Sociology and Science

Positivism  

• Believe it is possible and desirable to apply the logic and methods of the natural sciences to the study of society to be able to solve problems  
• Reality exists outside and independently of the human mind. So like the natural world, society is an objective and factual reality 
• Reality is patterned and these empirical patterns can be studied through systematic observation and measurement  
• Sociologist can discover the laws that determine how society works by using inductive reasoning verified through evidence  
• They aim to produce scientific laws about *** society works on order to predict future events and guide social policies  

Positivists methods  

• Sociology should take the natural science approach because the investigator can test a hypothesis in a systematic and controlled way  
• Use quantitative data to measure patterns of behaviour allowing them to produce statements about the relationship between the facts that they are researching and discover the laws of cause and effect 
• Use methods that give maximum objectivity and detachment 

Interpretivism  

• Believe that sociology cannot follow the natural science method because they are unsuitable to the study of human beings  
• Sociology is about internal meanings and not external causes  
• Sociology cannot be a science because it deals with cause and effect not meanings  
• Rejects the use of natural science methods and casual explanations  

Interpretivists methods  

• Purpose of sociology is to uncover meanings  
• To discover meanings that people hold, we need to see the world from their view point using empathetic understanding to grasp their meanings  

The subject matter of sociology  

• They argue that there is a major difference between the subject matter of the natural sciences and sociology  
• Natural sciences study matter, which has no consciousness. Its behaviour is an automatic reaction to external stimuli. Doesn’t choose how to act 
• Sociology studies people, they do have consciousness. People make sense of the world through meanings that they attach to the world and these are internal to them 
• Individuals are not puppets manipulated by external ‘social facts’ but autonomous beings who construct their social world through the meanings they give to it 

Two versions of interpretivism 

Interactionists – believe that we can have casual explanations, but through a ‘bottom-up; approach. Rather then entering research with a fixed hypothesis, ideas emerge gradually from the observations made  

Phenomenologists and ethnomethodologists  - reject the possibility of causal explanations of human behaviour. Their radically anti-structural view argues that society is not a real thing  

Postmodernists and feminism  

• Postmodernists reject natural science as a…