Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

The place of the sciences of man in the system of sciences 3
given general structure by reference to its past (which brings us back to the laws
of development) or, on the contrary, to explain previous historical facts (such as
interest rates on an ancient market) by means of synchronistic laws currently
verifiable.
A second basic characteristic, as important as the identification or discovery
of laws which is proper to the nomothetic sciences, distinguishes these from the
three categories n, III and IV which we shall examine later: it is the use of experi-
mental research methods - whether of a rigorous nature such as those used, for
instance, in biology (and which are found to be essential today in most areas of
scientific psychological research) or of a broader nature as in systematic obser-
vation supported by statistical verification, the analysis of ‘variances’, the
control of implicit relations (analysis of counter-examples), etc. We shall dis-
cuss the methodological problems of the nomothetic sciences of man later (under
3 and 4) but the methods of verification, whether simple or complex, whereby
schematic theories are controlled by factual experience, constitute the most
general distinctive characteristic of these disciplines as compared with those
described below.
A third basic characteristic must be added to the two preceding ones, namely
the tendency to focus research on a limited number of variables at a time.
Naturally it is not always possible to isolate factors, as in physics (and this
comment holds good from biology onwards), although some statistical proces-
ses (analysis of variances) may in some cases allow for the respective influences
of several variables to be judged. But between the natural sciences, whose
experimental methods allow for a clear separation of variables, and the histori-
cal sciences, in which the variables are sometimes inextricably entangled, the
nomothetic sciences of man have at their disposal intermediary strategies with
aims closer to those of the first group.
11. We shall call historical sciences those disciplines the purpose of which is to
reconstitute and interpret the unfolding of all manifestations of social life across
time. Whether concerned with the life of individuals whose actions have left a
mark on the society they lived in, of their works, of ideas whichmay haveexerted
a lasting influence, of techniques and sciences, of literature and the arts, of phi-
losophy and religions, of institutions, of economic and other exchanges and of
civilization in general, history deals with everything that affects collective life,
whether it can be examined singly or as part of a complex.
The question which arises immediately is that of determining whether or not
the historical sciences form a separate unit with its own clear and distinct
characteristics, or whether they simply represent the diachronic side of each of
the nomothetic, legal or philosophical disciplines. This chapter is not concerned
with trends but with the current status of the questions dealt with. We therefore
do not need to consider whether the historical sciences are only of ephemeral
value, ultimately to be absorbed into the other categories, but simply to explain
why this paper, while constantly stressing the importance of the diachronic
dimension of phenomena, wil nevertheless draw a distinction between the
historical and the nomothetic sciences and finally deal only with the latter,