Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Analytic social epistemology
- Common sense versus collective memory
- Consensus versus dissent
- Criticism
- Disciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity
- Epistemic justice
- Evolution
- Expertise
- Explaining the cognitive content of science
- Explaining the normative structure of science
- Feminism
- Folk epistemology
- Free enquiry
- Historiography
- Information science
- Knowledge management
- Knowledge policy
- Knowledge society
- Kuhn, Popper and logical positivism
- Mass media
- Multiculturalism
- Naturalism
- Normativity
- Philosophy versus sociology
- Postmodernism
- Progress
- Rationality
- Relativism versus constructivism
- Religion
- Rhetoric
- Science and technology studies
- Science as a social movement
- Science wars
- Social capital versus public good
- Social constructivism
- Social epistemology
- Social science
- Sociology of knowledge
- Translation
- Truth, reliability and the ends of knowledge
- Universalism versus relativism
- University
- Bibliography
- Index
Social science
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Analytic social epistemology
- Common sense versus collective memory
- Consensus versus dissent
- Criticism
- Disciplinarity versus interdisciplinarity
- Epistemic justice
- Evolution
- Expertise
- Explaining the cognitive content of science
- Explaining the normative structure of science
- Feminism
- Folk epistemology
- Free enquiry
- Historiography
- Information science
- Knowledge management
- Knowledge policy
- Knowledge society
- Kuhn, Popper and logical positivism
- Mass media
- Multiculturalism
- Naturalism
- Normativity
- Philosophy versus sociology
- Postmodernism
- Progress
- Rationality
- Relativism versus constructivism
- Religion
- Rhetoric
- Science and technology studies
- Science as a social movement
- Science wars
- Social capital versus public good
- Social constructivism
- Social epistemology
- Social science
- Sociology of knowledge
- Translation
- Truth, reliability and the ends of knowledge
- Universalism versus relativism
- University
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The social sciences were inspired by the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment, when political theorists began to argue for a more integral connection between a state and its inhabitants than had been previously urged – by, say, Plato, Machiavelli and Hobbes. In particular, a ruler should not simply keep the peace but also provide for their welfare. Statecraft thus had to go beyond the usual threats and deceptions. Rulers were now expected, as Adam Smith would say, to increase the wealth of their nations. This historic change of attitude had three important consequences. First, it led to a managerial conception of the state, in which economic matters acquired a public significance that had been previously left in the hands of private households and corporations. Secondly, it fostered a more discriminating sense of citizenship as “contribution to society”, especially for purposes of raising and distributing revenue. Finally, it led to the systematic collection of data about people's lives, culminating in a hardening of social categories (into classes and even races), which were then projected backwards as having been implicit throughout history. In this respect, social science and socialism were born joined at the hip, specifically in France in the 1820s, courtesy of Henri de Saint-Simon and especially his understudy, Auguste Comte, who coined both “positivism” and “sociology”. Fuller's version of social epistemology is alive to this heritage. (See philosophy versus sociology.)
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Knowledge BookKey Concepts in Philosophy, Science and Culture, pp. 182 - 188Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2007