POLS 3180 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Hermeneutics, Social Reality, Antipositivism
23 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Logical positivism has come under considerable critique. The social world might not be as easy to study as the material world. Observation can be incomplete, misleading and subjective. The two most coherent sets of critiques have been developed by realists and interpretivists. Do not mix up with the theory of realism in international relations. Like positivism: there is a world independent of our interaction with it (objectivism, social reality is essentially similar to natural reality (naturalism) In contrast to positivism: reality consists of observable and non-observable parts, even unmeasurable things exist (ex. power) Observation and logic are the sources of knowledge. We can acquire knowledge about unobservables by observing their consequences. Inference to the best explanation or abduction: accepting as true" that explanation that is the best among available alternatives. There is a lot we can learn from a little information, making and searching for patterns is useless.
