Early Theorists
Computing pioneers Alan Turing in England and Claude Shannon
in the United States developed fundamental theories of computation that had
lasting impact on the field of computing. They also considered chess an
interesting puzzle that might help solve other problems and possibly advance
the dream of building a machine that could think.
In 1947, before there were computers, Turing designed the
first program to play chess and tested it with paper and pencil using himself
as the computer. Two years later, Shannon studied two different strategies for
building "search trees." The "Type A" strategy considered
all possible moves to a fixed depth, and the "Type B" strategy used
chess knowledge to explore the more promising lines to a greater depth. Almost
all software for two-player games uses either of these strategies.
Socialism arose in the late 18th and early 19th cent. as a reaction to the economic and social changes associated with the Industrial Revolution. While rapid wealth came to the factory owners, the workers became increasingly impoverished. As this capitalist industrial system spread, reactions in the form of socialist thought increased proportionately. Although many thinkers in the past expressed ideas that were similar to later socialism, the first theorist who may properly be called socialist was François Noël Babeuf, who came to prominence during the French Revolution. Babeuf propounded the doctrine of class war between capital and labor later to be seen in Marxism.
Socialist writers who followed Babeuf, however, were more
moderate. Known as utopian socialists, they included the comte
de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen. Saint-Simon
proposed that production and distribution be carried out by the state. The
leaders of society would be industrialists who would found a national community
based upon cooperation and who would eliminate the poverty of the lowest
classes. Fourier and Owen, though differing in many respects, both believed
that social organization should be based on small local collective communities
rather than the large centralist state of Saint-Simon. All these men agreed,
however, that there should be cooperation rather than competition, and they
implicitly rejected class struggle. In the early 19th cent. numerous
utopian communistic settlements founded on the principles of Fourier
and Owen sprang up in Europe and the United States; New Harmony and Brook
Farm were notable examples.
Following the utopians came thinkers such as Louis Blanc who
were more political in their socialist formulations. Blanc put forward a system
of social workshops (1840) that would be controlled by the workers themselves
with the support of the state. Capitalists would be welcome in this venture,
and each person would receive goods in proportion to his or her needs. Blanc
became a member of the French provisional government of 1848 and attempted to
put some of his proposals into effect, but his efforts were sabotaged by his
opponents. The anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon and the
insurrectionist Auguste Blanqui were also influential socialist
leaders of the early and mid-19th cent.
Conflict Theory:
Topic
Conflict theorizing originated in Europe in the works of
Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel.
Functionalism
From The Social Science Jargon-Buster
A sociological perspective that focuses on the contributions any particular
social unit makes towards the larger social system.
Marxism: Topic
Perhaps no other modern idea has spread as quickly and as
widely as the sociopolitical ideas of the 19th-century thinker Karl Marx
(1818-1883).
Positivism
From Collins Dictionary Of Sociology
The doctrine formulated by Comte which asserts that the only true knowledge is
scientific knowledge.
Social
Constructivism: Topic
Social constructivism with respect to a given phenomenon is
the view that the latter does not possess an independent existence but is
“constructed”—that is, generated and maintained through collective human
action, thought, discourse, or other social practices.
Structuralism
From Reader's Guide to the Social Sciences
Structuralism is the approach which seeks to isolate, and decode, deep
structures of meaning, organised through systems of signs inherent in human
behaviour (language, ritual, dress and so on).
Symbolic
Interactionism
From The Social Science Jargon-Buster
Sociological perspective that focuses on the way individuals interpret social
symbols.
Utilitarianism: Topic
Utilitarians judge the moral value of acts, institutions
and/or rules according to their consequences.
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