Talk:Philosophy of social science

THE BEHAVIOUR AND THE HUMAN BODY as 2 different matters of study to the Philosophies of Sociolgy and the Philosophy of Scientists.

Classifying all the components of human behavior differs greatly to classifying all of the components of the body of the human being.Human behavior has a set definition.The living human body has a set definition. We do not know all of the components of human behaviour.We do know all of the components of the human body...for the human body can be illustrated in diagramitic form as years and years of study have enabled us to verify that we know the entire facts and produce them by diagram etc for others to observe. This process of study and its verifacation has,from its early days, been the hallmark of the methods of the Scientist. A fact is a fact and it can never be disputed.

Sociolgists study human behavior and can work using the same method,by study and verifacation,but their subject matter can be very different to that the Scientist,and it is not so easy for them to classify facts.

The sociologist,for example,may decide to study why there are not enough skilled cooks in the workforce. He can gather data to prove this and produce it in a printout.It may reveal that in North Scotland there is a ratio of 1 to 375- 1 skilled cook to a requirement in the area of 375. If he wants to end his study there,he could,and report to the Government that they should make more training places for cooks available.

In this way Sociology is as factual as Science.

However if he wishes to find out why this situation arose,then he has to study the behaviour of all relevant groups. From school curriculums to colleges to individual choices to obstacles to facilities to teachers and he may have to carry out his study from a very early date,it could be more than 3 decades ago or more. He may prove a great number of facts but if it transpired to amount to "Individual unwillingness to learn to cook" then analysing the reasons for it are not viable.He will never be able to analyse "individual unwillingness" So in this part of his study he has got an entirley different subject matter than the Scientist ..he cannot gather data and verify it. He can only give his opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ANGELACMCMAHON (talk • contribs) 09:39, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Fodor
Some Fodor should be mentioned to eliminate the Social Sciences being reduced to Physics by reductionism. 128.6.175.41 17:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

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A section on the relationship to philosophy of science is necessary.

Social Science and Natural Science
There are several reasons for natural science to be more successful than social science (if it can be called science). Firstly, natural science stresses quantitative research. Secondly, there is no emotional linkage between the researcher and the object of study. Social science research, however, has many taboos. It is not nice to say this thing, or it will offend people in saying that thing, and the like. People sometimes can only say things that are politically correct but not scientifically correct. In my opinion, human language is vague. For example, the word “desk” does not indicate how many legs the “desk” has or what material it is made of. By the same token, “socialism” and “capitalism” are also vague concepts. If I can provide concrete parameters such as measurement, material and color, then the “desk” I talk about has a definite meaning. There are also concrete parameters in social science research, such as efficiency, extent of security, degree of equity, level of equality, measure of natural freedom and social freedom, people’s average life span, crime rate, average number of phones and cars in the population, and the like. In order to reach objective conclusion, researchers of social studies should make use of these quantified concepts as much as possible to define concepts such as “socialism” and “capitalism”. Adjudicators giving marks at the gymnastics competition is adopting a way to quantify the performance of the athletes. I believe that social theorists should also quantify the social conditions of different period and different regions in human history. It will be impossible to achieve absolute accuracy, even natural scientists cannot measure the length of an object to absolute accuracy. There will inevitably be some errors but in the case of social science, errors will be bigger. People have not forsaken the assessment method for gymnastics competition simply because it contains large errors. Up to now, not only are there vague concepts such as “socialism” and “capitalism”, but also new vague concepts made up from these vague concepts, such as “primary stage of socialism” and “socialism with distinctive Chinese characteristics”, and the like.

65.110.25.82 (talk) 02:29, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Potentially dangerous transclusion redaction
I found this at the top of the article:

The philosophy of social science is the study of the logic, methods, and foundations of social sciences (psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology, etc...). Philosophers of social science are concerned with the differences and similarities between the social and the natural sciences, causal relationships between social phenomena, the possible existence of social laws, and the ontological significance of structure and agency.

There are only three active transclusions. I was able to find the phrase "ontological significance of structure and agency" via internal search only in philosophy of science, where it is hard coded, not transcluded. The "etc..." is kind of nasty, and I have trouble believing it has survived in transcluded pages for any length of time. For a variety of reasons, I suspect this is cruft from ancient history and, in any case, not congruent with how much of anything else is done these days.

If I'm totally wrong, and this transclusion was actually accomplishing something, then my apologies, and restore at will, but please elaborate in the comment why and how it functions, which escapes me. &mdash; MaxEnt 15:21, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Clarification: By "how" it functions, I mean what purpose it serves on the transcluding pages that couldn't be served less weirdly, not how transclusion itself works, which I understand just fine. &mdash; MaxEnt 15:22, 30 September 2023 (UTC)