scholarly journals Ways to envisage social science, social reality and ontology

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-26
Author(s):  
Vadim Markovich Rozin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Ideal

This article raises a question on the existence of representations on social nature as an ultimate ontology of social sciences. The complications that do not allow acknowledging such existence are being formulated. The author points at the modern alternative interpretations of ultimate ontology of social sciences – the representations on culture, self-developing systems with synergetic effects, sociality, interculture, etc. It is claimed that the concept of nature was introduced for determining the conditions for an effective practical action in scientific research. In order to clarify the perceptions of ultimate ontology of social science, the article discusses the peculiarities of social science and theory, as well as demarcation of the ideal objects, schemes, and models. As a result, the author was able to demonstrate that the traditional definition of social nature has virtually become obsolete, and is not efficient with regards to social sciences. It is offered to replace it with the categorical representations, which may be considered as the ultimate ontology of social sciences. However, it requires the new designation and characterization of the structure and essence of social sciences.

What, If Anything, is the Philosophy of Political Science?

2020 ◽  
pp. 004839312097682
Author(s):  
Gianluca Pozzoni
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Philosophy Of Social Science ◽  
Special Sciences ◽  
Definition Of

Compared to other philosophies of special sciences, the scope, object, and definition of the philosophy of political science remain vague. This article traces this vagueness to the changing subject matter of political science throughout its history, but argues that all social sciences are subject to radical changes in what count as their defining characteristics. Accordingly, the only legitimate definition of “philosophy of political science” is “the philosophical study of whatever happens to conventionally fall within the scope of political science at a given moment.” Moving from this assumption, this article makes the case for a unified philosophy of social science.

Disentangling the Translational Sciences: A Social Science Perspective

2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis D. Burgio
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Community Settings ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Services Research ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Widespread Dissemination

In this article the author first attempts to disentangle a number of issues in translational science from a social science perspective. As expected in a fledgling field of study being approached from various disciplines, there are marked differences in the research literature on terminology, definition of terms, and conceptualization of staging of clinical research from the pilot phase to widespread dissemination in the community. The author asserts that translational efforts in the social sciences are at a crossroads, and its greatest challenge involves the movement of interventions gleaned from clinical trials to community settings. Four strategies for reaching this goal are discussed: the use of methods derived from health services research, a yet-to-be-developed strategy where decisions to modify aspects of an intervention derived from a clinical trial are triggered by data-based criteria, community based participatory action research (CBPR), and a hybrid system wherein methods from CBPR and traditional experimental procedures are combined to achieve translation. The author ends on an optimistic note, emphasizing the impressive advances in the area over the existing barriers and calling for a unified interdisciplinary science of translation.

scholarly journals JOURNALS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES IN SERBIA BETWEEN GLOBAL AND NATIONAL INTERESTS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Semiz ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Scientific Productivity ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
National Interests

The paper problematizes the current situation and development perspectives of social science journals in Serbia in the context of global (international) and national interests. Scientific articles in national social science journals are commonly the most prevalent form of dissemination and production of scientific knowledge, standpoints and views, a clear indicator of research excellence of university teachers, as well as the indicator of the quality of scientific journals, and the quality of scientific research in general. Therefore, it is not surprising that national and global interests and values intertwine in the domain of national journals. The reference framework for the analysis of selected issues is placed within the range of existing scientometric and bibliometric research, as well as the legislation referring to scientific research, manner and procedures for the evaluation of research results, and election to academic titles. The analysis we conducted led to the general conclusion that national social science journals are in a gap between the national and global context. Although their significance is beyond question, by promoting national and cultural values and interests, they exist as insufficiently competitive and globally invisible media for transfer and valorization of scientific knowledge in the academic community. In addition to analyzing the implications of the current education policies, editorial policies of the journals and strategic solutions aimed at raising and evaluating the quality of national social science journals, and integrating them into global information system trends, the paper also proposes potential directions for further development of national social science journals as a prerequisite for raising scientific productivity in the domain of social sciences.

scholarly journals Doing things with description: practices, politics, and the art of attentiveness

2020 ◽  
pp. 146879412097597
Author(s):  
Nicole Vitellone ◽  
Michael Mair ◽  
Ciara Kierans
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
The Social

In a number of linked articles and monographs over the last decade (e.g. Love, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017), literary scholar and critic Heather Love has called for a descriptive (re)turn in the humanities, repeatedly taking up examples of descriptive methods in the social sciences as exemplifying what that (re)turn might look like and achieve. Those of us working as sociologists, anthropologists, science and technology studies scholars and researchers in allied social science fields thus find ourselves reflected back in Love’s work, encountering our own research practices in an unfamiliar light through it. In a period where our established methods and analytical priorities are subject to challenges on many fronts from within our own disciplines, it is hard not be struck by Love’s provocative invocation of the social sciences as interlocutors and see in it an invitation to contribute to the debate she has sought to initiate by revisiting our own approaches to the problem of description. Inspired by Love’s intervention, the eight papers that form this Special Issue demonstrate that by re-engaging with description we stand to learn a great deal. While the articles themselves are topically distinct and geographically varied, they are all based on empirical research and written to facilitate a reorientation to the role of description in our research practices. What exactly is going on when we describe an ancient papyrus as present or missing, a machine as intelligent, noise as music, a disease as undiagnosable, a death as good or bad, deserved or undeserved, care as appropriate or inappropriate, policies as failing or effective? As the papers show, these are important questions to ask. By asking them, we find ourselves in positions to better understand what goes into ‘indexing and making visible forms of material and social reality’ (Love, 2013: 412) as well as what is involved, more troublingly, in erasing, making invisible and dematerialising those realities or even, indeed, in uncovering those erasures and the means by which they were effected. As this special issue underlines, thinking with Love by thinking with descriptions is a rewarding exercise precisely because it opens these matters up to view. We hope others take up Love’s invitation to re-engage with description for that very reason.

scholarly journals Computational approach to social knowledge

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
I.F. Mikhailov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Computational Social Science ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Computational System ◽  
Conceptual Schemes ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Computational Systems

Social and cognitive sciences have always faced the choice: either to meet the methodologi- cal standards given by successful natural sciences or to rely on their own. Talking about the conversion of knowledge into technology, the second way did not bring great success. The first way implies two alternative opportunities: reductionism or discovery of proprietary general laws. None of these chances have been realized with any satisfactory results, too. Methodological analysis shows that, to achieve significant progress in social sciences, what is missed there is not new facts or definitions but new conceptual schemes. The reason, as the author supposes, is the nomothetic approach being applied to systems with high degree of complexity and hierarchy. If we assume that social structures and processes are built upon cognitive psychological structures and processes, the former inherit the distributed computational architecture of the latter. The paper analyzes various conceptions of computations in order to determine their relevance to the task of building computational social science. The author offers a “generic” definition of computations as a process carried out by a computational system if the latter is understood as a mechanism of some representation. According to the author, the computationalization of social science implies “naturalization” of computations. This requires a theory that would explain the mechanism of growing complexity and hierarchy of natural (in particular, social) computational systems. As a method for constructing such a science, a kind of reverse engineering is proposed, which is recreation of a computational algorithmic scheme of social tissue by the determination and recombination of “social primitives” – elementary operations of social interaction.

What is Forced Labour? A Practical Guide for Humanities and Social Science Research

2018 ◽  
pp. 79-93
Author(s):  
Jean Allain
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Practical Guide ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Definition Of

This practical guide provides a baseline understanding of the concept of forced labour to assist researchers in the humanities and social sciences ensure their representations of the phenomenon are rigorous and credible. While recognising the limitations of the 1930 ILO Convention definition of forced labour, this Chapter provides helpful guidance in understanding what does – and what does not – constitute forced labour. Summarised in 10 Practical Points for Understanding Forced Labour, this Chapter helps researchers build a baseline understanding of forced labour by providing a dozen helpful markers to ensure that those within the humanities and social sciences are speaking the same language when they represent the phenomenon of forced labour.

scholarly journals Social Science, Philosophy and Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-155
Author(s):  
Robin Barrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science Philosophy ◽  
Individual Success

This essay argues for the urgent need for philosophy as the necessary first step in any educational undertaking. Philosophy is involved with making fine distinctions which are necessary to clarify concepts and terms. The paper focuses primarily on the problems with an overreliance on scientific research in the social sciences, with special emphasis on the dangers posed in educational research. Three specific problems are identified. First, the emphasis on scientific research downgrades non-scientific research, which may be more appropriate as modes of inquiry in many aspects of education. Second, the emphasis on scientific research distorts research in areas such as the arts and humanities because individual success as a scholar is largely measured by criteria that make sense in the natural sciences but not necessarily in the arts. Third, and most significantly, the paper questions whether social action and interaction can be investigated in a truly scientific manner.

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Guala
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Scientific Investigation ◽  
Constitutive Rule ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Entities

Naturalism is still facing a strong opposition in the philosophy of social science from influential scholars who argue that philosophical analysis must be autonomous from scientific investigation. The opposition exploits philosophers’ traditional diffidence toward social science and fuels the ambition to provide new foundations for social research. A classic anti-naturalist strategy is to identify a feature of social reality that prevents scientific explanation and prediction. An all-time favorite is the dependence of social phenomena on human representation. This article examines two prominent versions of the dependence thesis and concludes that they both fail. Contemporary social science is capable of accounting for the causal dependence of social reality on representation, and there is no reason to believe that social entities are ontologically dependent on the collective acceptance of a constitutive rule.

Epistemology of the Digital

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Enrica Amaturo ◽  
Biagio Aragona
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Computational Techniques ◽  
Social Investigation ◽  
Consistent Group ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Active Commitment

The debate on the consequences that big data and computational techniques have generated in social sciences has developed from two opposite extremes. A consistent group of scholars today supports an active commitment of sociologists in dealing with the technological dimension of social investigation. The works developed by these “digital sociologists” focus on the definition of a method of social research that adopts a critical posture on the role that digital technology must have in scientific research but, at the same time, creative on the possibilities offered by technology to research. This posture requires great attention to the epistemology of the digital.

The social construction of social construction: implications for theories of nationalism and identity formation

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J. Motyl
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Science Concept ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nationalism And Identity

Although most contemporary theories of nationalism and identity formation rest on some form of social constructivism, few theorists of nationalism and identity formation interrogate social constructivism as a social construction – a social science concept “imposed” on the non-self-consciously constructivist behaviors of people, who generally do not believe they are engaging in construction. Since social constructivism – unless it is a metaphysics about what is real – is really about the concept of social construction, the first task of constructivists is to ask not how various populations have engaged in social construction but how social construction should be defined. As this article shows, constructivism is at best a run-of-the-mill theoretical approach – perfectly respectable, but no different from any other theoretical approach in the social sciences. It is only when social constructivism makes outlandishly radical claims – that all of reality or all of social reality is constructed – that it is unusual, exciting, and wrong.

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