Define comparative analysis on the basis of time element.
Answers
Comparative research is a research methodology in the social sciences that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures. A major problem in comparative research is that the data sets in different countries may define categories differently (for example by using different definitions of poverty) or may not use the same categories.As Moutsios argues, cross-cultural and comparative research should be seen as part of the scientific spirit that arose in Greece in the 6th century and the overall appreciation of knowledge and learning that was characteristic of the 5th century. In other words, it is part of the emergence of episteme and philo-sophia, as a love for knowledge that is independent from material benefits. Episteme, as a form and activity in the field of logos, marked the break of cognitive closure and advanced empirical inquiry, logical argumentation and the search for truth. And the high esteem for intellectual activity gave rise to a genuine curiosity about other cultures – which has lain thereafter at the heart of comparative inquiry.
Moreover, behind the Greek comparative gaze also was the philosophical and political questioning which characterised the life of the democratic polis. Philosophical inquiry, from the Milesians down to the Sophists, questioned the representations and the cognitive traditions of their own people; the inquiry of the traditions of other peoples was, as Herodotus’ Histories demonstrate, an activity associated with the ethos of philosophical critique that characterised democratic life in Greece. Similarly, questioning of the Greek laws and institutions and its related values and practices (e.g. isegoria and parrhesia), as part of Greek politics, is associated with the effort of the first historians to reflect on home institutions through researching those of others.