Sociology is not a science

Question 1

P1

Answer 1

• Interpretivism -sociology is not a science
  argue that, because humans think and reflect, scientific methods are inappropriate as they do not allow us to truly understand & dig beneath the surface of behaviours and actions
• Unlike objects, which can be analysed using scientific methods,
  I argue that human beings change their behaviour if they know they are being observed, called the Hawthorne Effect, > if we want to understand social action, we have to delve into meanings using qualitative, unscientific methods.
  I are subjective, meaning science is not appropriate for sociology in their opinion as it gives objective results and data
• -argue that the purpose of sociology is to understand human behaviour, not quantify it using scientific methods, therefore it cannot possibly be a science

Question 2

P2

Answer 2

• Kuhn stated that science is paradigmatic, meaning there is a fixed set of rules and principles which science uses. It is like a set of norms and values and is accepted by all scientists
• according to Kuhn, sociology is pre-paradigmatic and hasn’t reached the stage where there is a general paradigm shared by most social scientists
• sociology has a range of views and theoretical perspectives and there is no agreed set of norms and values
• Feminists will always disagree with functionalists
• Sociological perspectives may also have internal disagreements such as Merton’s criticism of other functionalists
• Those who criticise Kuhn, question whether science itself has a paradigm
• Many sciences exist with different sets of paradigms such as psychology