of the sciences, such as physical anthropology, which also deal with human behavior.
Who named the social science discipline of sociology?
Auguste Comte gave the social science of sociology its name and established the new discipline in a systematic fashion.
What is cultural anthropology's relationship to the social sciences?
The same impulses that led people in that age to explore Earth, the stellar regions, and the nature of matter led them also to explore the institutions around them: state, economy, religion, morality, and, above all, human nature itself. It was the fragmentation of medieval philosophy and theory, and, with this, the shattering of the medieval worldview that had lain deep in thought until about the 16th century, that was the immediate basis of the rise of the several strands of specialized social thought that were in time to provide the inspiration for the social sciences.
Medieval theology, especially as it appears in St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae (1265/66–1273), contained and fashioned syntheses from ideas about humanity and society—ideas indeed that may be seen to be political, social, economic, anthropological, and geographical in their substance. But it is partly this close relation between medieval theology and ideas of the social sciences that accounts for the different trajectories of the social sciences, on the one hand, and the trajectories of the physical and life sciences, on the other. From the time of the English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century, there were at least some rudiments of physical science that were largely independent of medieval theology and philosophy. Historians of physical science have no difficulty in tracing the continuation of this experimental tradition, primitive and irregular though it was by later standards, throughout the Middle Ages. Side by side with the kinds of experiment made notable by Bacon were impressive changes in technology through the medieval period and then, in striking degree, in the Renaissance. Efforts to improve agricultural productivity; the rising utilization of gunpowder, with consequent development of guns and the problems that they presented in ballistics; growing trade, leading to increased use of ships and improvements in the arts of navigation, including use of telescopes; and the whole range of such mechanical arts in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as architecture, engineering, optics, and the construction of watches and clocks—all of this put a high premium on a pragmatic and operational understanding of at least the simpler principles of mechanics, physics, astronomy, and, in time, chemistry.
In short, by the time of Copernicus and Galileo in the 16th century, a fairly broad substratum of physical science existed, largely empirical but not without theoretical implications on which the edifice of modern physical science could be built. It is notable that the empirical foundations of physiology were being established in the studies of the human body being conducted in medieval schools of medicine and, as the career of Leonardo da Vinci so resplendently illustrates, among artists of the Renaissance, whose interest in accuracy and detail of painting and sculpture led to their careful studies of human anatomy.
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Very different was the beginning of the social sciences. In the first place, the Roman Catholic Church, throughout the Middle Ages and even into the Renaissance and Reformation, was much more attentive to what scholars wrote and thought about the human mind and human behaviour in society than it was toward what was being studied and written in the physical sciences. From the church’s point of view, while it might be important to see to it that thought on the physical world corresponded as far as possible to what Scripture said—witnessed, for example, in the famous questioning of Galileo—it was far more important that such correspondence exist in matters affecting the human mind, spirit, and soul. Nearly all the subjects and questions that would form the bases of the social sciences in later centuries were tightly woven into the fabric of medieval Scholasticism, and it was not easy for even the boldest minds to break this fabric.
Then, when the hold of Scholasticism did begin to wane, two fresh influences, equally powerful, came on the scene to prevent anything comparable to the pragmatic and empirical foundations of the physical sciences from forming in the study of humanity and society. The first was the immense appeal of the Greek classics during the Renaissance, especially those of the philosophers Plato and Aristotle. A great deal of social thought during the Renaissance was little more than gloss or commentary on the Greek classics. One sees this throughout the 15th and 16th centuries.
Second, in the 17th century there appeared the powerful influence of the philosopher René Descartes. Cartesianism, as his philosophy was called, declared that the proper approach to understanding of the world, including humanity and society, was through a few simple, fundamental ideas of reality and, then, rigorous, almost geometrical deduction of more complex ideas and eventually of large, encompassing theories, from these simple ideas, all of which, Descartes insisted, were the stock of common sense—the mind that is common to all human beings at birth. It would be hard to exaggerate the impact of Cartesianism on social and political and moral thought during the century and a half following publication of his Discourse on Method (1637) and his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). Through the Enlightenment into the later 18th century, the spell of Cartesianism was cast on nearly all those who were concerned with the problems of human nature and human society.
In other words, how can we as individual people come to know facts about the world that are true for all of us. Social scientists, such as Émile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Max Weber (1864-1920) critically developed the work of Kant to explain social relations between individuals.
Social Science uses a scientific and evidence-based approach to study the facts of society. It is an objective study that tends to focus on the trends of society. If you choose to pursue a social science discipline, you will produce research based on empirical data and facts.
- Daniel Liberto
- Anthropology. Anthropology, the study of the origin and development of human societies and cultures, has been a focal point for centuries but it really got off the ground and gained importance during the Age of Enlightenment.
- Economics. The history of economic thought goes back all the way to ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon. Their works laid the foundation of nearly all social science, economics included.
- Political Science. The origins of political science can be traced back to ancient Greece. Back then, the philosopher Plato wrote various dialogues about politics, justice, and what constitutes good government.
- Psychology. Psychology is one of the fastest growing fields of social science. It began as a medical field of study in the late 1800s and grew popular in the Western world throughout the 20th century, thanks in part to the work of Sigmund Freud.
Social science is the study of people: as individuals, communities and societies; their behaviours and interactions with each other and with their built, technological and natural environments. Social science seeks to understand the evolving human systems across our increasingly complex world and how our planet can be more sustainably managed.
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What are the Social Sciences and why do they matter?
Social science is the study of human behavior and organizations across various disciplines. It aims to understand, explain, and improve the world we live in. Learn more about the fields, questions, and methods of social science at the National Institute of Social Sciences.
