The phylogenetic construction of sociocultural phenomena

2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Chapais
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Natural Categories ◽  
The Social ◽  
By Products ◽  
Phylogenetic Method

In this paper I argue that many sociocultural phenomena are best explained by the comparative (phylogenetic) method, which consists of using information on other species, notably our closest relatives, the nonhuman primates, as a means to understand the evolutionary history and biological underpinnings of human traits. The social phenomena considered here embody the unitary social configuration of humankind, the set of traits common to all human societies. Those traits could not be explained by sociocultural anthropology, or the other social sciences, because even though they have a highly variable cultural content, they are not cultural creations but rather the products of human nature, or natural categories. I argue that some of those traits resulted from the cognitive enhancement of specific primate traits in the course of human evolution and others evolved as by-products of the coalescence of several primate traits, and I illustrate each process with a number of examples. I also show that even though many of those traits are crossculturally universal, they need not be: culture may modulate the expression of primate legacies and produce various sociocultural patterns from the same set of universal biological underpinnings, or biological constants. Finally, I discuss the importance for the social sciences of integrating biological constants in their models and theories even when they seek to explain cultural differences.

scholarly journals Interpretasi Hermeneutika: Meneropong Diskursus Seni Memahami Melalui Lensa Filsafat Modern dan Postmodern

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
Antono Wahyudi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject

The verb "to  understand" is not only frequently misinterpreted but also epistemically does not even have the attention from society. In addition, the gap between the object that is understood and the understanding subject is getting wider. The term “understand” is identical with hermeneutics and it becomes an interesting discourse among the philosophers in which it is made to minimize the gap of misunderstanding between subject and object. Modern philosophers such as F.D.E. Schleiermacher, who succeeded in releasing hermeneutical discipline from the theological context into the philosophical context, focused on the aspect of textuality to achieve the objectivity. W.C.L. Dilthey, also a modern philosopher, succeeded in developing the hermeneutics from his predecessors by emphasizing reproductivity in attempt to have re- experience not only from the outer dimensions but also the inner dimensions of an object. While the modern philosophers emphasized the attainment of the objectivity, on the other hand, the postmodern philosophers such as Gadamer and Heidegger critically shifted their attainment to the  realm  of  the  subjectivity.  Furthermore,  if  Heidegger  departs  from  phenomenology- ontological   perspective   which   centered   on   humans   as   the  subject,   Gadamer  with   his philosophical hermeneutics succeeds in restoring the concept of abstraction to the social sciences along with expanding the range of paradigm. These four philosophers have successfully made a significant  impact  in  responding  to  the  social  phenomena  that  are  often  disturbing  the civilization. Thus, hermeneutic interpretation becomes important to be used in order to minimize the occurrence of social conflict as well as to maximize the realization of universal humanism.

scholarly journals Walory poznawcze kategorii tożsamości społecznej jednostki

1970 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 17-31
Author(s):  
Irena Machaj
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Research Experiences ◽  
Research Orientation ◽  
Cognitive Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual

In the article, the author raises the question of what we can get to know or rather what social phenomena we can reach thanks to the studies on the individual’s social identity. The author adopts three essential features of sociological meaning of social identity: concentration on the consciousness part of life, subjective research orientation and the relational character of the individual’s social identity. Cognitive values are presented in the form of explicitly articulated questions, which are posed when we research on the identity of the individual in itself and when it helps to discover the other social phenomena, such as systems of values, mechanisms of the social exclusion-inclusion and mechanisms of the social diversity. Irena Machaj, Walory poznawcze kategorii tożsamości społecznej jednostki [Cognitive values of the category of the individual’s social identity] edited by E. Smolarkiewicz, J. Kubera, „Człowiek i Społeczeństwo” vol. XLIV: Tożsamość i identyfikacje. Propozycje teoretyczne – doświadczenia badawcze [Identity and identifications. Theoretical proposals – research experiences], Poznań 2017, pp. 17-31, Adam Mickiewicz University. Faculty of Social Sciences Press. ISSN 0239-3271.  

“We Speak the Truth!”

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Qualifications

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

scholarly journals Pragmatisme og "practice turn"

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Antje Gimmler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
The Other ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practice Turn ◽  
Understanding Of Science ◽  
The One ◽  
Philosophical Pragmatism

Practices are of central relevance both to philosophical pragmatism and to the recent ‘Practice Turn’ in social sciences and philosophy. However, what counts as practices and how practices and knowledge are combined or intertwine varies in the different approaches of pragmatism and those theories that are covered by the umbrella term ‘Practice Turn’. The paper tries to show that the pragmatism of John Dewey is able to offer both a more precise and a more radical understanding of practices than the recent ‘Practice Turn’ allows for. The paper on the one hand highlights what pragmatism has to offer to the practice turn in order to clarify the notion of practice. On the other hand the paper claims that a pragmatism inspired by Dewey actually interprets ‘practices’ more radically than most of the other approaches and furthermore promotes an understanding of science that combines nonrepresentationalism and anti-foundationalism with an involvement of the philosopher or the social scientist in the production of knowledge, things and technologies.

scholarly journals Social Sciences, Complexity and Sociology of the Present in Edgar Morin

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-52
Author(s):  
Alex Galeno ◽  
Fagner Torres de França
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Open Method ◽  
Complex Thinking ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Narrative Ability ◽  
Epistemological Basis

The article intends to revisit the contribution of the french thinker Edgar Morin (1921-) to the construction of a plural and open method of research in Social Sciences. We will have as theoretical-epistemological basis the sociology of the present, an approach of social phenomena developed by the author during three decades, from the 1940s to the 1970s, constituting the matrix of complex thinking. The present work defends the idea that the central categories of the present sociology, such as phenomenon, crisis and event, as well as the so-called living method of empirical research are still fundamental today in the sense of proposing an opening of the social sciences to phenomena increasingly more complex and multidimensional. This presupposes the researcher's subjective and objective engagement, narrative ability, and sensitivity to grasp revealing detail.

Queer as Materialism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Noyé ◽  
Gianfranco Rebucini
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Family Resemblance ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Feminist Thought ◽  
The Social

Since the 2000s, forms of articulation between materialist and Marxist theory and queer theory have been emerging and have thus created a “queer materialism.” After a predominance of poststructuralist analyses in the social sciences in the1980s and 1990s, since the late 1990s, and even more so after the economic crisis of 2008, a materialist shift seems to be taking place. These recompositions of the Marxist, queer, and feminist, which took place in activist and academic arenas, are decisive in understanding how the new approaches are developing in their own fields. The growing legitimacy of feminist and queer perspectives within the Marxist left is part of an evolution of Marxism on these issues. On the other side, queer activists and academics have highlighted the economic and social inequalities that the policies of austerity and capitalism in general induce among LGBTQI people and have turned to more materialist references, especially Marxist ones, to deploy an anticapitalist and antiracist argument. Even if nowadays one cannot speak of a “queer materialist” current as such, because the approaches grouped under this term are very different, it seems appropriate to look for a “family resemblance” and to group them together. Two specific kinds of “queer materialisms” can thus be identified. The first, queer Marxism, seeks to theorize together Marxist and queer theories, particularly in normalization and capitalist accumulation regimes. The second, materialist queer feminism, confronts materialist/Marxist feminist thought with queer approaches and thus works in particular on the question of heteropatriarchy based on this double tradition.

Determinism, Predictions, and Probabilism

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-88
Author(s):  
Francois Dépelteau
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Biological Determinism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Social Cause ◽  
Social Causes ◽  
The Universe

This chapter addresses determinism, which has been the predominant mode of perceiving the universe in modern sciences. The basic assumption is that any event is the effect of an external cause. Generally speaking, biological determinism focuses on the biological causes of events, whereas social sciences focus on the social causes. This mode of perceiving the social universe is typically associated with positivism and, more specifically, social naturalism — or the idea that there is no significant difference between social phenomena and natural phenomena. In this logic, it is assumed that social scientists can and should discover ‘social laws’ — or universal relations of causality between a social cause and a social effect. However, determinism in the social sciences has been criticized since its very beginning. In response to these critiques, many social scientists have adopted various forms of ‘soft’ determinism. The chapter then considers social predictions and probabilism.

Ontology

2021 ◽  
pp. 194-199
Author(s):  
Eric Fabri
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modes Of Existence ◽  
Objective Existence

This chapter addresses ontology, which is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of being. As a branch of metaphysics, ontology is mainly concerned with the modes of existence of different entities (tangible and intangible). Every subdiscipline in the social sciences relies on an ontology that defines which elements really matter when it comes to explaining the phenomenon they set out to elucidate. A specific branch of ontology is devoted to the modes of existence of social phenomena: social ontology. Two main positions emerge: realism and constructivism. Scientific realism assumes that social phenomena have an objective existence, independent of the subject. By contrast, constructivism claims that social phenomena have no objective existence and are a construction of the human mind. Its fundamental axiom is that, even if reality exists outside the subject’s perception, the subject cannot reach it without perceiving it. This implies the mediation of imaginary structures, which are provided by social groups. It is important to note, however, that many other positions exist apart from realism and constructivism.

Interdisciplinarity: Its Meaning and Consequences

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond C. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Formal Concept ◽  
Approaches To Teaching ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reflective Study ◽  
Proper Response

Interdisciplinarity is an analytically reflective study of the methodological, theoretical, and institutional implications of implementing interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and research. Interdisciplinary approaches in the social sciences began in the 1920s. At a minimum, they involve the application of insights and perspectives from more than one conventional discipline to the understanding of social phenomena. The formal concept of interdisciplinarity entered the literature in the early 1970s. The scholars responsible all shared the thought that the scientific enterprise had become less effective due to disciplinary fragmentation and that a countermovement for the unification of knowledge was the proper response. However, not all interdisciplinarians believe that the unification of existing knowledge is the answer. There are many ways of differentiating between types of interdisciplinary approaches. One classification distinguishes between multidisciplinary, crossdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. Multidisciplinary approaches involve the simple act of juxtaposing parts of several conventional disciplines in an effort to get a broader understanding of some common theme or problem. Crossdisciplinary approaches involve real interaction across the conventional disciplines, though the extent of communication; thus, combination, synthesis, or integration of concepts and/or methods vary considerably. Transdisciplinary approaches, meanwhile, involve articulated conceptual frameworks that seek to transcend the more limited world views of the specialized conventional disciplines. Even though many believe that interdisciplinary efforts can create innovative knowledge, the power structure of the disciplinary academy resists interdisciplinary inroads on its authority and resources.

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