Integral Engagement: Christian Constructivism and the Social Sciences

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-457
Author(s):  
Donald Guthrie
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Human Condition

This article explores how Christian constructivism can guide educators who are Christians toward an integral engagement with the social sciences that is both critically reflective and humbly teachable. Such an engagement requires a recognition that all image-bearing human beings may contribute insights about the human condition, responsible stewardship of knowledge with the mind of Christ, and approaching the social sciences with gospel-directed critical realism that is neither fearful nor uncritically accepting of social science perspectives.

Social Science and Ideological Critiques of Ecclesiology

2018 ◽  
pp. 552-572
Author(s):  
Neil Ormerod
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Edward Schillebeeckx ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Human Condition

Theology has long engaged philosophy as a dialogue partner, but the social sciences raise a new set of issues as both theology and the social sciences reflect concretely on the human condition. The problematic relationship between theology and the social sciences is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the area of ecclesiology. Whenever ecclesiology turns from more idealistic ahistorical forms of discourse to deal with the actual context and constitution of historical communities, the role of the social sciences in providing insights into those contexts and constitutions becomes difficult to deny. This chapter seeks to map out some of the history of the engagement with the social sciences by ecclesiologists such as Clodovis Boff, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Edward Schillebeeckx, John Milbank, and Roger Haight, and the challenges that this engagement poses. Underlying this debate are profound theological issues concerning grace and nature.

The Individual/Agent and Culture/Structure in the History of the Social Sciences

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline B. Brettell
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Individual Agent ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Human Condition

In facing up to the problem of structure and agency social theorists are not just addressing crucial theoretical problems in the study of society, they are also confronting the most pressing social problem of the human condition.

Assumptions Concerning the Social Sciences

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-490
Author(s):  
Ebtihaj Al-A‘ali
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Real World ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Multiple Realities ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

This paper comprises three major sections. The first section discussesmodem social assumptions concerning the existence of human beings andtheir societies. It also explains the impact of these assumptions on organizationaltheory. The second section explores Islamic assumptions concerningthese same two elements and explains a major attribute of Islamicorganizations. The third section compares the above-mentioned assumptions of modem social science to those of Islam and illustrates thatknowledge-transfer creates its own organizational and social problems.Modern Social Science Assumptions: HumanExistence and SocietyIn reviewing the modem science of human existence and society,Burrell and Morgan (1979) state that the relevant assumptions in this areacan be viewed in the light of two strands of thought: nominalism andrealism. Nominalism indicates that no real world structure exists outsideof the individual’s concepts, ideas, and thoughts. This implies that realityis constructed by individuals and leads them to experience multiple realities(Lincoln and Guba 1985). Societies and external existants to individualsare merely names perceived individually (Taylor and Bodgon1979). Societies, therefore, consist of individuals who have real existenceand, without them, there would be no societies (Behechti and Bahonar1990). According to nominalism, knowledge about multiple realities isgathered from individuals themselves ...

The Uses of Statistics in the Social Sciences

1933 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 210-221
Author(s):  
W. L. Crum
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Statistical Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Applied Mathematics ◽  
Mathematical Science ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Quantitative Basis ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Factual Data

Statistics and statistical methods have become so common a tool of the scientist, both for conducting his research and reporting his findings, that the ordinary layman is in danger of forgetting that statistical theory is a branch of mathematical science and that statistical practice is one type of applied mathematics. This important point should be constantly in the mind of everyone who uses statistics, whether as a producer or as a consumer. Nowhere is the danger of ignoring or forgetting this injunction greater than in the various fields of social science. Whether this is due to the great abundance of factual data and their ostensible bearing upon problems of timely interest, to the supposed necessity of putting reasoning in these fields on a quantitative basis at any cost, to the absence of traditional dominance by mathematical thought processes in these fields, or to other reasons, it is idle to speculate. The essential fact is that statistical workers in social science need particularly to be reminded that the vigorous and growing structure of statistical theory takes its root in mathematics.

To Fall from High or Low Estate? Tragedy and Social Class in Historical Perspective

PMLA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 129 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Hall
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
New City ◽  
City State ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Human Condition

In a famous essay, the agnostic bertrand russell hailed tragedy as the highest instantiation of human freedom. tragedy results from human beings' persistence in the conscious, imaginative representation of the plight of humanity in the inhumane universe. Tragedy “builds its shining citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; … within its walls the free life continues, while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair, and all the servile captains of tyrant Fate, afford the burghers of that dauntless city new spectacles of beauty” (53-54). Russell's “servile captains of tyrant Fate” are the instruments by which metaphysical compulsion tortures humans—Death and Pain and Despair. Man, instead of allowing himself to be terrorized as “the slave of Fate,” creates tragedy “to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life” (57). By transforming the human condition into tragic art, humans create their own world of resistance, in which they can be the truly free “burghers” of a dauntless new city-state of the mind.

Interpretive Social Science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bevir ◽  
Jason Blakely
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interpretive Approach ◽  
Research Concept

This book offers a comprehensive case for an “interpretive” or hermeneutic approach to the social sciences. Interpretive approaches are a major growth area in the social sciences because they offer a full-blown alternative to the behavioralism, institutionalism, rational choice, and other quasi-scientific approaches that dominate the study of human behavior. In addition to presenting a systematic case for interpretivism and a critique of scientism, this book also proposes a unique “anti-naturalist” notion of an interpretive approach. This anti-naturalist framework encompasses the insights of philosophers ranging from Michel Foucault and Hans-Georg Gadamer to Charles Taylor and Ludwig Wittgenstein, while also resolving dilemmas that have plagued rival philosophical defenses of interpretivism. In addition, this book draws on the latest social science research to give working social scientists a detailed account of a distinctly interpretive approach to methods, empirical research, concept formation, ethics, democracy, and public policy. An anti-naturalist approach to interpretive social science offers nothing short of a sweeping paradigm shift in the study of human beings and society.

Trust: Acceptance of, Precaution Against and Cause of Vulnerability

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Misztal
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conceptual Discussion ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Human Condition

AbstractThe paper offers a conceptual analysis of the relationship between trust and vulnerability. It argues that sorting out the meaning of both terms and developing further our understanding how they are connected are one of the important tasks of the social science. Trust is usually defined as confidence that partners will not exploit each others’ vulnerability. While stressing that vulnerability cannot be conceived as a single continuum, the paper views vulnerability as irreducibly plural and rooted in the human condition of dependence on others, in the unpredictability of action and in the irreversibility of human experiences. There are three trust-related mechanisms that lower these types of vulnerability, yet trust is not only a remedy for vulnerability, but trust itself is vulnerable to the universal condition of our humanity. The first type of vulnerability can be reduced by responsibility; the second type by promising; and the third by forgiveness. The paper’s conceptual discussion bridges theories of trust based on rational choice and those based on normative routines and stresses the interdependence between trust and vulnerability: trust is a remedy for vulnerability, but trust itself is vulnerable to the universal condition of our humanity.

“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

Approach to the Social Sciences in Religion Past and Present

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Robert Segal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Social

The social sciences do threaten theology/religious studies even when they do not challenge either the reality of God or the reality of belief in the reality of God. The entries in RPP ignore this threat in the name of some wished-for harmony. The entries neither recognize nor refute the challenge of social science to theology/religious studies. They do, then, stand antithetically both to those whom I call "religionists" and to many theologians, for whom there is nothing but a challenge.

Diplomasi Versi Minangkabau

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-144
Author(s):  
Muhammad Yunis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Qualitative Observation

Pasambahan a Minangkabau society how to speak, the speech full of philosophy which delivery indirectly. This turned out to be complicated understood by some people who did not understand the pasambahan. In the present study, the authors sought to express the values of the philosophy contained in pasambahan as how to speak the traditional Minang community. As time goes, these traditions are disappearing from everyday society, for it needs a way to preserve it back. Pariaman is one area that has always practiced this tradition. In this study, the authors attempted to peel pasambahan text in a manner which according to the author deconstruction approach is one approach that is very controversial in the social sciences today. The process of data analysis by using some theories of social science (eclectic). Among the pragmatic theory and semiotics. The method used in the form of qualitative observation, the authors go directly spaciousness and interact with competent informants. From the discussion, the authors found ten diplomatic elementscontained in tradition and pasamabahan text. These elements in them, '' opener, apology, positioning/element of certainty, stringsattached, request (permission), receipt, delivery destination, contracts/agreements/agreements, offers, and resolver ''.

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