scholarly journals Recent Developments in Political Geography, I

1935 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 785-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hartshorne
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Geography ◽  
New World ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Cultural Features

The border position of geography between the natural and the social sciences is fairly generally recognized. Concerned primarily with differences in the different areas of the world, geography studies both natural and cultural features. In some universities, it is included among the natural sciences, in others among the social sciences. In England and America, geographers have particularly cultivated that portion of their field which leads naturally into economics, i.e., economic geography. Much less attention has been paid to the relations with history, although various geographers and historians have studied what has variously been called historical geography or geographic history. Even less have geographers in the English-speaking countries concerned themselves with that portion of their subject which bears upon the political areas of the world. The territorial problems of the war and postwar period, however, stimulated activity in this field both in England and America, the most notable product of which is Bowman's The New World, consisting in large part of the materials gathered for the American Commission to the Peace Conference.

Defending the Difference

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Natural Entities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Methodological Difference ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One

Dreyfus argues that there is a basic methodological difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences, a difference that derives from the different goals and practices of each. He goes on to argue that being a realist about natural entities is compatible with pluralism or, as he calls it, “plural realism.” If intelligibility is always grounded in our practices, Dreyfus points out, then there is no point of view from which one can ask about or provide an answer to the one true nature of ultimate reality. But that is consistent with believing that the natural sciences can still reveal the way the world is independent of our theories and practices.

Assessing Contemporary Crises: Aligning Safety Science and Security Studies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bibi van den Berg ◽  
Ruth Prins ◽  
Sanneke Kuipers
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Safety Science ◽  
Key Topics

Security and safety are key topics of concern in the globalized and interconnected world. While the terms “safety” and “security” are often used interchangeably in everyday life, in academia, security is mostly studied in the social sciences, while safety is predominantly studied in the natural sciences, engineering, and medicine. However, developments and incidents that negatively affect society increasingly contain both safety and security aspects. Therefore, an integrated perspective on security and safety is beneficial. Such a perspective studies hazardous and harmful events and phenomena in the full breadth of their complexity—including the cause of the event, the target that is harmed, and whether the harm is direct or indirect. This leads to a richer understanding of the nature of incidents and the effects they may have on individuals, collectives, societies, nation-states, and the world at large.

The Mathematics of Society: Variation and Error in Quetelet's Statistics

1985 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore M. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social

“Let us apply to the political and moral sciences the method founded upon observation and upon calculus, the method which has served us so well in the natural sciences.” The social sciences have known no truer follower of Laplace's dictum than Adolphe Quetelet. His mécanique sociale, later physique sociale, was conceived as the social analogue to Laplace's mecanique celeste, and embodied the results of an unswerving commitment not only to the presumed method of celestial physics, but even to its concepts and vocabulary. It is too weak to say that Quetelet's goal was the transmission of the achievements of celestial physics into the social sphere. He aspired to nothing less than imitation.

Decolonizing Cambridge University

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-106
Author(s):  
Keith Hart
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Work ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Relationship ◽  
The World ◽  
Abolition Movement

I dwell here on my own experience of working at Cambridge University for methodological reasons. Anthropologists could make more of the humanities tradition of going deeply into particular personalities, places, events and relations in search of wider truths. Ethnography exemplifies this, but the discipline’s assimilation into the social sciences and academic bureaucracy counteract this impulse. I draw selectively on my anthropological education and academic work to interrogate the political relationship between western societies and their former colonies. Cambridge University is reactionary for sure, but its decentralized organization makes room for a minority sometimes to change the world. The historical example of the abolition movement illustrates this. Anthropology ought to be a way of rethinking the world, and I conclude with how and why I introduced students to the anti-colonial intellectuals who did just that when they led the liberation (not ‘decolonization’) movements that overthrew European empires.

Racial reality and unreality1

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karim Murji
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Constructionist Approach ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the debates on what race is. For some time, the dominant social constructionist approach in the social sciences has insisted that the only proper way to regard race is by refuting any connection with biology. Attention to the many ways in which race is socially constructed has been important; but, while a construction is not ‘unreal’, there is a common further step in which race is thereby deemed to be not valid. The rejection of race tends to treat race as something that would be ‘real’ if it were located in science and biology. The chapter then shows how recent developments in the natural sciences and changing views on the relationship between the natural and social sciences problematise that view. Yet in opposition to post-race views, critical scholars can then be seen to draw on conventional categories of race to show that racialised inequality still matters.

scholarly journals The Cop21 Process from the Point of View of the Social Sciences

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Jan-Erik Lane
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Anthropogenic Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Energy Emissions ◽  
The Universe

<em>Thus far, all the debate about climate change in the myriad of UN conferences and special meetings has been about the application of the theories of the natural sciences to the global warming phenomena. Now, that there is a decision by the governments of the world countries to go ahead with a radical decarbonisation policy in the 21st century, the lessons from the social science theories must be taken into account. The COP21 project is a case of policy implementation, but implementation is difficult. Greenhouse Gases (GHG) like CO2:s stem from the anthropogenic sources of carbon emissions from the factors that drives not only the universe but also all social systems, viz. energy. This article spells out the energy-emissions conundrum of mankind.</em>

Cowboy Economics versus Spaceship Ecology

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Hardin
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
New World ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Henry George ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Beginning Students

Europe-focused histories present the world as it appeared to Europeans and to the cultures derived from that continent. It is said that the New World was discovered in 1492—a statement that would have surprised the Aztecs had they heard it. Adopting for the moment the Eurocentric point of view, we note that whereas before 1492 there were about 24 acres of Europe per European, afterward there were some 120 acres of land per European. The fivefold increase presumes the legitimacy of property gained by conquest. This sudden wealth led to what W. P. Webb called an "age of exuberance." No wonder, as Catton and Riley remarked, "Opportunities thereafter seemed limitless. . . [and] it is not surprising that an optimistic belief in 'progress' developed." The age of exuberance has lasted for over four centuries, but seems to be drawing to a close as the sixth century looms on the horizon. Epicurus proclaimed two important default positions: (1) nothing can be created out of nothing, and (2) no existing thing can be converted into nothingness. These are universally accepted by natural scientists, who view them as conservative statements since they refer to the conservation of things. Are economists conservative, in this sense? The record is mixed. Economists demand that their helpers, the accountants, balance their books exactly; and an economist is likely to tell his beginning students that "There's no such thing as a free lunch." But before the course is far advanced the conservative sense of this incantation seems often to be forgotten. The manmade complexities of the world of finance make it difficult to recognize the underlying conservation of true wealth. Scientists have had an easier time dealing with matter and energy. By 1879 the conservation of these entities had been well established in the natural sciences, but in that year the "single taxer" Henry George (1839-1897) defiantly proclaimed non-conservation in the social sciences (see Box 7-1). Real estate developers and commercial promoters in general still sing George's song.

scholarly journals Emphaty as the foundation of the social sciences and of social life: a reading of Husserl's phenomenology of transcendental intersubjectivity

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 563-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Vandenberghe
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Transcendental Phenomenology ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

Starting with an overview of possible solutions to the problem of social order, the author presents a non-acritical reconstruction of Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomenology of intersubjectivity as a sympathetic alternative to Habermas's theory of communicative action. By means of a detailed analysis of the concept of empathy (Einfühlung), he shows that Husserl's phenomenology of intersubjectivity offers a triple foundation of the sciences. As a warrant of the objectivity of the world, it grounds the natural sciences; as a presupposition of sociality, it founds the social sciences; as mediated by culture, it grounds the social sciences as human sciences.

scholarly journals Motivations and Self-Perceived Career Prospects of Undergraduate Sociology Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Alexandra Valéria Sándor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Further Training ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Short Essay ◽  
Scientific Value ◽  
Future Plans

Sociology undoubtedly plays an important role in the world of sciences, as it provides an opportunity to examine the society in which we live and our social relationships using widely accepted means with real scientific value. As Giddings has noted, 'sociology tells us how to become what we want to be' (Giddings, 2011). However, discussions of the social sciences can be controversial, as they are sometimes perceived as ‘inferior’ to natural sciences. To alleviate this discrepancy, it is essential to supply professionals with useful knowledge in the field of sociology, understand their motivations and ensure the best career prospects for them. In this pilot study, 18 sociology B.A. students answered seven open-ended questions in the form of a short essay regarding their motivations in terms of faculty choices, initial expectations and the fulfilment thereof, their aims in the study of sociology, preferred areas of employment, willingness to undergo further training, five-year plans and their opinions about the prospects of newly graduated sociologists in Hungary compared to graduates from other areas in terms of the usefulness of knowledge gained, perceptions of their professions and earning opportunities. According to the results of this study, the future plans of the participants were very different, but all of them believe that an undergraduate sociology degree provides extensive knowledge about the functioning of society and has helped them to form attitudes that they consider to be extremely valuable on the labour market.

For Your Information

1990 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-25 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
The United States ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Criteria For Selection

The Society for Applied Anthropology invites nominations for the 1991 Malinowski Award. It is presented to an outstanding social scientist who has actively pursued the goal of solving human problems using the concepts and tools of social science in recognition of efforts to understand and serve the needs of the world's societies through social science. Each nomination should follow the criteria for selection as set forth by the SfAA. They are: 1. The nominees should be of senior status, widely recognized for their efforts to understand and serve the needs of the world through the use of social science. 2. The nominees should be strongly identified with the social sciences. They may be within the academy or outside of it, but their contributions should have implications beyond the immediate, the narrowly administrative, or the political. 3. The Awardee shall be willing and able to deliver an address at the annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology. 4. The nominees should include individuals who reside or work outside of the United States.

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