The Birth and Growth of the

Social Sciences
Josefino Tulabing Larena,AB,CPS,CPE,MPA
 Learning Objectives
• Explain anthropological and sociological
perspectives on culture, society and politics
• Acquire basic knowledge about origin, growth
and development of the social sciences.
• Domonstrate curiosity and openness to
explore the significance of the social sciences.
• Recognize the Western and colonial origins of
third world social sciences and knowledge
production.
 The Historical Backgroud of the
Growth of Social Sciences
• The development and progress of human
knowledge.Social Sciences canbe traced back to
Greek Civilization .
• Socrates Plato Aristotle
• Before the birth of modern social sciences in
the West,the study of society, culture and
politics were based on social and political
philosophy .In return, social and political
philosophies were informed by theological
reasoning grounded in Revelation based on
the holy bible.
• Philosophy is district from Science.Science
would have not development if it remained
under the wings of philosophy and theology.
• Philosophy is based on Analytic understanding
of the nature of truth asserted about specific
topics of issues.
• The development of the Social Sciences during
the modern period was made possible by
several large scale social upheavals and
pivotal events.They can be summarized below
• Science Social Sciences Humanities
• Pure Science Law Visual Arts
• Applied Science Linguistics Performing Arts
• History Religion
The Unprecedented Growth of Science

• The scientific revolution which begun with

Nicolaus Copernicus refers to historical
changes in thought and belief. In Europe
roughly between 1550 and 1700 with the
works of Sir Isaac Newton,which prosed
universal laws of motion and mechanical
model of the Universe .Sir Francis Bacon ,who
established the supremacy of reason over
imagination.
 Scientific Revolution Era
• Nicolaus Copernicus • Sir Isaac Newton
• Sir Francis Bacon • Rene Descartes
 The Secularization of Learning &
Education
• The modern period
marked the growing
triumph of scientific
method over religious
dogma and theological
thinking .The Protestant
movement led by Martin
Luther eroded the power
of the Roman Catholic
Church.
 Enlightenment
• European intellectual movement of the late
17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason
and individualism rather than tradition. It was
heavily influenced by 17th-century
philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and
Newton, and its prominent exponents include
Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam
Smith.
 Medieval Period
• During the Medieval Period,universities relied
mainly on religious tradition and the bible to
explain the nature of the universe and the
place of human being in the grand scheme of
things, the modern universities started to rely
on science and its method to interpret the
world. Max Weber ,one of the leading figures
in modern sociology,described this process as
rationalization.
 Rationalization
• Rationalization or rationalisation (also known
as making excuses[) is a defense mechanism in
which controversial behaviors or feelings are
justified and explained in a seemingly rational
or logical manner to avoid the true
explanation, and are made consciously
tolerable – or even admirable and superior –
by plausible means
 The rise of Universities
• As students at a university, you are part of a great tradition.
Consider the words you use: campus, tuition, classes,
courses, lectures, faculty, students, administration,
chancellor, dean, professor, sophomore, junior, senior, fees,
assignments, laboratory, dormitory, requirements,
prerequisites, examinations, texts, grades, convocation,
graduation, commencement, procession, diploma, alumni
association, donations, and so forth. These are the
language of the university, and they are all derived from
Latin, almost unchanged from their medieval origins. The
organization of this university, its activities and its
traditions, are continuations of a barroom brawl that took
place in Paris almost 800 years ago.
 The Dissolution of Feudal Social
Relations
• With the intensification of commerce and trade
in the 17th century ,many medieval guilds or
worker’s cooperative were dissolved and
absorbed into the emerging factory system.
• The factory system and the unprecedented
growth in the urban centers due to trade and
commerce,attracted a lot of agricultural workers
and mass of rural population to migrate to urban
centers.
 Trade and Commerce
• For many centuries the Great Silk Road connected
a complex network of trade routes from Europe
with Asia. It was a way to establish contact with
the great civilizations of China, India, the Near
East and Europe. Trade caravans, diplomatic
missions, merchants representatives of religious
circles, dervishes, warriors – millions people have
passed on this road through time with nothing
frightening these brave travelers, neither the
difficult roads, nor the waterless deserts.
 The Rise of Individualism
• The intensification of commerce and trade
gradually replaced barter with the production
of money and banking system.Soon banking
system provided merchants and capitalists the
leverage to extend credit and transactions.
GEORGE SIMMEL
• Simmel studied
philosophy and history
at the University of
Berlin. In 1881 he
received his doctorate
for his thesis on Kant's
philosophy of matter, a
part of which was
subsequently published
as "The Nature of
Matter According to
Kant's Physical
Monadology"
 The birth of Social Sciences as a
Response to the Social Turmoil of the
MODERN PERIOD
• Sociology is a branch of the social sciences
that deals with the scientific study of human
interactions ,social groups and institutions
,whole societies and the human world as
such.Of course Sociology also addresses the
problem of the constitution of the self and the
individual, but it only does so in relation larger
social structures and processes
Auguste Comte
• better known as Auguste
Comte was a French
philosopher. He was a
founder of the discipline
of sociology and of the
doctrine of positivism.
He is sometimes
regarded as the first
philosopher of science in
the modern sense of the
term
Harriet Martineau

• Harriet Martineau, one of the

earliest Western sociologists, was
born in 1802 in Norwich, England.
Martineau was a self-taught expert
in political economic theory, and
wrote prolifically about the
relations between politics,
economics, morals, and social life
throughout her career. Her
intellectual work was centered by a
staunchly moral perspective that
stemmed from her Unitarian faith.
She was fiercely critical of the
inequality and injustice faced by
girls and women, slaves, wage
slaves, and the working poor.
Karl Marx
• The philosopher, social scientist, historian
and revolutionary, Karl Marx, is without a
doubt the most influential socialist thinker
to emerge in the 19th century. Although
he was largely ignored by scholars in his
own lifetime, his social, economic and
political ideas gained rapid acceptance in
the socialist movement after his death in
1883. Until quite recently almost half the
population of the world lived under
regimes that claim to be Marxist. This very
success, however, has meant that the
original ideas of Marx have often been
modified and his meanings adapted to a
great variety of political circumstances. In
addition, the fact that Marx delayed
publication of many of his writings meant
that is been only recently that scholars
had the opportunity to appreciate Marx's
intellectual stature.
Emile Durkleim

• David Émile Durkheim

(French: [emil dyʁkɛm] or
[dyʁkajm];[1] April 15, 1858 –
November 15, 1917) was a
French sociologist, social
psychologist and philosopher.
He formally established the
academic discipline and—
with Karl Marx and Max
Weber—is commonly cited as
the principal architect of
modern social science and
father of sociology
Max Weber

• Karl Emil Maximilian "Max"

Weber was a German
sociologist, philosopher, jurist,
and political economist whose
ideas profoundly influenced
social theory and social
research.Weber is often cited,
with Émile Durkheim and Karl
Marx, as among the three
founders of sociology
 Anthropology
• Anthropology is the study of humans, past
and present. To understand the full sweep and
complexity of cultures across all of human
history, anthropology draws and builds upon
knowledge from the social and biological
sciences as well as the humanities and
physical sciences.
Franz Boas

• Franz Uri Boas was a

German- American
anthropologist and a
pioneer of modern
anthropology who has
been called the "Father of
American Anthropology”
His work is associated
with the movement of
anthropological
historicism
Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski

• was a Polish
anthropologist, one of
the most important
20th-century
anthropologists. He
has also been referred
to as a sociologist and
ethnographer.
Alfred Reginald Radcliffe -Brown

• was an English social

anthropologist who
developed the
theory of structural
functionalism and
coadaptation.
 Alfred Reginald
Radcliff -Brown
(1881 Birmingham -1955 London)

H·s Unders andi g and v · e s of

Social Anthropology:

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 Political Science
• Political science is a social science discipline
that deals with systems of government, and
the analysis of political activity
and political behavior. It deals extensively
with the theory and practice ofpolitics which
is commonly thought of as determining of the
distribution of power and resources
Walter Lippmann

• was an American writer,

reporter, and political
commentator famous for
being among the first to
introduce the concept of Cold
War, coining the term
"stereotype" in the modern
psychological meaning, and
critiquing media and
democracy in his newspaper
column and several books
The Colonial Origin of the Social
Sciences
 The Clamor for Decolonization of
Social Sciences
• As discussed above,the image created by the
Social Scientists around the 18th century carried a
very European view of non Western world.Social
Sciences spread from the center to the
peripheries of the of the world .Most of their
observations ,mainly from anthropology were
clothed in the cultural beliefs and attitudes of
the Fair European.
Indigenization of Social Sciences in the
Philippines
• In the Philippines,social sciences after World
War II simply perpetuated colonial knowledge
production from American social
sciences.Many Filipino social scientists such as
Virgilio Enriquez,a psychologist Zeus Salazar,a
historian and Prospero Covar,an
anthropologist advocated for the
indigenization of social sciences.
Antonio de Morga
 Social Sciences in the Era of
Globalization
• Science may take on completely different forms in
various cultural and historical contexts, but all of
these forms of the human acquisition of
knowledge share a general nature that lies in
their exploration of the potential for innovation
embodied in a given material culture. This
exploration, focusing on means rather than ends,
occurs in a certain autonomy from the specific
applications also given with this culture, through
its tradition and concentrating on certain goals.
Against the background of such a historical
definition of science, the remarkable dual
character it possesses, its durability and its
fragility, becomes more understandable
• Knowledge is globalized when it is in principle globally available and
accessible. The globalization of knowledge today has reached a new stage:
it has transformed the economy of knowledge radically, in ways that are
comparable to the transformation in recent years of a monetary economy
to a system in which local and global developments are coupled by almost
instantaneous interactions. New potentials for the globalization of
knowledge have emerged, such as the global system of science and the
World Wide Web, offering immediate worldwide access to the knowledge
produced within this system. Due to the increased mobility of people and
things, research hubs and the human resources of science have become
global assets. Themigration of scientific knowledge is no longer
characterized by the trajectories of individuals or by the dynamics of
fellow traveling, but rather by global social patterns
 Feminist Anthropology
• that seeks to transform research findings,
anthropological hiring practices, and the scholarly
production of knowledge, using insights from feminist
theory. Simultaneously, feminist anthropology
challenges essentialist feminist theories developed in
Europe and America. While feminists practiced cultural
anthropology since its inception (see Margaret Mead
and Hortense Powdermaker), it was not until the
1970s that feminist anthropology was formally[citation
needed] recognized as a subdiscipline of anthropology.
Since then, it has developed its own subsection of the
American Anthropological Association – the
Association for Feminist Anthropology – and its own
publication,
 Summary
• The social Sciences namely, sociology,
anthropology and political science, developed
as result of the development of modern
society. The rise and rapid growth of the
natural sciences influenced the direction of
the social sciences.
 Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
• St. Paul University Dumaguete Founded in 1904
• AB-History AB-Math
• AB-Mass Communication
• AB-General Science
• AB-Filipino
• AB-English
• BS. Psychology
• BS. LEGAL Management
• BS. Environmental Management
Thank you