What the social sciences study briefly. Classification of social sciences and humanities
Social (social-humanitarian) sciences- a complex of scientific disciplines, the subject of study of which is society in all manifestations of its life and a person as a member of society. The social sciences include such theoretical forms of knowledge as philosophy, sociology, political science, history, philology, psychology, cultural studies, jurisprudence (jurisprudence), economics, art history, ethnography (ethnology), pedagogy, etc.
Subject and methods of social sciences
The most important subject of research in social science is society, which is considered as a historically developing integrity, a system of relations, forms of associations of people that have developed in the process of their joint activities. Through these forms, the comprehensive interdependence of individuals is represented.
Each of the above disciplines examines social life from different angles, from a certain theoretical and philosophical position, using its own specific research methods. So, for example, in the tool for studying society is the category "power", due to which it appears as an organized system of power relations. In sociology, society is viewed as a dynamic system of relations social groups different degrees of generality. Categories "social group", "social relations", "socialization" become a method of sociological analysis of social phenomena. In cultural studies, culture and its forms are considered as valuable aspect of society. Categories "truth", "beauty", "good", "benefit" are ways of studying specific cultural phenomena. , using categories such as "money", "commodity", "market", "demand", "supply" etc., explores the organized economic life of society. studies the past of society, relying on the surviving various sources about the past, in order to establish the sequence of events, their causes and relationships.
First explore the natural reality by means of a generalizing (generalizing) method, identifying Nature laws.
Second through the individualizing method, non-repeatable, unique historical events are studied. The task of the historical sciences is to understand the meaning of the social ( M. Weber) in various historical and cultural contexts.
AT "philosophy of life" (W. Dilthey) nature and history are separated from each other and opposed as ontologically alien spheres, as different areas being. Thus, not only the methods, but also the objects of knowledge in the natural and human sciences are different. Culture is a product of the spiritual activity of people of a certain era, and in order to understand it, it is necessary to experience it. the values of this era, the motives of people's behavior.
Understanding how direct, direct comprehension of historical events is opposed to inferential, indirect knowledge in the natural sciences.
Understanding sociology (M. Weber) interprets social action, trying to explain it. The result of such an interpretation are hypotheses, on the basis of which the explanation is built. History thus appears as a historical drama, the author of which is the historian. The depth of understanding of the historical era depends on the genius of the researcher. The subjectivity of the historian is not an obstacle to knowledge public life, but a tool and method for understanding history.
The division of the sciences of nature and the sciences of culture was a reaction to the positivist and naturalistic understanding of the historical existence of man in society.
Naturalism considers society from the standpoint vulgar materialism, does not see fundamental differences between cause-and-effect relationships in nature and in society, explains social life by natural, natural causes, using natural scientific methods for their knowledge.
Human history appears as a "natural process", and the laws of history become a kind of laws of nature. So, for example, supporters geographical determinism(geographical school in sociology), the main factor of social change is the geographical environment, climate, landscape (Ch. Montesquieu , G. Bockl, L. I. Mechnikov) . Representatives social darwinism reduce social patterns to biological ones: they consider society as an organism (G. Spencer), and politics, economics and morality - as forms and methods of struggle for existence, a manifestation of natural selection (P. Kropotkin, L. Gumplovich).
naturalism and positivism (O. Comte , G. Spencer , D.-S. Mill) sought to abandon the speculative, scholastic reasoning characteristic of metaphysical studies of society, and create a "positive", demonstrative, generally valid social theory in the likeness of natural science, which had already basically reached the "positive" stage of development. However, on the basis of this kind of research, racist conclusions were made about the natural division of people into superior and inferior races. (J. Gobineau) and even about the direct relationship between class and anthropological parameters of individuals.
At present, we can talk not only about the opposition of the methods of the natural and human sciences, but also about their convergence. In the social sciences, mathematical methods are actively used, which are feature natural sciences: in (especially in econometrics), in ( quantitative history, or cliometry), (political analysis), philology (). In solving the problems of specific social sciences, techniques and methods taken from the natural sciences are widely used. For example, to clarify the date historical events, especially remote in time, knowledge from the field of astronomy, physics, biology is used. There are also scientific disciplines that combine the methods of the social sciences and the natural sciences, for example, economic geography.
The rise of the social sciences
In antiquity, most of the social (social-humanitarian) sciences were included in philosophy as a form of integrating knowledge about man and society. To some extent, we can talk about separating into independent disciplines about jurisprudence ( Ancient Rome) and history (Herodotus, Thucydides). In the Middle Ages Social sciencies developed within the framework of theology as an undifferentiated comprehensive knowledge. In ancient and medieval philosophy, the concept of society was practically identified with the concept of the state.
Historically, the first most significant form of social theory is the teachings of Plato and Aristotle I. In the Middle Ages, thinkers who made a significant contribution to the development of social sciences include Augustine, John of Damascus, Thomas Aquinas , Gregory Palamu. An important contribution to the development of the social sciences was made by figures renaissance(XV-XVI centuries) and new time(XVII century): T. More ("Utopia"), T. Campanella"City of Sun", N. Machiavellian"Sovereign". In modern times, the final separation of the social sciences from philosophy takes place: economics (XVII century), sociology, political science and psychology (XIX century), cultural studies (XX century). University departments and faculties in the social sciences arose, specialized journals devoted to the study of social phenomena and processes began to appear, associations of scientists engaged in research in the field of social sciences were created.
The main directions of modern social thought
In social science as a set of social sciences in the XX century. two approaches have emerged: scientist-technocratic and humanistic (anti-scientist).
The main theme of modern social science is the fate of capitalist society, and the most important subject is post-industrial, “mass society” and the features of its formation.
This gives these studies a clear futurological tone and journalistic passion. Assessments of the state and historical perspective modern society can be diametrically opposed: from foresight global catastrophes to predicting a stable, prosperous future. worldview task such research is the search for a new common goal and ways to achieve it.
The most developed of modern social theories is concept of post-industrial society , the main principles of which are formulated in the works D. Bella(1965). The idea of a post-industrial society is quite popular in modern social science, and the term itself combines a number of studies, the authors of which seek to determine the leading trend in the development of modern society, considering the production process in various, including organizational, aspects.
In the history of mankind stand out three phase:
1. pre-industrial(agrarian form of society);
2. industrial(technological form of society);
3. post-industrial(social stage).
Production in a pre-industrial society uses raw materials rather than energy as the main resource, extracts products from natural materials, and does not produce them in the proper sense, intensively uses labor, not capital. The most important public institutions in the pre-industrial society are the church and the army, in the industrial society - the corporation and the firm, and in the post-industrial society - the university as a form of knowledge production. The social structure of post-industrial society loses its pronounced class character, property ceases to be its basis, the capitalist class is supplanted by the ruling class. elite, possessing high level knowledge and education.
Agrarian, industrial and post-industrial societies are not stages of social development, but are coexisting forms of organization of production and its main trends. The industrial phase begins in Europe in the 19th century. Post-industrial society does not displace other forms, but adds a new aspect related to the use of information, knowledge in public life. The formation of a post-industrial society is associated with the spread in the 70s. 20th century information technologies, which radically influenced production, and, consequently, the way of life itself. In the post-industrial (information) society, there is a transition from the production of goods to the production of services, a new class of technical specialists arises, who become consultants, experts.
The main source of production is information(in a pre-industrial society it is raw materials, in an industrial society it is energy). Science-intensive technologies are replaced by labor-intensive and capital-intensive ones. Based on this distinction, it is possible to single out the specific features of each society: pre-industrial society is based on interaction with nature, industrial society is based on the interaction of society with transformed nature, post-industrial society is based on interaction between people. Society, therefore, appears as a dynamic, progressively developing system, the main driving trends of which are in the sphere of production. In this regard, there is a certain closeness between post-industrial theory and Marxism, which is determined by the general ideological prerequisites of both concepts - educational worldview values.
Within the framework of the post-industrial paradigm, the crisis of modern capitalist society appears as a gap between a rationalistically oriented economy and a humanistically oriented culture. The way out of the crisis should be the transition from the domination of capitalist corporations to research organizations, from capitalism to the knowledge society.
In addition, many other economic and social shifts are planned: the transition from an economy of goods to an economy of services, an increase in the role of education, a change in the structure of employment and orientation of a person, the formation of a new motivation for activity, a radical change in the social structure, the development of the principles of democracy , the formation of new policy principles, the transition to a non-market welfare economy.
In the work of the famous modern American futurologist O. Toflera“Shock of the Future” notes that the acceleration of social and technological changes has a shock effect on the individual and society as a whole, making it difficult for a person to adapt to a changing world. The cause of the current crisis is the transition of society to the civilization of the "third wave". The first wave is an agrarian civilization, the second is an industrial one. Modern society can survive in existing conflicts and global tensions only under the condition of a transition to new values and new forms of sociality. The main thing is the revolution in thinking. Social changes are caused, first of all, by changes in technology, which determines the type of society and the type of culture, and this influence is carried out in waves. The third technological wave (associated with the growth of information technologies and a radical change in communication) significantly changes the way and style of life, the type of family, the nature of work, love, communication, forms of economy, politics, and consciousness.
The main characteristics of industrial technology, based on the old type of technology and division of labor, are centralization, gigantism and uniformity (mass character), accompanied by oppression, squalor, poverty and ecological catastrophes. Overcoming the vices of industrialism is possible in the future, post-industrial society, the main principles of which will be integrity and individualization.
Such concepts as “employment”, “job”, “unemployment” are being rethought, non-profit organizations in the field of humanitarian development are gaining popularity, there is a rejection of the dictates of the market, of narrow utilitarian values that led to humanitarian and environmental disasters.
Thus, science, which has become the basis of production, is entrusted with the mission of transforming society, humanizing social relations.
The concept of a post-industrial society has been criticized from various points of view, and the main reproach was that this concept is nothing more than apology for capitalism.
An alternative route is suggested in personalistic concepts of society , in which modern technologies(“machinization”, “computerization”, “robotization”) are evaluated as a means of deepening self-alienation of man from of its essence. Thus, anti-scientism and anti-technism E. Fromm allows him to see the deep contradictions of the post-industrial society that threaten the self-realization of the individual. Consumer values of modern society are the cause of depersonalization and dehumanization of social relations.
The basis of social transformations should be not a technological, but a personalist revolution, a revolution in human relations, the essence of which will be a radical value reorientation.
The value orientation towards possession (“to have”) must be replaced by a worldview orientation towards being (“to be”). The true vocation of a person and his highest value is love. . Only in love is the attitude to being realized, the structure of a person's character changes, and the problem of human existence finds a solution. In love, a person's respect for life increases, the feeling of attachment to the world, fusion with being is sharply manifested, the alienation of a person from nature, society, another person, from oneself is overcome. Thus, the transition from egoism to altruism, from authoritarianism to genuine humanism in human relations is carried out, and personal orientation towards being appears as the highest human value. The project of a new civilization is being built on the basis of criticism of modern capitalist society.
The purpose and task of personal existence is the construction personalistic (communal) civilization, a society where customs and lifestyle, social structures and institutions would correspond to the requirements of personal communication.
It should embody the principles of freedom and creativity, consent (while maintaining the distinction) and responsibility . The economic basis of such a society is the gift economy. The personalistic social utopia opposes the concepts of "abundant society", "consumer society", "legal society", the basis of which are different kinds violence and coercion.
Recommended reading
1. Adorno T. Towards the logic of the social sciences
2. Popper K.R. The logic of the social sciences
3. Schutz A. Methodology of social sciences
;Under science it is customary to understand systematically organized knowledge based on facts obtained using empirical research methods based on the measurement of real phenomena. There is no consensus on the question of which disciplines belong to the social sciences. There are various classifications of these social sciences.
Depending on the connection with practice, sciences are divided into:
1) fundamental (find out the objective laws of the surrounding world);
2) applied (solve the problems of applying these laws to solve practical problems in the production and social areas).
If we adhere to this classification, the boundaries of these groups of sciences are conditional and mobile.
The generally accepted classification is based on the subject of study (those connections and dependencies that each science directly studies). In accordance with this, the following groups of social sciences are distinguished.
Classification of social sciences and humanities Social Sciences Group | Social sciencies | Subject of study |
historical sciences | Domestic history, general history, archeology, ethnography, historiography, etc. | History is the science of the past of mankind, a way of systematizing and classifying it. It is the basis of humanitarian education, its fundamental principle. But, as A. Herzen noted, "the last day of history is modernity." Only on the basis of past experience can a person know modern society and even predict its future. In this sense, we can talk about the prognostic function of history in social science. Ethnography - the science of the origin, composition, settlement, ethnic and national relations of peoples |
Economic Sciences | Economic theory, economics and management of the national economy, accounting, statistics, etc. | The economy establishes the nature of the laws operating in the sphere of production and the market, regulating the measure and forms of the distribution of labor and its results. According to V. Belinsky, it is put in the position of the ultimate science, revealing the effect of knowledge and transformation of society, economics and law, etc. |
Philosophical Sciences | History of philosophy, logic, ethics, aesthetics, etc. | Philosophy is the most ancient and fundamental science that establishes the most general patterns of development of nature and society. Philosophy performs a cognitive function in society - knowledge. Ethics - the theory of morality, its essence and impact on the development of society and people's lives. Morality and morality play a big role in motivating human behavior, his ideas about nobility, honesty, courage. Aesthetics- the doctrine of the development of art and artistic creativity, a way to embody the ideals of mankind in painting, music, architecture and other areas of culture |
Philological sciences | Literary criticism, linguistics, journalism, etc. | These sciences study language. Language is a set of signs used by members of society for communication, as well as within the framework of secondary modeling systems ( fiction, poetry, texts, etc.) |
Legal Sciences | Theory and history of state and law, history of legal doctrines, constitutional law, etc. | Jurisprudence fixes and explains state norms, the rights and obligations of citizens arising from the country's fundamental law - the Constitution, and develops on this basis legislative framework societies |
Pedagogical Sciences | General pedagogy, history of pedagogy and education, theory and methods of teaching and upbringing, etc. | Analyze individual-personal processes, the ratio of physiological, mental and socio-psychological characteristics characteristic of a person of a certain age |
Psychological sciences | General psychology, personality psychology, social and political psychology, etc. | Social psychology is a borderline discipline. It was formed at the intersection of sociology and psychology. It explores human behavior, feelings and motivation in a group situation. She studies the social basis of personality formation. Political psychology studies the subjective mechanisms of political behavior, the influence of consciousness and subconsciousness, emotions and will of a person, his beliefs, value orientations and attitudes |
Sociological Sciences | Theory, methodology and history of sociology, economic sociology and demography, etc. | Sociology explores the relationship between the main social groups of modern society, the motives and patterns of people's behavior |
Political science | Theory of politics, history and methodology of political science, political conflictology, political technologies, etc. | Political science studies the political system of society, reveals the connections of parties and public organizations with state institutions of governance. The development of political science characterizes the degree of maturity of civil society |
Culturology | Theory and history of culture, musicology, etc. | Culturology is one of the young scientific disciplines that are being formed at the intersection of many sciences. It synthesizes the knowledge about culture accumulated by mankind into an integral system, forming ideas about the essence, functions, structure and dynamics of the development of culture as such. |
So, we found out that there is no consensus on the question of which disciplines belong to the social sciences. However, to social sciences it is customary to attribute sociology, psychology, social psychology, economics, political science and anthropology. These sciences have much in common, they are closely related and form a kind of scientific union.
They are adjoined by a group of related sciences, which belong to humanitarian. it philosophy, language, art history, literary criticism.
The social sciences operate quantitative(mathematical and statistical) methods, and humanitarian - quality(descriptive-evaluative).
From history of the formation of the social sciences and the humanities
Previously, the subject areas known as political science, law, ethics, psychology, and economics fell within the realm of philosophy. The classics of ancient philosophy Plato, Socrates and Aristotle were sure that all the diversity of the surrounding man and the world he senses can be subjected to scientific research.
Aristotle (384-322 BC) proclaimed that all people are naturally inclined to knowledge. Among the things people want to know about first are questions like: why PEOPLE behave the way they do, where social institutions come from and how they function. The current social sciences appeared only thanks to the enviable persistence of the ancient Greeks in their desire to analyze everything and think rationally. Since the ancient thinkers were philosophers, the result of their reflections was considered part of philosophy, and not of the social sciences.
If ancient thought was philosophical in nature, then medieval thought was theological. While the natural sciences freed themselves from the tutelage of philosophy and received their own name at the end of the Middle Ages, the social sciences remained for a long time in the sphere of influence of philosophy and theology. The main reason was, apparently, that the subject of social sciences - the behavior of people - was closely connected with divine Providence and therefore was under the jurisdiction of the church.
The Renaissance, which revived interest in knowledge and learning, did not become the beginning of the independent development of the social sciences. Renaissance scholars studied Greek and Latin texts especially the works of Plato and Aristotle. Their own writings were often reduced to conscientious commentaries on the ancient classics.
The turn took place only in the XVII-XVIII centuries, when a galaxy of outstanding philosophers appeared in Europe: the Frenchman René Descartes (1596-1650), the Englishmen Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704) , German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). They, as well as the French enlighteners Charles Louis Montesquieu (1689-1755) and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), studied the functions of government (political science), the nature of society (sociology). English philosophers David Hume (1711-1776) and George Berkeley (1685-1753), as well as Kant and Locke, tried to find out the laws of the mind (psychology), and Adam Smith created the first great treatise on economics, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).
The era in which they worked is called the Enlightenment. It took a different look at man and human society, freeing our ideas from religious fetters. The Enlightenment put the traditional question differently: not how God created man, but how people create gods, society, institutions. Philosophers continued to think about these questions until the 19th century.
The emergence of the social sciences was greatly influenced by the dramatic changes in society that took place in the 18th century.
The dynamism of social life favored the liberation of the social sciences from the fetters of philosophy. Other release condition social knowledge was the development of the natural sciences, primarily physics, which changed the way people think. If the material world can be the subject of precise measurement and analysis, then why can't the social world become one? The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the first to try to answer this question. In his Course in Positive Philosophy (1830-1842), he proclaimed the emergence of a "science of man", calling it sociology.
According to Comte, the science of society should be on a par with the sciences of nature. His views at that time were shared by the English philosopher, sociologist and lawyer Jeremiah Bentham (1748-1832), who saw in morality and legislation the art of directing the actions of people, the English philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who developed the mechanistic doctrine of universal evolution, the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx (1818-1883), the founder of the theory of classes and social conflict, and the English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), who wrote fundamental works on inductive logic and political economy. They believed that a single society should be studied by a single science. Meanwhile, at the end of the XIX century. the study of society has split into many disciplines and specialties. Something similar happened earlier in physics.
The specialization of knowledge is an inevitable and objective process.
The first among the social sciences stood out economy. Although the term "economics" was used as early as 1790, the subject of this science was called political economy until the end of the 19th century. The Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) became the founder of classical economics. In his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), he considered the theory of value and the distribution of income, capital and its accumulation, economic history Western Europe, views on economic policy, state finances. A. Smith approached the economy as a system in which there are objective laws that can be known. Among the classics of economic thought are also David Ricardo ("Principles of Political Economy and Taxation", 1817), John Stuart Mill ("Principles of Political Economy", 1848), Alfred Marshall ("Principles of Economics", 1890), Karl Marx ("Capital" , 1867).
Economics studies the behavior of large masses of people in a market situation. In small and large - in public and private life - people cannot take a single step without affecting economic relations. When agreeing to work, buying goods on the market, counting our income and expenses, demanding payment of wages, and even going to visit, we - directly or indirectly - take into account the principles of economy.
Like sociology, economics deals with large masses. The global market covers 5 billion people. A crisis in Russia or Indonesia is immediately reflected in the stock exchanges of Japan, America and Europe. When manufacturers are preparing for sale the next batch of new products, they are interested in the opinion of not an individual Petrov or Vasechkin, not even a small group, but large masses of people. This is understandable, because the law of profit requires to produce more and at a lower price, receiving the maximum proceeds from turnover, and not from one piece.
Without a study of people's behavior in a market situation, the economy runs the risk of remaining just a technique for counting - profit, capital, interest, interconnected by abstract constructions of theory.
Political science refers to the academic discipline that studies the forms of government and the political life of society. The foundations of political science were laid down by the ideas of Plato ("Republic") and Aristotle ("Politics"), who lived in the 4th century. BC e. Political phenomena were also analyzed by the Roman senator Cicero. During the Renaissance, the most famous thinker was Niccolò Machiavelli ("The Sovereign", 1513). Hugo Grotzi published On the Laws of War and Peace in 1625. During the Enlightenment, questions about the nature of the state and the functioning of government were addressed to thinkers. Among them were Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau. Political science took shape as an independent discipline thanks to the works of the French philosophers Comte and Claude Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825).
The term "political science" is used in Western countries to distinguish the scientific theories, exact methods and statistical analysis that apply to the study of the activities of the state and political parties and which are reflected in the term political philosophy. For example, Aristotle, although considered the father of political science, was actually a political philosopher. If political science answers the question of how the political life society, then political philosophy answers the question of how this life should be arranged, what should be done with the state, what political regimes are right and which are wrong.
In our country, no distinction is made between political science and political philosophy. Instead of two terms, one is used - political science. Political science, in contrast to sociology, which concerns 95% of the population, affects only the tip of the iceberg - those who really have power, participate in the struggle for it, manipulate public opinion, participate in the redistribution of public property, lobby parliament for the adoption profitable solutions, organizes political parties, etc. Basically, political scientists build speculative concepts, although in the second half of the 1990s. There has been some progress in this area as well. Some applied areas of political science, in particular, the technology of holding political elections, have emerged as an independent direction.
Cultural anthropology was the result of the discovery of the New World by Europeans. Unfamiliar tribes of American Indians amazed the imagination with their customs and way of life. After that, the attention of scientists was attracted by the wild tribes of Africa, Oceania and Asia. Anthropology, which literally means "the science of man", was primarily interested in primitive, or pre-literate, societies. Cultural anthropology deals with the comparative study of human societies, In Europe, it is also called ethnography and ethnology.
Among the outstanding ethnologists of the 19th century, i.e. scientists engaged in comparative studies of culture, are the English ethnographer, researcher of primitive culture Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917), who developed the animistic theory of the origin of religion, American historian and ethnographer Lewis Henry Morgan (1818- 1881), in the book "Ancient Society" (1877) who was the first to show the importance of the clan as the main cell of primitive society, the German ethnographer Adolf Bastian (1826-1905), who founded the Berlin Museum of Ethnology (1868) and wrote the book "People of East Asia" (1866- 1871). The English historian of religion James George Fraser (1854-1941), who wrote the world-famous book The Golden Bough (1907-1915), although he was already writing in the 20th century, is also one of the pioneers of cultural anthropology.
occupies a special place among the social sciences. sociology, which in translation (lat. society society, Greek logos- knowledge, teaching, science) literally means knowledge about society. Sociology is the science of people's lives, based on strict and proven facts, statistics and mathematical analysis, and the facts are often taken again from life itself - from mass opinion polls ordinary people. Sociology for Comte, who coined its name, meant the systematic study of people. At the beginning of the XIX century. O. Comte built a pyramid of scientific knowledge. All the then known fundamental areas of knowledge - mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology - he arranged in a hierarchical order so that the simplest and most abstract sciences were at the bottom. Above them were placed more specific and more complex. The most difficult science was sociology - the science of society. O. Comte thought of sociology as an all-encompassing field of knowledge that studies history, politics, economics, culture and the development of society.
However, contrary to Comte's expectations, European science did not follow the path of synthesis, but, on the contrary, the path of differentiation and splitting of knowledge. The economic sphere of society began to study the independent science of economics, the political - political science, the spiritual world of man - psychology, the traditions and customs of peoples - ethnography and cultural anthropology, and the dynamics of population - demography. And sociology emerged as a narrow discipline that no longer embraced the entire society, but studied in the most detailed way only one, the social sphere.
The formation of the subject of sociology was greatly influenced by the Frenchman Emile Durkheim ("Rules of the Sociological Method", 1395), the Germans Ferdinand Tennis ("Community and Society", 1887), Georg Simmel ("Sociology", 1908), Max Weber ("Protestant Ethics and spirit of capitalism", 1904-1905), Italian Vilfredo Pareto ("Reason and Society", 1916), Englishman Herbert Spencer ("Principles of Sociology", 1876-1896), Americans Lester F. Ward ("Applied Sociology", 1906) and William Graham Sumner ("The Science of Society", 1927-1928).
Sociology arose as a response to the needs of an emerging civil society. Today, sociology is subdivided into many branches, including criminology and demography. It has become a science that helps society to know itself deeper and more concretely. By widely applying empirical methods - questionnaires and observation, document analysis and observational methods, experiment and generalization of statistics - sociology has been able to overcome the limitations of social philosophy, which operates with overly generalized models.
Public opinion polls on the eve of elections, analysis of the distribution of political forces in the country, the value orientations of voters or participants in the strike movement, the study of the level of social tension in a particular region - this is far from full list questions that are increasingly being addressed by the means of sociology.
Social Psychology - it is a border discipline. She was formed at the intersection of sociology and psychology, taking on those tasks that her parents were unable to solve. It turned out that a large society does not directly affect the individual, but through an intermediary - small groups. This world of friends, acquaintances and relatives, closest to a person, plays an exceptional role in our life. We generally live in small, not in big worlds- in a specific house, in a specific family, in a specific company, etc. The small world sometimes influences us even more than the big one. That is why science appeared, which came to grips with it very seriously.
Social psychology is a field of study of human behavior, his feelings and motivation, in a group situation. She studies the social basis of personality formation. As an independent science, social psychology arose at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1908, the American psychologist William McDougal published the book Introduction to Social Psychology, which, thanks to its title, gave its name to the new discipline.
Social sciences, their classification
Society is such a complex object that science alone cannot study it. Only by combining the efforts of many sciences, it is possible to fully and consistently describe and study the most complex formation that exists in this world, human society. The totality of all sciences that study society as a whole is called social science. These include philosophy, history, sociology, economics, political science, psychology and social psychology, anthropology and cultural studies. These are fundamental sciences, consisting of many subdisciplines, sections, directions, scientific schools.
Social science, having arisen later than many other sciences, incorporates their concepts and specific results, statistics, tabular data, graphs and conceptual schemes, theoretical categories.
The whole set of sciences related to social science is divided into two varieties - social and humanitarian.
If the social sciences are the sciences of human behavior, then the humanities are the sciences of the spirit. In other words, the subject of the social sciences is society, the subject humanitarian disciplines- culture. The main subject of the social sciences is study of human behavior.
Sociology, psychology, social psychology, economics, political science, as well as anthropology and ethnography (the science of peoples) belong to social sciences . They have a lot in common, they are closely related and form a kind of scientific union. A group of other related disciplines adjoins it: philosophy, history, art history, cultural studies, and literary criticism. They are referred to humanitarian knowledge.
Since representatives of neighboring sciences constantly communicate and enrich each other with new knowledge, the boundaries between social philosophy, social psychology, economics, sociology and anthropology can be considered very arbitrary. At their intersection, interdisciplinary sciences constantly arise, for example, social anthropology appeared at the intersection of sociology and anthropology, and economic psychology at the intersection of economics and psychology. In addition, there are such integrative disciplines as legal anthropology, sociology of law, economic sociology, cultural anthropology, psychological and economic anthropology, and historical sociology.
Let's get acquainted more thoroughly with the specifics of the leading social sciences:
Economy- the science that studies the principles of organization economic activity people, the relations of production, exchange, distribution and consumption that are formed in every society, formulates the foundations for the rational behavior of the producer and consumer of goods. Economics also studies the behavior of large masses of people in a market situation. In small and large - in public and private life - people cannot take a step without affecting economic relations. When negotiating a job, buying goods on the market, calculating our income and expenses, demanding payment of wages, and even going to visit, we - directly or indirectly - take into account the principles of economy.
Sociology- a science that studies the relationships that arise between groups and communities of people, the nature of the structure of society, the problems of social inequality and the principles of resolving social conflicts.
Political science- a science that studies the phenomenon of power, the specifics of social management, relations that arise in the process of implementing state-power activities.
Psychology- the science of the patterns, mechanism and facts of the mental life of humans and animals. The main theme of the psychological thought of antiquity and the Middle Ages is the problem of the soul. Psychologists study persistent and repetitive behavior in individuals. The focus is on the problems of perception, memory, thinking, learning and development of the human personality. There are many branches of knowledge in modern psychology, including psychophysiology, animal psychology and comparative psychology, social psychology, child psychology and pedagogical psychology, developmental psychology, labor psychology, psychology of creativity, medical psychology, etc.
Anthropology - the science of the origin and evolution of man, the formation of human races, and the normal variations in the physical constitution of man. She studies primitive tribes that have survived today from primitive times in the lost corners of the planet: their customs, traditions, culture, manners of behavior.
Social Psychology studies small group(family, group of friends, sports team). Social psychology is a borderline discipline. She was formed at the intersection of sociology and psychology, taking on those tasks that her parents were unable to solve. It turned out that a large society does not directly affect the individual, but through an intermediary - small groups. This world of friends, acquaintances and relatives, closest to a person, plays an exceptional role in our life. In general, we live in small, not in big worlds - in a specific house, in a specific family, in a specific company, etc. The small world sometimes affects us even more than the big one. That is why science appeared, which came to grips with it very seriously.
Story- one of the most important sciences in the system of social and humanitarian knowledge. The object of its study is man, his activities throughout the existence of human civilization. The word "history" is of Greek origin and means "research", "search". Some scholars believed that the object of study of history is the past. The well-known French historian M. Blok categorically objected to this. "The very idea that the past as such is capable of being the object of science is absurd."
emergence historical science dates back to ancient civilizations. The "father of history" is considered to be the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who compiled a work devoted to the Greco-Persian wars. However, this is hardly fair, since Herodotus used not so much historical data as legends, legends and myths. And his work cannot be considered completely reliable. Thucydides, Polybius, Arrian, Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus have much more reason to be considered the fathers of history. These ancient historians used documents, their own observations, and eyewitness accounts to describe events. All ancient peoples considered themselves historiographers and revered history as a teacher of life. Polybius wrote: “The lessons learned from history most truly lead to enlightenment and prepare for engaging in public affairs, the story of the trials of other people is the most intelligible or only mentor that teaches us to courageously endure the vicissitudes of fate.”
And although, over time, people began to doubt that history could teach future generations not to repeat the mistakes of previous ones, the importance of studying history was not disputed. The most famous Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky in his reflections on history wrote: “History does not teach anything, but only punishes for ignorance of the lessons.”
Culturology primarily interested in the world of art - painting, architecture, sculpture, dance, forms of entertainment and mass spectacles, educational institutions and science. The subjects of cultural creativity are a) individuals, b) small groups, c) large groups. In this sense, culturology covers all types of people's associations, but only to the extent that it concerns the creation of cultural values.
Demography studies the population - the whole set of people that make up human society. Demography is primarily interested in how they reproduce, how long they live, why and in what quantity they die, where large masses of people move. She looks at man partly as a natural, partly as a social being. All living beings are born, die and multiply. These processes are influenced primarily by biological laws. For example, science has proven that a person cannot live more than 110-115 years. Such is its biological resource. However, the vast majority of people live up to 60-70 years. But this is today, and two hundred years ago, the average life expectancy did not exceed 30-40 years. In poor and underdeveloped countries, even today people live less than in rich and very developed ones. In humans, life expectancy is determined both by biological, hereditary characteristics, and by social conditions (life, work, rest, nutrition).
3.7 . Social and humanitarian knowledge
social cognition is the knowledge of society. Cognition of society is a very complex process for a number of reasons.
1. Society is the most complex of the objects of knowledge. In social life, all events and phenomena are so complex and diverse, so different from each other and so intricately intertwined that it is very difficult to detect certain patterns in it.
2. In social cognition, not only material (as in natural science), but also ideal, spiritual relations are explored. These relations are much more complex, diverse and contradictory than the connections in nature.
3. In social cognition, society acts both as an object and as a subject of cognition: people create their own history, and they also cognize it.
Speaking about the specifics of social cognition, extremes should be avoided. On the one hand, it is impossible to explain the reasons for the historical backwardness of Russia with the help of Einstein's theory of relativity. On the other hand, one cannot assert that all those methods by which nature is studied are unsuitable for social science.
The primary and elementary method of cognition is observation. But it differs from the observation that is used in natural science when observing the stars. In social science, knowledge concerns animate objects endowed with consciousness. And if, for example, the stars, even after observing them for many years, remain completely unperturbed in relation to the observer and his intentions, then in public life everything is different. As a rule, a back reaction is detected on the part of the object under study, something makes observation impossible from the very beginning, or interrupts it somewhere in the middle, or introduces into it such interference that significantly distorts the results of the study. Therefore, non-participant observation in social science gives insufficiently reliable results. Another method is needed, which is called included observation. It is carried out not from the outside, not from the outside in relation to the object under study (social group), but from within it.
For all its importance and necessity, observation in social science demonstrates the same fundamental shortcomings as in other sciences. Observing, we cannot change the object in the direction we are interested in, regulate the conditions and course of the process under study, reproduce it as many times as is required for the completion of the observation. Significant shortcomings of observation are largely overcome in experiment.
The experiment is active, transformative. In the experiment, we interfere with the natural course of events. According to V.A. Stoff, an experiment can be defined as a type of activity undertaken for the purpose of scientific knowledge, the discovery of objective patterns and consisting in influencing the object (process) under study by means of special tools and devices. Thanks to the experiment, it is possible to: 1) isolate the object under study from the influence of secondary, insignificant and obscuring its essence phenomena and study it in a “pure” form; 2) repeatedly reproduce the course of the process in strictly fixed, controllable and accountable conditions; 3) systematically change, vary, combine various conditions in order to get the desired result.
social experiment has a number of significant features.
1. The social experiment has a concrete historical character. Experiments in the field of physics, chemistry, biology can be repeated in different epochs, in different countries, because the laws of the development of nature do not depend either on the form and type of production relations, or on national and historical features. Social experiments aimed at transforming the economy, the national-state system, the system of upbringing and education, etc., can give in different historical epochs, in different countries, not only different, but also directly opposite results.
2. The object of a social experiment has a much lesser degree of isolation from similar objects remaining outside the experiment and all the influences of a given society as a whole. Here, such reliable insulating devices as vacuum pumps, protective screens, etc., used in the course of a physical experiment, are impossible. And this means that the social experiment cannot be carried out with a sufficient degree of approximation to "pure conditions".
3. A social experiment imposes increased requirements for observing “safety precautions” in the process of its implementation compared to natural science experiments, where even experiments performed by trial and error are acceptable. A social experiment at any point in its course constantly has a direct impact on the well-being, well-being, physical and mental health of people involved in the "experimental" group. Underestimation of any detail, any failure in the course of the experiment can have a detrimental effect on people, and no good intentions of its organizers can justify this.
4. A social experiment may not be carried out in order to obtain directly theoretical knowledge. To put experiments (experiments) on people is inhumane in the name of any theory. A social experiment is a stating, confirming experiment.
One of the theoretical methods of cognition is historical method research, i.e. a method that reveals significant historical facts and stages of development, which ultimately allows you to create a theory of the object, reveal the logic and patterns of its development.
Another method is modeling. Modeling is understood as such a method of scientific knowledge, in which the study is carried out not on the object of interest to us (original), but on its substitute (analogue), similar to it in certain respects. As in other branches of scientific knowledge, modeling in social science is used when the subject itself is not available for direct study (say, it does not yet exist at all, for example, in predictive studies), or this direct study requires enormous costs, or it is impossible due to ethical reasons. considerations.
In his goal-setting activity, which makes history, man has always sought to comprehend the future. Interest in the future in the modern era has become especially aggravated in connection with the formation of the information and computer society, in connection with those global issues that call into question the very existence of humanity. foresight came out on top.
scientific foresight is such knowledge about the unknown, which is based on already known knowledge about the essence of the phenomena and processes that interest us and about the trends of their further development. Scientific foresight does not claim to be absolutely accurate and complete knowledge of the future, to its obligatory reliability: even carefully verified and balanced forecasts are justified only with a certain degree of certainty.
Society is such a complex object that science alone cannot study it. Only by combining the efforts of many sciences, it is possible to fully and consistently describe and study the most complex formation that exists in this world, human society. The totality of all sciences that study society as a whole is called social science. These include philosophy, history, sociology, economics, political science, psychology and social psychology, anthropology and cultural studies. These are fundamental sciences, consisting of many subdisciplines, sections, directions, scientific schools.
Social science, having arisen later than many other sciences, incorporates their concepts and specific results, statistics, tabular data, graphs and conceptual schemes, theoretical categories.
The whole set of sciences related to social science is divided into two varieties - social and humanitarian.
If the social sciences are the sciences of human behavior, then the humanities are the sciences of the spirit. In other words, the subject of the social sciences is society, the subject of the humanities is culture. The main subject of the social sciences is study of human behavior.
Sociology, psychology, social psychology, economics, political science, as well as anthropology and ethnography (the science of peoples) belong to social sciences . They have a lot in common, they are closely related and form a kind of scientific union. A group of other related disciplines adjoins it: philosophy, history, art history, cultural studies, and literary criticism. They are referred to humanitarian knowledge.
Since representatives of neighboring sciences constantly communicate and enrich each other with new knowledge, the boundaries between social philosophy, social psychology, economics, sociology and anthropology can be considered very arbitrary. At their intersection, interdisciplinary sciences constantly arise, for example, social anthropology appeared at the intersection of sociology and anthropology, and economic psychology at the intersection of economics and psychology. In addition, there are such integrative disciplines as legal anthropology, sociology of law, economic sociology, cultural anthropology, psychological and economic anthropology, and historical sociology.
Let's get acquainted more thoroughly with the specifics of the leading social sciences:
Economy- a science that studies the principles of organizing the economic activity of people, the relations of production, exchange, distribution and consumption that are formed in every society, formulates the foundations for the rational behavior of the producer and consumer of goods. Economics also studies the behavior of large masses of people in a market situation. In small and large - in public and private life - people cannot take a step without affecting economic relations. When negotiating a job, buying goods on the market, calculating our income and expenses, demanding payment of wages, and even going to visit, we - directly or indirectly - take into account the principles of economy.
Sociology- a science that studies the relationships that arise between groups and communities of people, the nature of the structure of society, the problems of social inequality and the principles of resolving social conflicts.
Political science- a science that studies the phenomenon of power, the specifics of social management, relations that arise in the process of implementing state-power activities.
Psychology- the science of the patterns, mechanism and facts of the mental life of humans and animals. The main theme of the psychological thought of antiquity and the Middle Ages is the problem of the soul. Psychologists study persistent and repetitive behavior in individuals. The focus is on the problems of perception, memory, thinking, learning and development of the human personality. There are many branches of knowledge in modern psychology, including psychophysiology, zoopsychology and comparative psychology, social psychology, child psychology and educational psychology, developmental psychology, labor psychology, psychology of creativity, medical psychology, etc.
Anthropology - the science of the origin and evolution of man, the formation of human races, and the normal variations in the physical constitution of man. She studies primitive tribes that have survived today from primitive times in the lost corners of the planet: their customs, traditions, culture, manners of behavior.
Social Psychology studies small group(family, group of friends, sports team). Social psychology is a borderline discipline. She was formed at the intersection of sociology and psychology, taking on those tasks that her parents were unable to solve. It turned out that a large society does not directly affect the individual, but through an intermediary - small groups. This world of friends, acquaintances and relatives, closest to a person, plays an exceptional role in our life. In general, we live in small, not in big worlds - in a specific house, in a specific family, in a specific company, etc. The small world sometimes affects us even more than the big one. That is why science appeared, which came to grips with it very seriously.
Story- one of the most important sciences in the system of social and humanitarian knowledge. The object of its study is man, his activities throughout the existence of human civilization. The word "history" is of Greek origin and means "research", "search". Some scholars believed that the object of study of history is the past. The well-known French historian M. Blok categorically objected to this. "The very idea that the past as such is capable of being the object of science is absurd."
The emergence of historical science dates back to the times of ancient civilizations. The "father of history" is considered to be the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who compiled a work devoted to the Greco-Persian wars. However, this is hardly fair, since Herodotus used not so much historical data as legends, legends and myths. And his work cannot be considered completely reliable. Thucydides, Polybius, Arrian, Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus have much more reason to be considered the fathers of history. These ancient historians used documents, their own observations, and eyewitness accounts to describe events. All ancient peoples considered themselves historiographers and revered history as a teacher of life. Polybius wrote: “The lessons learned from history most truly lead to enlightenment and prepare for engaging in public affairs, the story of the trials of other people is the most intelligible or only mentor that teaches us to courageously endure the vicissitudes of fate.”
And although, over time, people began to doubt that history could teach future generations not to repeat the mistakes of previous ones, the importance of studying history was not disputed. The most famous Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky in his reflections on history wrote: “History does not teach anything, but only punishes for ignorance of the lessons.”
Culturology primarily interested in the world of art - painting, architecture, sculpture, dance, forms of entertainment and mass spectacles, educational institutions and science. The subjects of cultural creativity are a) individuals, b) small groups, c) large groups. In this sense, culturology covers all types of people's associations, but only to the extent that it concerns the creation of cultural values.
Demography studies the population - the whole set of people that make up human society. Demography is primarily interested in how they reproduce, how long they live, why and in what quantity they die, where large masses of people move. She looks at man partly as a natural, partly as a social being. All living beings are born, die and multiply. These processes are influenced primarily by biological laws. For example, science has proven that a person cannot live more than 110-115 years. Such is its biological resource. However, the vast majority of people live up to 60-70 years. But this is today, and two hundred years ago, the average life expectancy did not exceed 30-40 years. In poor and underdeveloped countries, even today people live less than in rich and very developed ones. In humans, life expectancy is determined both by biological, hereditary characteristics, and by social conditions (life, work, rest, nutrition).
3.7 . Social and humanitarian knowledge
social cognition is the knowledge of society. Cognition of society is a very complex process for a number of reasons.
1. Society is the most complex of the objects of knowledge. In social life, all events and phenomena are so complex and diverse, so different from each other and so intricately intertwined that it is very difficult to detect certain patterns in it.
2. In social cognition, not only material (as in natural science), but also ideal, spiritual relations are explored. These relations are much more complex, diverse and contradictory than the connections in nature.
3. In social cognition, society acts both as an object and as a subject of cognition: people create their own history, and they also cognize it.
Speaking about the specifics of social cognition, extremes should be avoided. On the one hand, it is impossible to explain the reasons for the historical backwardness of Russia with the help of Einstein's theory of relativity. On the other hand, one cannot assert that all those methods by which nature is studied are unsuitable for social science.
The primary and elementary method of cognition is observation. But it differs from the observation that is used in natural science when observing the stars. In social science, knowledge concerns animate objects endowed with consciousness. And if, for example, the stars, even after observing them for many years, remain completely unperturbed in relation to the observer and his intentions, then in public life everything is different. As a rule, a back reaction is detected on the part of the object under study, something makes observation impossible from the very beginning, or interrupts it somewhere in the middle, or introduces into it such interference that significantly distorts the results of the study. Therefore, non-participant observation in social science gives insufficiently reliable results. Another method is needed, which is called included observation. It is carried out not from the outside, not from the outside in relation to the object under study (social group), but from within it.
For all its importance and necessity, observation in social science demonstrates the same fundamental shortcomings as in other sciences. Observing, we cannot change the object in the direction we are interested in, regulate the conditions and course of the process under study, reproduce it as many times as is required for the completion of the observation. Significant shortcomings of observation are largely overcome in experiment.
The experiment is active, transformative. In the experiment, we interfere with the natural course of events. According to V.A. Stoff, an experiment can be defined as a type of activity undertaken for the purpose of scientific knowledge, the discovery of objective patterns and consisting in influencing the object (process) under study by means of special tools and devices. Thanks to the experiment, it is possible to: 1) isolate the object under study from the influence of secondary, insignificant and obscuring its essence phenomena and study it in a “pure” form; 2) repeatedly reproduce the course of the process in strictly fixed, controllable and accountable conditions; 3) systematically change, vary, combine various conditions in order to obtain the desired result.
social experiment has a number of significant features.
1. The social experiment has a concrete historical character. Experiments in the field of physics, chemistry, biology can be repeated in different epochs, in different countries, because the laws of the development of nature do not depend either on the form and type of production relations, or on national and historical characteristics. Social experiments aimed at transforming the economy, the national-state system, the system of upbringing and education, etc., can give in different historical epochs, in different countries, not only different, but also directly opposite results.
2. The object of a social experiment has a much lesser degree of isolation from similar objects remaining outside the experiment and all the influences of a given society as a whole. Here, such reliable insulating devices as vacuum pumps, protective screens, etc., used in the course of a physical experiment, are impossible. And this means that the social experiment cannot be carried out with a sufficient degree of approximation to "pure conditions".
3. A social experiment imposes increased requirements for observing “safety precautions” in the process of its implementation compared to natural science experiments, where even experiments performed by trial and error are acceptable. A social experiment at any point in its course constantly has a direct impact on the well-being, well-being, physical and mental health of people involved in the "experimental" group. Underestimation of any detail, any failure in the course of the experiment can have a detrimental effect on people, and no good intentions of its organizers can justify this.
4. A social experiment may not be carried out in order to obtain directly theoretical knowledge. To put experiments (experiments) on people is inhumane in the name of any theory. A social experiment is a stating, confirming experiment.
One of the theoretical methods of cognition is historical method research, that is, a method that reveals significant historical facts and stages of development, which ultimately allows you to create a theory of the object, reveal the logic and patterns of its development.
Another method is modeling. Modeling is understood as such a method of scientific knowledge, in which the study is carried out not on the object of interest to us (original), but on its substitute (analogue), similar to it in certain respects. As in other branches of scientific knowledge, modeling in social science is used when the subject itself is not available for direct study (say, it does not yet exist at all, for example, in predictive studies), or this direct study requires enormous costs, or it is impossible due to ethical reasons. considerations.
In his goal-setting activity, which makes history, man has always sought to comprehend the future. Interest in the future in the modern era has become especially aggravated in connection with the formation of the information and computer society, in connection with those global problems that call into question the very existence of mankind. foresight came out on top.
scientific foresight is such knowledge about the unknown, which is based on already known knowledge about the essence of the phenomena and processes that interest us and about the trends of their further development. Scientific foresight does not claim to be absolutely accurate and complete knowledge of the future, to its obligatory reliability: even carefully verified and balanced forecasts are justified only with a certain degree of certainty.
Spiritual life of society
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