Is Sociology A Science Flashcards
Positivists definition of science
Just as there are natural laws governing the behaviour of the natural world, so too there are social laws governing human behaviour found in the social word . So sociologists should use the logic and method of the natural sciences- know as the hypothetico-deductive model
Popper’s definition of science
Doesn’t believe sociology is science, good science isn’t about proving a hypothesis right , it is about proving them wrong. Uses the example hypothesis ‘all swans are white’ the H-D model would assume that 1000 observations of white swans would be enough to deduct the hypothesis as right but actually the appearance of one black swan would prove the hypothesis wrong
Popper and Marxism
Reluctant to accept that Marxism is scientific because makes predictions about the future which popper claims is unscientific because the future cannot be proved wrought
The realist definition of science
Sayer reject the view that science needs to focus on observable phenomena. Argues that many sciences are open sciences - they often hypothesise about things that are difficult to observe so sociology Is the same in observing invisible social forces such as consensus and integration
Kuhn- paradigmatic definition of science
Science should be defined as a paradigm= a body of knowledge that dominates a particular field of science and which sets out what scientists should believe and conduct research. So science only progresses when it presents evidence that contradicts the paradigm.
Sociology is made up of competing perspectives and theories so there is no dominant body of knowledge
Interpretivism
Rejects the view that sociology is a science since it is wrong to treat human rings who have consciousness and free will in the same way as the subjects of natural science
Postmodernists
Seidman reject the idea that science is about collecting facts to discover absolute truths about how the world works: science is a meta narrative and has no more claim to validity then others
