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In social science, sociological positivism refers to an epistemological approach, closely associated with naturalism and the scientific method, which attempts to analyse the social realm through empirical means. Positivist methods are in this sense predominantly "quantitative", producing numerical data to draw inferences across a population and establish correlations.

Positivism began in the original sociology of Auguste Comte, but has since developed many different meanings and interpretations. Despite philosophical connotations relating to scientism, any simple test of a population to derive statistical data may be regarded as an exercise of positivist research. Antipositivists, by contrast, reject statistical methods and instead prefer interpretative (or "qualitative") analysis. Both perspectives, however, involve a systematic (and to some extent subjective) interaction between theory and data. In practice, quantitative and qualitative methods are often combined.

Contents 1 History 2 Principles 3 Positivistic assumptions about the real world 4 Positivists' self-critique 5 Contemporary thinking 6 See also 7 References

[edit] History

Positivism broadly sets out to examine the elements of society in the same manner as natural science. The founder of sociology, Auguste Comte, endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the scientific understanding of society itself. Writing shortly after the malaise of the French Revolution, he proposed that social ills could be remedied through an epistemological approach outlined in The Course in Positive Philosophy [1830–1842] and A General View of Positivism [1844]. Comte believed a 'positivist stage' would mark the final era, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases, in the progression of human understanding.^[1] The founder of modern academic sociology, Émile Durkheim, was a major proponent of theoretically grounded empirical research,^[2] seeking correlations between "social facts" to reveal structural laws. Just as Comte was fundamentally interested in the functionalist premise of maintaining social order, Durkheim was informed by an interest in applying sociological findings in the pursuit of social reform and the negation of what he described as social "anomie". Durkheim's theory differed a great deal to Comte's, however, and today scholarly accounts of his positivism may be vulnerable to exaggeration and oversimplification. Whilst Comte believed that the social realm may be subject to scientific analysis in the same manner as noble science, Durkheim acknowledged in greater detail the fundamental epistemological limitations.^[3][4]

[edit] Principles

Positivists are guided by five principles:

1. Unity of scientific method - logic of inquiry is the same across all sciences (social and natural)
2. The goal of inquiry is to explain and predict. Most positivists would also say that the ultimate goal is to develop the law of general understanding, by discovering necessary and sufficient conditions for any phenomenon (creating a perfect model of it). If the law is known, we can manipulate the conditions to produce the predicted result.
3. Scientific knowledge is testable. Research can be proved only by empirical means, not argumentations. Research should be mostly deductive, i.e. deductive logic is used to develop statements that can be tested (theory leads to hypothesis which in turn leads to discovery and/or study of evidence). Research should be observable with human senses (arguments are not enough, belief is out of question). Positivists should prove their research using logic of confirmation.
4. Science does not equal common sense. Researchers must be careful not to let common sense bias their research.
5. Relation of theory to practice – science should be as value-free as possible, and the ultimate goal of science is to produce knowledge, regardless of politics, morals, values, etc. involved in the research. Science should be judged by logic, and ideally produce Universal conditionals:

• For all conditions of X, if X has property P and P=Q, then X has property Q.
• Statements must be true for all times and places.

[edit] Positivistic assumptions about the real world

1. Nature is orderly; there is an underlying causality and pattern.
2. We can know nature (discover and understand causes, patterns, etc.).
3. Knowledge is always preferable to ignorance.^{[citation needed]}
4. Natural phenomena have natural causes.
5. Knowledge comes through sensory experience.

[edit] Positivists' self-critique

Positivists have themselves raised questions and doubts about positivism, questioning whether anyone can follow the ideal described above. The most often raised points are:

• Forms of controlled inquiry – there is a narrower range of possibilities for social science study compared to natural science study. Issues of ethics, control and of experimenters involuntarily influencing their subjects limit how we can experiment on humans. It is also difficult to test some predictions other than in time.
• Knowledge is a social variable – knowing one is a subject of a study changes one's behaviour and results can modify the future (self-fulfilling prophecy).
• Generalizations are limited – because of the complexity of culture and history, it is impossible to create statements that are true for all times and places.
• Subjectivity and value orientation – Research is often subjective. Researchers always have their own motives, goals, ethics and values, some deeply unconscious, and it is thus impossible to be a completely objective observer.

[edit] Contemporary thinking

Today, although many sociologists would agree that a scientific method is an important part of sociology, orthodox positivism is rare. Social scientists realize that one cannot identify laws that would hold true in all cases when human behaviour is concerned, and that while the behaviour of groups may at times be predicted in terms of probability, it is much harder to explain the behaviour of each individual. In some quarters of contemporary sociology, positivism has been replaced by a contrary view, antipositivism.

Many sociologists today operate somewhere between positivism and antipositivism, usually called postpositivism. Sociologists taking this intermediate position argue that human behavior is more complex than animal behavior or the movements of planets. Others reject positivism as a fundamental misunderstanding of social reality, that it is ahistorical, depoliticized, and an inappropriate application of theoretical concepts. A similar distinction is often made in the critique of analytic philosophy made by continental philosophers. Some argue humans have free will, imagination and irrationality, so that our behavior is at best difficult to explain by rigid "laws of society".

[edit] See also

• Positivism
• Logical positivism
• Postpositivism
• Antipositivism
• Verstehen

[edit] References

1. ^ Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Article: Comte, Auguste
2. ^ Ashley D, Orenstein DM (2005). Sociological theory: Classical statements (6th ed.). Boston, MA, USA: Pearson Education. p. 94. 
3. ^ Ashley D, Orenstein DM (2005). Sociological theory: Classical statements (6th ed.). Boston, MA, USA: Pearson Education. pp. 94–98, 100–104. 
4. ^ Fish, Jonathan S. 2005. 'Defending the Durkheimian Tradition. Religion, Emotion and Morality' Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.