Social Research and Socio-Political Issues in India (Chapter 7)

Abstract

Philosophical foundations are very important and indispensable for research in the study of social, economic, and political phenomenon. Each researcher can follow different philosophies and associated methods or methodologies but the social reality needs to be explained with different methods. The necessity of using different methods arises due to the fact that the social world is complex and complicated. In the contemporary world we have number of philosophical explanations to explain the world. In this variety of philosophical explanations only a few have given more importance to the universal values such as human rights, justice, and equality. Even among the explanations that have focused on universal values there is competition regarding whose and which explanations better explains the world. With these assumptions as a background, an effort is made to introduce basic philosophical texts and arguments that have been sensitive to raise issues like justice, equality, and the like at a global level. This chapter mainly attempts to locate social science research in India with regard to its orientation to socio-political issues.