SOCI 3660 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Antipositivism, Social Reality, Social Fact

• School: York University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCI 3660
• Professor: Amber Gazso

Document Summary

Science is often portrayed as a search for truth about reality. What we can gather with our sense is what is real. True: in accordance or consistent with fact or reality (whats true is factual and real) Real: actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imaginary or ctional. Tautologies: repeating what has been said (same words + speech/thought) Fact: a thing that is known to have occurred, to exist. Objective: external to or independent of the mind. Interpretive: related to the meaning of some phenomenon. That which cannot be measured does not exist . Search for social facts, forces and laws. If people de ne their situations as real, then those situations are real in their consequences. Reality is a world of activity and meaning-making. The meaning of a pen is that it is a pen. Weapon, drum stick, hair accessory, book mark.