Explanation in the social sciences

EPISTEMOLOGIA ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 197-210
Author(s):  
Giuliano Di Bernardo

This paper treats a classical topic of scientific epistemology from a new point of view. It considers biology to be a science intermediate between physics and sociology, and the transition from physics to biology as proceeding upwards. As a consequence, any type of reductionism will be avoided. The foundation of sociology can now be viewed as an extension of physics and biology. Indeed social reality is built by means of constitutive rules that create those social facts that have been denominated ‘institutional' (such as governments and all state institutions, marriage, and money). Having argued for the connection among values and norms (ought-to-be) and actions (is), the problem is that of justifying this connection. Can values and norms be reasons that explain action? Can reasons be understood as causes? In this paper the thesis is advocated that reasons are not sufficient for causally explaining actions. Taking up the classical analysis of ‘practical inference', I want to point out that, if from the reasons for action (understood as causes) logically followed the action itself, the reasons would be sufficient causes of the action: indeed, this would eliminate free will. For this reason, we must examine the problem of free will. My conclusion is in favor of the position of B. Libet, who has demonstrated free will experimentally, and therefore the nondeterministic nature of the practical-inferential model.

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
Andérbio Márcio Silva Martins ◽  
Neimar Machado de Sousa ◽  
Hemerson Vargas Catão ◽  
Fábio Conscianza

Nomes e sobrenomes guarani e kaiowá possuem uma origem histórica a partir do contato com os colonizadores europeus. Aos poucos, os nomes tradicionais estão entrando em desuso, do ponto de vista social, mas têm insistido a sua permanência do ponto de vista religioso, como uma espécie de proteção. Neste artigo, apresentamos um levantamento dos nomes civis de professores indígenas guarani e kaiowá que passaram pela Licenciatura Intercultural Indígena – Teko Arandu, Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados – UFGD, Mato Grosso do Sul. O levantamento foi realizado a partir do Sistema de Controle de Turmas do Professor. Em seguida, à luz de fatos históricos e sociais, apresentamos as funções sociais dos nomes na atualidade e postulamos as possíveis origens dos sobrenomes, considerando o processo de colonização pelo qual passaram esses povos. Os resultados do estudo não abrangem a origem dos sobrenomes na sua individualidade, mas apresentam um panorama das condições históricas e sociais que puderam dar condições à existência dessa nova forma de nomear e de indicar pertencimento familiar entre os indígenas guarani e kaiowá do cone sul de Mato Grosso do Sul.First names and surnames of the Guarani and Kaiowá from Mato Grosso do Sul   AbstractGuarani and Kaiowá names and surnames have a historical origin from contact with European settlers. Gradually, traditional names are going into disuse from a social point of view, but their permanence from a religious point of view as a kind of protection remain. In this article, we present a survey of the civil names of indigenous guarani and kaiowá teachers who passed through the Indigenous Intercultural Degree – Teko Arandu, Federal University of Grande Dourados - UFGD, Mato Grosso do Sul. The survey was conducted from the Teacher's Class Control System. Then, in the light of historical and social facts, we present the social functions of the names today and postulate the possible origins of surnames, considering the process of colonization that these peoples went through. The results of the study do not cover the origin of surnames in their individuality, but present an overview of the historical and social conditions that could give conditions to the existence of this new way of naming and indicating family belonging among the Guarani and Kaiowá indigenous peoples of the southern cone of Mato Grosso do Sul.Keywords: Guarani; Kaiowá; Anthroponomical, Socioanthropomonatic.


2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Zapata

El presente articulo analiza las prácticas de caridad que desarrollan un conjunto de agentes sociales definidos como “voluntarias de Caritas” y analiza la asistencia social del estado, que se materializa en programas de “ayuda social” que ejecutan esas voluntarias, en una parroquia católica de una ciudad media de la Argentina. A diferencia de lo que proponen los enfoques estatalistas sobre el fenómeno de asistencia social, aquí propongo que la caridad y la asistencia social son hechos estructuralmente asociados y que se han desarrollado como los polos opuestos alrededor del fenómeno de la circulación gratuita de objetos. A través de la descripción etnográfica de la vida cotidiana de la organización caritativa por excelencia de la Argentina, Caritas, la de sus agentes, las voluntarias, y de los programas sociales que allí se desarrollan, pretendo mostrar, desde el punto de vista de las voluntarias, la conflictividad cultural que provocan los fenómenos ligados a la gratuidad, lo cual demanda una antropología especialmente referida a estos fenomenos. An Anthropology of Gratuitousness: charity practices and social assistance policies in Argentine Abstract This papers analyzes charity practices developed by a group of social agents that define themselves as “Charity volunteers” as well as social assistance practices of the state, that materialize themselves in programs of “social help” lead by these volunteers in a Catholic parish of a medium city in Argentine. In contrast with “state oriented” (“estatalistas”) approaches on the problem of social assistance, it is proposed here that charity and social assistance are structurally related facts and that they have developed themselves as opposite poles in relation to the phenomenon of free flow of things. In other words, charity and social assistance shape one type of social fact that rely on the principle that labels specific objects as free and as a consequence request an attitude towards them: the elimination of individual interest. The ambiguities of meaning attached to the phenomena framed within the logic of the gratuitousness often become “misunderstandings” and “double truths”, which suppose permanent conflicts attached to charity and social assistance. Through ethnographic description of everyday routine of the mayor charity organization of Argentine, Caritas, of their agents, volunteers, and of the social programs it develops, I aim to show, from the point of view of the volunteers, the cultural conflicts that spur from phenomena attached to gratuitousness, which demand an anthropology that specifically refers to these social facts.


2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-335
Author(s):  
ALESSANDRO CAVALLI

The study of the European integration process offers a serious challenge for the social sciences. It is easy to understand why the disciplines of law, economics, and political science have made the most relevant contributions to the study of the Europeanization of our societies. From the treaty creating the European Coal and Steel Community in May 1951 to the establishment a few years later of Euratom, from the treaty of Rome to the European Economic Community (EEC), from the European Single Act to the Maastricht treaty and the Monetary Union, from the treaties of Amsterdam and Nice to the recent Convention that resulted in the proposal for a European Constitution, all of these historical events during the second half of the twentieth century mark a process of transferring sovereignty rights from nation-states to European institutions. The Council, the Commission, the Parliament, and the European Court of Justice are substantial innovations from the point of view of public law. They are not ‘state institutions’, nor are they intergovernmental agencies. In many domains, the influence of European regulations on national legislation is impressive. The amount of literature in all languages on the legal aspects of European integration is astonishing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-120
Author(s):  
Antoine Savoye

*Full article is in FrenchFrench abstract: En dépit de l’ostracisme de Durkheim à leur égard, les représentants de la science sociale issue de Le Play n’ont pas ignoré son oeuvre et l’ont commentée – même si laconiquement – dans leurs périodiques, d’une part, La Réforme sociale, d’autre part, La Science sociale et ses dérivés. Les leplaysiens restés dans l’orthodoxie du maître nourrissent – de la Division du travail social aux Fondements élémentaires de la vie religieuse – les mêmes griefs à l’encontre de Durkheim. Volontiers polémiques, ils refusent sa conception du fait social qui, « supérieur et antérieur à l’individu … s’impose à lui avec une force coercitive prépondérante » (Clément, 1915). Leurs critiques perdent cependant de leur virulence après la mort de Durkheim, au fur et à mesure que la sociologie s’avère une science durable dont le projet devient irréfutable. Du côté des partisans de la science sociale renouvelée par Henri de Tourville, l’appréciation de Durkheim est différente. Plus tardive, elle porte sur l’objet de la sociologie et sur la méthode prônée par l’auteur des Règles. Aux yeux des tourvilliens, celui-ci n’emprunte pas, à tort, la « voie royale » de la science sociale : l’enquête par observation directe, et néglige l’outil de coordination des faits sociaux qu’est la nomenclature mise au point par Tourville. Dès lors, les résultats auxquels aboutit Durkheim, par exemple dans les Fondements, sont sujets à caution (Descamps, 1912). La critique des tourvilliens est d’autant plus vive qu’elle se nourrit d’un dépit : Durkheim ne fait aucun cas de leurs travaux (Périer, 1913). Le débat qu’ils auraient souhaité engager n’aura lieu que post mortem, grâce à Bouglé et ses élèves du Centre de documentation sociale (Aron, Polin) qui joueront le jeu, dans les années trente, de la confrontation entre sociologie et science sociale.English abstract: Despite the ostracism he maintained towards them, Le Play’s social science continuers did not ignore Durkheim’s work and commented on it – even if laconically – in their journals. The LePlayists loyal to the master’s orthodoxy raised the same grievances against Durkheim throughout his academic life. They refused to accept his conception of the social fact as superior and prior to the individual, imposing itself on him with a coercive force. Their criticisms, however, were less virulent after Durkheim’s death, as sociology proved a sustainable science whose project had become irrefutable. With the dissident LePlayists, the view is different. Emerging later, it dealt with the object of sociology and the method advocated by the author of the Règles. From the Tourvillians’ point of view, Durkheim’s sociology does not adopt the best path for social science (investigation by direct observation), and neglects its process of coordination of social facts (the nomenclature developed by Tourville). Consequently, Durkheim’s results are questionable. The debate the Tourvillians wanted to have with Durkheim took place post mortem, thanks to Bouglé and his students from the Centre de documentation sociale, and their engagement, in the 1930s, with Durkheimian sociology and social science.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Besin Gaspar

This research deals with the development of  self concept of Hiroko as the main character in Namaku Hiroko by Nh. Dini and tries to identify how Hiroko is portrayed in the story, how she interacts with other characters and whether she is portrayed as a character dominated by ”I” element or  ”Me”  element seen  from sociological and cultural point of view. As a qualitative research in nature, the source of data in this research is the novel Namaku Hiroko (1967) and the data ara analyzed and presented deductively. The result of this analysis shows that in the novel, Hiroko as a fictional character is  portrayed as a girl whose personality  develops and changes drastically from ”Me”  to ”I”. When she was still in the village  l iving with her parents, she was portrayed as a obedient girl who was loyal to the parents, polite and acted in accordance with the social customs. In short, her personality was dominated by ”Me”  self concept. On the other hand, when she moved to the city (Kyoto), she was portrayed as a wild girl  no longer controlled by the social customs. She was  firm and determined totake decisions of  her won  for her future without considering what other people would say about her. She did not want to be treated as object. To put it in another way, her personality is more dominated by the ”I” self concept.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Sina Saeedy ◽  
Mojtaba Amiri ◽  
Mohammad Mahdi Zolfagharzadeh ◽  
Mohammad Rahim Eyvazi

Quality of life and satisfaction with life as tightly interconnected concepts have become of much importance in the urbanism era. No doubt, it is one of the most important goals of every human society to enhance a citizen’s quality of life and to increase their satisfaction with life. However, there are many signs which demonstrate the low level of life satisfaction of Iranian citizens especially among the youth. Thus, considering the temporal concept of life satisfaction, this research aims to make a futures study in this field. Therefore, using a mixed model and employing research methods from futures studies, life satisfaction among the students of the University of Tehran were measured and their views on this subject investigated. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analysed together in order to test the hypotheses and to address the research questions on the youth discontentment with quality of life. Findings showed that the level of life satisfaction among students is relatively low and their image of the future is not positive and not optimistic. These views were elicited and discussed in the social, economic, political, environmental and technological perspectives. Keywords:  futures studies, quality of life, satisfaction with life, youth


Author(s):  
Oksana Galchuk

The theme of illegitimacy Guy de Maupassant evolved in his works this article perceives as one of the factors of the author’s concept of a person and the plane of intersection of the most typical motifs of his short stories. The study of the author’s concept of a person through the prism of polivariability of the motif of a bastard is relevant in today’s revision of traditional values, transformation of the usual social institutions and search for identities, etc. The purpose of the study is to give a definition to the existence specifics of the bastard motif in the Maupassant’s short stories by using historical and literary, comparative, structural methods of analysis as dominant. To do this, I analyze the content, variability and the role of this motive in the formation of the Maupassant’s concept of a person, the author’s innovations in its interpretation from the point of view of literary diachrony. Maupassant interprets the bastard motif in the social, psychological and metaphorical-symbolic sense. For the short stories with the presentation of this motif, I suggest the typology based on the role of it in the structure of the work and the ideological and thematic content: the short stories with a motif-fragment, the ones with the bastard’s leitmotif and the group where the bastard motif becomes a central theme. The Maupassant’s interpretation of the bastard motif combines the general tendencies of its existence in the world’s literary tradition and individual reading. The latter is the result of the author’s understanding of the relevant for the era issues: the transformation of the family model, the interest in the theory of heredity, the strengthening of atheistic sentiments, the growth of frustration in the system of traditional social and moral values etc. This study sets the ground for a prospective analysis of the evolution the bastard motif in the short-story collections of different years or a comparative study of the motif in short stories and novels by Maupassant.


2019 ◽  
pp. 87-95

The article is devoted to the role of Tourism terminology in linguistics and the issue of general classification, peculiarities in the expression and translation of terms related to tourism in English into Uzbek and Russian, as well as the choice of the most optimal methods for translating terms in accordance with the requirements of this professional sphere. The terminology of the English language tourism is distinguished by its brightness, versatility. Tourism terms are formed under the influence of a generalized lexical layer of language and perform a specific functional function.Tourism terms are formed through the affixation method (prefixation, suffixation, circumphixation) and get rich through the process.The terminology of English Tourism is distinguished by its content and structural features, forming a part of the language vocabulary from the linguistic point of view. Texts in the field of Tourism take into their composition concepts of Tourism and interpret them in their content. They will be mainly in the form of advertising, as well as enlighten information about a particular region or place, create informational precedents and ensure their manifestation in the social cultural presence. The relevance of the study of the problems of translation of terms in the field of tourism has been investigated, mainly due to the development of international relations, expansion of cooperation between local and foreign companies, as well as the increase in this area of communication.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Redacción CEIICH

<p class="p1">The third number of <span class="s1"><strong>INTER</strong></span><span class="s2"><strong>disciplina </strong></span>underscores this generic reference of <em>Bodies </em>as an approach to a key issue in the understanding of social reality from a humanistic perspective, and to understand, from the social point of view, the contributions of the research in philosophy of the body, cultural history of the anatomy, as well as the approximations queer, feminist theories and the psychoanalytical, and literary studies.</p>


Author(s):  
Rebecca Tarlau

Contrary to the conventional belief that social movements cannot engage the state without becoming co-opted and demobilized, this study shows how movements can advance their struggles by strategically working with, in, through, and outside of state institutions. The success of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) in occupying land, winning land rights, and developing alternative economic enterprises for over a million landless workers has made it an inspiration for progressive organizations globally. The MST’s educational initiatives, which are less well known but equally as important, teach students about participatory democracy, collective work, agroecological farming, and other practices that support its socialist vision. This study details how MST activists have pressured municipalities, states, and the federal government to implement their educational proposal in public schools and universities, affecting hundreds of thousands of students. Based on twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork, Occupying Schools, Occupying Land documents the potentials, constraints, failures, and contradictions of the MST’s educational struggle. A major lesson is that participating in the contentious co-governance of public education can help movements recruit new activists, diversify their membership, increase practical and technical knowledge, and garner political power. Activists are most effective when combining disruption, persuasion, negotiation, and co-governance into their tactical repertoires. Through expansive leadership development, the MST implemented its educational program in local schools, even under conservative governments. Such gains demonstrate the potential of schools as sites for activists to prefigure, enact, and develop the social and economic practices they hope to use in the future.


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