Toward an Integration of Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences

1977 ◽  
Vol 41 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1259-1268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuben Fine
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The Other ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empirical Information ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological System ◽  
Future Growth

It has been argued that psychoanalysis is a psychological system with a philosophical outlook. Its philosophy has been designated the analytic ideal. The behavioral sciences, products in the main of the past hundred years, have developed as bodies of empirical information grounded on dubious theoretical bases. Hence they have in general been opposed to psychoanalysis. Nor can this opposition be expected to diminish or disappear unless the practitioners succeed in disentangling their personal biases from their ideology. All the social sciences should be reorganized with psychoanalytic psychology as the core. From the other side, psychoanalysis can be strongly influenced and improved by incorporation of data from the social sciences. In many areas that is going on rapidly. The result will be one unified science of man, with psychoanalysis at or near the center, which will embrace all the knowledge currently available, and build a sound base for future growth and research.

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.

A Theme for Social Sciences?

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 82-90
Author(s):  
Michael Drake
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Proper Form ◽  
The Social

In recent years the quest for the proper form and content of social science studies has been a major preoccupation of academics. The reasons for this are numerous: the very rapid expansion of higher education generally and the particularly marked demand for the social sciences has led to a proliferation of new departments; brash young men have been promoted early (too early, many would say) to positions of power within the universities; the increasingly vocal criticism by the consumers of education – the students themselves – and, perhaps most important of all, a growing desire to re-aggregate human knowledge to counter the trend towards ever narrower degrees of specialism. All these factors have contributed to a mounting dissatisfaction with the traditional ways of studying the social sciences – that is, in almost hermetically sealed departments of economics, of politics, of sociology, and so on. Instead attempts have been made to draw the various social sciences together in studies of particular areas (Britain, Latin America, the underdeveloped world, the ‘new nations’); or of particular processes such as industrialisation, or urbanisation; or of particular problems as associated with, for instance, poverty or race. Each of these represents, of course, a multi- or inter-disciplinary approach to the study of the social sciences. Over the past four years I have been associated with two attempts to produce an integrated, inter-disciplinary course in social sciences. One was a failure; the other, my current preoccupation, is, I think, promising. What I have to say tonight is concerned with an analysis of these two intellectual experiments.

A Theme for Social Sciences?

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 82-90
Author(s):  
Michael Drake
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Proper Form ◽  
The Social

In recent years the quest for the proper form and content of social science studies has been a major preoccupation of academics. The reasons for this are numerous: the very rapid expansion of higher education generally and the particularly marked demand for the social sciences has led to a proliferation of new departments; brash young men have been promoted early (too early, many would say) to positions of power within the universities; the increasingly vocal criticism by the consumers of education – the students themselves – and, perhaps most important of all, a growing desire to re-aggregate human knowledge to counter the trend towards ever narrower degrees of specialism. All these factors have contributed to a mounting dissatisfaction with the traditional ways of studying the social sciences – that is, in almost hermetically sealed departments of economics, of politics, of sociology, and so on. Instead attempts have been made to draw the various social sciences together in studies of particular areas (Britain, Latin America, the underdeveloped world, the ‘new nations’); or of particular processes such as industrialisation, or urbanisation; or of particular problems as associated with, for instance, poverty or race. Each of these represents, of course, a multi- or inter-disciplinary approach to the study of the social sciences. Over the past four years I have been associated with two attempts to produce an integrated, inter-disciplinary course in social sciences. One was a failure; the other, my current preoccupation, is, I think, promising. What I have to say tonight is concerned with an analysis of these two intellectual experiments.

scholarly journals The Epistemic Imperialism of Science. Reinvigorating Early Critiques of Scientism

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas B. Mazur
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Tremendous Impact ◽  
Mainstream Psychology

Positivism has had a tremendous impact on the development of the social sciences over the past two centuries. It has deeply influenced method and theory, and has seeped deeply into our broader understandings of the nature of the social sciences. Postmodernism has attempted to loosen the grip of positivism on our thinking, and while it has not been without its successes, postmodernism has worked more to deconstruct positivism than to construct something new in its place. Psychologists today perennially wrestle to find and retain their intellectual balance within the methodological, theoretical, and epistemological struggles between positivism and postmodernism. In the process, pre-postmodern criticisms of positivism have been largely forgotten. Although they remain deeply buried at the core of psychology, these early alternatives to positivism are rarely given explicit hearing today. The current piece explores some of the early critiques of positivism, particularly of its scientism, as well as early suggestions to tip the scales (back) in favor of sapientia (“wisdom”). This third option, largely overlooked within mainstream psychology, is of tremendous value today as it is both deconstructive and constructive relative to the shortcomings of positivism. It avoids the overly reductionistic “trivial order” of positivism, as well as the deeply unsatisfying and disorienting “barbaric vagueness” of postmodernism, while simultaneously embracing important core elements of both currents of thought.

Non-Traditional Modern Advaita Gurus in the West and Their Traditional Modern Advaita Critics

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 6-37
Author(s):  
Phillip Charles Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The Other ◽  
Advaita Vedanta ◽  
The West ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of

The Modern Advaita movement has undergone a split between two factions: one remains committed to a more traditional articulation of Advaita Vedanta, and the other has departed in significant ways from this traditional spiritual system. Over the past fifteen years, the Traditional Modern Advaita (TMA) faction has launched sustained and wide-ranging criticism of Non-Traditional Modern Advaita (NTMA) teachers and teachings. This article identifies the main themes of TMA criticisms and interprets their significance using insights from the social sciences and history of religions. I suggest that some reconfiguring of the Advaita tradition is necessary as it expands in transnational directions, since the structures of intelligibility from one culture to another are rarely congruent. Indeed, adaptation, accommodation and reconfiguration are normal and natural processes for religious traditions expanding beyond their indigenous cultural matrices. In the end, the significant questions for Advaita missionaries to the West may be how much accommodation is prudent, how rapidly reconfiguration should take place, and what adaptations are necessary for their spiritual methodology not only to survive but also thrive in new cultural settings.

scholarly journals Academic Naming: Changing Patterns of Noun Use in Research Writing

2021 ◽  
pp. 007542422110190
Author(s):  
Ken Hyland ◽  
Feng (Kevin) Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
The Other ◽  
Research Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Named Objects ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Methodological Approaches

In this paper we explore the ways academics name processes as things and how these practices have changed over the past fifty years. Focusing on nominalization, noun-noun sequences, and acronyms, we document an increase in these features across a corpus of 2.2 million words within a consistent set of journals from four disciplines. Our results show that nominalizations and acronyms have increased in all four fields, particularly in applied linguistics and sociology, and that while noun-noun sequences have fallen in electrical engineering, they have risen in the other disciplines, especially sociology. We also suggest that noun-noun phrases have increasingly come to name methodological approaches, rather than concepts or objects, and we seek to account for these changes. We observe that these increases in naming are related to the need for succinctness in modern research writing and the advantages of endowing named objects with a real existence which can then be credited with explanatory authority. We question, however, the appropriacy of these practices for interpretation in the social sciences.

The “Historical Turn” in the Social Sciences

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert S. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Past ◽  
Professional Societies ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
The Social

The first professional societies in the United States, from the 1880s to the 1910s, understood history to be closely associated with the other social sciences. Even in the mid-twentieth century, history was still grouped with the other social sciences, along with economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology. But in the past few decades, history and anthropology in the United States (though not necessarily in other countries) have moved away from the social sciences to ally themselves with the humanities—paradoxically, just when the other social sciences are becoming more committed to historical research.

Clausewitz: A Bibliographical Survey

1965 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Paret
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Partial Loss ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Bibliographical Survey

The vitality of the social sciences in the United States has not prevented some of its most influential pioneers from becoming unread classics. A widespread preference for textbook treatment and up-to-theminute analysis plays its part; but if the reader does want to turn to the originals, he often finds that they are not readily available. Complete and scholarly editions of writers who pursued new directions of inquiry are rarer than might be supposed—even in their native language. The situation is particularly bad when it comes to foreign authors. A writer's theories and insights may be transmitted through one or two major works, while the rest of his output is ignored, so that his thoughts are analyzed in isolation, without benefit of the preliminary sketches, correspondence, and marginal studies that would give depth and suppleness to the interpretation. Until recently Rousseau and Tocqueville have been in this position; another case in point is Max Weber, ignorance of whose fertile theorizing has misled more than one commentator. Still another, and extreme, example of intellectual discontinuity is provided by Clausewitz. Much of his work has never been published; even in German most of it is out of print; little of it has ever been translated. The result has been the partial loss of a remarkable historical and theoretical achievement. To the American reader, in particular, Clausewitz rarely means more than the “philosopher of war,” a famous name associated with one or two clichés backed up by little of substance. Repeated attempts to outline Clausewitz's thought, or to present the “essential Clausewitz” in the form of excerpts, have never been of more than doubtful value, if only because his methodology and dialectic are scarcely less interesting than the conclusions they reach. It would be pointless to attempt the impossible once again. On the other hand, a brief survey of Clausewitz's writings and of the literature concerning him may provide a useful introduction to his theories and to the manner in which for the past 150 years they have influenced the study and the waging of war.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

scholarly journals The Relevance of Inequality Research in Sociology for Inequality Reduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110201
Author(s):  
Thomas A. DiPrete ◽  
Brittany N. Fox-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Large Scale Change ◽  
The Subject

Social inequality is a central topic of research in the social sciences. Decades of research have deepened our understanding of the characteristics and causes of social inequality. At the same time, social inequality has markedly increased during the past 40 years, and progress on reducing poverty and improving the life chances of Americans in the bottom half of the distribution has been frustratingly slow. How useful has sociological research been to the task of reducing inequality? The authors analyze the stance taken by sociological research on the subject of reducing inequality. They identify an imbalance in the literature between the discipline’s continual efforts to motivate the plausibility of large-scale change and its lesser efforts to identify feasible strategies of change either through social policy or by enhancing individual and local agency with the potential to cumulate into meaningful progress on inequality reduction.

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