Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Sozialwissenschaften

History of Social Sciences Cursors

Abstract

Daniele Suzete

The history of the social sciences has origin in the common stock of Western philosophy and shares various precursors, but began most intentionally inthe early 19th century with the positivist philosophy of science. Since the mid-20th century, the term "social science" has come to refer more generally,not just to sociology, but to all those disciplines which analyse society and culture; from anthropology to linguistics to media studies.The idea that society may be studied in a standardized and objective manner, with scholarly rules and methodology, is comparatively recent. While thereis evidence of early sociology in medieval Islam, and while philosophers such as Confucius had long since theorised on topics such as social roles, thescientific analysis of "Man" is peculiar to the intellectual break away from the Age of Enlightenment and toward the discourses of Modernity. Socialsciences came forth from the moral philosophy of the time and was influenced by the Age of Revolutions, such as the Industrial revolution and theFrench revolution. The beginnings of the social sciences in the 18th century are reflected in the grand encyclopedia of Diderot, with articles fromRousseau and other pioneers.The development of social science subfields became very quantitative in methodology. Conversely, the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature ofscientific inquiry into human behavior and social and environmental factors affecting it made many of the natural sciences interested in some aspects ofsocial science methodology.