PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES-

POSITIVISM
Dr.NC VAMSHI KRISHNA
FACULTY FOR SOCIOLOGY
INTRODUCTION

• A philosophical system recognizing

only that which can be scientifically
verified or which is capable of
logical or mathematical proof, and
therefore rejecting metaphysics and
theism.
• Method of Enquiry.
• In its basic ideological posture,
positivism is thus worldly, secular,
antitheological, and anti-
metaphysical.
• Strict adherence to the testimony of
observation and experience is the
all-important imperative of
positivism.
• It sought to give immense cognitive prestige
to the discipline, and wanted to convince its
adherents that sociology too could be a
science and follow the scientific
methodological principles.
• self-perception of sociology as a science
sought to serve the following three
purposes:
I. It separated sociology as an empirical
science from humanities and
philosophy.
II. It gave a professional identity to the
sociologist who ought to overcome
the limiting identities emanating
from caste, class and gender, and
think in a more objective/ rational/
universal fashion.
III. The knowledge it would acquire
would help us to reconstruct our
society, and create a better world.
• Merton’s Four • Science is universal. The validity of a scientific statement does not depend on any
particularistic criterion. It is against all sorts of ethnocentrism. It is valid for all.
Institutional • Science implies the communism of knowledge: Scientist, it is argued, want nothing
more than esteem and recognition. Scientist's findings and discoveries, far from
Imperatives of remaining a private property, become a collective heritage. It is this shared culture that
enables science to evolve, grow and progress dramatically.
Science • Science demands disinterestedness: a process of rigorous scrutinization and
examination of one‟s findings without any bias.
• Science is organized skepticism that distinguishes it. Everything for science is an object
of critical enquiry. There is nothing sacred or profane. Science investigates, examines
and problematizes everything. That is the success story of science.
WHY DID POSITIVISM IMITATE
NATURAL SCIENCES?

• It was difficult to escape the influence of the age-

HEROIC SCIENCES
• It was difficult not to be influenced by the spectacular
success story of science.
• Science became knowledge itself: real, objective and
foundational.
• Social sciences were born in the shadow of these
triumphs.
• The methodological lessons that the natural sciences
were teaching then the spectacular success of these
sciences could be matched in the social sciences.
"The social sciences had only to await the arrival of their Newton"
The assumption was that the identity of sociology as
“true knowledge” could not be established without
adopting the method of the natural sciences.

It was the time that witnessed the assertion of the new

elite: technologists, scientists and capitalists. They saw
immense possibilities in science, and were strong
adherents of a positivistic/ scientific culture and mode
of enquiry.

Yes, there were dissenting voices, say, the voices

emanating from romanticism that critiqued the worship
of science and reason, and pleaded for imagination,
subjectivity and creativity.

But then, the language of science was irresistible. The

politico-economic establishment was sustaining it.
Science was going to stay, and positivism was its
inevitable consequence.
 WHY WAS IT
FORMULATED?

• August Comte , Saint Simon early

adherents. Positivism was a method of
enquiry for them
• They wanted to give immense cognitive
prestige to the discipline, and wanted to
convince their followers that sociology too
could be a science and follow the scientific
methodological principles
EARLY POSITIVISM
• In the state of post-revolutionary France. There was a
significant change in the domain of knowledge. The
separation of science and philosophy became inevitable.
• New scientific journals started appearing, and a close link
between science and industry was established. It was felt
that there was a single scientific method applicable to all
fields of study.
• Saint Simon (1760-1825), one of the early sociologists,
articulated this aspiration rather sharply.
• A scientist, he felt, is one who predicts, and it is this
power of prediction that gives him the power. He,
therefore, pleaded strongly for extending the scientific
outlook from the physical sciences to the study of human
beings.
SCIENCE OF SOCIETY
• Positivism is closely related to the development
of a science of society. Saint Simon developed
the ideas We can identify four beliefs that
characterize Saint Simon’s positivist ideas:
• A unification of sciences is needed to
create a new world view.
• A science of society is needed - analogous
to the natural sciences like physics and
biology.
• Science should replace religion (‘theology’)
as coordinator of the moral order.
• Scientists should become the new leaders
of society.
CONSOLIDATION

Emile Durkheim consolidated and elaborated positivist sociology.

The Rules of Sociological Method that he published in 1895 gave a
new momentum to the discipline.

The subject matter of sociology, he repeatedly emphasized, is the

domain of social facts that cannot be comprehended by any other
discipline.

Durkheim emphasized overcoming inferior‟ faculties like emotions,

sentiments and feelings. Only then is it possible for the sociologist
'to emancipate himself from the fallacious ideas that dominate the
mind of the layman
Sociology, he asserted, must come out of the
influence of philosophy, and establish itself as a
science.

The principle of causality, he believed, can be

applied to social phenomena. And sociology, as
a result, would be free from ideological analysis.

It would be neither individualistic, nor

socialistic. Instead, sociology would be an
objective study of social facts.
FEATURES OF POSITIVISM

It believes in the unity of method. Sociology is not different from the

natural sciences as far as the method of enquiry is concerned.

It celebrates objectivity and value neutrality. It, therefore, separates

the knower from the known, subjectivity from objectivity, and fact
from value.

Sociology is not commonsense. It rests on explanatory principles,

which give a universal character to the discipline.
 • Sociology is a formal
and organized body of
knowledge, characterized by
specialized skills
and techno-scientific
vocabulary.
• Human experiences can be
explained through law-
like generalizations.
• The scientific knowledge of
society can be used for
social engineering

OTHER FEATURES
 • Scientific knowledge is
testable.
• Science should be as value-free
IN A NUTSHELL.... as possible, and the ultimate
goal of science is to produce
knowledge, regardless of
politics, morals, values, etc.
involved in the research.
• Science investigation should be
done objectively.
• Positivism is based upon an
understanding of science that
sees science as using a mainly
inductive methodology.
• An inductive methodology
starts by collecting the data.
The data are then analyzed,
and out of this analysis
theories are developed.
 • The search for precision, objectivity, causality and value neutrality made it
acceptable.
• This positivist social science found its logical culmination in the cult of
ACHIEVEMENTS numbers, in the mathematization of social phenomena, in the urge to
reduce qualitative human experiences into quantified statistical figures.
 CRITIQUE
• Positivism has been considered by few, as a
fundamental misunderstanding of social reality,
that it is ahistorical, depoliticized, and an
inappropriate application of theoretical
concepts.
• Positivism ignored the role of the 'observer' in
the constitution of social reality.
• Human imagination and human interpretation
are important parts of the social process not
recorded nor recordable quantitatively. This
view is also understood as Non-positivism.
• Social Engineering is a dangerous phenomenon.
CRITIQUE

First, it is possible to say that what is applicable in the

domain of nature is not necessarily applicable in the domain
of human society.

Unlike nature, society consists of self-reflexive agents who

think, argue, contest, and through their practices and
actions transform the world.

Hence society cannot be subject to abstract/universal

generalizations. Positivism, it is alleged, undermines the
creativity, reflexivity and agency of social actors.
• The Frankfurt School focuses on the "ethical neutrality‟ of positivism reduces it to a mere
technique, separated from moral/political issues. And, paradoxically, it is precisely the
politics of positivism.
• The establishment to legitimize itself often uses its scientific nature. In other words,
positivism can prove to be pro-establishment, status-quoist, non-critical and non-reflexive.
• What is asserted is that science has lost its emancipatory power. Instead, science itself has
become an integral component of the establishment.
• The central thrust of their argument was that positivist science was nothing but a form of
instrumental rationality leading to domination and manipulation of human and natural
resources
POST MODERN
• Post-modernists deconstruct the very foundation of science. positivism
loses its cognitive power and legitimacy.
• The distinction between objective science and subjective narrative gets
eroded, sociology becomes yet another narrative filled with biographies
CRITIQUE and life histories, and a non-positivist/post-modern sociology does not
look fundamentally different from cultural studies.
REFLEXIVE
SOCIOLOGY
• Alvin Gouldner warned us of the
methodological dualism implicit in
positivism.
• This dualism separates the knower
from the known, subject from object,
fact from value. Not solely that.
• It views that if the sociologist engages
politically, emotionally and
aesthetically with the object of his/her
study, the „scientific nature‟ of the
discipline would suffer
• Gouldner asserts for methodological
monism and asserts that the separation
between the knower and the known must
be overcome, because you cannot know
others without knowing yourself.
• That is why, self-reflexivity is absolutely
important.
• Reflexive sociology invites methodological
monism, and, therefore, alters the very
meaning of knowledge.
• It does not remain merely a piece of
information. Instead, it becomes
awareness. It generates self-awareness and
new sensitivity.
• Thus, reflexive sociology demands moral
commitment and ethical engagement.
STRUCTURATION
• New Rules of Sociological method.
• Giddens is categorical about the fact that
nature and human society are two different
realms of enquiry.
• Nature is not a human production, but
society is being perpetually created,
renewed and altered by human agents.
That is why there are limits to natural
science methodology in sociology.
• In sociology, argues Giddens "those who
still wait for a Newton are not only waiting
for a train that won‟t arrive, they're in the
wrong station altogether‟.
• NEO POSITIVISM/LOGICAL POSITIVISM