Literatuur SSW
Literatuur: Inleiding: de geloofwaardigheid van sociale wetenschappen
ter discussie
Eller: Introduction
- attempt: sociology of knowledge, that is, the social organization of knowledge making
and knowledge transmitting
- the social sciences were invented very recently which means that
- they have not always existed in their present form and therefore
- that they need not always exist in their present form
Eller: Hoofdstuk 1 - What is Social Science
- society has always been there, but the scientific study of society is a remarkably new
enterprise
- invented in the mid-1800s and they only reached their current form in the early 1900s
- social scientists refer to this process of the creation, perpetuation, transmission and
institutionalization of their own knowledge, and that of other sciences and of informal
non-scientific knowledge, as the social construction of knowledge
- it is less proper to speak of knowledge than of diverse knowledges, each constructed
by its own knowledge practices and knowledge traditions
- the school is a social classifier of both people and knowledge, through the 3
message systems built into the school institution
- curriculum/contents of education. there is no objective or non-social way to
make such decisions, and they are therefore ripe for disagreement and
controversy
- pedagogy or teaching methods
- evaluation
- knowledge is not only socially constructed but also socially distributed
- important distinctions in the knowledge distribution: between the expert and the
novice or merely the average member of society
- expert knowledge: what qualified individuals know as a result of their technical
practices, training and experience
- foucault: techniques of power by which individuals, groups, institutions and societies
shape the knowledge and actions of others
- many social scientists have since pursued the notion that much of what we call
knowledge is less a matter of explicit cognitive or verbal information than of practical
skills and learned intuitions - more inscribed in the body than processed by the mind
- Smithsons: 2 subtypes of ignorance: error and irrelevance
- Positivism: notion that science is simply a matter of getting more and better facts
- science does not progress in a straight line as much as we believe
- Fleck: scientific knowledge: is not an absolute, eternal and presocial thing. any
scientific fact is a historical and social achievement, the history of which can be
investigated and as an accomplished fact or bit of knowledge it is always a
supplement, development, or transformation of the thought style of a practicing
thought collective
- Kuhn: a shift of paradigm:scientific revolution or change of scientific worldview
1
, - paradigm: context of ideas that makes a theory possible and sensible
- in the stronges interpretation, knowledge is either scientific or it is not knowledge at
all
- science is unique among though systems because it offers propositions that can be
tested and falsified
- generalizability is not easy to apply on the human sciences.
- individuals have their own perspectives, meanings and reasons
- human social world is infinitely more complex than the physical world
- human actors have their individual perspectives and reasons, and since
human action and society are infinitely complex, much if not most human
action is not replicable
Literatuur: Geschiedenis van de universiteit
Eller Hoofdstuk 3 - Science of politics
- politieke instituties zijn een nieuwe ontdekking
- aristotle associeerde politiek, de deelname in een stabiele en gelukkige samenleving,
met moraliteit en etiek. hij noemde dat virtue
- aristotle meette 6 vormen van government - in termen van power en interest
- middeleeuwen: aguinas en augustine: bijgedragen aan politiek problematiek: geweld
(just war/ just persecution)
- moslim: religion/just king
- machiavelli’s the prince: advies aan rulers, advies over hoe ze het beste hun politieke
macht kunnen uitoefenen en maximaliseren
- states should use cultural traditions and long-standing folkways to justify their
use of power
- use the people’s love and fear against them- but exploit fear when love did
not get the job done
Eller Hoofdstuk 6 - Sociological Imagination
- sociology seems to lack ancient roots
- why was society not an early subject of analysis: society was utterly taken for granted
- naturalistic: slavery was seen as a natural thing, instead of a social institution
- supernatural: human rules and institutions are established by non human and super
human beings
- only place where social analysis might arise: areas where humans clearly created
their own institutions - greek cities
- late medieval & enlightenment: ibn khaldun en giambattista vico
- khaldun: understanding of society and of historical processes: concept of
asabiyyah (tribalism or communitatianism) = phenomenon that integrated
individuals into cohesive social units or communities
- vico: seminal notion: the creativity of man. key principles: p157
Eller Hoofdstuk 7 - Anthropological Perspective
- in history, human diversity was ignored or avoided
- no one in the ancient world did anthropology as we knew it today
- herodotus: writings accounts of all the things he had seen. talked about custom (=
culture)
2
, - Xenophanes: different peoples religions vary and that each society constructs its
religion in its own image
- in dark ages: christianity promoted its own anthropology in the sense of its theory or
model of humanity
- humanistic turn in renaissance: humanity back to center of literate thought.
- naturalistic approach to humans and human diversity: mission was to classify and
describe the different types (linneaus)
- explorers, soldiers setlers and priests wrote eyewitness reports of their encounters
outside of europe
- Enlightenment: Locke/hobbes/rousseau they didn’t consider themself anthropologists
Literatuur: Sociologie
Eller Hoofdstuk 4: Economic Outlook (pp89-91 en pp97-106)
- Thomas Piketty: while there are economic and social forces operating both to
equalize and unequalize wealt, in the long run, the private rate of return on capital
can be significantly higher for long periods in time than the rate of growth of income
and output
- people who already have wealth earn more on their wealth than those who depend
on paid labor
- once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases
- economics can be defined as a study of how people organize the use of resources to
satisfy their wants - economics is a study of economic organization
- economics laws are human laws, concerned with human behavior
- economic is, despite its claims to scientificity, many other things besides science
- history
- sociology: to the extent that the economist must examine the social conditions
necessary to permit each type of economic system to operate efficienty
- political science
- psychology
- modern social sciences had not yet differentiated, so thinkers tended to combine
analysis of the economy with remarks about politics, human nature, and of course
morality and religion
- Locke: argued for a natural and rational basis for property: nature+labor=property
- one of the first schools of economic thought: physiocrats
- taught that wealth originated in productive labor
- Adam smith: wealth of nations
- showed how strongly economic issues are related to both psychology and
morality
- we address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never
talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages
- most basic fact of psychology and morality of the individual market actor: self
interest. individuals do what they perceive to be in their own best interest
- social actors are rational
- theory of utilitarianism
- human behavior can be explained and guided rationally as a calculated
pursuit of happiness
3
Literatuur: Inleiding: de geloofwaardigheid van sociale wetenschappen
ter discussie
Eller: Introduction
- attempt: sociology of knowledge, that is, the social organization of knowledge making
and knowledge transmitting
- the social sciences were invented very recently which means that
- they have not always existed in their present form and therefore
- that they need not always exist in their present form
Eller: Hoofdstuk 1 - What is Social Science
- society has always been there, but the scientific study of society is a remarkably new
enterprise
- invented in the mid-1800s and they only reached their current form in the early 1900s
- social scientists refer to this process of the creation, perpetuation, transmission and
institutionalization of their own knowledge, and that of other sciences and of informal
non-scientific knowledge, as the social construction of knowledge
- it is less proper to speak of knowledge than of diverse knowledges, each constructed
by its own knowledge practices and knowledge traditions
- the school is a social classifier of both people and knowledge, through the 3
message systems built into the school institution
- curriculum/contents of education. there is no objective or non-social way to
make such decisions, and they are therefore ripe for disagreement and
controversy
- pedagogy or teaching methods
- evaluation
- knowledge is not only socially constructed but also socially distributed
- important distinctions in the knowledge distribution: between the expert and the
novice or merely the average member of society
- expert knowledge: what qualified individuals know as a result of their technical
practices, training and experience
- foucault: techniques of power by which individuals, groups, institutions and societies
shape the knowledge and actions of others
- many social scientists have since pursued the notion that much of what we call
knowledge is less a matter of explicit cognitive or verbal information than of practical
skills and learned intuitions - more inscribed in the body than processed by the mind
- Smithsons: 2 subtypes of ignorance: error and irrelevance
- Positivism: notion that science is simply a matter of getting more and better facts
- science does not progress in a straight line as much as we believe
- Fleck: scientific knowledge: is not an absolute, eternal and presocial thing. any
scientific fact is a historical and social achievement, the history of which can be
investigated and as an accomplished fact or bit of knowledge it is always a
supplement, development, or transformation of the thought style of a practicing
thought collective
- Kuhn: a shift of paradigm:scientific revolution or change of scientific worldview
1
, - paradigm: context of ideas that makes a theory possible and sensible
- in the stronges interpretation, knowledge is either scientific or it is not knowledge at
all
- science is unique among though systems because it offers propositions that can be
tested and falsified
- generalizability is not easy to apply on the human sciences.
- individuals have their own perspectives, meanings and reasons
- human social world is infinitely more complex than the physical world
- human actors have their individual perspectives and reasons, and since
human action and society are infinitely complex, much if not most human
action is not replicable
Literatuur: Geschiedenis van de universiteit
Eller Hoofdstuk 3 - Science of politics
- politieke instituties zijn een nieuwe ontdekking
- aristotle associeerde politiek, de deelname in een stabiele en gelukkige samenleving,
met moraliteit en etiek. hij noemde dat virtue
- aristotle meette 6 vormen van government - in termen van power en interest
- middeleeuwen: aguinas en augustine: bijgedragen aan politiek problematiek: geweld
(just war/ just persecution)
- moslim: religion/just king
- machiavelli’s the prince: advies aan rulers, advies over hoe ze het beste hun politieke
macht kunnen uitoefenen en maximaliseren
- states should use cultural traditions and long-standing folkways to justify their
use of power
- use the people’s love and fear against them- but exploit fear when love did
not get the job done
Eller Hoofdstuk 6 - Sociological Imagination
- sociology seems to lack ancient roots
- why was society not an early subject of analysis: society was utterly taken for granted
- naturalistic: slavery was seen as a natural thing, instead of a social institution
- supernatural: human rules and institutions are established by non human and super
human beings
- only place where social analysis might arise: areas where humans clearly created
their own institutions - greek cities
- late medieval & enlightenment: ibn khaldun en giambattista vico
- khaldun: understanding of society and of historical processes: concept of
asabiyyah (tribalism or communitatianism) = phenomenon that integrated
individuals into cohesive social units or communities
- vico: seminal notion: the creativity of man. key principles: p157
Eller Hoofdstuk 7 - Anthropological Perspective
- in history, human diversity was ignored or avoided
- no one in the ancient world did anthropology as we knew it today
- herodotus: writings accounts of all the things he had seen. talked about custom (=
culture)
2
, - Xenophanes: different peoples religions vary and that each society constructs its
religion in its own image
- in dark ages: christianity promoted its own anthropology in the sense of its theory or
model of humanity
- humanistic turn in renaissance: humanity back to center of literate thought.
- naturalistic approach to humans and human diversity: mission was to classify and
describe the different types (linneaus)
- explorers, soldiers setlers and priests wrote eyewitness reports of their encounters
outside of europe
- Enlightenment: Locke/hobbes/rousseau they didn’t consider themself anthropologists
Literatuur: Sociologie
Eller Hoofdstuk 4: Economic Outlook (pp89-91 en pp97-106)
- Thomas Piketty: while there are economic and social forces operating both to
equalize and unequalize wealt, in the long run, the private rate of return on capital
can be significantly higher for long periods in time than the rate of growth of income
and output
- people who already have wealth earn more on their wealth than those who depend
on paid labor
- once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases
- economics can be defined as a study of how people organize the use of resources to
satisfy their wants - economics is a study of economic organization
- economics laws are human laws, concerned with human behavior
- economic is, despite its claims to scientificity, many other things besides science
- history
- sociology: to the extent that the economist must examine the social conditions
necessary to permit each type of economic system to operate efficienty
- political science
- psychology
- modern social sciences had not yet differentiated, so thinkers tended to combine
analysis of the economy with remarks about politics, human nature, and of course
morality and religion
- Locke: argued for a natural and rational basis for property: nature+labor=property
- one of the first schools of economic thought: physiocrats
- taught that wealth originated in productive labor
- Adam smith: wealth of nations
- showed how strongly economic issues are related to both psychology and
morality
- we address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never
talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages
- most basic fact of psychology and morality of the individual market actor: self
interest. individuals do what they perceive to be in their own best interest
- social actors are rational
- theory of utilitarianism
- human behavior can be explained and guided rationally as a calculated
pursuit of happiness
3
