POLSCI 3N06 Lecture Notes - Logical Positivism, Nomothetic, Animal Science

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLSCI 3N06
• Professor: Todd Alway

Document Summary

What is the social world made of and how can we. Political research, no matter how specific, parochial, and mundane, always starts with assumed answers to big-picture questions. There is an objective world out there that is what it is regardless of how we perceive it. Reality is socially constructed and therefore socially variant. What can we know about the world, regardless of what it is ultimately made. How do we gather knowledge about the world. What techniques can we use to access true knowledge. Positivism (the list is a bit of a simplification of a complex philosophy of knowledge, but ): - facts and values are separable (logical positivism etc. : naturalism: there can be only one: One logic of science (natural and social sciences should do the same thing) It is patterned, and governed by laws in the same essential way. Consequently, the social world can be studied and understood using the same techniques as in the natural sciences.