Social philosophySocial philosophy examines questions about the foundations of social institutions, social behavior, and interpretations of society in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations. 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.
Economic determinismEconomic determinism is a socioeconomic theory that economic relationships (such as being an owner or capitalist or being a worker or proletarian) are the foundation upon which all other societal and political arrangements in society are based. The theory stresses that societies are divided into competing economic classes whose relative political power is determined by the nature of the economic system. In the writing of American history the term is associated with historian Charles A.
Lord–bondsman dialecticThe lord–bondsman dialectic (sometimes translated master–slave dialectic) is a famous passage in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. It is widely considered a key element in Hegel's philosophical system, and it has heavily influenced many subsequent philosophers. The passage describes, in narrative form, the development of self-consciousness as such in an encounter between what are thereby (i.e., emerging only from this encounter) two distinct, self-conscious beings.
Scholarly methodThe scholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars and academics to make their claims about the subject as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public. It is the methods that systemically advance the teaching, research, and practice of a given scholarly or academic field of study through rigorous inquiry. Scholarship is noted by its significance to its particular profession, and is creative, can be documented, can be replicated or elaborated, and can be and is peer reviewed through various methods.
DecadenceThe word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, honour, discipline, or skill at governing among the members of the elite of a very large social structure, such as an empire or nation state. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, technology, and work ethics, or (very loosely) to self-indulgent behavior.
Ages of ManThe Ages of Man are the historical stages of human existence according to Greek mythology and its subsequent Roman interpretation. Both Hesiod and Ovid offered accounts of the successive ages of humanity, which tend to progress from an original, long-gone age in which humans enjoyed a nearly divine existence to the current age of the writer, in which humans are beset by innumerable pains and evils. In the two accounts that survive from Ancient Greece and Rome, this degradation of the human condition over time is indicated symbolically with metals of successively decreasing value (but increasing hardness).
Nouvelle histoireThe term new history, from the French term nouvelle histoire, was coined by Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, leaders of the third generation of the Annales school, in the 1970s. The movement can be associated with cultural history, history of representations, and histoire des mentalités. The new history movement's inclusive definition of the proper matter of historical study has also given it the label total history. The movement was contrasted with the traditional ways of writing history which focused on politics and "great men".
Marxist historiographyMarxist historiography, or historical materialist historiography, is an influential school of historiography. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography include the centrality of social class, social relations of production in class-divided societies that struggle against each other, and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes (historical materialism). Marxist historians follow the tenets of the development of class-divided societies, especially modern capitalist ones.
