EMERGENCE OF

THE SOCIAL
SCIENCES
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson,the sudents are expected to:

 explain anthropological and sociological perspectives on
culture,society and politics;

 acquirebasic knowledge about origin, growth and

development of social sciences;and

 demonstrate curiosity and openness to explore the influence

of globalization on the development of the social sciences.
What makes social sciences
similar to natural sciences?
How society,politics and culture
work?
What is the best form of
government?
CULTURE,SOCIETY AND POLITICS
AS CONCEPTUAL TOOLS
 Culture, society and politics are concepts.

 They exist in the realm of ideas and thoughts and influence

the way we see and experience our individual and
collective lives as social beings.
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
 Inthe development and progress of human
knowledge, the social sciences were the last to
develop after the natural sciences.

 And while origin of the social sciences can be

traced back to the ancient Greek philosophers
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, their development as
a separate fields of knowledge only begun in the
modern period.
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
 Beforethe birth of modern social sciences in the West the
study of society, culture and politics were based on social
and political philosophy (Scott 2006).

 While pre-modern social thinkers employed experiences

and personal observation, just like modern scientists, they
fit them within the overall framework of their philosophy
and the overall religious scheme of the Church.
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
 PHILOSOPHY IS DISTINCT FROM 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?”
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
 SCIENCES-are based on empirical data, tested theories and
carefully contrived observations.

 It does not question the nature of truth.But seeks to discover

the truth about specific causes of events and happenings in
the natural world.

 It is inductive .It proceeds from observing particular cases

and moves towards generalizing the properties common to
these cases to other similar cases under the same specified
condition.
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
 Before the modern period,the growth of the sciences was
slowed down because of the dominance of religious
authority.

 However,with the breakdown of the church and its religious

power after the French Revolution, the sciences grew
steadily and rapidly to become the most widely accepted
way of explaining the world, nature and human beings
(Harrington 2006).
The Scientific Revolution
 Nicolaus Copernicus(1473-1543), refers to historical
changes on thought and belief, to changes in social and
institutional organization, that unfolded in Europe roughly
1550 and 1700.

 SirIsaac Newton-which proposed universal laws of motion

and a mechanical model of the Universe.

 The 17th century saw the rapid development in the sciences

The Scientific Revolution
 SirFrancis Bacon who established the supremacy of reason
over imagination

 Rene Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundation

that allowed science and technology to change the world.
The Scientific Revolution
 The discovery of gravity by Sir Isaac Newton the
mathematization of physics and medicine paved the way for
the dominance of science and mathematics in describing and
explaining the world and its nature.
The Birth of Social Sciences as a response
to the Social Turmoil of the Modern Period
 Sociology-isa branch of the social sciences that
deals with the scientific study of human interactions,
social groups and institutions whole societies and
the human world as such.
Sociology
 isa science that studies the relationship between
the individual and the society as they develop and
change in history.
Auguste Comte(Isidore Auguste
Marie Francois Xavier Comte)
 (1798-1857) is considered as the “father” of sociology.

 A french philosopher and mathematician.He coined the

term “sociology” but he originally used “social physics”as
a term for sociology.
 Comte’s sociology has always been associated with
positivism or the school of thought that says that science
and its method is the only valid way of knowing things.
Harriet Martineau(1802-1876)
 An english writer and reformist.With physical
disabilities

 She is considered as the “mother” of sociology.

 She also wrote on political economy and was

influenced by David Ricardo, Adam Smith etc.
Karl Marx(1818-1883)
 Is considered as the “father”of scientific socialism

 Marx belonged to the realist tradition of social

sciences that believed in the power of scientific
reason to know the nature of society and human
beings.
Emile Durkheim(1858-1917)
 Durkheim was responsible for defending sociology
as an independent discipline from psychology.

 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.
 Durkheim famously argued that society pre- existed the
individuals and will continue to exist long after the
individuals is dead.

 Durkheim was the pioneer of functionalism in sociology.

 His main contributions are in the field of sociology of

religion, education and deviance.
Max Weber(1864-1920)
 Another founding father of sociology.

 Stressed the role of rationalization in the development of

society.For weber rationalization refers to the disenchantment
of the world.
 As science began to replace religion, people also adopted
a scientific or rational attitude to the world. People
refused to believe in myths and superstitious beliefs.

 He was the pioneer of interpretative sociology.

Anthropology
 Focuses on human diversity around the world.

 Social Anthropology studies patterns of behavior

and Cultural anthropology studies cultural
meaning, including norms and values.
Franz Boas(1858-1942)
 Father of American Anthropology

 Historical particularism.In this doctrine each

society is considered as having a unique form of
culture that cannot be subsumed under an overall
definition of general culture.
Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski(1884-
1942)
 He developed what social scientists now call as participant
observation.

 Itis 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.
 He is also considered as one of the most influential
ethnographers in the 20th century.

 Ethnography is literally the practice of writing about

people.

 Often,it is taken to mean the anthropologist’s way of

making sense of other people’s modes of thought, since
anthropologists usually study cultures other than their
own.
Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-
Brown(1881-1955)
 Structural-functionalist paradigm-according to this view,
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
 Isa part of social sciences that deals with the study of
politics, power, and government.
The Basics of Political Science and
Philippine Politics
 Some individuals would usually link politics to
corrupt politicians and an ineffective government.
This skeptic view of and the disinterest to study
politics are ever present.
 Butpolitics is more than just about these problems
of government officials and their
inefficiency.Politics also involves relationships in
everyday life-in family, in school, in the streets,
and even in the most personal relations.
 Ina typical Filipino family, for instace, power
determines who gets what, when, and how
(Lasswell 1936).Likewise, the question of who
decides for the family is by itself a function of
politics.
 “Man is by nature a political animal”.
-Aristotle
Aristotle
 Father of political Science
 Unlike other species, humans rely on social
interactions to survive

 Politics is born out of these social interactions.

Heywood (2013)
 Politics as an activity that involves the interaction
of people, whose relationship is characterized by
conflict and cooperation and who come together
to solve such disagreements through binding
solutions.
 Imagine yourself alone and isolated in an island
far from civilization. What would you do?
 Can you survive without other people?
 Canyou survive without the state or the
government?
 Thebest proof probably is in the movie “The
Castaway”
 Etymologically, politics came from the Greek
word polis refers to Greek city -state.
It would seem that when we talk about politics, it
refers to the government.

Whatever the government does and whatever the

people do in relation to government, that is politics.
 As David Easton would say, politics is the
authoritative allocation of values.

 Sincethe government has authority, then, the one

who can use politics is the government.
 Insimilar manner, Harold Lasswell said that
politics is who gets what, when, and how. This
would refer to those people who have authority
and power.

 Therefore, politics is really about the activity of

the government. But politics is not limited to the
activity of the state and government because
poltics is everywhere.
Situation 1-Friends
 Conflict/s
Situation 2-Church
 Political power –example Pope Francis is the head
of the state in Vatican city.

 Influence-thus, whatever the leader of a church

would say about morality or how people should
act, the congregation shall obey.
Situation 3-Classroom
 Example of “tyranny of the majority”wherein the
majority makes decisions that are wrong and
discriminates the minority.

 “politics
of the armchair” is real and must be
addressed to avoid discrimination.
 Politicsis a human activity that deals, to a certain
extent, with POWER, CONFLICT, and
DECISION MAKING.
Politics as a human Activity
 Can animals also be political?
 Animals can never be political. The reason for
such is that human beings have RATIONALITY
that animals do not have.

 What is rationality?
 The ability of a person to think and to reason out,
to determine what is right and wrong and make
decisions.
 For
example, in the case of ants, they have their
queen, drones, workers, soldiers etc.in short they
have division of labor.

 Can this be considered as rationality?

 Generally according to Aristotle, he believed that
man’s rationality is the starting point of politics.
 He believed that human beings are rational and
teleological.This would mean that human beings
have a telos or goal that he/she wants to achieve.

 Aristotle in fact believed that all things in this

world has a goal and everything will, in time,
achieve its goal.
 According to him, the telos of man is to achieve
happiness..

 Thus, it would compel man to interact with

another man.

 Thus, man will transition from being a rational

being to becoming a social being.
 Therefore man transforms from being a social
being to what Aristotle called a political animal.
 Can we achieve happiness without the state?
 The reason is that the state can provide us the
public goods like security and social services that
we cannot achieve without the existence of the
state.
PREAMBLE
 RECITATION TIME!
PREAMBLE
 We the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of
almighty God, in order to build a just and humane
society and establish a Government that shall embody
our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good,
conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to
ourselves and our posterity the blessings of
independence and democracy under the rule of law
and regime of truth, justice, freedom, love,equality
and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution .
PREAMBLE
 We the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the
1.____________________, in order to build a just and
2.__________________and 3.__________________that
shall embody our 4.____________________, promote the
common good, conserve and develop our
5__________________, and secure to ourselves and our
6.___________ the blessings of
7.__________and___________ under the rule of law and
8.____________, justice, freedom,love, equality and
9.____________, do
10____________________________________________.
 Answers
 1. aid of almighty God
 2.humane society
 3.establish a government
 4.ideals and aspirations
 5.patrimony
 6.posterity
 7.independence,democracy
 8.regime of truth
 9.peace
 10.ordain and promulgate this constitution
 Thesocial sciences, namely,
sociology,anthropology and political science
developed as a result of the development of
modern society.