Assess The Arguments For And Against Th

Assess the arguments for and against the view that sociology is not and will never be a scientific discipline. (33 marks)

A science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. If we use this definition it can be argued that sociology does fall into the bracket of being a science. There are two theoretical arguments set up by positivists and interpretivists. Positivists believe it is possible and desirable to apply the logic and methods of the natural sciences to the study of society, to solve social problems and achieve progress. However interpretivists do not believe sociology can or should adopt the logic and methods of the natural science, because these are unsuited to the study of human beings. This is where the main debate is set up.

Positivists would argue that the methods of the natural sciences can be applied to the study of people within society, and that it could possibly solve social problems and achieve progress by treating these methods in the same form as a scientific theory or experiment. They believe that reality is a separate thing existing outside of the mind, so society can be studied objectively as factual reality. A positivist sociologist would use scientific methods such as observations to study the patterns of society, in order to discover the laws that determine how society works. These cause and effect laws can then be used to predict future events and guide social policies made as a result of these predictions and past events. An example of this is the study that was conducted by Durkheim. He carried out research on ‘Suicide as a Social Fact’ in which he used official statistics to investigate what causes a person to commit suicide. He believed that if he could show that there were social patterns and causes applicable to suicide; he would be able to prove sociology as having a scientific guideline. However, interpretivists argue that there is a fundamental difference between the subject matter of the natural sciences and that of sociology. Natural science studies matter which has no consciousness. Its behaviour is an automatic reaction to an external stimulus. Matter does not choose how to act, it simply reacts. Sociology studies people who do have consciousness and choice. People make sense of their world by attaching meanings to it and theses are internal to their consciousness. Individuals are not puppets who can be manipulated by external forces e.g social facts. Humans are autonomous beings who construct their social world through the meanings they give to it. E.g. (Mead’s Traffic light example).
Interpretivists focus on meanings, they believe that people have their own internal reactions given to certain situations. Interpretivist sociologists such as Atkinson rejected Durkheim’s view that suicide is a social fact. He followed the ethnomethodologist view of interpretivism. He believes that it depends on the internal meanings that would lead to the eventual result of a person committing suicide because it is something that can never be found out as it is impossible to define an exact reason why a person would choose to end their life. He also concludes that suicide is a social construct, due to it being due to other people’s interpretations and the meanings. Interpretivists do not see sociology as a scientific theory as science deals with laws of cause and effect, whereas sociology would appear to deal with people’s meanings, rejecting the use of casual explanations and scientific methods.

When it comes to conducting research interpretivists are more likely to use qualitative data such as personal documents and analysis. For example when the issue of suicide arises, they would require evidence of a suicide note. However, positivists prefer to use quantitative data, such as official statics. So when suicide is considered it cannot be defined as a social fact because people attach their own meanings to make sense of it, which is internal to their consciousness. Because of this, social factors may not be applicable to a person’s death, as the deceased will have their own personal reasons for the taking of their own life. Overall interpretivists see sociological theory as a reason to uncover people’s meanings, by seeing the world through another viewpoint. However, positivists see natural sciences as verificationism applied to the study of observable patterns, and they feel that sociology should follow its methods. However this viewpoint is not accepted by all.
Popper’s theory of how Science Grows. He rejects the idea of verificationism. He supports the principle of falsification the idea that a statement is scientific if it can be (disproved) by the evidence. In terms of theory, a theory is good if in principle it can be falsified but withstands any attempts to do so, and explains a lot of what it was made to prove. If this were true then sociology is unscientific because its theories cannot be falsified, as happened with Marx’s prediction that there will one day be a revolution. He argues that science is thrives in open liberal societies that believe in free expression, but not in ones with closed belief systems such as totalitarian states or ones dominated by religion However, sociology can be scientific by producing hypotheses that could be tested and in principle falsified.
Thomas Kuhn and Scientific Paradigms. A paradigm is a shared framework held by members of any given scientific community. The paradigm provides a definition of science and a set of shared ideas, assumptions and methods, allowing them to do productive work. Scientists are socialised into the paradigm by means of education and training. Science cannot exist without a shared paradigm as that would indicate rivaling scientific theories, not a unified science. Normally the paradigm goes unquestioned and scientists solve puzzles within the paradigm. This allows the scientific community to come together and exchange knowledge. However, from time to time scientists find results which are contrary to their paradigm. If too many anomalies are found confidence in the paradigm will decrease. At this point scientists will each come up with their own paradigms and eventually one paradigm wins out and becomes accepted by the scientific community, allowing normal science to resume, but with a new set of basic assumptions and principles. This rejects Popper’s view of the scientific community as open, critical and rational.

Finally there is; Realism and Science. Realists believe in similarities between certain types of natural science and sociology, such as the degree to which the researcher has control over the variables of which they are researching. There are two systems. The first is closed systems. This is when the researcher can control and measure all the variables and make precise predictions e.g. through laboratory experiments. The second is open systems. This is when the researcher cannot control and measure all of the variables, making them unable to make precise predictions. Sociologists study open systems processes are too complex or large-scale to make exact predictions. Realists also reject the positivist view that science is only concerned with observable phenomena, an example of this is that a physicist cannot directly observe a black hole, but they can still study black holes. Both natural and social sciences attempt to explain the causes of events in terms of hidden features by observing their effects. For example, social class is not something we can directly see or touch , but its effect on things such as life chances can be observed. On the other hand, realists see little difference between natural and social sciences, except that natural sciences are able to study closed systems in lab experiments.
Overall, whether sociology is a science or not can be argued either way, but there is more sociological evidence to suggest that sociology cannot and should not be a science. Scientific methods can not be applied to all areas of sociological study. For example you can not use it to study suicide. The person who committed suicide only has the answer to why they committed suicide in the first place. Scientific methods can be used in sociology, but are used differently, as meanings have to be attached to the study of people, as people make their own decisions based on the opinion or meaning they attach to a situation.