Value judgments in social science

By Beauchamp, Tom L.

Leading theorists in the social sciences have insisted that value judgments should be strictly separated from scientific judgments, which should be value-free. Yet these same thinkers recognize that ...

Durkheim, Émile (1858–1917)

By Orru, Marco

Émile Durkheim is generally recognized to be one of the founders of sociology as a distinct scientific discipline. Trained as a philosopher, Durkheim identified the central theme of ...

Weber, Max (1864–1920)

By Turner, Stephen P.; Factor, Regis A.

Max Weber, German economist, historian, sociologist, methodologist, and political thinker, is of philosophical significance for his attempted reconciliation of historical relativism with the possibility of a causal social ...

Positivism in the social sciences

By Kincaid, Harold

Positivism originated from separate movements in nineteenth-century social science and early twentieth-century philosophy. Key positivist ideas were that philosophy should be scientific, that metaphysical speculations are meaningless, that ...

Economics, philosophy of

By Hausman, Daniel

People have thought about economics for as long as they have thought about how to manage their households, indeed Aristotle compared the study of the economic affairs of ...

Social science, methodology of

By Rosenberg, Alex

Each of the sciences, the physical, biological, social and behavioural, have emerged from philosophy in a process that began in the time of Euclid and Plato. These sciences ...

Social sciences, philosophy of

By Ruben, David-Hillel

Although some of the topics and issues treated in the philosophy of social science are as old as philosophy itself (for example, the contrast between nature and convention ...

Anthropology, philosophy of

By Salmon, Merrilee H.

Anthropology, like philosophy, is multifaceted. It studies humans’ physical, social, cultural and linguistic development, as well as their material culture, from prehistoric times up to the present, in ...

Science and values

The relationship between science and values is a complex one, with values having the potential to influence science either positively or negatively (see Values). On the positive side, ...

Social science, contemporary philosophy of

By Braybrooke, David

Some philosophers think that the study of social phenomena must apply methods from natural science. Researchers should discover causal regularities (whenever C operates, E occurs) and fit them ...