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Social philosophy

 

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Social philosophy


 
 

Social philosophy is the philosophicalPhilosophy

Philosophy is a field of study that includes diverse subfields such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphys...
 study of questions about social behaviorBehavior

Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environ...
 (typically, of humanHuman

Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens under the fami...
s). Social philosophy addresses a wide range of subjects, from individual meanings to legitimacy of laws, from the social contractSocial contract Overview

Social contract theory is a concept used in philosophy, political science, and sociology to denote an implicit agreement wi...
 to criteria for revolutionRevolution

A revolution is a drastic change that usually occurs relatively quickly....
, from the functions of everyday actions to the effects of scienceScience

Science in the broadest sense refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means....
 on cultureCulture

The word culture, from the Latin colo, -ere, with its root meaning "to cultivate", generally refers to patterns of ...
, from changes in human demographicsDemography

Demography is the scientific study of human population dynamics....
 to the collective order of a waspWasp

* Eupelmidae* Ichneumonidae, and Braconidae...
's nest.

Subdisciplines

Social philosophy attempts to understand the patterns and nuances, changes and tendencies of societiesSociety

A society is a grouping of individuals, which is characterised by common interest and may have distinctive culture and inst...
. It is a wide field with many subdisciplines.

There is often a considerable overlap between the questions addressed by social philosophy and ethicsEthics Summary

Ethics is a major branch of philosophy....
 or value theoryValue theory Overview

Value theory concerns itself with the worth, utility, trading or economic value, moral value , legal value, quantitative or ...
. Other forms of social philosophy include political philosophyPolitical philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, liberty, justice, property...
 and philosophy of lawPhilosophy of law

Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence which studies basic questions about law and legal systems, suc...
, which are largely concerned with the societies of stateState

A state is a set of institutions that possess the authority to make the rules that govern the people in one or more societie...
 and governmentGovernment

A government is a body that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws within a civil, corporate, religious, a...
 and their functioning.

Social philosophy, ethics, and political philosophy all share intimate connections with other disciplines in the social sciencesSocial sciences

The social sciences are groups of academic disciplines that study the human aspects of the world....
. In turn, the social sciences themselves are of focal interest to the philosophy of social scienceFacts About Philosophy of social science

Philosophy of social science is the scholarly elucidation and debate of accounts of the nature of the social sciences, their...
.

The philosophy of languagePhilosophy of language

Philosophy of language is the branch of philosophy whose primary concerns include the natures of meaning, reference, truth, ...
 and social epistemologySocial epistemology

Social epistemology is a broad set of approaches to the study of knowledge, all of which construe human knowledge as a colle...
 are subfields which overlap in significant ways with social philosophy.

Relevant issues in social philosophy

Some of the topics dealt with by social philosophy are:
  • AgencyHuman agency

    Human agency is the capacity for human beings to make choices and to impose those choices on the world....
     and free willFree will

    The problem of free will is the problem of whether human beings exercise control over their own actions and decisions....
  • The will to powerWill to Power Overview

    Will to Power can refer to:*The Will to Power, the concept prominent in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche...
  • AccountabilityAccountability

    Accountability is a concept in ethics with several meanings....
  • Speech acts
  • Situationism
  • ModernismModernism

    Modernism is a trend of thought which affirms the power of human beings to make, improve and reshape their environment, with...
     and PostmodernismPostmodernism

    Postmodernism is an idea that has been extremely controversial and difficult to define among scholars, intellectuals, and hi...
  • individualismIndividualism

    Individualism is a term used to describe a moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human independence and the imp...
  • crowdCrowd

    A crowd is a group of people, also known as a mob....
    s
  • propertyProperty

    Property designates those real or intellectual goods that are commonly recognized as being the rightful possessions of a p...
  • rights
  • authorityAuthority

    In politics, authority is often used interchangeably with the term "power"....
  • free willFree will

    The problem of free will is the problem of whether human beings exercise control over their own actions and decisions....
  • ideologies
  • cultural criticism


Social philosophers include:

  • SocratesSocrates

    Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy....
  • PlatoPlato

    Plato , whose real name is believed to have been Aristocles, was an immensely influential ancient Greek philosopher, ...
  • ChanakyaFacts About Chanakya

    saratha Maurya]]*Arthashastra*Buddhism...
  • ConfuciusConfucius

    Confucius was a famous Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced East A...
  • Thiruvalluvar
  • Thomas HobbesThomas Hobbes

    Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book Leviathan set the agenda for nearly all subsequent Wes...
  • Jean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques Rousseau

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Geneva-born philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolu...
  • John LockeJohn Locke

    John Locke was an influential English philosopher....
  • Jeremy BenthamJeremy Bentham

    Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer....
  • John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill

    John Stuart Mill , an English philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century....
  • Georg Wilhelm Hegel
  • Karl MarxFacts About Karl Marx

    Karl Heinrich Marx was an immensely influential German philosopher, political economist, and socialist revolutionary....
  • Pierre-Joseph ProudhonPierre-Joseph Proudhon

    Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French mutualist political philosopher who was the first individual to call himself an "anarc...
  • Mikhail BakuninMikhail Bakunin

    Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin , was a well-known Russian revolutionary often considered one of the fathers of modern anarc...
  • Émile DurkheimÉmile Durkheim

    mile Durkheim was a french sociologist, considered by many to be the father of modern sociology, contributing to its accept...
  • Max WeberMax Weber

    Maximilian Weber was a German political economist and sociologist who is considered one of the founders of the modern stud...
  • Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud Overview

    Sigmund FreudThe name Freud is generally pronounced [] in English and [] in German....
  • Carl JungFacts About Carl Jung

    Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology....
  • Theodor Adorno
  • Georg LukácsGeorg Lukács

    Georg Lukcs was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in the tradition of Western Marxism....
  • Antonie PannekoekAntonie Pannekoek

    Antonie Pannekoek was a Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist. ...
  • Simone de BeauvoirSimone de Beauvoir

    Simone de Beauvoir was a French author and philosopher....
  • Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault

    Michel Foucault was a French philosopher who held a chair at the Collge de France, which he gave the title "The History of ...
  • Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky

    Avram Noam Chomsky is the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
  • Cornelius CastoriadisCornelius Castoriadis

    Cornelius Castoriadis was a Greek economist and philosopher....
  • Guy DebordGuy Debord

    Guy Ernest Debord was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situa...
  • Terry EagletonTerry Eagleton

    Terry Eagleton is a British literary critic and philosopher....
  • Susan SontagSusan Sontag

    Susan Sontag was a well-known American essayist, novelist, intellectual, filmmaker and activist....


See also

  • List of basic sociology topicsList of basic sociology topics

    Basic topics in sociology include:...
  • SociologySociology

    Sociology is the study of society and human social action....
  • Sociological paradigms
  • Social simulationSocial simulation

    Social simulation is the modelling, or simulation, normally performed using a computer, of social phenomena....
  • Social theorySocial theory

    Social theory refers to the use of theoretical frameworks to explain and analyze social patterns and large-scale social ...