Human View Research Articles

THE TENSION BETWEEN HUMANISM AND SCIENCE: SOCIOLOGY IN THE 1980s

Although we talk a great deal about prediction as an aim of social science we practitioners of sociological science have never been very successful in peering into the future and seeing what is to be. Yet soothsaying is an ancient if not always honorable profession and I have incautiously rushed in by agreeing to accept the charge of this presentation. To save my rash action from being an empty performance I will try to use the format of crystal gazing as a device within which to raise some questions of theory and method which I believe are both persistent in sociology and reemerging now and in the coming years as central points of intellectual conflict. My theme is the recurrent issue of the image of human behavior and the metaphors or models which we sociologists use to study, understand and explain our subject matter. In my judgment the two models of a humanistic view of human action and a scientific one have continuously been offered. Each has been drawn from its own tradition, differing from the other in fundamental wa.ys. The Humanistic model has been drawn fro,m .literatur~, art, philosophy, and history, the scientific. rno_del .fro~ phySICS, biology and. chemistry. Science ·has stressed the deterministic character of cause-effect relationships and provided a methodology for discovering the operation of laws or propositions of human behavior. Humanistic studies have emphasized the self-conscious, selecting and unpredictable character of human action. Science has sought generalization; Humanism avoids it. Such models are, of course, dangerous and, especially for the

Review: Footprints: A Humanistic View of Science Education, by George Benner

Review: <i>Footprints: A Humanistic View of Science Education</i>, by George Benner

The Humanistic Basis of Scientific Work

From this premise followed the stress on historical and interdisciplinary cases of scientific advance. The Project Physics Course, developed during the late 1960s and now used by over 250,000 students in schools and colleges here and abroad, represents a second-generation version of this movement, a humanistic view of the physical sciences that also includes the discussions of epistemological issues in science, of the science-technology interactions, and of social consequences of scientific and technological work. C. P. Snow's 1959 Rede Lectures, which stirred up a well-remembered furor of publications, had less of a cultural or curriculum-oriented purpose than a geopolitical one. Snow's was a strangely premature apocalyptic treatise that came at a relatively euphoric time. His perception was that a gulf of mutual incomprehension between literary intellectuals and scientists would be disastrous for a living culture because it impedes the development of a scientifically literate administrative elite that, he felt, is needed to see our way through the three great menaces before us: Hbomb war, overpopulation, and the gap between the rich and the poor. These and other recent efforts continue to have their effects upon the structure of the curriculum. But some cautionary remarks are in order. No curricular innovation in this field is likely to go much beyond what has already been achieved unless it bases itself on some fundamentally different or deeper understanding of what scientists do, what humanists do, and what the relationships are between their activities. Though we have now a dozen, largely competing, views on the nature of science, there are good reasons to believe that our fundamental understanding of the scientific enterprise remains quite inadequate. The state and support of theoretical (i.e., basic) work on the way any understanding of the scientific enterprise could be translated into effective curricular innovation is even more precarious. It follows that those desirous of improving the humanistic content of scientific studies should pay attention to the need for much more basic research on the nature of the scientific enterprise and on the consequences of such research for curriculum innovation.

Cotton Mather as Plutarchan Biographer

S TUDENTS OF COTTON MATHER have repeatedly emphasized that he was a fervent admirer of Plutarch.' Like his fellow Puritans, Mather venerated Plutarch as pagan moralist whose precepts and reflections were nearly compatible with Christian teaching. Plutarch also appealed to him as a great historian. The Puritans shared Renaissance passion for history; and, though they interpreted first in terms of divine teleology, they had no quarrel with humanist view that was also philosophy teaching by examples.2 Plutarch's Parallel Lives admirably provided both history and philosophy; they satisfied Renaissance intellectuals' boundless curiosity about ancient heroes and taught moral lessons. For Mather, Plutarch held still another attraction: he was, to use Boswell's phrase, the prince of ancient ;3 and he provided seventeenth-century biographers with their most winning ancient model for handling of material.4 Mather's concept of history, as Peter Gay has pointed out, was essentially biographical.5 The Puritan view of human soul as battlefield of Christ against Satan predisposed Mather to regard Weltgeschichte as microcosmic Heilsgeschichte. Though Magnalia Christi Americana contains much material not biographical in nature, its major crises and essential developments are largely dramatized in its forty-odd biographies (varying in length from 2,000 to approximately 40,000 words) and innumerable biographical sketches.6 His concept of biography Mather owed to two great

Toward a More Humanistic View of Development: Adult Education's Role

Toward a More Humanistic View of Development: Adult Education's Role

History's Purpose: Becker or Ortega?

Existential interpretations of history are re-asserting that history is a valuable source of the wisdom necessary for understanding man. This humanistic view of history was widely held during the nineteenth century by educators who were idealists. But during the first half of this century, it declined in popularity as idealism gave way to pragmatism. To the pragmatists, history was a source of knowledge useful in solving problems, especially social ones. Today, existentialists are reasserting the claim that history should be studied humanistically.

A Humanistic View of Measuring Mental Health

A Humanistic View of Measuring Mental Health

Some principles for the human use of computers in education

There are two recurring themes found in recent proposals for educational innovation. The first speaks to the importance of a humanistic approach to education; to the futility of imposing subject content on the student who does not perceive its acquisition as important; to the unlimited potential, on the other hand, of learners who elect to make the pursuit of some educational goal their own private crusade. The second theme is concerned with the potential of computing and information processing systems as instructional devices. This paper argues the importance of communication between these two views. Five principles for relating computer technology to a humanistic view of education are given, and an experimental program in the Pittsburgh public school system which is based on these principles is briefly described. A software system called NEW-BASIC/ CATALYST has been developed as a result of this undertaking. Several examples derived from this work are shown.

Toward a Sociology of Being: The Humanistic Potential

Sociology has had a humanistic tradition for a long time; however, humanism in the social sciences has recently developed farthest Wi psychology. The humanistic psychology movement was established as a third force to transcend the limitations of behaviorism and psychoanalysis in dealing with a holistic and positive concern for man and his potentialities. The humanistic views of Abraham Maslow challenge sociology to study institutions, cultural and social structures, and values which facilitate the growth of the individual and enhance his ability to make free and responsible choices. Social science today focuses on adaptation to the status quo, on what is, to the exclusion to what might be, and holds a pessimistic view of man reflected in studies of deviant behavior concerned solely with deviance on the pathological side. There is a need for a radical shift in our images of man, society, science and the nature of the sociological enterprise. The implications of a humanistic perspective in sociology for the sociology of religion are briefly explored.

Towards a South African sociology of music: Preliminary questionsresituation and prospects of music in a consumer society (II)

An exposition is offered of the specific aims which a hypothetical educational reorientation will have to realize in defined areas of socio-musical dysfunction. These areas include the historicizing art-music culture, the pop culture, and the music-educational establishment in South Africa. It is demonstrated that some of the major problems, such as the rejection reflexes vis-á-vis contemporary Western or traditional African music and the awareness deficiency in respect of music as a social and philosophical issue, can be traced back to narrow educational planning, conceptual as well as organizational. This leads to a discussion of West- and East-European attitudes towards music, and an examination of the implications of a politicization of aesthetics, such as is currently advocated by Marxist sociology in South Africa. Attention is drawn to the extent to which Marxist, Christian, and humanistic views of the consumer society run parallel, and to the points from which their differing concepts of the root causes of alienation preclude consensus in the field of aesthetics. S. Afr. J. Sociol. 1986, 17(1): 22–38

Higher Technical Education and Socio‐Economic Development

TWO BRIEF, but comprehensive publications appeared in 1968; both are surveys: one, of teaching programmes, the other, of research. The first is the U.N.E.S.C.O. booklet, The Teaching of the Social Sciences in Higher Technical Education: An International Survey. The second, the June issue of the American Educational Research Association's Review of Educational Research, devoted to international development education.I The U.N.E.S.C.O. survey was commissioned to present 'a factual and quantitative collation of data on social science teaching in schools and other institutions of polytechnic education at university level'. Additionally, it was to make 'an analysis of such teaching in historical perspective and a critical study of the present situation, including prospective developments and teaching methods'.(2) Though there appears to have been an unfortunate delay between the collection of the material and its publication, the book nevertheless provides a useful insight into this somewhat hackneyed problem as it existed about 1965/6.(3) Though changes have occurred in the last three years in some of the institutions surveyed many of the assumptions given here would still seem to hold good. The editors distinguish between two views of the social science contribution to engineering education, the 'humanistic' and the 'instrumental'. The instrumental view 'treats the social sciences as disciplines with positive value for the engineer as he deals with the practical problems of his profession'. The humanistic view 'emphasizes the intellectual orientation given by a study of the social sciences . . . complementary to the technical values imposed by the engineer's training'. (4 The objectives served by social science teaching in engineering education are described with reference to group or organizational needs, to the larger economic, political and social context within which the engineer operates, and to the function of the social sciences as bridge disciplines between the legendary two cultures. These arguments are sufficiently well known to need repetition here. The second reference point, the A.E.R.A. Review, describes international development education as 'the field concerned with organised programmes of teaching and learning within the context of planning for economic, social or political change in the newly developing regions of the world'.0 Though long, this is a comprehensive definition for scholars working in the area of 'education and development'. The issue reviews over 450 research titles under various headings. Topics covered include the relationship between education and economic, political and social development; concepts and techniques of educational planning; research on content, methods and techniques in education for development, and international development through educational exchange. This would seem to be the

Review of Psychotherapy from the Center: A Humanistic View of Change and of Growth.

Review of Psychotherapy from the Center: A Humanistic View of Change and of Growth.

Review of Psychotherapy from the center: A humanistic view of change and of growth.

Review of Psychotherapy from the center: A humanistic view of change and of growth.

An Early Humanistic View of the Active and Contemplative Life

An Early Humanistic View of the Active and Contemplative Life

General Religious Teaching—The Humanist View

General Religious Teaching—The Humanist View

A humanist view of religious education

(1964). A humanist view of religious education. Learning for Living: Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 19-20.

Lutheranism, Catholicism. and the Humanistic View of Life

Lutheranism, Catholicism. and the Humanistic View of Life

Humanist Views of the Renaissance

Humanist Views of the Renaissance

Humanist Views of the Renaissance

Journal Article Humanist Views of the Renaissance Get access Wallace K. Ferguson Wallace K. Ferguson New York University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 45, Issue 1, October 1939, Pages 1–28, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/45.1.1 Published: 01 October 1939