In social science research, the concept of “disaster” originates from the studies on both society and natural hazards. As a result, disaster research has obtained an inter-disciplinary status. While there are numerous definitions of “disaster” from a natural science perspective, a characterization from the point of view of social science has been understated. Consequently, a uniform definition of “disaster” that encompasses both society and natural hazards does still not exist. In order to narrow this definitional gap, this article attempts to analyze the concept of disaster from a social science perspective. Traditionally, main social science cognitions have been classified according to event-functionalism, social constructivism, as well as vulnerability, uncertainty, and power resources. First，the functionalist or event-based still serves as mainstream approaches to characterize disasters, which regard disaster as suddenly-occurring disruptions originating from either natural or technological hazards and exceeding the resources and capabilities possessed by the social system. Second，in contrast with functionalist and event-based orientation of the disaster research tradition, hazards vulnerability views disaster as the product of the joint functioning of natural system and human system Third，the social constructionist approach to disaster, argues against viewing disasters as objective physical phenomena with given properties and impacts. From their perspective, defining and labeling disaster are social process of producing claims. The social process affects the claims about disasters and their consequences. Fourth， theory of risk society，originating form European, describes present western society as “risk society”. Unlike classical disaster research methods, this position sees disaster as caused by social system itself, rather than originating outside social system, and conceptualizes disaster as an inevitable and direct consequence of the social relations and practices that characterize modern society. Fifth，influenced by conflict perspective, disaster research from the power resource perspective views the problem of disaster as representation of social problem. Disaster do not result from the failure of systems in coping with environmental extremes but rather are closely interwoven with ongoing social status. Disaster is the normal outcome of unfairly social development. Taking all these approaches into account, the result of this study presents a new logical analysis framework constructed on the pillars of “hazard”, ”linkage” and “consequence”. It facilitates an understanding of disaster research from a social science approach. Finally, we reveal that holistic research paradigm is the trend of disaster research