SOCY 122 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Auguste Comte, Logical Positivism, Ernst Mach

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Social Sci, Edu and Soc Work - Sociology
• Course: SOCY 122
• Professor: Rob Beamish

Document Summary

He identified sociology as the highest and most encompassing form of knowledge. Sociology focused on the logic of, and thought about, human association in more than mathematical terms. Social physics consisted of social statics and social dynamics: comte used scientific method in the study of both natural and social phenomena. Logical positivism is associated with the vienna circle of the 1930s, where the quasi-political movement called positivism can be traced to comte. Another aspect is that science can unify a country by resolving, containing or circumventing social conflict. He presumed what is now called the post-modern condition . If positivism is to continue, it must rekindle a science that transcends all sub-branches of science and gives explanation for everything. Scientific knowledge: early 1970s sociology of scientific knowledge (ssk) emerged from a range of sociological, historical and philosophical reflections upon the very nature of scientific knowledge itself.