On Comparative History

1957 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert F. Hoselitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
A Priori ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Social Event ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Causal Factors ◽  
Social Events ◽  
The Social

When John Stuart Mill composed his System of Logic, he maintained that valid application of the comparative method to problems in the moral or social sciences is impossible, or, at best, inadmissible, since it must be based on a priori judgments. Mill founded his objection to the use of this method in social science on two essentially interrelated propositions: the uniqueness of each social event, and the multiplicity and variety of causal factors which may be considered as having a determining influence on these events. Although this conception of the special nature of social events has, on the whole, remained unchanged, social scientists have freely applied the comparative method to the analysis of social problems. History has been outstanding among the social sciences in rejecting longest the application of this method. The main argument against its use was derived from the description of history formulated by Ranke and his school, a description which was endowed with a philosophical underpinning by Windelband and Rickert, who classified sciences according to method into a nomothetic and an ideographic group. History was the ideographic science par excellence, and with the strong historical emphasis that was placed in Germany upon other social sciences as well, there was a tendency to return to the viewpoint of Mill and to regard as scientifically suspect generalizations in social science based on the application of the comparative method.

ISLAMIC SOCIAL SCIENCES

1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Abul Fadl
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Human Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
Western Values ◽  
Culture Brokers

The need for a relevant and instrumental body of knowledge that can secure the taskof historical reconstruction in Muslim societies originally inspired the da’wa for the Islamizationof knowledge. The immediate targets for this da’wa were the social sciences for obvious reasons.Their field directly impinges on the organization of human societies and as such carries intothe area of human value and belief systems. The fact that such a body of knowledge alreadyexisted and that the norms for its disciplined pursuit were assumed in the dominant practiceconfronted Muslim scholars with the context for addressing the issues at stake. How relevantwas current social science to Muslim needs and aspirations? Could it, in its present formand emphasis, provide Muslims with the framework for operationalizing their values in theirhistorical present? How instrumental is it in shaping the social foundations vital for the Muslimfuture? Is instrumentality the only criteria for such evaluations? In seeking to answer thesequestions the seeds are sown for a new orientation in the social sciences. This orientationrepresents the legitimate claims and aspirations of a long silent/silenced world culture.In locating the activities of Muslim social scientists today it is important to distinguishbetween two currents. The first is in its formative stages as it sets out to rediscover the worldfrom the perspective of a recovered sense of identity and in terms of its renewed culturalaffinities. Its preoccupations are those of the Muslim revival. The other current is constitutedof the remnants of an earlier generation of modernizers who still retain a faith in the universalityof Western values. Demoralized by the revival, as much as by their own cultural alientation,they seek to deploy their reserves of scholarship and logistics to recover lost ground. Bymodifying their strategy and revalorizing the legacy they hope that, as culture-brokers, theymight be more effective where others have failed. They seek to pre-empt the cultural revivalby appropriating its symbols and reinterpreting the Islamic legacy to make it more tractableto modernity. They blame Orientalism for its inherent fixations and strive to redress its selfimposedlimitations. Their efforts may frequently intersect with those of the Islamizing current,but should clearly not be confused with them. For all the tireless ingenuity, these effortsare more conspicuous for their industry than for their originality. Between the new breadof renovationists and the old guard of ‘modernizers’, the future of an Islamic Social Scienceclearly lies with the efforts of the former.Within the Islamizing current it is possible to distinguish three principal trends. The firstopts for a radical perspective and takes its stand on epistemological grounds. It questionsthe compatibility of the current social sciences on account of their rootedness in the paradigmof the European Enlightenment and its attendant naturalistic and positivist biases. Consistencedemands a concerted e€fort to generate alternative paradigms for a new social science fromIslamic epistemologies. In contrast, the second trend opts for a more pragmatic approachwhich assumes that it is possible to interact within the existing framework of the disciplinesafter adapting them to Islamic values. The problem with modern sciene is ethical, notepistemological, and by recasting it accordingly, it is possible to benefit from its strengthsand curtail its derogatory consequences. The third trend focuses on the Muslim scholar, rather ...

Comparative Area Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Köllner ◽  
Rudra Sil ◽  
Ariel I. Ahram
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
The Social ◽  
Small N ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Science Disciplines

Two convictions lie at the heart of this volume. First, area studies scholarship remains indispensable for the social sciences, both as a means to expand our fount of observations and as a source of theoretical ideas. Second, this scholarship risks becoming marginalized without more efforts to demonstrate its broader relevance and utility. Comparative Area Studies (CAS) is one such effort, seeking to balance attention to regional and local contextual attributes with use of the comparative method in search of portable causal links and mechanisms. CAS engages scholarly discourse in relevant area studies communities while employing concepts intelligible to social science disciplines. In practice, CAS encourages a distinctive style of small-N analysis, cross-regional contextualized comparison. As the contributions to this volume show, this approach does not subsume or replace area studies scholarship but creates new pathways to “middle range” theoretical arguments of interest to both area studies and the social sciences.

The Edwards' Report and the International Relations profession

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Science Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science Community

The Economic and Social Research Council recently published a Report commissioned from a committee chaired by Professor Edwards, a psychiatrist, so that the Council, and the social science community in general, might know what was good and bad in British social sciences, and where the promising future research opportunities lie over the next decade. Boldly called ‘Horizons and Opportunities in the Social Sciences’, the Report condensed the wisdom of social scientists, both British and foreign, and concludes with a broadly but not uncritically favourable picture of the British scene.

Positivism in the social sciences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Kincaid
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Social Research ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Methodological Individualism ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Social Convention ◽  
The Social

Positivism originated from separate movements in nineteenth-century social science and early twentieth-century philosophy. Key positivist ideas were that philosophy should be scientific, that metaphysical speculations are meaningless, that there is a universal and a priori scientific method, that a main function of philosophy is to analyse that method, that this basic scientific method is the same in both the natural and social sciences, that the various sciences should be reducible to physics, and that the theoretical parts of good science must be translatable into statements about observations. In the social sciences and the philosophy of the social sciences, positivism has supported the emphasis on quantitative data and precisely formulated theories, the doctrines of behaviourism, operationalism and methodological individualism, the doubts among philosophers that meaning and interpretation can be scientifically adequate, and an approach to the philosophy of social science that focuses on conceptual analysis rather than on the actual practice of social research. Influential criticisms have denied that scientific method is a priori or universal, that theories can or must be translatable into observational terms, and that reduction to physics is the way to unify the sciences. These criticisms have undercut the motivations for behaviourism and methodological individualism in the social sciences. They have also led many to conclude, somewhat implausibly, that any standards of good social science are merely matters of rhetorical persuasion and social convention.

scholarly journals Integrating the social sciences into the COVID-19 response in Alberta, Canada

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (7) ◽  
pp. e002672
Author(s):  
Myles Leslie ◽  
Raad Fadaak ◽  
Jan Davies ◽  
Johanna Blaak ◽  
PG Forest ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Infection Prevention ◽  
Interdisciplinary Team ◽  
Infection Prevention And Control ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy Communication ◽  
And Control

This paper outlines the rapid integration of social scientists into a Canadian province’s COVID-19 response. We describe the motivating theory, deployment and initial outcomes of our team of Organisational Sociologist ethnographers, Human Factors experts and Infection Prevention and Control clinicians focused on understanding and improving Alberta’s responsiveness to the pandemic. Specifically, that interdisciplinary team is working alongside acute and primary care personnel, as well as public health leaders to deliver ‘situated interventions’ that flow from studying communications, interpretations and implementations across responding organisations. Acting in real time, the team is providing critical insights on policy communication and implementation to targeted members of the health system. Using our rapid and ongoing deployment as a case study of social science techniques applied to a pandemic, we describe how other health systems might leverage social science to improve their preparations and communications.

OBJECTIVITY IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-250
Author(s):  
Muhammad Tasiu Dansabo ◽  
Muhammad Muhammad Bello
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Science Inquiry ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Structure Of Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Endeavor

The debate on the scientific status of the Social Sciences and their bid to achieve objectivity in their inquiries is an unending debate within and outside the Social Science family. The positivists are of the opinion that objectivity in Social Science is achievable and that scientific methods can be used in Social Science inquiry, just the same or similar way(s) the natural scientists do their scientific endeavor. To the positivists ‘value-free Social Science’ is possible. This position is however criticized even within the Social Sciences, let alone in the scientific world. All these debates centered on whether or not the Social Scientists are truly scientific in their quest for knowledge. No matter the outcome of the debate what is obvious is that there is a philosophical problem with scientific objectivity in general. Based on a historical review of the development of certain scientific theories, in his book, ‘the Structure of scientific revolutions’, a scientist and a historian Thomas Kuhn raised some philosophical objections to claims of the possibility of scientific understanding being truly objective. Against this backdrop, the paper seeks to unravel the varied theoretical debates on the subject.

Predictive Success and Non-Individualist Models in Social Science

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Lauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Theory Of The Firm ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Predictive Success ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Diagnosis ◽  
Resource Based Theory

The predictive inadequacy of the social sciences is well documented, and philosophers have sought to diagnose it. This paper examines Brian Epstein’s recent diagnosis. He argues that the social sciences treat the social world as entirely composed of individual people. Instead, social scientists should recognize that material, non-individualistic entities determine the social world, as well. First, I argue that Epstein’s argument both begs the question against his opponents and is not sufficiently charitable. Second, I present doubts that his proposal will improve predictive success for the social sciences, which I support with Edith Penrose’s resource-based theory of the firm.

History and Social Science in the West

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Passmore
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
External Force ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The West ◽  
Grand Theory ◽  
Academic History ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter analyzes the relationship between history and various disciplines within the social sciences. Historians and social scientists shared two related sets of assumptions. The first supposition was of a world-historical shift from a traditional, hierarchical, religious society to a modern egalitarian, rational one. Second, history and social science assumed that progress occurred within nations possessed of unique ‘characters’, and that patriotism provided the social cement without which society could not function. Nevertheless, academic history seemingly differed from social science in that it was untheoretical and predominantly political. Yet historians focused on the nation’s attainment of self-consciousness, homogeneity, and independence through struggle against internal and external enemies—a history in which great men were prominent. Historians and sociologists unwittingly shared versions of grand theory, in which change was an external ‘force’ driven by the functional needs of the system, and in which meaning derived from measurement against theory, rather than from protagonists’ actions and beliefs.

scholarly journals Rooting carbon dioxide removal research in the social sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 20190138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen Dowell ◽  
Jeff Niederdeppe ◽  
Jamie Vanucchi ◽  
Timur Dogan ◽  
Kieran Donaghy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Removal ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Climate Change Research ◽  
The Social

Reports from a variety of bodies have highlighted the role that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies and practices must play in order to try to avoid the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change. Research into the feasibility of these technologies is primarily undertaken by scholars in the natural sciences, yet, as we argue in this commentary, there is great value in collaboration between these scholars and their colleagues in the social sciences. Spurred by this belief, in 2019, a university and a non-profit organization organized and hosted a workshop in Washington, DC, intended to bring natural and physical scientists, technology developers, policy professionals and social scientists together to explore how to better integrate social science knowledge into the field of CDR research. The workshop sought to build interdisciplinary collaborations across CDR topics, draft new social science research questions and integrate and exchange disciplinary-specific terminology. But a snowstorm kept many social scientists who had organized the conference from making the trip in person. The workshop went on without them and organizers did the best they could to include the team remotely, but in the age before daily video calls, remote participation was not as successful as organizers had hoped. And thus, a workshop that was supposed to focus on social science integration moved on, without many of the social scientists who organized the event. The social scientists in the room were supposed to form the dominant voice but with so many stuck in a snow storm, the balance of expertise shifted, as it often does when social scientists collaborate with natural and physical scientists. The outcomes of that workshop, lessons learned and opportunities missed, form the basis of this commentary, and they collectively indicate the barriers to integrating the natural, physical and social sciences on CDR. As the need for rapid, effective and successful CDR has only increased since that time, we argue that CDR researchers from across the spectrum must come together in ways that simultaneously address the technical, social, political, economic and cultural elements of CDR development, commercialization, adoption and diffusion if the academy is to have a material impact on climate change in the increasingly limited window we have to address it.

Feminism and social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Wylie
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Contextual Values ◽  
Second Wave

Feminists have two sorts of interest in the social sciences. With the advent of the second-wave women’s movement, they developed wide-ranging critiques of gender bias in the conceptual framework and methodology, as well as in the goals, institutions and practice of virtually all the social sciences; they argue that the social sciences both reflect and contribute to the sexism of the larger societies in which they are embedded. Alongside these critiques feminist practitioners have established constructive programmes of research that are intended to rectify the inadequacies of existing traditions of research and to address questions of concern to women. In this they are committed both to improving the disciplines in which they participate and to establishing a sound empirical and theoretical basis for feminist activism. This engagement of feminists with social science, as commentators and practitioners, raises a number of philosophical issues that have been addressed by feminist social scientists and philosophers. These include questions about ideals of objectivity and the role of contextual values in social scientific inquiry, the goals of feminist research, the forms of practice appropriate to these goals, and the responsibilities of feminist researchers to the subjects of inquiry and to those who may otherwise be affected by its conduct or results.

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