Social philosophy

Philosophy
Philosophers
Aestheticians Epistemologists Ethicists Logicians Metaphysicians Social and political philosophers
Traditions
Analytic Continental Eastern Islamic Platonic Scholastic
Periods
Ancient Medieval Modern Contemporary
Literature
Aesthetics Epistemology Ethics Logic Metaphysics Political philosophy
Branches
Aesthetics Epistemology Ethics Logic Metaphysics Political philosophy Social philosophy
Lists
Index Outline Years Problems Publications Theories Glossary Philosophers
Philosophy portal
v t e

Social philosophy is the study of questions about social behavior and interpretations of society and social institutions in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations.^[1] Social philosophers place new emphasis on understanding the social contexts for political, legal, moral, and cultural questions, and to the development of novel theoretical frameworks, from social ontology to care ethics to cosmopolitan theories of democracy, human rights, gender equity and global justice.^[2]

Subdisciplines

There is often a considerable overlap between the questions addressed by social philosophy and ethics or value theory. Other forms of social philosophy include political philosophy and jurisprudence, which are largely concerned with the societies of state and government and their functioning.

Social philosophy, ethics, and political philosophy all share intimate connections with other disciplines in the social sciences. In turn, the social sciences themselves are of focal interest to the philosophy of social science.

The philosophy of language and social epistemology are subfields which overlap in significant ways with social philosophy.

Relevant issues in social philosophy

Some of the topics dealt with by social philosophy are:

• Agency and free will
• The will to power
• Accountability
• Speech acts
• Situational ethics
• Modernism and Postmodernism
• Individualism
• Crowds
• Property
• Rights
• Authority
• Ideologies
• Cultural criticism

Social philosophers

A list of philosophers that have concerned themselves, although most of them not exclusively, with social philosophy:

See also

• List of basic sociology topics
• Sociological paradigms
• Sociology
• Social simulation
• Social theory

References