Excerpt from Part I "The Social Sciences"
"Social science has fascinated enormous numbers of people, and a whole set of ponderings about the game have already developed. These ponderings concern the nature, growth, and functioning of human societies. This book introduces you to past ponderings of social scientists.
The first section sets the stage and introduces the characters, much as the script of the first few minutes of a good TV show does. In it, we consider the nature of social science and the role social science fills in the system of human knowledge- how it relates to the other two major divisions of scholarship, the physical sciences and the humanities. In Chapter 1, we discuss social science, its relation to the other sciences and other forms of knowledge, and the scientific method.
In Chapter 2, we consider the individual social sciences more carefully- their history, their evolution- and take a look at some major figures and individuals who have created the social sciences as they are. We conclude Chapter 2 by considering how, as the technology of storing information expands and as the nature of the reasons for differentiating the various social sciences change, current social sciences are evolving into new types of social sciences.
By the time you have finished reading these two chapters, we hope to have you hooked so that you'll stay tuned in for the later chapters and look at the world around you with new insights." |
