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Specific meaning Although Harvard University has featured a "Department of Social Relations" (in which Talcott Parsons played a prominent role), and although the term "social relations" is frequently used in social sciences, there is in fact no commonly agreed meaning for this concept (see also the entry Social ). "Social" connotes association, co-operation, mutual dependence and belonging. It could be argued that a social relation is, in the first instance, simply a relation between people, but more specifically
The group could be an Ethnic or Kinship group, a Social Institution or Organisation , a Social Class or Social Stratum , a Nation , a Population , or a Gender etc. This definition contrasts with the relationship between people and inanimate objects. Examples In this sense, a social relation is therefore not necessarily identical with a unique Interpersonal relation or a unique individual relation of some type, although all these kinds of relations presuppose each other; a social relation refers precisely to a condition which groups of people have ''in common'' or share. For example, the simple statement "Jack and Jill love each other" might refer to a unique interaction between two people, the meaning of which might be difficult to define for an outsider. Yet, Jack and Jill may also be ''socially'' related in many different ways, insofar as they both are, as a matter of fact, members of the same or different social groups, and thus their ''identity'' is shaped in good part by the fact that they belong to those groups. If we wanted to understand and explain their behaviour, we would need to refer to those social relations. We might establish the milieu they grew up in, their ancestors, the jobs they do, where they lived, who their friends are, and so on, all of which helps explain why they necessarily interact in the way that they do, and not in some other way. At a higher level of abstraction, we might consider two groups which are socially related, for example, although they live in different places, they depend on each other in trading goods and services. At an even higher level of abstraction, we might consider the relationship between an individual and the whole of the world population, or the relationship of the world population to itself. Some might indeed argue that a social relation exists between mortals and God (or the Gods), though others would regard this more as an imaginary relation. In flights of fancy, we could extend the analysis to the relation of all sentient organisms in the universe. Theorists However, the difficulties only start here, because now it needs to be established ''how'' these social relations exist, how we ''know'' they exist, ''what kinds'' of social relations there are, and how we can ''find out'' about them, verify them or identify them. About these questions researchers often disagree and debate, proposing different kinds of Methodology to obtain Knowledge of social relations. At one end of the spectrum, Karl Marx approvingly quotes Giambattista Vico 's argument that humans can understand their Society in its totality because "they made it themselves"; the limits to what humans can know are mainly practical in nature. At the other end of the spectrum, Karl Popper rejects the possibility of objective knowledge about society as a whole, suggesting that methodological Holism must lead to Totalitarianism ; progressive Social Change can only be achieved through the small steps of piecemeal Social Engineering . Understanding social relations There are at least three problems in understanding social relations.
Types of social relations In broad terms, we can distinguish six basic levels of human awareness:
Corresponding to these levels of human awareness, we could also define different kinds of social relations, i.e. the different ways in which humans might experience the connections among their own kind:
As illustration, we can apply the foregoing to the notion of a group.
However the group may exist, or be perceived to exist at some level - with the obvious consequences that has for the ''kinds'' of social relations involved - it is clear that understanding different kinds of group relations require different methods of inquiry and Verification . Precisely ''because'' social relations may be experienced at different levels of awareness, they are not necessarily Transparent at all. Indeed, Karl Marx wrote ironically in this respect that "science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided". See also
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