The Two Faces of Social Science

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-45
Author(s):  
Alan Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
The Self ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Real Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Nineteenth

From biology in the late nineteenth century to information theory in the late twentieth, the social sciences have turned to the natural sciences for inspiration. Yet the expectations have never fully been satisfied. After more than one hundred years of effort, the ability of social scientists to say anything with certainty about human behavior is not very impressive. We remain close to where we started, developing theories, trying to test them against data, arguing about methodology, and disputing conclusions. The social sciences have neither the public legitimacy nor the self-confidence that comes from the practice of "real" science.

Flamenquismo and Race

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Llano
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Verbal Abuse ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Press ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Intellectual Production

This chapter shows that the rise of opposition to flamenco and flamenquismo in the late nineteenth century led to verbal abuse of Gypsies in the press and in intellectual production. Journalism and the social sciences used the Gypsy as a scapegoat, blaming him for the ills of the nation and for the public scandals related to Madrid’s booming nightlife. Prominent criminologist Rafael Salillas articulated a bigoted and scathing portrayal of the Gypsy in his book Hampa (1898), in which he also construed flamenco as a criminal type of music. Early flamenco scholars such as Demófilo, Hugo Schuchardt, and Francisco Rodríguez Marín debated the role that Gypsies had played in the making of the flamenco tradition. They argued either that flamenco was a Gypsy creation later improved by Andalusians or that Gypsies had corrupted Andalusian song, turning it into flamenco.

The public sphere in the twilight zone of publicness

2021 ◽  
pp. 026732312110614
Author(s):  
Slavko Splichal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Twilight Zone ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Scholarly Discourse

The article discusses the reasons and conditions for the rise and fall of the popularity of the public sphere concept in scholarly discourse in four parts. The first part examines the peculiar circumstances of the emergence of the concept of the public sphere, and its rapid and widespread adoption in the social sciences. The second part discusses the complexity of the concept “Öffentlichkeit” and its English proxy “the public sphere,” and the contemporary critique of its ideological predispositions. The third part focuses on the liberalization and (operational) banalization of the concept. The final part suggests ways in which social scientists could respond critically to the challenges outlined earlier and reintegrate publicness, the public, and the public sphere into the analysis.

scholarly journals The Exemplary Life of Dimitrios Vikelas (1835-1908)

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Michael Llewellyn Smith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Journey ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Education Culture

<p>This paper describes the "satisfying curve" of Dimitrios Vikelas' life journey, starting from Syros in 1835, moving via Constantinople, Odessa, and Syros again, to London, Paris and finally Athens. It explores Vikelas' multiple aspects, as merchant, writer, traveller, lecturer and essayist, Olympic founder, educationalist, book collector and philanthropist, all of which were united in the public-spirited man of letters (<em>logios</em>). It sets Vikelas in the context of the Greek commercial diaspora, the world of the London expatriate Greek community, and the dynamic society of late nineteenth-century Athens, beginning in the 1870s to act as a magnet to Greek expatriates. The author stresses two qualities of Vikelas: his belief in the idea of a progressive Greek state marked by advances in education, culture, tourism and standards of public life; and the self-awareness and experience which inform his autobiographical writings, not only his memoir <em>My Life</em> but also his last such work, <em>The War of 1897</em>.</p>

scholarly journals Epigenetics as an interdiscipline? Promises and fallacies of a biosocial research agenda

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Michel Dubois ◽  
Séverine Louvel ◽  
Emmanuelle Rial-Sebbag
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Biosocial Research ◽  
Epigenetic Research

Following the spectacular rise of epigenetics since the early 2000s, an increasing number of social scientists have called for it to be recognized as an ‘interdiscipline’, at the crossroads of the life sciences and the social sciences. The aim of this special issue is to advance our knowledge of epigenetics and to address three main issues: the epistemological, conceptual and empirical transformations induced by epigenetic research, the public dissemination of epigenetic knowledge, and finally the normative and sociopolitical implications of epigenetics.

scholarly journals The international congress as scientific and diplomatic technology: global intellectual exchange in the International Prison Congress, 1860–90

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nir Shafir
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Scientific Communication ◽  
International Congress ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Social Scientific

AbstractIn the 1870s, the American prison reformer E. C. Wines attempted to bring together representatives from every country and colony in the world to discuss the administration and reform of the prison, under the auspices of the International Prison Congress. This article tackles the challenge by exploring how the international congress operated as both a social scientific technology and a diplomatic forum that emerged from this short-lived world of amateur social science and diplomacy. It argues that the exigencies of the international congress as a social scientific space forced it to take on diplomatic and political functions that both imprinted a logic of comparability onto the burgeoning international diplomatic system and also caused the eventual exclusion of non-European polities from the congresses. It engages with recent scholarship in history of science specifically to understand the international congress as a technology that mediated intellectual exchange and scientific communication. By examining the challenges posed by the inclusion of non-Western polities in such communication, it attempts to reveal the multiple global histories of the social sciences in the late nineteenth century.

The Social Foundations of Positivism: The Case of Late-Nineteenth-Century Italy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Dylan Riley ◽  
Rebecca Jean Emigh ◽  
Patricia Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Abstract What social conditions produce positivism? One position, common to both positivists and some of their major critics, suggests that positivism is an “ideology” or “worldview” of industrial capitalism. Positivism therefore resonates with the basic experience of capitalism for all social groups. Intellectuals draw on this experience in formulating positivist social science. A second position suggests that positivism is a strategy of distinction by which intellectuals attempt to accumulate symbolic capital against their rivals. This position suggests that positivism is a resource for establishing a social science that imitates the methodology of natural science. Our article argues for a third view focused on the internal structure of the intelligentsia as a social group. Positivism could emerge in both industrial capitalist and preindustrial contexts; however, the types of positivism differ in these two cases because the structure of the intelligentsia differs. In preindustrial contexts, such as nineteenth-century Italy, which is the focus of our analysis, positivists claim an ontological continuity between natural and social sciences. In industrial contexts, on the basis of which most theories of positivism rest, positivists claim a methodological similarity between natural and social sciences. We conclude our analysis by reflecting on the implications of our study for work on positivism and social ontology in the social sciences.

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 ...

The Failed Campaign Against Prostitution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. C. Kemeny
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Red Light ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cult Of Domesticity ◽  
The Family ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Reform Organizations

Protestants criticized prostitution because it threatened the family and ultimately civil society, and the Watch and Ward Society devised a campaign to shut down Boston’s red-light districts. These Protestant elites espoused traditional gender roles and Victorian sexual mores and endorsed the “cult of domesticity.” In the late nineteenth century, a number of reform organizations turned their attention to the “social evil,” as it was popularly called. The Watch and Ward Society’s quest to reduce prostitution placed it squarely within the larger international anti-prostitution movement. Moral reformers resisted all forms of policy that officially sanctioned or tacitly tolerated prostitution, instead arguing for its abolition. Their attempt to suppress commercialized sex eventually collapsed because of the lack of public support.

From Science as a Vocation to Science as a Game: and the Resulting Loss of Meaning

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
Academic Institutions ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
World Science ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Voice

Against a generalized loss of meaning in society, social scientists find it hard to undertake relevant research that addresses problems facing our world. Science has turned from a vocation aimed at improving the lot of humanity to a careerist game dominated by publishing hits in starred journals. Instrumental rewards replace the passion for discovery and the intrinsic quest for knowledge. Competition among academics and academic institutions, such as journals, universities, and professional bodies, is not intrinsically harmful. Competition in the social sciences, however, is currently resulting in large quantities of formulaic publications, increasing specialization, faddishness, opportunism, and a general ironing out of originality and relevance. Academic authorship and the voice of individual scholars is wiped out as most papers are co-authored by several researchers, each a specialist in his or her area. The result is a devaluation of scholarship and a privileging of technical expertise in narrow disciplinary areas.

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.

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