Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences

Founder of Different Disciplines

1. Anthropology: Edward Burnett Taylor (1832 - 1917)

According to Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004
• English cultural anthropologist
• First to hold the chair in the subject at Oxford University in the UK in 1896
• Coined the term “culture”
• Wrote “Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of
Civilization"

2. History: Herodotus (484 B.C - 425 B.C) According to Mark, 2018

• Greek Historian
• Treated historical subjects as a method of investigation
• Collected historical materials systematically and critically and arranged
them into a historical narrative.
• Wrote “Histories” which is the record of ancient traditions and culture of
Greece, Asia and Africa

3. Economics: Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) According to Butler, 2016

• Founder of Classical School
• Constructed an explanation on how social behavior is regulated
• Saw a world where each person sought their own self - interest but was
constrained by morality, markets and government
• Wrote “Wealth of the Nations” in 1776

4. Geography: Eratosthenes (276 B.C - 194 B.C) According to Russell, 2017

• Greek geographer
• Became chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria
• Accepted the concept that the Earth is round and calculated its
circumference to within 0.5 percent accuracy
• Described the known areas of the world and divided the earth into five
climatic regions
• Prepared the earliest maps of the known world

5. Linguistic: Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 - 1913) According to Mambrol, 2018

• Swiss linguist
• Posited that linguistic form is arbitrary and therefore that all languages
function in a similar fashion
• Published “Memoire sur le systeme primitifdes voyelles dans les langues
indo-europeenes.”
6. Political Science: Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C) According to Neonatal, 2016
• Political scientist
• Laid down the foundation of governance and leadership
• He said “man by nature is a political animal”.
• He wrote “The Politics”.

7. Psychology: Wilhelm Wundt (1832 - 1920) According to McLeod, 2008

• German Psychologist
• Opened the Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig
in Germany in 1879
• Trained Psychology students to make observations that were biased by
personal interpretation or previous experience and used the results to
develop a theory of conscious thought
• Wrote “Principles of Physiological Psychology.”

8. Sociology: Auguste Comte (1798 - 1857) According to Lyudmila, 2000

• French sociologist
• Coined the term “sociology”
• Advocated the application of scientific method to social life and positivism.
• Wrote “Cours de Philosophie Positive” published from 1830 - 1842 in five
volumes.

9. Demography

Table 1: Historical Foundation of Each Discipline

Discipline Historical Foundation

• Traces its roots from natural history which is the
Anthropology study of plants, animals and humans with reference
to their history and native environment.
• The discovery and contact to new civilizations by
European explorers and colonizers led to curiosity
and questions of who these people are, who their
ancestors were, how they are related to other people
in other places, what makes them distinct, what
similarities they share with the rest, how they
conduct their way of life, and what culture they have
in terms of knowledge they possess, their beliefs,
technology that have, etc.
• It was in 19th century that the discipline began its
formative years as a social science.

• Through the Medieval and Renaissance periods,

History History was often studied through a sacred or
religious perspective.
• In the 20th century, academic historians focused less
 on epic nationalistic narratives, which often tended
to glorify the nation or great men, to more objective
and complex analyses of social and intellectual
forces.
• Recently, the field of digital history has begun to
address ways of using computer technology to pose
new questions to historical data and generate digital
scholarships.

• It was not considered a separate discipline until the

nineteenth century
Economics • Greeks examined wealth accumulation and inquiries
on whether property should be in the hands of
private or public institutions.
• In medieval times (Middle Ages - 5th to 15th century),
scholars argued that it was a moral obligations of
business to sell goods at a just price.
• Changes in economic thought have always
accompanied changes in the economy, just as
changes in economic thought can propel change in
economic policy.

• People engaged in the study of geography because it

satisfies their natural curiosity about foreign places
Geography and different ways of life.
• The Ancient Greeks made the first contribution to
the subject through measuring the earth using grids
of meridians.

• It was the old Babylon who first created linguistics

texts called Sumerian.
Linguistic • Hindus also created text called Vedas.
• The formal study of language began in India
• It started with the formulation of 3,959 rules of
Sanskrit morphology.
• Early interest in language in the West was a part of
Philosophy, not a grammatical description.

• It was once part of the many related fields of study

like history, philosophy, law and economics.
Political Science • The theoretical and practical study of the state and
the politics began way back to the time of the
Ancient Greeks, about 500 - 300 B.C
• The chieftain who headed a village was chosen from
 the ranks of leaders with the power to make laws,
judge and execute laws.
• The chiefdom become a state

Psychology • It has its roots in Ancient Greek Philosophy such as

epistemology, metaphysics, religion and oriental
philosophy.
• Over the centuries, psychology and physiology
became increasingly separated resulting to the two
conceptions of psychology that is phenomenological
(experimental) and mechanistic (physiological).

Sociology • The intellectual, scientific and industrial revolutions

which happened in Europe in the middle of the 19th
century led to the development of Sociology.
• The intellectual revolution opened new perspective in
society which offered the people new principles,
ideals, and beliefs changing their outlook in life and
the way they perceive themselves, their environment
and relations with fellow men.
• The revolutions in Europe brought rapid and radical
changes which resulted to social problems, issues
and social unrest prompting some individual to
direct their attention and investigation of social
phenomena.