DARSANA

1. Historical developments in social
science
Prepared by,
Darsana M Warrier
b.Ed social science,2015-2017
UCTE, MUVATTTUPUZHA

2. Common Features of Greek-Roman
Historical writing
• Formulated history as a separate subject
• Eye witness
• Not possible to go beyond acertain limit in the
past
• Humanism
• Substantialism
• They pre-conceived the notion of “man is
essentially a rational animal”
• Concept of universal history
• Cyclic view of history

3. Herodotus(484-430 B.C.)and
Thucidydes(460-396 B.C)
• Herodotus was a famous Greek historian
• Rationalism’humanism,scientific etc can be seen
in his writings
• Major work-’The Histories’
• Thucidydes was known as the father of scientific
history
• He brought constructive reasoning in historical
writings
• Major work-’History of the Peloponnesian war’

4. Hellenestic And Roman periods
• Greek developmental age was known as
‘Hellenestic Period’
• The main Historian of this period was ‘Pollybius’
• Titus Livy(59 B.C.-A.D. 17) and Cornelius
Tacitus(A.D.55-120) were the major roman
historians
• Major work of Livy was ‘History of Rome’
• Major works of Tacitus was ‘Life of
Agricola,Dialogues on Oraters,Annale etc

5. Medieval Period
• Commonly known as “Dark Age”.
• In Medieval nEurope, art,science,literature and
philosophy bound up with religion.
• Text were written in greek and latin as these languages
were considered elite an scholarly
• The main Christian historian of this period was St.
Augustine.His major work was “The City of God”.
• Al-Biruni (a.d. 973-1048) was a famous arab historian.
• Known as the Father of Indology
• Major work was Tarikh-ul-Hind

6. Renaissance
• By the dawn of the 13th C, Scholars gave importance to
man and his life in art,science,literature and
philosophy.
• This vision is known as ‘Humanism’
• It promoted Reasoning and Enquiry
• A new awakening in all sphers of human life is known
as ‘Renaissance’.
• ‘Petrarch’ was known as the Father of Renaissance
• The renaissance in the field of science led to the
invention of new machines.It ushered in the Industrial
Revolution

7. Enlightment Period
• This period gave importance to ‘Rational Thinking’
• French philosopher Auguste Comte (1795-1857) was the former
thinker of ‘Positivism’
• Major works- ‘The course of Positive Philosophy’, ‘The system of
positivistic policy’
• Hegel- Founder of ‘Romantic Idealism’
• Major works- Lectures on the philosophy of history,The science of logic,
Encyclopaedia of philosophy etc.
• Karl Marx- Father of scientific socialism
• Major works-Das capital,Communist Manifesto etc.
• According to him,Primitive,Slave,Feudal,Capitalist,Socialist are
the five modes of production
• He coined the term ‘Historical Materialism’

8. Modern Period
• Revival of Greeco-Roman Classics
• Main historian of this age was ‘Niccolo Machiavelli’
• Major works-The Prince,History of Florence
• Francis Bacon called this age as ‘The Development of
Scientific Knowledge’
• In 1929, A Historical journal named “Annales De History
Economic Social” was published.This was the beginning
of ‘Annales School’.
• Renaissance,Scientific Revolution etc brought rapid
changes in the field of Social science

9. • The main changes were,
• Questioning,Prioritisation of
individualism,freedom and formal eqality,faith in
social,scientific and technological
progress,human perfectability,rationalisation and
professionalisation, industrialisation etc.
• Formal establishment of social science was done
• The word social science first established in 1824
by ‘William Thompson’

10. Modern Trends
• The term Coselience was coined by ‘William
Whewell’
• Its meaning is ‘Jumping together of
knowledge’
• It refers to the principle that evidence from
independent,un-related sources can converge
to strong conclusions

11. Social Science Branches
SOCIAL SCIENCE