noref: date=May 2008

Definition

In the absence of agreement about its meaning, the term "social" is used in many different senses, referring among other things to:

• attitudes, orientations or behaviours which take the interests, intentions or needs of other people into account (in contrast to anti-social behaviour);
• common characteristics of people or descriptions of collectivities (social facts);
• relations between people (social relations) generally, or particular associations among people;
• interactions between people (social action);
• membership of a group of people or inclusion or belonging to a community of people;
• co-operation or co-operative characteristics between people;
• relations of (mutual) dependence;
• the public sector ("social sector") or the need for governance for the good of all, contrasted with the private sector;
• in existentialist and postmodernist thought, relationships between the Self and the Other;
• interactive systems in communities of animal or insect populations, or any living organisms.

In one broad meaning, "social" refers only to society as "a system of common life", but in another sense it contrasts specifically with "individual" and individualist theories of society. This is reflected for instance in the different perspectives of liberalism and socialism on society and public affairs.

The adjective "social" implies that the verb or noun to which it is applied is somehow more communicative, cooperative, and moderated by contact with human beings, than if it were omitted. That is, it implies that larger society has played some role in defining the idea or the principle. For instance terms like social realism, social justice, social constructivism, social psychology and social capital imply that there is some social process involved or considered, a process that is not there in regular, "non-social", realism, justice, constructivism, psychology, or capital.

The adjective "social" is also used often in political discourse, although its meaning in such a context depends heavily on who is using it. In left-wing circles it is often used to imply a positive characteristic, while in right-wing circles it is generally used to imply a negative characteristic. It should also be noted that, overall, this adjective is used much more often by those on the political left than by those on the political right.

For these reasons, those seeking to avoid association with the left-right political debates often seek to label their work with phrases that do not include the word "social". An example is quasi-empiricism in mathematics which is sometimes labelled social constructivism by those who see it as an unwarranted intrusion of social considerations in mathematical practice, which is supposed to be "objective" and "above" social concerns.