Sociology 2206A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Emergence, Social Reality, Random Assignment
Document Summary
2 traditional positions: positivism & interpretivism (sometimes called critical) Knowledge in the social sciences should be gathered in the same way as in the natural sciences. Social science can (& should be) value-free. Objectivity: more traditionally, when things are value free no matter their values, they should all be able to agree on it in the social sciences we can all agree without needing to have all of the same values. Intersubjectivity: more modern, we do have values, but we can still agree about the situation, agree without having to bring too much. Are certain acts or social conditions morally acceptable: place of religion or philosophy to say, can"t be empirically tested. Studying people & social life is fundamentally different than subject matter in the natural sciences. People act based on their own interpretations of the symbolic meaning of a situation. Humans are inherently different than anything else we could possibly study.