ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the existence of the external world, which people inherit, and the social world, which people create. It analyses the social world with the tools of science is a fairly recent innovation. The social sciences were born in a period of turmoil, when new ideas and beliefs were causing conflict and fragmentation in European societies. In more popular terms, sociology is said to be the study of human groups in interaction, or the scientific study of human society and human group behavior. The purpose of the social sciences is to study systematically all aspects of the human condition and of human behavior, using a methodology borrowed from the physical sciences wherever possible. The chapter examines the basic differences between the social and the natural sciences. It discusses which disciplines constitute the social sciences. The chapter focuses on the elements and steps of the scientific method and explains the various research methods used in the social sciences.
