Sociology as a science

FOR SCIENCE:

• Positivists (e.g Durkheim and Comte) say there’s objective social facts that can be observed through the senses.

• Facts can be expressed in statistics.

• Durkheim assumed official statistics were objective = empiricist.

  • In stats he looked for correlations, believed they represented causal relationships, analysed different factors (IV), thought from this you could discover general laws of all societies.

  • Approach has two key factors which make it scientific:

    • Is inductive (looks at evidence, induces theories, then tests them against evidence).

    • Based upon verification.

  • Not all positivists believe universal laws can be discovered in this way.

  • Durkheim’s view is still influential.

• Popper agrees sociology can be considered as scientific.

  • Criticises induction – whatever is studied needs to be informed by initial theory.

  • Doesn’t matter how clear the theory is, this is a deductive approach (you deduce from the theory what you find as evidence – if theory is precise you can make predictions).

  • Believes falsification is better than verification.

• Scientific knowledge can never be taken to the final and incontrovertible truth – can always be disproved in the future.

• Science is the best logic we have – if something is continually not disproved, then it’s likely to be true.

• Social science theories aren’t precise enough to be falsified – particularly critical of Marxists’ prediction of a revolution (but not saying when), it can’t be falsified but could also happen in the future, so it’s not a scientific theory.

• This approach is used in natural science.

• Use the hypothetico-deductive method to mirror it, but not in a lab – develop theory ⟶ identify hypotheses ⟶ collect and test evidence ⟶ refine or change theories when needed ⟶ test refined hypotheses. A way of falsifying.

• In Popper’s view most sociology wouldn’t be scientific. However, still considered that it should be desirable for sociology to use these methods.

• Does also raise questions about the rigour of scientific knowledge.

• Realist view – social and natural science aren’t too dissimilar.

• Models by positivists fail to distinguish between open and closed systems.

NOT SCIENCE:

• Science and natural world are different.

• Interpretivists, interactionists and phenomenological sociologists all believe world is socially constructed and meanings are crucial to understanding it.

• People’s motives and meaning influence their behaviour.

• Phenomenologists and postmodernists – can only understand the world through categorised language, which are products of society – not facts – can’t be verified or falsified.

• Also impossible to exclude unobservable subjective states – thought processes are crucial to social life – excluding them makes sociology worthless.

• Most things in natural world are inanimate and don’t possess consciousness.

  • Don’t attach meanings to things that influence their behaviour and therefore are quite predictable – humans aren’t.

• Different individuals placed in the same circumstances will act differently.

• If sociology made predictions it would be discredited.

• Applying Popper’s view of science would be inappropriate and counterproductive.

• Postmodernity – science is a modern society feature – Rorty: science is superfluous, Lyotard: science restricts study.

• Science might not meet its own principles.

  • Symmetry: science, is also shaped by a variety of social factors.

  • Latour and Woolgar – scientists fight for grants and do little disproval after their hard work – they’re constructing reality.

  • Use a complex of machines and other scientists to do this; if they hinder rather than help they’re ‘disenrolled’ from the network.

  • Latour and Woolgar: don’t specify if science is true, not important, wanted to show it was produced.

• Kuhn – no progression, just acceptance of established theories – normal science – paradigm – scientific revolution – new paradigm.

  • No reason to believe current paradigms will be accepted forever.

  • Scientists also influenced by peers and career interests.

• Lakatos – paradigms too simplistic – modern science rarely overthrown – central ideas in tact.

• Sociology – never one dominant paradigm – plurality of paradigms – could be seen as desirable over science.