Disciples and Ideas in the Social Science

• Social sciences are defined as the study of society
• Humanities refer to a field of study that deals with how human beings process and document human experience
• Natural sciences focus on studying natural events using scientific methods
• Hypothesis is defined as a "shrewd guess or inference that is formulated and provisionally adopted to explain observed facts or conditions and to guide in further investigation"
• Social sciences deal with the human aspects of the world and analyze society and culture
• William Thompson coined the term "social science" in his book "An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness" in 1824
• August Comte was the first to propose that human society be analyzed using the scientific method
• Plato's "The Republic" laid down some of the earliest thoughts on the foundations of an ideal society
• Aristotle's "Politics" marked the first comprehensive attempt to come up with the most ideal way of distributing power in a community
• Alfred North Whitehead is a british mathematician and philosopher that asserted that the European philosophical tradition consists of a series of footnotes to Plato
• Peter Lombard and Peter Abelard recommended adopting Aristotelian reason and argumentation in Medieval Europe
• St. Thomas Aquinas was the most prominent figure among the scholastics who followed and propagated the scholastic method of learning
• Al-Biruni is considered the first anthropologist and was among the first to launch comparative studies of peoples and cultures
• Ibn Khaldun introduced many concepts used in modern sociology and economics in his work "Muqaddimah"
• Humanism in the Renaissance placed the human being's capacity for reason and rationality at its center
• Leonardo da Vinci's approach to art reflected his investigation of the hidden mechanics of nature
• Galileo Galilei's rejection of the geocentric model of the universe and affirmation of the heliocentric model angered the Catholic Church
• Francis Bacon's Baconian method is a systematic way of testing hypotheses through observation and collection of data
• The Age of Reason was characterized by moving further away from theology and faith-based approaches to knowledge in favor of rationalism
• Auguste Comte introduced the theory of Positivism, which asserts that knowledge is authentic only if affirmed through empirical evidence and strict adherence to the scientific method
• Sociology examines socio-political systems and social dynamics in a scientific manner to guide society towards bettering itself and curing its maladies
• Late Modern Period is the era from the late 18th century to the mid-20th century, featuring a flurry of scientific, social, artistic, and political developments
• Adam Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations", which led many to call him the “Father of Modern Economics”.
• Domain is a sphere of knowledge, influence or activity
• Discipline is a particular branch of learning or body of knowledge, such as physics, sociology and history .
• Empiricism is the view that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience.
• A Hypothesis is defined as a “shrewd guess or inference that is formulated and provisionally adopted to explain observerd facts or conditions and to guide in futher investigation”
• Society is commonly defined as people in general thought of as living together in organized community with shared laws.
• A Norm is a standard or pattern, especially of social behavior that is typical or expected from a group.
• Science in the strictest sense of the word, pertains to “knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation”
• Empirical is defined as a phenomenon that should be observable using the different senses.
• A Propositional is defined as things that are explained in the form of statements or generalizations.
• Public – Ideas are communicated from one scientist to another.
• Problem-solving – Presents rational explanations about unexplained observations.
• Continuous – Knowledge is built upon by pervious and future research on the subject.
• Prime Mover – states that there must be sources of all movement or change in the universe, but which itself remains unmoved or unchanged.
• Scholasticism is the integration of reason and religion as a method of learning.
• Age of Reason was characterized by the academe moving further away from theology and faith-based approaches to knowledge in favor of schools of thought such as rationalism.
• Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet) of France – his writings and advocacy of social reforms influenced important figures in the American and French revolutions.
• Thomas Hobbes postulated that societies are formed when individuals, motivated solely by self-interests, enter and agreement in which one person or a group of people exercises power over a larger group of people.