Knowledge, Science, and Social Sciences: A Deep Dive
First Part: Defining Knowledge and Science
What is Knowledge?
Human nature, besides its ability to transform, allows adaptation to any environment. This stems from the origin and experiences that happen throughout life. Knowledge can be categorized in several ways:
- Intuitive: A person’s approach to something unfamiliar.
- Empirical: Knowledge essential for surviving environmental conditions.
- Religious: Different world religions establish moral codes.
- Philosophical: The ongoing need to understand life.
- Scientific: Researching and learning about nature.
What is Science?
Science encompasses all knowledge gained through systematic, structural reasoning. It can be broadly divided into:
- Formal Sciences: (Justification) Rational and verifiable, studying the main issues surrounding us. (Application) Mathematics is used in everything from the simple to the most complicated.
- Factual Sciences: (Justification) Facilitate the study of nature and help us grow, create, and understand everything. (Application) This includes knowledge of plants, animals, and natural laws.
- Humanities: (Justification) The study of humanity, understanding who we are and why. (Application) Used in psychology for understanding human behavior.
Second Part: Social Sciences and Key Theories
Types of Social Science
- Anthropology: The study of societies, often outside the Western context, focusing on culture.
- Psychology: Studies the individual, focusing on the social nature of human beings and their development.
- History: The study of the past and the events that shape it.
- Political Science: Originating in sociology, it focuses on power and its exercise.
- Economics: Researches the production, distribution, and consumption of material goods.
- Sociology: Explains modern societies, studying the cohesion and functioning of communities.
- Law: Clearly states, in writing, the rules and laws to be respected in society, delegating power to specialists.
- Human Geography: Considers how human beings modify or coexist with nature, giving meaning to countries.
Influential Philosophical and Historical Movements
- Empiricism: A philosophical theory emphasizing experience and sensory perception in knowledge formation.
- Rationalism: A 17th-century French philosophical current, opposing empiricism, positing that facts are governed by an intelligible principle accessible to reason. It views reason not as a psychological faculty, but as a chain of necessary truths.
- Positivism: A school of thought advocating for knowledge to be used to create the scientific method.
- The Enlightenment: A worldview emerging in the 18th and mid-19th centuries.
- The Industrial Revolution: From the mid-18th to the mid-19th century, and again in the late 20th century after World War II. It represents a transformation in production methods.
- The French Revolution: (1789-1799). A product of Enlightenment thinking, including declarations of fundamental rights and opposition to established authority.
Third Part: Major Sociological Theories
- Marxism: For Marx, history is the history of class struggle. His central concern was studying the laws enabling the development of capitalist society.
- Functionalism: Views society as ordered, with anything questioning the established order considered abnormal or a disease. It treats society as a living organism.
- Comprehensive Theory (Interpretive Sociology): Founded by Max Weber, it posits that culture can only be understood through an interpretive approach, seeking to comprehend meaning.
- Critical Theory: Developed by the Frankfurt School, a group of German intellectuals researching social philosophy. It is “critical” in its opposition to traditional theory.
Some members of the Frankfurt School included:
- Horkheimer
- Marcuse
- Adorno
- Habermas