Social science report form scheme. Social Sciences. Spiritual life of society
The humanities and social sciences are a complex of many disciplines, the subject of which is both society as a whole and the individual as its member. These include political science, philosophy, philology, psychology, economics, pedagogy, jurisprudence, cultural studies, ethnology and other theoretical knowledge.
Specialists in these areas are trained and graduated by science, which can be a separate educational institution, and be a subdivision of any liberal arts university.
social sciences
First of all, they explore the society. Society is considered as an integrity that develops historically and represents associations of people that have developed as a result of joint actions and have their own system of relations. The presence of different groups in society makes it possible to see how interdependent individuals are from each other.
Social sciencies: research methods
Each of the disciplines listed above uses its own characteristics. Thus, political science, exploring society, operates with the category of "power". Culturology considers as an aspect of society that has value, culture and forms of its manifestation. Economics explores the life of society from the standpoint of the organization of housekeeping.
To this end, she uses categories such as market, money, demand, product, supply, and others. Sociology considers society as a constantly developing system of relations between social groups. History studies what has already happened. At the same time, trying to establish the sequence of events, their relationship, causes, it is based on all kinds of documentary sources.
The rise of the social sciences
In ancient times, social sciences were mainly included in philosophy, since philosophy studied both the person and the whole society at the same time. Only history and jurisprudence were partially separated into separate disciplines. The first social theory was developed by Aristotle and Plato. During the Middle Ages, social sciences were considered within the framework of theology as knowledge of the undivided and embracing absolutely everything. Their development was influenced by such thinkers as Gregory Palamas, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John of Damascus.
Starting from the New Age (since the 17th century), some social sciences (psychology, cultural studies, political science, sociology, economics) are completely separated from philosophy. In higher educational institutions, faculties and departments are opened in these subjects, specialized almanacs, magazines, etc. are published.
Natural and social sciences: differences and similarities
This problem has been solved in history ambiguously. Thus, the followers of Kant divided all sciences into two types: those studying nature and culture. Representatives of such a trend as the “philosophy of life” generally sharply contrasted history with nature. They believed that culture is the result of the spiritual activity of mankind, and it can be understood only by experiencing and realizing those eras, the motives of their behavior. In modern sciences and natural sciences are not only opposed, but also have points of contact. This is, for example, the use of mathematical research methods in philosophy, political science, history; application of knowledge from the field of biology, physics, astronomy in order to establish the exact date of events that occurred in the distant past.
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.
History- 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.
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 (they 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.
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 social science. 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, the way to embody the ideals of mankind in painting, music, architecture and other areas of cultureSo, 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. This philosophy, language, art history, literary criticism.
The social sciences operate quantitative(mathematical and statistical) methods, and humanitarian - quality(descriptive-evaluative).
social institution democracy society
Social sciences or social sciences that study different aspects of human social life (political economy, statistics, legal and government sciences, history).
Social sciences (social sciences) are a group of academic disciplines that study aspects of a person's being in the sphere of his social activity. They differ from art in that they emphasize the use of the scientific method and scientific standards in the study of human society, including quantitative and qualitative analysis of problems in the research methodology.
The social sciences, in the study of the intersubjective, objective, or structural aspects of society, are sometimes regarded as the humanities. This distinguishes them from the "obviously" natural sciences, which focus exclusively on objective natural phenomena. In addition, sociologists are involved in theoretical and practical research on both the collective and individual behavior of people. Stolyarenko L.D. Fundamentals of sociology. Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 2006. - S. 155-156
Social sciences (social sciences) study different aspects of human social life, but sometimes this term is used in the singular in the sense of general social science, and then it is synonymous with sociology. The social sciences are closely related to the humanities, which study the spiritual side of human life; some see in them only a special department of the humanities. The oldest of the social sciences must be recognized as politics in the Aristotelian sense of the science of the state. With the development of specialization in the study of the state, even a special cycle of state (or political) sciences was formed, and this name means both general theories about the nature and structure of the state and about the laws governing the phenomena that occur in its life, and historical investigations in the same area. , and the doctrine of the norms of state life or the means of influencing this life in order to achieve certain practical goals. In a broad sense, political sciences include those legal and economic disciplines that in one way or another relate to the state: public and financial law, political economy, and statistics. But in essence, law and the national economy, as categories distinct from the category of the state, are studied by special cycles of the social sciences, which have an independent significance alongside the political sciences. The beginning of jurisprudence in the sense of the scientific study of law was laid by the Roman lawyers, who pursued more practical goals, but at the same time created the first principles of the theoretical doctrine of law. Much later, political economy emerged as an independent science, studying the social relations of people, which owe their origin to their economic activity. Its close connection with the former "politics" was also reflected in its name, which, however, among the Germans is replaced by the names of "national economy" or "science of the national economy" ("Nationaloekonomie, Volkswirtschaftslehre"). Recently, the name "social economy" has also become widespread, by which one means either political economy in the old sense, or even a special science with a new formulation of economic questions. Thus, the social sciences can be divided into political, legal and economic categories of the state, law and national economy, not counting the general social science, i.e. sociology, which studies society from all sides of its existence. The close relationship that exists in reality between the state, law and the national economy, of course, does not allow one to isolate one circle of knowledge from another, and in particular there are separate disciplines that equally fall into the field of at least two categories. Such, for example, are state law, as a political-legal discipline, financial law, as a discipline both economic and political, etc. The social sciences cannot claim such perfection as the natural sciences more or less differ. It depends: 1) on the greater complexity of social phenomena, compared with phenomena of a physical nature, 2) on the longer-term subordination of the social sciences to metaphysical speculations, 3) on the recent systematic development of their methodology, and 4) on the influence exerted on them by practical interests, party passions. and national, religious, class, etc. traditions, prejudices and prejudices. Rozanova Z.A. Sociology: Educational and practical guide. M.: Gardariki, 2007. - S. 102-103
Cognition. Part II.
Content elements
Scientific knowledge.
Social and humanitarian knowledge.
Types of human knowledge.
Knowledge is information about the world around us, accumulated during the life of mankind. Forms of knowledge:
a) depending on the form of social consciousness - everyday (everyday), mythological, scientific, philosophical, religious;
b) depending on the form of consolidation - conceptual, symbolic, artistic and figurative;
c) depending on the degree of scientificity - scientific (generalized systematized knowledge operating with laws, corresponding to the existing scientific picture of the world) and non-scientific (non-scientific knowledge - disparate, non-systematic knowledge that is not formalized and not described by laws and is in conflict with the existing scientific picture of the world ) Forms of non-scientific knowledge:
but) myths- legends of ancient peoples about the origin and essence of the world, about natural phenomena, about gods and legendary heroes;
b) life practice (experience)- forms practical information about the world around them, they are a by-product of everyday practice;
in) folk wisdom- achievements of practice, recorded in the form of descriptions (sayings, riddles, aphorisms);
G) common sense- spontaneously developing under the influence of everyday experience, people's views on the surrounding reality and themselves (obvious, clear, unambiguous information);
e) parascience(pair - about-, at-, after-) - various forms of scientific activity aimed at studying paranormal phenomena (unusual, the reliability of which has not been confirmed by modern science). It uses information that is not confirmed by experiment, that does not fit into existing theories. Parascience is intolerant of traditional science, claims to be universal, uses pseudoscientific terminology;
e) artistic knowledge- knowledge of the world with the help of artistic images (a generalized reflection of reality, clothed in the form of a specific, individual phenomenon). With the help of the image in the singular, transient, the essence is revealed
Scientific knowledge.
Scientific knowledge is the process of obtaining objective, true knowledge.
Distinctive features of scientific knowledge:
a) the objectivity of the principles and laws discovered by science, the correlation of scientific concepts with experience,
b) reproducibility of the result obtained under the same conditions,
c) the systematic nature of the provisions put forward, their validity, evidence,
d) openness of scientific theory, ideas to any rational criticism,
e) the use of special methods and methods of cognitive activity, a special language that clearly fixes the meaning of concepts.
Two levels of scientific knowledge - empirical and theoretical. The main task of empirical knowledge is the description of phenomena and objects, and the main form of the knowledge obtained is an empirical scientific fact. Empirical knowledge involves methods of observation and experiment. Observation is a purposeful study of individual objects and phenomena, during which knowledge is obtained about the external properties and features of the object under study. The result of the observation is an empirical description. Experiment is a method of studying phenomena, which is carried out under strictly defined conditions (the latter can, if necessary, be recreated and controlled by the subject of knowledge). Experiments can be research (aimed at obtaining new knowledge), control (theoretical assumptions are checked) and mental (the given conditions are imaginary, the scientist operates not with real objects, but with their theoretical images). A thought experiment is a link between the empirical and theoretical levels of knowledge.
The theoretical level of cognition is the explanation of the studied phenomena, the disclosure of their essence. Methods: creating mental models (a model is something that can replace the subject under study in a certain respect), hypothesizing (an assumption that can be used to explain empirical facts that do not fit into the framework of previous explanations), the discovery of scientific laws (objective, universal, necessary and the essential connection of phenomena and objects, which is characterized by stability and repeatability), the formulation of scientific theories (a logically consistent description of the phenomena and processes of the surrounding world, which is expressed by a special system of concepts).
Social sciences, their classification.
Social (social) sciences - a system of sciences about society, about the forms and laws of its development. Philosophy is the science of the universal laws of the development of nature, society and thinking (but it underlies all sciences, cannot be called only social). Sociology is the science of society as an integral system and of individual social institutions, processes, social groups and communities, the relationship of the individual and society. Separate areas of public life are studied by economics, history (the development of society), political science, jurisprudence (law), cultural studies, religious studies, ethics (the science that studies morality), aesthetics (the science of beauty and ugliness).