Social inquiries + causality

Question 1

What is interpritivism?

Answer 1

1. Understanding the world and gaining knowledge is done through analysing human behaviour = subjective knowledge of the world.
2. Aims to UNDERSTAND human behaviour rather than explain it.
3. The social and natural worlds are different.

Question 2

What is positivism?

Answer 2

1. Positivists argue that the social and natural worlds are the same.
2. Knowledge of the world is limited to what we can see /observe.
3. Focus on explaining social phenomena using a causal mechanism.
4. Belief that the world is objective and knowledge can be generalised.

Question 3

Scientific realism

Answer 3

• To understand social life we must look beyond what we can observe and highlight the importance of unobservable things (contradicts with positivism, belief that we can only know the world due to what we can see).

Question 4

Ontology for the three approaches

Answer 4

Positivism: objective reality exists

Interpritivism: reality is subjective

Scientific realism: reality is objective

Question 5

Epistemology for the three approaches

Answer 5

Positivism: knowledge of what can be observed; empirical regularities from the basis of law-like generalisations can be used to explain and predict

Interpritivism: interpreting meaning based on people’s behaviour, not able to use law-like generalisations to predict it

Scientific realism: knowledge of observable and unobservable elements, possible to explain them

Question 6

Causality for the 3 approaches

Answer 6

Positivism: established by discovering observable things

Interpritivism: cannot seek causes, but meaning that provide reasons for the action

Scientific realism: through discovering unobservable underlying mechanism

Question 7

Methodology for the three approaches

Answer 7

Positivism: direct observation

Interpritivism: interpretation of the social world.

Scientific realism: direct observation + logic applied behind observable and unobservable things

Question 8

Epistemology definition (don’t need to know)

Answer 8

the theory of knowledge

Question 9

Ontology definition (don’t need to know)

Answer 9

branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of things

Question 10

Conditions for causality

Answer 10

1. a causal mechanism that links the two variables
2. the two variables are related and co-vary
3. the hypothesised cause is prior to the effect
4. correlation between the independent and dependent variable is not spurious

Spurious causal mechanism: when the something else affects both the X (independent variable - cause) and the Y (dependent variable - Y), making it appear that they are related but they are not.

Question 11

Variables

Answer 11

Independent: cause
Dependent: outcome