SocPhi Reviewer (Prelim)

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY,
AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

Philosophy is based on analytic understanding of the nature of truth asserted about specific
topics of issues.
It asks the questions:“What is the nature of truth?”,“How do we know what we know?”
Before the modern period, the growth of the sciences was slowed down because of the
dominance of religious authority and tradition.
Science Humanities
Pure Science Visual Arts
Applied Science Performing Arts
Social Science Religion
Law
Linguistics
History
The Scientific Revolution, which began with Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), refers to
historical changes in thought and belief, to changes in social and institutional organization, that
unfolded in Europe roughly between 1550 and 1700.
René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who is
considered the father of modern philosophy, Descartes advocated the use of rigorous
philosophical analysis to arrive at truths rather than basing them on dogmas.
Sir Isaac Newton - proposed universal laws of motion and a mechanical model of the Universe.
Sir Francis Bacon - established the supremacy of reason over imagination.
Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton - laid the foundation that allowed science and technology
to change the world.
Martin Luther - eroded the power of the Roman Catholic Church.
Enlightenment - was a largely cultural movement, emphasizing rationalism as well as political

and economic theories, and was clearly built on the Scientific Revolution.
In the Age of Enlightenment, philosophers led by Immanuel Kant challenged the use of
metaphysics or absolute truth derived mainly from unjustified tradition and authority such as the
existence of God.
“What is Enlightenment?” - Kant’s famous essay.

Whereas in the Medieval Period, universities relied mainly on religious tradition and the Bible to
explain the nature of the universe and the place of human beings in the grand scheme of things,
the modern universities started to rely on science and its method to interpret the world.
Max Weber - one of the leading figures in modern sociology, described this process as
rationalism.
Rationalization - means that social life is more and more subjected to calculation and
prediction. Calculation and prediction can only be achieved if human beings and society rely on
regularities established by modern science.
Louis Pasteur - discoveries of germ theory and the development of vaccination.

Francois Lyotard - points out, Science triumphed because it provided reliable results.
Education is the single most important factor in the rise of social sciences. The growth of
universities also contributed to the triumph of science. Merchants and capitalists supported
universities and institutions of secular learning because they became the hub of training future
scientists, technocrats, and technological innovators.
Durkheim - one of the founding "fathers" of sociology, for instance, lectured on the need to
secularize education and base the curriculum on the need of nation-state-to develop citizens
necessary for the modern world.
Ferdinand Tonnies - a German sociologist, and contemporary of Max Weber, lamented the
passing away of gemeinschaft or community because of urbanization.
Tonnies' classic book Community and Society (1957) showed how the modern way of life had
drastically changed the way people relate to one another.
Livres des merveilles du monde recorded the travels of Marco Polo, an Italian merchant from
Venice. This book introduced the Europeans to Asia and China, and inspired Columbus' five
journeys to America (1492-1506).
Charles Tilly - a historian, believed that this was one of the major factors in the large-scale
change in European history that also determined largely the direction of the social sciences.
Harriet Martineau - a British political economist and sociologist, social scientists shifted their
attention to non-Western world as a model of the early stage of Western civilization.
George Simmel - a German sociologist in the early 20th century, to decry the growing
depersonalization of life due to the introduction of money.
Auguste Comte - a French philosopher and mathematician, is the founding father of sociology.
Harriet Martineau - an English writer and reformist.
Karl Marx - further contributed to the development of sociology. Marx introduced the materialist
analysis of history which discounts religious and metaphysical (spiritual) explanation for
historical development.
Emile Durkheim - made possible the professionalization of sociology by teaching it in the
University of Bordeaux. Durkheim argued that society possesses a reality sui generis (that is, its
own kind, or a class by itself unique) independent of individuals and institutions that compose it.
Anthropology as a scientific discipline originated from social philosophy and travelogs of

Western travelers. It grew out of the encounters of social scientists with the non-Western world.
Allan Barnard - "anthropology emerged as a distinct branch of scholarship around the middle of
the nineteenth century, when public interest in human evolution took hold.
Four great anthropologists helped to formalize and advance anthropology as a discipline,

namely, Franz Boas (1858-1942), Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (1884-1942), Alfred
Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955), and Marcel Mauss (1872-1950).
Franz Boas - is often considered as the father of modern American anthropology, He was the
first anthropologist to have rejected the biological basis of racism or racial discrimination. Boas
advocated cultural relativism or the complexity of all cultures whether primitive or not.
Bronisław Kasper Malik - was a Polish grant who did a comprehensive study of Trobriand
Island.
Participant observation - is a method of social science research that requires the

anthropologists to have the ability to participate and blend with the way of life of a given group of
people.
Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown - advocated the study of abstract principles that govern
social change.
Structural-functionalist paradigm - the basic unit of analysis for anthropology and social
sciences are the social structures and the functions they perform to maintain the equilibrium of
society.
Political Science is part of the social sciences that deals with the study of politics, power, and
government in turn, politics refers to "the process of making collective decisions in a community,
society, or group through the application of influence and power" (Ethridge and Handelman
2010, p. 81.
Political Science studies how even the most private and personal decisions of individuals are
influenced by collective decisions of a community.
Nomos means "law and order. It is the norms, laws, conventions, and customs that emanate
from rational thinking. Meanwhile, physit means "nature." It is the core characteristics of
things-the essence of all matter and creation.
Niccolo Machiavelli, hailed as one of the first modern social scientists, studied citizens as
distinct to governments.
Thomas Hobbes, he proposed the idea through his book Leviathan that society is a group of
individuals united by agreements to accept authority, as the natural con- dition of humanity is
"war of all against all, and marked by self-interest.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that human history is brought about by unintended

consequences and that there has been not much progress.
Harry Elmer Barnes noted that during that time, social sciences was seen as the savior to bring
back the previous order- -a way to resolve the resulting widespread confusion, disintegrating
social order, and various social problems brought about by modernity that is the industrial
revolution.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) in his book Logic (1843) argued that the laws of society be the
product of the laws of the actions and passions of human beings.

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THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY,

AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

Pure Science Visual Arts

Applied Science Performing Arts

Social Science Religion

Enlightenment - was a largely cultural movement, emphasizing rationalism as well as political

“What is Enlightenment?” - Kant’s famous essay.

Louis Pasteur - discoveries of germ theory and the development of vaccination.

Anthropology as a scientific discipline originated from social philosophy and travelogs of

Four great anthropologists helped to formalize and advance anthropology as a discipline,

Participant observation - is a method of social science research that requires the

Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that human history is brought about by unintended

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