The early origins of the social sciences

Lynn McDonald

Arguing that the beginnings of the social sciences extend much further back than is generally realized, this study traces the methodological foundations, research techniques, and basic concepts of the social sciences from their earliest origins to the beginning of this century. It provides empirical refutation of recent radical political, feminist, and environmentalist critiques that assert that the social sciences inevitably support the power relations of the status quo, are antithetical to the interests of women, and are inherently linked to the domination and destruction of nature. Covering the important eras in the development of the social sciences, this work deals with the early Greeks, the emergence of the scientific method in the 17th century (especially Bacon, Descartes, and Locke), the French Enlightenment (especially Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet, and Germaine de Stael), and British moral philosophy (especially Hume, Smith, and Catharine Macauley). From the 19th century it includes figures such as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Quetelet, Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale, J.S. Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill, and Beatrice Webb.

出版社

McGill-Queen's Univ. Press

発売日

1996-01-01

ISBN

9780773514089