History of the social sciences

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

The history of the social sciences has origin in the common stock of Western philosophy and shares
various precursors, but began most intentionally in the early 19th century with the positivist philosophy
of science. Since the mid-20th century, the term "social science" has come to refer more generally, not
just to sociology, but to all those disciplines which analyze society and culture;
from anthropology to linguistics to media studies.

The idea that society may be studied in a standardized and objective manner, with scholarly rules and
methodology, is comparatively recent. While there is evidence of early sociology in medieval Islam, and
while philosophers such as Confucius had long since theorised on topics such as social roles, the
scientific analysis of "Man" is peculiar to the intellectual break away from the Age of Enlightenment and
toward the discourses of Modernity. Social sciences came forth from the moral philosophy of the time
and was influenced by the Age of Revolutions, such as the Industrial revolution and the French
revolution.[1] The beginnings of the social sciences in the 18th century are reflected in the grand
encyclopedia of Diderot, with articles from Rousseau and other pioneers.

Around the start of the 20th century, Enlightenment philosophy was challenged in various quarters.
After the use of classical theories since the end of the scientific revolution, various fields substituted
mathematics studies for experimental studies and examining equations to build a theoretical structure.
The development of social science subfields became very quantitative in methodology. Conversely, the
interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of scientific inquiry into human behavior and social and
environmental factors affecting it made many of the natural sciences interested in some aspects of
social science methodology.[2] Examples of boundary blurring include emerging disciplines like social
studies of medicine, sociobiology, neuropsychology, bioeconomics and the history and sociology of
science. Increasingly, quantitative and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human
action and its implications and consequences. In the first half of the 20th century, statistics became a
free-standing discipline of applied mathematics. Statistical methods were used confidently.

In the contemporary period, there continues to be little movement toward consensus on what
methodology might have the power and refinement to connect a proposed "grand theory" with the
various midrange theories that, with considerable success, continue to provide usable frameworks for
massive, growing data banks. See consilience.

Contents

 1Timeframes

o 1.1Antiquity

o 1.2Islamic developments

o 1.3Modern period
 o 1.4Early modern

o 1.5Late modern

 1.5.119th century

 1.5.220th century

 1.5.3Interwar period

o 1.6Contemporary developments

 2See also

 3References

 4Further reading

Timeframes[edit]

Antiquity[edit]

Plato's Republic is an influential treatise on political philosophy and the just life.

Aristotle published several works on social organization, such as his Politics, and Constitution of the

Athenians.

Islamic developments[edit]

Main articles:  Islamic sociology  and  Early Muslim sociology

Significant contributions to the social sciences were made in Medieval Islamic civilization. Al-Biruni (973–

1048) wrote detailed comparative studies on the anthropology of peoples, religions and cultures in
the Middle East, Mediterranean and South Asia.[3] Biruni has also been praised by several scholars for
his Islamic anthropology.[4]

Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) worked in areas of demography,[5] historiography,[6] the philosophy of history,

[7]
 sociology,[5][7] and economics. He is best known for his Muqaddimah.

Modern period[edit]

Early modern[edit]

Main article:  Age of Enlightenment

Near the Renaissance, which began around the 14th century, Buridanus and Oresmius wrote on money.
In the 15th century St. Atonine of Florence wrote of a comprehensive economic process. In the 16th
century Leonard de Leys (Lessius), Juan de Lego, and particularly Luis Molina wrote on economic topics.
These writers focused on explaining property as something for "public good". [8]

Representative figures of the 17th century include David Hartley, Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, John
Locke, and Samuel von Putendorf. Thomas Hobbes argued that deductive
reasoning from axioms created a scientific framework, and hence his Leviathan was a scientific
description of a political commonwealth. In the 18th century, social science was called moral
philosophy, as contrasted from natural philosophy and mathematics, and included the study of natural
theology, natural ethics, natural jurisprudence, and policy ("police"), which included economics and
finance ("revenue"). Pure philosophy, logic, literature, and history were outside these two
categories. Adam Smith was a professor of moral philosophy, and he was taught by Francis Hutcheson.
Figures of the time included François Quesnay, Rousseau, Giambattista Vico, William Godwin, Gabriel
Bonnet de Mably, and Andre Morellet. The Encyclopédie of the time contained various works on the
social sciences.[8]

Late modern[edit]

This unity of science as descriptive remains, for example, in the time of Thomas Hobbes who argued that
deductive reasoning from axioms created a scientific framework, and hence his Leviathan was a
scientific description of a political commonwealth. What would happen within decades of his work was a
revolution in what constituted "science", particularly the work of Isaac Newton in physics. Newton, by
revolutionizing what was then called "natural philosophy", changed the basic framework by which
individuals understood what was "scientific".

While he was merely the archetype of an accelerating trend, the important distinction is that for
Newton, the mathematical flowed from a presumed reality independent of the observer, and working
by its own rules. For philosophers of the same period, mathematical expression of philosophical ideals
was taken to be symbolic of natural human relationships as well: the same laws moved physical and
spiritual reality. For examples see Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz and Johannes Kepler, each of whom
took mathematical examples as models for human behavior directly. In Pascal's case, the famous wager;
for Leibniz, the invention of binary computation; and for Kepler, the intervention of angels to guide the
planets (citation needed).

In the realm of other disciplines, this created a pressure to express ideas in the form of mathematical
relationships. Such relationships, called "Laws" after the usage of the time (see philosophy of science)
became the model which other disciplines would emulate.

19th century[edit]

See also:  History of sociology  and  19th century

The term "social science" first appeared in the 1824 book An Inquiry into the Principles of the
Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed System of
Voluntary Equality of Wealth by William Thompson (1775–1833). Auguste Comte (1797–1857) argued
that ideas pass through three rising stages, theological, philosophical and scientific. He defined the
difference as the first being rooted in assumption, the second in critical thinking, and the third in
positive observation. This framework, still rejected by many, encapsulates the thinking which was to
push economic study from being a descriptive to a mathematically based discipline. Karl Marx was one
of the first writers to claim that his methods of research represented a scientific view of history in this
model. With the late 19th century, attempts to apply equations to statements about human
behavior became increasingly common. Among the first were the "Laws" of philology, which attempted
to map the change over time of sounds in a language.

Sociology was established by Comte in 1838. [9] He had earlier used the term "social physics", but that
had subsequently been appropriated by others, most notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet.
Comte endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the scientific understanding of
the social realm. Writing shortly after the malaise of the French Revolution, he proposed that social ills
could be remedied through sociological positivism, an epistemological approach outlined in The Course
in Positive Philosophy [1830–1842] and A General View of Positivism (1844). Comte believed a positivist
stage would mark the final era, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases, in the progression
of human understanding.[10]

It was with the work of Charles Darwin that the descriptive version of social theory received another
shock. Biology had, seemingly, resisted mathematical study, and yet the theory of natural selection and
the implied idea of genetic inheritance—later found to have been enunciated by Gregor Mendel,
seemed to point in the direction of a scientific biology based, like physics and chemistry, on
mathematical relationships. The first thinkers to attempt to combine inquiry of the type they saw in
Darwin with exploration of human relationships, which, evolutionary theory implied, would be based on
selective forces, were Freud in Austria and William James in the United States. Freud's theory of the
functioning of the mind, and James' work on experimental psychology would have enormous impact on
those that followed. Freud, in particular, created a framework which would appeal not only to those
studying psychology, but artists and writers as well.

Though Comte is generally regarded as the "Father of Sociology", [10] the discipline was formally
established by another French thinker, Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who developed positivism in
greater detail. Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the University of
Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method. In 1896, he established the
journal L'Année Sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a case study of suicide
rates among Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis
from psychology or philosophy. It also marked a major contribution to the concept of structural
functionalism.[11]

Today, Durkheim, Marx and Max Weber are typically cited as the three principal architects of social
science in the science of society sense of the term.[12] "Social science", however, has since become an
umbrella term to describe all those disciplines, outside of physical science and art, which analyse human
societies.

20th century[edit]

See also:  20th century

In the first half of the 20th century, statistics became a free-standing discipline of applied mathematics.
Statistical methods were used confidently, for example in an increasingly statistical view of biology.

The first thinkers to attempt to combine inquiry of the type they saw in Darwin with exploration of
human relationships, which, evolutionary theory implied, would be based on selective forces,
were Freud in Austria and William James in the United States. Freud's theory of the functioning of
the mind, and James' work on experimental psychology would have enormous impact on those that
followed. Freud, in particular, created a framework which would appeal not only to those studying
psychology, but artists and writers as well.

One of the most persuasive advocates for the view of scientific treatment of philosophy would be John
Dewey (1859–1952). He began, as Marx did, in an attempt to weld Hegelian idealism and logic to
experimental science, for example in his Psychology of 1887. However, he abandoned Hegelian
constructs. Influenced by both Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, he joined the movement in
America called pragmatism. He then formulated his basic doctrine, enunciated in essays such as "The
Influence of Darwin on Philosophy" (1910).

This idea, based on his theory of how organisms respond, states that there are three phases to the
process of inquiry:

1. Problematic Situation, where the typical response is inadequate.

2. Isolation of Data or subject matter.

3. Reflective, which is tested empirically.

With the rise of the idea of quantitative measurement in the physical sciences, for example Lord
Rutherford's famous maxim that any knowledge that one cannot measure numerically "is a poor sort of
knowledge", the stage was set for the conception of the humanities as being precursors to "social
science."

This change was not, and is not, without its detractors, both inside of academia and outside. The range
of critiques begin from those who believe that the physical sciences are qualitatively different from
social sciences,[citation needed] through those who do not believe in statistical science of any kind, [citation
needed]
 through those who disagree with the methodology and kinds of conclusion of social science, [citation
needed]
 to those who believe the entire framework of scientificizing these disciplines is mostly from a
desire for prestige.

In 1924, prominent social scientists established the Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences.
Among its key objectives were to promote interdisciplinary cooperation and develop an integrated
theory of human personality and organization. Toward these ends, a journal for interdisciplinary
scholarship in the various social sciences and lectureship grants were established.

Interwar period[edit]

Theodore Porter argued in The Rise of Statistical Thinking that the effort to provide a synthetic social
science is a matter of both administration and discovery combined, and that the rise of social science
was, therefore, marked by both pragmatic needs as much as by theoretical purity. An example of this is
the rise of the concept of Intelligence Quotient, or IQ. It is unclear precisely what is being measured by
IQ, but the measurement is useful in that it predicts success in various endeavors.

The rise of industrialism had created a series of social, economic, and political problems, particularly in

managing supply and demand in their political economy, the management of resources for military and
developmental use, the creation of mass education systems to train individuals in symbolic reasoning
and problems in managing the effects of industrialization itself. The perceived senselessness of the
"Great War" as it was then called, of 1914–18, now called World War I, based in what were perceived to
be "emotional" and "irrational" decisions, provided an immediate impetus for a form of decision making
that was more "scientific" and easier to manage. Simply put, to manage the new multi-national
enterprises, private and governmental, required more data. More data required a means of reducing it
to information upon which to make decisions. Numbers and charts could be interpreted more quickly
and moved more efficiently than long texts. Conversely, the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary
nature of scientific inquiry into human behavior and social and environmental factors affecting it have
made many of the so-called hard sciences dependent on social science methodology. Examples of
boundary blurring include emerging disciplines like social studies
of medicine, neuropsychology, bioeconomics and the history and sociology of science. Increasingly,
quantitative and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human action and its
implications and consequences.

In the 1930s this new model of managing decision making became cemented with the New Deal in the
US, and in Europe with the increasing need to manage industrial production and governmental affairs.
Institutions such as The New School for Social Research, International Institute of Social History, and
departments of "social research" at prestigious universities were meant to fill the growing demand for
individuals who could quantify human interactions and produce models for decision making on this
basis.

Coupled with this pragmatic need was the belief that the clarity and simplicity of mathematical
expression avoided systematic errors of holistic thinking and logic rooted in traditional argument. This
trend, part of the larger movement known as modernism provided the rhetorical edge for the expansion
of social sciences.

The Nine Social Science Disciplines

By Jensen DG. Mañebog (© 2013)

1. Anthropology refers to the study of humans. As a social science disipilne, it examines all aspects of
human life and culture. It seeks to understand human origins and adaptation, and the diversity of
cultures and worldviews.

2. Economics studies the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services.
The term may also refer to the financial aspects of something, as in “the economics of managing a
business.

It deals with the optimum allocation of scarce resources among its alternatives to satisfy the unlimited
human wants and needs of the people. Economists study the ways individuals and groups (such as
governments, firms and nations)allocate resources (including money, buildings, land, time, tools and
know-how) to satisfy needs and wants.

3. Geography is the science of place. It is the social science that studies the distribution and
arrangement of all elements of the earth’s surface.

Geography studies not only the surface of the earth but also the location and distribution of its physical
as well as cultural features, the patterns that they form, and the interrelation of these things as they
affect people. It deals especially with the relationship between the environment of the earth’s surface
and humans, which involves both physical and cultural geographic features.

4. History is a study of the past, principally how it relates to humans. It describes or narrates and
analyzes human activities in the past and the changes that these had undergone. In its broadest sense,
history is the totality of all past events. However, a more realistic limitation of its area of inquiry would
be ‘the known past.’ History deals with events which “have happened among mankind, including an
account of the rise and fall of nations, as well as of other great changes which have affected the political
and social condition of the human race.”

5. Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure. It involves the description of languages,
the investigation of their origin, the inquiry of how children acquire language, and how individuals learn
languages other than their own. Linguistics also deals with the relationships between or among
languages and with the manner languages change over time.

Linguistics seeks to explain how is a particular language’s knowledge system structured, how it is
acquired, how it is used in the assembly and understanding of messages, and how it changes over time.
The subject is also concerned with some questions about the nature of language: “What properties do
all human languages have in common? How do languages differ, and to what extent are the differences
systematic, i.e. can we find patterns in the differences? …What is the nature of the cognitive processes
that come into play when we produce and understand language.”

6. Political scienceis a social science discipline that studies systems of government, and the analysis
of political activity and behavior. It is the systematic study of politics.

By the application of empirical and generally scientific methods of analysis, political

sciencesystematically studies governance. It is the systematic study of and reflection upon politics. By
‘politics,’ we mean that which typically defines the processes by which people and institutions exercise
and resist power. Political processes are employed to form policies, influence individuals and
institutions, and organize societies.

7. Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. It is “the scientific study of
behavior and the mind.” There are three elements in this definition. First, it emphasizes that psychology
“is a scientific enterprise that obtains knowledge through systematic and objective methods of
observation and experimentation.” Second, it studies ‘behavior,’ which denotes “any action or reaction
that can be measured or observed—such as the blink of an eye, an increase in heart rate, or the unruly
violence that often erupts in a mob.” Third, psychologists study the ‘mind,’ which stands for “both
conscious and unconscious mental states. These states cannot actually be seen, only inferred from
observable behavior.”

The science of the mind and behavior, it involves the study of all aspects of conscious and unconscious
experience as well as thought. The term psychology comes from two Greek words: ‘psyche,’ which
means “breath, spirit, or soul,” and ‘logos,’ 'the study of.'

8. Sociology is the scientific study of human social relations or group life. It primarily deals with social
interaction or the responses of persons to each other. Social interaction is arguably the basic sociological
concept as it is the rudimentary component of all relationships and groups that compose human society.
Subjects of inquiry in sociology include the ways in which social structures and institutions (such as class,
family, community, and power) and social problems (such as crime and abuse) affect society.

9. Demography is the interdisciplinary study of the size, growth, and distribution of human populations.
It examines statistics such as births, deaths, income, or the incidence of disease, which illustrate the
changing structure of human populations. Main areas of inquiry include human population dynamics
and human population change. It also involves the study of the structure of populations and how
populations change over time due to births, deaths, migration, and aging.

The social science disciplines

The social sciences consist of a variety of disciplines, subject areas, and methods, and there is no reason
to expect that these disciplines will eventually add up to a single unified theory of society. Political
science, sociology, history, anthropology, economics, geography, and area studies all provide their own,
largely independent, definitions of scope, research agenda, and research methods. And there is no
grand plan according to which the disciplinary definitions jointly capture all that is of scientific interest
about the social.

History rather than logic explains the particular configuration of social science disciplines that we now
face. The major social science disciplines have grown up in the past century and a half by creating
stylized answers to these topic areas: the “political” concerns institutions of coercion and governance;
the “economic” has to do with production, exchange, and distribution of goods and services; the
“anthropological” has to do with the cultures, values, and practices through which individuals and
groups conduct their local lives. Area studies are defined according to a different axis; Asian studies or
Latin American studies demand that we cut the social differently: not from the point of view of social
domains, but from the point of view of geographical complexes of related social, cultural, economic,
political, and normative regimes.
At the same time, we as “users” of the results of social inquiry have no inherent interest in the intra- and
inter-disciplinary debates that have led to the constitution of the disciplines of the social sciences as
they currently exist. The social world does not come to us labeled as “political,” “economic,” or
“ethnographic.” We ordinary citizens have questions that cut across these boundaries recklessly: Why
does the US state so commonly ignore the needs of poor people? Why are Indonesian rice farmers
reluctant to make use of HYV rice strains? Why did the hi-tech bubble occur in the American economy in
the 1990s? How do police departments succeed in recruiting good potential officers? When is the
practice of charitable giving most likely to thrive or falter? Why did the Chinese Communist revolution
occur? Why did it succeed? Note what a mixture of topics, human interactions, and methodologies is
invoked by this collection of questions. Some of these queries raise the question of why individuals
behaved as they did; some focus on group action, while others single out individual choices; some have
to do with the institutions within which individuals live; some suggest turning to ethnography,
comparative economics, or political science; and so forth.

The upshot is this: Users of the social sciences have a different way of parsing “the social” than is found
in academic social science. We are interested in human agency and behavior — individual and collective.
We are interested in the ways social relations and institutions work, and how they affect the behavior
and choices of the individuals who operate within them. We are interested in how large agglomerations
of human activity work — how they emerge, how they behave over time, and how they go wrong (cities,
states, corporations, networks of friends, …), and we are interested in the dynamics of face-to-face
social interaction.

This suggests that new thinking about the social sciences needs to start with the idea of acquiring a
strong commitment to interdisciplinary study of common social topics.
Anthropology is the holistic and scientific study of humanity. Cultural Anthropology focuses on
contemporary human cultures, their beliefs, myths, values, practices, technologies, economies and
other domains of social and cognitive organization. The detailed descriptions of culture, or ethnography,
are based upon a methodology of primary data collection through participant observation with living
human populations.

This textbook aims to provide an introduction to the field of cultural anthropology. The initial chapters
introduce the concept of culture and review the historical, theoretical, and methodological influences on
the field. Chapters four through twelve discuss the major domains of the study of culture; symbolism,
communication, ritual, production, healing, rights, reproduction, kinship, conflict, and globalization.
These chapters provide ethnographic examples (both etic and emic perspectives) and case studies to
support the central concepts in each chapter. Additional case studies are available via the Anthrobase
website and others can be developed in wikibook format and integrated through links in this book.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cultural_Anthropology

What is Anthropology?

Anthropology is the scientific study of human beings as social organisms interacting with each other in
their environment, and cultural aspects of life. It is a scholarly discipline that aims to describe in the
broadest possible sense what it means to be human. Anthropologists are interested in comparison. To
make substantial and accurate comparisons between cultures, a generalization of humans requires
evidence from the wide range of human societies. Anthropologists are in direct contact with the sources
of their data, thus field work is a crucial component. The field of Anthropology, although fairly new as an
academic field, has been used for centuries. Anthropologists are convinced that explanations of human
actions will be superficial unless they acknowledge that human lives are always entangled in complex
patterns of work and family, power and meaning.
Five Disciplines of Anthropology

 Applied Anthropology: Includes the fields of Applied Medical Anthropology, Urban

Anthropology, Anthropological Economics, Contract Archaeology and others. Applied
anthropology is simply the practice of applying anthropological theory and or methods from any
of the fields of Anthropology to solve human problems. For example, applied anthropology is
often used when trying to determine the ancestry of an unearthed Native American burial.
Biological anthropology can be used to test the DNA of the body and see if the DNA of the burial
has any similarities to living populations. Medical Anthropology studies illness and healthcare
within specific populations in order to form healthcare solutions that are tailored specifically to
populations as well as identify unique areas of susceptibility within populations.

 Archaeology: The study and interpretation of ancient humans or animals, their history, and
culture. This is done through examination of the artifacts and remains that they left behind. An
example of this is the study of Egyptian culture through the examination of their grave sites and
the pyramids and the tombs in the Valley of Kings. Through the examination of pyramids and
tombs in which these ancient humans lived in, much about human history and Egyptian culture
is learned. Archaeology is an important study in improving knowledge about ancient humans,
particularly, prehistoric or the long stretch of time before the development of writing.

 Biological Anthropology: A subfield of Anthropology that studies humanity through the human
body as a biological organism, using genetics, evolution, human ancestry, primates, and their
ability to adapt. There was a shift in the emphasis on differences (with the older “physical
anthropology”) due to the development of the “new” physical anthropology developed by
Sherwood Washburn at the University of California, Berkley. This field shifted from racial
classification when it was discovered that physical traits that had been used to determine race
could not predict other traits such as intelligence and morality. Some biological anthropologists
work in the fields of primatology, which studies the closest living relative of human beings, the
nonhuman primate. They also work in the field of paleoanthropology, which is the study of
fossilized bones and teeth of our earliest ancestors. (also: Physical Anthropology). Biological
anthropologists focus heavily on comparing and contrasting the biology of humans to that of our
nearest extant relatives, the primates, to discover what distinguishes humans from primates as
well as primates from other mammals.

Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan.

  Cultural Anthropology: The study of contemporary human cultures and how these cultures are
formed and shape the world around them. Cultural anthropologists often conduct research by
spending time living in and observing the community they study (fieldwork) and participant
observation in order to increase understanding of its politics, social structures, and religion.
(also: sociocultural anthropology, social anthropology, or ethnology)

 Linguistic Anthropology: Examines human languages: how they work, how they are made, how
they change, and how they die and are later revived. Linguistic anthropologists try to
understand the language in relation to the broader cultural, historical, or biological contexts that
make it possible. The study of linguistics includes
examining phonemes, morphemes, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. They look at linguistic
features of communication, which includes any verbal contact, as well as non-linguistic features,
such as, eye contact, the cultural context, and even the recent thoughts of the speaker.

Holism in Anthropology

Anthropology is holistic, comparative, field-based, and evolutionary. These regions of Anthropology

shape one another and become integrated over time. Historically it was seen as "the study of others,"
meaning foreign cultures, but using the term "others" imposed false thoughts of "civilized versus
savagery." These dualistic views have often caused wars or even genocide. Now, anthropologists strive
to uncover the mysteries of these foreign cultures and eliminate the prejudice that it first created.
Holism is the perspective on the human condition that assumes that mind, body, individuals, society,
and the environment interpenetrate and even define one another. In anthropology holism tries to
integrate all that is known about human beings and their activities. From a holistic perspective, attempts
to divide reality into mind and matter isolate and pin down certain aspects of a process that, by very
nature, resists isolation and dissection. Holism holds great appeal for those who seek a theory of human
nature that is rich enough to do justice to its complex subject matter. An easier understanding of holism
is to say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The holistic approach is a perspective that assumes interrelationships among parts of a subject including
both biological and cultural aspects. This approach is used to study the thoughts, behaviors, emotional,
and spiritual changes we experience as humans. Anthropologists have the opportunity to use this
approach to study the way humans are interested in engaging and developing as a whole person. Page
text.[1]

Economics is the social science of studying the production, distribution and consumption of goods and
services and It is a complex social science that spans from mathematics to psychology. At its most basic,
however, economics considers how a society provides for its needs. Its most basic need is survival;
which requires food, clothing and shelter. Once those are covered, it can then look at more
sophisticated commodities such as services, personal transport, entertainment, the list goes on. Today,
this social science known as "Economics" tends to refer only to the type of economic thought
which political economists refer to as Neoclassical Economics. It developed in the 18th century based on
the idea that Economics can be analysed mathematically and scientifically.
Economics is a social science that studies how people satisfy unlimited wants with scarce resources.

o It involves the analysis of choice and trade through

o The discipline is divided into two sections: microeconomics (micro)

and macroeconomics (macro).

Micro and Macro[edit]

Microeconomics studies small-scale economies. That is, from the individual level on up to the industry
level. Microeconomics is concerned with how consumers (buyers) and producers (sellers) come together
to exchange goods and services, how much is produced, what to produce, and the going prices. It
focuses on the actions of individuals and firms.

Macroeconomics is the branch that studies large-scale economies. Macroeconomics observes and
analyzes how entire countries, full of many industries and consumers, function. It is not simply the sum
of many "microeconomics"; many of the concepts are entirely different. Where micro will study a single
consumer, a paper-clip manufacturing plant or the airline industry, macro studies the entire economy
within which those three exist. Some of the elements of a large economy that macroeconomics
considers include inflation, government policies, output growth, and unemployment.

Geography is the study of the physical world around us and the way humans have impacted it, through
their nations, cities, and general way of life. Geography is an important study, and in many ways a
science, of the earth as we know it. However, to become a good student of geography, one must study
to the point that they are familiar with a world map or any regional map, and so they have a general
idea of the location of countries, major cities within those countries, and major physical features, like
mountains and important rivers.

Unlike modern geology, geography generally deals with the current layout of the earth, although
through uniformitarianism, one could – at least in theory – use geography to study the past. Geography
and geology are rather close and could even overlap if one was not careful, but they are two separate
studies. One may be used as a supplement to the other, but you do not need a good knowledge of
geology to have a good understanding and knowledge of geography.

Historically, geography has been extremely important in the form of cartography. Compare these two
maps of the world, one from ancient times and one that is modern:

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Geography/Background

1. Name/describe some of the geographical features along the eastern coast of North America.
(Include bodies of water.)

2. Explain the route that many rivers take, starting from their source in the Sierra Nevada and
ending with drainage into the Pacific Ocean.
 3. Give some general information about the topography of South America.

Eurasia[edit]

Questions about Eurasia, based upon Geography/Eurasia. If you want to treat this worksheet like a quiz,
don't go back to the source, but if you want to use the worksheet to reinforce your skills, by all means
use the original.

1. Describe some geographical features of Europe.

2. List some of the countries of the Far East. What are some important geographical features in
this region?

Africa[edit]

Questions about Africa, based upon Geography/Africa. If you want to treat this worksheet like a quiz,
don't go back to the source, but if you want to use the worksheet to reinforce your skills, by all means
use the original.

1. Describe the route of the Nile River, starting with its origins and finishing with the Nile Delta.

2. In which parts of Africa are there mountain ranges?

Oceania[edit]

Questions about Oceania, based upon Geography/Oceania. If you want to treat this worksheet like a
quiz, don't go back to the source, but if you want to use the worksheet to reinforce your skills, by all
means use the original.

1. Describe the geography of Australia.

2. Give a few facts about places in Oceania.

Antarctica[edit]

Questions about Antarctica, based upon Geography/Antarctica. If you want to treat this worksheet like a
quiz, don't go back to the source, but if you want to use the worksheet to reinforce your skills, by all
means use the original.

1. Give a short description of the geography, including the layout of the ice sheet, of Antarctica.

History is more than the study of the past. It is the process of recording, reconstructing and interpreting
the past through the investigation of a variety of sources. It is a discipline that gives people an
understanding of themselves and others in relation to the world, both past and present.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

—George Santayana
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers,
mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.

—Ambrose Bierce

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of
history.

—Mahatma Gandhi

story of creation of my textbook[edit]

I wrote this textbook of 30 years. I translated the text of my textbook from Russian into English still 3
years and I continue this work today. That to reduce own work on the translation of the textbook in
English, I have reduced the text of the Russian textbook in 2 times. For this purpose I have chosen the
most important and most interesting information from the text of the Russian textbook.

The main center of my textbook is my theory of the social conflict and social control. The relations of the
conflict and control are the main human relations in society. I have for the first time presented these
ideas about a role of the conflict and control in society in 1980 as the term paper on the second year of
philosophical faculty of Ural university (Yekaterinburg). On the second year I heard nothing about the
western sociology yet and therefore I considered the theory about the conflicts and control as a kind of
the General theory of systems. I read Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin's works only on the
first course of philosophical faculty and since then I related critically to Marxism and Hegel's dialectics.
Though teachers at the university forced us to study Marxism and dialectics at the Soviet power. I
listened to lectures on psychology at the first year of the university which were given by the professional
hypnotist professor Matveev who has explained us essence of hypnosis. I consider hypnosis a kind of
psychological control. Studying of schools and the directions in the western sociology on the 6th course
of the university became for me shock, especially in comparison with the Soviet Marxism and Hegel's
dialectics which I considered a pseudo science already then. The mechanism of religious control became
a subject for my thesis at the ending of the university in 1985.

I used my ideas and the lectures in the course of teaching social science at Secondary school during 13
years, this teaching has allowed me to write new articles and to perfect my style of compositions. I
published my ideas in 24 articles in university scientific collections. I live in the city Berezniki in the deep
province in the Urals and therefore I was forced to go for books of authorities of the western sociology
to Perm, Yekaterinburg and Moscow. It turned out that almost all texts of books of authorities of the
western sociology exist in network of the Internet in the English and Russian languages that allowed to
me to make, in particular, references to these books not only in the text of the Russian-speaking edition
of my textbook, but also in the text of the this English-language edition of my textbook.

I have published for own money the brochure "Let the Loser Cry" (This brochure is devoted to the
theory about interrelation between the conflict and control) (5000 copies, 8 pages) in 1992. I have
published for own money the textbook "Interesting sociology" (200 copies, 143 pages) in publishing
house of the Solikamsk university in 1997 and I have dispatched this textbook on libraries of Russia. I
have published my textbook "Interesting Social Science" on the Internet in 2009, and then I have
published my textbook "Interesting Social Sciences" on the Russian Wikipedia. I have won a prize on the
website Russian Wikipedia in 2015 for own textbook on the website Викиучебник (Wikibooks) for the
greatest number of changes. I publish him on English Wikipedia in the reduced option now.

The second center of my textbook is my theory about the personality types. I have begun to develop this
theory in 1998. I have conducted empirical researches of the personality types of at secondary school, in
Berezniki jobcenter, in women's Supermax prison in town Berezniki. The most interesting and most
important question is choice of profession, choice of channels of the vertikal circulation and the choice
of the spouse on the basis of the personality type. Statement of the theory about the personality types
allows to make my textbook interesting.

Main concepts of sociology[edit]

In my opinion, the interrelation between the conflict and control is the main paradigm for all social
sciences and I am going to establish the essence of all (15) social sciences in turn: anthropology,
psychology, philosophy, sociology, politology, jurisprudence, economics, ecology, ethics, sociology of
religion, cultural studies, pedagogy, theory of scientific revolutions, demography, ethnosociology.

Neil Smelser and John J. Macionis considered that the culture is the main concept of sociology. In my
opinion, the concept "culture" has no clear definition, nobody knows that this concept means therefore
such concept can't be the main concept in sociology. In my opinion, two sociological concepts (social
conflict and social control) are the main concept in sociology and in social sciences. These two concepts
(social conflict and social control) are interrelated with each other. On the one hand, the winner in the
conflict becomes controller before following outburst of conflict. Loser become the object of control.
Loser is forced to die or to give to the winner a sphere of influence. On the other hand, controller is
forced to support an optimal level of severity of sanctions of social control, because too strict or too soft
level of severity of sanctions of social control lead to the new outburst of conflict because subject of
control begins to doubt in ability of controller to fulfill its functions in this case. It is possible to solve
many controversial problems of conflict theory, anthropology, psychology, theory of systems,
philosophy, sociology, politology, jurisprudence, economics, ethics, religion study, cultural studies,
pedagogy, history of science and history of society with the help these two concepts (social conflict and
social control). The main part of my work is built on consecutive statement of content for these sciences
with a focus on relations of social conflict and social control between people. In my opinion, it is
necessary to build the textbook of social sciences exactly thus. I consider that society is complex
developing system, which has gone through four stages of development in its history, through four
formations – primitive‐communal formation, slaveholding formation, feudal formation and capitalistic
formation. The main great social inventions are new kinds of social conflict and social control that were
invented in process of history. Thus, I have attempted to rise on the shield partially forgotten idea of
social progress.

The main questions of my theory about the personality types[edit]

Relying on the theory of Carl Gustav Jung about personality types, I created the psychological theory,
which makes it possible to make a large quantity of forecasts about the inclinations in the behavior of
people. Then these forecasts can be checked in empirical studies. I carried out studies in the school, in
bureau for jobcenter and in the women's Supermax prison already. My theory about personality types
does my textbook interesting. I will give answers in my textbook to the following questions:
  How is it possible to choose a profession or the husband?

 How is it possible to marry on rich person?

 How is it possible to avoid marriage on the woman who has a inclination to adulteries to her
husband?

 How is it possible to select personnel?

 How is it possible to do career and choose channels of the vertikal circulation?

 How is it possible to define suitability degree to a role of the politician, artist or chief?

 What reasons do exist for crime and unemployment?

 What inclinations do exist in training at different the personality types?

 How is it possible to support discipline at a lesson?

 Primary source (also called original source) is a document, recording or other source of information
(paper, picture,....etc.) that was created at the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually
one with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. It serves as an original source of
information about the topic. Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources, which often
cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources.

Examples would include:

 Birth, Marriage, and Death certificates

 Family Bibles (if recorded by someone witnessing the event shortly after it occurred.

 Letters describing the events as they are taking place by a person involved.

A secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented
elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the
information being discussed. Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, synthesis,
interpretation, or evaluation of the original information. Primary and secondary are relative terms, and
some sources may be classified as primary or secondary, depending on how it is used.

Examples include:

 History books

 Encyclopedias

 Letters written well after the event

 Oral histories as told by someone without first-hand knowledge of the event.

Descriptivism - Observation of how language is used. This is generally the method used in linguistics.
(Cf. prescriptivism)

Morpheme - An individual unit of meaning in a word. For example, the word uninterested may be

analyzed as consisting of three morphemes: un-, interest, and -ed. (Morphemes are sometimes also
considered to contain units which have no basic phonological representation,
see reduplication, truncation).

Morphology - The study of how units of meaning are combined together to create words. The basic
units of reference in morphology are morphemes.

Phone - A unit of sound or a gesture used to produce one in a language. Note that different phones may
have the same underlying representation in a language (see phoneme).

Phoneme - A class of phones which contrast with other phonemes in a language. For instance, in English
the phoneme /t/ is realized as a plosive at the beginning of a word (e.g. term) but as a flap between
vowels in most positions (e.g. butter), while in other languages these two sounds are different
phonemes.

Phonetics - The study of the different types of sounds used in human language and how they are
produced and perceived. The basic units of representation in phonetics are phones.

Phonology - The study of how languages group phones together and use them to encode meaning. The
basic units of representation in phonology are phonemes.

Prescriptivism - Ruling on how language should used. This is common in language instruction but is
generally irrelevant to linguistics. (Cf. descriptivism)

Register - a different type of speech adopted by a language-user depending on context

Rounding - "puckering" of the lips while producing a phone, most commonly a vowel
Get Nosy with Aunt Rosie: Example Questions for Oral Histories

Fertilizing Your Family Tree with Conversation

by Genealogy.com

People say that talking to your plants can make them grow, and the same is true for family trees. While
it's not always necessary to record oral histories to get the basic vital statistics about your ancestors, you
may find that interviewing your family members provides some of the most interesting information
about your family. Learning about hobbies, family traditions, and personalities can really bring the
names in your family tree to life!

Making the most of your interview means keeping an ear open for good stories, and also asking follow-
up questions on the details like dates and places. Below, you'll find some tips on how to best set up and
record the interview, and some sample questions to get you started on the deeper roots of your family
tree.

Tips for Recording Oral Histories

When you record an oral history, remember that you're an interested relative, not a hard-nosed
reporter. Recording an oral history should be an enjoyable experience for everyone involved, and you're
more likely to get good results if that's the case. Below are a few tips:

 Schedule the oral history session in advance. Don't just show up on a person's doorstep
unexpectedly.

 Bring a tape recorder, or pen and paper, or both. If you want to use a tape recorder, make sure
you get prior permission from the person you're interviewing. You may want to take a few notes
even if you use a tape recorder, perhaps to get the correct spellings of places and people's
names or as a backup in case the record malfunctions. If you use a tape recorder, be sure to test
the recorder as well as the tape to make sure that each is working.

 Make sure you record the date and location of the interview, as well as the name of the
interviewer and the interviewee.

 Ask questions to start things off, but don't be afraid to let the person you're interviewing talk
"off the subject." You may get some of the best stories this way. If they really start rambling,
gently steer them back to your questions.

 Don't push for answers. If you're asking questions that seem to make the person uncomfortable,
ask if they want to continue or if they would rather talk about something else.

 If you ask "when" something happened, the answer will often be "I don't know, " because the
individual doesn't recall the exact date or year. Instead of asking "when," ask the question in
relation to another event. For example, did an event take place before or after the individual got
married, or before or after the individual's parents died? You can also begin the question with
"About how old were you when..." Using these techniques, you're more likely to get answers.
  If you have any old pictures or other items that you have questions about, bring them along. You
may get answers to your questions, and you will probably hear some good stories, too.

 Keep the session relatively short, no more than one or two hours. Recording an oral history
should be fun, not hard work. You can schedule another session at a later date if you want to
continue recording the oral history.

Suggested Topics and Questions for Oral Histories

Below are some sample topics and questions that you can use when you record oral histories. Don't limit
yourself to our suggestions, however. Every family is unique, and you can probably think of some special
things to talk about. Make sure you get down the name and birth date of the person you're
interviewing, as well as where they fit in your family tree. Then, choose any of the topics below and
begin asking questions.

Childhood

 What do you recall about your childhood?

 Where did you live and go to school?

 What do you remember best about your parents?

 What did you and your siblings do in your spare time?

 Were you an obedient child or a mischievous child?

 What styles of clothing did children wear then?

Family Traditions

 Did your family have any special traditions, such as things that they did on holidays or birthdays?

 What about family heirlooms? Is there anything that's been handed down from generation to
generation?

Growing Up

 When did you leave home?

 Why did you leave and where did you go?

 How did your life change? Did you feel grown up? Were you a little scared?

Historical Events

 Which significant historical events have taken place during your lifetime?

 Were there wars, natural disasters, or political changes?

 How did these events affect you?

Hometown

 What was the name of the place where you grew up?
  Was it a big city or a small town?

 Were there any special activities or festivals at different times during the year

Immigration

 How old were you when you immigrated to the United States?

 Were did you come from and where and when did you arrive?

 How did you travel? By boat, plane, or train? How long did the trip take?

 What feelings did you have about coming to the United States? What was one of the biggest
differences between the United States and your previous home?

Work

 What did your parents do for a living when you were growing up? Did you ever help them out?

 Was your family financially comfortable?

 What was your first job? How old were you at the time? How did you get your job?

 What different jobs have you had during your life?

Physical Characteristics

 What physical characteristics do people in your family share?

 Do they all have the same hair color or eye color?

 Whom in the family do you resemble?

Previous Generations

 Did you know your grandparents or great-grandparents?

 What were their names?

 Where did they live?

 What stories can you tell about them and their lives?

Religion

 What part did religion play in your family?

 Were you very religious?

 Did you go to religious services on a regular basis?

Other Possible Topics

Education, Politics, Military Service, Recreation, Entertainers of the Era, Family Personalities, Family
Pets, Traveling, Dating, Clothing, Family Recipes, Favorite Songs or Poems, Family Medical History,
Marriage and Raising a Family, and anything else that may be of interest to you and your family.
Why do we need to study different disciplines of social sciences?

Which among the three social science disciplines is most relevant in your life?

What are the main social science disciplines?

Historical Context: Emergence of Social Science Disciplines

1. 1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT: EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE DISCIPLINES Reference: Microsoft ®

Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Prepared by: JESS
SALVILLA

2. 2. Anthropology: Definition • Anthropology, the study of all aspects of human life and culture.
Anthropology examines such topics as how people live, what they think, what they produce, and
how they interact with their environments. Anthropologists try to understand the full range of
human diversity as well as what all people share in common.

3. 3. Anthropology: QUESTIONS ASKED: • Anthropologists ask such basic questions as: When,
where, and how did humans evolve? How do people adapt to different environments? How
have societies developed and changed from the ancient past to the present? Answers to these
questions can help us understand what it means to be human. They can also help us to learn
ways to meet the present-day needs of people all over the world and to plan how we might live
in the future.

4. 4. Fields of Anthropology • Cultural Anthropology • Linguistic Anthropology • Archaeology •

Physical Anthropology

5. 5. Anthropolology: Historical Background • The European Age of Enlightenment of the 17th and
18th centuries marked the rise of scientific and rational philosophical thought. Enlightenment
thinkers, such as Scottish-born David Hume, John Locke of England, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
of France, wrote a number of humanistic works on the nature of humankind. They based their
work on philosophical reason rather than religious authority and asked important
anthropological questions. Rousseau, for instance, wrote on the moral qualities of “primitive”
societies and about human inequality. But most writers of the Enlightenment also lacked
firsthand experience with non-Western cultures.

6. 6. ECONOMICS: Definition • Economics, social science concerned with the production,

distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services.

7. 7. ECONOMICS: Historical (Mercantilism) • The development of modern nationalism during the

16th century shifted attention to the problem of increasing the wealth and power of the various
nation-states. The economic policy of the leaders of that time, known as mercantilism, sought to
 encourage national self-sufficiency. The heyday of the mercantilist school in England and
western Europe occurred during the 16th through the early 18th centuries.

8. 8. ECONOMICS: Historical (Mercantilism) • Mercantilists valued gold and silver as an index of

national power. Without the gold and silver mines in the New World from which Spain drew its
riches, a nation could accumulate these precious metals only by selling more merchandise to
foreigners than it bought from them. This favorable balance of trade necessarily compelled
foreigners to cover their deficits by shipping gold and silver.

9. 9. ECONOMICS: Historical (Mercantilism) • Mercantilists took for granted that their own country
was either at war with its neighbors, recovering from a recent conflict, or getting ready to
plunge into a new war. With gold and silver, a ruler could hire mercenaries to fight, a practice
followed by King George III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain when he used Hessian troops
during the American Revolution. As needed, the monarch could also buy weapons, uniforms,
and food to supply the soldiers and sailors.

10. 10. GEOGRAPHY: Definition • Geography, science that deals with the distribution and
arrangement of all elements of the earth's surface. The word geography was adopted in the
200s BC by the Greek scholar Eratosthenes and means “earth description.”

11. 11. GEOGRAPHY: Branches • 1. Physical geography includes the following fields:

geomorphology, which uses geology to study the form and structure of the surface of the earth;
climatology, which involves meteorology and is concerned with climatic conditions;
biogeography, which uses biology and deals with the distribution of plant and animal life; soils
geography/Soil Management, which is concerned with the distribution of soil; hydrography,
which concerns the distribution of seas, lakes, rivers, and streams in relation to their uses;
oceanography, which deals with the waves, tides, and currents of oceans and the ocean floor
(see Ocean and Oceanography); and cartography, or mapmaking through graphic representation
and measurement of the surface of the earth.

12. 12. GEOGRAPHY: Branches • 2. Cultural Geography. This classification, sometimes called human
geography, involves all phases of human social life in relation to the physical earth. Economic
geography, a field of cultural geography, deals with the industrial use of the geographic
environment. Natural resources, such as mineral and oil deposits, forests, grazing lands, and
farmlands, are studied with reference to their position, productivity, and potential uses.
Manufacturing industries rely on geographic studies for information concerning raw materials,
sources of labor, and distribution of goods. Marketing studies concerned with plant locations
and sales potentials are based on geographic studies. The establishment of transportation
facilities, trade routes, and resort areas also frequently depends on the results of geographic
studies.

13. 13. GEOGRAPHY: Branches • Cultural geography also includes political geography, which is an
application of political science. Political geography deals with human social activities that are
related to the locations and boundaries of cities, nations, and groups of nations. • Military
geography provides military leaders with information about areas in which they may need to
operate. The many other fields of cultural geography include ethnography, historical geography,
urban geography, demography, and linguistic geography.
14. 14. GEOGRAPHY: History • The earliest geographers were concerned with exploring unknown
areas and with describing the observable features of different places. Such ancient peoples as
the Chinese, Egyptians, and Phoenicians made long journeys and recorded their observations of
strange lands. One of the first known maps was made on a clay tablet in Babylonia about 2300
BC. By 1400 BC, the shores of the Mediterranean Sea had been explored and charted, and
during the next thousand years, early explorers visited Britain and navigated most of the African
coast. The ancient Greeks, however, gave the Western world its first important knowledge
relating to the form, size, and general nature of the earth.

15. 15. HISTORY: Definition • History and Historiography. • History, in its broadest sense, is the
totality of all past events, although a more realistic definition would limit it to the known past.
Historiography is the written record of what is known of human lives and societies in the past
and how historians have attempted to understand them.

16. 16. HISTORY: Approaches • Historians have looked more and more to the social sciences—
sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics—for new methods and forms of
explanation; the sophisticated use of quantitative data has become the accepted approach to
economic and demographic studies. The influence of Marxist theories of economic and social
development remains vital and contentious,

17. 17. HISTORY: Definition • as does the application of psychoanalytic theory to history. At the
same time, many scholars have turned with sharpened interest to the theoretical foundations of
historical knowledge and are reconsidering the relation between imaginative literature and
history, with the possibility emerging that history may after all be the literary art that works
upon scholarly material.

18. 18. LINGUISTICS: Definition • Linguistics, the scientific study of language. It encompasses the
description of languages, the study of their origin, and the analysis of how children acquire
language and how people learn languages other than their own.

19. 19. LINGUISTICS: History • In the early 20th century, linguistics expanded to include the study of
unwritten languages. In the United States linguists and anthropologists began to study the
rapidly disappearing spoken languages of Native North Americans. Because many of these
languages were unwritten, researchers could not use historical analysis in their studies. In their
pioneering research on these languages, anthropologists Franz Boas and Edward Sapir
developed the techniques of descriptive linguistics and theorized on the ways in which language
shapes our perceptions of the world.

20. 20. Political Science: Meaning • Political Science, the systematic study of and reflection upon
politics. Politics usually describes the processes by which people and institutions exercise and
resist power. Political processes are used to formulate policies, influence individuals and
institutions, and organize societies.

21. 21. Political Science: History • The systematic study of politics dates to ancient times. The oldest
legal and administrative code that survives in its entirety is the Code of Hammurabi, inscribed on
a pillar of black basalt. Hammurabi, a Babylonian king who ruled from 1792 to 1750 BC,
 described the laws in his code as enabling “stable government and good rule.” Hammurabi’s
justification indicates that the reasoning behind the code was political as well as legal.

22. 22. PSYCHOLOGY: Meaning • Psychology, the scientific study of behavior and the mind. This
definition contains three elements. The first is that psychology is a scientific enterprise that
obtains knowledge through systematic and objective methods of observation and
experimentation. Second is that psychologists study behavior, which refers to any action or
reaction that can be measured or observed—such as the blink of an eye, an increase in heart
rate, or the unruly violence that often erupts in a mob. Third is that psychologists study the
mind, which refers to both conscious and unconscious mental states. These states cannot
actually be seen, only inferred from • observable behavior.

23. 23. PSYCHOLOGY: History • From about 600 to 300 BC, Greek philosophers inquired about a
wide range of psychological topics. They were especially interested in the nature of knowledge
and how human beings come to know the world, a field of philosophy known as epistemology.
The Greek philosopher Socrates and his followers, Plato and Aristotle, wrote about pleasure and
pain, knowledge, beauty, desire, free will, motivation, common sense, rationality, memory, and
the subjective nature of perception.

24. 24. Sociology: Meaning • Sociology, the scientific study of human social relations or group life.

25. 25. Sociology: History • The first definition of sociology was advanced by the French philosopher
Auguste Comte. In 1838 Comte coined the term sociology to describe his vision of a new science
that would discover laws of human society resembling the laws of nature by applying the
methods of factual investigation that had proved so successful in the physical sciences. The
British philosopher Herbert Spencer adopted both Comte's term and his mission.

Anthropology traces its roots to ancient Greek historical and philosophical writings about human nature
and the organization of human society. ... During the Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries ad) biblical
scholars dominated European thinking on questions of human origins and cultural development.

 History of Anthropology

A. Origins

Anthropology traces its roots to ancient Greek historical and philosophical writings about human nature
and the organization of human society. Anthropologists generally regard Herodotus, a Greek historian
who lived in the 400s bc, as the first thinker to write widely on concepts that would later become central
to anthropology. In the book History, Herodotus described the cultures of various peoples of the Persian
Empire, which the Greeks conquered during the first half of the 400s bc. He referred to Greece as the
dominant culture of the West and Persia as the dominant culture of the East. This type of division,
between white people of European descent and other peoples, established the mode that most
anthropological writing would later adopt.
The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the 14th century ad, was another early writer of ideas
relevant to anthropology. Khaldun examined the environmental, sociological, psychological, and
economic factors that affected the development and the rise and fall of civilizations. Both Khaldun and
Herodotus produced remarkably objective, analytic, ethnographic descriptions of the diverse cultures in
the Mediterranean world, but they also often used secondhand information.

During the Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries ad) biblical scholars dominated European thinking on
questions of human origins and cultural development. They treated these questions as issues of
religious belief and promoted the idea that human existence and all of human diversity were the
creations of God.

Beginning in the 15th century, European explorers looking for wealth in new lands provided vivid
descriptions of the exotic cultures they encountered on their journeys in Asia, Africa, and what are now
the Americas. But these explorers did not respect or know the languages of the peoples with whom they
came in contact, and they made brief, unsystematic observations.

The European Age of Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries marked the rise of scientific and
rational philosophical thought. Enlightenment thinkers, such as Scottish-born David Hume, John Locke of
England, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau of France, wrote a number of humanistic works on the nature of
humankind. They based their work on philosophical reason rather than religious authority and asked
important anthropological questions. Rousseau, for instance, wrote on the moral qualities of “primitive”
societies and about human inequality. But most writers of the Enlightenment also lacked firsthand
experience with non-Western cultures.( "Anthropology," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003
http://encarta.msn.com)

Evolution

Most anthropologists also believe that an understanding of human evolution explains much about
people’s biology and culture. Biological evolution is the natural process by which new and more complex
organisms develop over time. Some anthropologists study how the earliest humans evolved from
ancestral primates, a broader classification group that includes humans, monkeys, and apes. They also
study how humans evolved, both biologically and culturally, over the past several million years to the
present.

Humans have changed little biologically for the past 100,000 years. On the other hand, today’s
worldwide culture, characterized by the rapid movement of people and ideas throughout the world, is
only a few hundred years old. Today’s global-scale culture differs vastly from that of the small-scale
societies (nonindustrialized societies, with small populations) in which our ancestors lived for hundreds
of thousands of years. Understanding these kinds of societies and their cultures can help us make more
sense of how people cope with life in today’s culturally diverse and complex world.

Cultural Anthropology

Cultural anthropology involves the study of people living in present-day societies and their cultures.
Cultural anthropologists study such topics as how people make their living, how people interact with
each other, what beliefs people hold, and what institutions organize people in a society. Cultural
anthropologists often live for months or years with the people they study. This is called fieldwork. Some
must learn new, and sometimes unwritten languages, and this may require extra training in linguistics
(the study of the sounds and grammar of languages). Cultural anthropologists commonly write book-
length (and sometimes shorter) accounts of their fieldwork, known as ethnographies.

Economic thought goes as far back as the ancient Greeks, and is known to have been an important topic
in the ancient Middle East. However, today, Scottish thinker Adam Smith is widely credited for creating
the field of economics. However, he was inspired by French writers who shared his hatred of
mercantilism.

The Father of Economics

Economic thought goes as far back as the ancient Greeks, and is known to have been an important topic
in the ancient Middle East. However, today, Scottish thinker Adam Smith is widely credited for creating
the field of economics. However, he was inspired by French writers who shared his hatred
of mercantilism. In fact, the first methodical study of how economies work was undertaken by these
French physiocrats. Smith took many of their ideas and expanded them into a thesis about how
economies should work, as opposed to how they do work.

Smith believed that competition was self-regulating and governments should take no part in business
through tariffs, taxes, or other means unless it was to protect free market competition. Many economic
theories today are, at least in part, a reaction to Smith's pivotal work in the field, namely his 1776
masterpiece The Wealth of Nations. In this book, Smith laid out several of the mechanisms of capitalist
production, free markets, and value. Smith showed that individuals acting in their own self-interest
could, as if guided by an "invisible hand", create social and economic stability and prosperity for all.

Historical demography is the quantitative study of the size and structure of past populations, the
components of population change (fertility, mortality, and migration), and the factors that influenced
them. ... Beginning in 1952, French demographers began detailed studies of ecclesiastical records in
selected parishes.

HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY

Historical demography is the quantitative study of the size and structure of past populations, the
components of population change (fertility, mortality, and migration), and the factors that influenced
them. In its broadest sense, historical demography covers the entire history of the human species, but
for prehistoric populations, estimates of population size and structure must rely on intelligent
guesswork, based on archaeological studies of material remains such as skeletons, dwellings, and
cooking utensils. Even in the case of populations with written records but with no census of population
or registration of births and deaths, population size can only be estimated approximately, using
inscriptions on gravestones, legal documents, and taxation records.

In Europe, ecclesiastical records of baptisms, marriages, and funerals serve as proxies for civil
registration from the sixteenth century onward. For certain towns (e.g., London), summaries of these
were published and were analyzed by John Graunt, one of the first demographers. John Rickman, the
official in charge of the first census of England and Wales in 1801, arranged for abstracts of parish
registers to be made. These were used by Rickman and by many subsequent demographers.
Beginning in 1952, French demographers began detailed studies of ecclesiastical records in selected
parishes. By linking the names on the registers of baptisms, marriages, and funerals, they were able to
reconstitute the histories of cohorts of families over the years. This method of family reconstitution has
since been used in several European countries and in Quebec. The technique has proved extremely
fruitful and, for many demographers, the term "historical demography" is restricted to this micro-
demographic approach.

Geography: History of Geographic Study

Evolution

Geography was first systematically studied by the ancient Greeks, who also developed a philosophy of
geography; Thales of Miletus, Herodotus , Eratosthenes , Aristotle , Strabo , and Ptolemy made major
contributions to geography. The Roman contribution to geography was in the exploration and mapping
of previously unknown lands. Greek geographic learning was maintained and enhanced by the Arabs
during the Middle Ages. Arab geographers, among whom Idrisi , Ibn Battutah, and Ibn Khaldun are
prominent, traveled extensively for the purpose of increasing their knowledge of the world. The
journeys of Marco Polo in the latter part of the Middle Ages began the revival of geographic interest
outside the Muslim world.

With the Renaissance in Europe came the desire to explore unknown parts of the world that led to the
voyages of exploration and to the great discoveries. However, it was mercantile interest rather than a
genuine search for knowledge that spurred these endeavors. The 16th and 17th cent. reintroduced
sound theoretical geography in the form of textbooks (the Geographia generalis  of
Bernhardus Varenius ) and maps (Gerardus Mercator 's world map). In the 18th cent. geography began
to achieve recognition as a discipline and was taught for the first time at the university level.

History is the study of the past. Events occurring before the invention of writing systems are ... The
Marxist theory of historical materialism theorises that society is fundamentally determined by the
material conditions at any given time – in other ...

Linguistics is the scientific study of language.[1] It involves an analysis of language form,

language meaning, and language in context.[2]

Linguistics began to be studied systematically by the Indian scholar Pānini in the 6th century BCE.
[3]
 Beginning around the 4th century BCE, China also developed its own grammatical
traditions. Aristotle laid the foundation of Western linguistics as part of the study of rhetoric in
his Poetics ca. 335 BC.[4] Traditions of Arabic grammar and Hebrew grammar developed during the
Middle Ages in a religious context like Pānini's Sanskrit gramma
Political science originated with the ancient Greeks in the first century BCE. During this time, the
philosopher Plato wrote numerous dialogues about politics, asking about the nature of justice, what
constitutes good government, and what is truly best for humanity.

Political Science is the systematic study of Politics, or the process by which governmental decisions are
made. As a famous definition puts it, politics is determining who gets what, where, when, and how. The
political scientist is an objective observer who asks questions about and studies the effects and
structures of different systems of governments.

A Brief History of Political Science

Political science originated with the ancient Greeks in the first century BCE. During this time, the
philosopher Plato wrote numerous dialogues about politics, asking about the nature of justice, what
constitutes good government, and what is truly best for humanity. His student Aristotle worked in a
more scientific way, observing and describing types of governments systematically. At the start of the
seventeenth century, people began to apply the methods of the scientific revolution to politics. Thomas
Hobbes, for example, employed the methods of geometry to break government down into its most basic
parts in order to understand it. In the nineteenth century, thinkers such as Karl Marx and Max Weber
used sociological methods to analyze politics.

The history of psychology as a scholarly study of the mind and behavior dates back to the Ancient
Greeks. ... Psychology as a self-conscious field of experimental study began in 1879, in Leipzig Germany,
when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research in
Germany.

Psychology borders on various other fields including physiology, neuroscience, artificial

intelligence, sociology, anthropology, as well as philosophy and other components of the humanities.
The history of psychology as a scholarly study of the mind and behavior dates back to the Ancient
Greeks. There is also evidence of psychological thought in ancient Egypt. Very high level of work on
mind-sciences one can find in Vedic scriptures of Sanatana Dharm (Hinduism) from the dated back of
unknow history there was application of certain principle as a part in yogic practices of India.

Psychology was a branch of the domain of philosophy until the 1870s, when it developed as an

independent scientific discipline in Germany. Psychology as a self-conscious field of experimental study
began in 1879, in Leipzig Germany, when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated
exclusively to psychological research in Germany. Wundt was also the first person to refer to himself
as a psychologist (a notable precursor of Wundt was Ferdinand Ueberwasser (1752-1812) who
designated himself Professor of Empirical Psychology and Logic in 1783 and gave lectures on scientific
psychology at the Old University of Münster, Germany [2]). Other important early contributors to the field
include Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in the study of memory), William James (the American father
of pragmatism), and Ivan Pavlov (who developed the procedures associated with classical conditioning).
The term sociology was coined by French philosopher Auguste Comte in 1838, who for this reason is
known as the “Father of Sociology.” Comte felt that science could be used to study the social world. ...
He envisioned a process of social change in which sociologists played crucial roles in guiding society.

The term sociology was coined by French philosopher Auguste Comte in 1838, who for this reason is
known as the “Father of Sociology.” Comte felt that science could be used to study the social world. Just
as there are testable facts regarding gravity and other natural laws, Comte thought that scientific
analyses could also discover the laws governing our social lives. It was in this context that Comte
introduced the concept of positivism to sociology — a way to understand the social world based on
scientific facts. He believed that, with this new understanding, people could build a better future. He
envisioned a process of social change in which sociologists played crucial roles in guiding society.

Other events of that time period also influenced the development of sociology. The 19th and 20th
centuries were times of many social upheavals and changes in the social order that interested the early
sociologists. The political revolutions sweeping Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries led to a focus
on social change and the establishment of social order that still concerns sociologists today. Many early
sociologists were also concerned with the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism and socialism.
Additionally, the growth of cities and religious transformations were causing many changes in people’s
lives.

What social factors contributed to the development of sociology as a discipline?

The development of sociology as a discipline emerged in the 19th century in response to modernity.

Problems that arose from modernity include industrialisation, urbanisation, rationalisation and
bureaucratisation (Montagna, 2010).

What social and political factors led to the development of sociology?

What social and political factors led to the development of sociology as a distinct academic discipline?
It emerged in the early 19th century in response to the challenges of modernity. Increased tech.
advances resulted in the increasing exposure of people to cultures and societies different from their
own.

Who are the people behind the development of sociological thinking?

Auguste Comte (1798–1857)—The Father of Sociology

In 1838, the term was reinvented by Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Comte originally studied to be an
engineer, but later became a pupil of social philosopher Claude Henri de Rouvroy Comte de Saint-Simon
(1760–1825).

What are the historical circumstances that led to the development of sociology as a distinct academic
discipline?
The development of sociology as a discipline emerged in the 19th century in response to modernity.
Problems that arose from modernity include industrialisation, urbanisation, rationalisation and
bureaucratisation (Montagna, 2010).

What influenced the development of sociology?

The Birth of Sociology as a Discipline

The term sociology was coined by French philosopher Auguste Comte in 1838, who for this reason is
known as the “Father of Sociology.” Comte felt that science could be used to study the social world. ...
Other events of that time period also influenced the development of sociology

Why is the Enlightenment important for the development of sociology?

The Enlightenment is important for the development of sociology because it helped in

the development of secular, scientific and humanistic attitudes of mind during the late 17 th and
18th centuries. ... Thus, it helped sociology to grow as a rational and scientific subject with critical
analysis.

What are the factors that led to the development of sociology in 19th century?

The development of sociology as a discipline emerged in the 19th century in response to modernity.

Problems that arose from modernity include industrialisation, urbanisation, rationalisation and
bureaucratisation (Montagna, 2010).

How does sociological perspective affect people's lives?

The Sociological Perspective

We are who we are and we behave the way we do because we happen to live in a particular society at a
particular point in space and time. ... It permits us to trace the connection between the patterns and
events of our own and the patterns and events of our society.

Why is sociology a discipline?

Sociology is a discipline that makes it possible to see how individual experiences—how we act, think,
feel, and remember—are connected to the wider society. To understand human experience better, we
must understand all that we can about groups and social relationships.

Why is sociology important in everyday life?

It studies the various social structures, cultural life, development of society and the social problems.
Thus as an individual your day to day activity is related to sociology. ... So we can say that our everyday
life are spoken in Sociology.