Conocimiento y Sociedad: Introducción a las Ciencias

• The Escuela de Sociología de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) took on the responsibility of producing a new introductory text on Social Sciences to address new theoretical changes and demands.
• This involved consultation with teachers and a review committee to homogenize and tailor the materials.
• The development of units considered pedagogical criteria and the profile of new UASD students.
• The first unit explains the relation between knowledge production and the social space and establishes the social basis of knowledge, and beliefs.

Knowledge and Society

• The "Knowledge and Society" unit expresses a dual relationship of influence.
• Social reality determines and influences knowledge.
• Knowledge influences and determines social reality, via perception.
• The second unit explains social sciences as a process of autonomization and differentiation from religion and philosophy.
• Social science is determined by societal changes such as the shift from traditional to modern, agrarian to industrial, and feudal to capitalist, and from rural to urban societies as well as changes Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Positivism.
• This unit also covers social sciences in Latin America and the Dominican Republic.
• The third unit highlights the significance of social investigation as a demarcation criterion between science and other forms of knowledge.
• It presents the social investigation process, research types, project execution, and problem formulation and a guide for bibliography references.
• The fourth unit explores human beings, the environment, and society from an evolutionist lens.
• It covers important societal transformation themes of human exploitation of nature, nature and society relations, gender related topics, as well as power inequalities between men and women.
• The fifth unit seeks to introduce students to contemporary social problem debates such as globalization, neoliberalism, technological advancement, democratization processes, and cultural individualization highlighting the impact on society, economy and identities.
• The sixth unit deals with social issues affecting Dominican society including poverty, urban violence, crime, citizen insecurity, social inequality, emigration/immigration, gender issues, youth, education, health, and value crises.
• SOC 010 is presented as a subject through which the university aims to from professionals with critical knowledge, human sensibility and ethical values.
• It is essential that social sciences are treated by students as modern and dynamic, with the ability and resources needed for social change.

Human Knowledge

• Human knowledge can be seen as a rational process which starts at birth and ends at death
• Human knowledge is the historical result of the dynamic process and practices that enabled the development of human thinking
• Human knowledge is a mind construction where, in individual and collective form, people can materialize reality
• Socially the collective construction of human knowledge transcends the physical death since ideas do not die
• Knowledge is dynamic because it changes over time, and through confirming knowledge with greater development and collectivism
• Oral and written language was crucial for human development and knowledge
• Writing is the foundation where human beings could start the process of accumulation and relay of knowledge from generation to generation, connecting it to the past and future
• Knowledge is integral because it constantly incorporates new information thanks to the senses, accumulated by past generations
• The human brain synthesizes passed and present experiences to project the future
• The text provides a reflection on how, over time, people create and collect their knowledge little by little
• The text uses the example that when a baby is born, they manage to satisfy their own needs by crying.
• Over time, adults can determine the cause of the baby's cry, and as they develop, will find different tactics to satisfy their needs
• Similarly to the baby, social beings reaffirm some knowledge and deny others to be tested by practice.
• A person's life develops in a social and nature environment through the interaction of personal experiences and the reflection of collective people
• The construction of knowlede is made through a quantitative accumulation and qualitative leaps
• The character of science is approximate and it advances through successive approximations

Human Needs, Social Practice and Knowledge

• A human necessity is a lack of something material or spiritual
• It is the human's self defense mechanism to guarantee physical and spiritual health
• Maslow was recognized as a prominent student of need and it includes five things
• Material and spiritual necessities are basic for all humans; satisfaction guarantees biological and emotional health
• They can be found through nourishment, clothing and housing, health and love
• People need time to dedicate to activities that allow them to obtain goods and services to satisfy the needs
• Following the theory of Maslow, spiritual needs only arise after satisfying material needs
• People attempt first to satisfy the physiological needs to guarantee physical and biological health
• Because of this, there can not be a total separation of the activity on materiality and spirituality
• Social groups are different and find different ways to solivng the problems, meaning that social practices are diverse
• Through repetiton men and women discover methods to resolve prolems
• Ideas are the solutions for problems that arise from reflecting on what is done. Ideas are immaterial and abstract
• Ideas are tested by everyday live, the ideas that are good are accepted, and those who arent are rejected
• Some ideas that were rejected in the past might be retaken and those who are accepted might be eliminated.
• This process is complex, dynamic and integrated

Social Ambience

• Currently there are two types o differentiated zones: rural and urban
• In both cases they are human groups considered marginated because of the precarious life conditions, level of living crammed as well as the basics such as water, electricity and health services

Rural Life

• In the rural zones the time is from biological cycles
• The velocity of transportation in the urban zones are less, the life rhythm is indicated through natural things such as the sun and the rain
• The crop cycles indicate the behaviors of people. A farmer views nature and is related with the land

Dominican Convites

• In the Dominican Republic these are campestral practices called "Convite"
• The owner of a farm invited people from their town to work on their propery for some days
• People work without expecting any payment, only for the food of that day
• Another time the rest will do the same
• This type of labor is more due to the necessity the community has, not to be paid by an economist or a financial institution
• In the "Convite" people sing, cook, tel stories, share their life while working creating a cultural union

Urban Life

• The velocity in the urban zones is influenced by commercial services and automation
• Hurry is important since the time of people is that of the machines. There are schedules for working and the clock is essential

Coastal Fisherman People

• The experiences and stories from fisherman run from mouth to mouth by the fishermen towns people
• A great fact is that fishermen are used to risk their lives everyday in their job. They are used to danger because of the ocean waves, sharks, wind and sun
• In the different social ambiences people learn and acquire information to be able to perform, create skill, attitutdes and values. Knowledge determines the quality of life of people

Intergenerational Transfer

• The life conditions of people depends on their knowledge
• Based on statistical information of the 80s, it's clear that a person's well being is related with learning studies, giving chances to transmite intergenerational to such people
• It has been proven that the lesser quantity of learnings a parent has, the higher the years of study their children must do to climb and the higher level of education a parent has, the lesser time their children must study to be able to work and climb their revenue
• Today, the world asks approximately 12 years of scholary
• Information said that the 80% of urban kids come from families that have less than 10 years of school

Education and Behavior

• Education not only rebound on economical aspect but also on people's actions, attitudes, and shapes when facing problems
• For example those who have scholarity of 3 to 5 years and those of 12 would have different behaviors when dealing with the news of a pandemia arriving to the country

Science and Vulgar Knowledge

• For years thinkers divide the human's learnings into scientific and vulgaris
• To designate learnings vulgar for not being able to be achieved by the scientific method is considered an undervaluation to the human learnings
• In this text the word "saber" (knowledge) is used to designate all the conceptual and theorical domains as well as the attitudes, skills and values by everyone during humanities practices
• Knowledge and knowing are synonyms
• A science knowing is important, but the day-to-day, popular, religious and artistic are as well important
• Diversity is part of all reality.
• Biodiversity is the gathering of the genes, species y ecosystems of a region.
• The reality's complexity is expressed at all times. It is important to consider the social systems with a complexity degree since its variable are multiple and can't be controlled.
• Morin's focus is great to analyze and study the knowledge's diversity

Daily Knowledge

• They are that knowledge that we aquire on the path of life without following a method in times using intuition, and plenty of times mixing fears, believes and prejudices
• Even if the familiar use of the word quotidianity exists, the daily life of subjects is the same, it is good to clear that daily life equates to empiric knowlege
• Daily "saberes" are the set of abilites and skills that develop the alternate groups of the society, the marginated
• These "saberes" allow them to survive on extreme conditions, but because their low levrel, these people are hold on a circle following the basic elemental solutions, stopping them from getting out of poverty
• Everyday knowledge is manifested in precarious communications and almost none and weak, conformed, and lack valorization form life
• The daily knowing is proper from the sub alternate groups
• The social groups that create this knowledge correspond to the meaning of monetary poverty according the United Nations These are great masses of people who survive on poverty

Popular Knowledges

• Popular knowledge is based on the reflexion in particular experiences inside a grouped community to interpret those learnings
• Named "popular" from the culture in the form of reffrains, songs, sayings and stories
• A story about un hacendado and a campesino is presented.

Religious Knowledge

• Is the set of ideas and concepts achived by men over the racial alnd social reality over a faith perspective in a sobrenatural something, confirmed by the believers in their lives
• Religion si a cultural sistem of interpreting the world that has developed on time like a historic tradition
• Historically there has been a confrontation between theocetric viewls and scientific views of the wordl
• In current times there has been diologise with the theilpgy and social knowing even if an orthodoxal tendence has been appearing that negate their conection
• Today you can't negate that knowing by the religion has been translated so its own to science

Sports Knowings

• Its the set of skills and abilities physically and mentally achieved by a human from the practices that combine body and mind in matches, for the permanent search inside realtions
• Sports mean the gatering of mental and physical activities made by man with ludic intetions or competency
• They are achieved with base of rules using abstacles, with the target of measuring its capacity
• Deporte was considered an old activity to better its health. It was profesionallized through the XX century
• With the necessarities for sport is to dispose of three time and adequate nutrition

Artistic Knowings

• The artistic knowledge is an expression of esthetics who are able to recreate the human soul
• Sculpturing is a language of volume with invites the person to admire and find the hidden language
• The artistry has a eotional force with immeasurable value that allow those who have great ideas to express themselves better.
• Music, theatre, dance, escritura and sculpting can transmit culture

Scientific Knowledge and Science

• Scientific information is obtained by scientific research with the use of a scientific method, giving a better understanding of the world to help satisfy the human mind
• Scientific knowledge is the dematerialization from humans to reality. The body of ideas with hypothesis, theories, rules, and method to scientific research can be called science

Scientific Method

• It is a body system of knowledge, being a value because of scientifc method, construction, production and reconstrusction through successives approximations
• Actual society gives importancy to scientific knowing. Science has three recourses: Teorya, metodo y tecnica
• This knowing needs to make obserbation of nature and people to make scientific knowings and create sciences

Social Sciences: Origins and Definition

• Social Sciences arise with Modern Society, as an effort to interpret and explain institutions.
• This unit covers the evolution of social sciences, from the Middle Ages to modernity, highlighting theoretical changes, societal transformations.
• The aim is to define the study object of each discipline and its specializations
• This work assumes that the social sciences are a product of modern european and cannot be applied to Antiquity and Middle Ages
• For didactic purposes, the text emphasizes the course followed by social ideas from the Middle Ages to the present, considering the two great revolutions that made possible the development of the social sciences, on the one the hand, the revolution in social thought, and on the other, the structural social changes that made possible the emergence of modern society

Social Thought During Middle Ages

• Knowledge of society remained linked to religion during the Middle Ages with Christianity dominating
• Science and Social Sciences in particular, had not acquired their autonomy and differentiation from the system of religious knowledge

Rennaisance and it´s impact on the Social Sciencies

• With scientific knowledge being philosophical, the evolution of Social Sciences evolved as an effort to become independent and autonomous of religious and philosophical thought. Also, the increase of the scientific and humanitarian arts, as well as the increase of trade that made an impact in capital that aided its growth in feudal nations
• Nicolás Maquiavelo was one of the pioneers of his era in social sciences. Giving his takes on the state in the book "El principe"

Enlightenment

• 18th century produced a revolution in social ciences, having independence in america in 1776 and french revolition, and an intellectual movement from Voltaire, Diderot and D´Alambert. All aided for a great interest in science which in led to creating the steam machine, electricity and laws of thermodynamics.
• Social thought during Enlightenment era was influenced by Charles Montesquieu & Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
• Montesquieu established a framework for law and state power division, an pioneer sociologist
• Roussou saw mankind being pure at birth yet evil in society that it must create un contract of understanding between state and humans to better mankind

Positivism

• Positivism gave preponderance the to the facts about ideas; asserts humanity evolves through the Theological state (domain of the supernatural), the Metaphysical (knowledge of the absolute), and the Positive (scientific knowledge).
• Auguste Comte proposed a system based on facts as well as progress separating religion and science. Being well to a scientific status.
• Comte is seen as the father of sociology for his work in that sphere. Creating social static (facts in society) and social dinamics (changes from normal)
• industrializaron and Urbanizing.

Industrial revolution

• The industrial age took place between the XVIII e XIX centuries, which Europe and America began to transict towards economic, tecnological, and cultural changes
• There are transitions where a state takes and economic style based on industrial. From there it started disminusing the value and number of farm labors

Urbanization Process

• The urbanization process is characterized by the people´s migration from rural areas to urbans, asentmient of big populations on known cities, greater social services, energy, tecnologiy, education, and other lifestyles. There can be factors as the population or the urbanization in society

Apparition of Capitalism

• This leads to capital and propiedade, with a great conection to trade that also gave support a the burgeous and private propiety
• People are more motivated in free capitalism do trade and production due to their trade and production that goes to get benefitted and are measured by market -Workers sell they work to get better benefits and they propicie the rise in the sales which also aids with better earnings for both traders and people
• The greatest capital helps to determine the conditions to reproduce and distribute its production -One of the main authors was Marx who focused on a critic of the capitalist class because of it´s wealth and the working state

Marx Contributions

• Marx said that a infrstructure at an economic level will be determined in the laws to rule both political and ideological
• The theroy marxist says the abolishment of private property and the sustitucion for a social state, empaziting in how society fights for a structure leading to an society with no clases for the comon
• Was an expert on legal base and with social studies such as weber said that social science had to give his opinion before other so can say the accion social

America Latin America & Social Science

• Social Sciences evolved a rational evolution from Europa, however they all are a try for an explanation on modern institute and tries that respond at these new changes in Latinoamerica.
• They are, Modernization. Dependancy, Mundane system and Globalization theory

Modernization Theory

• Modernizing a Latin American country involves a five stage process, with the end goal of high mass consumtion.
• The World Country was not facing the help it needed from capitalist and tecnology aid
• The allience is a result that shows how it influence and helped with a new modrnization trhough help a the marhsall Plan and allinace of progress

Dependency Theory

• It is a teory born between 60's and 70's over the state of the stagnation socio of latinoamerica on the XX century. With a relation between the counties center with the "countries of low class" for a mundane design who had low equality. The point was to create the conditions of development inside one country

Rules for such Country on that Teory

Creating the conditions for local investement,

Pemit capital with rules,

promote a strong local economy,

Better salaries,

Great goverment and social rules

Glabalitation

• Global was created by the process of globalisation, how it affected world in culture or economics. How culture was affected in technology and communication to better interect with each other
• The globalitation has made the world better in cominication with other people and for america for its easy way as an economic state
• It is important to say that these groups and companies still take decisions There had to be globalizate that can suscitate several enigmatic and teorics and the ones that propicianed the new challenges are known today in what means for the world in its changes

America and Trujillo´s Era

• Social life on America was on rewind state because of the power of politics, from their most intellectual was trujillo
• Joaquin Balaguer lead that time with power against intellectual
• Bosch and Jimenes helped to create social inteligent for the dominican state after Trujillo Trujillo died and this causes the development of social science creating new politics and institutions for investigatión