9. Read the text again and correct the statements below.

1. The term social science was first proposed by the Greek philosopher Plato.

2. Social science has currently proved to be a well-grounded independent study.

3. Social science deals mostly with nature and animal life.

4. There are no interdisciplinary links between the branches of social science.

5. Social science findings have never been harmful to the society.

Text b. The birth of social science

1. Read the text quickly. Discuss with a partner the importance of the following phenomena and events in the history of social science.

*Appendix 3 p. 153

1. Ancient Greek philosophy

2. Emergence of positivism in the Enlightenment

3. European revolutions in the 17^th century

4. Application of the scientific method to human thoughts and relationships in the 20^th century

5. Increase in the number of minority area studies since the 1960s

6. Integration of soft and hard sciences in the 21^st century

1. No definitive date can be given for the birth of social science—its emergence is in fact due to a large number of circumstances spanning centuries and some of its rudimentary ideas can be traced to multiple origins. The social sciences have existed at least since Ancient Greece, where philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle studied numerous aspects of the world and passed them down via texts. To these thinkers, there was no fundamental distinction between social and natural science the way there is today. Disciplines such as geometry and psychology were intermixed and practiced by the same communities. Today, science is much more specialised and complex.

2. It is generally accepted that an important era in the emergence of contemporary social science began with the Enlightenment and its emphasis on rationality, logic, and methodology as applied to the empirical world. There are scholars, however, who argue that the social sciences, despite early roots in Grecian inquiries into the nature of man, did not emerge as a distinct form of research until the eighteenth century, when social philosophy bearing a “philosophical attitude” gave way to a new scientific emphasis. This shift from social philosophy to social science was given impetus by the emergence of positivism as a widely accepted mode of knowledge. At first, much of this new scientific inquiry focused nearly exclusively on the natural world. Great gains were made in physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and other fields dealing with the natural environment. It was not long, however, before the methods employed to achieve these gains were utilised in attempts to describe, explain, and predict human behavior.

3. The need for a social science also emerged from widespread and often violent revolutions sweeping European intellectual, political, and economic spheres beginning in the seventeenth century. Economic crisis spurred on by widespread migration to urban centers, widening inequality, and the imperialist ambitions of some European states led many to apply scientific approaches to social behavior, in an attempt to understand and predict social phenomena. While social science attempts an objective evaluation of human and social behavior, by its very nature it must grapple with questions of equality, fairness, cohesion, and happiness, and thus with moral issues.

4. Although social science has been practiced by learned people throughout history, the modern application of the scientific method to human thoughts and relationships was only first popularised by Sigmund Freud in Austria and William James in the United States in the early 20th century. Prior to this, there were thinkers such as John Dewey who tried to combine the scientific method with social matters, paying special attention to the influence of Darwin on philosophy.

5. Today, millions of people do work in social science professionally. Because human relationships and qualities are so very complex, in some fields there is no objective truth and much work is based on interpretation. What defines “truth” in social sciences is more often opinion than experimentally-verified fact, making findings from social science less reliable than those from the harder sciences. However, the social sciences are essential to human flourishing and progress, and will continue to be practiced and heavily invested in as long as civilisation continues to exist.

6. Nowadays, however, the distinction between the so-called soft and hard sciences is blurred. Some social science subfields have become very quantitative in methodology or behavioral in approach. Conversely, the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of scientific inquiry into human behavior and social and environmental factors affecting it have made many of the so-called hard sciences dependent on social science methodology. Examples of boundary blurring include emerging disciplines like social studies of medicine, neuropsychology, bioeconomics and the history and sociology of science. Increasingly, quantitative and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human action and its implications and consequences.

7. There are positive developments afoot as well. Social science has increasingly recognised the need for minority perspectives. As a result, an increasing number of minority scholars have made their way into the social sciences since the 1960s. New areas of study loosely affiliated with the traditional social science disciplines have also emerged: African American studies, queer theory, and women’s studies, all of which have made important contributions to the social sciences. Furthermore, the social sciences have increasingly found a place in governmental and corporate entities, tackling everyday issues confronting society.