Sociology as a science Flashcards
Who does believe sociology is a science
Marx, Durkheim and Comte are positivists and believe that sociology is a science as they use quantitative data like official statistics
What does Comte say?
looked at social facts and said we change peoples behaviours through discovering the laws - main task of sociology is to discover general law of social development
What does Durkheim argue?
agreed with Comte but believed he had failed to establish as a science
sociologist should study through social facts as things to observe and should do this through objective methofs
What do realists argue
Open system sciences like meteorologists and seismologist cannot control all variable or measure them and its predications are uncertain just like sociology is
Who argues sociology isn’t a science?
Weber, Feminist, Postmodernists, Popper and Kuhn believe that sociology isn’t a science
What is Poppers main theory
rejects the idea of inductive reasoning and verification
verificication is the fallacy of induction as all academic areas that wanted to be a science should subject themselves to falsification
What is the fallacy of induction
induction is the process of moving from the observation of particular istances of something to arrive at a general statement of law
uses swans as an example
What did Popper believe about falsification
a scientific statement is one that in principle is capable of being falsified but when tested can’t stand up to disprove it and makes a bold generilisation
What is Kuhn’s main belief
science is seen as one paradigm as there is shared beleifs while sociology is not yet a paradigm as there are not shared assumptions
What is Kuhn’s theory about scientific revolutions
scientists obtain findings contrary to the paradigm and as this builds up the confidence in the paradigm declines
scientists begin to formulate rival paradigms where one paradigm eventually wins out
related this to religious conversion
What do postmodernists say about sociology as a science
natural sciences are a meta narrative and therefore make false claims as it doesn’t take other views into account
this is a form of domination
What do feminists say about sociology as a science
support postmodernists
looking for one scientific feminist theory
excluded all other groups of women
form of opression
