The Emergence of Professional Social Science
The Emergence of Professional Social Science

Author: Thomas L. Haskell

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Published: 2001-01-03

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780801865732

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The history of the rise of "social science." Thomas L. Haskell's The Emergence of Professional Social Science signaled the beginning of his distinguished career as a historian of ideas and critic of historical logic. His first book, now available in this paperback edition with a new preface by the author, explores the background and premises of the American Social Science Association (ASSA)—the first American group dedicated to the "scientific" study of humanity and society. Haskell thus helps us to understand a sea change in American intellectual life—the rise of this thing called "social science," the power and implications of the new trend toward secular professionalism, and, ultimately, how it happened that commonsense modes of explanation in terms of conscious choices by individuals came to be overshadowed by a mode of explanation that systematically construes people as creatures of circumstance. How, Haskell asks in his conclusion, did the development of modern society alter "the way we explain human affairs and conceive of man?" This edition includes a new appendix, listing all articles appearing in the Journal of Social Science from 1869 to 1901.

Social Science for What?
Social Science for What?

Author: Mark Solovey

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-07-07

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0262358751

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How the NSF became an important yet controversial patron for the social sciences, influencing debates over their scientific status and social relevance. In the early Cold War years, the U.S. government established the National Science Foundation (NSF), a civilian agency that soon became widely known for its dedication to supporting first-rate science. The agency's 1950 enabling legislation made no mention of the social sciences, although it included a vague reference to "other sciences." Nevertheless, as Mark Solovey shows in this book, the NSF also soon became a major--albeit controversial--source of public funding for them.

Psychiatry in Crisis
Psychiatry in Crisis

Author: Vincenzo Di Nicola

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-02-03

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 3030551407

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The field of academic psychiatry is in crisis, everywhere. It is not merely a health crisis of resource scarcity or distribution, competing claims and practice models, or level of development from one country to another, but a deeper, more fundamental crisis about the very definition and the theoretical basis of psychiatry. The kinds of questions that represent this crisis include whether psychiatry is a social science (like psychology or anthropology), whether it is better understood as part of the humanities (like philosophy, history, and literature), or if the future of psychiatry is best assured as a branch of medicine (based on genetics and neuroscience)? In fact, the question often debated since the beginning of modern psychiatry concerns the biomedical model so that part of psychiatry’s perpetual self-questioning is to what extent it is or is not a branch of medicine. This unique and bold volume offers a representative and critical survey of the history of modern psychiatry with deeply informed transdisciplinary readings of the literature and practices of the field by two professors of psychiatry who are active in practice and engaged in research and have dual training in scientific psychiatry and philosophy. In alternating chapters presenting contrasting arguments for the future of psychiatry, the two authors conclude with a dialogue between them to flesh out the theoretical, research, and practical implications of psychiatry’s current crisis, outlining areas of divergence, consensus, and fruitful collaborations to revision psychiatry today. The volume is scrupulously documented but written in accessible language with capsule summaries of key areas of theory, research, and practice for the student and practitioner alike in the social and human sciences and in medicine, psychiatry, and the neurosciences.

The Crisis of Expertise
The Crisis of Expertise

Author: Gil Eyal

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2019-10-24

Total Pages: 135

ISBN-13: 1509538879

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In recent political debates there has been a significant change in the valence of the word “experts” from a superlative to a near pejorative, typically accompanied by a recitation of experts’ many failures and misdeeds. In topics as varied as Brexit, climate change, and vaccinations there is a palpable mistrust of experts and a tendency to dismiss their advice. Are we witnessing, therefore, the “death of expertise,” or is the handwringing about an “assault on science” merely the hysterical reaction of threatened elites? In this new book, Gil Eyal argues that what needs to be explained is not a one-sided “mistrust of experts” but the two-headed pushmi-pullyu of unprecedented reliance on science and expertise, on the one hand, coupled with increased skepticism and dismissal of scientific findings and expert opinion, on the other. The current mistrust of experts is best understood as one more spiral in an on-going, recursive crisis of legitimacy. The “scientization of politics,” of which critics warned in the 1960s, has brought about a politicization of science, and the two processes reinforce one another in an unstable, crisis-prone mixture. This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the social sciences and to anyone concerned about the political uses of, and attacks on, scientific knowledge and expertise.

An End to the Crisis of Empirical Sociology?
An End to the Crisis of Empirical Sociology?

Author: Linda McKie

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1317572955

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Research data are everywhere. In our everyday interactions, through social media, credit cards and even public transport, we generate and use data. The challenge for sociologists is how to collect, analyse and make best use of these vast arrays of information. The chapters in this book address these challenges using varied perspectives and approaches: The economics of big data and measuring the trajectories of recently arrived communities Social media and social research Researching 'elites', social class and 'race' across space and place Innovations in qualitative research and use of extended case studies Developing mixed method approaches and social network analysis Feminist quantitative methodology Teaching quantitative methods The book provides up to date and accessible material of interest to diverse audiences, including students and teachers of research design and methods, as well as policy analysis and social media.

The Crisis in Modern Social Psychology
The Crisis in Modern Social Psychology

Author: Ian Parker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-18

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1134549032

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In the late 1960s a ‘crisis’ erupted in social psychology, with many social psychologists highly critical of the ‘old paradigm’, laboratory-experimental approach. Originally published in 1989, The Crisis in Modern Social Psychology was the first book to provide a clear account of the complex body of work that is critical of traditional social psychological approaches. Ian Parker insisted that the ‘crisis’ was not over, showing how attempts to improve social psychology had failed, and explaining why we need instead a political understanding of social interaction which links research with change. Modern social psychology reflects the impact of structuralist and post-structuralist conceptual crises in other academic disciplines, and Parker describes the work of Foucault and Derrida sympathetically and lucidly, making these important debates accessible to the student and discussing their influence. He assesses the responses from both mainstream social psychology and from avant-garde textual social psychology to the influx of these radical ideas, and discusses the promises and pitfalls of a post-modern view of social action.

How Social Science Got Better
How Social Science Got Better

Author: Matt Grossmann

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-07-05

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0197518990

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It seems like most of what we read about the academic social sciences in the mainstream media is negative. The field is facing mounting criticism, as canonical studies fail to replicate, questionable research practices abound, and researcher social and political biases come under fire. In response to these criticisms, Matt Grossmann, in How Social Science Got Better, provides a robust defense of the current state of the social sciences. Applying insights from the philosophy, history, and sociology of science and providing new data on research trends and scholarly views, he argues that, far from crisis, social science is undergoing an unparalleled renaissance of ever-broader understanding and application. According to Grossmann, social science research today has never been more relevant, rigorous, or self-reflective because scholars have a much better idea of their blind spots and biases. He highlights how scholars now closely analyze the impact of racial, gender, geographic, methodological, political, and ideological differences on research questions; how the incentives of academia influence our research practices; and how universal human desires to avoid uncomfortable truths and easily solve problems affect our conclusions. Though misaligned incentive structures of course remain, a messy, collective deliberation across the research community has shifted us into an unprecedented age of theoretical diversity, open and connected data, and public scholarship. Grossmann's wide-ranging account of current trends will necessarily force the academy's many critics to rethink their lazy critiques and instead acknowledge the path-breaking advances occurring in the social sciences today.

The Social Sciences in Modern Japan
The Social Sciences in Modern Japan

Author: Andrew E. Barshay

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2007-11-19

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0520253817

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"A stunning achievement as the first full account of social science in a non-Western society. Barshay tells an epic story of how a handful of Japanese intellectuals used social science to make sense of the new society into which they were moving. What they did helps us understand not only Japan, but the whole modern world."—Robert Bellah, Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Tokugawa Religion and Imagining Japan