Is Sociology A Science?

Sociology Can Be A Science

• positivists are only concerned with cause and effect relationships
• believe we must apply the methods of the natural sciences to the study of society in orer to achieve an objective knowledge
• enoucarge  verificationism - throuhg this we can develop a theory that explains all observations to the best of out knowledge so far and we can make generalisations
• nature and society can be explained in the same way by finding the facts that cause them
• as a result positivists favour experiments and quantitative data
• researchers should be dettatchd and objective in order to make accurate results

Sociology can't be a science as it consists of theories that cant be tested

• differs from positivists as he believes verificationism isnt a distinctive feature of science but instead 'the fallecy of induction'
• we can never prove that any theory is true by simply producing more observations that verify it
• argues for falsification where a scientific statement is one that is able to be falsified of proved wrong
• all knowledge in popper's eyes is temporary, provisional and capable of refutation at any moment
• popper sees the scientific community as open to criticism  so that flaws are exposed and a theory is developed
• science must be an open society,  in closed societies we are dominated by one official belief system that claims absolute truth and can therefore not be falsified e.g. Nazism, Marxism
• sociology consistes of theories that can't be out to the test/ fasified
• e.g. Marxism predicts there will be a revolution, but it has not yet happened because of false class consciousness
• this means that if there isnt a revolution, marxism is correct and if there is a revolution marxism is still correct
• sociology can be a science  if it produces hypothesises that can be falsified

Can't be a science as there is no shared paradigm

• a paradigm is a set of norms that provides the basic framework of assumptions, principles, ,methods and techniques
• science can't exist without a shared paradigm
• normal science consists of scientists 'puzzle solving' we must puzzle solve within a paradigm
• a scientific revolution occurs when anomolies build dup and faith in the paradigm declines
• alternative rival paradigms form, which view the world in a different way
• as a result the findings of one paradigm will be disproved or rejected by another
• for Kuhn, unlike Popper during periods of normal science, science is not an 'open society' as only ideas that fit in with the paradigm are accepted
• sociology cannot be scientific as there is no shared paradigm, so the is no shared values. Sociology cant be scientific until basic disagreements are solved.

Sociology shouldn't wnat to be a science

• interpretivists are concerned with meanings and motives
• we can only successfully understand sociology by interpreting these meanings and motives
• sociology is not a science as science deals with cause and effect, not meanings
• an actors meanings are in their minds, so as theyre not directly observable they cannot be studied scientifically
• as individuals are all different we should not seek to make generalisations

Sociology Should not be a science

• regard science as just another meta narritive
• science's account of the world is no more valid than any other so there is no reason why we should adopt a scientific model of sociology
• a scientific approach is dangerous, as it claims monopoly of the truths, excluding other viewpoints and therefore funtioning as a form of domination

Feminists

• a single scientific feminist theory is a form of domination as it excludes the view points of many women
• quantitative scientific methods that are favoured by by positivists are oppresive so can't capture the reality of women's experiences
• e.g. Eichler said that scientific methods were androcentic - viewing the world from a male view point, and Over generalised meaning only men may have been asked

Sociology is scientific

• reject the positivist view that science is only concerned with the observable phenomena
• Keat and Urry - science asumes the existence of unobsevarble structures
• these structures are unobservable, but we cna work out that they exist by observing their effects
• unlike Popper they see marxism as scientific as it identifies underlying structures such as capitalism and its effects
• sociologists can be scientific when they interpret behaviour in terms of actors internal meanings
• unlike interpretivists realists see little diffenence between the natural sciences and sociology
• so we must look for meanings and motives and cause and effect

Science can't be used to srudy sociology

• reject the possibility of casual explanations of human behaviour
• they argue that society is not a real thing that influences our actions
• society is not an external force, and only exists in peoples minds
• peoples actions are not down to external causes, there is no possibilty of cause and effect explanations that is sought by positivists.
• society is not observable, only exists in peoples consciences, so  how can we study it in such a way.

• the division arrives fromt he disagreement when it cones to the nature of sociology and its subject matter.
• Realists combine both methods, say weshould look for meanings and motives as well as cause and effect relationships
• can we use science if science itself is not value free?