Context, Social Construction, and Statistics: Regression, Social Science, and Human Geography

1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
L Hepple
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Human Geography ◽  
Social Constructivist ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constructivist Perspective

In response to a paper by T J Barnes, published in 1998, the author accepts the same social-constructivist perspective, but argues that the structure of regression was not excessively constrained by its biometric origins. The history of regression and its use in the social sciences is examined, and the author argues that any assessment of regression in human geography must be set against this wider context.

Scientific realism and social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Keat
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Realist Conception

A central issue in the philosophy of the social sciences is the possibility of naturalism: whether disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, economics and psychology can be ‘scientific’ in broadly the same sense in which this term is applied to physics, chemistry, biology and so on. In the long history of debates about this issue, both naturalists and anti-naturalists have tended to accept a particular view of the natural sciences – the ‘positivist’ conception of science. But the challenges to this previously dominant position in the philosophy of science from around the 1960s made this shared assumption increasingly problematic. It was no longer clear what would be implied by the naturalist requirement that the social sciences should be modelled on the natural sciences. It also became necessary to reconsider the arguments previously employed by anti-naturalists, to see whether these held only on the assumption of a positivist conception of science. If so, a non-positivist naturalism might be defended: a methodological unity of the social and natural sciences based on some alternative to positivism. That this is possible has been argued by scientific realists in the social sciences, drawing on a particular alternative to positivism: the realist conception of science developed in the 1970s by Harré and others.

Discourse Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 88-94
Author(s):  
Elisa Narminio ◽  
Caterina Carta
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

This chapter describes discourse analysis. In linguistics, discourse is generally defined as a continuous expression of connected written or spoken language that is larger than a sentence. However, as a method in the social sciences, discourse analysis (DA) gave rise to diatribes about where to set the borders of discourse. As language constitutes the very entry point to the world, some discourse analysts argue that all that exists acquires meaning through language. Does this mean that discourse constitutes reality? Is there anything outside text and discourse? Or is discourse one among many means of social construction? The evolution of DA in social science unearths an ontological debate between ‘realists’ and ‘nominalists’, which eventually reverberates in epistemological strategies.

Multiple Regression and Spatial Policy Analysis: George Udny Yule and the Origins of Statistical Social Science

10.1068/d291 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie W Hepple
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Multiple Regression Analysis ◽  
Multiple Regression ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spatial Policy ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Statistics

Studies on the history of statistics by MacKenzie and on quantitative geography by Barnes have suggested that the lineaments and assumptions of statistical methods such as correlation and regression are closely related to their origin in biometrics and eugenics. This paper challenges that view by examining in detail the work of George Udny Yule. Yule was a colleague of Karl Pearson in the 1890s, but was interested in social science and social policy applications, not eugenics. In the late 1890s he constructed both the theory and application of multiple regression analysis, using geographical data. The paper examines Yule's work and its context, relating it to debates on the history of statistics, and traces the subsequent early diffusion of regression and correlation into the social sciences. The paper concludes by arguing for greater recognition of Yule's pivotal role, and also for further studies on the history of quantitative social science.

Social science as apologia

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102199096
Author(s):  
Federico Brandmayr
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

The social sciences are predominantly seen by their practitioners as critical endeavours, which should inform criticism of harmful institutions, beliefs and practices. Accordingly, political attacks on the social sciences are often interpreted as revealing an unwillingness to accept criticism and an acquiescence with the status quo. But this dominant view of the political implications of social scientific knowledge misses the fact that people can also be outraged by what they see as its apologetic potential, namely that it provides excuses or justifications for people doing bad things, preventing them from being rightfully blamed and punished. This introduction to the special issue sketches the long history of debates about the exculpatory and justificatory consequences of social science and lays the foundations for a theory of social scientific apologia by examining three main aspects: what social and cognitive processes motivate this type of accusation, how social theorists respond to it and whether different contexts of circulation of ideas affect how these controversies unfold.

Social Science and Ideological Critiques of Ecclesiology

2018 ◽  
pp. 552-572
Author(s):  
Neil Ormerod
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Problematic Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Edward Schillebeeckx ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Human Condition

Theology has long engaged philosophy as a dialogue partner, but the social sciences raise a new set of issues as both theology and the social sciences reflect concretely on the human condition. The problematic relationship between theology and the social sciences is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the area of ecclesiology. Whenever ecclesiology turns from more idealistic ahistorical forms of discourse to deal with the actual context and constitution of historical communities, the role of the social sciences in providing insights into those contexts and constitutions becomes difficult to deny. This chapter seeks to map out some of the history of the engagement with the social sciences by ecclesiologists such as Clodovis Boff, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Edward Schillebeeckx, John Milbank, and Roger Haight, and the challenges that this engagement poses. Underlying this debate are profound theological issues concerning grace and nature.

scholarly journals The Social Construction of the Soundscape of the Castilian Cities (15th and 16th Centuries)

Acoustics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-77
Author(s):  
Gisela Coronado Schwindt
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Normative Documents ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Combining Methods

This paper seeks to develop some conceptual elements that articulated the social construction of the soundscape of the urban spaces of the kingdom of Castile (15th–16th centuries). We focus our attention on the revision of the normative spheres that structured the subjective universe of the Castilian inhabitants, in order to notice and spot the different sound representations that intervened in the spatial and social configuration of the cities, their possible conflicts, and levels of acoustic tolerance. This proposal is part of the so-called “sensorial turn” in the Social Sciences, defined by David Howes as a cultural approach to the study of the senses as well as a sensorial approach to the study of culture. The research is carried out through the analysis of the sensory marks present in a documentary corpus made up of normative documents (municipal ordinances, books of agreement, chapter acts, diocesan synods, and royal dispositions) and judicial documents (General Archive of Simancas) combining methods of discourse analysis and the history of the senses. In the article, we argue and remark that the sound dimension operated as a device that acted in the shaping of the identity of places, since it contributed to define and delimit their use. This was reflected in the importance given by the authorities to the normative regulation of the community, which included a textual dimension in which the historical soundscape was imprinted, revealing the multiple social interactions that integrated it.

Social science and the absence of nature: uncertainty and the reality of extremes

2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiner Grundmann ◽  
Nico Stehr
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Sociology Of Science ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Science Discourse ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sociological Approaches ◽  
Climate Events

The elimination of nature from social science discourse is one of the most noteworthy features of the intellectual history of the social sciences of this century. Proposals to overcome the prohibition to (re-)introduce nature into the social sciences are on the increase, and practical and theoretical justifications are offered in support of them. In this article we critically examine several sociological approaches that have attempted to respond to the ecological crisis. In the end, these approaches remain overly tied to questions of epistemology and fail to offer a satisfactory alternative. On the basis of a discussion of theories and research in the sociology of science and work on decision-making under conditions of uncertainty, we propose to develop an alternative basis for “bringing nature” into social science discourse. We explore extreme climate events to illustrate how natural phenomena appear as real, yet at the same time constructed.

scholarly journals Metaphors and social science

1999 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric D. Macpherson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Concerns ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
History Of

The social sciences have a considerable history of attempts to apply models and theories from the physical sciences. All such attempts have failed, primarily because social scientists have commonly not distinguished between applications and possibly useful metaphors.Attempts to apply non-linear mathematics to social concerns will similarly fail. There are now no non-trivial applications, and there are unlikely ever to be.But the phenomenon of reifying models and theories from elsewhere has long standing status in the social sciences, and DDNS can play an important role in monitoring those attempts.

scholarly journals Observations on the Intellectual History of Ethnology and other Social Sciences in Yugoslavia

1969 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel M. Halpern ◽  
E. A. Hammel
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Folk Theory ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

As anthropologists turn increasingly to the study of complex societies, they are led to reflect on the role that social science plays in national ideologies and the ways in which the current state and development of social science reflect other cultural states and processes. Indeed, such reflections can usefully be turned on our own society. One sees that it is much more appropriate to discard old notions of the distinction between ‘science’ and ‘folklore’ and to regard the social science of a particular society, however sophisticated and presumably objective, as an important part of its subjective ideology about itself and the world and thus a part of its own folk theory about the relations of man to society and of men to men. This paper is a sketch of some of the interrelationships between Yugoslav social science and other aspects of Yugoslav culture, with primary emphasis on ethnology.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document