Scope and Origins of the Social Sciences 1

Scope and Origins of the Social Sciences

Holly Gerard

SSC 420

Dr. Ken Elliott

University of Maine at Augusta

February 2017
Scope and Origins of the Social Sciences 2

The social sciences aim to examine and explain society and its elements; human

interaction, cognitive processes, and the many links between individuals and their emotions, etc.

Writing on the scope and origins of the social sciences sounds like an easy enough assignment at

first glance. When just researching the origins of the social sciences, you will find that the

history goes back much farther than one would think.

Although social sciences being as distinct and recognized disciplines did not predate the

19th Century, the origins of such go back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans with their

rationalist inquiries into the nature of humans, state, and morality. Medieval theology is

thought to have first broke ground in the thoughts about man and society. These ideas may have

not been seen as scientific as in the right of physical sciences but were concepts of political,

economic, social, anthropological, and geographical nature. The church was very much

concerned with matters of man and society during this time. In the Renaissance period,

philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Rene Descartes shared much social thought. Descartes

had the greatest influence in the 17th Century with Cartesianism. Cartesianism declared that

the proper approach to understanding of the world, including man and society, was through a few

simple, fundamental ideas of reality and, then, rigorous, almost geometrical deduction of more

complex ideas, and eventually of large, encompassing theories, from these simple ideas...were

the stock of common sense- the mind that is common to all human beings at birth. These social

philosophers took up so much air that it may have put social science off from being seen as a

science like physical science sooner. Data was very much available to be analyzed for social

research during the 17 and 18th Centuries but instruments were used for illustrative purposes.

(Britannica, 2016)

Although set back as being seen scientific, contributions emerged from the Age of
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Enlightenment after 1650. A revolution in natural philosophy came about where individuals

started to question what was scientific. Moral philosophy, or ethics as it is more commonly

known today, was a root of social science and was thereafter influenced by the Age of

Revolution. Social sciences are rooted in the 18th Century. Two theoretical ideas emerged. The

idea of structure, first of the political structure of state with articles by Rousseau, Hobbes, and

Locke. Other ideas about structure spread to economics, human psychology, and society as a

whole. Another theoretical accomplishment was that of developmental change. Writers as

Rousseau, Condorcet, and Adam Smith were speaking of how the present is an outgrowth of the

Past (Wikipedia, 2016). Although these philosophers were using writing to mainly attack the

government in western Europe, they were setting the stage for greater development of the social

sciences. Other influential happenings in society in this century were: the ideal of science of a

society, heightened awareness of multiplicity, and the sense of a historical basis for human

cultural behavior.

Following this period, Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology, began calling the field

of study science sociale and social physics. Five paths emerged in social science. The first was

the interest in social research. In the United States and Europe, large statistical surveys were

conducted. American historian Frederick Jackson Turner integrated history, geography, and

statistics to help solve social problems; he believed history could be used for more than just

story-telling (Caplow, Hicks, & Wattenberg, 2000).

The second was the study of social facts by Emile Durkheim and the opening of

metatheoretical concepts and individual theories. Thirdly developed, arising from the

methodological dichotomy present, in which social phenomena were identified with and

understood; this was championed by figures such as Max Weber. The fourth path took
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economics into a hard science. The last path, was the correlation of knowledge and social

values; the antipositivism and verstehen sociology of Max Weber firmly demanded this

distinction.(Brittanica, 2016)

The scope of social science is as wide as the world and as lengthy as the history of man.

There are various disciplines in the classification, all of which have developed their own unique

approaches over time, but with some overlap. There are eleven major disciplines under the social

science umbrella, if history is included, with some others being subfields or interdisciplinary,

such as gender studies and environmental studies which incorporate social science and

humanities. The following are description of the main disciplines of the social sciences:

Economics: The first social science to earn credit as a separate science. It seeks to

analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of resources.

Political Science: as a social science examines political theory, behavior, power. It also

examines the relationship between different countries governments.

Sociology: as a social science is used to study and examine all aspects of social life and

embraces every social setting (Shailendra, 2014).

Psychology: An academic and applied field involving the study of behavior and mental

processes. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres

of human activity, including problems of individuals' daily and the treatment of mental

illness (Wikipedia, 2016).

Geography: as a discipline can be split broadly into two main sub fields: human

geography and physical geography. The former focuses largely on the built environment

and how space is created, viewed and managed by humans as well as the influence

humans have on the space they occupy. The latter examines the natural environment and
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how the climate, vegetation & life, soil, water and land form are produced and interact.

Anthropology: The holistic science of man, a science of the totality of human

existence. The discipline deals with the integration of different aspects of the social

sciences, humanities, and human biology. (Wikipedia, 2016)

Communication studies: This discipline deals with processes of human communication,

commonly defined as the sharing of symbols to create meaning.

Education: encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less

tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgment and well-

developed wisdom (Wikipedia, 2016).

Law: in common place, means a rule, which (unlike a rule of ethics) is capable of

enforcement through institutions. Law is not always enforceable, especially in the

international relations context.

Linguistics: This social science discipline examines the cognitive and social aspects of

human language.

The social sciences are frequently accused as being less "scientific" than natural

sciences. They are seen as being less thorough or empirical in their strategies. Social sciences are

sometimes seen as observational, in that clarifications for causal relations are somewhat

subjective. Social science researchers contend against such claims by indicating the utilization of

a rich assortment of investigative procedures, mathematical proofs, and different techniques.

Each discipline, area of study, can produce a multitude of professions. An individual

could be a researcher or a professor of the discipline. They could also be a psychologist,

sociologist, a historian, an anthropologist, an economist, anthropologist. One who studies law

could become a judge or a lawyer. If one studied communications, you could become involved
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with television or radio. Each discipline offers numerous professional opportunities.

References

Caplow, T., Hicks, L., & Wattenberg, B.J. (2000). The First Measured Century.

Nisbet, Robert A. (2016). Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from:

http://www.britannica.com/topic/social-science

Shailendra, R. (2014). Methodology and Perspectives of Social Sciences. Kerala: University of

Calicut.

Social Science Disciplines. (2016). Retrieved from:

http://www.instruction.greenriver.edu/bahl/e127/disciplines.htms

Wikipedia. (2016). Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_social_science