History of the social sciences

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The history of the social sciences has origin in the common stock of

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 psychology to media studies.

The idea that society may be studied in a standardized and objective manner, with scholarly rules and methodology, is comparatively recent. Philosophers such as

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.

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.

Timeframes

Antiquity

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

Main article:
Early Muslim sociology

Significant contributions to the social sciences were made in Medieval

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

Early modern

Main article: Age of Enlightenment

Near the Renaissance, which began around the 14th century, Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme 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 Lugo, 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

Andre Morellet. The Encyclopédie of the time contained various works on the social sciences.[8]

Late modern

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

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

See also: History of sociology

The term "social science" was coined in French by

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.

theological and metaphysical phases, in the progression of human understanding.[11]

It was with the work of

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",

Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy. It also marked a major contribution to the concept of structural functionalism.[12]

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.[13] "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

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,

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

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."

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