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Critical Juncture
Critical juncture theory focuses on critical junctures, i.e., large, rapid, discontinuous changes, and the long-term causal effect or historical legacy of these changes. Critical junctures are turning points that alter the course of evolution of some entity (e.g., a species, a society). Critical juncture theory seeks to explain both (1) the historical origin and maintenance of social order, and (2) the occurrence of social change through sudden, big leaps. Critical juncture theory is not a general theory of social order and change. It emphasizes one kind of cause (involving a big, discontinuous change) and kind of effect (a persistent effect). Yet, it challenges some common assumptions in many approaches and theories in the social sciences. The idea that some changes are discontinuous sets it up as an alternative to (1) "continuist" or "synechist" theories that assume that change is always gradual or that ''natura non facit saltus'' – Latin for "nature does not make jumps." Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Causality
Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. In general, a process has many causes, which are also said to be ''causal factors'' for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Some writers have held that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space. Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses. As such a basic concept, it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something to be explained by others more basic. The concept is like those of agency and efficacy. For this reason, a leap of intuition may be needed to grasp it. Accordin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Philosophers Of Science
This is a chronological list of philosophers of science. For an alphabetical name-list, see :Philosophers of science. Before the 16th century * Socrates * Democritus * Plato * Aristotle * Empedocles * Al-Ghazali * Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) * Robert Grosseteste * Roger Bacon * Albert the Great * Thomas Aquinas 16th century * Sir Francis Bacon 17th century * Galileo Galilei * René Descartes * Pierre Gassendi * Gottfried Leibniz 18th century * George Berkeley * Immanuel Kant * David Hume 19th century * Auguste Comte * John Stuart Mill * William Whewell * George Henry Lewes * William Stanley Jevons * Ernst Mach * Charles Sanders Peirce * Edmund Husserl * Frederich Engels 1900–1930 * Nikola Tesla * Henri Poincaré * Pierre Duhem * Niels Bohr * Albert Einstein * Bertrand Russell * Frank P. Ramsey * Moritz Schlick * John Dewey * Alfred North Whitehead 1930–1960 * Alfred Ayer * Mario Bunge * Hans Reichenbach * Georges Canguilhem * Noam Chomsky * Kenneth Craik * Alexandre Koyré ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seymour Lipset
Seymour Martin Lipset ( ; March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist (President of the American Political Science Association). His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and the sociology of intellectual life. He also wrote extensively about the conditions for democracy in comparative perspective. A socialist in his early life, Lipset later moved to the right, and was often considered a neoconservative. At his death in 2006, ''The Guardian'' called him "the leading theorist of democracy and American exceptionalism"; ''The New York Times'' said he was "a pre-eminent sociologist, political scientist and incisive theorist of American uniqueness"; and ''The Washington Post'' said he was "one of the most influential social scientists of the past half century." Early life and education Lipset was born in Harlem, New York City, the son of Russian Jewish immigra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Mann (sociologist)
Michael Mann FBA (born 1942) is a British-born emeritus professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and at the University of Cambridge. Mann holds dual British and United States citizenships. He received a B.A. in modern history in 1963 and a D.Phil. in sociology in 1971 from the University of Oxford. Mann has been a professor of Sociology at UCLA since 1987; he was lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex after graduation. He then became reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, from 1977 to 1987. Mann was also a member of the Advisory Editors Council of the ''Social Evolution & History'' journal. In 1984, Mann published ''The Autonomous Power of the State: its Origins, Mechanisms, and Results'' in the ''European Journal of Sociology''. Mann's works include ''The Sources of Social Power'' (four volumes) and ''The Dark Side of Democracy'', spanning the entire 20th century. He also published ''Incoherent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Sociologists
This is a list of sociologists. It is intended to cover those who have made substantive contributions to social theory and research, including any sociological subfield. Scientists in other fields and philosophers are not included, unless at least some of their work is defined as being specifically sociological in nature. A * Peter Abell, British sociologist * Mark Abrams (1906–1994), British sociologist, political scientist and pollster * Janet Abu-Lughod (1928–2013), American sociologist * Jane Addams (1860–1935), American social worker, sociologist, public philosopher and reformer * Theodor Adorno (1903–1969), German philosopher and cultural sociologist * Richard Alba, American sociologist * Francesco Alberoni, Italian sociologist * Martin Albrow, British sociologist * Jeffrey C. Alexander, American sociologist * Edwin Amenta, American sociologist * Nancy Ammerman, American sociologist * Eric Anderson, American-British sociologist * Elijah Anderson, American sociolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exogenous And Endogenous Variables
In an economic model, an exogenous variable is one whose measure is determined outside the model and is imposed on the model, and an exogenous change is a change in an exogenous variable.Mankiw, N. Gregory. ''Macroeconomics'', third edition, 1997.Varian, Hal R., ''Microeconomic Analysis'', third edition, 1992.Chiang, Alpha C. ''Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics'', third edition, 1984. In contrast, an endogenous variable is a variable whose measure is determined by the model. An endogenous change is a change in an endogenous variable in response to an exogenous change that is imposed upon the model. The term endogeneity in econometrics has a related but distinct meaning. An endogenous random variable is correlated with the error term in the econometric model, while an exogenous variable is not. Examples In the LM model of interest rate determination, the supply of and demand for money determine the interest rate contingent on the level of the money supply, so the mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Gellner
Ernest André Gellner FRAI (9 December 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a British-Czech philosopher and social anthropologist described by ''The Daily Telegraph'', when he died, as one of the world's most vigorous intellectuals, and by ''The Independent'' as a "one-man crusader for critical rationalism". His first book, ''Words and Things'' (1959), prompted a leader in ''The Times'' and a month-long correspondence on its letters page over his attack on linguistic philosophy. As the Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics for 22 years, the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge for eight years, and head of the new Centre for the Study of Nationalism in Prague, Gellner fought all his life—in his writing, teaching and political activism—against what he saw as closed systems of thought, particularly communism, psychoanalysis, relativism and the dictatorship of the free market. Among other issues ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and values of societies. Linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life, while economic anthropology studies human economic behavior. Biological (physical), forensic and medical anthropology study the biological development of humans, the application of biological anthropology in a legal setting and the study of diseases and their impacts on humans over time, respectively. Education Anthropologists usually cover a breadth of topics within anthropology in their undergraduate education and then proceed to specialize in topics of their own choice at the graduate level. In some universities, a qualifying exam serves to test both the breadth and depth of a student's understanding of anthropology; the students who pass are pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and truth. Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of science. Ethical issues such as bioethics and scientific misconduct are often considered ethics or science studies rather than the philosophy of science. There is no consensus among philosophers about many of the central problems concerned with the philosophy of science, including whether science can reveal the truth about unobservable things and whether scientific reasoning can be justified at all. In addition to these general questions about science as a whole, philosophers of science consi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paradigm
In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. Etymology ''Paradigm'' comes from Greek παράδειγμα (''paradeigma''), "pattern, example, sample" from the verb παραδείκνυμι (''paradeiknumi''), "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from παρά (''para''), "beside, beyond" and δείκνυμι (''deiknumi''), "to show, to point out". In classical (Greek-based) rhetoric, a paradeigma aims to provide an audience with an illustration of a similar occurrence. This illustration is not meant to take the audience to a conclusion, however it is used to help guide them get there. One way of how a ''paradeigma'' is meant to guide an audience would be exemplified by the role of a personal accountant. It is not the job of a personal accountant to tell a client exactly what (and what not) to spend money on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normal Science
Normal(s) or The Normal(s) may refer to: Film and television * ''Normal'' (2003 film), starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson * ''Normal'' (2007 film), starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers, Callum Keith Rennie, and Andrew Airlie * ''Normal'' (2009 film), an adaptation of Anthony Neilson's 1991 play ''Normal: The Düsseldorf Ripper'' * ''Normal!'', a 2011 Algerian film * ''The Normals'' (film), a 2012 American comedy film * "Normal" (''New Girl''), an episode of the TV series Mathematics * Normal (geometry), an object such as a line or vector that is perpendicular to a given object * Normal basis (of a Galois extension), used heavily in cryptography * Normal bundle * Normal cone, of a subscheme in algebraic geometry * Normal coordinates, in differential geometry, local coordinates obtained from the exponential map (Riemannian geometry) * Normal distribution In statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distributio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paradigm Shift
A paradigm shift, a concept brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Even though Kuhn restricted the use of the term to the natural sciences, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events. Kuhn presented his notion of a paradigm shift in his influential book ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' (1962). Kuhn contrasts paradigm shifts, which characterize a Scientific Revolution, to the activity of normal science, which he describes as scientific work done within a prevailing framework or paradigm. Paradigm shifts arise when the dominant paradigm under which normal science operates is rendered incompatible with new phenomena, facilitating the adoption of a new theory or paradigm. As one commentator summarizes: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
