THE ORIGINS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
-Some people might believe that humans/groups/societies...act the way they do for very
simple reasons, they believe that the social sciences are just common sense i.e. clothing >
people wear clothes because it’s cold!
Consider the clothes that you own/wear-why do you
own/wear those particular items? What factors
influence your choice of attire? Is your choice
determined solely by climactic conditions or is it
informed by numerous other determinants like
social norms?
-The social science way of seeing the world will give you
new insights and perspectives and make you question many
things/ideas you have taken for granted.
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-Just as gravity existed before the science of physics and diseases existed before the
development of medicine, human behaviour existed long before the advent of the social
sciences.
-In other words, since humanity’s earliest beginnings, we have done the things we do but it is
only recently that we have attempted to answer why we do what we do.
-The idea that society may be studied in a standardized and objective manner, with scholarly
rules and methodology, is comparatively recent.
-Although inklings of social sciences can be found in ancient times and then later in medieval
Islamic civilizations, the modern social sciences (Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology)
stem from developments taking place in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment (aka The
Enlightenment or Age of Reason) of the 1700s.
-The Enlightenment was a period of reform centered upon the advancement of knowledge and
intellectual interchange between all classes of people.
-Philosophers and intellectuals criticized and attempted to overcome the ignorance,
intolerance, superstition, and political oppression typical of Europe at the time.
-Instead of learning ‘truth’ through the study of authoritarian sources like the Bible, the
Church, and the Clergy (who were often responsible for exploitation and oppression) people
were encouraged to discover knowledge for themselves through observation, reason and
logic .
-Many important scientific discoveries were made during this time
e.i. Issac Newton, Universal Law of Gravity.
“Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night, God said, ‘Let Newton be,’ and all was light.”
"Mankind's final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of
ignorance and error."
-The motto of the period was “Dare to know”.
-Radical ideas were disseminated to major cities and across international borders where they
played a major role in major revolutions (American and French).
Isaac Newton
Rousseau-The Social Contract
French Revolution, 1789
-Authors and thinkers believed that if reason and science could be used to discover Laws of
Nature then they could also be used to discover laws about humans and their behaviour.
-Scientific observation/methods became the basis for the science of social behaviour - the
social sciences of anthropology, psychology, and sociology.
THREE SOCIAL SCIENCES: Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology
-The Social Sciences can be broadly defined as the systematic study of society, groups,
individuals, and social phenomena. This course will focus on three social sciences that add to
our understanding of what it means to be human: anthropology, psychology, sociology.
-ANTHROPOLOGY is the study of human beings as a species and as members of cultural
groups. More specifically it is the scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical,
social, and cultural development of humans.
-There are two branches of Anthropology: physical/biological anthropology and cultural
anthropology.
-Physical Anthropology looks at the ways in which humans are similar to and different from
other species (physical differences); it also examines how humans have developed biologically
over time.
-It plays an important part in paleoanthropology (the study of human origins) and in forensic
anthropology (the analysis and identification of human remains for legal purposes).
-It draws upon related topics like human anthropometrics (body measurements), human
genetics (molecular anthropology) and human osteology (the study of bones)
neuroanthropology (the study of human brain evolution) and physiological adaptation to
environment.
-Cultural Anthropology explores how culture shaped the way people lived in the past and how
they live in the world today.
-PSYCHOLOGY is the study of the mind, mental processes and behaviour.
-There are a number of fields of psychology including theoretical psychology, clinical
psychology, child psychology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology.
-Psychologists examine both overt actions (those that can be seen) and mental processes
which are harder to observe.
-Overt actions include how people behave in certain situations while mental processes refer
to how people think, feel, remember, and learn.
-SOCIOLOGY is the scientific study of people in groups.
-Specifically, it is the study of human social behavior, especially the study of the origins,
organization, institutions, and development of human society.
-It examines the relationships between people and the social structures they develop.
-Sociologists explore how the categories we belong to (i.e. male vs. female; rich vs. poor)
shape our experiences of the world.
-They also try to understand how society as a whole influences our thoughts, feelings, and
actions.
**Although each social science is concerned with its own areas of interest, the overall goal is
to learn about humanness.