Social philosophy

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Social philosophy is the study and interpretation of society and social institutions in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations. [1] Social philosophers emphasize understanding the social contexts for political, legal, moral and cultural questions, and the development of novel theoretical frameworks, from social ontology to care ethics to cosmopolitan theories of democracy, natural law, human rights, gender equity and global justice. [2]

Contents

Subdisciplines

There is often a considerable overlap between the questions addressed by social philosophy and ethics or value theory. Other forms of social philosophy include political philosophy and jurisprudence, which are largely concerned with the societies of state and government and their functioning.

Social philosophy, ethics, and political philosophy all share intimate connections with other disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. In turn, the social sciences themselves are of focal interest to the philosophy of social science.

Social philosophy is broadly interdisciplinary, looking at all of phenomenology, epistemology, and philosophy of language from a sociological perspective; phenomenological sociology, social epistemology and sociology of language respectively. [3] [4]

Relevant issues

Some social philosophy is concerned with identity, and defining strata that categorize society, for example race and gender. Other social philosophy examines agency and free will, and whether people socialized in a particular way are accountable for their actions. [5]

It also looks at the concepts of property, rights, and authority, examining actions in terms of both ethical values and their wider social effect; it applies situational ethics to broader political concepts.

Sociology of language considers communication in the context of social relations, for example speech acts or performative utterances are social actions in themselves.

Other relevant issues considered by social philosophy are:

Social philosophies

Social philosophers

A list of philosophers that have concerned themselves, although most of them not exclusively, with social philosophy:

Related Research Articles

Action theory or theory of action is an area in philosophy concerned with theories about the processes causing willful human bodily movements of a more or less complex kind. This area of thought involves epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, jurisprudence, and philosophy of mind, and has attracted the strong interest of philosophers ever since Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. With the advent of psychology and later neuroscience, many theories of action are now subject to empirical testing.

Analytic philosophy is an analysis focused, broad, contemporary movement or tradition within Western philosophy, especially anglophone philosophy. Analytic philosophy is characterized by a clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic and mathematics, and, to a lesser degree, the natural sciences. It is further characterized by an interest in language and meaning known as the linguistic turn. It has developed several new branches of philosophy and logic, notably philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, modern predicate logic and mathematical logic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social theory</span> Framework used to study social phenomena

Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena. A tool used by social scientists, social theories relate to historical debates over the validity and reliability of different methodologies, the primacy of either structure or agency, as well as the relationship between contingency and necessity. Social theory in an informal nature, or authorship based outside of academic social and political science, may be referred to as "social criticism" or "social commentary", or "cultural criticism" and may be associated both with formal cultural and literary scholarship, as well as other non-academic or journalistic forms of writing.

Below is a list of philosophy articles from D-H.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Applied philosophy</span> Branch of philosophy

Applied philosophy is a branch of philosophy that studies philosophical problems of practical concern. The topic covers a broad spectrum of issues in environment, medicine, science, engineering, policy, law, politics, economics and education. The term was popularised in 1982 by the founding of the Society for Applied Philosophy by Brenda Almond, and its subsequent journal publication Journal of Applied Philosophy edited by Elizabeth Brake. Methods of applied philosophy are similar to other philosophical methods including questioning, dialectic, critical discussion, rational argument, systematic presentation, thought experiments and logical argumentation.

This is a list of philosophers from the Western tradition of philosophy.

Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school, although there are certain assumptions common to much of it, which helps to distinguish it from earlier philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neo-Kantianism</span> Revival of Immanuel Kants philosophy

In late modern philosophy, neo-Kantianism was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the thing-in-itself and his moral philosophy.

This glossary of philosophy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to philosophy and related disciplines, including logic, ethics, and theology.

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by being critical and generally systematic and by its reliance on rational argument. It involves logical analysis of language and clarification of the meaning of words and concepts.

French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern philosophy by René Descartes, to 20th century philosophy of science, existentialism, phenomenology, structuralism, and postmodernism.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ethics.

Articles in social and political philosophy include:

An index list of articles about the philosophy of science.

This is a list of articles in contemporary philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of sociology</span>

This bibliography of sociology is a list of works, organized by subdiscipline, on the subject of sociology. Some of the works are selected from general anthologies of sociology, while other works are selected because they are notable enough to be mentioned in a general history of sociology or one of its subdisciplines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York University Department of Philosophy</span> Division of New York University

The New York University Department of Philosophy offers B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy, as well as a minor in philosophy and a joint major in language and mind with the NYU Departments of Linguistics and Psychology. It is home to the New York Institute of Philosophy, a research center that supports multi-year projects, public lectures, conferences, and workshops in the field, as well as outreach programs to teach New York City high school students interested in philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist philosophy of science</span> Means of interpreting scientific evidence through a feminist lens

Feminist philosophy of science is a branch of feminist philosophy that seeks to understand how the acquirement of knowledge through scientific means has been influenced by notions of gender identity and gender roles in society. Feminist philosophers of science question how scientific research and scientific knowledge itself may be influenced and possibly compromised by the social and professional framework within which that research and knowledge is established and exists. The intersection of gender and science allows feminist philosophers to reexamine fundamental questions and truths in the field of science to reveal how gender biases may influence scientific outcomes. The feminist philosophy of science has been described as being located "at the intersections of the philosophy of science and feminist science scholarship" and has attracted considerable attention since the 1980s.

References

  1. "Definition of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY".
  2. "Overview - Journal of Social Philosophy - Wiley Online Library". onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
  3. "Social Philosophy". www.sheffield.ac.uk. 2023-12-14. Retrieved 2024-04-13.
  4. "Social Philosophy". Cavite State University Main Campus.
  5. "What is social philosophy? - The University of Nottingham". www.nottingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 2024-04-13.