Theory - Sociology and Science Flashcards
(29 cards)
What are the perspectives on sociology and science?
- Positivism - Durkheim
- Interpretivism
- Popper and falsificationism
- Kuhn and paradigms
- Keat and Urry (1982) and realism
How were positivists inspired by science?
Early positvists like Comte and Durkheim liked how the sciences had been abel to discover objective facts about the universe through the scientific method; based on their belief in social facts (the existence of objective, external social realities that can be discovered), they try to do the same.
Outline the positivist belief in induction.
Positivists believe that the phsyical and social world is made up of patterns and regularities that can be discovered through inductive reasoning, accumulating knowledge about the world through careful reasoning.
What is the positivist principle of ‘verificationism’?
Through repeated observation, we can prove a theory and claim to have discovered a ‘general law’ - positivists attempt to emulate the scientific method of finding cause-and-effect relationships in this way.
What type of research to positivists prefer and why?
Postivists prefer objective quantitative research as they seek to precisely find objective cause-and-effect relationships in the social world, thus favouring large-scale, reliable and representative research that allows them to be more detached and not ‘contaminate’ findings. They also believe this most closely reflects the scientific method
Outline how Durkheim (1987) shows the positivist method.
Durkheim’s (1987) study of suicide is positivist in its approach, using large-scale quantitative date from official statistics to link an external cause (the lack of social integration and regulation of protestantism compared to catholicism) to a cause (higher suicide rates among protestants) or a ‘general law’.
How does interpretivism differ from positivism in terms of the subject matter of sociology?
Positivism sees the subject matter as external social structures that influence our behaviour, whereas interpretivists see it as about the unobservable internal meanings of social actors.
What is the implication of subject matter on interpretivists’ view of sociology as a science?
Natural sciences study matter, which has no consiousness, so can explain behvaiours in terms of cause-and-effect of external stimulus; sociology studies people, which have conciousness and free will, so has to explain behaviour in terms of internal meanings and construtions.
Mead and sociology and science:
G.H. Mead argued that sociology cannot be scientific because, rather than responding automatically to external stimuli (like matter), human beings interpret the meaning of a stimulus and then choose how to respond to it.
Outline Weber’s concept of verstehen.
To fully understand people’s meanings and definitions, sociologists must abandon detachment and objectivity and seek to gain an “empathic understanding of human behaviour” (verstehen), so favouring qualitative methods that are more valid.
How do interactionists differ from phenomenolgists and ethnomethodologists?
Interactionists, such as Glasser and Straus (1968), argue that we can have causal explanations but that we shouldn’t have a definite hypothesis before we start as this risks imposing our own meanings over the actors’, rather we should gradually develop ideas from our observations.
The latter, such as Garfinkel, completely reject causal statements as they don’t beleive in an external and influential ‘society’, it only exists in people’s conciousnesses.
What is the Douglas’ (1967) view of suicide?
Douglas (1967) argues that Durkheim’s study fails to analyse the meanings individuals who took their own life, only using quantitative official statistics that are social constructed by the coroners who rule suicide (rather than the individuals), arguing that we should use qualitative case studies to get at actors’ meanings.
What is the Atkinson’s (1978) view of suicide?
Atkinson (1978) goes further than Douglas (1967) and argues that we can never know the ‘real rate’ of suicide as we can never know the meanings the deceased hold, only the way the living make sense of their death.
How do postmodernists criticise scientific sociology?
Postmodernists reject both natural and social science as ‘meta-narratives’ that claim to have special access to objective truths despite their accounts being no more valid than any other, because all perceptions of reality are equally valid, thus allowing them to have power over others (discourse).
What is late modernist perspectives of sociology as a science?
Some sociologists argue that sociology shouldn’t be a science because of the harm science has done to society, with Beck (1992) arguing it has creates ‘manufactured risks. This danger is already evident in studies that inform social policy like the Sewell report that claimed the UK is not institutionally racist, thus justifying a lack of intrisic reform despite phenomena like the underachivement of some ethnic minorities.
What is Popper’s issue with positivism?
Popper rejects verificationism and the primary attribute of science and outlines the ‘fallacy of induction’ using swands as an example, you can observe a large number of swans and say they are white and keep looking for more swans that are right to prove it, but the existence of non-white swans destroys the theory.
What does Popper argue the unique trait of science is?
Popper argues for the opposite of verificationism: falsificationism - what makes science unique and a theory good is that scientific statements can be proven be proven wrong by evidence (are falsifiable) but stands up to all attempts regardless. He also favoured bold theories that make large generalisations, rather than ones that explain a small number of events.
What is truth to Popper?
“All knowledge is provisional, temporary,
capable of refutation at any moment” - there can never be absolute proof of anything.
To Popper, why does scientific knowledge grow so fast?
Given that for a theory to be falsifiable, it must be open to criticism from other scientists, science is a public activity in which everything is open to criticism so flaws can be quickly exposed and better theories developed. This is why science thrives in ‘open societies’ that have free expression and the right to challenge ideas, rather than closed societies that only allow one perspective, like christianity or Marxism.
What is the implication of Popper’s theory on sociology?
Currently, much of sociology is not scientific as it relies of theories that are not falsifiable, such as Marxism, but these theories can also be useful as they can be debated to find logical inconsistencies or help to formulate hypotheses; additionally, some sociology is scientific as it produces falsifiable hypotheses, such as Ford’s (1969) hypothesis that comprehensive schooling would produce social mixing of pupils from different social classes.
What is Kuhn’s idea of the ‘paradigm’?
Kuhn argues that scientists are socialised into a ‘paradigm’ (a shared set of assumptions about ‘good’ methods, techniques and even findings), not considering rival perspectives (Velikovsky) and being rewarded for conformity with work and acclaim.
What is ‘normal science’?
Kuhn argues that ‘normal science’ is ‘puzzle-solving’ - scientists let paradigms define the broader concepts and even answers and their job is to figure out how to get there. This allows scientists to agree on the wider ideas and flesh them out, thus gaining a more detailed understanding of nature.
What is a scientific revolution?
Kuh argues that, when anomalies against the paradigm build up, science enters a period of crisis where the base assumptions (and all science informed by them) are now being questioned; scientists then develop rival paradigms that are incommensurable (they cannot be compared as they are looking at reality completely differently, requiring a massive shift in mind-set to move between them). Eventually, the new paradigm is adopted by younger scientists who have less to lose and so it is eventually accepted by the wider community and ‘normal science’ continues.
How do Kuhn and Popper contrast?
Popper sees the scientific community as open to criticism and scrutiny of all theories, constantly seeking to falsify widely-accepted theories, whereas Kuhn sees scientists as conformists who accept the key assumptions of the paradigm, only changing during a scientific revolution, and allegiance being based on tenure rather than logic.
