The Philosophy of Social Science Research社会科学哲学的研究.pptVIP

The Logic of Social Science Research Sociology 3522 29 Jan. 2008 Epistemology: How do we know when something is true? Natural Sciences ? Scientific Method Social Sciences ? 3 Research Orientations Positivism (often quantitative research) Interpretivism (often qualitative research) Realism The Scientific Method Other Characteristics of the Scientific Method: Falsification Karl Popper (1959) “The Logic of Scientific Discovery” Either reject or support hypothesis, but never “prove” it Not falsifiable = philosophical question Verifiability (Replication) Repeatable (hopefully with same results) ? peer reviewed Science is Dynamic Scientific ‘laws’ = Theory and facts match over numerous experiments But ‘laws’ can be overturned with new evidence ? knowledge changes Key Epistemological Question for the Social Sciences: Can the social world be studied with the same methods used in the natural sciences? YES ? Positivism (Emile Durkheim) Typically Deductive Research NO? Interpretivism or Verstehen (Max Weber) Typically Inductive Research YES? Realism (Karl Mark, Sigmund Freud) No methodological preference Social Science Tradition (1):Positivism Knowledge derived from observations (empiricism) Theory alone is not scientific knowledge ? philosophy Scientific knowledge: theories supported by data Research is deductive Theory ? Hypothesis ? Collect Data ? Findings ? ? Findings confirm or reject hypothesis ? Revise theory Social science should be value free Social scientist’s personal opinions shouldn’t matter Building Blocks of Positivism: Theories, Hypotheses, and Variables Theory: Plausible explanation for a particular social phenomenon. Theory explains the ‘causal relationship’ between social variables. The data determine the ‘correlation between variables’. Spurious theories Founding Theories of Sociology Karl Marx (Capitalism and Society) Max Weber (Religion and Capitalism) Emile Durkheim (DOL and Anomie) Variables: An important “obj