Positivists

Positivists believe that we can gain true and objective knowledge of reality by applying methods of natural sciences in sociology . For them, reality exists independently of the human mind and nature is made up of objective, observable, physical facts that are external to our minds. They believe that like matter, humans are directed by an external stimuli-the society-and they act accordingly (example: functionalism, Marxism). By analyzing quantitative data, positivists simply seek to discover laws of cause and effect that determine human behavior. One of the first positivists, August Comte was confident that scientific knowledge about society could be accumulated and used to improve human existence. Adding to Comte, Durkheim argued that by using scientific methods, laws could be discoverable and could explain patterns in society. He argued the patterns we observe, in nature and society can be explained in the same way by finding facts that caused them. He demonstrated that sociology had its own unique subject matter, social facts, and they can be explained scientifically.
Like natural scientists, positivists aim to produce general statements about how society works (laws of human behavior) that can be used to predict the future and advise social policy. Positivists do recognize the fact that unlike natural sciences, there is a danger in sociology of the researcher of contaminating the experiment with his/her values. They thus employ methods to allow maximum objectivity like the experimental method used in natural sociology as it allows the investigator to test the hypothesis in a controlled way. Positivists are and should be be detached and objective while coming to causal explanations and completely disagree with the statement that sociology cannot and should not be a science.

Interpretivist sociologists however do not believe sociology should model itself on the natural sciences.
They argue sociology is about internal meanings and not external causes.