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Open And Closed Systems In Social Science
Ludwig Bertalanffy describes two types of systems: open systems and closed systems. The open systems that we know of are systems that allow interactions between their internal elements and the environment. An open system is defined as a “system in exchange of matter with its environment, presenting import and export, building-up and breaking-down of its material components.” Closed systems, on the other hand, are held to be isolated from their environment. Equilibrium thermodynamics, for example, is a field of study that applies to closed systems. The idea of open systems was further developed in systems theory. Social science In social sciences, schematically, if there is an interaction or feedback loop between ideal and material or subjective and objective then the system is an open system, otherwise it is a closed system. A closed system offers a deterministic relationship. René Descartes’ view of a subject as a determining agent, detached from nature, is a closed syst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Bertalanffy
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics and other fields. Bertalanffy proposed that the classical laws of thermodynamics might be applied to closed systems, but not necessarily to "open systems" such as living things. His mathematical model of an organism's growth over time, published in 1934, is still in use today. Bertalanffy grew up in Austria and subsequently worked in Vienna, London, Canada, and the United States. Biography Ludwig von Bertalanffy was born and grew up in the little village of Atzgersdorf (now Liesing) near Vienna. The Bertalanffy family had roots in the 16th century nobility of Hungary which included several scholars and court officials.T.E. Weckowicz (1989). Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972): A Pioneer of General Systems ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Group
In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties. For example, a society can be viewed as a large social group. The system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group or between social groups is known as group dynamics. Definition Social cohesion approach A social group exhibits some degree of social cohesion and is more than a simple collection or aggregate of individuals, such as people waiting at a bus stop, or people waiting in a line. Characteristics shared by members of a group may include Interest (emotion), interests, Value (personal and cultural), values, Social representation, representations, ethnic or social background, and kinship ties. Kinship ties being a social bond based on common ancestry, marriage or adoption. In a similar vein, some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michel-Rolph Trouillot
Michel-Rolph Trouillot (November 26, 1949 – July 5, 2012; PhD, Johns Hopkins 1985) was a Haitian American academic and anthropologist. He was Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He was best known for his books ''Open the Social Science'' (1990), '' Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History'' (1995), and ''Global Transformations'' (2003), which explored the origins and application of social science in academia and its implications in the world. Trouillot has been one of the most influential thinkers of Afro-Caribbean diaspora, because he developed wide-ranging academic work centered on Caribbean issues. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall holds that "Trouillot was one of the most original and thoughtful voices in academia. His writings influenced scholars worldwide in many fields, from anthropology to history to Caribbean studies". Biography Early life Trouillot was born on November 26, 1949, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His family ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Dipesh Chakrabarty (born 1948, in Kolkata, India) is an Indian historian, who has also made contributions to postcolonial theory and subaltern studies. He is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in history at the University of Chicago, and is the recipient of the 2014 Toynbee Prize, named after Professor Arnold J. Toynbee, that recognizes social scientists for significant academic and public contributions to humanity. Biography Dipesh Chakrabarty attended Presidency College of the University of Calcutta, where he received his undergraduate degree in physics. He also received a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA) from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Later he moved on to the Australian National University in Canberra, from where he earned a PhD in history. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subaltern Studies
The Subaltern Studies Group (SSG) or Subaltern Studies Collective is a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies. The term ''Subaltern Studies'' is sometimes also applied more broadly to others who share many of their views and they are often considered to be "exemplary of postcolonial studies" and as one of the most influential movements in the field. Their anti-essentialist approach is one of history from below, focused more on what happens among the masses at the base levels of society than among the elite. Definition The term "subaltern" in this context is an allusion to the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937). The term's semantic range has evolved from its first usage by Ranajit Guha, following Gramsci, to refer solely to peasants who had not been integrated into the industrial capitalist system. It now refers to any person or group of inferior rank or station, whether because of race, class, gender, sexual orien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reinhart Koselleck
Reinhart Koselleck (23 April 1923 – 3 February 2006) was a German historian. He is widely considered to be one of the most important historians of the twentieth century. He occupied a distinctive position within history, working outside of any pre-established 'school', while making pioneering contributions to conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte), the epistemology of history, linguistics, the foundations of an anthropology of history and social history, and the history of law and government. Biography Koselleck volunteered to serve as a German soldier during World War II, having previously joined the Hitler Youth, the youth organisation of the German Nazi Party. In May 1945 he was captured by the Red Army and was sent for debris removal to the Auschwitz concentration camp, before being transported to Kazakhstan and held there as a prisoner of war for 15 months until he was returned to Germany on medical grounds. He claimed that his personal experiences during the war were forma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philology
Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as the study of literary texts as well as oral and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist. In older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative linguistics, comparative and historical linguistics. Classical philology studies classical languages. Classical philology principally originated from the Library of Pergamum and the Library of Alexandria around the fourth century BC, continued by Greeks and Romans throughout the Roman Empire, Roman/Byzantine Empire. It was eventually resumed by European scholars of the Renaissance humanism, Renaissance, where it was s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power (social And Political)
In social science and politics, power is the social production of an effect that determines the capacities, actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force ( coercion) by one actor against another, but may also be exerted through diffuse means (such as institutions). Power may also take structural forms, as it orders actors in relation to one another (such as distinguishing between a master and a slave, a householder and their relatives, an employer and their employees, a parent and a child, a political representative and their voters...), and discursive forms, as categories and language may lend legitimacy to some behaviors and groups over others. The term '' authority'' is often used for power that is perceived as legitimate or socially approved by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust; however, power can also be seen as good and as something inherited or given for exercising humanistic objective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied primarily to economic, political, or religious theories and policies, in a tradition going back to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, more recent use the term as mainly condemnatory. The term was coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy, a French Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher, who conceived it in 1796 as the "science of ideas" to develop a rational system of ideas to oppose the irrational impulses of the mob. In political science, the term is used in a descriptive sense to refer to political belief systems. Etymology and history The term ''ideology'' originates from French ''idéologie'', itself deriving from combining (; close to the Lockean sense of ''idea'') and '' -logíā'' (). The term ideology, and the system of ideas asso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synchronic Linguistics
Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach (from grc, συν- "together" and "time") considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. Synchronic linguistics aims at describing a language at a specific point of time, often the present. In contrast, a ''diachronic'' (from "through" and "time") approach, as in historical linguistics, considers the development and evolution of a language through history. For example, the study of Middle English—when the subject is temporally limited to a sufficiently homogenous form—is synchronic focusing on understanding how a given stage in the history of English functions as a whole. The diachronic approach, by contrast, studies language change by comparing the different stages. The terms synchrony and diachrony are often associated with historical linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who considered the synchronic perspective as systematic but ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Langue And Parole
''Langue'' and ''parole'' is a theoretical linguistic dichotomy distinguished by Ferdinand de Saussure in his '' Course in General Linguistics''. The French term ''langue'' (' n individuallanguage') encompasses the abstract, systematic rules and conventions of a signifying system; it is independent of, and pre-exists, the individual user. It involves the principles of language, without which no meaningful utterance, or ''parole'', would be possible. In contrast, ''parole'' (' speech') refers to the concrete instances of the use of ''langue'', including texts which provide the ordinary research material for linguistics. Background and significance Structural linguistics, as proposed by Saussure, assumes a non-biological standpoint of culture within the nature–nurture divide. Langue and parole make up two thirds of Saussure's speech circuit (French: ''circuit de la parole''); the third part being the brain, where the individual's knowledge of language is located. The ''speec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valentin Voloshinov
Valentin Nikolaevich Voloshinov (russian: Валенти́н Никола́евич Воло́шинов; June 18, 1895, St. Petersburg – June 13, 1936, Leningrad) was a Russian Soviet linguist, whose work has been influential in the field of literary theory and Marxist theory of ideology. ''Marxism and the Philosophy of Language'' Written in the late 1920s in the USSR, Voloshinov's '' Marxism and the Philosophy of Language'' ( tr.: ''Marksizm i Filosofiya Yazyka'') attempts to incorporate the field of linguistics into Marxism. The book's main inspiration does not come from previous Marxists, whom Voloshinov saw as largely indifferent towards the study of language. Voloshinov's theories are instead built on critical engagement with Wilhelm von Humboldt's concept of language as a continuous creative or "generative" process, and with the view of language as a sign-system posited by Ferdinand de Saussure. To some extent, Voloshinov's linguistic thought is also mediated by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
