SOCI 1001H Lecture 3: SOCI1001H Lecture 3
28 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
SOCI1001H: Introduction to Sociology 1: Critical Foundations
Tuesday, September 26th, 2017
Lecture 3
Sociological investigation
-How we know what lies beyond our taken for granted sense of things – looks beyond the obvious
-Much of our knowledge of the world is common sense, we just kind of know things
-What is common sense truth for one person may not be someone else's common sense truth
-Uncover what is going on under the surface
-Based on a belief and a common agreement (many people believe in that together)
-Contradictory and powerful, but can be deceptive
-We can move past this through the scientific approach
-In contrast to common sense, the scientific approach
-is the process of attempting to take scientific principles and applying to the study of the social world
Scientific Approach
-scientists have certain criteria that must be met before they will accept the reality of something
-scientific understanding of a phenomenon must meet two criteria: logical and empirical support
-empirical must like up with observations in the real world
Premises of Science
1. empirical – tangible, physical evidence, has to apply to the real world
2. logical and irrational – based upon the arrangement of facts being presented – rules of reason
a. causality: time order, patterned change; rule out other explanations
a.i. when we talk about patterns and relationships between things, we are always looking for
a cause and effect (effect is what we study, why is this happening)
a.ii. has to have a logical time order to what you say is going on. In time, the cause needs to
come before the effect
a.iii. need patterned change, need to move somehow in relation to each other. When one thing
changes, the other must change
3. objective – science, and doing the research we do, is objective
4. information is systematic and public
a.i. not supposed to be a secret
a.ii. other people have to be able to do what you did and get the same results
a.iii. have to provide information explaining systematically what you did in your research, so
they can be repeated
5. skeptical
a.i. only true until proven otherwise
6. knowledge is cumulative
a.i. see what existed before and build on it
Sociological Research Continuum:
Positivism ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Interpretive
(the scientific approach in studying people)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
How we know what lies beyond our taken for granted sense of things looks beyond the obvious. Much of our knowledge of the world is common sense, we just kind of know things. What is common sense truth for one person may not be someone else"s common sense truth. Uncover what is going on under the surface. Based on a belief and a common agreement (many people believe in that together) Contradictory and powerful, but can be deceptive. We can move past this through the scientific approach. In contrast to common sense, the scientific approach is the process of attempting to take scientific principles and applying to the study of the social world. Premises of science: empirical tangible, physical evidence, has to apply to the real world. In time, the cause needs to come before the effect a. iii. need patterned change, need to move somehow in relation to each other.
