Social science knowledge changes the social world it studies.
Evidence
In the social sciences, to the unsettled character of all empirically based knowledge we have to add the “subversion” which comes from the reentry of social scientific discourse into the contexts it analyses. The reflection of which the social sciences are the formalised version (a specific genre of expert knowledge) is quite fundamental to the reflexivity of modernity as a whole. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 103
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s framing: sociological concepts like ‘faceless commitments’ reenter and reshape how institution-building is understood—a self-subverting loop Stevens never participates in. — connects to: Social science is more deeply implicated in modernity than natural science. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 104; New social knowledge alters the social world rather than merely describing it — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 363; Social knowledge alters its subject, unlike natural-science observation — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 116
Related
- Social science is more deeply implicated in modernity than natural science. (similarity 0.88)
- Social knowledge alters its subject, unlike natural-science observation (similarity 0.88)
- New social knowledge alters the social world rather than merely describing it (similarity 0.87)
- Knowledge of the social world makes that world inherently unstable (similarity 0.86)
- Knowledge of social life does not produce greater control over fate (similarity 0.83)
- Truth-telling critical work produces new knowledges rather than circular confirmations of known positions. (similarity 0.80)
- Modernity is defined by wholesale reflexivity, not merely love of the new. (similarity 0.79)
- Datafied social knowledge overrides older forms without being accountable to those it describes. (similarity 0.79)
- Modernity institutionalises doubt, making all knowledge claims inherently circular (similarity 0.79)
- Social change selects among available ideas rather than dictating belief (similarity 0.79)
- Under modernity no knowledge is certain, in any science. (similarity 0.79)
- Concepts formed without social context restrict and confine knowledge (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- New social knowledge alters the social world rather than merely describing it
#corroborates(0.95) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 363 - Social knowledge alters its subject, unlike natural-science observation
#expands(0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 116