January 9 Class: Introduction to Social Sciences

January 9 Class Dr. Caman Chapter 1 – Understanding Politics Social Science (origins, differences from natural science) Knowledge in social sciences (how do we know?) Definitions of politics (hard job!) Basic concepts of politics (why terminology matters?) Power (central concept) Di...

January 9 Class Dr. Caman Chapter 1 – Understanding Politics Social Science (origins, differences from natural science) Knowledge in social sciences (how do we know?) Definitions of politics (hard job!) Basic concepts of politics (why terminology matters?) Power (central concept) Distribution of power (why conflicts happen) Authority (institutionalized power?) Legitimacy (why we accept power?) Common good (functionalizing politics) Types of analysis in political science (how we approach politics) What is political science (what is this discipline about) Questions / discussion Science, Social Science & Political Science Scientia – Latin word that means “knowledge” Science refers to a systematic and organized body of knowledge in any area of inquiry that is acquired using “the scientific method” Science can be grouped into two broad categories: natural science and social science. Natural Sciences Natural science is the science of naturally occurring objects or phenomena, such as light, objects, matter, earth or the human body. Natural sciences can be further classified into physical sciences, earth sciences, life sciences, and others. Physical science disciplines: physics (the science of physical objects), chemistry (the science of matter), and astronomy (the science of objects in space). Earth sciences disciplines: geology (the science of the earth). Life sciences disciplines: biology (the science of living organisms) and botany (the science of plants). Social Science Social science is the science of people or collections of people. Example for groups: firms, societies, or economies, and their individual or collective behaviors. Social Science Disciplines Social sciences can be classified into disciplines such as: Political Science psychology (the science of human behaviors) sociology (the science of social groups) economics (the science of firms, markets, and economies) Natural Sciences & Social Sciences The natural sciences are different from the social sciences in several respects. The natural sciences are very precise, accurate, deterministic, and independent of the person who makes the scientific observations. If two students conducting the same physics experiment obtain two different values of these physical properties, then it generally means that one or both of those students must be in error.  Social Sciences = less accurate, deterministic For instance, if you try to “measure” a person’s happiness, you may find that the same person is more happy or less happy (or sad) on different days and sometimes, at different times on the same day. Furthermore, there is no instrument (like in natural sciences) or metric that can accurately measure a person’s happiness. In other words, there is a high degree of measurement error in the social sciences Theory – philosophy – belief Today, social theory has to do with what is, not with what should be. But for many centuries social theory was not clearly separated from philosophy and beliefs Science cannot say whether capitalism is better that socialism. But scientists try to find out, for example, whether capitalism or socialism most support human freedom (of course we need to define the concept of “freedom” first, and then we can compare them) By analogy, a chronometer cannot tell us if one sprinter is better than the other one if we don’t agree first that speed is the critical criteria