Social sciences briefly. Social sciencies. Subject and methods of research. Types of human knowledge

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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 the broad sense of the word, political sciences also 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 begun to spread, by which they mean 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 being. 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

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 social 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 of interest to us, 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 research 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

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).

Social sciencies

otherwise 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 (see). S. 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 S. sciences must be recognized politics(see) 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 the broad sense of the word, political sciences also 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 along with the political sciences. Start jurisprudence(see) in the sense of the scientific study of law, it was laid down by the Roman lawyers, who pursued more practical goals, but at the same time created the first beginnings of a theoretical doctrine of law. Much later, it became an independent science political Economy (see), 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 begun to spread, by which they mean either political economy in the old sense, or even a special science with a new formulation of economic questions. Thus, social sciences can be divided into political, legal, and economic categories according to the categories of state, law, and the national economy, not counting general social science, that is, sociology, which studies society from all aspects 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. This depends: 1) on the greater complexity of social phenomena in comparison 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 interests. passions and national, religious, class, etc. traditions, prejudices and prejudices. The idea that the imperfection of the social sciences depends on the complexity of the phenomena they study was first clearly expressed by Auguste Comte, who was the first to very clearly formulate the need to create a positive science of society (see Sociology), but only in the second half of the 19th century. his idea began to exert any lasting influence on various branches of social science. Similarly, the question of the systematic development of the methodology of the social sciences was first raised only in the middle of the 19th century. in Mill's Logic, and only at the very end of the century did this development move forward in any way. In the Middle Ages, political thinking was subordinated, like all philosophical and scientific activity in general, to theology, but from the era of humanism (see), secularization began (see. ) scientific thought mainly in favor of rationalism (see), which built its theories of social phenomena through pure speculation, detached from connection with reality, while objectively reliable knowledge is given only by experience and observation. A rich supply of factual material for the social sciences can only be provided by sciences dealing with past and present reality, such as history, ethnography, and statistics. In their development, the individual sciences of science, however, were not in the same relation to history. The earliest and strongest connection with history was established in politics, which even with Aristotle had a purely historical basis; in the 18th century Montesquieu also intertwines politics with history. That is why Comte considered both of these thinkers to be his predecessors in sociology. On the other hand, history, in former times, had almost exclusively a political content. On the contrary, the science of law, beginning with the Roman jurists, was in a particularly close alliance with speculative philosophy, and the historical attitude to law was long hampered by the conviction that Roman law is "written reason" itself (ratio scripta). Only at the beginning of the XIX century. in the form of reaction against rationalistic "natural law" of former jurisprudence there was a historical school of the right (see). Political economy, as a special science, also originated in the era of rationalism, and therefore it was dominated by the conviction that scientific laws and practical principles found by deduction can be considered absolute. In the middle of the XIX century. political economy also formed its own historical school (see); the study of economic phenomena and scientific socialism of the second half of the 19th century placed the study of economic phenomena on the same historical ground. Further, sociology, which set itself the task of studying social evolution, drew the attention of lawyers and economists to the primitive forms of law and the national economy, on which ethnography sheds light (on the significance that statistics has received for the economic sciences, see Statistics). To introduce the historical point of view and the historical method into the social sciences, they also began to look for theoretical foundations. In the field of sociology, they were first pointed out by Comte, and in economics there was even a great polemic in the name of historicism against the abstract-deductive method of the "classical" school. An important moment in the history of S. sciences was, finally, the introduction into them of the comparative or comparative-historical (see) method, the general significance of which was foreseen by Comte; even special areas of comparative politics have been created (cf. the well-known work of Freeman under this title), comparative law, etc. In general, in the middle of the 19th century. A major upheaval took place in the social sciences, mainly under the influence of positivism (see Comte) and new social ideas. He was the first to introduce into the system of science the ideas of the scientific regularity of social phenomena and the need to use the methods of positive science in their study. Mill, who first spoke about the logic of the social sciences, was followed by a number of writers who studied this issue from different points of view (Bahn, Wundt, and others in general writings on logic and many purely sociological works). On the other hand, the first thought about the need for a positive science of society originated with Saint-Simon (see), who was the teacher of Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology, and one of the founders of socialism. Rationalistic theories in politics, jurisprudence and political economy of the 18th century. differed too much in the individualistic character, in the 19th century the idea of ​​the public was put forward, moreover, not in the exclusively political sense of the state, which this idea had in the 18th century. Society in the broadest sense of the word, its division into classes, the struggle between the latter, such is the new theme posed by S. to the sciences under the influence of new social aspirations. This was also reflected in historical science, where a special direction of social history arose (see), different from political and cultural history (the same connotation belongs to the expressions of S. politics, S. economics, etc.). As subjects of teaching, the social sciences have hitherto been concentrated in law faculties, but recently special schools of social sciences have begun to emerge: in Paris, the Collège libre des sciences sociales, in Hertford, the College of Sociology, etc. See University, Faculty, Jurisprudence.

Literature. In addition to histories of individual S. sciences, see Baerenbach, "Die Social Wissenschaften" (1882); Bain, "Logic" (department on social sciences; exists in Russian translation); Bougle, "Les sciences sociales en Allemagne" (there is a Russian translation); Caporali, "Filosofia delle scienze sociali" ("La nuova scienza", 1892); Fouillée, "La science sociale contemporaine" (there is a Russian translation), Gothein, "Gesellschaft und Gesellschaftswissenschaft" (in "Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenchaften"); Hauriou, "La science sociale traditionnelle" (1896); Krieken, "Ueber die Begriffe Gesellschaft, Gesellschaftsrecht u. Gesellschaftswissenschaft" (1882); Lewis, "A treatise on the methods of observation and reasoning in politics" (1852); Masaryk, "Versuch einer concreten Logik" (1887); Mayr, "Die Gesetzmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben" (1887; there is a Russian translation); S. Menger, "Untersuchungen über die Methode der Social Wissenschaften und der politischen Oekonomie insbesondere" (there is a Russian translation); J. S. Mill, "System of logic" (department on the logic of the social sciences; there is a Russian translation); M. van der Rest, "Enseignement des sciences, sociales" (1889); Simmel, "Zur Methodik der Social wissenschaft" (Schmoller's "Jahrbuch"); Wundt, "Logik" (Methodenlehre); H. Kareev, "Introduction to the Study of Sociology" (1897); M. Kovalevsky, "Historical and Comparative Method in jurisprudence and methods of studying law" (1880); V. Levitsky, "Problems and Methods of the Science of the National Economy" (1890); S. Muromtsev, "Definition and Basic Division of Law" (1879); Novgorodtsev, "Historical School of Lawyers" (1896), V. Sergeevich, "The task and method of state sciences" (1871).

N. Kareev.

Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron. - St. Petersburg: Brockhaus-Efron. 1890-1907 .

See what "Social Sciences" is in other dictionaries:

Sciences that study human society (history, political economy, statistics, etc.). Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Pavlenkov F., 1907 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

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The subdivision of sciences introduced by G. Rickert according to their subject and method. This subdivision coincides with the opposition of nomothetic science and idiographic science proposed by W. Windelband and elaborated by Rickert. In the last… … Philosophical Encyclopedia

The term used with ser. 19th century and denoting approximately the same as the sciences of culture (see SCIENCES ABOUT NATURE AND SCIENCES ABOUT CULTURE) or idiographic science. The expression "N. about d.” is a translation of the English term. philosophy of "moral science". TO… … Philosophical Encyclopedia

Social and political consequences of the Norman conquest of England and the further development of feudal relations in it (XI-XIII centuries)- A somewhat slower pace, compared with France, was the development of feudal relations in England. In England, by the middle of the 11th century. in the main, feudal orders already dominated, but the process of feudalization was far from over, and ... ... The World History. Encyclopedia

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.

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. This 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 more, 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. Another condition for the liberation of social knowledge was the development of the natural sciences, primarily physics, which changed the way people thought. 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 "Study on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776), he considered the theory of value and distribution of income, capital and its accumulation, the economic history of 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 of 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 of society really works, then political philosophy answers the question of how this life should be arranged, what should be done with the state, which 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 making profitable decisions, organize 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 unit 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 of 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 not a complete list of issues that are increasingly being resolved by 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. In general, we live in small, not large 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.