THE SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC WAY

The Social Scientific Way

The Social Scientific Way

Introduction

The philosophy of social sciences seeks to understand the nature of the study of human behavior and social relations. It is consequently a met theoretical endeavor—a theory about theories of social life. To achieve their end, philosophers of social science investigate both social science as it is practiced, as well as the nature of those studied by the social sciences, namely, human beings themselves, in an attempt to discern the appropriate logic of inquiry for this area of study.

The philosophy of social sciences can be broadly descriptive (unearthing the fundamental conceptual tools in social science and relating them to the tools employed in other human endeavors), prescriptive (recommending that a certain approach be adopted by the social sciences so that they can accomplish what the recommender thinks social science ought to accomplish), or some combination of these. Because the philosophy of social sciences addresses an enterprise with enormous political import and because metatheories of social science invariably are connected to substantive theories of social life itself and moral visions about it, the philosophy of social sciences has had a deep connection to political theory from its beginnings. (Harding, 2006)

Literature Review

Human phenomena are self-evidently meaningful—they are typically performed for a purpose and express an intention, and often follow rules that make them what they are: People don't just move their limbs or emit sounds, they vote, or marry, or sell, or utter sentences, and when they do, their actions and relations appear to be different in kind from the behavior of amoebae or shrimp.

Philosophers mark this difference by saying that humans act, whereas entities that lack consciousness or that lack the capacity to form intentions merely move. How should the interpretation of the meanings of actions fit into the study of human behavior? Does it introduce elements that make such a study different in kind from studying entities whose movements are not meaningful?

Discussion

Question for the Reseach

How does Social Sciences understands the nature of Human Behaviour and Social Relation?

Historically, philosophers have often framed the philosophy of social sciences in terms of the question: “Can the social sciences be scientific in the same way that the natural sciences are?” (The approach that answers this question affirmatively is called naturalism, whereas that which answers it negatively is dubbed humanism; a number of approaches attempt to combine these approaches into a synthetic whole. Given this framework, the term philosophy of social sciences can arguably mislead by suggesting that to be legitimate, the study of human behavior and social relations must be scientific in the way the study of plants and planets is, which is to say that the term seems to imply naturalism.

To avoid suggesting this, practitioners sometimes denominate their field of inquiry “philosophy of social inquiry” or “philosophy of social studies.” However, by whatever name the field is called, it ought to be clear that whether or how the study of human social behavior is scientific is an open question that is part of the ...