1. Science, Methodology, Epistemology, and Paradigm

Where does knowledge usually come from?

• Everyday knowledge: “My friend told me” - “I saw it on the internet” - “Everybody knows it” (opinions)

• Authority: “a professor said so”

• Tradition: “It has always been done this way” - “Everybody does it”

• Science: “We tested it systematically” - “The evidence currently suggests”

What makes science different?

Its subject and method: Research topic → Research question → Hypothesis → Method → Data → Analysis → Conclusion

What is Science?

• A system of verified knowledge

• A system of methods of acquiring knowledge

• Answers to what, why, and how (casuality, probability)

• A social institution (actors and their relationships; organizations, funding agencies, publishers, editorial boards, workshops)

Science is a…

• Process

• Way of asking questions

• Method for reducing uncertainty

• Discussion about reality

Scientific claims are…

• Systematic

• Transparent

• Testable

• Replicable

• Open to criticism

Sociology’s subject matters are…

• Social relations, systems, structures

• Individuals are social products: roles, attitudes

• Narratives, social representations

Sociology’s methods are…

• Questionnaires

• Interviews

• Content analysis

Sociology’s outcomes are…

• Probablistic laws, casual explanations

• Narratives, identity, constructions, meaning-making

• Trends, societal processes

Methodology is…

• A study of the entire research process

• It includes social institutional content, philosophy, ethics, political implications

Method is…

• Specific techniques of data collection

• It includes case selection, measurement, observation, analysis, presentation

A Paradigm is…

• Institutional systems (textbooks) (not just knowledge)

• A shared way of seeing and explaining reality (thought processes, theories)
  (Newtonian vs. Einsteinian physics as paradigms)

The way a new paradigm is created…

Normal science → anomalies → crisis → revolution → New Paradigm

What are the effects of Scientific Revolutions? (Thomas Kuhn, 1962-1996)

• Overthrowing incompatible theories

• Redefining valid problems & acceptable solutions

• Transforming the world in which scientific inquiry operates

What are the critiques of Kuhn?

• Is change always revolutionary (emphasis on internal causes)?

• What about external causes (e.g.: economics)?

• Why no paradigm shift in space exploration?

• Why does psychology tend toward natural science?

• What role does politics play?

Methodology is also a paradigm, because…

• It’s a theoretical framework

• How we explore & interpret knowledge, interwined with the research

• Composed of assumptions, concepts, propositions

• Offers a specific lens on reality & its knowability

• No “pure” methodologym → it’s grounded in theoretical assumptions & shaped by a broader paradigm

• Cannot exist without theory

Positivism is… (August Comte, 1798 - 1857)

• Resarch paradigm of the natural sciences

• Optimistic belief of the future (before it was dominated by religious paradigms)

• Society can be studied with scientific tools (“social physics”)

• Instead of theory, it begins with a problem

What is modernity (question by Comte) — and what are the stages for positivist philosophy?

• Theological stage — (until ~1300)

• Metaphysical stage — (until ~1800 — philosophical ideas replaces God)

• Scientific stage — science replaces religion & metaphysics, knowledge is based on observation

The hierarchy on studies is mathematics → astronomy → physics → chemistry → biology → sociology; but why is sociology important?

• Sociology can predict social change & guide it

• Sociology is based on deterministic laws

What is the first assumption & core principles of positivism?

There is an objective reality:

• Reality isn’t an abstraction

• Reality is the material world we live in

What is the second assumption & core principles of positivism?

Reality is independent of the observer:

• Reality is unaffected whether we observe it or not (sun rises without observing it)

• Object permanence

What is the third assumption & core principles of positivism?

Reality is knowable to the observer:

• Reality is measurable, thus systematically observable

• Reality is potentially knoweable to the observer

• Scientific truths exists — true & false

What is the fourth assumption & core principles of positivism?

Science is value-neutral:

• Science cannot resolve value disputes

• Uncovers laws & regularities, not morally vealuate them

• Scientists responbility is to accurately describe the laws of reality and provide correct explanations or predictions

Question example: Do students who spend more time studying recieve higher grades? — What would be a positivists approach?

• Measure

• Compare

• Test

• Generalize, prove (verification)

What does Karl Popper (1902 - 1994) believe in?

• There’s an objective reality - it’s independent, but not neccessarily knowable

• Truth may not be proveable or we may not know when we’ve found it

• Justification is often impossible

• Solution → falsifiability instead of verification (“according to the current state of science…”)

What does Max Weber (1864-1920) focuses on within his interpretative sociology & social constructivism?

• Sociology of understanding (verstehunde soziologie)

• Focuses on subjective meaning-making — people simply don’t react; people interpret; sociology must understand meanings

• Also called hermeneutic/interpretive sociology

• Social order possible with shared world interpretations

Who decides the “truths”?

• Structuralism — truths procudec through discourse

• Knowledge exists within a matrix of power & knowledge (both connected; truth is never completely independent from institutions)

• Postmodernism — there’s no objective reality- if there is, we cannot know it; what exists are narratives

Critical Theory I. — The Frankfurt school: What consists of it?

• Reform-Marxist orientation

• Distinction between critical vs. bourgeois theory

  • The mask of value-neutrality hides support for the status quo

• Observer isn’t independent of what is observed

  • Sociology should examine itself

  • Researchers are part of society

  • NOT outside of it

• Knowledge production trasnforms the object of observation

• Science placed in the service of technical rationality, benefits those who control the technology

Critical Theory II. — Pierre Bourdieu (1930 - 2002): What consists of it?

• Rejection of the distinction between critical vs. bourgeois theory

• Social rality isn’t independent on the observer

• Strength of sociology → can study itself

• Reflexive sociology (reflects on its own assumptions, enables others to reflect)

Critical Theory III. World System analysis, postcolonialism, Gender studies — Karen Horney (1885 - 1952): What consists of it?

• Our analytical framework being European nation-wise makes us not see the whole picture

  • Process of knowledge production isn’t independant from society, power relations are embedded in scientific knowledge

• Gender studies: “Why is female developmenmt depicted as a mirror of male fantasies?”

• World systems & post-colonial studies:

  • What is “modernity”?

    • Europe: reformation, enlightenment, French revolution

    • America: colonization, plunder & genocide