Topic 1

DISCUSSION
The focus of the social sciences is on the study of the following:

1. Change in human relationship and reinterpretation between the present and past events.
2. Human activities and spatial distributions an interaction of culture, biological and
physical elements.
3. Basic social systems, institutions and recesses.
4. Relationships between individual and institutions; and among political economic and
social institutions.
5. The nature of societies and authors; and the interactions of people with each other and
also their social and physical environment.
Origin of the term social science - The term "social science" first appeared
in the 1824 book An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most
Conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed System of Voluntary
Equality of Wealth by William Thompson (1775–1833).
In 1982 the British Government challenged the name of the publicly financed social
science research council; arguing “inter–alia” that “social studies” would be more
appropriate description for discipline of scholarship which cannot justly claim to be
scientific. Social science can be defined as study of men living in society. It was said that
man is a political animal. Social sciences deal with group’s activity and achievements.
https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/40587/8/10_chapter1.pdf
I. DEFINITIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
"Social science, which is generally regarded as including psychology, sociology,

anthropology, economics and political science, consists of the disciplined and systematic
study of society and its institutions, and of how and why people behave as they do, both as
individuals and in groups within society.
1. According to Seligman-“social sciences as those mental or cultural sciences

which deal with the activities of the individual as member of the group. The term social
sciences thus embrace all those subjects which deal with the relationship of man to the
society.
2. According to Mitchell, “the term social science is loosely applied to any kind of
study concerning man and society. In the strict sense it should refer the application of
scientific method to the study of the intricate and complex network of
human relationship and the form of organization designed to enable people to live together in
societies.
3. According to Fairchild,” social science as a general term for all the sciences
which are concerned with the human affairs.”
4. According to Peter Lewis,” social sciences are concerned with the laws that
govern society and the social department of man.” So, we can say that social sciences
embrace all those subjects which deal with the human affairs. The social sciences overlap
each other.
II. DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

The study of man as a unique living creature may be viewed in two fundamental
dimensions:
a) Man as an individual being;
b) Man as a social being
III. VARIOUS DISCIPLINES OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
A. According to Seligman, the social sciences can be divided in to three classes:

1. Purely social sciences – political science, history, economics, anthropology,
sociology, penology and jurisprudence.
2. Semi social sciences – ethics and education
3. Sciences with social implications –biology ,medicine , geography, linguistics and
art
B. According to Fairchild: They comprise the following:

Economics, Government, Law, Psychology, Sociology & Anthropology
C. According to S R Rangnathan
Education, Geography, History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, & Law are
Social Sciences.
D. According to H.E. Burns – The following are Social Sciences:

History, Human Geography, Biology, Social Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology,
Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Jurisprudence, & Ethics
E. According to E.C. Hagues

Sociology, Anthropology, Social pathology, Cultural geography, Economics, Political
science & History
F. According to W.F.Ogburn and A.Goldenweiser

Anthropology, Economics, History, Political science & Sociology
G. According to Wilson Gee

Sociology, Economics, Anthropology, Statistics, Psychology, Jurisprudence, History,
Philosophy & Political Science
IV. HISTORY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
In the period of 1760, some effort was spent on the study of man and society. Hobbes`
Leviathan; Lock’s Two Treatises on Government; Vico`s New Science; and Montesquieu Spirit of
Laws were all published in this period. The revival of interest in social science occurred in the middle
of the 18th century. By the middle of 18th century, capitalism had begun to outgrow its early state and
gradually it became the dominant socioeconomic system in western and northern Europe.
In the second half of the 18th century, urbanization and population growth became
accelerated, and during this period slums, alcoholism, brutality of manners etc developed
which were to become the targets of social reforms. In the other half of the 18th century, in
response to the above there is a multiplication of works with a scientific character.
Auguste Comte (1798-1853) invented the term sociology. He was the first to
systematize and give a complete analysis of the principles of the positive character of the
social sciences. Montesquieu and Voltaire broke a new path for politics and history.
V. 19th CENTURY DEVELOPMENT
At the beginning of the 19th century, social science had attained in all the leading
European countries a firm and respectable position. In the 20th century we can also observe
recurrent occasions when proposals for a generalized social science were made. The
contribution of Auguste Comte was accepted immediately; Emile Durkheim and the
sociologists of the late xix century and early xx century were influenced by him. Karl Marx
gave the first general theory of social science.
VI. 20th CENTURY DEVELOPMENT

At this stage, the social science has become institutionalized to a high degree. It has
now become a subject of research. Lawrence A. Kempton in his article “Social Sciences
Today” states that social science as science is very young and there is confusion with regards
to its limits and boundaries. History moves into the humanities, economics becomes
mathematics, anthropology and psychology ally themselves with biology and the geography
is at home with physical science.
While in its initial period, it may have been the preoccupation of a group of semi-
amateurs, philosopher, practical men in business and government, or gentleman of leisure; it
now has become a subject of research on the part of academic specialists.
In the third and the most mature stage of discipline the battles over method have
subsided, the theoretical rivalries tend to be submerged in the efforts to elaborate propositions
bridging the differences and contributing towards the further progress of the discipline.
Each field within the Social Sciences have had contributions by different people over
the years. For example: Wilhelm Wundt is considered the father of Psychology. August
Comte, David Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber are considered the fathers of
Sociology. Adam Smith as the Father of Economics, Erastosthenes, the Father of Geography,
Aristotle as the Father of Political Science and Herodotus as the father of Anthropology and
Father of History and the Sumerians as the First Linguists.
VII. 21st CENTURY DEVELOPMENT
A Conversation with Nicholas A. Christakis. He is a Physician and Social Scientist,

Harvard University; Coauthor (with James Fowler) of Connected: The Surprising Power
of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.
These three things—a biological hurricane, computational social science, and the
rediscovery of experimentation—are going to change the social sciences in the 21st century.
With that change will come, in my judgment, a variety of discoveries and opportunities that
offer tremendous prospect for improving the human condition.
This new frontier in the social sciences is being abetted and even accelerated by
three things that are happening. The first is that a biological hurricane is approaching
the social sciences. Discoveries in biology are calling into question all kinds of ideas,
historically important ideas, in the social sciences—everything from the origin of free
will, to collective expression and collective behavior, to the deep origins of basic
human behaviors. All of these things are being challenged and elevated by discoveries
in biology.
The second thing that is going to change, or challenge the social sciences, is the
era of computational social science, or "big data." If you had asked social scientists
even 20 years ago what powers they dreamed of having, they would have said, "It
would be unbelievable if we could have this little tiny Black Hawk helicopter that
could be microscopic, fly on top of you, and monitor where you are and who you're
talking to, what you're buying, what you're thinking, and if it could do this in real
time, all the time, for millions of people, all at the same time. If we could collect all
these data, that would be amazing."
The third thing that's happening that is going to radically reshape the social
sciences—and it intersects with the foregoing two ideas, the biological hurricane and
big data, or computational social science—is a newfound appreciation for
experimentation in the social sciences. There was always a tradition of doing bona
fide experiments in the social sciences, going back well over 100 years, where people
would be randomly assigned to different treatments. Psychologists have always been
doing this, of course, but other branches of the social sciences are increasingly
rediscovering, and more broadly applying, experiments in all kinds of settings:
workplaces, schools, hospitals, the developing world, online. People are doing
experiments all the time right now, and these experiments offer a robustness of causal
inference that is phenomenal.

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DISCUSSION

The focus of the social sciences is on the study of the following:

I. DEFINITIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

"Social science, which is generally regarded as including psychology, sociology,

1. According to Seligman-“social sciences as those mental or cultural sciences

II. DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

III. VARIOUS DISCIPLINES OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

A. According to Seligman, the social sciences can be divided in to three classes:

B. According to Fairchild: They comprise the following:

D. According to H.E. Burns – The following are Social Sciences:

E. According to E.C. Hagues

F. According to W.F.Ogburn and A.Goldenweiser

G. According to Wilson Gee

V. 19th CENTURY DEVELOPMENT

VI. 20th CENTURY DEVELOPMENT

A Conversation with Nicholas A. Christakis. He is a Physician and Social Scientist,

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