ABSTRACT
In the modern university the field of study is typically divided into various ‘departments’ such as Mathematics, Astronomy, Philosophy, Economics, Biology, English, History, and so on. In many universities one finds that some of these departments are grouped together as a ‘division’ or ‘faculty’ called ‘Social Sciences’ or ‘Social and Behavioural Sciences’. If our world were very neat, and static, we would have little difficulty in determining what is ‘social science’, or its various branches; we would only have to examine the curricula and research programmes of the social science departments. But our world is not neat. If an extraterrestrial being were preparing a report on our scholarly and scientific activities, he might start by looking at our university organization, but he would very quickly run into difficulties. He would find, for example, that the study of crime is carried on, not only in the School of Law, but also in departments of Criminology or Forensic Studies, Sociology, Economics, Philosophy, Political Science, and Psychology, some of which are classified as social sciences and some not. He would find that in some universities History is classified as a social science and in others it is in another division, usually called ‘Humanities’. If the visitor attempted to obtain some assistance from study of our languages, he would find that the word ‘economics’, in the classical Greek, meant ‘the management of a household’ but then he would note that the modern study of this is called ‘Home Economics’, which is not classified as a social science, while there is another subject, called ‘Economics’, which is, and there is also another division or school called ‘Business’ or ‘Business Management’, which resembles Home Economics in the original Greek meaning in its objectives, but is closer to Economics in the kinds of things studied and the methods employed. What this signifies is that dividing the field of scholarship and science into various departments or faculties or schools is largely a matter of convenience in organization rather than a reflection of intrinsic differences in subject matter. Astronomy is different from sociology, to be sure, but a great deal of our classifying is rather arbitrary and may be mainly due to the historical development of the various areas of study.
